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The Citizen, 1999-11-10, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1999. PAGE 5. W Arthur Black Life on permanent standby So where have you been in the last l I years? It's a funny question. Your first instinct is to say oh. I dunno, let’s see. um ... Hamilton ... and last summer I went up north to the cottage ... Then you start to think: I I years ... that's all the way back to 1988. And when you start really listing all the places you've been, you realize why they call Canucks the most restless people in the world. Take me. In the last I ] years I have been to Albuquerque and Abbotsford, Whitehorse and Tuscany; Seattle. Regina, Quebec City. Fort MacMurray, Winnipeg, Santa Fe, Watrous, Geneva, Thunder Bay, St. John. St. John’s, and Fort St. John. I’d have some serious frequent flyer air miles if I hadn’t blown them all on that trip to Italy. Point is. I've been around in the past I l years. Not like Sir Alfred. For the past I I years. Sir Alfred has been to ... Charles de Gaulle airport. That’s it. Sir Alfred has spent more than a decade sleeping on passenger lounge couches and eating fast food at Paris’ main airport. For l l years he’s listened to flight announcements, squinted under fluorescent lights and lugged all his worldly possessions around with him in a borrowed baggage cart. There is. as you may have suspected, a story behind all this. It started, as near as anyone can International Scene By Raymond Canon Dangers of highway driving The recent rash of accidents, many of them fatal, on the London to Windsor stretch of Hwy. 401 as well as elsewhere along the road, makes me wonder just how many of them could have been avoided by sensible driving. By sensible 1 do not mean slow but rather the ability to take into consideration the conditions of the road, the traffic flow and the weather conditions of the time. It goes without saying that, unless you can do this competently, you should not be on the four-lane highways. I calculated once that I have put on about 150,000 kms. of driving on similar European highways, about half of that on the famous German Autobahnen where there is no posted speed limit except in special areas. Since it is nothing to see cars pass you at speeds up to and exceeding 200 kms. an hour, you have to be constantly alert. I think that most of my readers who have experienced European highways would agree with me that the tempo is faster there than in Ontario. I have learned a lot during such trips. The first is to keep a constant look in the rear-view mirror. You have no idea how fast a car doing 2(X) kms. can come from nowhere to be right tell, when a chap named Mehran Karimi Nasseri, (Sir Alfred's real moniker) caught a flight oi.t of Tehran, one step ahead of a vengeful government. He was heading for Paris by a roundabout route, touching down first at Amsterdam, then Berlin, and finally Charles de Gaulle International. Everything was going swell until the customs agent looked up at Nasseri and said “Votre passeport, s’il vous plait.” The guy didn’t have one. Neither did he have a birth certificate, a driver’s licence, or even a library card. The customs agent said the French equivalent of, “Sorry, Jack, you're not coming in here." So Nasseri trudged back up the ramp to the main airport holding tank' and took a seat. That was in 1988. He’s been there ever since. His big Charlie Chaplin eyes, walrus moustache and regal demeanour inspired airport workers to dub him Sir Alfred, and, as they learned his story, to eventually take pity on him. They started dropping off free coffee. A croissant from time to time. A baggage handler slipped a spare key to Nasseri. enabling him to nip into the staff washroom for a quick shave and a shower. Flight attendants made a point of dropping oft newspapers and magazines whenever they passed by. “An informal network of supporters grew up around him," says Phillippe Bargain, the chief of medical services at Charles de. Gaulle Airport. “Some people gave him books, and I brought him a radio so he could follow the news.” Nasseri had it about as cushy as it can get for on your tail. The average speed can be about 140 kms. so you have to be exceptionally alert and constantly watch the traffic patterns unfolding ip front of you Things can happen in a split second and, if you are not looking out, it may be your life on the line. As if that was not enough, try driving through the Alpine passes. For me the most challenging ones are the Grimsel and the Nufenen in central Switzerland. The speeds may not be nearly as fast, (the scenery is fantastic if you have time for it) but the necessity of watching the road unfold is just as vital. Are you ready, for example, to change gears suddenly at any given switch- back? Furthermore, there is certainly no place for cellular phones at such high speeds or on such tortuous roads While the majonty of the drivers on the four-line highways in Europe are competent enough to handle the roads, I sometimes wonder about drivers on the 400 series in Ontario. You have to allow for a number of idiots on the road but when the number of such drivers reaches a certain level, you are just asking for accidents. In Italy there are millions of cellular phones and they are being used increasingly on the autostrade (four-lane highways). The result? A horrible accident rate, one of the highest in Europe. Until last year I regularly used 401 east from a terminal Terminal resident, but the one thing he didn't have was ... permission to leave. Iran wouldn't take him back. The British refused him sanctuary. Germany, the Netherlands, Austria - all refused to grant him refugee status - or even travel documents. Nasseri was stuck on standby. Apparently forever. Until last month. The French government, possibly embarrassed and certainly under pressure from the media coverage Nasseri was generating, relented and granted the man a French residence card. That means that after 11 years, Nasseri can now go through customs, catch the number 11 downtown bus ... and start a new life. You have to wonder about the perversity of a bureaucracy that would stonewall a man for more than a decade, then shrug, stamp a piece of paper and waive him through. The irony is, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, aka Sir Alfred, has accepted the ticket to freedom, but declined the offer to leave the airport. At least for now. “I don't really know what I'll be doing,” says Nasseri, “but what is certain is that I’m now free to come and go as I please.” But will he? 1 keep thinking about Aunt Margaret’s canary. I came to her house once for lunch and noticed the canary’s cage door, wide open. Quick as a wink, I jumped up and slammed it shut before the bird got out. Aunt Margaret laughed. “You don’t have to worry about Tweetie” she said. “He’s been in that cage so long he’s terrified to leave.” Fly, Sir Alfred, fly. Before it’s too late. London but I found too many drivers busy on cellular phones, weaving in and out or simply not paying attention. Add to that the trucks that go over the speed limit, or insist on tail-gating and, regardless of the condition of the road, there are going to be accidents. I finally had enough of sloppy driving on such a large scale and switched over to Hwys. 2 and 3 where there is very little traffic in either direction. I breathe a lot more easily. I also get home safely, at least so far. I remember driving with one of my sons to Chicago. The road south of the city had four lanes and the two right hand ones were for trucks only, the other two were for cars. Mmd you, the interchange on which I had to exit was on the right and I had to cut through the two lanes of trucks. My son just closed his eyes and prayed. With all the trucking due to NAFTA, we may end up having to build lanes just for them. In the meantime, take a page from the book of a seasoned European driver. Obey a few common sense rules and your chances of getting from point A to point B in one piece and alive are much greater. Oh yes, and never, never forget to do up your seat belt. If I remember correctly, most of the people who died on 401 were not wearing them. Only 20 per cent do in Italy. Couldn't be bothered, I guess. What, after all, could happen to them? Well, it did there too! Remember them Remember. Born in the mid-1950s the most vivid images of war for me were those of Vietnam seen daily and in colour on television and in newspapers. It instilled in me a passionate pacifism. I am saddened by a world in which peace and freedom exact such a price. When 1 think of Vietnam my mind becomes a gallery of graphic pictures. I will remember because 1 cannot forget. Nov. 11 we are asked to remember the Canadian veterans, who sacrificed home and family, and in many cases their lives during the world wars and the Korean War. The integrity and pride that prompted them to enlist, touched at times by naivety, a misplaced sense of daring, are not always understood. I recognize that what they gave has allowed me the life I enjoy. This is knowledge I readily accept and understand. But the actual cost is something people such as myself can only imagine. There is no one in my life who can make the images real, whose eyes reflect the memory of tragedy, hardship and sorrow No family member lost, no relative sharing an account of what it was like to leave home so far behind, to encounter unknown dangers. . And so from the days of my youth, when as school children we gathered for the Remembrance Day service, my honouring of thes£ individuals has been anonymous. It has too been general. 1 remember the many, but 1 do not see their faces, I do not hear their voices, 1 do not know their story. And so this year, we asked for pictures of war veterans from this area, included with some history and a brief account of their service, for this issue of The Citizen. In addition to familiarizing us with these brave people, it has been a poignant exercise. Seeing the faces, speaking to their loved ones, gives heart to ritual. These were real people — mothers, sons, fathers, brothers. There is the boyish faced 2()-year-old who writes ingenuously to his sister, “... things are perfect with me at present and if it is within my power, things are going to stay that way.” He was killed soon after. There is his mother. The baby she loved, the handsome young man he became now lost to her. With strength and courage 1 cannot begin to imagine, she writes, “In that bright eternal city, where ho tears e're dim the eye, in the home of many mansions, we will meet him by and by.” There is the young wife who learns of the death of her dashing husband during D-Day, leaving her with seven small children. There are the two brothers spending Christmas on the front. The soldier wounded then returned to active duty only to be shot again. The young man drowned in the Irish Sea. Each picture, their stories, brought these people to life, gave purpose again to what they had set out to achieve. My mental gallery now contains not just portraits of war, but of some very real people. This Nov. 11, those I remember are no longer anonymous. They have been given life by the loved ones who shared their story with us. I will remember them, because I cannot forget.