The Citizen, 1998-01-28, Page 5A Final Thought
Reach for the moon — even if you miss
you'll be among the stars.
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1998. PAGE 5.
What would you
come back as?
I believe in reincarnation.
I've had other lives.
I know. I have clues.
First of all, I'm exhausted.
Carol Siskind
Suppose there really is reincarnation. Life
after death. What would you like to come
back as? (Not that you'll be asked.)
It's a tough call. If you choose to make a
curtain call as another species you want to
make sure you opt for something near the top
of the food chain. Not much point coming
back as a butterball turkey or a veal calf.
But even the lords of nature have their
downsides. African lions stand a pretty good
chance of spending their declining years
padding around in a cement zoo cage —
providing the poachers don't get them first.
Majestic eagles look pretty good soaring
across the azure skies, but don't forget they
have to live with fleas, lice, and large
helpings of raw, frequently aged, fish.
It's a hard decision. You start out
fantasizing about coming back as something
dashing and romantic and superior ... then
you pause for a moment and start adding up
all of the drawbacks.
Most of us do. Not Malcolm Eccles.
Malcolm is — or rather, was — a British bloke
My Hungarian
pilgrimage
One of my ambitions has been to visit the
city of Budapest, the capital of Hungary, but I
have never seemed to be able to make it. By
the time I got finished my work in Europe each
year and hung around Switzerland for a while,
it was time to come back to Canada.
However, this year, given that I was working
over here for a protracted period of time and in
Central Europe at that, Budapest was finally in
the books. So it was that one day, I got on one
of the fast European express trains at Ostrava
and, after a change of trains at Brshetslav (you
try to pronounce it), I arrived at Keleti station
in downtown Budapest.
You may wonder why I was so anxious to
get to Budapest. I do not, as far as I know have
any Hungarian relatives. I do not even speak
Hungarian. It is just that, at the time of the
Hungarian uprising against the Communists in
1956, an uprising that was put down brutally
by the Russians, I was working in Vienna
helping to handle the many Hungarians who
had fled across the border and were being
given political asylum in Canada. I don't know
how many we handled but it was well up into
the thousands. I said then that some day I
would get to Budapest, visit the scene of the
fighting and pay my own silent tribute for
those who did not make it. So in 1997 I finally
did.
It was not that easy to get there. My
connecting train at Brshetslav was 70 minutes
late and I decided to take another train in about
an hour. I got on but just before we got to
Bratislava in Slovakia, the conductor told me
to change again in that city.
That sounded. strange and I asked another
conductor about that. His advice was to stay on
who never for a moment doubted what he
wanted to be reincarnated as in his Next Life.
What's more he pulled it off.
Malcolm passed away last February after a
complicated bout with bowel cancer, but his
friends hardly had time to grieve. He was
back in his Brixton kitchen with his wife
before the month was out.
Actually, Malcolm now resides
permanently on the kitchen window shelf in
his old Brixton home. Every morning before
breakfast, his widow Brenda will pick him up
bodily, turn him completely upside down,
and plop him back on the shelf.
Malcolm, you see, has come back as an
egg timer. Or rather Malcolm's particulars
have. Make that 'particulates'. Malcolm was
cremated at his own request and his ashes
were subsequently sealed in a glass egg timer
carefully hand-crafted to Malcolm's exacting
specifications.
"I can't boil a soft egg to save my life" the
widow Brenda explains. "Malcolm knew that
and he suggested that, after he passed on, I
should consider turning some of his ashes
into an egg-timer. That way he could help me
and it would be a nice way of remembering
him. That Malcolm. He had a good sense of
humour which he kept right to the end."
I guess he did. Quite a kidder, that
Malcolm. Clever, too. He's found a way to
live forever.
Or at least until the cat knocks him off the
shelf.
the train. I did and three hours later I got into
Keleti station in downtown Budapest.
I waited until the next day to have a look at
the city and I could see why people had been
urging me to go there. While there may not be
as many elegant buildings as, say, Vienna or
Prague, the Parliament buildings and the Royal
Palace are as outstanding as any I have seen
elsewhere. The view of the former is especially
outstanding when you can look at it from the
Buda side of the Danube River and which is
built on hills which are absent on the Pest side.
Eventually I got around to where the major
part of the fighting had taken place between
the Hungarians and the Russian tanks which
had been sent in to crush the uprising. It was
not a long battle since the Russians had
overwhelming superiority in weapons, but it
demonstrated for the first time to all the world
that the workers' paradises were not what they
were supposed to be.
My guide at the time was not much younger
than I so he was able to remember the details
of the fighting and share some of my interests
in the events. My mission was, as it were,
complete and I was able for the rest of my time
in the city to concentrate on less pressing
matters.
One little thing of interest. A great deal has
been written about the efforts of the Czech
gypsies to come to Canada as "political
refugees." Since Hungary has more gypsies
than the Czech Republic, why, I asked myself,
were the former not joining their Czech
cousins in coming to Canada? I think I found
the answer only a short while after entering the
country.
Hardly had the train crossed the border
between Slovakia and Hungary when I was
confronted in my compartment by two young
gypsies who wanted to sell me a leather jacket,
or shoes or pants. They were very persistent
and it was only after five minutes that I got rid
Malcolm's story reminds me of a couple of
Finlanders I knew back in Thunder Bay.
Einar and Charlie were brothers — ex-
lumberjacks who spent a lot of time sitting
around the Hoito restaurant drinking coffee,
swapping lies and arguing incessantly about
religion.
Einar was a strict Lutheran. but not
Charlie. Charlie was an atheist. An
unbeliever.
They would argue back and forth for hours.
Einar would talk about the Afterlife. Charlie
would reply the Finnish equivalent of "We
pass this way but once."
Einar would turn beet red, stomp his bush
boots and shake a bony finger at Charlie.
"You'll be sorry when you die," Einar would
tell him.
Sure enough, one day Charlie choked to
death on a fish bone. The night after his
funeral, Einar awoke from a deep sleep to
hear a familiar voice calling "Einar! Einar!"
"Ch-ch-charlie????" whispered Einar in
disbelief. "Where are you?"
"You'd never believe it, Einar" said the
voice. It's beautiful here...soft green
meadows...lois of food...and sex! Sex in the
morning, sex in the afternoon, sex in the
evening. Sex whenever I feel like it — and by
golly I feel like it all the time."
"Gosh — so that's what heaven is like," said
Einar.
"Who said anything about heaven," cried
Charlie. "I'm a rabbit in Australia."
of them.
At the station in Budapest there were
gypsies all over selling chocolate bars, candy,
fruits and vegetables. One old lady was selling
peppers at 10 o'clock in the evening. Perhaps
the Hungarian gypsies are too busy working to
worry about immigrating. Maybe there is a
lesson in all this for their Czech cousins.
Having, like the Czechs, seen the Russians
off in 1989, the Hungarians are very anxious to
throw their lot in with the West. They have
already voted to join NATO and are
negotiating to become a member of the
European Union. But while they have set their
sights on those goals, they are reminded that
becoming a market economy is not a bed of
roses. Right now they are having to contend
with inflation that is close to 20 per cent a
year, jobs are in short supply and more needs
to be' done to privatize the economy.
For those who, like myself, remember 1956
very vividly, history has come full circle.
Cruelly repressed 41 years ago, they are now
as free as any country in the vicinity.
For Canada there has been a bonus. The
15,000 Hungarians who made their home in
Canada have made a valuable contribution to
our mosaic. I think especially of Frank Felkai
in Toronto whom I handled in Vienna when he
was a teenager. He is now a respected and
successful lawyer with a QC to show for it.
Then there is Les Zoltai in London who
recently retired as head of the athletic
department at Fanshawe College.
For me it has been a pleasure to know them
and, above all, to know what brought them to
Canada.
The
Short
of it
y onn e Gropp
No education for
the terminally stupid
So, some may conclude after reading the
two stories, that ice-fishers have much more
common sense than snowmobilers.
While a newspaper article states that ice
fishers wait for at least 18 to 20 cm. of ice to
form on the lake before they venture out, it
appears that neither huge pressure cracks,
nor the sight of rescue crews recovering
frozen bodies from deep, icy waters, can
deter the more over-zealous trailblazers.
In just under a week four snowmobilers
perished on Lake Scugog, by Port Perry.
Two other riders died in separate accidents
in Northern Ontario. As victims of the first
two incidents were being recovered,
snowmobilers, to the dismay of rescuers,
continued to cruise past. Some just don't
seem to be getting the not so subtle hint —
carelessness kills.
Though lake running is less a concern in
this area, the lack of a good base for local
trail systems has many riders heading north.
I recall making this same pilgrimmage
many winters ago, and being the
unadventurous, albeit still living soul that I
am, was distraught that many of the trail
systems ran across lakes. Assurance that
these were perfectly safe and checked
regularly did little to alleviate my anxiety,
as I closed my eyes, held my breath and said
a prayer.
The recent accidents, however, were far
removed from any official trail, which when
you consider the money being spent to
establish thousands of miles of safe
highways in the snow, makes such accidents
all the more foolhardy.
And while it may seem that I am picking
on snowmobilers, I acknowledge that the
majority are responsible drivers who are as
puzzled by these problems as the rest of us.
A snowmobile federation spokesman noted
in the press that there is no excuse for the
recklessness.
One enthusiast suggested that perhaps it
was going to be necessary to find a way to
prohibit people from going on lakes, much
as highways are blocked when they are
considered unsafe.
But we all know how difficult it is to
regulate stupidity. There will always be
people who just don't believe that it can—
and it does— happen to them. The male risk
taker, 18-34, is the hardest group to educate,
according to the federation spokesperson,
who added that people continue to make the
wrong choices despite the evidence in front
of them.
Steps have been taken to try, however.
With the snowmobile's role changing over
the past decade, from a method of winter
transportation to a recreational vehicle, an
alcohol policy has become necessary. The
number of snowmobilers out for fun has
doubled in recent years, and as
Transportation Minister Tony Clement said,
"There's sometimes a bit of logical
disconnect that happens when people use
vehicles for fun." As a result 92
snowmobilers have lost their driver's
licenses this winter for being impaired.
The Ontario Federation of SnowmobiLe
Clubs, too, continues to do what it can,
having produced a workbook and video
aimed at getting its clubs to devise alcohol
management polices.
Unfortunately, the ignorant will continue
to ignore the laws, while the terminally
stupid will r' fuse to learn.
Arthur Black