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The Citizen, 1998-09-23, Page 5The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp A Final Thought The thing that keeps your feet on the ground is the responsibility placed on your shoulders. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1998. PAGE 5. Arthur Black No place like home ,What an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home, and then you expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile attempt to recapture the comforts that you wouldn't have lost if you hadn't left home in the first place. Bill Bryson Mister Bryson is absolutely correct. I just wish I'd read and heeded his observation years ago. But, n000000000000000000 — I had to travel several hundred thousand miles through a couple of dozen countries and more hostile customs inspectors than I care to recall, all to learn one simple, salient truth: There really is no place like home. I know. I've looked. I've lived on the East Coast and the West Coast, I've spent time in the Arctic and alorig the Gulf of Mexico. I've visited South America, North Africa, East Anglia and the West Edmonton Mall. I've been chased by bulls in Spain and gored by a bout of food poisoning in squeaky-clean Copenhagen. I've poked info three of the four corners of the world and I've sailed four of the seven seas (usually with my head over the rail) — and after all that, I've learned just one small but significant fact. All things considered, I'd rather stay in my own backyard. It's not that tm lazy. (Okay, it's not just that I'm lazy) — it's that I'm tired of being lied to! Nobody ever tells you the truth about Immigrating to Canada It has come as no surprise to me in the Czech Republic that people ask me how they can immigrate to Canada. These are not gypsies, by the way; but Czechs who have qualifications that could well be of use in the Canadian economy. They also ask me how I got in as well as many other questions; the whole thing almost adds up to an unofficial consular service. I want to avoid this because I have no official capacity in the eyes of the Canadian government in such matters. The Canadian embassy in Prague is very helpful in my work but even they send off would-be immigrants to our embassy in Vienna. One mistake that these inquirers make is that they assume that there is one general rule which applies to all potential immigrants but, in actuality, people come for a variety of reasons. They may be bonafide refugees, or just joining members of the family already there or because there is a demand for their talents. They may also be desirous of setting up a business. At any rate, I soon tell them that, while Canada has lots of space, and needs talented workers, it is simply not a matter of declaring oneself ready to immigrate and setting out forToronto. By the same token, Canadians tend to lump going to other countries. To read the travel section of any newspaper you'd think vacations away from home were just one continuous orgasmic experience. Everybody loves Canadians! The sun never stops shining! The food is wonderful and the souvenirs are dirt-cheap art treasures your friends and family back home will adore. The tourist brochures are even worse. There must be a special hot tub in Hell waiting for the folks who turn out travel brochures. You know what I mean — the full-colour glossies that burble on endlessly about the joys that await you on this, your first visit to Outer Baldonia. As a public service I hereby reproduce one such brochure, complete with running translation of what it's really saying Your trip to Outer Baldonia will be the thrill of your life! You'll be lucky to come back with your wallet and a pair of pants. Enjoy all the amenities! You expected a bed as well? of your airy no air-conditioning hotel suite one room big enough to house a flock of chickens — as it did up until your aftival which is off the beaten path you need Tonto to find this place but conveniently located a short coach ride bring bus fare — and a canteen from the bustling metropolis slum of hostile locals of beautiful downtown Skrag. Your quaint hopelessly run-down surroundings are spacious no furniture to speak of and plush tip the bell boy big time if you want a pillow. In your hotel restaurant two trestle tables behind the dumpster happy, carefree natives surly, indolent out-patients from the Outer Baldonian Drug ReHab Program will inform you providing you are fluent in Baldonian as to the delicious specials of the day hot dog as all immigrants into the same category. How many times have you heard general statements about immigration to Canada, as if any shortcomings were shared by all and sundry. You really have to be very careful not to generalize in this regard. This all came very forcefully to me back in the 1950s. Although I had lived for a while in Canada before, I was doing well in Europe and was not really planning to come back. All that changed in Paris, France. I had been cycling around Europe that summer and was heading back to Switzerland where I had a job as a playing coach for a hockey team in canton Bern and a good job offer besides. My languages were starting to pay dividends and I was looking forward to both the hockey and the work. However, I met an RCAF officer on a street in Paris. We were both trying to cross the Place de la Concorde and got into a conversation. He was looking for people to work in training NATO aircrew in Canada and, on hearing about my flying experience, decided that I would make a good instructor. He told me that I did riot have to be a Canadian; I could work for two years and then go back to Switzerland to work and play hockey. In retrospect he must have been very persuasive. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Even while I was with the RCAF, job offers started to show up. I ended up staying, became a Canadian citizen and in three years was working for the diplomatic service. My well as the local delicacies cold dog. The tropical atmosphere it rains so much your toes will grow webs gives way in the summer to endless days of sun-drenched bliss., Outer Baldonia is wracked by drought each summer during which the rivers dry up, the smell of decaying marline life pervades the air, and a glass of milky water will cost you five bucks. American. Outer Baldonia is steeped in history nothing has happened here since the Rat Catchers Revolt of 1276 and world- renowned as the playground of the .rich and famous Eddie Shack spent 10 days here in the late '70s. So dare to be different what the hell, ignore your common sense and the advice of your lawyer not to mention the Canadian Embassy and book a holiday through our friendly operators shysters are standing by eager to take your Visa number and use it for a cocaine buy. Tell the operator you want the Outer Baldonian Special Package, including all the amenities free shower cap as well as limousine service direct from the airport a windsock in a cow pasture to our aristocratic renovations start next year hotel lobby. Simply whistle for 'Pepe' your personal driver flag down the yellow school bus and shout "Hotel!" in the driver's good ear. If Pepe isn't too snapped on mescal he should have you in the lobby before the evening curfew. We at the Outer Baldonian Five Star Hilton Stilton look forward to the opportunity of serving you we're so desperate even the Canadian loonie looks good. Don't delay -- call today what did you say your Visa Card number was again? first job abroad was in Vienna where I handled thousands of Hungarian refugees fleeing the revolution in their country in 1956. How different their reason for coming to Canada was from mine! Yet we were all, in the strict sense of the word, immigrants. It was generally agreed that my getting into Canada was much easier than theirs and not nearly as painful. Most of them spoke English poorly or not at all. Would you believe that I still see some of these people after all these years. I actually taught one; he came up to me after the first class and said, "You are the person who handled me and my parents in Vienna." We sometimes talk about our immigration and agree that, having come from another country gives you a different point of view than if you were born here. I think it also helps a great deal to appreciate what Canada has to offer. Perhaps my Czech friends sense that and hence the desire to try their luck here. However, because of the gypsy problem last year they now have to obtain visas, which makes it all the harder. How easy it was for me compared to them! Adding to the tangle For as long as time remembers the space between young and old has seemed on occasion impassable, the clear path to understanding each other, cluttered by the profusion of tangled views and opinions. I recall a friend of mine some years ago remarking on how difficult it was going to be for our children to rebel. "We've done everything. They're going to have to go a long way to shock this generation." Valid argument I thought then. I have since discovered, however, that when it comes to knowing how to get to parents the ingenuity of adolescents will usually shine through. And while I do suspect that parents of teenagers in the 1960s were the first to experience almost en masse the peculiarities. unique to exuberant youth, today's kids certainly have some idiosyncracies of their own. Case in point — my husband and I recently attended a concert at a college with our oldest daughter and her boyfriend. Here, I had the opportunity to see firsthand what I've been hearing my teens talk about. I stood at the threshold of the mosh pit and lived to tell about it. And, let me just say, if music truly does have, as William Congreve stated, "charms to soothe the savage breast", the spell's broken in the pit. For those of you who don't know, this charming moniker describes the area that our parents would have referred to as the dance floor. While Mom and Dad's music compelled them to sashay over and trip the light fantastic, the spot by the stage is reserved these days for something that more resembles a pinball game. People jump around, bounce off of and against each other. They fall from the stage, hopefully into waiting arms and are passed around overhead. Surrounding this gong show were those experiencing other physical reactions, the lip-locked couples who, for some reason, find this aggression around them an aphrodisiac. I found none of this shocking. Instead, I felt the same type of amusement one experiences watching the antics of, oh, perhaps a group of high-spirited chimps. Cute, but if they only knew how silly they look. Understand, my mocking is good-natured, because, I know the sideshow works both ways, and right now that puts me in the middle. For example, while I admit frustration that none of these young people were actually listening to the music, my parents and my kids, are befuddled that as a teen I really listened to the music. Going to 'dances' in the late '60s meant sitting on the floor, barely moving, staring at the band. Before that phase the dancing we did was also beyond adult comprehension and now causes slack-jawed stupefaction in the young. The frug, the monkey, the swim, were silly names for silly actions that satisfied us, probably because our parents thought we had lost all reason, they all control. And isn't it ironic that parents who danced cheek-to-cheek, considered it more evil, more sexual, the further apart couples got? While embracing to the waltz was tame, the uninhibited Charleston and jitterbug for example, had the ability to terrify. Music does have charms to soothe. But I think it will always be one of the tangled views blocking the path of understanding. International Scene