I had promised Lindsay a long blow-out run after four days of inactivity, which for English Springer Spaniels is an eternity. While she explored the East Point meadow at the top of the Scarborough bluffs, I waited by the bluff's edge, lulled by the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach below.
My mind was in turmoil over the events of the past few days, my blog on Canada's War Brides, my staffing of our booth at Truck World and yesterday's encounter with Canada's Health system. There were strange uneasy connections between these very different events that kept nagging at the edge of my consciousness.
I thought about Fairweather's comment on War Brides, "Even here in our little corner of East Tennessee we had a fair sprinkling of war brides--some English, some even German, Italian or Japanese. The English girls fitted in well--everybody loved their accents, which most of them never quite lost--It wasn't so easy for others; they had so recently been considered the enemy, and here in our little Scots-Irish enclaves, where most of us were fairskinned and undeniably Caucasian, the Japanese girls really had it rough. Racism was never all just white against black here; it's against anybody who looks different. Still, they made adjustments and we made adjustments. Love works that way."
Bohemian is still thinking about the War Bride who traveled all the way to Canada only to have her husband not show up to meet her. That was an experience that touched my mother deeply and has haunted her through the years. In doing some further research on War Brides I discovered there were other women in the same position. And more than a few men whose wives decided not to make the trip, leaving them standing at the station with all their family ready to meet someone who was never to arrive.
Marriage is a risky business at the best of times, but during war, where you meet people in extraordinarily unique circumstances and where you have no opportunity to meet the family you're marrying into, it is an act of great daring. Without a safety net. Still, despite the odds, 80% of the war brides had successful marriages that lasted a life time.
That led me to thinking about trucker's marriages, having had the opportunity to watch truckers and their families out for the day at the Truck World Exhibit. They were all obviously out enjoying themselves; but the trucking industry is in serious trouble. With a virtual recession in the United States, gas and diesel fuel prices soaring, and banks, badly burned by the housing crisis, reluctant to loan money to anybody. It sure isn't a trucker's world these days, despite the name of the exposition.
Watching the truckers pass by our booth I am also struck by the physical toll the job takes on them. Long hours on the road, bad food and no exercise has taken a devastating and obvious toll on their bodies. They are universally out of shape with large beer bellies, many carrying fifty to a hundred pounds of excess body fat. Reading some of our own hand-outs I wasn't surprised to learn truckers lives are cut short by ten to fifteen years compared to other men their age.
I watch the happy and excited faces of their trim and muscular teenage sons rushing to the big Peterbilt exhibit in the hall next to ours, and fear for their future.
I fear also for the future of our health care system, having just survived a day in the TEGH Emergency ward. The waiting room was packed, the halls filled with stretchers. Many of those on stretchers were seniors sent by ambulance from Nursing homes, most without family or staff to assist them. They lay exhausted on their stretchers, in pain, anxious and confused for hours. We kept my wife's mother company, we brought her food and drink. We laughed and cheered her up. We fetched a nurse to help her when she needed the washroom. We spoke to the doctor on her behalf when we finally reached him and made certain he knew of her ailments.
The other seniors in Emergency just endured. with no one to get them a drink when they're thirsty, feed them when they're hungry, make them laugh when they got frightened by the sights and sounds around them. We were eight hours there and if we hadn't been there to take my wife's mother home, she would have waited for another two.
TEGH's Emergency department is under reconstruction. The plan is to divide it into four departments, one for mental health issues, another for pediatric care, still another for non-urgent and finally urgent emergencies (if that isn't a redundancy).
Maybe the future will be better. It sure isn't great now.
Anyway, Lindsay has had her run. I call her back and head off home. Its been a long weekend.
