HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-09-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1995. PAGE 5.
A cemetery???
A people place???
I'm reading this story in the local
newspaper about a guy named Greg Kett.
Greg is the manger of a brand new cemetery
that's opening up not far from where I live
and he's in the newspaper talking about his
plans for the marble orchard.
And he's quoted as saying "We're going to
try and make the cemetery as much an
active, people place as we can." Unquote.
Well, I laugh! I mean ... a cemetery??? A
people place??? I laugh ... and then I think
to myself: why not?
Cemeteries are a strange idea, when you
think about it. We set aside this swath of
prime land, often right in the center of where
we live ... and then, we plant people in it.
We don't allow corner stores or baseball
diamonds, or traffic intersections or condos.
We cut the grass and manicure the hedges
and allow the trees to grow as high as they
want.
When you think about it, we treat
cemeteries a lot more reverently than the rest
of the land where we live.
Part of it is out of respect for the departed
of course. We don't want people throwing
pop bottles or cigarette wrappers around.
But there's something else at work too.
There's an unspoken agreement that we will
shun the graveyard, detour around it in our
travels. Keep our voices down. Behave
ourselves.
On youth hostels
That last time I was in Toronto I was
asked by a foreign student where the youth
hostel was. He pointed out that the people he
had asked before had never heard of it; he
was beginning to think that such a thing did
not exist in Canada. I assured him that it did
and headed him in the right direction.
It subsequently occurred to me that there
might be a lot of young people who are not
aware of the organization and, if so, they are
missing a fine opportunity to meet a lot of
people their own age while they are
travelling. Though they are found in quite a
few cities in both North and South America,
the greatest concentration of them is in
Europe, which is not surprising since that is
where they originated.
The movement was founded by a German
schoolteacher, Richard Schirrmann, in
Altena, a small city to the south-east of the
Ruhr Valley. The year was 1910 and his idea
was to encourage more young people to get
outdoors and to travel, both of which he
reasoned would do them a lot of good.
It was not long before a number of them
were to be found in the German state
(province) of Westphalia; the idea was so
popular that is spread quickly from
Westphalia to other parts of Germany and
from there all over Europe.
It took 25 years for the idea to jump the
Atlantic and, although the popularity of the
youth hostel movement in North America
has never rivalled that of Europe, the hotels
are to be found in almost all cities of any
And that's too bad, in a way. Graveyards
are wonderful places. Peaceful, untroubled
healing oases in the beehives of busy-ness
we call civilization.
I think of Mount Pleasant in downtown
Toronto. Mount Pleasant is a huge cemetery
covering dozens of city blocks. Instead of
pavement, you have rolling acres of grass
and trees. And tombstones and mausoleums
and leafy, wooded bowers.
It is one of the loveliest places I know in
which to spend an hour or two in downtown
Toronto.
But people los-k at you oddly if they spot
you wandering around there.
What's he up to? What kind of a weirdo
would spend his spare time walking in a
cemetery?
I don't spend much time in Mount-
Pleasant, but I do hang out in a cemetery in
the small town where I live.
You read some wonderful stories in
marble and granite in my local cemetery.
Here is a moss-covered stone that tells me it
marks the place where Carrie McTavish lies.
Carries was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in
1896. She died in Fergus, Ontario in 1920.
Of what? Was she married? How did her
loved ones hear of her death?
Stories everywhere you look.
I used to walk my dog through the
cemetery and marvel at the tameness of the
squirrels there. They looked at Rufus, (who
weighs 70 pounds and doesn't look remotely
squirrel-like) as if he was just a larger
version of themselves. No fear, no skittering
palopo Canon
size.
Like all organizations there are changes,
but basically each hostel is in charge of
"hostel parents", who provide sleeping and
eating accommodation. Facilities will vary
from place to place but they tend to be rather
basic all over. In addition you are normally
limited to a stay of a few days. The cost for
each night's stay is minimal.
I still have my membership card on which
is stamped all the hostels at which I stayed
during my youth. Perhaps I can tell you of
the longest trip I made which, I hope, will
give you some idea of what to expect. I set
out from Basel, on the Swiss border with
Germany and France, and cycled along the
Rhine River. Strapped on my bicycle were a
basic wardrobe, a blanket, raincoat, and
some metal eating utensils, not to mention
the repair kit and a flag of origin.
I never knew what the youth hostel was
going to be like before I arrived. The most
spectacular was in a castle at
Ehrenbreitstein, overlooking the Rhine River
and the German city of Koblenz. Most of
them were considerably more ordinary, since
Germany was still in the process of
rebuilding itself after the war.
However, the real plus was the large
number of students I met from almost every
country in western Europe. Because of my
languages I was able to chat with many of
them: I had a Spanish student follow me all
over Holland because he was delighted to
find somebody with whom he could talk.
There was, in fact, seldom a day when I
didn't have somebody cycling along with
me. I even fell in love with a South African
nurse whom I met in an idyllic English mill
up on the nearest tree.
Fortunately, Rufus is, well, elderly, and
not particularly belligerent. But I wondered
why they weren't afraid of him.
Then I discovered a small sign on the
cemetery entrance. NO PETS ALLOWED.
So that was it. The squirrels had never
seen a dog.
Well, I understand the sign. People don't
want dogs peeing on the tombstones and
making messes. But it makes me sad too.
Banning pets just makes the cemeteries more
"unnatural". Less like everyday life.
I'd like it better if cemeteries were 'dog
places' as well as 'people places'. Besides,
my mom and dad are buried there, and I
know it wouldn't bother them to see Rufus
sniffing about.
As Greg Kett says in my newspaper, "If
the only people who come to our cemetery
are those who have family or friends buried
here, that's a limited number of people
making use of a very intensely developed
piece of property."
Maybe we need to re-examine our
attitudes to cemeteries.
Reminds me of the story about a man who
came to put flowers on the grave of his
departed wife. He noted an Oriental man
placing a bowl of rice on the grave of his
dear, departed.
"When do you expect your friend to come
and eat the rice?" he asked the Chinese man.
"Oh" replied the Oriental, "about the same
time your friend comes up to smell the
flowers."
at Warwick in England. We promised to
keep in touch but, like most youthful
romances, this one died a natural death.
By the time I was finished I had put on
well over 2,000 kilometres. I was in fine
shape for the hockey season that I was
looking forward to back in Switzerland but
the same day that I sold my bike to a bicycle
shop in Paris I met an RCAF officer on the
Place de la Concorde, who persuaded me to
work for two years as a NATO instructor in
the air training program being set up in
Canada.
My weeks of cycling from youth hostel to
youth hostel stood me in good stead when I
got to Canada. I waited at a relative's home
in Simcoe for a call from NATO which was
located at the old air base in London. The
call came but it was too late to catch the bus
and I was too poor to own a car. I talked one
of the neighbours into lending me his bike
and I cycled the 90 kilometres to the base at
Crumlin.
I arrived there looking pretty dirty and
dusty and the RCAF officer wasn't going to
let me in; he thought I was just kidding when
I told him what I had done and why I looked
that way. I explained that, even though it
was a chilly day, it wasn't too difficult
because of my conditioning in Europe.
The officer commanding was apparently
impressed; he confirmed my job on the spot
and then asked me how I was going to get
back. I replied that it would be the same way
I came. He said, "No, you're not," and
promptly laid on some transport for 'me and
the bike.
It is small wonder why the youth hostels
Continued on page 9
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Grapp
For some it passes
too soon
It's no secret how I feel about this time of
year.
The week before the kids go back to
school is, to me, the most depressing one of
the entire 52 that make up our year. The
sounds of summer fun have been silenced as
the pools are emptied and the ball diamonds
and soccer fields stand abandoned most
days. It is as if, with the arrival of Labour
Day, a switch has been flicked to lengthen
the nights and turn them cooler.
. Though I often rail against the passage of
time and preach about seizing the moment,
the only thought that prevails for me at this
point is to move on quickly. Let's get
through fall, sleep through winter, then hurry
spring until the spell of summer can woo us
once again. For this week, at least„ my
contentment comes in knowing that while I
must get through those other seasons first,
time does pass quickly.
To put it bluntly, this first week of
September, I can not quite convince myself
there is much to look forward to.
It was perhaps to brighten this mood that I
wanted to do something this past weekend
my family hasn't done in a while. The resort
town of Port Elgin, where we had a summer
retreat for some time, traditionally sets the
skies above Lake Huron ablaze with
wondrous colours on the Sunday evening of
the Labour Day weekend. Since we no
longer holiday there we've missed the annual
fireworks display but this year I decided to
return to tradition.
The time on the beach turned out to be an
enlightening experience in more ways than
one.' For 10 glorious minutes the crowd that
gathered on the sandy shore was treated to a
spectacular show of light and sound, a
display that widened eyes, that sparked oohs,
ahhs and applause.
As I looked on at the explosion of lights
and listened to my kids' comments, I was
suddenly reminded of a time over a decade
ago. For some inexplicable reason that year,
while on this same beach, watching the same
event, I had been struck by a feeling so
intense, so disturbing that it brought me to
tears. The feeling that overtook me, came
without warning and without logic. I
believed with a certainty the, and for several
hours following that I would not be here the
next year. No amount of common sense
could appease me.
Fortunately, my psychic ability is
obviously lacking because I have been
blessed with many more such summers'
endings since that peculiar night. But as I
thought back on it this past weekend, it made
me realize how selfish it is of me to wish the
time away. There are those for whom the
knowledge that this summer will be the last
is a reality. They, I'm sure will not be
wishing the winter away, but instead will be
asking that the precious days move more
slowly.
I'm grateful that I was given an experience
to help me remember that time is a
commodity too rare to frivolously wish it
away. That summer is always over too soon
is all the more reason to rejoice in the many
long, long months of winter ahead and
remember that for some they, too, will pass
too quickly.
Arthur Black
International Scene