HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-05-27, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 27,1992. PAGE 5.
Are Good
Samaritans
an endangered
species?
“Life” Woody Allen once wrote, “is
divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
A touch pessimistic, even for New York's
nabob of neurosis, but some days such an
observation seems distressingly close to the
truth. Bandits in pin stripes hijacking the
Dow Jones. Neo nazis pushing back
manhole covers and crawling out of the
sewers of Europe and Asia. And south
central L.A. Foreign factory ships calmly
stripmining the Grand Banks fish stocks.
And over it all, the moist palms and false
smiles of politicians, promising, murmuring,
working the crowd and passing oceans of
oral gas. Some days you wake up, look
around and wonder what ever happened to
the good guys. You wonder if Good
Samaritans should be added to the
Endangered Species list.
Endangered, perhaps but not extinct. A
cursory poke into a thicket of weekend
newspapers flushed three examples of the
species. It made me feel good to learn about
them. Maybe it'll work for you too.
First, there's Thomas Walker. Mister
International Scene
By Ray mond Canon s '■
"Situation
hopeless,
but not
serious"
It has been so many centuries since I was a
child that I have forgotten what people used
at that time to scare children into better
behaviour. I think one might have been the
fact that Santa Claus would not bring us the
required number of presents while another
might have been God condemning us to hell
if our behaviour didn't improve. I'm not sure
how effective any of those were. I grew up
during the Depression and World War II
when Santa Claus was not too generous to
begin with while my limited acquaintance
with God leads me to the belief that he is a
loving, not a cruel person.
However, the trend continues and I would
look at some of the things that are frequently
used to frighten people with, I suspect, about
the same effect. I'm not sure what motivates
people to practice such policies but, by the
time I am finished this article, some of my
more perceptive readers may come up with a
few motives.
One that has grown popular over the years
is the claim that, if Canada does not follow
the solutions proposed by the speaker or
writer, we will become a “banana republic.”
I would suspect that the vast majority of any
audience and probably most speakers have
never been to a so-called “banana republic”
\
Walker's a retired police officer who’s
developed the hobby of flying helium
balloons from his backyard in Baltimore.
Balloons ... with money attached to them -
sometimes a sawbuck sometimes a 50 dollar
bill. There's a little prayer attached as well,
and Mister Walker's address and phone
number. As for delivery, Mister Walker says
he leaves that up to God. “I was upset that
there were a lot of children killed last year”
says Mister Walker. I wanted to send
something cheerful.”
Then there's Shauneen McKay from the
tiny town of Beeton, Ontario. Beeton's in
Tecumseth Township. You need to know
that so you can understand how Shauneen
McKay became known as the Tree Lady of
Tecumseth. Shauneen's like a lot of us, -
constantly reminded and eternally bummed
out by the way we two-legged tenants
mistreat this planet. She's heard all about the
clear cuts in B.C., the burning rainforest in
Brazil, the budworm spraying in New
Brunswick and the acid rain everywhere.
Instead of wallowing in guilt, Shauneen
McKay chose to act. “I decided I might not
be able to fix the rain forests, but I could
sure do something about Tecumseth
Township.”
And she did. McKay got the local
horticultural society mobilized. They blitzed
for donations, and pretty soon they had
enough to buy a big batch of ash, maple,
linden and birch trees - all bargain priced
because they were seconds. Come the first
planting day McKay and her colleagues
and thus have no real idea of what they are
talking about. It probably is not even a
republic but no matter, it undoubtedly has a
population whose average education is rock
bottom next to nothing in the way of a health
care system, a few very rich people and a
great many very poor ones, a government
whose level of corruption is endemic. By
now you get the picture and if you think for
one minute that Canadians are stupid enough
politically or uneducated enough academi
cally to get anywhere in this vicinity, you
should probably be exiled to live in Somalia.
The next time you hear this expression, you
can safely discount just about everything the
speaker says.
Now that I have warmed up to the subject,
let's look at another - the “damned
foreigners” syndrome. When in doubt you
can always blame it on the foreigners who
(choose one are: (1) undercutting all our
hardworking manufacturers (2) practicing
strange religious cults (3) putting Canadians
out of work (4) too lazy to work (5) put in
your favourite one. Most of the time the
same foreigners are not here to defend
themselves from such charges but, when
they are, they are obviously in the wrong. To
cite one example, I read recently that the
British recently discovered that the student
with the highest marks ever in mathematics
was not a Brit after all but a Bangladeshi,
from one of those “banana republics.”
We should learn something from history.
During the Second World War it was the
Germans and the Japanese and, to a lesser
extent, the Italians who were the butt of all
our jokes. The valianet Chinese and the
Russians were our friends and allies. Times
change and so it came to pass that the same
Chinese and Russians were the ogres and
were used to scare us into arming to the
found 30 volunteers - housewives, seniors
and kids from the high school - leaning on
shovels, waiting for instructions.
Shauneen McKay and friends have done
such a good job of greening up the outskirts
of Beeton that other towns and their councils
are following suit. And why not? Trees arc
the red corpuscles of earthly life. They filter
junk out of the air and put oxygen back in.
They control soil erosion, raise water tables,
provide shelter for animals, windbreaks for
drivers, food for countless species of wild
life ...
Oh yes, and trees are easy on the eyes too.
My last Good Samaritan of the week?
Well, I can't introduce you because I don't
know the Samaritan's name. All I know is
for the past month or so, somebody has been
going up to a hydro pole at the comer of
Islington Avenue and Elmhurst Drive in the
north end of Toronto and hanging shopping
bags full of groceries on it. Good stuff -
eggs, fish sticks, butter, cheese. Nobody ever
sees whoever leaves it there.
Don't know who the phantom grocer's
trying to reach. Perhaps the same people
Thomas Walker is trying to air express his
money to. The people who'll benefit most
from Shauneen McKay and her tree planting
aren't even bom yet. Those trees won't be
done growing till long after Shauneen and
you and I are planted ourselves.
Thomas Walker, Shauneen McKay and the
Phantom Grocer aren't trying to save the
world. They're just tidying up their comer of
it.
teeth. Now we are sending food parcels to
what remains of the Soviet Union while our
government sends high powered trade
commissions to China to develop stronger
ties with them. This all leads to a question
we should ask. When are the people of other
nations ogres and when are they the nice
guys? Why and when are they used to scare
us on some occasions and then the object of
our concern and affection? Is the concept of
the bogey man” so rooted in our psyche that
we cannot get rid of it and call it up every
time we can't handle a situation?
The ogre of the 1990's has, of course, been
good old Saddam Hussein although he is not
in the news much lately. Although the
western nations were responsible for arming
him to the teeth and giving him many of the
arms on terms of credit that you and I can
only drool over, with one swoop he became
an overnight ogre. We were told over and
over again just how horrible he was, what he
would do if left unchecked and how he
definitely had to be stopped. I have no
argument with the threat he posed but why
was he so desirable for over a decade, yet
suddenly every propaganda ploy known to
the western world was turned on? A
favourite comparison of the time was Hitler
and Saddam. Other than the fact that neither
one was very good at military strategy, this
comparison is somewhat weak. In my book
Saddam does not even come close.
Perhaps in this age of superbowls, super
everything else, we have to have super
expressions to get through to people. In so
doing we have a far less clear picture of
reality as it exists. Perhaps there is
something to be said for the Austrian general
who, reporting on the situation of his
division at the Russian front, remarked that
“the situation is hopeless but not serious.”
TheShort
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
"Mommy stuff
and martyrdom
Call it reverse chauvinism but I'm going
to go out on a limb here and say that I really
think the pressures facing working mothers
are greater than those facing working
fathers.
Now, let me defend myself before you
react. Today's father, generally, is
undeniably a help around the house.
Certainly more so than even just a
generation ago. My mother worked full-time
because my father had started a new
business and they needed the extra income.
But, she also did the cleaning, washing and
cooking. Not only would my father not have
considered getting up after supper to help
with dishes, she wouldn't have expected it.
(Boy, is she getting him back since they
retired and she found out men can actually
leam how to do these things)
The big problem with being a working
mother is that despite the fact men contribute
more to housework now, they still generally
don't worry about or deal with typical
"mommy stuff'.
"Mommy stuff" is all those
organizational and administrative aspects of
running a household - all those tiny, but
time-consuming hassles that dads tend to
overlook. Seldom does Dad worry himself
with babysitters, what activities the kids
have after school and how are they going to
get to them, is there a car available to get
everyone where they have to go and what
can we possibly eat for supper that is going
to accommodate all the schedules.
It has been realized by professional
therapists that working mothers are under a
good deal of stress and face unique
challenges, because regardless of the help
they get, they are still pulled in several
directions.
And it's quite likely our own fault!
It all comes down to guilt. Guilt, you see,
is the big thing that makes this so difficult.
This generation of mothers was raised by
guilt. Guilt was the formula used by our
mothers to get things done and its results are
imbedded in us for keeps.
The kingdom of martyrdom is ours.
I have only ever met a handful of women
with the capability to block out what needs
to be done and guiltlessly set it aside to
enjoy some time to themself. While men
seem to have the knack of putting pressing
things on the back burner to take a five
minute "power nap" women put it to the
back of their mind where it keeps pushing its
way forward. We want to be super mom, we
want to be everything to all people. When it
can't be accomplished we suffer and if we do
achieve it it is not without a minimal amount
of aggravation, at best.
I thought of this the other day after
something a colleague said, one who has
managed to eliminate guilt from her life.
While I was remarking on how desperately I
needed a few minutes to myself, she pointed
out that there is only one person who can
and will give them to me. When things get
too much, when demands and pressures just
seem to be compounding, rather than try to
get them all done when you know you can't,
you are better to sit down and relax for a
while with a glass of wine or a good book.
Sure! Everybody knows that "me time " is
imperative to one's sanity, but how do you
keep guilt out of it? My body may sit, but
my head won't stop!
Anyway, the other day, I decided I really
was going to give this a try. So I got home,
po;ired myself a cold drink and sat down to
relax. It wasn't easy. You can’t imagine the
guilt J experienced when my husband pulled
in with a truckful of wood to unload.
Let me tell you I felt really bad about not
helping. Maybe a stronger drink would fix
that.