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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-02-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002. PAGE 5. Other Views In praise of Bed & Breakfasts Have I mentioned my aversion to Bed and Breakfasts? Nothing rational. The accommodations at most B&Bs are infinitely superior to what you get at your average Super 88 or Holiday Inn. God knows the meals (albeit only breakfast) are invariably better than the India rubber omelets and cardboard fruit plates you get in most hotels. It's not the board or bed that puts me off B&Bs. It's the...forced camaraderie. I am not, by nature, a joyous morning person. Given my druthers, I would grumble and gripe at that miserable sonuvagun who lives in my bathroom mirror until at leaSt my second cup of morning coffee. Nothing, for me, is more trying than to attempt to act like a civilized human before, say, 11 a.m. And yet...and yet. Consider my predicament. I am in Calgary on a nippy December evening to assist in a public reading of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The group organizing the event has put me up in a Bed and Breakfast 20 minutes from downtown. My flight is late, thanks to intensified security at my check-in in Vancouver (And a good thing too — an 80-year-old grandmother in front of me almost got on the plane with a pair of toenail clippers in her vanity bag). At any rate, my taxi lets me off at the B&B at close to midnight. Will anyone be up? Will I have to knock? As it turns out, no. The door opens ere I press the buzzer. I stare into the flinty eyes of a man with a pistol on his belt. Behind him, another man, also packing hip heat. "Helluva security system you've got here," I murmur nervously, suppressing an urge to drop to my knees, sob and throw my arms in the air. The first time I ever had to drink beer out of sheer necessity, was when I was working in the Middle East. Baghdad to be more specific. Given the choices of what liquids I had to have with my meals, beer seemed to be a runaway winner. However, my introduction to beer came some years earlier and in an unexpected way. I had just sat down in a restaurant in Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps and was looking at the menu when the waitress came over and asked whether I would mind having some company. My first question was, "Why me?", but a glance around the restaurant revealed I was the only customer. She pointed to a man standing near the door and said he was a bus driver who had just driven a load of underprivileged children all the way from Berlin and was in need of some relaxation. Never having met a bus driver from Berlin, I said, "Why not?" In a few minutes we were chatting amicably together. When it came time to order, he said, "Let me buy you a drink." I didn't think too much of it at the time, that is, not until I found a big stein of beer sitting in front of me. Not being a beer drinker, I was taken aback. Not wanting to be rude, however, and refuSe it, I decided that it would have to be taken slowly with my meal. It was — very slowly — but at least he didn't ask me to match beer for beer with him. It was, coincidentally, shortly afterwards, that I made the acquaintance of a master brewer. I told him jokingly of my experience and he replied that I should know that beer was one of mankind's oldest foods still in use. Arthur Black Turns out they're Mounties. I ask them if they've perhaps mistaken me for my less fortunate cousin, Conrad, but it turns out their presence has nothing to do with me. They're on 24-hour guard duty, watching over another guest at the Bed and Breakfast. "Who is it?" I ask. "Dick Cheney? Ralph Klein? Madonna?" "It's Doctor Sima Samar", the owner of the B&B tells me. And in response to my blank stare, explains that Doc-tor Simar is the just- named deputy prime minister of Afghanistan. Oh, yeah. That Doctor Sima Samar. And she's sleeping across the hall from me in a Bed and Breakfast in Calgary. Which is as close as I'll ever get to (you'll excuse the theological cross-dressing) a saint- in-the-making. Doctor Samar is on the cusp of what will surely be the most important assignment of her life - to cobble that sad, cripple-backed, punched-up and beaten down piece of earthly real estate known as Afghanistan — back together again. And she just might pull it off. Already Doctor Samar has accomplished more than any 10 people I know, against unimaginable odds. Afghanistan has been at war for - what? A quarter of a century? More than half• the doctor's life. And for all of her adult years, Doctor Samar has been doing everything she could to alleviate the ravages of war on her fellow Afghanis. Especially the female ones. Raymond Canon The International Scene I digested his information and, although today I am still not a dedicated beer drinker, I enjoy the odd one, and I was thus able to enjoy the fine Czech beers when I worked in that country. It may surprise you, as it did me, to learn that the history of beer goes back well over 3,000 years. It is mentioned in the legal code of King Hammurabi of Sumeria in 1720 BC. It was consumed by all levels of Sumerian society; their version of a pub was ordered to keep strict rules. If they overcharged, the penalty to the owner was death by drowning. I guess we have mellowed somewhat since then. One beer expert claims that the reason for growing cereal crops then was to make beer, not bread. Many of these early cereals were not really suited for baking bread but could easily be turned into beer. It is suggested that beer emerged when Sumerians, for one, tried to make barley edible by mixing it with water and fruit. What they got was thick beer but it was just as nutritious as bread. One picture of the Queen of Ur, said to date back to 2600 BC, showed her drinking beer through a straw. Beer may not have been the Under the Taliban, women were slaves — school children, even worse. Canadian schoolkids take it as a matter of course that they will have computer labs, gym equipment, text books. Schools in Afghanistan are lucky to have blackboards or chalk. Under the Taliban, girls didn't get to go to school at all. Doctor Samar opened schools for rural Afghani children. The Taliban closed them. She opened non-profit hospitals and clinics. The Taliban closed them too. But Doctor Samar wouldn't quit. Finally, the Taliban decreed that the schools could re-open - provided • no girls were educated beyond Grade 6. "Fine," said Doctor Samar. She then reclassified the grading system. Grade Twelve was re-named Grade 6. She's paid her dues. Her husband of four years was picked up for questioning during the Russian occupation. He never came home. Doctor Samar received death threats and was eventually hounded out of her country. She was on a speaking tour of Canadian cities to raise interest in the plight of Afghanis when the new government named her deputy prime minister in charge of women's affairs. That's how she came to be in the room across the hall from me, softly snoring, in a Calgary B&B. Did I talk to her? Did I take this once-in-a- lifetime chance to connect to one of the most important people presently walking the earth? I wish. But I came down for breakfast that next morning to find Simar Samar and her RCMP entourage had gone. On to another engagement in Saskatoon or Thunder Bay. My loss. My advice: Never pass up a chance to stay in a B&B. nectar of the gods but it was of at least une queen. Now the interesting things that are taking place are the attempts being made to duplicate the beer of these ancient times. Orre brewery in San Francisco produced two tentative efforts but their success (or lack of it) may be gleaned from the fact that neither of them was put on sale. Experts say there are two problems in getting an accurate duplication. The main one is that nobody seems to know what was added to these ancient beers to balance the taste of the grain. It could have been fruit but honey is also a possibility. Another expert claims that the closest we have come to these ancient beers is one made in Finland which is flavoured with juniper. King Midas, he of the affluent fame, is thought to have mixed beer, wine and mead in equal quantities; at least drinking yessels found in his tomb seem to bear out this belief. If so, could we not say that they were on the trail of an early cocktail? My question is whether the Czechs, who make the hest beer I have tasted anywhere, might just be the direct descendants of the Sumerians. To be honest, I have yet to put this qUestion to them. Final Thought Lazy people are always looking for something to do. — Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues Bonnie Gropp The short of it Not worth that February's here and I think I'm going to make it. Forget the survivors on the pages inside this newspaper; it is me who has endured. Well, not really. I know, I'm being somewhat melodramatic yet again. I'll admit it. The reality is this winter hasn't been all that bad, even for this sun-loving, cold-hating gal. According to The Weather Network's head of meteorology, Ron Bianchi, the reason we have enjoyed an unseasonable season is due to the position of the jet stream, which was riding from Thunder Bay, across to Timmins and part of Quebec. Apparently, the warm Pacific and U.S. air dominated areas to the south of this. Also, Bianchi says, a high pressure cell in the southern Atlantic was strong enough to nose itself into Eastern Canada giving us a nicer winter. Had I known this, it might have made my months leading into winter, much less worrisome. Every year I know it's coming, I know there's nothing I can do but live with it. But for me winter's impending arrival, adds a dark shade to fall's vibrancy. And as the days shorten, I sigh and accept that for a little while things aren't going to be as good as they can be. November, December, January I plod on with determination, knowing that each day brings me closer to Old Man Winter's last breath. Then, February arrived Friday and with it a nasty bit of winter weather. Snow, freezing rain, sleet all presented themselves to us, urged by a bitter wind into a frenetic dance. Will it ever end? February arrived and with it on Saturday Wiarton Willie's prediction, which time has 'proven is only a little more accurate than Environment Canada's. TO see or not to see, is the question. Willie usually does I have noted, meaning six more weeks of winter, a prediction which when considered is fairly safe. From here on in, temperatures will rise and storms decrease or, the opposite, which I prefer not to consider. But even so there will be winter for at least another six weeks, thus I am left feeling mildly disconsolate. Bianchi, on the other hand, has offered me some hope. As the Great Lakes have very little ice coverage, remain warmer and there is little snow cover, he has predicted an early start to spring. This month he says will be near normal to warmer than normal temperatures. There will be two weeks of more seasonable temperatures, then milder air will return. Precipitation-wise, he says, even though there will be winter snowstorms and freezing rain, it should be drier than usual. So, if I take this to heart, and I must for my sanity, I should be heartened. With one of the winter snowstorms out of its system on the first day of the month, things are looking pretty good. However, as I recently heard quoted, "Mother Nature abhors a vacuum." Once something is wiped out, once it is gone, something else must come along. That something will apparently be a drought. With a large part of the country exposed to an early start to spring, the meteorologist claims the risk for severe drought is increased. He sees the potential for tough times for Ontario farmers, as well as those in the Prairies and the Maritimes. And even I, a worshipper of warmth, knows an early end of winter isn't worth that. A discussion on the origins of beer