Another excerpt from the book I am working on: My Camino: A First Hand Account”
Vezelay…Vezelay. How to describe it. It was not an exceptionally large town, but it had a unique footprint. It was wide and bulbous like a bowl at the summit of the hill where the Abbey stood and then narrowing down considerably like the long neck or stem of a bottle at its lower end, where the two main thoroughfares mentioned earlier intersected. It was as if Vezelay came about as a glass blown artifact of nature.
What appeared to me as being the main street of the town had a very steep gradient. It was cobblestoned and surrounded on both sides by neatly pointed brown coloured stone buildings. They were not tall or large but functional for the various commercial enterprises. From what I could see the upper floors were used as rooms to ‘let’ or quarters for the store’s owners. There were many cafes and restaurants with small outdoor terraces, courtyards, boutique hotels and what seemed to be high end fashion establishments.
Vezelay was extremely affluent and from what I would learn later it was an expensive tourist trap. This was due to the draw of the Abbey itself; the associated Pilgrim starting point on the way to Santiago de Compestele and the ambiance of the surrounding countryside that is steeped in history, culture, food, and wine, especially wine. The surrounding landscape of this hilltop enclave is picture perfect, as if sculpted by heaven itself. Every shade of green can be seen on the hills and in the valleys. The hills themselves seem to undulate in the heated air of the hot and hazy late afternoon sun but in perfect harmony with the environment. You see meadows and forests, separated by ploughed fields that emit a shade of gold, amber, and even bonze: dazzling colours. Now this may not be Canada, with its wild scenery, robust landscape and raging rivers, nevertheless, this countryside is no less spectacular than Canada is but in a more peaceful, subdued, and sculpted sense. Added to that is the rich tapestry of culture, history and hospitality of the Bourgogne and you have a heavenly recipe for happiness and well being. Indeed, I almost became emotional myself when viewing this scene, as I have been given the opportunity and blessing of being here at this moment in time. For the first time in months, I was happy, extremely happy, and not just for the circumstances I have found myself in but for the adventure that was soon to begin. I felt like crying. Tears of joy welled up in the tear ducts of my eyes. Moreover, the road up to the hilltop Abbey was like a stairway to heaven itself. And like the heavens it dominated the landscape. Why would anyone go to Paris or any of France’s major centres with all of their social ills, filth, and crime when they can visit a region like this is beyond comprehension?
“It was a modest but cozy house, across the road
from a small park or parkette. We were not rich by any stretch or
even well off, yet we were the first house on the block to have a
TV. Why? Because my dad was an avid baseball fan and he
desperately wanted one, as all of the major league baseball
games of the day were beginning to be televised. He could watch
a game every Saturday afternoon while my mom was outside
cutting the grass with our state-of-the-art, hand-powered push
mower. He got a TV and serendipitously I got a nickname that
would haunt me for the rest of my life. Gilly, as in Junior
Gilliam, a baseball star of the day whom my dad had great
respect for.
Given that my dad’s name was John and I was named
John, I was John Junior of course; and since my dad loved Junior
Gilliam and I was also a junior, I got the Gilliam moniker. I
could have handled Gilliam but Gilly? And parents being
parents, or grownup adults, think that other kids are really stupid,
but they’re not. They picked up on the Junior Gilliam moniker
immediately and faster than you could say “take me out to the
ball game” I was called Gilly—for ever and ever, for eternity, or
for as long as I lived. A parent’s logic never fails to amaze me
and the unintended consequences associated with their dumb-ass
decisions in name calling. You have no idea how many black
eyes can be attributed to that one lapse of judgment on my
parents’ part. Sooo cute, eh Gilly? Gilly, Gilly, Gilly! Yeah, right.
Wham, Wallop!
One day, and I’m not too sure what day actually, I found
myself riding in the back of a large truck. It was huge and dark
and noisy and full of furniture. I was with an older cousin, I
think. This was so cool. Jerking and bouncing round the chairs,
cushions, and tables in the back of that truck as we plundered
along the pockmarked, pot-holed roads of the west end of the
city. I do believe it was February, a Saturday, 1956, a mild winter
—part of the other hottest year on record. Where were we going?
I wasn’t really sure at the time, but I do believe that my parents
hit their Shangri-La: a house in the ’burbs. We were moving out
and away from the downtown core with all of its excitement,
excrement, and hot, humid, heavy, smelly summer air to the
fresh, healthy, and quiet wide-open expanses of suburbia. Houses
galore! All looking about the same. Design features of a post–
World War II housing boom: two story houses with a large
dormer in the back only accentuated on the street by those
narrow and long, single story, brick bungalows. Street upon
street, row upon boring row, with the requisite single maple or
elm tree in the front yard. Wow! We had arrived.
What a house that was. A big, two story, red brick monster, as
all houses are big to a five-year-old. It sat on a fairly large
suburban lot. The front yard had the requisite decorative tree in
place with a back yard that was really huge. I had to curtail my
excitement because under all of the dirty, brown-grey melting
snow of February was grass. And grass grew, and I could not
pretend to believe that while my dad watched his ball games
Saturday afternoons in the late spring and summer months that
my mom would be content to be out cutting the grass. Delusional
thinking for sure that was. That bit of suburbia, an urban Rockwellian
scene of nostalgia, of Dad watching sports on TV every
Saturday afternoon with mom out in the yard working with the
suburban plow would not continue forever, for I was getting
bigger. I was getting stronger, and sooner or later it would be me
out pushing that World War I–era push mower. And like those
ugly, scary, out-worldly war machines, our push mower cut grass
about as well as those first tanks careened and mowed across
no-man’s-land.
The backyard was fantastic. Great for a kid. It had two
distinct areas. The upper yard, close to the backdoor, came
equipped with a state-of-the-art sandbox complete with coarse
sand and four wooden sides with triangular corner seats, for
heaven’s sake. Seats! It was bordered on one side by the paved
single wide driveway and a very large and separate two car
garage. In 1956 this was unheard of for a working class home.
Why was this important? A paved driveway? Snow of course!
Snow had to be shoveled. I couldn’t depend on my mom forever
here. Sooner or later I would be obliged to take up the shovel
and, well, shovel.
The other side of the yard was fenced to separate our abode
from that of the neighbour. The double car garage was so wide
that the upper part of the backyard was about twenty yards
narrower than the lower portion, with less grass to cut. The lower
part of the yard, the back forty, dipped down about three feet and
was separated from the upper yard by a tiered terrace. The back
forty had large garden beds laid out in a square pattern with raspberry
bush accents around the perimeter. Yet all I could think
about then was the potential for a backyard rink, for when snow
melts during a winter thaw, water runs down the path of least
resistance and pools—in this case, from the upper reaches of our
yard to the lower back forty. When water freezes, as it invariably
would, we had a ready-made skating rink. Dad would never have
to leave his TV and construct a backyard rink for us kids. I was
so excited and so was he!
My sister had other issues. Not my oldest teeter-totter sister,
but my second oldest sister, the penultimate one. In the wintertime
she saw the snow covered upper portion of the backyard as
her blank and open canvas… a blank canvas in urban snow-
house design. She wanted the whole of the back forty as well to
lay out a “planned city” of urban snow, but I had to put my
galoshes down and stop her in her tracks. As a compromise I
agreed to help her in the layout of her snow walls, her snow
rooms, and the snow halls of her snow designs.
We always did this at night. I don’t know why, but always at
night, when it was really, really cold and frosty out—so cold that
each breath took your breath away, and the snow glistened like it
was embedded with a thousand specks of diamonds, especially
under a clear, moonlit star-embedded sky. And if we were really
lucky, the green fluid hues of the dark winter’s northern sky
shimmered and danced and wove a pattern that was frighteningly
beautiful and soothingly fresh, paradoxically frigid yet illuminated
by such a warm glow. And oh so quiet. For two little kids,
we felt sure that we were all alone in the whole wide world. This
was pure magic. To a five-year-old kid, life was indeed magical
and good.
Life was good!”
Taken from “I Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven.” See the link at the top of the page for more information.
Did ya know: We have now entered the era of Global Boiling – so says the head of the UN. Don’t know about you but this summer has been fantastic. Blue skies and warm temps every single day.
Did ya know that scientists say the Gulf Stream will collapse in 2025. These same experts are out to lunch. All of their predictions – every single dire one of them since the 1960s – have never materialized.
Did ya know that only God controls the weather.
Climate anxiety is going through the roof and the cats are not happy about it.
Enjoy yourselves. Get outside and enjoy the day.
“Old Admirals” by Al Stewart. Tells the story of the Royal Navy’s Lord of the Admiralty Jackie Fisher and his rise up the ranks in the later half of the 1800s and years up to World War 1. In my opinion Al Stewart is a highly under appreciated musician and story teller. I particularly love the brass aspects of this song. Next? Al’s perfect song.
Another excerpt from the book I m working on. It is in draft so be kind with any issues here:
Late afternoon, looking out over the harbor, to the north of us, I noticed an opening.
I said “Hey Nina, there appears to be a river over there. Maybe a small creek. I think I am going to go and explore it.”
“I’m coming” Nina said.
Off we went in Akaru’s punt with me rowing as she lay back in the dinghy at the stern, her legs spread out with her arms swaying to an invisible inaudible hula, as if she was some Hawaiian princess. It was a river…indeed the Wailua River, as it turned out. A soft green sheen reflection off the water. It was narrow, deep, almost canal like, as it weaved and meandered peacefully through a very lush and very colorful landscape. Greens, and reds, browns and deep scarlet blooms, with an array of colorful flowers and ferns, none of which I knew the names of. Both sides of the banks were low and covered in hard packed red sand resembling ochre that could have been used as an adornment by the old Hawaiian Kings, their Queens and Royalty. The river water lapped up and onto these banks as the soft wake from our dinghy’s movement graced the shore as every ripple spread out to our left and right. Beyond the banks were large meadows with long green grass, butting up to banyan trees that were indicative of the Hawaiian panorama. The cool, cool shade of the banyan tree, with its wide green canopy, protecting all who were fortunate to be welcomed by its protective shade. The odd palm, coconut and royal, not native mind you but imported from Polynesia, could be seen on both sides but well back from the river. And off to the west and north of us you could see some distance hills that arose from green mossy lower slopes into a greyish black charcoal mass of sharp, edged crags, dry hard rivulets and steep cliffs that formed a backdrop and contrast against a blue sky that framed this wonderful country. Some of these peaks were graced with fluffy white cumulus clouds that seemed to float effortlessly skyward as if they were but white feathers dispersed with every breath of a airy updraft that swept them up, and then over the crests of these hills. Further west and north you could see the peak of Mount Wai’ale’ale. Covered by dark and menacing storm clouds. To the east of us there were lowlands that ran to and bordered the blue Pacific beyond. And this Wailua River? Its flow was peaceful and sleepy. It took us toward the northern part of the island. The Wailua, the only navigable river on Kauai. From our perspective we did indeed find ourselves bound within an earthly Garden of Eden. Kauai was the Hawaiian Garden Isle. It was God’s gift to the Hawaiian people with their pagan interpretation of their deity. But for God’ s salvation sake it was only necessary for them to keep their own faith and beliefs and be righteous underneath their god’s light.
After a couple of bends to the right, right again and then left, Nina motioned me to row toward a clearing that she saw on the right bank of the river. This I did but in the blind as my back was to our course upriver from her direction. Giggling, then laughing, as our little dinghy came to rest up on to a small red sandy strip. I got out, then Nina and we pulled the dinghy to a safe berth out of the water and on to dry land. I tied it off to the trunk of a palm, the shaft of which was bent out then up and over the river. There was a small clearing that was perfect for us to sit, lay and relax under the warmth of the late afternoon tropical sun. Beside me Nina lay, stretched out, her eyes closed with a broad smile of contentment and happiness that could be discerned by the features of her youthful face. The soft light of the afternoon sun highlighted her natural tan. To me, she was perfect. A real Hawaiian Princess.
“What?” she opened her eyes and looked at me above her studying her every feature. Embarrassed, I turned away and couched my head into the crux of my left arm.
“Nothing Nina. Just thinking. It is so peaceful here…so beautiful.”
“Mmmm, yes it is.” she moaned, as if she was caught within the confusion of a conscious thought and unconscious sleep.
After a few minutes I got up and walked over to the river bank. Looked around. To my right there was what appeared to be a weathered path that followed the course of the river.
“Nina, get up, let’s follow this path here and see where it goes.”
Nina stretched her arms high above her head with clasped hands and intertwined fingers. She then gasped, shook the late afternoon tiredness from her being and came over and joined me. Together we began to walk that path.
After about thirty minutes we could hear a light whooshing, rumbling, splashing sound ahead of us. We looked at one another without making a sound. Could this be the sound of a Hawaiian legend? Of Pele looking for her lover? Who knows? But in an instant the landscape ahead of us opened up to this large, wonderful vista. The Wailua river transformed itself into a cascading freefall over a cliff that was just to the left of our pathway. Not very big mind you but big enough to form a beautiful waterfall. “Whooo-ee” Nina screamed then ran ahead of me…down but not terribly so to a flat sand bar at the bottom of the cliff. I followed suit but my cautious nature had me tread gingerly down the path. It was slippery after all. It didn’t matter to Nina. At the bottom, with the waterfall to our left was a large pool that captured the cascade above us. The water was an emerald green colour but graced with a bluish turquoise hue. A rainbow, a perpetual beautiful rainbow, with all of the colors, hung magically and perpendicularly across the face of the fall, forming a perfect arc across and through the mist. Behind the sheen and veil you could make out the smooth, brownish grey rock face, the backbone of the hill that formed the cliff and waterfall.
Nina screamed with delight. On some flat rock that framed the east side of the pool, she stripped down, naked to me.
“Oh Jimmy” she exclaimed “this is so wonderful, so magical, mystical, whoa–wee. I am so happy, so excited here. A gift. A gift to us from the Hawaiian gods Jimmy. Oh to my God…a gift to share with us.” And with that she dove off of the rocks and into the pool. Her tanned bottom that last thing I saw. She surfaced a few yards out with her beautiful back behind me, turned toward me, and screamed…a happy, happy excitable scream. Nina smiled such a broad smile. At this very moment in time, to me, she was perfect. And she was with me. Thank you God for thinking about me.
I stripped as fast as I could, hobbling on one leg in my excitement to get my runners off. Then a short run and off I went. Into this magical pool of enchantment with a girl that I was beginning to fall for. A cannonball for heaven’s sake. I had a juvenile mind I must admit. The water was so fresh and clean especially after our salt water bath. Surfacing, I swam over to Nina but stayed a respectable distance away. Shyness was drowning me. I just stood there in one place treading water and watching her. Scared, but in a good way. Nervous. Nina disappeared below the water and then rose behind me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, turned me ever so gently so that we were facing each other, and then held me close, smiling at me. Her deep blue eyes drew me in to her as if I was caught in a barb and being reeled into a net. I had no control. The water around her, the waterfall, the rainbow colors, the mist, the mountains around us and the outflow of the cool refreshing water of the Wailua was nature’s aphrodisiac. I was trapped, nervous with anticipation and helpless all the same but willing and able. Nina drew me close to her. I could smell her sweet warm breath on my face. Closer and closer and closer to her. Suddenly her broad, almost comical smile disappeared. She closed her eyes and drew me to her mouth, her arms and hands firmly placed behind her neck. We kissed – a long sweet embrace. I could feel the warmth of her breath and her nudeness all around me – envelop me, even with the cool ambient temperature of the pool. This was indeed paradise. If heaven is even close to this…..
“This is our heaven. Jim.” she whispered to me. “Never forget this place of ours.”
She broke off, looked at me affectionately. We kissed again and again and again. I couldn’t get enough. Our naked bodies were synergistically joined. Her warmth stoked my body’s heat. I was happy, and excited and extremely happy. Nina likes me. I thought. I think I love her.
All at once Nina said.
“We have to go. It will be dark soon. Dusk in the tropics does not last long.”
Without saying a word we swam back to the rock ledge. Up I went, put on my trunks and tee and runners. Nina smiled mischievously at me.
“Turn around.” she ordered and smiled again. I complied.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Up the bank we went to the crest of the falls. Along the path back to the clearing. I don’t think I remembered that walk at all as I was lost in the romantic spell of the place. Kauai will always be to me the “Enchanted Isle.” All I could think about was Nina. A perfect day.
In short order we were back at Akaru-Hime. Good thing too as it was getting very dark. Angie had some burgers on, with some salad. Nigel just sat aft in the cockpit nursing a scotch. He acknowledged Nina but not me. Don’t know why.
Check out my two books at the top of the page. Great reads:
Countdown to Vezelay….118 Days and counting, not walking but counting.
Can’t wait!
I am a bit upset that the Pope has recently announced that “Hell” no longer exists.
Hell, I thought to myself. Damn. Telling someone to “Go to Hell” just doesn’t have the same impact anymore. “Hellfire” and “Brimstone” were two of the most terrifying words that a young Catholic child like me could ever hope to hear. Terrifying I tell you. How I prayed at night before I fell asleep that the devil be gone from my ever so innocent dreams. Now:
I Want You…to show me the way, every day.
hahahahahahahahahahahah…you can’t have me! And what about God’s given rules that were constantly shoved down our throats as young Catholic lads and lasses. I am reminded
“of one really weird and unexplainable moment that occurred to me while waiting to go into the confessional to confess my indiscretions and sinful works and sinful deeds and equally sinful thoughts. Hell! It was a Saturday afternoon, springtime, around 4pm, the scheduled time for confession at our church. And given that the church was right across the road from our house that day or time of day didn’t really cause me an inconvenience. Damn! Run across to the church, do my thing, say the requisite number of Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s, and voila, the slated soul was clean, snowy white again, all black spots disappearing into the sinful ether. Whew! Then run back home to catch the latest Tarzan edition on TV or tales from the really dark continent awaiting a supper of hot dogs, or better still, Kraft Dinner – with ketchup! Yummy!
I am sitting there in the cavernous church: non plussed, and wondering what I’ll be confessing. There was that list of sins of course, both venial and mortal to contemplate. Damnation! The church, being really well organized after thousands of years of practice, and not wanting to waste anybody’s time, the priest’s or mine, had a list and that list was all encompassing. Hell yes! It must have been quite interesting and comical fun coming up with the list of venial and mortal sins. I would have loved to have been part of that Working Group or Ecumenical Council for certain. No shyte! Yes, a sinful checklist of remembrance was the way to go. Did I do this? Check! How about that? Check. Masturbation? What is that? More on that later! Uncheck? Murder? Nope, uncheck unless thinking about murdering my oldest sister was a sin? Uncheck that. On and on it went. Meantime, while I was sitting there waiting to go in to meet my fate head on, I suddenly came down with a horrific case of the hiccups: bad, violent, non-relenting. Each hiccup shook my entire being. It was God’s punishment for my dastardly indiscretions…or so they led me to believe! Hell on earth!
Ever try to mask or hide a hiccup in a confined environment like a church, or worse yet, the claustrophobic confines of a Confessional? It is not pretty. Your cheeks bulge out; eyeballs and pupils expand outwardly in a Feldman like manner; the stomach contracts then expands in rapid succession; and, like an uncontrollable fart, a growling sound begins its emanational rise from the lower bowels of the human body bypassing the stomach then running up the oesophagus in its belch like fashion, or in the Catholic vernacular, like a resurrection. The gut, it hurts. The whole sensation repeats itself over and over and over again until those hiccups run its course. With each attempt to mask the hiccup the sensation becomes worse and deeply magnified. Like hell itself!
Embarrassed, I sat out in the pews near the back of the church daring not to even think about going in to that dark, dank and tiny expanse that they called the confessional. The interior of those tiny cells, abreast of and on either side of the priest’s chamber, have a unique odour about them. Here, some 50 years later, as I am writing this, I can still sense that smell. A toxic mix of incense and sweat interspersed with a whiff of stale tobacco and alcohol for all of the priests smoked and drank. Once inside and kneeling there was no escape for the priest knew you were there given the little panic-type-like button that activated a beep for the priest’s sake and a tiny red light outside of the cell once your knees pressed into the red foam of the kneeling pad. All the priest had to do then was to slide the small grated sliding door to the left or to the right as need be and you were trapped, trapped by the Priest’s undivided attention, until absolution. I am sure that every Catholic knows and remembers the sound of that small sliding door opening and closing. It is the sound of hell!
I couldn’t even think of how I would handle that situation. Damnation!
But now, with the threat of “going to hell” all but disappearing, what on earth are they, the Catholic Church, going to do now?
Saying “Hey you, asshole, Go to Heaven” or “I’ll see you in Purgatory” just doesn’t have the same denigrating ring to it, does it? No, getting rid of hell will definitely change life’s interesting lexicon – and not in a good way either. Maybe that is why the Pope made this decision. He liked “Hey yo” better…perhaps.
That’s my sermon for today….the hell with it anyway.
And when they say: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” I can only laugh out loud.
Song of the day:
https://youtu.be/D9ioyEvdggk
SJ………………………………………………To hell in a handcart…..What the hell……
