My friend Rita and her husband Henry’s son Frank is a talented young man and a gifted painter and is now working in Germany as an architect.
One day when discussing just how “wonderful” our children are Rita invited me to her home to look at a few of Frank’s paintings, some from the portfolio he had to submit when applying to Cornell university.
In the style of Emily Carr.
The painting that most caught my attention was the one of his paternal grandmother he painted at 16 years of age working from a 2.5 X 2.5 black and white photo.
The painting is so realistic that on his next trip to China his father Henry carefully rolled the portrait and in China had eight hand painted copies made and gave one to each of his brothers. These paintings now hang in each of their homes in Guang Dong city to honor their grandmother.
While we were looking at the paintings I noticed some beautiful wooden boards and when I inquired Rita told me they were boards for playing Go. She casually mentioned she is a champion player representing Canada in international amateur contests, one in Japan in 2018.
The beautiful bowls and the semi-precious playing stones were a wedding gift from her parents
To complete this story I have to mention that as a child Frank followed his mother around the kitchen, making notes and learning to cook.
When he first took up his position in Germany in 2018 his employer won a major contract to renovate and upgrade one of the then luxury hotels in Beijing and Frank traveled there frequently to work on the project. Being a creative young man he took the opportunity to make friends with the hotels head chef and added greatly to his own international culinary repertoire.
Last year, 2023 for the birthday of a friend, a young lady who is Korean-German, I love that detail, as a gift designed the menu and prepared her a meal served by himself, the master chef.
I flew from Vancouver to Washington DC on Sunday the 17th of December and having landed in a tropical downpour, exited into a totally chaotic three lane swarm of cars at the Arrivals level was picked up by my daughter. The traffic police were in their cars keeping their powder dry.
Yesterday, Monday I booked an Uber to my local doctor’s office for a blood draw and on the way the driver Saol was kind enough to share the following story with me.
At 18 years of age living in Addis Ababa, and despite his father’s objections, his father taught in a local university, Saol joined the Ethiopian Air Force. After basic training he was sent to the Ukraine where he was trained as a helicopter pilot, returned to Ethiopia and after 16 years of service and having reached the rank of major he resigned from the Air Force because the salary was pitifully low, he was having to borrow money to feed his family. Also he told me the helicopters were very old and vibrated a lot and after all those years of flying them even when he was home his body continued to shake at the same frequency as the helicopter.
When he left the Ukraine he had purchased and brought home a Lada car but found because of its poor, he says undeserved reputation no one would buy it so he had placed it in storage.
He now decided to become a taxi driver, put the Lada in working order and had it painted in the required color for taxis in Addis Ababa. When driving it home a foreigner in front of a hotel flagged him down and asked to be driven to a government office on the opposite side of town and with a strong smell of paint in the car, still bearing the original plates and without a taxi license he had his first customer. He was asked to return and drive the customer back to the hotel and on arrival was give the equivalent of approaching US$200, he said the equivalent of a months salary in the Air Force. He protested this was way too much but his protests were waved off and he realized a taxi was as he said an instant cash crop.
At that point he decided life favored those that took risks and stayed alert to opportunity. Some months later he had been driving 5 Saudi businessmen around town in his taxi for a few days when they told him they were tired of hotel living and asked him to find them a house where they could relax and cook their own food etc. he told them let me check.
He returned home and asked his wife if she was OK with moving in with his parents, had the house cleaned and painted, rented it to the Saudis and went into the real estate business buying, fixing and reselling houses. Life was definitely favoring the bold. He next purchased a heavy truck and added that to his growing business empire. He told me that no matter what challenges arose he always remembered his true north, that with fate and god watching you have to take chances to succeed.
But then he told me the old Italian time bomb exploded, that the colonists always leave a time bomb behind, and the war with Eritrea broke out. Evidently when the Italians invaded Ethiopia centuries ago they first conquered Eritrea and integrated it with Ethiopia, which Eritrea never accepted.
Because of his former military service and his businesses he was at risk so he fled and eventually arrived with his family in the US as a refugee and having worked at different jobs he now at 66 years of age is an Uber driver. Without he mentioned medical insurance.
I thanked him for opening my eyes about colonist time bombs in N. Africa and told him we had an English time bomb in Ireland that was still exploding after 500 years, I thanked him for the conversation, said goodbye and wished him well. He made me reflect on just how many post colonialist time bombs there are continuously exploding in various parts of the world.
But I was at Dr Cullen’s office and it was time to bare my left forearm and keep the phlebotomist relaxed while she tried to hit my aging and always rolling away veins. If the phlebotomist becomes tense after a few misses they switch to the other arm and have once even proposed trying a vein in the back of my hand, so it is a good idea to keep them distracted, relaxed and successful on their first effort.
Stay well.
John
Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
During my recent 20 day train trip in May from Vancouver on the west coast to Halifax on the east coast of Canada with two day stops in various cities along the way I saw a few interesting things.
The most striking was the Titanic passengers graveyard in Halifax, visited by tourists from around the world.
When the Titanic sank the White Star line hired boats from Halifax to sail, two days to the area to help with the recovery of the bodies.
The bodies identified from wealthy families, ergo the first class passengers, were returned to England or forwarded to New York.
The rest were interred in Halifax, those identified have a name on their tombstone and the those not, a number.
The most bizarre are the tourists who according to our tour guide confuse the movie Titanic with the reality of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and place bouquets of flowers, movie ticket stubs and photos of themselves, periodically cleared away, at the tombstone of J. Dawson. Apparently the name used for the male hero in the movie.
In truth he was a coal trimmer on the ship, his body identified by the number of his National Sailors and Fireman’s Union card he had thoughtfully placed in his pocket.
He was an Irishman from Dublin tying to get to America.
He and his below decks colleagues were permitted topside after the lifeboats were launched.His body was barefoot when found, having like other below decks crew removed their work boots to make it possible to swim – briefly.
Observed listing in the Halifax public park, and much appreciated by yours truly.
Herewith a few words about some folks I met on the train.
On our trans Canada group train tour from Vancouver BC to Halifax NS I was returning from the second dinner service when I noticed a very depressed looking lady, as they say in France of a certain age, sitting alone in the bar car appearing or well on the way to being drunk. I stopped and asked why she was looking so sad.
She told me at his request she had flown to Vancouver to see her son George, he was working on a large construction project in northern BC, in order to let her know, in person and face to face he had been diagnosed with a cancer that had metastasized and he had 18 months to live.
I commiserated as best I could and listened a lot while she told me about her heartbreak and desperate anger. She told me they both had Fuck Cancer tattooed on their left breasts above their hearts and showed me hers and told me George should be back soon, he had just gone to his cabin to fill his glass, CN Via Rail was providing the mix.
Our conversation had skipped platitudes and spoke directly to and acknowledged her situation and we both found a place to be friends. With that in mind and to lighten the mood I proposed that when George returned we should tell him that we had just met, that our attraction was both mutual and immediate and at our age had decided to skip all the intermediate hoopla and if not marriage at least wanted a romantic relationship. She thought this was a very funny idea, in her defense she was a bit inebriated, terribly sad and obviously needed a laugh.
George arrived, a very large and heavily muscled man, he also operates a lobster boat in Nova Scotia, I later learned he boxes, arrived and inquired “who the fuck are you and are you flirting with my mother.” I told him I am Irish and relatively harmless and he told me he was a fan of Connor McGregor the Irish world Ultimate Fighting Champion.
I told him his mother and I had just met but there was an instant attraction, she had even shown me her tattoo, and in consideration of our ages and the time remaining decided to skip all the preliminary hoopla and move directly to the planning our future. He was immediately in on the joke and told me he liked the Irish and was OK with our plans and showed me his tattoo.
I told him there was no need to feel threatened as his mother and I had agreed I should adopt him and we were for now not planning on children. At that he laughed and asked ‘just who the fuck are you Irishman ” and had another drink.
The next day the train stopped as scheduled at Jasper in Alberta. The hours ticked by and the train manager finally announced that due to the massive forest fires along the track we were going to wait to see if it was safe to proceed, that we could leave the train but should stay around the station. When I joined George in the station he presented me with an Irish flag, the last one to be found, he assured me in the small station. It is now on my balcony.
I thanked him and scoured the stalls and the best I could find at the charity second hand book stand was a copy of The Little Mermaid which I endorsed to my new friend George, signed and hid in his backpack.
Later the train manager advised us that due to the fires we would be returning, another 24 hour overnight journey, back to Vancouver. Next morning while waiting in line at the Canadian National Via Rail counter in Vancouver for reimbursements or rebooking I saw George and his Mom, George laughed and said “you shit, I found the book and knew it had to be you.” He was putting his mother on a plane to Houston to attend her granddaughters graduation while he was going to lay up in a hotel and call family and friends, and now having told his mother personally, give them his news. And would then return to Nova Scotia, take his boat out and set some lobster traps.
We hugged, wished each other well, took these photos and said our goodbyes.
We did not exchange email addresses.
If you pay attention when you least expect it life sometimes presents you an opportunity to meet wonderful people.
Stay well, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else.
