Bow. James Bow.

Geez, it has not been pleasant to read the news this past week. It is, all at once, horrifying, and horrifyingly familiar. I thought I’d had outrage overload watching Mike Harris and George W. Bush take power, but what Trump has been doing has been gleefully disassembling American civil society, and just as gleefully directly and deliberately bringing harm to thousands of people. Look at what’s happening at airports across the world as even Green Card holders from several Middle Eastern countries (but NOT mid-east countries that Trump has a business interest in) have been refused entry, detained at entry points, and blocked from getting on planes.

These are real families that have been disrupted in horrible ways. Pray that something like this never happens to your family.

The thing is, while Harris and Bush may have had that businessman’s arrogant belief that governing is easy, that there is a gravy train that they can locate and liquidate and everything will go just fine, they at least wanted to do right with the people — all the people. Harris seemed genuinely surprised that his policies didn’t work in reducing poverty and making Ontario better. He even, to his great credit, acknowledged his mistakes and reversed some of his decisions. Even Rob Ford, who shares some of Trump’s delusions of being a heroic bull in a villainous china shop, was controlled by the fact that he was just the mayor of a city, not the leader of the most powerful country in the free world.

From where I’m sitting, it feels as though everything that is good about America is being attacked by its own president. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks, even possibly Amtrak, are being sighted for vengeance. I can tolerate somebody who gets it wrong as he’s trying to do right, but vengeance is a whole other kettle of fish. By definition, it is out of whack with justice. It needs to be fought back against. But right now, I have no idea where to begin.

I do appreciate the sentiments of this blog post, however. I should turn off Facebook and stop reading the bad news. I need to, for a little while at least. Valerie Aurora notes that doing so is not surrender, but a valuable means of restoring your reserves so you can continue to resist.

On the other hand, Facebook does seem like such an addiction sometimes. I don’t know how to look away.

One interesting thing about the leaves falling from the trees in winter is seeing the nests that the squirrels and birds used to reside in. And also the old wasp nests.

I am still very phobic about wasps, but in wintertime I am at least assured that the cold has killed the little buggers off, and so seeing the grey teardrop-football in silhouette presents only a sudden jolt and then a thrill, as I safely look up at the strange creations made by mandibles from rotted wood.

Most of these are located high in the trees, well above the roads and sidewalks. They would have been shielded by all the leaves. Nobody would know these things where there. That’s how they survived until the first hard frost killed them. Eighteen months ago, I saw that wasps were making a nest out of a hole in the exterior brick of my house, and I took care of it immediately… by calling in an exterminator and telling them to take care of it immediately (they did).

But in these trees, these wasps lived above hundreds of humans who walked beneath them day after day, and we didn’t notice until the leaves fell. It’s strange to have your fears revealed, long after they stopped being something to be afraid of.

Except for a handful of posts, my blog has been basically silent since I learned that my mother had pancreatic cancer back on November 15. Though I have written, even on frivolous matters on Facebook, writing on the blog just hasn’t felt right for me. It feels too public a place for me to talk about my mother’s illness and subsequent, and yet it was too personal for me to talk about anything else. Blogs, I guess, still are different from your Facebook rants or your Tweets. Facebook rants disappear down the memory hole quickly, but blogs are forever, comparatively speaking. That’s why the eulogy had to go here.

I do hope to start writing on the blog again, though, and I think I will in the coming days. Some stuff may be frivolous, but it’s still a part of me.

My latest column for the Kitchener Post

It’s important to stand up for the truth

Trump may not be our president, but his influence on everybody’s lives cannot be denied.

Events over this past weekend have given me a lot to think about regarding the nature of truth and the importance of speaking out.

Simply from viewing his activity on Twitter, Donald Trump has built a reputation of being a deeply egotistical individual who cares about the pettiest things.

For example, on Friday, only around a quarter million people attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington.

It may seem odd to say “only” about 250,000 people, but it was lower than the number of people who showed up for Obama’s inauguration, and it was dwarfed by the number of protestors who came out for the Women’s March on Washington.

And when photos showing the differences between the events surfaced on Facebook and Twitter, the Trump administration could not let this stand.

Press secretary Sean Spicer held a conference where he accused the media of “under reporting” the numbers of attendees, and even showing unflattering photographs that were somehow inaccurate.

Then Spicer made one whopper of a statement when he said that Friday’s inauguration was the, “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period.”

The thing is, he’s wrong. He is verifiably wrong. We have the photographic evidence, and we have the eyewitnesses.

(Read more…)

Here are some other things I’ve also written in the past couple of months:

• Kitchener Post: Transit Improvements Could Clear Up Congestion.
• Kitchener Post: Be Thankful For Support When In Need.
• Other recent Kitchener Post columns.
• Transit Toronto: A Brief History of Public Transit in Oakville.
• Transit Toronto Station Histories: Downsview Park, Islington, Woodbine,
• Transit Toronto: Main Street, Warden, Kennedy, Lawrence East, Ellesmere.

I’ve also been given another non-fiction writing assignment, and am working on the outline for it now. The manuscript is due in March. It’s good to be writing.

The funeral was yesterday, held to my mother’s specifications. I vaguely remember one of the hymns from my childhood; I don’t remember the other two. I suspect they were old school before I was in school. But they fit. The service was beautiful, and we filled the church. I was impressed at all all who showed up, and how many different walks of life they came from. My mother touched a lot of people.

Here’s the remembrance I wrote for the service, which I read to those present:

Those who know me know that, throughout my life, I never called my mother nor my father “Mom” and “Dad”. I always called them by their first names, “Pat” and “Eric”. It shocked my friends the first time I called up to my parents in their company. “Hey, Pat!” They could not fathom how they could possibly get away with such a thing. It took me a little while to realize just how unusual that was.

Because it was something that never came up. Once, when I asked my parents about why they never made me call them Mom and Dad, the best answer I got was that they felt that the only way they could do this is if they called themselves “Mom” and “Dad”, and what unfolded was like something out of a scene from the Beverly Hill Billies. “Ma!” “Yeah, Pa!” “Let’s go visit cousin Ethel!”

It was unusual, though, as I learned when, without really trying, we convinced my daughters to call me Dad and Erin Mom. I’ve even used the phrase “Mom” to refer to my mother-in-law Rosemarie.

Do I regret this? To some extent I do. A small extent. Because the truth is, I didn’t have to refer to my mother as “Mom”. She knew who she was.

She put band-aids on my scrapes and bruises. She comforted me when I cried. She was my cheerleader, and she was my mentor. And if I was in the wrong, she was my nemesis. Though I feel that I learned enough quickly enough that she was never my nemesis for long. She walked me to school. Nagged me to do my homework, and shared in my victories.

And she asked for my advice when she was writing a story that eventually became “The Spiral Maze”. She valued my input as she worked on other tales as well. And she returned the favour, proofreading my stories, catching my typos. Her colleagues at the University of Waterloo called her the best proofreader they’d ever seen, and an editor’s editor, and I was grateful that she lent her skills to my work.

She respected my writing enough that she didn’t refrain from constructive criticism, but she never stood in the way of what I wrote. She offered great advice, and with Erin, helped make my writing better.

She was also a fantastic grandmother to Vivian and Nora as well. She gave so much of her love and her time, knitting for the girls, and trying to teach them how to knit. She read and wrote for Nora, who loved her dragon stories. She read Terry Pratchett to Vivian. They miss her greatly. She knew who she was to them as well, though they reminded her constantly by calling her “Grandma Pat”.

I knew my mother loved me, loved Erin, and loved my daughters. I took great comfort in that feeling. I did not call my mother Mom as much as perhaps I should, but she knew who she was.

I still wish that I’d had more time to let her know that I knew too.

The following obituary will be appearing in today’s edition of the Waterloo Region Record.

The Bow family is sad to announce the death of Patricia Anne Bow, nee Smith, who died peacefully on January 7, at home as she wished. Her battle with pancreatic cancer was brief but difficult.

Pat was a word person to her heart, and some of her own words tell her story: “My family descended from Scottish, Irish, and English pioneers who settled in the Ottawa Valley when it was still mostly uncut forest. Family stories infected me with a fascination for history — but above all I loved the hints of adventure and mystery in those tales.” She was born in Ottawa in the middle of that big family story, with three older siblings and three younger siblings. All six survive her: Gordon (and Madeline), Dorothy (and her late partner Bruce), Deanna (and the late Dieter), Margaret (and Leon), Bette, and Edward.

Chasing her love of history and story, Pat studied history as an undergraduate at Carleton University in Ottawa, then took a graduate degree in library science at the University of Toronto. She wrote: “I love libraries, their richness and generous openness and even their smell.” She loved them so much that she married fellow librarian Eric Bow in 1969.

Settling in the Bow family home in Toronto’s old Chinatown, Eric and Pat had one child, a son, James. Becoming a stay-at-home mother, she raised James into a very fine young man. When James went to university and Eric retired, the family moved to Kitchener-Waterloo. Pat took another degree, this one a diploma in journalism. She worked for the New Hamburg Independent, then joined the University of Waterloo communications office, “where for 12 years I wrote about quantum mechanics and the history of war and peace, and other serious stuff.” She retired in 2011, and “decided to go ahead and write what I love to read: fantasy and speculative fiction.”

Pat’s son James married Erin Noteboom in 1998, and in 2005, Pat became a grandmother, first to Vivian, and then, in 2008, to Nora. She adored them.

The whole Bow family - Eric, James and Erin, Vivian and Nora - survives Pat, who was only 70. We will remember Pat as sister, wife, and mother and grandmother, and as the maker of wonderful things: pie crusts, mittens, stunning quilts. And then of course there are the books: she wrote and published more than 20 novels, full of ghosts and dragons. Best known, perhaps, was The Bone Flute, a finalist for the Silver Birch and Red Cedar Awards. She was a word person but words cannot express how much we will miss her.

Cremation has taken place.

Pat’s family will receive relatives and friends from 10-10:45 am on Saturday, January 14th, 2017 at the Church of the Holy Saviour (33 Allen Street East, Waterloo). A memorial service will follow in the church at 11 am. Interment will take place at Memory Gardens cemetery following the service. A reception will take place in the church hall after the burial.

As expressions of sympathy, donations to the Waterloo- Wellington CCAC,The Canadian Children’s Book Centre or the Church of the Holy Saviour would be appreciated by the family (cards available at the funeral home).

Visit www.henrywalser.com for Pat’s memorial.