The Citizen, 2007-12-20, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2007. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Memories and now
ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
Another wretched Canadian winter
sinking its icy talons into my
chilblained carcass. More treacherous weeks
of power blackouts, balky batteries, snow-
bloated driveways and black-iced roads.
I’m getting too old for this. Isn’t there some
alternative?
Well…there’s Arizona.
Fate, being the fickle-fingered fortune teller
she is, sent me a letter from a Winnipeg law
firm last September. How would I like
to speak at their winter retreat to be held in
November at – I blink and rub my eyes to
make sure I’m not hallucinating – The Westin
Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale,
Arizona?
Scottsdale. Part of the sprawling urban
agglomeration known (inaccurately but
universally) as Phoenix. Where the November
daytime temperature routinely soars in the
high and sunny 20s.
Phoenix. Where Google tells me they’ve had
a grand total of less than three inches of rain so
far this year.
Phoenix, where to explain the concept of
falling snow to the natives you’d have to resort
to CBC video footage and maybe sock puppets
wearing ear muffs.
A few days in Phoenix,Arizona for a winter-
blitzed Canadian struggling through the nether
end of November. How sweet is that?
Kind of bittersweet, as it turns out. The
airport gauntlet would bring any traveler
down. It is the usual horror show of security
rent-a-thugs ordering crippled geriatrics to
take off their shoes while their cohorts
gleefully pounce on such terrorist
paraphernalia as eyebrow tweezers, crochet
hooks and half-spent tubes of Ipana
toothpaste.
I watch a security goon suspiciously rub his
grubby thumb over the war medals on the lapel
of the jacket of a war veteran being
‘processed’. What’s he think they are – Al
Queda grenades? He grunts and moves on to
wand/grope the next patsy in the lineup.
Not our finest hour, airport security.
Scottsdale, when we finally arrive, is kind of
odd. As Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland,
California, “there’s no ‘there’ there”.
The airport limo whisks us along wide
boulevards that all look the same – here a palm
tree, there some sage brush, and once in a
while a cartoon-like saguaro cactus, looming
up like a prickly pitchfork – all of it intersected
by long chutes of concrete walls behind which
squat, one-storey homes peek out.
Scottsdale doesn’t have enough water to
grow grass, so it substitutes a kind of pink
gravel which gives the city the effect of a huge
rambling terrarium. I half expect to see a giant
tortoise rumble out on to the boulevard.
The valley that Phoenix nestles in is home to
nearly four million Americans, many of them
refugees from snow-blasted states to the north
and east.
There’s also a fair representation of ex-
Californians in the valley because houses are
‘way cheaper in Phoenix than they are in
Governor Schwarzenegger’s fiefdom.
Think the Grand Canyon State is all Good
Ol’ Boys and Navaho reservations?
Surprise. Arizona is almost 25 per cent
Hispanic.
One of the treasures of the Phoenix area is
tucked into the hills and hard to find. It is
Taliesin West, a house built by the famous
architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a treasure
because it is unlike anything else you’re likely
to see in the area – or anywhere else, come to
that. Whimsical and surprising, at turns
rambling and cozy, it fits into the landscape as
snug as a cowboy boot in a stirrup.
More important, Taliesin pays homage to the
Native tribes that lived here for thousands of
years before the white man came. The desert
around Taliesin West has not been razed,
paved and compartmentalized into tract houses
– yet.
It is here that you can feel the true charm of
the land – the cacti, the desert birds, the stark,
snaggletoothed mountains that rim the
perimeter. And the spectacular sunsets.
Yep, that’s why we’re all here – native
Phoenicians and frost-weary Winnipeg
lawyers alike – to get a taste of that lovely
November sun.
And winter’s the time to sample Phoenix
sunshine. Don’t try this trick in summer. You
really can fry an egg on a Phoenix sidewalk in
August. TV film crews do it routinely on slow
(hot) news days.
How hot does it get? They hit 53°C a couple
of times last August. That’s 125°F for the
unconverted – hotter than Hell on anybody’s
thermometer.
And they weren’t just a couple of rogue
spikes. My taxi driver told me that last summer
Phoenix had 35 days where the temperature hit
110°F or over.
Was it always this hot in Phoenix? No.
Before it became the second fastest growing
city in the country, Phoenix was merely
infernally hot. Now, it’s insane.
Thanks to the endless new acres of concrete,
rooftops, and a maze of buildings that blocks
wind, the summer heat gets trapped, reflected,
and absorbed. Add to that the mandatory air
conditioners (which kick heated air back into
the atmosphere while they deplete the energy
grid) and you’ve got an escalating nightmare.
Move to Phoenix? No thanks. I’d rather live
in Aklavik.
Nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to fry
there.
Arthur
Black
What Christmas memories mean the
most to you? What do you think
about when you remember
Christmases of your childhood?
Over dinner one recent evening, my hubby
and I indulged in a little retrospective sharing.
Having reached a point where we often forget
we didn’t always know each other, it’s fun to
discover there are still things to learn about the
formative years.
I took the question literally at first and tried
to conjure up memories specifically of
Christmas Day. What immediately leapt to
mind was, of all things, cabbage salad.
My cousin and I, both quite far down in the
adult pecking order of our family, were never
overlooked by our maternal grandmother
when it came to the holiday feast. She
indulged our finicky palates with a bowl of
grated cabbage, sans dressing and onions, and
a bowl of Christmas pudding and rum sauce,
without the pudding. The privilege was for no
one else, making us feel not just happy
gastronomically, but adored.
Something so relatively inconsequential, yet
it has stayed with me all these years.
As I broadened my memories to include the
season, I noticed it was never a monumental
event or gesture that held greatest significance,
but the little things done over and over. And it
still is.
When I think of Christmas I always think of
the music. It played a big role in our family
during my childhood. We loved to sing, as part
of the church choir, in the car, around the piano
or Christmas tree, or in the case of my brother,
walking to the bathroom from the bedroom
first thing in the morning.
The beauty of the season’s songs captivated
me as a child and still hold me in its spell
today. They are on non-stop in my car, at work
and at home.
Another highlight was touring the well-to-do
area of town to see the lights after our Sunday
school Christmas concert each year.
Decorating the outside of your home for the
holidays was not something everyone did back
then and the ‘fancy folk’ in town did it up
right.
Now, I make it a point to walk around town
in the evenings and try to see the community’s
efforts in brightening Christmas. They are
appreciated, thank you.
My memories too recall the ‘agony’ of
Christmas morning. One gift could be opened
before breakfast then it was off to church,
where my childish attention couldn’t help but
be diverted to what awaited me back home.
As a young mother, however, I soon saw the
value in prolonging the attack. Christmas is all
over too soon. So following my parents’
lesson, stockings came first, then having gone
to church Christmas Eve, we delayed the
opening of gifts with cinnamon buns,
clementines and conversation.
As our family grew, the opening of gifts
became a chaotic affair, until my civilized
brother-in-law expressed disappointment that
no one knew what anyone had received. Each
gift and each person was worthy of everyone’s
attention, he felt. Thus, gifts were handed out
and opened one by one.
It is something I have done with my own
children from day one. Not only does it show
a certain respect for the giver’s efforts, it also
prolongs the special feeling of giving and
receiving.
Christmas memories are not just about
special times that have been. The holiday we
enjoy today is a combination of treasured
memories and the ones we create.
Other Views Too hot for this frostback
Politicians in Ontario have to be noticing
the way celebrities from the world of
entertainment are able to draw attention
to causes they take up and wondering how
they can cash in on it.
The entertainers getting serious are not
necessarily as far away as U.S. actor George
Clooney protesting against atrocities in Darfur
and talk show host Oprah Winfrey boosting
Barack Obama for president – it already is
happening on a smaller scale and with less
known personalities here.
In the latest example, dishwashers and other
low paid staff at a Toronto hotel last month
won pay raises up to 18 per cent over three
years and credited it partly to U.S. actor
Danny Glover.
Glover, Mel Gibson’s cop sidekick in the
Lethal Weapon movies, spoke at a rally in
support of the hotel staff and other poorly paid
workers in sports stadium concessions and all
four major daily newspapers in Toronto
reported it.
Three ran pictures of him at a microphone
under headlines such as “Actor goes to bat for
workers.” Newspapers do not run pictures of
ordinary union spokespersons seeking higher
wages.
Canadian character actor Eugene Levy, who
has a young relative who is autistic, held a
news conference here to ask for a national
strategy to help autistic children.
His plea appeared in several newspapers and
one ran a story and two pictures, more than
some actors get when they win an Oscar.
The papers had headlines such as
“Funnyman makes serious pitch” and it could
be asked whether they would have published
this plea for autism sufferers if a celebrity had
not made it.
Actress Bo Derek, noted for physical assets
in trivial movies decades ago and in one
described as a perfect 10 among women,
called at the legislature to denounce trafficking
in exotic animal parts.
Two papers reported her views, with
pictures, and one headlined it “the only time a
Queen’s Park meeting rated a 10.”
Daryl Hannah, another actress from the past,
helped launch a show here promoting energy
saving. Most of the space in one paper was a
picture of her waving, again raising doubt
whether it would have reported the event at all
if the actress had not been there.
Singer and Juno Award winner Sarah
Harmer was among residents of the scenic
Niagara Escarpment who opposed expansion
of a quarry there. A paper headlined its report
“Singer’s group rocks plans of gravel kings”
and began its story “Sarah Harmer won’t need
to sing the Escarpment Blues any time soon.”
It did not identify other opponents,
indicating readers would be more interested in
the entertainer involved. This was another
protest that had some success.
When four Toronto women raised money to
help cancer patients buy a drug the province
does not offer, news media wrote about actress
Cynthia Dale and three friends coming to the
rescue. Again it could be asked whether they
would have reported on it if a well-known
actress had not been a participant.
Actors held a news conference at the
legislature seeking help for the many
struggling members of their profession. They
sent well-known performers Fiona Reid and
Sonja Smits to speak, not the poor, mostly
young hopefuls who have to spend most of
their time waiting on tables – and news media
reported them.
Aboriginal leaders – to cite just one more
example – got huge space in papers merely by
asking Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio to
come and oppose a new diamond mine in
northern Ontario, after he made a movie
showing harm caused by the diamond trade in
Africa.
One criticism often made when entertainers
support political causes is they do not
influence people as much as their ability to get
their names in the media may suggest.
But the actors and singers are showing an
ability to inform the public about their causes
others do not have, which has to help them,
even if it does not always bring a happy
ending.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
Celebrities succeeding in politics
“Peace, peace is what I seek and public
calm, Endless extinction of unhappy hates.”
– Matthew Arnold
Final Thought