stories-from-peter

[stories-from-peter]

Ice Cream Angel

As I was coming back from grocery shopping I turned onto Buluang Street where my house is located. I passed an ice cream vendor using a motorcycle to transport his tank of ice cream. I figured he might arrive at my house soon after I did. Just as I parked my car in the driveway I saw the ice cream man pass my gate and stop next door. There are many homes on the hill beside me and anyone selling treats will stop there because of the dozens of kids. I love buying treats for the local boys and girls. They are the nicest, kindest, friendliest kids I have ever met.

I quickly walked from my car to the ice cream vendor and signaled the kids to come and get a treat. There was soon a long line forming next to the large tank of ice cream. There was one little girl who was first in line. I could see the tank of ice cream was not even close to being full. The vendor had to reach far down into the tank to scoop up enough to fill a cone. I thought that little girl was smart to be first in line. She got her cone and turned around to hand it to the boy behind her. I felt that was a nice thing for her to do. Hand the cone to her friend, or brother, or whoever he was. She did the same thing with the next cone, handed it to the girl who was next in line. She repeated this for every kid in the line.

I was starting to worry that the ice cream would run out before she got any. I watched nervously as the long line slowly got shorter. I thought to myself “Please, please, do not run out of ice cream before that sweet little girl gets some for herself.” Finally, there was just one little girl left in the line. Our Ice Cream Angel got her well-deserved reward and I handed the vendor enough money to pay for all the treats.

A few months later I learned that the little girl was appropriately named Angel.

[stories-from-peter]

Novi

After finding a home in the Philippines I started exploring the road we lived on. We did our grocery shopping about 1.3 km away at a shopping center. Several times a week I would walk along the road toward the grocery store, meeting people, photographing anything interesting, and generally getting acclimatized to my new environment. I always walked the same way since the other direction seemed less interesting. There was a curve in the road so my vison was limited to about 100 meters or so in that direction. One day I decided to walk the other way just to see what was there. I was not disappointed.

Once I got past the bend in the road I discovered a school, many homes, some open fields covered in flowers and a settlement with dozens of curious children. As I walked by the settlement I found myself besieged by a crowd of children who may have never seen a foreigner before. A few of the older ones spoke some English and peppered me with questions. “Who are you?”, “Where do you live?”, “Where do you come from ?”, “Are you married?”, “Is your wife a Filipina?” “Do you have any children?” I got used to answering those questions because everyone asked them. Filipinos are used to knowing everything about everyone around them. When they meet a stranger they are not comfortable until all the vital information has been passed on.

As I walked I quickly gathered an entourage of about 15 boys and one girl. The girl was very active and athletic, climbed anything nearby, and walked along the top of a few walls while the rest of us stayed safely on the road. By the time I turned back for home everyone considered me to be a friend. In the Philippines friends always stay in contact as they walk. I found myself with several boys holding each of my arms and hands as we walked. I managed to get a few pictures of the girl while my hands were still free and learned her name was Novi. As the crowd approached the housing development where I lived I was released from their collective grasp. The guards at the gate would not allow them in. I stopped to say goodbye and get a shot of the group.

Faith was quite amused by my adventure and when she saw the pictures she told me Novi was definitely a tomboy. I decided to print a picture of her and present it to her on my next walk. A few days later I ventured back down the road, past Sudtunggan Elementary School, and stopped where I saw a group of children playing. I saw a girl who looked like Novi but she seemed shorter and her hair was different. I showed her the picture and asked if it was her sister. She looked confused. I asked again and got the same confused look. I found a man who spoke English and asked if he could translate for me. He looked at the picture and told me it was the same girl I was talking to. I was sure Novi was taller so I asked the man to look closer. He pointed to a tiny mole on the girl’s lip and repeated that the she was indeed the girl in the picture.

On my next walk I asked Faith to come with me. Faith found Novi’s aunt who gave us the whole story. Novi was indeed a tomboy, which is how they refer to gay girls in Cebu. Novi kept getting her hair cut shorter and wearing boy’s clothes to school. The teachers accepted her and treated her as a boy as did her family and friends. I was fascinated to watch someone make the transition from appearing and acting somewhat like a girl to being a boy in almost every way. A few months later Novi and her mother moved to another part of Cebu and I lost contact with her. I will never forget how everyone accepted her transformation. I’m sure she is healthier and happier for having that experience.

[stories-from-peter]

Apology Accepted

I was driving home from work one day. My usual route was down Boundary Road and then onto the highway. At that time there were 2 sets of traffic lights as you approached the intersection with Canada Way. One set at Canada Way and another at Laurel Street a very short distance uphill from Canada Way. It was raining very heavily as I stopped for the red light at Laurel Street. The traffic light at Boundary was also red. My light changed to green but the light at Canada Way was still red. I coasted slowly down the hill to line up behind the cars waiting. As I got closer to the line of stopped vehicles I pressed gently on my brakes. Nothing happened. I thought the brakes might be wet so I pressed harder to dry them off. I was still moving so I thought I had an airlock and pumped the brakes to get rid of it. By this time I was still slowly rolling downhill at less than a slow walking pace. I stepped hard on the brakes again. I gently bumped the car at the end of the line of traffic.

The driver of the car jumped out, holding his neck like he was injured. I could dimly see through the rain that he was wearing an RCMP uniform and the car had the usual police markings on it. I opened my window and said “I’m sorry, I think my brakes are wet.” He said “Licence and registration, please.” I handed him my documents and he said “Your licence expired two days ago. Pull over to the side of the road.” I got a free ride in a police car to the Burnaby RCMP station.

I was placed in an interrogation room and waited there for a few minutes until an officer entered. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Troiano and told me he had recently been transferred to Burnaby from Kelowna. He asked me what happened so I explained the whole thing as accurately as I could. He took notes as I talked, read them over quickly, and then said “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.”

I could hear an argument outside the door with a very angry voice saying “What! No tickets! If I did that I would get a ticket!” The officer I had collided with gruffly opened the door and started writing tickets as fast as he could. I lost count but I’m sure there were at least 4 or 5 of them. He told me “You better get somebody to pick you up because you can’t drive.” I found a phone in the waiting area and pretended to make a call. I walked back to my car and drove home. The next day I renewed my licence.

I started thinking about all that had happened and figured the expired license was a lost cause. I would pay the fine for that but I was going to fight the other tickets. The guy involved in the accident should not be writing any tickets. I checked into the procedure for challenging traffic tickets and discovered I had 30 days to launch my protest.

About a week before the deadline I got a letter from the RCMP. The letter basically said they did not condone the fact that I was driving with an expired license but they canceled all the tickets. The best part was the amended accident report that was included with the letter. Accident reports have a space where you can make a simple diagram of how the vehicles collided. My accident report showed the two cars on opposite sides of the paper, as far apart as you could put them.  

[stories-from-peter]

The Hidden Lake

I spent 4 summers at Camp Weredale in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec. The camp is located on the shores of Lac L’Achigan surrounded by forest, hills and a few smaller lakes. One of the camp counselors did some exploring in the dense forest east of the camp and came back with a tale of a lake that was not on any maps. He asked if any of the campers would like to see the lake. A small group of us were excited at the prospect of finding a hidden lake.

The group set out one afternoon with the counselor leading the way through the dense underbrush. It was tough going through the forest with no trail to follow. Our excitement at being explorers fighting our way through the bush sustained us. I’m not sure how long it took to find the lake but it seemed like a few hours. At last we could see some water through the trees and the counselor confirmed we had arrived at the lake. We could see a ramshackle cabin on the other side. Someone noticed what looked like wooden raft on the near side of the water. The lake was quite small so it wasn’t a surprise that maps had excluded it.

One brave soul jumped on the raft and tried to propel it across the lake with a stick. I hopped on to see if I could help. When I peered down into the dark water I could see something moving. It was too small to be a fish and as I looked closer I could see it wasn’t alone. There were literally hundreds of leeches wiggling hungrily near the raft. We hastily pushed the raft back to shore and quickly jumped off. I am not fond of leeches so I was happy when the group decided the adventure was over.

[stories-from-peter]

One In A Thousand

One Saturday morning my mother got a phone call from the principal of my high school. I was not in trouble, he just had a question. He wanted to know if I would give up a Saturday morning to represent the school. I would be writing a test that didn’t count for any of my marks. I agreed since I was representing the school and it would cost me nothing even if I performed poorly. A week later my mother had another call from the principal. The following Saturday I was to travel to another school, go to the lunch room, and get further instructions.

The next Saturday I took the bus to John Oliver High School and found myself in a crowd of students around the same age as me. The lunch tables had a small pile of paper face down at each seat. We were instructed to take a seat and at exactly 8 AM we were to turn over the papers, write our name on the first page, and start answering the questions. We had 3 hours to complete the test.

The questions were a mix of everything. Some questions were like the ones you see on an IQ test, others were math problems, and some were just general knowledge. The pile of papers was quite thick so I thought I should not waste any time. If I had trouble with a question I decided to let it wait until I answered all the others and then go back to it.

I managed to answer all the questions without too much difficulty. Many of the questions were on subjects I was interested in, especially science. I looked up at the clock to see that less than an hour of the allotted time had passed. I didn’t want to be the first one to hand in my test so I started checking all my answers to be sure there were none wrong. That took about 35 minutes so there was much more than an hour to go and I was still too shy to be the first. At last, another student walked up to the front and handed his test to the supervisor. One other student was heading in that direction as I took my turn.

A couple of weeks later my mother had another call from my school. I was invited to be part of a group of science and math students who would take part in a series of seminars over the next two years. The test was given to the top 3% of all the science and math students in Vancouver and only the top 25 were invited to be part of the group. There were 850 kids who wrote the test so that meant the top 25 were chosen from a group of about 28000. We were instructed to go to Kitsilano High School on a Thursday evening a couple of weeks later.

On the designated Thursday evening we entered a classroom overflowing with students and their parents. Dr. E.N. Ellis explained that the project was funded by the Joe Berg Society and that seminars would be given by local university professors on a variety of subjects. We were entertained by an exhibition of scientific glass blowing before we learned more details of the group. Before we left we were given a problem to solve related to the first seminar which was to happen a few weeks later. This was a regular feature of the seminars. Each seminar ended with a problem to solve for the next one. The seminars were fascinating and many covered subjects which none of us had heard of. Each subject was the work of the professor giving the seminar. One seminar on radio astronomy was given by Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank observatory. He happened to be visiting UBC for a series of lectures and someone convinced him to do a seminar for us high school students. Some other seminars I remember well were on genetics, gem stones, human physiology, and neustonic fungi. Neustonic fungi live in the thin layer of surface tension on top of the ocean. How’s that for a specialized habitat?

We took a field trip to UBC to see the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance lab. The lab was filled with huge blocks of beeswax to capture stray neutrons. That prevented the lab workers from getting fried at work. There were also large tanks of liquid nitrogen used to cool the apparatus. The discovery of superconductivity and our knowledge of NMR eventually led to MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) which has become famous for giving us images inside bodies without the damaging effect of X-rays.

I had to move to Ottawa at the end of Grade 11 but I was able to go back to Vancouver for my final year of high school. One more year of Berg Seminars was a big reason for me finding a way to get back to the city I loved.

[stories-from-peter]

The Hitchhiker

Being a child of the sixties and living on the West Coast as a teenager I was quite used to hitchhiking as a means of cheap and interesting travel. My first experiences came when I was 8 years old and had a long walk to school. Some days the walk from Laval West School back to Frechette Street on The Lake of Two Mountains was just more than I could bear, but I could always get a ride to some place closer to home.

Spring break during my final year of high school was an adventure. Several groups from Killarney Secondary School planned to thumb their way to Los Angeles from Vancouver. The plan was to meet at the West Gate of Pacific Ocean Park on a Tuesday at noon. My best friend Jerry Kallberg was excited to have his first adventure away from home and we were joined by one other guy for the trip. Jerry figured we could get a jump start on the trip by taking the bus to Portland. The overnight bus was cheap and we would be in Oregon early Saturday morning.

We decided to have a look around Portland before heading off to California. Portland seemed to be populated almost entirely by teenage girls. There were girls everywhere and hardly any boys. This was at the height of the Viet Nam war and many boys had either been drafted into the armed forces or were busy avoiding the draft.

We entered a department store and saw a long line of girls waiting to see some event. It looked interesting so we joined the line. A few minutes later we were approached by a well-dressed lady who inquired who we were. I was carrying a movie camera and Jerry had borrowed his old family camera. The lady asked if we were from a newspaper. Jerry, being very bright and quick-thinking, said “Yes!” and invented a newspaper for teens in Vancouver. The lady informed us the line was to enter a fashion show for the Bobby Brooks Fashion Club and escorted us directly to the main event. We were offered free food and drinks and given a prime location for viewing and photography. Jerry and I managed to get some pictures and movie footage of the models. Jerry also pretended to be taking notes to add to our deception.

We never made it to Los Angeles but we did hitchhike back to Vancouver.

After graduating I found myself with no home, no job, and no money. My mother had been transferred to Ottawa around the same time my sister Audrey and her family had moved to Vancouver. Audrey was still looking for a place to live so I had no choice but to move to Ottawa. I hated Ottawa. When I found out Audrey and her family were living close enough to my old high school that I could walk there I begged my mother to let me go back to Vancouver. That gave me the chance to spend my final year of high school with friends.

My predicament after graduation left me with no option but to head back to Quebec where I could easily find work. Being bilingual is a big advantage in job hunting even though Quebec is 95% French speaking. Most companies need people fluent in both languages in many positions. If they do business with large companies or businesses in other provinces then English is a requirement. My brother found me a job with the printing company where he worked and I was soon promoted to a position where both languages were needed. I was never happy in Montreal and I longed to get back to my favorite city with the mild climate, beautiful girls, and where I was not concerned about the 95% of the population that hated me. I worked as much overtime as I could and saved my money to get me back to the west coast.

To save my limited funds I decided to hitchhike back to Vancouver and hopefully find work before my money evaporated. I had $207 saved from 10 months work. I managed to get a ride all the way to Toronto my first day. The driver dropped me in the middle of the city after dark. I found a phone booth and searched for the YMCA where I could get a cheap room. There was a bus that took me right to the ‘Y’ but when I inquired about a room I was told that was the only YMCA in Canada that didn’t have rooms for rent.

I explained my situation to the desk clerk and he told me “Give me a minute, I might be able to help you.” He picked up the phone and spoke to someone for a minute. He told me to wait for a while. Some time later 4 guys came up the stairs and greeted me very warmly and asked where I was headed. They were in a band that practiced in the basement and they were happy to help out a stranded stranger. I could not believe my good fortune. We all jumped in a car and headed to one guy’s house for dinner. They took me on a tour of Toronto that included Casa Loma. The guys decided that Casa Loma was not exciting enough so they lit up a joint to make things more fun.

The next morning they all took me on a ride north out of the city so I could hitch a ride to my next destination. I could not believe my good luck in getting to Toronto in one day and meeting those great guys too. I managed to make it 75km to Orillia by the end of the day but I would need longer rides to cross the rest of the country. Day 3 took me to Sudbury, day 4 I made it to Sault St. Marie, and on day 5 I was in White River. After 5 days I was not even half way across Canada. I noticed a railway station in White River and inquired about the train schedule. The train was due to stop there around 10 pm that evening. I calculated the $50 train fare to Vancouver would save me money by getting me there much faster.

I arrived in Vancouver on a Saturday morning, found a room at the YMCA, and started looking for a job. I managed to find a temporary job for 3 weeks at a printing company in Richmond. I also managed to reconnect with some of my good friends from school. Rick Slamon found me a spot in his parent’s house where I lived for about a year until I got my own apartment.

It wasn’t easy but I have no regrets about moving back to Vancouver.

[stories-from-peter]

Lost In A Foreign Country

I was fortunate to be in Montreal when Expo 67 was in full swing. I hung around the fair with a small group of long-time friends. My family had been close to their family long before we had been born. I used to play with Keith and Kenny before we started going to school. We did all the usual teenage boy stuff, trying to meet girls from as many countries as possible, guessing their place of origin as a conversation starter. Mostly the girls were happy to find boys who spoke fluent English since few of the girls knew any French at all. We got very good at recognizing clothes and hair styles from many cities. Any girls passing by would hear us yell out “New York!”, “Boston!”, or “Los Angeles!” and wanted to talk to us. They were always happy to discover we were local and could show them all the interesting places that never appear on the tourist brochures.  

One day we ran into a boy who seemed to be quite distressed and who was completely lost. He had become separated from his parents and could not find his way back to their hotel. In a city that was overwhelmingly French speaking he had little luck getting any help. He immediately approached us when he heard us speaking English. He was named Gary, he was 16 and lived in Florida. At that time he had been lost for more than a day so he was becoming desperate.

Gary said the hotel they were in was called ‘Mason House’ or something like that. The name raised an alarm since the French word for house is ‘maison’ so we thought he might be confused by the way hotels and other buildings are named. Typically the name will be in both English and French. For example, if your hotel is called ‘Flower’ it will be designated as ‘Maison Flower House’ on any signs or maps. Gary told us they had been at the Bonaventure Hotel for a few days before moving to the ‘Mason House’. He met a girl at the Bonaventure so off we went to find her in case his parents had tried to contact her.

We found the girl but she had not heard from Gary’s parents. We gave her a contact address and phone number in case she heard from the parents. We started looking at maps of Montreal to see if there was anything that Gary recognized or some name that we might think could be misinterpreted as ‘Mason House’. It wasn’t a regular hotel since Gary’s parents wanted some place a bit more homey than an impersonal chain hotel. Montreal is a big city, the second largest French-speaking city after Paris, so searching maps was taking a long time. We had been wandering back and forth to pavilions that Gary and his parents had visited but we didn’t see his parents anywhere. In the evening we headed back to my friend’s house.

We were now into Gary’s third day of being lost and we had already contacted any authorities that might be interested. Most of the city’s law enforcement or other agencies were already well past their peak work capacity. They had nobody to spare to look for Gary’s parents.

As we were relaxing after supper we got a phone call from the girl Gary met at the Bonaventure. She had heard from Gary’s parents and told her where they were staying. It was a small hotel on Masson Street. When we checked the map, sure enough, it was marked as ‘Maison Masson House’. After breakfast on day 4 of Gary’s separation we took him to find his parents.

[stories-from-peter]

Learning By Example

Boys need to learn how to treat girls. Most boys learn the hard way by getting slapped, or having a girl lose interest in them. I was lucky and learned by another guy’s mistakes. My experience with girls was limited to having a girlfriend for a few weeks in the winter when I lived in Montreal. All our time together was in her living room with her parents in the next room, her best friend and my best friend on the couch next to us, and occasional visits from her little sister. That didn’t stop us from kissing and cuddling for hours at a time but there was no opportunity to expand our activities.

When I was 15 years old and had recently moved to Vancouver, I had a friend who had a driver’s license. He was also permitted to use the family car on Saturday evenings. He would pick me up after supper on Saturday and off we would go looking for girls. We never had much luck since most girls had been warned against getting into cars with boys. The few times we had girls in the car they were just interested in getting free transportation.

One Saturday night that all changed. My buddy came to pick me and up and announced we would have a third guy in the car. That guy had already arranged to pick up a girl from her house. Wow! A real girl in the car who was there for fun! We picked the guy up and stopped at the girl’s house. She came running down the stairs and quickly jumped in the back seat with the third man. Off we went to find a deserted park where we could be hidden from the public.

Once were were safely parked I could hear the couple in the back seat who had quickly become active. I could hear the rustling of clothes and the sounds of kissing along with a few moans and some heavy breathing. That didn’t last long before I started hearing complaints from the girl. “Not so fast!” she would say. “Give me some time!”, “Not yet!”, “Slow down, I’m not ready!” “Give me a minute!”, “No, not there!” It wasn’t hard to figure out she wanted things to happen at a more gentle pace. I thought if she wanted to go slow maybe other girls might want that too.

The complaints from the girl continued for some time before I heard the magic words from the frustrated young man in the back seat. “Why do all you girls want to go so slow all the time?” Well, there it was, the magic formula for keeping girls happy. It wasn’t just her who wanted to take it slowly, it was other girls too, probably all of them. It was a mistake I would not need to make.

[stories-from-peter]

Sabotage

I always liked girls. From as early as I could remember girls were my favorite people. Maybe having 3 older sisters influenced me, even though the age difference between me and my sisters ranged from 8 years to 15 years. It was more like having 3 extra mothers than 3 sisters. In spite of my affection for women and girls I had my share of difficulties with them.

In my grade 10 English class there was a girl who really stood out from the rest. She was easily one of the prettiest girls in the school, if not the prettiest of all. She was always the last one to arrive in class and the first one to leave. From my spot I got a first class view as she walked to and from her seat. Every English class I had essentially a front row seat from which to admire her beauty. I wondered if she noticed me watching her and if she did I wished she would give me a sign. Sadly, every class began and ended the same way, with me watching as she passed by with no sign that she was aware of my steady gaze. Not a smile, or even a glance in my direction, was forthcoming. I saw her a few times outside of English but she never cast her eyes in my direction.

In Grade 11 she was not in any of my classes but her best friend was in my French class. Both she and her friend had similar names so I will refer to them as Girl1 and Girl2 or G1 and G2 for short. My good friend Rick was in my French class and he was part of the events that ensued. I noticed that G1 and G2 were always at the door of the French classroom before the class started but G1 would leave before the class began. This went on for several weeks before the event that is the topic of this story.

One day in French class there was a change in the behavior of G1 and G2. G2 came into the class, as usual, but when my buddy Rick walked in, G2 flagged him down and told him something that I could not hear. Rick leaned over to me as he sat down and said “G2 says she has a friend who likes you.” That didn’t tell me much so I decided to ask G2 who her friend was after class. When class ended G2 was out the door before I could even stand up. I thought it can’t be G1 because she ignored me for a whole year. Maybe she was warning me that a girl was going to talk to me and I should pay special attention and not assume it was just a casual conversation. G1 stopped coming the the door with her friend. Weeks went by with nothing happening.

I was confused by the way G2 handled things and began to try and figure out what was happening. G1 was exceptionally attractive but G2 was not blessed with that kind of beauty. It finally dawned on me that G2 had sabotaged her friend by taking advantage of her shyness. I was sure G1 was not the girl because she clearly knew who I was and where to find me. She could have walked straight into the classroom to say hello but never made a move in my direction. I had witnessed couples in that situation. One party is very keen but the other is lukewarm at best. They usually end in disaster and I wanted no part of any kind of romantic turmoil. I figured G1 was probably hurt by how things turned out and I was not likely to mend any feelings so I left it as it was. Many years later I realized I should have handled it differently but hindsight is always better than foresight.

[stories-from-peter]

The Perfect Pattern

As a teenager I was very keen on playing football. I managed to make it onto the bantam team for Westmount High in Montreal. The next year my mother moved me to Vancouver where I started attending John Oliver High School.

In PE class one day the teacher decided to try some football passing drills. I thought he might be looking for prospects for John Oliver’s team. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, the route the pass receiver runs is determined before the ball is thrown. That is to ensure everyone knows who will be in which position to catch the ball. There are set patterns with descriptive names to make it easy for the quarterback and receiver to communicate. A hook pattern is down the field and then back toward the passer like a fish hook. A square out is down the field and then a 90º turn to the outside. There many standard patterns with descriptive names.

The pattern the coach called for me was a post pattern. A post pattern is 10 yards straight down the field and then a turn toward the goal post. We were quite far from the goal line so I wasn't concerned about it being in the way. The coach must have liked the way I ran the pattern because he waited a very long time before he threw the ball. I watched as the ball came closer and closer and I knew it was right on target. Just as I was taught, I watched the ball all the way as it came right into my hands. As I turned to see the ball touch my fingers I noticed something else between my hands. It was the goal post dead straight in front of me. I was on one side of the post and the ball was on the other side.

I don't remember anything after that until I woke up with the coach standing over me. It was a beautiful day, I could see a few clouds drifting slowly past in a blue sky as I lay on the ground. I didn't feel any pain, just a kind of numbness in my head. I was a bit annoyed at the coach standing over me, blocking my view of the sky and clouds and asking me silly questions. "Are you OK?", he asked. "Of course I'm OK", I answered. After a minute or so my last memory came back and the numbness turned to pain. My forehead had a big lump in the middle and my right knee was very sore where it crashed into the steel post.

My mother came to get me and took me home in a taxi.

[stories-from-peter]

A Trip To India

I had the opportunity to travel to India on business. It was an interesting and exciting trip in spite of Air Canada losing my baggage on the way to India and then again when I returned home.

I found some time to take a few pictures early in the morning before work. I also had one Sunday to do some touring around the city of Hyderabad. The people I was working with kindly gave me and Max, one of my colleagues from Kodak, a car and chauffeur for the day.

We spent an hour or two at a Hindu temple which did not permit cameras, cell phones or shoes. It was made entirely of white marble except for a very tall pole that was covered in gold. The temple included some carved panels depicting other religions which included some quotes from the sacred texts of each.

We toured a museum which contained the collection of just one person. The collection was contained in 20 or more rooms with each room devoted to a different subject. One room was filled with collections of toy soldiers that dated back several centuries. The other rooms had collections of various ancient artifacts from clothing to weapons.

The most interesting place for me was Charminar. Completed in 1591, Charminar is Hyderabad's most famous landmark and takes its name from the Mosque of the Four Minarets. Charminar is flanked by arches on all 4 sides, each arch with a main road running through it. Each minaret is almost 50 meters high and the mosque is 20 meters long on each side.

When we reached Charminar we were besieged by beggars as soon as we got out of the car. A little boy came by and chased the beggars away and told us not to give them anything. He asked where I was from. When I told him I came from Canada he said "Canada, hockey!". He asked if I could speak French and we chatted briefly in that language before he switched to Spanish, German, and then Italian. He lost me after the French but he did take the time to teach me how to say "I have no money" in Hindi. He told me his name was John, he was 8 years old, and worked at the market every Sunday selling cheap pearl necklaces. He told me his father had a bad heart and wasn't able to work. He said he had a younger brother who wasn't old enough to work there yet. I thought John wasn't old enough to work anywhere.

John stayed with us the whole time we were in the market at Charminar. I asked him where I could buy a bag so I could carry all the items I bought in India back home with me. He introduced me to a bag seller he knew. I picked out a Samsonite duffel bag and asked how much it cost. The vendor told me 500 rupees, which is about $11. Before I could agree on the price John whispered to me not to pay more than 300 rupees. After a bit of haggling we settled on 300. Once I had the bag in my possession John said it was too bad I wasn't Indian because I could have had it for 100 rupees.

There was one beggar girl who was quite pretty and I wanted to get a picture of her. She followed us around the market and asked me for money almost non-stop. Each time I raised the camera to my eye she turned away. I offered 20 rupees in exchange for a picture but she refused each time I asked. She didn't notice that I was taking pictures of her the whole time. I held the camera up to my chest with one hand and pressed the shutter release with my thumb. I didn't know if any of the shots were worth keeping so I still wanted a picture with her standing still so I could compose it properly. Eventually she figured out I wasn't going to give her anything until I got the picture I wanted. I got a few shots of her looking right at the camera. One of them looks just like one I saw in National Geographic many years ago.

Before we left the market I told John I would like to give him something for helping us. He wouldn't accept my offer of 200 rupees but he did accept 100 for a small pearl necklace. I insisted on giving him something for his kindness and help. He finally agreed to accept some Canadian money as a souvenir. I gave him a Canadian $5 bill. I thought he probably would accept something with a small number on it.

Hyderabad makes Vancouver look like a ghost town. I could not believe the masses of humanity jammed into every part of the city. Officially the population of Hyderabad is 9 million but our hosts told us the area around the city has about 60 million people. The local newspaper that we were working for has a circulation of 11 million and a readership of 44 million. One thing that is very noticeable is the absence of women. The vast majority of people on the street or working in the shops and restaurants are men and boys. I assume the women and girls are working at home.

It is a pity that more women are not visible because they are exceptionally beautiful, especially when wearing the traditional sari. Saris are still the most popular clothing for women with a few of the younger ones wearing jeans. I can't imagine more beautiful, elegant, or feminine attire than a sari. They come in a wide variety of styles, usually in bright colors, often with patterned stitching or brocade. In North America it would be like seeing most of the women wearing evening gowns.   

When our work in Hyderabad was done our hosts flew us to Visakhapatnam on the Bay of Bengal to set up another newspaper printing plant. We stayed at a very nice hotel they own called the Dolphin. The hotel takes its name from a local geographical feature called the Dolphin Nose. The city is very similar to Vancouver in size and geography. The population is about 2 million and the city is sandwiched between mountains and the ocean. There is a natural harbour there which is the main reason for the city existing in that location.

 Our guide for the trip to Visakhapatnam was Mahender who arranged for us to have a tour of the city including the beach. I made sure to get my feet wet in the Bay of Bengal. There is about 60km of beach along the bay but very little development. The entire length of beach that we saw was mostly deserted. Most of the land beside the beach seems to be used for grazing or not used at all.

I walked around Visakhapatnam every morning taking pictures. The market area is spread over a large area with each street devoted to a different commodity. One street has only coconuts for sale, the next only lemons, another has bamboo, others have wood or fish and several streets have only bananas.

Everywhere you go in India you see the famous sacred cows. In most places they are not very common but in Visakhapatnam I came into close contact with them every morning. On one of the banana streets I had to dodge several of them heading in the opposite direction. I was walking down a narrow path between the piles of bananas when I noticed a set of horns attached to large black beast coming toward me. I was hoping I didn't get snagged on a horn by accident and squeezed myself against a pile of bananas. Luckily I was able to get a couple of shots of the cattle as they passed by. The sacred cows are free to wander wherever they please. I saw them in busy intersections and standing in the middle of a crowd at a bus stop.

I was happy to discover the people of India are as camera friendly as the people in the Philippines. I had many of them ask me to take pictures of them or their friends and I always obliged. The mini-taxi drivers always want me to take pictures. Most people take it as a compliment when I take a picture of them. I took some pictures of a family buying a snack from a street vendor. The father actually stepped back so I could get a better shot of his wife and daughter. In North America people seem to feel taking a picture is an invasion. I have almost given up on photographing people at home unless they are friends or relatives.

I had one last adventure before leaving India. Mohan, one of our gracious hosts, took me and my colleague Max shopping for the third time on the way to the airport. Max and I bought some handicrafts at a store that looked more like an art gallery. Mohan's colleague, Mahender, met us at a sweet shop and bought us some candy to take back and share with the folks back home. After we left the sweet shop Mahender took Max and me to the airport.

Max and I started repacking our bags inside the airport to try and fit all the things we bought into the limited space in our bags. I had to be very careful packing some delicate carvings and jewelry. As we were busy packing a very large military man carrying a machine gun walked up to us. He said "Who is Mr. Peter?" I guessed he meant me and we marched out of the airport together. I was relieved to see Mahender in the crowd, waving a package and saying we left it on the seat of the car. I asked Mahender NOT to send a man with a gun next time.

[stories-from-peter]

Getting To Know You

My wife and I had a big house with a garden, swimming pool, and a banana farm. It was her dream to have a place where she could plant all the flowers she wanted. The only land we could find that suited us was quite far from the city and her relatives. Family would often visit on special occasions but Christmas was almost always at our house. We had enough bedrooms and bathrooms to accommodate the entire clan.

When my granddaughter, Lyx, was 4 years old we had a really busy celebration. Everyone arrived on December 23 and stayed overnight. That gave everyone all day to prepare everything for Christmas Eve dinner and the day of celebration after. Everyone except me and Lyx, that is. We had not spent a lot of time together before then.

I got up on December 24 and started my day as usual with feeding our fish in the pond and taking care of the pool. As I was walking to the pond I heard some little feet pitter-pattering behind me. Lyx was awake at 6am and looking for things to do. I handed her the fish food and explained how much to feed them. Then I showed her how to add chlorine to the pool before we headed back to the house for breakfast. After breakfast Lyx was looking for some flowers to pick from the garden. None were quite to her liking so she asked me to pick a flower that would look nice in her hair. Some of the trees had nice flowers but she wasn’t tall enough to reach them. I picked a couple from our red calachuchi tree and gave them to her. She was struggling to get them to stay in her hair but her poses looked like a professional model. I ran into the house and grabbed my camera to get a few shots.

We spent the rest of our day together swimming, looking for interesting bugs, and just enjoying our time together. Years later I look back on this as one of my favorite days and so does my beautiful granddaughter.

[stories-from-peter]

Radar Beach

My friend Jerry Toon wanted to spend his summer on Radar Beach on the west side of Vancouver Island between Tofino and Ucluelet. It was very remote, at the time, and quite difficult to find. He asked if I could pick him up on August 25 so he could get back to civilization. My girlfriend, Barb, had an old Rambler American she bought from her mother and agreed to make the trip with me. Jerry gave us very specific instructions on how to find him.

We took the ferry to Nanaimo and drove across Vancouver Island toward Tofino. The paved  road only went as far as Port Alberni so we had to rely on logging roads for much of the way. We drove to the top of Radar Hill and camped in the car overnight. We were completely alone on Radar Hill the entire time. In the morning we started searching for the beginning of the trail that led to the 5 beaches that make up Radar Beach. The trail head was overgrown, didn’t look much like a trail, and took some time to find. We clambered down the steep grade, sometimes climbing down trees that were part of the trail. Eventually the terrain flattened out and we could see an expanse of sand appear through the brush.

When we arrived at the first beach it was totally deserted, as Jerry said it was likely to be. We headed south along the sand until we encountered a large outcropping of rock. After climbing over the rock we could see a second beach, equally as deserted as the first. We got past the second beach and ran into some different scenery with a lot of rocky shoreline, a whale carcass in the rocks, and some shipwrecks in the water.

I managed to get myself inside a sea cave and grabbed some pebbles that had bits of sand pounded into them by the waves. We encountered the paw print of some animal I thought might be a wolf. Barb’s hand was not much bigger than the mark in the sand. It took some effort to get past the next beach and finally see the fifth in the series of beaches. Jerry said he would be at the very end of the last beach so we pushed on.

We saw what looked like a shack made of driftwood and bits of other material. We asked if there was anyone there and two girls came outside to greet us. They invited us in to share some bannock with them and told us they knew Jerry. Barb looked very uncomfortable while we chatted with the girls. My guess was that she was not happy with the girls being totally naked. They shared some of their experiences living on a deserted beach for the summer. They were able to scrounge enough food and buy a few things they needed to augment their diet.

We continued on down the last beach, finding a few abandoned shacks along the way. As promised, we found Jerry at the very end of the beach, in a relatively nice shack. We also found the animal that left the huge paw print in the sand. It was a very large and friendly dog. After the long hike Barb and I needed a break so we spent the night in the shack with Jerry. The next morning we started the return journey to Vancouver. Of course, we had to stop to say goodbye to the girls.

I have been to very few places as remote, wild, interesting, or beautiful as Radar Beach. I went back a few years ago and found it had been gentrified. The trail was manicured, had hand rails in places, and we had to pay to park at the top of the hill.

[stories-from-peter]

Three Year Old Lifesaver

My daughter Allyson was very bright and had a natural confidence in herself. This personality came to light in a very special moment when she was about 3 years old. My wife and I both worked so we needed daycare for our little girl. Allyson had a friend her age named David who had a stay-at-home mother who also had a little girl named Rachel who was about 18 months old. I would drop Allyson off in the morning on my way to work.

One morning Mary, the mother of David and Rachel, greeted me at the door looking very tired but was happy to see Allyson. I didn’t know that Mary went back to bed and left the three kids downstairs on their own. Rachel was curious about what was under the kitchen sink and found a bottle that looked interesting. She manged to get the top off the bottle and took a drink of the contents. Allyson witnessed this and realized that whatever was under the sink was probably not good to drink. Allyson went upstairs, woke Mary up, and told her Rachel drank something that she should not have. Mary went downstairs to find Rachel with an open bottle of bleach.

Mary quickly got the kids into her car and raced off to the hospital. The doctors pumped out Rachel’s stomach when they heard she had ingested bleach. One doctor told Mary that if she had arrived 10 minutes later Rachel might have died. I doubt that many 3 year old children would have the knowledge and confidence to wake up an adult in that situation.

[stories-from-peter]

The Greatest Floor Hockey Game In History

The last High School I attended was Killarney in Vancouver, British Columbia. One year someone organized an intramural floor hockey league with games to be played during lunch hour. I had played floor hockey in Montreal and loved the game. I decided to captain my own team and asked a few friends to join me.

We played a few games and were doing very well in the league standings. There was one team that was stacked with all the best athletes in the school and they were crushing all their opponents. Our turn came to play them and I was dreading the result which would certainly be embarrassing for us. Being captain, I had no choice but to show up for the game. As game time got closer I was standing alone and feared I would have to forfeit the game. Then, my buddy Dan Bartsch appeared, and a few minutes later Wayne Isely joined us. Dan assessed the situation and offered to be goalie. I thought Dan was either insane or a masochist but I wasn’t going to argue with his choice.

The game started with our opponents looking rather smug and quickly getting control of the puck. Their two defensemen started walking slowly down the floor, lazily passing the puck back and forth between them. I saw an opportunity and waited for them to get close enough for me to grab the puck as it was being passed. Pretty soon my wish came true and as the puck slowly crossed the floor in front of me I raced forward, grabbed the puck with my stick, and with nobody in front of me I quickly fired it past their stunned goal tender.

I expected this would give my team a lift but it seemed to inspire our opposition much more. The puck was whizzing around our net with Dan frantically blocking or deflecting shot after shot. Wayne and I were almost powerless to even slow down the onslaught. The shots came thick and fast but Dan never gave up and just kept moving with every shot. I was sure his energy would fail him and he would give up and let a few pucks go by. By half time the score was still 1-0 and we talked about making a change. Wayne was tired of playing defense so we switched places.

The second half of the game started just like the first with the opposition defensemen passing the puck back and forth. I’m not sure what they were thinking but Wayne was a fast learner and did exactly what I had done earlier. Now with the score 2-0 and not much time left. Our opponents were desperate and unleashed a hail of shots at Dan. Wayne and I were so worn out from trying to slow down the fusillade of pucks that we were all but useless. I had to watch poor Dan moving like a dancer in the goal blocking everything that came at him. The shots were hard and fast from every angle and distance. I was sure that something, even just a lucky deflection or strange bounce would slip past him.

As the game ended I could only stand in awe of what had transpired. A team of three had beaten a full team of top athletes in a very embarrassing fashion. I asked Dan about his amazing feat and he confided in me that he was actually a semi-professional lacrosse player and played goal for the Coquitlam Adanacs. He swore me to secrecy but 60 years later I feel his story needs to be told.

[stories-from-peter]

Greatest Fireworks I Ever Saw

Vancouver has hosted an international fireworks contest every summer for many years. I was fortunate to have friends whose apartments had excellent views of English Bay and the festival. All the time watching those magnificent displays I would remember the best of all of them from when I was 7 years old.

My brother, John, got his first full-time job a short time before Halloween when I was in grade two. The day he got his first pay cheque coincided with Halloween. John decided to spend his entire earnings on fireworks for the Halloween festivities. John arrived home with a large box crammed with every kind of type of fireworks he could find. He proceeded to plant many of them in the back yard where he could light them quickly and easily for best effect.

All the sparklers, Roman candles, rockets, firecrackers, bursting bombs, and spinning wheels were laid out by the time darkness had set in. John had planned to start the display with a large Roman candle near the middle of the lawn. I was so excited to have our own family fireworks. John warned me to stand back, away from danger, before starting the show. He lit the Roman candle and stood back to watch the balls of fire shooting up into the air. Some of the fireballs were still flaming when they came back down. A few flaming balls managed to land on other fireworks and set them off too. The freshly lit fireworks produced their own flames and sparks which, in turn set off many others.

The result was truly stupendous. Virtually all the fireworks were exploding and shooting off flames and fireballs within a minute or two. The sky was lit up with the glow of the flames. Our neighbors came out to see what was happening. Someone called the Fire Department. The fire trucks arrived just after the last of the flames had faded away. Some family members sounded disappointed but I was thrilled. It could not have been any better if it had been planned.  

[stories-from-peter]

Easy, Riders

I used to do a lot of cycling with a couple of friends, Bill and Rick. One of our favorite rides took us from Bill's house in Cloverdale to the town of Hope about 130 km away. We would usually arrive at the settlement of Harrison Mills around lunch time. There is a rustic old hotel and pub called the Sasquatch Inn where we would stop to eat. The Sasquatch is not well known to cyclists but is very popular with bikers - the Harley Davidson kind.

One spring weekend we were doing our annual Hope cycling trip and arrived at the Sasquatch for lunch. We parked our bicycles next to a group of motorcycles and headed into the pub to eat.

I have to explain that cyclists don't dress at all like bikers. I wear black bicycle pants and a bright yellow jersey. In my outfit I look like some kind of giant bumblebee. Bill wears a variety of colours and Rick has a nice coordinated powder blue outfit.

We found an empty table among the leather jacket and chain clad patrons and had a look at the menu. The waitress came over after a while and said quite plainly "So what do you GAYS want for lunch?". She immediately realized she said "gays" instead of "guys" and began to turn a few shades of red. "I didn't really mean that, it just slipped out", she told us. The three of us had a good laugh but the waitress was clearly embarrassed. To atone for her flub she gave us each a free beer.

We forgot about the incident until about a year later when Bill and I were doing a training ride. The Sasquatch is about 50 miles from Bill's house so the return trip adds up to 100 miles, which is our target for a one day ride.

We arrived at the Sasquatch for lunch around 11 am on a Sunday morning. One of the patrons was standing outside the door smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be under the influence and asked us in slurred speech, "Where you guys goin'?". We told him we came to the Sasquatch for lunch. He asked us how far we were riding and we replied that it would be 100 miles before the day was done. "Yeah, no shit?" he said and poked his head in the pub door.

He yelled into the pub "Hey you won't believe this. These guys rode their bikes 100 miles just to have a beer at the Sasquatch!". The waitress remembered us from our previous meeting and came outside. She said "Are you guys still riding?". I replied, "Yes, and we're still not gay" (not that there's anything wrong with that).