Look up to the stars, to the horizon of our next human adventure.
I found this image today in a box I hadn’t looked into since before the move before last. Almost 12 years ago I packed up this box full of art supplies I rarely used. Today, while trying to decrease the amount of stuff in my life I found this image. Mom and I in March 2004. Miss her.
I am very shocked and very sad to share this news of the sudden death, by fire, of my old friend and lover, Joe Cousineau. He was born in Tofino, BC and he died on February 17, in his cabin near Tofino, BC. Joe was a one of a kind human who lived life according to his own songs. Not many understood Joe, but many would find the warmth in his heart and the stories in his head, just as I did.
He sailed the seas of Barkley Sound, Clayoquot Sound, Nootka Sound and all the way to Haida Gwaii. He was the best boatman, ie: I always felt safe, as much as one can on those challenging seas. Indeed, he was born with sea legs and it was Joe’s love of the sea which encouraged me to get my own sailing Skippers ticket.
I have so many amazing memories of our time together in the Pinkerton Islands of Barkley Sound, on the float house he built. There was one trip, we had been floating and stormbound in the back of Barkley Sound for weeks, in a cold and dark February. One day the sea seemed calmed enough, at least from our perspective, to head to town. So the tugboat Moe was fired up and we cast off.
However, on the other side of Hand Island, the sea was not so calm and even though it was my suggestion, there was no turning back. The swells were approaching from every direction. It seemed to me that the entire Pacific Ocean was piling and roiling on that shallow rock beneath us, as we headed past Beg Island and into Ucluelet Harbor.
Those swells, the thumps of them ending in green water cascading over the wheelhouse, on that stunning midwinter day. I was trying not to get too scared-sick while being awed by the beauty of it all.
And Joe, he was singing.
I don’t ever remember Joe being a singer, but on that day he was belting out every Christmas carol he could remember. About halfway across the passage, we noticed the hawser, a tow rope, had fallen off the stern and was going to sink, then wrap itself around the prop. Joe was finessing that wheel, and singing those songs, and by osmosis was encouraging me to hang on with my eyelashes, and wrangle that wayward hawser back onto the deck. What team work!
Oh memorable moments, one loves those which can be told over and over for decades.
When on the water, Joe would always get the destination. He was the one who was the most adept with those swells and those rocks and that fog and that rain. I would have gone anywhere with him, as long as it was on water.
And who could forget the time, at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, where Joe and I were the invited partiers onto a big and beautiful multi-story converted tugboat. Just before docking, we learned the engine had now gone haywire and we were about to ram into the event jetty not 100 meters away. When all else fails, the skipper let Joe have at the engine and, of course, Joe stopped that ship. It was a moment that saved not just a gorgeous ship, but likely the lives of those onboard and on the docks.
I would have more pictures, except a few days after we met, Joe left my camera on the beach at 52 Steps. The tide came in and the tide went out. He found the camera, about 300 meters from where he had left it. It was a day’s search, and it was that day I fell for the guy, and damn the camera.
Although it has been a decade since I last saw Joe, and more than two decades since we hung out together, He will always have a special place in my heart and mind. If I thought he could hear me, my last words for him … “Go gentle on yourself, Joe.”
Thank you Eydee and Anamarjia for seeking me out at this sad time. I know he loved you very much and to have him gone now is a big hurt. Big hugs all round.
Obituary : by Anamarjia
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/port-alberni-bc/joseph-cousineau-8240328
Media: hashilthsa
https://hashilthsa.com/news/2019-04-10/human-remains-discovered-warn-bay-identified
#JoeCousineau #vancouverisland #tofino #ucluelet #clayoquot #barkleysound #WoodenBoatFestival
In 1964, two years after I danced with the Bolshoi and danced on stage with Maya Plisetskaya, this 1 hr 12 min documentary was made. Though today the ballet style looks almost ancient, in the day she was groundbreakingly awesome. I had a thing about her broken wrist lines, but what do I know? 😉
Maya was born on November 20, 1925. She died at age 89 on May 2, 2015.
Originally Posted: Jan 6, 2008. Yet another senseless murder of a young girl took place in Toronto. Perpetrators and motives will eventually be discovered … I think we can safely assume the values of our human-ness, our frailness, our hopes and peace were all missing from the street on which she was murdered on New Years Day, 2008.
Posted: Mar 20, 2009. _ Stephanie’s murderers were two: … the puppet master and the puppet.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rengel-s-murderer-sentenced-to-life-1.841915
Shirley Case with the International Rescue Committee was one of four aid workers killed in Afghanistan.
VICTORIA – Shirley Case, one of three foreign aid workers killed this week in Afghanistan, is being mourned by the people who knew her during her years in Victoria.
Case, a 30-year-old woman from Williams Lake, B.C., attended the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University. In 2000, she completed an undergraduate degree in leisure-service administration at UVic, then earned a master’s degree in human security and peace-building at Royal Roads in 2005.
It’s been annus horribulus. My favourite uncle, Bob MacGregor, died and I’m heartbroken. I will always remember him as the most generous, most fun and most caring person. His death shocked our family and we will miss him terribly.
This picture was taken during our visit to Toronto in July 2007. We spent three days with Uncle Bob. He was amazing.
Read more – CBC Obit
WAINWRIGHT, Aline Gregory (nee MacGregor)
Born September 3, 1930 – Died April 9, 2008
Aline left us peacefully, at Hospice Niagara after a lengthy struggle with cancer.
Well remembered for her dedicated work as an active feminist, she was a co-founder of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in Canada. She was a member of Women for Political Action and in the 1972 federal election was a candidate in Rosedale Riding in Toronto. In 1975 she played a prominent role in organizing the first World’s International Women’s Year Conference held in Mexico City, and in 1977, was awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal.
Born in Toronto in 1930, Aline is predeceased by parents Alexander and Catherine MacGregor, by sister Catherine (Kitty) Mann, and by brothers John and Howard MacGregor. She is survived by husband John Wainwright, by brother Robert (Bob) MacGregor of Toronto, by daughters Catherin (Cody) Gregory of Victoria, B.C. and Deanne (Dedee) Gregory of Burnaby, B.C., by step-children John Wainwright of Edmonton, Deborah Jarvis of Grimsby and Jane Wainwright of Grimsby, and by grandson Garnet Clare of Whistler, B.C.
She will be deeply missed by family and friends.
An announcement will be forthcoming about an open house to celebrate Aline’s life at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club, 70 Westchester Avenue, St. Catharines, Ontario.
In lieu of flowers, donations to the Canadian Cancer Society or Hospice Niagara would be gratefully appreciated.
See her story here.
http://alinemw.ca
We are all responsible!
This time, not in Afghanistan or Iran or Pakistan but in the Canadian city of Toronto, a sixteen-year-old girl has become a victim of religious prejudice, veil, political Islam, and the compromise with it of the Western governments. This time, the killer is a father who kept pressurizing the neck of his daughter Aghsa (Aqsa Parvez) until the very last minute of her life.
We are all responsible for it.
How long are we going to witness thousands of women and children become victims of stoning to death, mutilation, burning, self-burning, and getting thrown off the balconies? For how long are we going to remain accustomed to this violence that has taken over us and our societies?
Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259or mrahner@seattletimes.com Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
“He is a firm believer, all right: That religion is evil, and that, perhaps on the eighth day, man created … By Mark Rahner Seattle Times staff reporter Christopher Hitchens’ omnipresence does not in itself refute God’s existence. But it is evidence that his pugnacious best-seller, “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” (Twelve, $24.99), has struck a chord. I played devil’s advocate with the contrarian Vanity Fair columnist and busy TV pundit before his manifestation – uh, appearance, at Town Hall Seattle Thursday.
Keep on reading!
June Callwood, Canada’s social conscience, dies at 82.
“If any of you happens to see an injustice, you are no longer a spectator, you are a participant. And you have an obligation to do something.”
June Callwood – accepting Writers’ Trust Award for Distinguished Contribution, Toronto (7 March 2007)
June Callwood, the remarkable Canadian journalist, humanitarian and social activist, died early Saturday after a long fight with cancer.
She was 82.
She was born in Chatham, Ontario and began her journalism career at Brantford Collegiate. Awards and credits include the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario, Toronto Arts Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and she was an inductee into the Canadian News Hall of Fame.
“She was first diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2004, but refused treatment and continued to be active, most recently on the campaign to end child poverty, until a few months ago.
Callwood blazed trails for women’s rights, gay rights and the rights of the underprivileged with a history of activism dating back to the 1960s.” — CBC
Kurt Vonnegut is one writer who moved much of my generation and who is responsible for much of how we think today. Today he died, another great human mind, passing into history. A person full of love, insight, and story telling. Thanks Kurt, you rocked my universe.
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?
© 2005 Kurt Vonnegut Extracted from A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush’s America
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
Requiem (ending)
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.[60]
–Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, 2005
“Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?”
© 2005 Kurt Vonnegut Extracted from A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush’s America
Celia Franca was the founder of The National Ballet of Canada in 1951 and its Artistic Director for 24 years. I first met Celia Franca in the early 60’s. I had been chosen among my classmates at the National Ballet School to perform in the new production of the Nutcracker Suite. She was an amazing woman, totally in control of everything. Yes, I feared her. I’ll never forget the Saturday morning I walked into rehearsal after spending a night in the hospital due to having burned my hand on an old school stove the day before. We had been making Christmas candles. So there I was, at rehearsal, with a bandage on my hand that looked more like a boxing glove than anything else. Ms Franca was horrified, but rather than call in an understudy, and leave me in the wings, she called in the costume mistress who materialized gloves, to be worn by all the girl children for the schedule of performances. She was feared, but she was so compassionate too.
” In 1967 Miss Franca was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1985 was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1987 she received the St. George’s Society of Toronto Award and that same year was among the first to be honoured with the Order of Ontario. She served as a member of the board of governors of York University, the board of directors of the Canada Council and the Board of Directors of the Canada Dance Festival Society.”