The 19th (nineteenth) century began on January 1, 1801 (MDCCCI), and ended on December 31, 1900 (MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium.

The 19th century saw much social change; slavery was abolished, and the First and Second Industrial Revolutions (which also overlap with the 18th and 20th centuries, respectively) led to massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit and prosperity. The Islamic gunpowder empires were formally dissolved and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia and almost all of Africa under colonial rule.

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When I first saw the French Riviera I was seventeen years old.  I and my sister were in the back seat of a brand new vanilla coloured Ford LTD convertible with champagne interior driven by my father with my mother seated next to him. My parents and sister lived at the time in Stockholm, Sweden; I had just returned from boarding school at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario. The car had been collected by my father in Rotterdam then taken to Paris where the protective gooey muck they applied to the car for its salt-sea air overseas journey was removed. A summer jaunt to the Riviera was mandatory for most Swedes who were exhausted after a winter during which the sun rises at ten o’clock in the morning and sets at two o’clock in the afternoon.

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I like big women.  There. I said it. Frankly I find the sylphlike figure of most models (and some aspiring teenage girls) strictly theatrical. Often I have marvelled at their 12″ waists while at the same time earnestly questioning when they last had anything to eat. Dieting is a such a hopeless chore and one which invariably prescribes a manifestly unhealthy nutrition. By contrast the voluptuous woman paints a sybaritic picture without the stoic reserve. All in all it is a more balanced view in my opinion. And just because a gal is a “full figured woman” that means nothing when it comes to sartorial expression. The runway is not in my opinion the correct place to display the fashion; it is a cold vernacular more suited to pouting lips and bolting movements of the Praying Mantis with their flexible necks and elongated bodies.

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At 72 years of age I am old enough to remember the Indian chief television test pattern and the subsequent Technicolor™ peacock. Not far removed from that initial acquaintance with electronic imagery was Howdy Doody (and Clarabell who I have since learned later became Captain Kangaroo) and Perry Mason (and his assistants Della Street and Paul Drake). I won’t say that either Howdy Doody or Perry Mason had a lasting ascendency in my life but without question each sowed the seed of their respective character. Strangely perhaps what ultimately won out as a preference for me was solicitor’s work not barrister’s work. My undergraduate training at Glendon Hall as a philosophy major proved paramount to the entrancing courtroom behaviour of Raymond Burr. I can only assume it is because of the winning relevance to logic and reasoning, the whole deductive thinking business.

deductive | dɪˈdʌktɪv | adjective characterized by or based on the inference of particular instances from a general law

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Things are not austerely part of the broad binary definition of life; viz., things and thoughts (or if you prefer a more spiritual rendition, the physical and the metaphysical or the empirical and the transcendental). Certainly the division between corporeal and incorporeal is inarguable but I find the significance of each can be equally stirring. Downsizing is one of the accidents of aging. In retrospect – having undertaken the enterprise when I retired in 2014 – the process was both uninhibited and manifestly relieving.  There is nothing we abandoned to the auctioneer that we regret having lost. The synthesis of both commodity and introspection is oddly similar. Old gives way to new; sediments fall, vapours arise. Draff and grouts give way to clarity and refinement. That’s the good news – I am passionate about what remains after the scourge; the blacksnake is a godsend.

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The news last evening that India is undergoing another catastrophic and exceedingly deadly wave of the COVID virus or some variation of it was singularly disheartening. The universality of this disease is as plain as a pikestaff. Equally inescapable is the effect of remote contamination upon our own boundaries. No longer is this pandemic a mere interruption. It is now seen as Nature’s cleansing of the globe; a violent and volatile uncertainty.

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Combine a balmy springtime breeze billowing the white sheers with a Valse (based on a theme by Bach) performed by the Bill Evans Trio and Orchestra, and you have an idyllic morning scene spirited by pleasant emotions evaporating through the atmosphere. Music captures me then transports me.  Astonishingly when I am overcome by music the melody wafts within me and beacons happy memories. Music is the ultimate tranquillizer – instant sedation with no after effects other than a calmness.

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It is almost precisely 45 years ago that I arrived in Almonte. I thought I should challenge myself to mention some of what has changed.

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On a snowy springtime day in Canada there unfolds a drama in the United States of America which I suspect will mark the beginning of a renewed perception of their society, an abrupt recognition that outright brutality is offensive and punishable as criminal by the law of the nation. It is too late to be sorry for George Floyd; instead my concern is for Derek Michael Chauvin whose history will no doubt disclose the poisonous ingredients which overtook his own life.

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For the past three hours I lay asleep upon my green leather couch beneath a light blanket with an eye mask on. Gone is the afternoon! I have at least the dignity of knowing that when I said, “I’m tired” it was no idyll conviction. The midday nap is not normally on my list of activity and certainly not to this extent; but I confess the little of it I know I like. I am energized by noticeable zeal! Whatever it is that sleep does, it did it to me! I am now primed to organize the universe.

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