Editorials

I rarely do book reviews here in the Chronicles, but there’s always an exception, and a brand new book (it was released just over a week ago) about Alexander Dunsmuir of the Vancouver Island coal mining dynasty grabbed my interest.

Hardly had the ink dried on last week’s post about Nostalgia and its references to popular collectibles, than the Victoria Times Colonist reported, Nostalgia, seven-figure sales fuel wave of Pokemon card thefts across Canada.

You don’t need me to tell you that time and the world around us are in a constant state of change. There’s even a saying to that effect, ‘The only thing constant is....”

Sometimes, however, it isn’t really a change per se, but a matter of degree. In other words, the stories are mostly the same, even when they’re decades apart, only the numbers vary. (Blame it on inflation.)To make my point, and for a change of pace in my weekly meandering, I offer this editorial on what we now know as the Old Age Pension. It appeared in the Vancouver News-Herald in July 1950. 

Compare it with your OAP/CPP.

Well, some good news in the news for a change.

The worst of another devastating summer of wildfires appears to have peaked, and the Fraser Canyon’s historic Alexandra Lodge has come through it, unscathed.

A month ago, it was reported that the recently restored landmark was threatened by a blaze that “came perilously close”.

Last week I reminisced about some of my more memorable summer vacations as a kid. Ah, the good old days, gone, gone, never to be repeated except in memory, alas...

A friend who read that Chronicle about summertime mischief marvelled that we Saanich kids made it out of childhood alive. Sometimes, as an adult with decades of life’s experiences and realities under my belt, I’ve looked back and wondered myself!

But it wasn’t all mischief and mayhem, as I recalled in this piece that I wrote way back in 2001.

How I spent my summer vacations(s).

Mark Twain’s legendary Tom Sawyer was a piker compared to us kids.—Wikipedia - Frontispiece ofThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876, first edition. 

Looking back, these too many years after, I have to wonder. Was it really as good then as I remember it? Or have I fallen into that trap of old age, of gilding those memories of summers spent on and about Swan Lake? 

Writing about Derby’s doomed reach for stardom as the capital of the Crown Colony of BC, reminded me of New Westminster’s equally unsuccessful joust with the ultimate winner, Victoria—and one of my favourite historical anecdotes.

I wrote this years ago and it still makes me laugh...

“When I went up the Hooghly 40 years ago...”

Lest we forget...

On Sunday last I attended the Burma Star memorial service in downtown Charles Hoey Park, site of the Duncan Cenotaph. I and 13 others, all of us members of the local Royal Canadian Legion and/or veterans, with a representative from the City of Duncan on hand to place a wreath. 

If I’ve learned anything along life’s road it’s this: The more I know about the human mind, the less I understand. Everyday, news accounts tell us of decisions and events that defy what most intelligent people would define as plain good judgment. (As one sage put it, “commonsense isn’t common”.

I don’t mean human error based on various levels of mis-comprehension or misunderstanding, but decisions and actions that intentionally go against every measure of commonsense and common decency.

Specifically, vandalism—destruction for the sheer joy of it. 

Well, another year down of sold-out performances for the Mill Bay/Malahat Historical Society’s Seeds and Salt Theatre. This year’s theme was Dreamers & Schemers, composed of three 20-minute-long mini-plays. 

As the theatre company’s theme is “Fascinating True Stories From Vancouver Island’s Past,” this year’s performances began with Maj. James Lennox MacFarlane’s dream to create a link by road between Victoria and Mill Bay which, at that time, was accessible only by train and boat as the Malahat’s mountainous game trails all but defied overland traffic. 

Forensic science. It’s everywhere these days, at least entertainment-wise. 

Every time I scroll through my social media programs of choice, there they are, crime stories from the past—so-called cold cases—brought to the fore to entertain and to enlighten, often generations later. Not to mention, albeit less frequently, in the news when it’s reported that police have solved a decades-old murder case through the combined magic of DNA and, of all things, popular genealogical websites.

I’m not going to try to explain how this works here, that’s not the point of today’s editorial ramble... I write about history, right? And criminal cases are history, right?

WHEN INSANITY COULD BE A DEATH SENTENCE

The news is full of them today—stories about homelessness and illegal drugs. These afflictions are often the direct cause of, or the direct result of, mental illness.

How did society deal with insanity in the old days?