Thought I’d put up an interesting e-mail exchange with a reader in Halifax.
Dear Craig:
Have you heard from anyone in Halifax about Hurricane Juan? The SOB absolutely nailed us, ripping through the city and environs in one hundred minutes of unmitigated fury. Our two great public parks have been flattened beyond repair. Halifax was laden with massive old hardwoods and these trees both sustained and delivered the biggest part of the damage. It’s quite something to see one of these trees that has been uprooted by the storm and crashed into the nearest house, where it remains leaning at a crazy angle with its base of sod and concrete ripped up in a bizarre wedge-shaped form of street art.
My house finally got power back yesterday after a week’s outage. A very unusual week it was. People gathering at dusk to raise beers and stare in awe as work crews with powerful tools sawed down the fallen trees with surgical precision. Nights lying in bed with only a flashlight to see by and a little yard-sale radio the only source of sound from the outside world. One night Q104 played ‘Nothing Beautiful’, and your song held a very special meaning for me that night.
In a way that you often capture in your journal writings, the week held its pleasures and benefits to go with the hardships. Saturday our street worked and partied with the excavator ops and fully uniformed military men as we raked swept shoveled and ploughed away the remaining debris. Then yesterday the beleagured power guys came and hooked us up and our hearts were lifted with joy.
Looking forward muchly to the Vanilla Sanchez release and the promised new website goodies.
Bob McNeil
Bob,
Wow. From fires in the west to hurricane winds in the east and Toronto gets a strange new disease running through its corridors. This is the shit that kept Nostradamus busy. I’m sure it has some biblical explanation but those cats can make anything fit into their rubber template. Its wonderful how people work together when disaster strikes. It happens every time. Since 911 I’ve really noticed how important this reflex is to us all. In your letter I can hear you saying that this “working together” reflex feels exciting and life affirming. There is always beauty somewhere above the dust and rubble.
Two weeks ago I went to monday night hockey. My friend, and one of our stalwart defencemen, had bought a place a few years ago in Kelowna. He’d started a family and had been commuting back and forth to Vancouver and the rest of the world. I hadn’t seen him in awhile so I opened with a hug and a, “Hey ______ how’re you doing? The house burn down?” I am known to joke. He replied, “yup”. After I backed out of the joke we talked for awhile about what happened. Its amazing what you lose in a fire. You don’t care about your aquisitions you just wish you had your family photos, what you’ve created, and anything sentimental. I guess its a blessing when your tax records go up in flames. Its all about the human connections I guess — from generation to generation and from person to person. The rest doesn’t matter as much.
yours
Craig