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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-08-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2011. PAGE 5. So there I was, blithely dog-paddling over a tropical reef, my mug immersed in a face mask, a snorkel huffing and spewing just over my right ear. I was admiring the insanely colourful, impossibly beautiful reef fishies flitting and fluttering all around me when I spied something that was…the opposite of beautiful. It was mottled brown and grey, about a foot in length and lying partially buried in the sand about five feet beneath the surface of the sea. I was pretty sure it was some kind of life form but it was immobile and strikingly butt-ugly. It looked like a not-very-good potter had started to fashion a fish shape out of inferior clay, found it beyond his powers and abandoned the attempt. I was trying to prod the lump with one of my swim fins when a tiny voice bubbled up in my ear murmuring “You probably shouldn’t mess with that.” When I got ashore I made a sketch of the critter and when I got near an encyclopaedia, I looked it up. Just as well I hadn’t managed to arouse the thing. It was a stonefish; pound for pound the most venomous fish in the sea. Its dorsal fin features 13 thorn-sharp, poison-filled spines each one of which contains enough bad stuff to offer an agonizing death to any creature luckless enough to get jabbed by it. Well, a tropical climate, what do you expect? It’s a jungle out there, bucko. Some equatorial countries feature cockroaches the size of skateboards and enough deadly creepy crawlies to star in their own horror movie. ‘Peligro’ was one of two words I saw hand- lettered on a sign on a beach near Zihuatenejo, Mexico years ago. The sign was jammed in the sand in front of a big log. The other word on the sign was ‘cocodrilo’. ‘Peligro’ I knew, means danger. But ‘cocodrilo’? Gee, sounds a little bit like ‘crocodile’… And that’s when the log moved its tail. But you don’t have to visit a Spanish- speaking country to find hostile wildlife. Look at Australia – 14 different types of poisonous snakes, the deadly funnel-web spider, the equally toxic redback spider, plus virulent jellyfish, sea snakes, lionfish, scorpionfish, stinging coral, Great White sharks…And oh yeah – crocodiles. Saltwater crocodiles. Up to 20 feet long, a ton and a half heavy, lightning-quick and more than happy to chow down on filet de Homo sapiens extra rare whenever they can. Survive all that and you can still get walloped by wallabies, KO’d by koala bears or run into a kangaroo capable of punching your lights out. But the Australian outback pales when compared to India, where you can be eaten by tigers, clawed by leopards, gored by elephants, punctured by cobras and otherwise seriously interfered with by a witches brew of rodents, mammals, reptiles… And insects. You leery about angry hornets? Allow me to introduce you to Vespa madarinia, also known as the Asian Giant Hornet. How giant? The size of a small bird. The Japanese, who also know the creature, have other names for it. One is ‘suzume bachi’, which translates as ‘sparrow hornet’. The other common name is ‘yak killer hornet”. Guess how it earned that name. If Australian wildlife is dangerous, Indian wildlife is a Stephen King novel waiting to be written. Small wonder India suffers a mortality rate that’s about 30 times higher than Australia. Kind of makes you glad you live in a Disneyish, Hobbity unthreatening country like Canada where we plaster our coins with laughing loons and goofy Rudolph reindeer knockoffs and the national mascot is a near- sighted rodent with buck teeth and a pancake tail. I mentioned (a tad smugly) this innate Great White North superiority to an Aussie friend who’s been living in Canada for a few years. He snorted. “Fair crack o’ the whip, myte,” he retorted. “You’ve got a country with polar bears, grizzlies, killer whales, wolverines, rattlesnakes, giant elk, packs of wolves and horny moose with enough armour on their skulls to tip over a car. You’ve got clouds of bloodsucking deer flies, horse flies, black flies, noseeums and mosquitoes big enough to carry off small children. Safe??? Unthreatening??? Starve the lizards! Give me the Outback any day.” He had a point. Several points, actually. And he hadn’t even mentioned Don Cherry. Arthur Black Other Views It’s a jungle out there, eh? There are worse ways to be awakened from a nap than a tornado, but I would venture a guess that there aren’t too many. Shortly after 4 p.m. on Sunday, when the wind had died down and the tornado had moved on from Goderich, I ran out into the rain to make sure my car was ok. There was a tree limb that took two of us to lift lodged under the car’s running board. I was soaked through with rain, but even so I couldn’t help but notice that trees were broken in half, an entire length of wooden fence was gone and pieces of hail the size of golf balls were melting in the grass beside me. All of this, not to mention, was going on while I was still recovering from the wind blowing my window in on me, clobbering my head like a scene from The Wizard of Oz. But when I gathered myself, I hadn’t been whisked away to the technicolour world of Oz where friendly munchkins escorted me from place to place. It was a grey place of devastation and destruction with people walking around, riding ATVs and dirt bikes and taking pictures and videos to show their friends. I had never really been touched by Mother Nature in such a way before, so this whole tornado experience in Goderich really seemed like something out of a movie for me. Clearly. I mean, I was looking out the window when this beast made its way through, which I was told later was pretty much the number one thing you don’t do in the event of a tornado. But I survived, and evidently, as was the case with Norman Laberge, not everyone was quite so lucky. People were injured, houses were demolished and lives are going to have to be rebuilt. There were winds that were as high as 300 kilometres an hour and there was plenty of destruction. So while at first I was really wondering what I had done to deserve a tornado, I soon realized how lucky I was to be in as good of shape as I was. And living through an event like this can really make a man step back and take pause and realize just how little he has control over in this world. You can have the nicest car in the world, or the nicest home in the world and you can work on improvements every day of your life, but if the winds get angry and swirl the wrong way, your car can be on its roof in a second or the top floor of your home can be lying in a pile of bricks after a tornado makes its way through. Just minutes after the rain had stopped and the sun was shining and above all the sirens racing up this street or that, the sound of chain saws could be heard on multiple streets throughout the town. Neighbours with chain saws were out helping those without to cut tree limbs down and clear the debris. It was a true Huron County spirit that I was proud to see; neighbours helping neighbours in their time of need. So now as countless homeowners begin to pick up the pieces and over 150 business- owners replace their marquees or fix their storefront windows, the Goderich community will pull together just as any other Huron County community would if it was them who suffered the brunt of this tornado. It might not look exactly the same as it did before Sunday afternoon, but the people will no doubt do their best and in the end, Goderich will again be something its people can be proud of. No place like home Old soccer referees don’t retire or fade away, they pretty much have to die or quit to get out of that racket. Retiring isn’t as easy as it sounds for many people, but it’s the hardest for soccer referees. Plenty of referees just plain quit – they give up because they’ve had it with any number of things. Over-zealous parents, a continuing degradation of the respect once held for the sport, sore knees, a lack of personal time, take your pick and you can probably find someone who claims that was their reason. However, retiring, saying that you’re leaving because you’ve done it long enough and it is time for someone else to take up the mantle – is difficult. It could be difficult because of the lack of referees in an area. You can’t retire because there simply isn’t anyone old enough or experienced enough to take over the games you were doing. It can be difficult because, while the pay is typically meager compared to other physical jobs, it is an income that people may come to rely on. Or you just may not be able to do it because people ask you or call you when a game needs to be done. I recently refereed a soccer tournament in Brussels and noticed that there are three older referees, two referees between the ages of 20 and 40 and one younger referee. Having known two of the older referees for some time, I’ve heard them both say that this year is going to be the last at least three different years running. The scary thing is, one of them I haven’t refereed with in a good five years meaning he’s probably said it least five more times. Each and every year I say to the people I typically work with on the pitch that this will probably be my last year. I swear that the time it takes and the flack you get aren’t worth what you get out of it, but there simply isn’t anyone to replace me. I was nearly sure that, upon moving to Blyth and Blyth having no 25-and-over teams, it would mark the end of my refereeing. Not immediately mind you, but in the next couple years. I was wrong, as I found myself on the pitch for a few U16 games throughout the season. Now whether I’m a mediocre or great referee is beside the point, the fact is I’m a referee and I’m here. That puts me head and shoulders above other kids, some my age, most younger, who quit, and I don’t blame them. All it takes is one bad interaction with a parent, or having to reprimand a family member of a friend, before you realize that the whistle and the cards are onerous, and that the black shirt, while often light as a feather, can feel as heavy as a leaden weight. These bad experiences lead to an aging referee population as newer referees either aren’t interested in joining or quickly learn it can be a thankless job unless you find the right teams to officiate. To that end, I’ve avoided using the “R” word (retirement) this year and I’ll simply say that I don’t think I’ll be continuing on as a referee much longer. While some may heave a sigh of relief at that, it’s not due to any negative response I’ve received. The simple fact is that refereeing is for people in a different place than I. People with regular hours and no “night- time” work can dedicate themselves to a few soccer games a week. Unfortunately for me (and for anyone who needs a referee), I often find myself having to turn down work due to night time scheduling, weekend work and simply trying to have a life outside of work, refereeing and similar endeavours. I always told myself that once I went away to get a post secondary education I would stop with the refereeing, at least for a few years. I didn’t feel that it was necessarily something that would lend itself to being feasible to continued to do alongside a career and, having my career and refereeing both being such public affairs, I am now more sure of that fact than ever. So consider this a hiatus of sorts – kind of like those teachers that retire then substitute for decades after. I’m sure I’ll come back to “substitute teach” or “substitute ref” for the occasional game, but I think it is time I stop sitting on the proverbial sidelines. So – anyone need another player for their adult soccer team next year? Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Denny Scott Denny’s Den The problem with retiring Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. – Ernest Hemingway Final Thought