One pissed off Canadian.

 I'm pissed.

Once again Donald Trump is playing games with Canada and the world. It is time for this to stop. Our leaders should quit playing along, afraid to make the wrong move. It is time for someone to man up tell him we are not playing anymore. Sit him down and say what the hell is it you really want ?

You really and truly want Canada to become a 51st state? No deal. Period. Forget about it and move on. Trade imbalance? You say you don’t need our lumber, or oil or gas? The don't buy it. That will cure the trade imbalance you complain about. If you want a new trade agreement just say so and let’s get to it. Quit the games and act like the world leader you are.

Someone has to stand up to him and tell him to quit acting like a spoiled 5 year old and start acting like the world leader he is supposed to be. If someone doesn’t, it is going to be a very long 4 years. Heck, if none of our leaders won’t do it please give me the address to the White House and I will have more spine then our fearless and tell him myself. 

 

I am a news person.

 I like knowing what is going on in the world.  Right now there is a lot. Two wars, a US election for the ages, and  3 provincial elections  (and maybe a 4th when Doug Ford thinks he's buttered us up enough, but that is for another post) and political unrest in Ottawa here in Canada.  Most people don't have a clue about most of them. 

I grew up in an environment where news, local, national and international, was given an important place. 

At our house,  at both sets of grandparents homes, as in most of my friends homes. The Windsor Star, the local regional daily newspaper, and the Leamington Post, the hometown weekly, was in most households.  I was first introduced to the Star reading the Saturday comics. I graduated to the front page, and the local stories.  

At our house, my father got home from work at 4:30.  Dinner was at 5:15.  Dishes and tidying was done by  6  pm. Having no local news station, the 6 pm news came from the CBS station out of Detroit.  I learned about the Vietnam war and other world events from Walter Cronkite.  60 minutes was a weekly must watch. 

When we final got local Canadian news, the CBC out of Windsor was our go to local news. Marketplace and the Fifth Estate were added to our weekly news viewing. 

My parents were fascinated with US politics, I remember a time when national conventions were covered non stop, as were US elections.  Canadian political coverage never got close until the 24 hr cable news channels. 

The point is I got to respect that it was important to know what was going on in the world. I learned to enter the political discussions my parents were having, remembering them telling me why a news story was important.. 

Some people are amazed at how much I know about the world.  All it takes is the time to watch a bit of local news, and maybe a bit of international news.   There is a 24 hour news cycle now, and all it takes is probable 5 minutes on a reputable website to keep up with what is happening in the world. And greater depth is available anywhere.

JIM

 

 February 25, 1973- October 25, 2023

Jim was the much youngest of us five kids. He was a sweet mischievous child, and like most younger siblings, often a considerable  pain in the butt.  He loved sport, played soccer as a kid, and loved skiing.  He excelled at motocross until one too many spills made him called it a day.

 Like I said, he was the youngest, but probably the smartest.  From our father, he got the mechanical and technical smarts that showed in his machining skills and technical drawings. From our mother he got a love of cooking and the skills to carry them out. No one would turn down a Jim frittata

A lot of you have shared with the family wonderful times that he shared with you. Few will forget the bonfires and pig roasts he hosted while we lived out on the farm. Though some have admitted to me memories to be a bit hazy.

Yes, Jim had his failures and his demons, and chose to keep his feelings to himself, dealing with them his way. It was hard not to help him, but he didn't want help.   Let us not remember him for the way he died, but for the way he enjoyed life.  

Resting in peace at last.  

A once in a lifetime event

 Watched the solar eclipse the other day.  I wasn't going to watch it live, even though I lived in the path of totality.  I didn't get any glasses, was just going to sit in my basement apartment and watch it on TV.

 The hype on TV and on social media was getting to me. Overkill was dampening my spirit and enthusiasm. 

The day started out cloudy, so I figured I wasn't going to miss anything.  People were streaming by my windows all day, and the weather cleared out.  It was going to be perfect viewing.

The ado on TV was getting at a fever pitch. I couldn't stand it. Around 2:30 something in my heart said, "GET OUT!" I went out to the parking lot, and sat in my car. 

I knew I couldn't view it safely until totality, but I started to get involve in the ambience of the moment. It was quiet, and I was alone.

Slowly, things changed. The birds started heading to the trees, and their evening songs began. It started getting darker, and the temperature started dropping quickly. It felt damp.  The security light popped on. The atmosphere got eerie. It got very quiet. I got out of the car, and just stood there.

  The  roar of the crowd suddenly erupted from the ball field across the way, and from the park a block away.  I looked up and saw a sight I will never forget. It was brief,  and I could only watch safely for a minute.  

But I am not going to forget that sight. Amazed and dazed, I stood transfixed until the sun started to appear again. 

This is something I am never going to see again in my lifetime. And will never forget the best decision I ever made.

Memories of Christmas Past

 

Memories of Christmas seasons past:

 

Tables full of walnut strudel, a freezer full of Christmas cookies and Grandma Subity's walnut torte.

 

Waking up to the house smelling like turkey and a tables full of food at Christmas dinner.

 

The year we had to tie the Christmas tree to the wall to keep it from falling over... (it only fell over three times before we figured it out.)

 

The year Dad warned John not to tip the rocking chair back too far, he did anyways, it broke, and he almost went through the living room window.

 

Everything coming to a halt at noon to listen to the Queen's Christmas Message.

 

The year we discovered that, at Thanksgiving, (October for my international friends), someone put a clean dessert plate on top of a pile of dirty ones, and it was not noticed by the person putting dishes back into the china cabinet. 

 

John and Jim modelling kimonos.

 

Another empty chair.

Two brothers, two soldiers.

 The following was first published in the Essex Country Crier in the Summer of 2010. The paper has since gone out of print. Photos of Lorne and Wilfred are from the Kingsville Military Museum 

 

I encountered this story quite by chance. A family friend had asked me to find some family history for her. In the course of finding out some World War 1 information, I logged onto the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group Forum to pose a question.

What caught my eye reading through the posts was someone asking for a photograph from the Ruthven Cemetery - which just happened to be around the corner from me.

The stone in question is a memorial to two Ruthven boys who died in World War 1. One lost his life in one of Canada’s most famous battles. The other died in what is one of Canada's most unknown military expeditions of that war. 

Lorne Gore Lane was born July 28, 1897. His younger brother, Wilfred Charles Lane was born February 10, 1899. The boys were the fourth and the fifth of seven children of Gore and Mary Lane. Their father was a farmer in Gosfield South Township, and a stockholder and a director of the Erie Tobacco Co. of Windsor.

The story I am about to tell begins in 1915. Wilfred, at 16 years of age, had just become a clerk at the Imperial Bank in Essex.

Lorne, at 18, had enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, signing up in Leamington on October 7, 1915.

He was assigned to the 70th Overseas Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. After training, he shipped out from Halifax on April 24, 1916 on the S.S. Lapland. He arrived in England on May 5, 1916.

On June 28, 1916, after further military training in England, Lorne Lane was transferred to the 26th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, an infantry unit in the 5^th Canadian Infantry Brigade in the 2^nd Canadian Division. The following day, along with other reinforcements from the 70th Battalion, he found himself in the trenches in France. By September 12, 1916, Lane was attached to his Brigade Headquarters as a scout.

On the night of November 22/23 1916, while on patrol in "no man's land" Lorne Lane and two others encountered a German patrol.

According to New Brunswick’s Fighting 26th A History of 26th New Brunswick Battalion CEF 1914-1919:

"Scouts Lane, Parnham, and Larman, forming the 26th Battalion Patrol, had moved out from Southern Sap shortly after midnight when they detected a hostile patrol of three men moving in their direction through a patch of old wire. When the enemy patrol was within range, four bombs were flung at the Germans and the Canadian soldiers rushed in, killing one and wounding another, but the third escaped towards his own line. The Canadians remained unscathed. The wounded and dead Germans were brought back to our front line trench where identification of the 21st Bavarian Reserve Regiment of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division was secured."

The official War Diaries confirm the story as well. As a result of this capture, the next night a raid was made on the enemy trenches. 

 

The Essex Free Press, February 9, 1917 reported that Lane, in a letter to his parents, wrote that he "helped pull off a little stunt, which pleased the general commanding No. 2 Division, C.E.F., so much that he gave him a special 12 day's (sic) pass to England. Upon his return to France, the O.C. informed him that he had been awarded the Military Medal, for his little stunt."

This is confirmed by Lane's inclusion in the January 22, 1917 Supplement to the London Gazette, and by a line in his military record:

“Awarded Military Medal by H.M. the King”

In April 1917, Private Lorne Lane found himself in one of the most memorable battles of the war - the battle for Vimy Ridge.

Situated in northern France, Vimy Ridge was a heavily-fortified seven-kilometre stretch. Previously, both French and British troops had tried, and failed, to take the ridge.

Four Canadian divisions, fighting together for the first time, stormed the ridge at 5:30 am Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. More than 20,000 Canadian troops overran the Germans all along the front. On April 12, 1917, the Canadians came out of the battle victorious.

It was this battle that is often credited with Canada becoming a nation. But the price paid was heavy. Almost 3,600 were killed and over 7,000 wounded.

One of those killed on April 9, the first day of the battle, was Private Lorne Lane. As his body was never found, he is one of many who have no known final resting place. His sacrifice is marked with his name on the Vimy Ridge Memorial. 

 

Meanwhile, Wilfred Lane had continued working with the Imperial Bank in various branches. In March 1917 it was reported that he was sent to Hotel Dieu hospital in Windsor, and operated on for appendicitis.

Wilfred soon followed the path that his brother took into the army. Wilfred was a volunteer. He was too young to be conscripted. Wilfred enlisted and was attested at Toronto May 23, 1918 and joined the 70th Overseas Artillery Battery.

After training in Petawawa as a gunner, The Essex Free Press reported he made one last trip home around the middle of August. Shortly after his visit had ended, a small article in August 30^th newspaper stated that Mary Lane, his mother, had an accident in which she fell from a hayloft while collecting eggs, and remained bedridden at home, paralyzed from the waist down.

By late in the summer of 1918, it looked like the allies could win the war in that year. There remained, however, the matter of the Russian Revolution. Of the many reasons for the intervention in Russia, one was that the Allies were fearful of the Communists and decided to send a force to Siberia to assist in defeating them. In addition to several other nations, the US, Britain and Canada mobilized forces to counteract the perceived threat.

On August 12, 1918, Canada's government passed an Order in Council, and the Canadian Expeditionary Force Siberia was formed. 4,209 men (and one woman, a nursing matron) were mobilized for service.

In the autumn of 1918, the troops for the Expeditionary Force began to arrive at Willows Camp in Victoria, British Columbia. The initial troops sent to Siberia, the advance party, departed for Vladivostok on October 11, 1918. With the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, many soldiers of the Siberian Expeditionary Force, particularly those who had been conscripted under the Military Service Act, questioned why they were being sent overseas. The war after all was over. The Canadian Prime Minister, however, was adamant that the Force be deployed, overruling his cabinet’s recommendations that no further troops be deployed and that the Force be returned to Canada.

The main body of the Expeditionary Force began its movement to Vladivostok on November 17, 1918 and the first two sailings went relatively smoothly. However, things changed with the third sailing – a mutiny occurred. On December 21, a group of troops refused to board ship. The mutiny was put down, and the soldiers were marched at gunpoint onto the ship. The deployment to Vladivostok continued.

Most of the troops had arrived in Vladivostok by January 15, 1919. As time progressed, it became apparent that the Force was interfering in the internal affairs of Russia and should never have been despatched in the first place. The Canadian government imposed restrictions on the movement of the troops, basically confining them to the Vladivostok area. It became increasingly obvious that there were no meaningful tasks for the troops to perform in Siberia. With the mission being very unpopular in Canada, the government decided to withdraw the force. The troops returned to Canada between March and June 1919. Influenza was rampant, and the majority of those that did not return, died of illness.

When Pte. Wilfred Charles Lane joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in May 1918, he probably thought that he would serve in France or Belgium. It was not to be – he would serve on the other side of the world.

Shortly after his brief return home in August, mentioned above, Wilfred was assigned to the Mobile Veterinary Section No. 6 of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Siberia, and then attached to Canadian Headquarters (Siberia).

As a member of H.Q., he shipped out of Vancouver on November 17, 1918 aboard the ship, the S.S. Monteagle. He arrived at Vladivostok on December 5.

On February 13, 1919 his military records indicate he entered the base hospital with severe bronchitis and an ear infection. On February 21, he was discharged as recovered.

But his medical conditions continue to flare up. On March 1, he walked on board the Empress of Japan, and headed back to Canada, along with other soldiers considered too ill to continue serving. Chronic bronchitis, ear infections, swollen adenoids, and a deviated septum had invalided him out of the army.

His condition in the ship's hospital deteriorated. By March 7, his condition was so serious that, when the Empress of Japan stopped at Hong Kong for refitting, Wilfred was sent to Bowen Road Hospital, delirious with pneumonia.

Wilfred was laid to rest with full military honours in Hong Kong on March 11, 1919 in Happy Valley Cemetery, Grave 8341, Section C.  

 

Immediately on notification of his death, The Essex Free Press reported that the Lane family had cabled Ottawa, requesting his body be brought home. His mother was still ill, and they feared for her health.

Bradley Hall, from the Canadian Agency - Commonwealth War Graves Commission, can only guess at why and how it might have been allowed.

In an email in response to my queries he states:“my assumption is simply that some interpretation of the rules occurred after the Armistice of 11 November 1918 for those who died outside the main European Theatre prior to the date which was eventually agreed upon by the Commission's participating governments as the official end date of the war for commemorative purposes (31 August 1921).

I am sure it must have been especially difficult on those families who lost more than one son during the war - certainly there are an unfortunately large number where this occurred. One never knows - perhaps it was the fact that the brother's remains had never been found that contributed to an official "bending the rules" in this case.” 

Whatever the case, the Lanes prevailed. The order was eventually given, and on July 11, 1921, the body was exhumed, and placed on a ship for Vancouver. The Essex Free Press reported his body was expected at Vancouver by August 2, 1921.

On August 10, 1921, the body of Pte. Wilfred Charles Lane arrived in Ruthven on the Pere Marquette Railway. His body was taken to his parents home, and after a funeral service, he was laid to rest in the Ruthven Cemetery, on the northwest corner of what is now County Road 34, and County Road 31./

In the Ruthven cemetery there is a large stone marker in memory of both Wilfred and Lorne Lane. Because Wilfred Lane is laid to rest here, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission considers the site a War Grave, and makes regular inspection visits.