As much as my goal is to breathe life in this memoir; I find the birth pangs are grinding down my will and impairing my ability to focus on the task at hand. In an effort to jump start this process I thought I would write a little about the man whose memoirs I am writing.

His name isn’t very well known although he played a direct role in the formation of the Israeli state and fought as a sapper with the Soviet Red Army. In fact, he was instrumental and played a direct hand in ensuing the Soviet’s escape a German pincher movement in the Ukraine.

If the Red Army hadn’t successfully crossed the Dnieper River more 1.2 million Russian soldiers and equipment would have been vanquished from the field of battle, and consequently, the Soviets would have lost all ability to fight on. Imagine – the consequences for us in the West; if the Soviets were defeated in the fall of 1941.

It is really not surprising his name was only known in the upper echelon of Israeli military and early Labor Zionist political/government circles. He left Israel in 1956 feeling the Labor Zionist movement had betrayed the very people – like him – who were among the few to take up arms and risked the treasure of their lives to make the Zionist state a reality.

The lesson we so often learn is that only the victors write history and so why would a man like him be lauded? A man who routinely referred to David Ben Gurion a ’shrimp’ and thought Golda Meir was the ‘root of all ugliness’. A man who believed Moshe Dayan should have been tried by a military court for incompetence, and wasn’t only because of his family’s connections within Labor Zionist movement. Or who thought that Menachem Begin had a gift for making a speech but couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. A man who commanded the young Ariel Sharon and thought him a good boy who could be counted on to do exactly what he was told to do – no matter the price.

Every once in a while a witness outside the victor’s circle gets heard and gives a contrary cry to the established narrative of the victors. When I was first offered the project I wrote a friend and asked his opinion on the matter. He wrote and I quote -

Even setting aside his own role, anyone that even witnessed battles as diverse as helping yet another Soviet army being destroyed in a Kiev-like encirclement battle, Tobruk, and Haifa – let’s see, by my tally, that’s someone who:
helped prevent the defeat of the Soviet’s in the first year of their war with Germany, helped prevent the Nazis from capturing the Suez Canal – preventing a linkage between Germany and Japan, and played a causal role in the creation of Israel.

Most people never get the chance to be present at one major historical event – this guy was present and active at 3. I hate to admit it, but some things are better than sex.

I am not so sure about the sex part (the verdict is still out on that one) but there are very few personal accounts of life in the Red Army during Operation Barbarossa. It is one of those little historical ironies that most accounts available to us in the west tell the tale concerning life for a German soldier on the Russian front. There are varied reasons for this – one of which is the constant Soviet need to rewrite their own historical narrative to reflect whatever current political realities of the day was reining. And so here is an excerpt from Jaques Bar’s – Life on the Russian Front 1941

The convoy was rolling as fast as the road allowed  in order to reach the bridge in the shortest time possible and by the shortest route. There wasn’t much talk amongst the ranks during this time and it occurred to me that the first group of Soviet soldiers were probably hoping to reach the bridge before the Germans and praying the crossing would be done in time. The second group was probably wishing the Germans had already reached the bridge and were waiting for the convoy. I was preoccupied with trying to determine the ratio between the first and second group. The regiment sent forward a detachment to the bridge holders to persuade them to wait and not to blow up the bridge precisely at midnight in case the convoy arrived late and providing the facts on the ground would allow it.

We arrived twenty-three minutes after midnight and found the bridge was still standing. The convoy crossed the river in seven minutes and the bridge was safely blown away. With a group of German troops still on our heels but moving cautiously we continued on in the night in the direction of the river. We did not dare to stop even for a moment after crossing the river but continued to drive in a southeast direction, climbing the top of a deep canyon on the east banks of the river. The road was steep, narrow and curved which made it very difficult for the larger trucks to manoeuvre. It was assumed there were probably a few other German units who had already crossed the river in a few places – possibly north and upstream of our position.

The drivers by this time were weary and harassed from the constant need to drive without sleep or food. Long before sunrise the convoy came out from the canyon into the open steppe and started moving very fast in the southeasterly direction. The wide road on the steppe made it possible to drive three to four trucks side by side and this abridged the length of the convoy to half a mile long. The race was to get to the new Russian front lines before any fighting occurred and possibly hunker, down in the forests where German air craft could not sight us and attack from the sky.

Out of nowhere came a barrage from different firearms and explosions. The convoy was racing directly into a line of fire and it was instantly apparent we were the target. Kirilenko immediately jumped out from the truck he was riding with Gorbachev and me to join his assigned men. Under heavy fire, the convoy broke formation in an attempt to look for cover or hideouts in all directions – spreading out as widely as possible. The fire intensified and concentrated on the convoy where the explosives seemed to be concentrated. Different types of shrapnel were hitting the convoy and no matter which direction the drivers took to evade fire. Whenever a vehicle stopped, frightened soldiers crawled or leaped out from the trucks, screaming this was an ambush, a trap, the Germans had trapped them in a surprise attack.

The soldiers left the convoy and spread out onto the field leaping from one place to another and took up positions in the lowest possible places on the ground – great distances from the trucks and waited for further orders. I knew the realities of the front line but I never expected to find myself in the midst of live fire on the front line. I had convinced myself the evacuation and the retreat would be safe and not pose any real risk of danger. I did not think I was exposing myself to the opportunity of certain death. I looked up into the terrified eyes of Gorbachev whose eyes told me the situation was clear. The convoy had been intercepted by German troops and within a very short period of time everything would be lost and destroyed.

I made it clear to Gorbachev that I could not surrender to the Germans because I was a Jew and since no chance of escape existed, I would commit suicide. No other solution was possible for me. Gorbachev was close to breaking down; so deep was he shocked by the latest turn of events. He turned to me and said that he had no other choice but to fight to the bitter end. He would not allow himself to be taken alive. Then just as suddenly, the shooting ceased and the noise from the guns grew quiet.

Gorbachev and I jumped out from the truck and saw two trucks with white white cloths were moving towards the direction from where the shooting had originated. ?There were scattered bodies of the dead and wound soldiers lying everywhere in the fields. There was no attempt at subterfuge and the white flag of surrender was tied to a truck in the lead. This time, the Ukrainian nationalist elements in the regiment were convinced their moment had come and the convoy would be shortly and firmly be under German control.

Gorbachev and I were surprised and interrupted from carrying out our suicide pact by a group of Ukrainian nationalists acting on their own initiative. They forcibly disarmed us and placed us under armed guard until we could be handed over to German military authorities, The Ukrainians promised that after our interrogation by the Germany authorities they would personally kill us both. Gorbachev couldn’t understand why the regiment surrendered without even displaying token resistance while I sunk into despair.

It was an existential moment for me, and I was left pondering, why it was so necessary to come this far, only to be caught by the German division within miles of the new Russian front. I was willing to endure long periods of being cold, wet and lice, suffering chronic hunger and sleep deprivation; if this suffering meant one day I would get my life and freedom back. This left me questioning why my luck had run out at such a moment as this. This ignorable end meant that my opportunity to do something of lasting importance had passed and future historians would never remember or have reason to mention my tragedy.   The all clear was given and the convoy moved back into formation and proceeded to move forward towards the obvious ‘German’ lines.

The self-appointed pro-German Ukrainian soldiers began their new orders by firing additional shots from the machine guns of the moving trucks to ensure all those soldiers lying down were really dead, and if not dead before, were well and truly dead now. When the convoy reached the firing lines and crossed over with the soldiers there was once again much confusion written on the Soviet faces. These were not German troops but Soviet Red Army soldiers behind the newly established front. The convoy was the victim of a friendly fire incident. The Soviets at the new front lines were never advised or made aware there was the possibility of a regimental sapper convoy arriving sometime after midnight.

Furthermore, after string upon string of devastating losses and retreats, it seemed far too incredible for a convoy of this size to have been able to succeed in piercing through the German army iron rings of tanks and guns.

If it wasn’t for the cover of darkness and the convoy arriving late, the Red Army would never have mistaken the regimental sapper convoy for a motorized column of German infantry. After a short battle and the misunderstanding the issue was cleared and the convoy was allowed to pass through with only a loss of about 10% of our strength. The friendly fire incident started because darkness had not completely lifted and the arriving force was taken as a motorized column of German infantry. The Ukrainian soldiers realized that they were also victims of a misunderstanding born out of the fog of war.

The first draft is due on Thursday, and no doubt, there will be multiple re-writes, but until then, let us all ponder the hand of fate.

Of all the tens of thousands of legal papers floating around my home that I have acquired in a life time of living I have discovered that I cannot find the one paper I actually need – my husband’s death certificate. This requires I contact the Jamaican government and deal with the bureaucracy. If I said I would rather have extension dental surgery spread out quarterly over the next ten years rather than deal with the Jamaican bureaucracy would you believe I am actually understating the actual amount of dread and loathing I am feeling. Revenue Canada and the Jamaican bureaucracy – its a twofer or double whammy of misery. I must have really been evil in a past life.

One the plus side, the everything is now online but I simply cannot input my deceased husband’s name, dob, date and place of death. I need to obtain a death registry number before a copy of the death certificate can be purchased and sent. Of course, a copy of the death certificate still requires all the information above to ensure it matches the deceased. There are so many possibilities for error that my typing fingers are shrivelling just thinking about it. The forced expedition through my documents made me search in places I never willingly go – like the box holding all my husband’s papers, pictures and letters. This set off a trip to the attic of my mind and some of the lids of the boxes there aren’t very battered down all that well.

The Last Amazon in an effort to divert me asked me a question she found in her latest copy of Glamour magazine which forced me to open all the boxes in search of an answer because she really wanted to know. In fact, she feels I have a responsibility to answer her because she is my daughter. Simply put; what advice would I give her someone her age about love. I just didn’t know…I could give her dating advice, marriage advice, career advice, health advice but love…I was stumped. I am living in the attic, and directly front and center, are two huge opened boxes. One is marked Colleen and right beside is an older more tattered box called whose name written in the dust is Clay. It was among the first the boxes to go on my shelves of sorrows. It was a box of great joy and even bigger grief.

I was 21 and had never fallen in love till I meet Clay. By 21, I had loved, married and buried one husband but I never had fallen in love. I was raised by ruthlessly pragmatic people whose idea of ‘falling-in-love’ was as alien a suggestion as the idea that the Martians have landed and are in control of the White House.

I had met him strictly by accident when my beloved friend Colleen and I had to plan my escape from home as I had just broke off an engagement rather suddenly with a man my family wanted me to marry. I didn’t want to listen or be forced to participate in the drama. Instead, we drove off in her battered Ford Escort and headed towards the border so I wouldn’t have to chance being hunted down by relatives who might try to force their point of view on me. My grandmother’s last words to me as we drove off was ‘For fuck’s sake don’t pick-up or start anything with any man and remember you aren’t the fucking UN’. Colleen turned bright red in embarrassment for hearing an entirely respectable looking senior woman, dressed in fur and diamonds, swearing and suggesting in public – for the entire neighborhood to over hear – that we might be inclined to pick-up with strange men. Colleen’s obvious embarrassment only made me laugh all the harder and showed very clearly who might be the older sister but it didn’t mean she was the more experienced one. But then again, she didn’t have all of my obvious advantages having been raised by Gypsies. In my grandmother’s world, this was the equivalent of saying ‘good-bye, have a safe trip and I love you’ were in Colleen’s world as we hit the nevo drom – the high road.

We ended up in Buffalo, New York, where the booze was cheap, men were easy and the music went on till the early hours of the morning. This meant she could easily find someone to entertain her while I danced all night. We went to a half a dozen clubs that night but I couldn’t find my groove. Eventually, the man who joined my friend suggested we hit the East side and go to the Cotton Club. The guys at the door had no trouble letting me and Colleen in but her friend was too pale to pass the colour bar despite my best efforts. I cursed not opening the debate without my French accent. Although, one of the bouncer’s did suggested we try a club down the street called Etc.

This time I told the other two to walk behind and let me clear the door first. It worked too. Unknown to me, I was about to meet the man who would change my life forever. In fact, long after we were over I spent a good ten years searching for echoes of him in every man I ever met. Nothing had prepared me for meeting him. I never had school girl crushes on movie or rock stars or the boy next door. I was raised by people who believed ‘falling-in-love’ was only something the gagje movie stars did on the silver screen to fleece the gullible of their cash. Love was family, duty; the kampania.

I was married off and buried my first husband by the time I met Clay but I never fell in love. And who falls madly, careless, recklessly in love in the east side of Buffalo, New York? Apparently, I do, which all suggests one cannot ever know what lies just down the highway and over the bridge. It went on for years. In my naivete, I had only honesty and my famed bluntness to guide me. Tolerance, patience and forgiveness were foreign in my experience and I wouldn’t learn their value until I had children. The last time I saw him was in the late 80’s as I turned to back look at him just one last time as he lay sleeping in bed before I sneaked out the door like a thief in the night and out of his world forever – without explanation. It was last reconciliations of what feels like thousands of reunions. I remember laying in bed beside him and thought I just cannot live a life filed with anger – his, mine, and the world’s. I gathered up my clothes and slide on the door. It would take years before the sight of people like us wouldn’t enrage strangers in on the street and provoke anger.

So I was thinking about love and what advice I could give my daughter and I just couldn’t come up with a single piece of wisdom. I stared at the computer and the blank screen and suddenly I had the urge to look him up and see if he was on Facebook. He was there and very much as I remembered him. I spent a long time debating whether I would send him a message or not – my own personal Pandora’s box. In the end, the young woman who had to play with fire just because she had held the matches in her hand asserted her presence and I did.

I just spent hours talking to a man who I have spent the last 28 years separate and apart from. Its eerie how we so easily fell so easily into our Kate and Clay mould which was forged so long ago. It’s amazing how comforting it is to learn he is still alive and finding happiness. There was a time when we would break up and he’d call me in the middle of the time and say to me – ‘Kate please just talk to me…I just need to hear the sound of your voice.’ I knew things were ‘wrong’ and I wouldn’t fight him but do as he asked. There were times when I did the very same and he wouldn’t fight me. We just knew what each of us needed and we gave it despite all the bad blood that passed between us and our own inability to raise above our petty natures.

He sent me a message today which said he has been searching for me for years and he have never stopped thinking about you. I still have your earrings and I hope you have been happy. You have to call me.

So I did and spent hours lost in the surreal place where the past and the present converge.

Eventually, we talked about the first time we were intimate. I think it was so different for me from all the men I had been with before because it was the first time I let myself carried away and utterly lost in a moment. I approached it as entirely a one-off kind of thing which turned into an experience spread out of years. It was a moment that I wanted to feel forever in. I think the desire started the first time he took me in his arm to dance. Being a dancer I tended to relate to people first by the way their moved or carried their bodies. He just fit me. His body ‘got’ me and mine answered. The first time I danced with him brought out an entirely physical and emotional response in me.

We talked about that first time. He remembered as clearly as I as it left a profound mark on both of us. I think it was so different (at least for me) as it was the first time I let myself get absolutely carried away in the moment.  I thought of it as entirely a one-off kind of thing and nothing mattered more than that moment. A moment that I wanted to feel forever in. I made a promise to myself that if we ever got together then all the rules which govern relationships were off the table for just so I could fully experience and explore this strange attraction I felt for him. Well, all the rules but one – I would do anything as long as it felt good. All my famous walls and inhibitions were entirely down just for one night. I threw my entire focus into just enjoying him for the pleasure we’d give each other….just like I use to do when I would go on stage to dance – to live. I wanted to live forever in that moment and I, we, did.

There were other moments in that long first fall and winter. He had a living room wall lined by mirrors and he would lie down between my legs as I was dressed in nothing but my toe shoes as I practiced my ballet barre while he lay under the ground between my feet. I cannot begin to explain how incredibly the experience was…to be loved utterly loved and appreciated for merely being a woman. Heedy stuff.

I haven’t a clue as to what it all means. I am a fortunate woman, I have been loved many times – probably much more than I have deserved. Men have written stories for and about me – painted my portrait and I have more than my share of bad poetry and songs written for me.

In turn,  I have loved my share of men but I never loved anyone like I loved him. I am not even sure that I ever wanted to love anyone like I loved him.  It was both sacred and profane. The experience of knowing him marked me forever and I spent a good ten years of searching for the Clay in all the men I met and never finding him. Eventually, I learned not to look and found other things – sometimes wonderful things.

I have no love advice to give anyone except for this – if you are ever fortunate to experience love do not be afraid but approach love as a prayer, and pray you get to dance to the end of love.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is the spiritual adviser of the Israeli political party representing Sephardi Judaism in the Knesset. Eli Yishai may be the public leader of Shas in the Knesset but he gets his direction and policies and talking points from the Rabbi. Last week Rabbi Yosef issued a religious decision surprising for a semi-secular like myself for its progressive compassion. Ynet News:

In an unprecedented halachic ruling, Shas’ spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has allowed a woman pregnant by artificial insemination to marry a man who is not the father of the developing child. M., a 44-year old religious woman, decided to get pregnant through a sperm bank because she feared she would not be able to conceive if she waited any longer.

However immediately after her insemination she met a 50-year old widower and the two quickly decided to wed, after the latter accepted responsibility for the child. The couple immediately ran into trouble: According to the Jewish halacha, a pregnant woman is not allowed to marry any man who is not the father for 24 months after the birth. The ruling preserves the unborn child’s rights. Rabbis explain that if the woman becomes pregnant again within the two years that follow the birth, the mother may stop producing milk for the baby.

The couple appealed to the local rabbinate, but was forbidden to marry. They then turned to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who ruled that the mother may use milk substitutes to feed her child if she conceives again in the coming years. Attorney Zuriel Bublil, who helped the couple with their appeal, was pleased with the result. “This is an unprecedented ruling that will help women coming to the end of their fertility,” he said.

I won’t get into all the details but for a single Jewish religious woman to go to a sperm bank to be inseminated is remarkable in of itself but to have Rabbi Yosef rule such as; is positively earth shattering. Some days, I really think I lost out on the tradition lottery.

On Wednesday, a uniformed police officer ushered taxis into the centre’s parking lot. He didn’t chastise them for clogging the bike lane, or for idling, which carries a fine of up to $5,000. When the Star asked him to clear the bike lane, he said he’d “call someone.”

Why a Toronto Police officer couldn’t do it himself is beyond me. Who knew traffic law enforcement remains the exclusive purview of only some cops? The Toronto Star article goes on:

Minutes ticked by. A cyclist stopped to make the same request. “I’m pissed off and frustrated,” said the cyclist, Daniel Hall. On his way south to the ferry docks, Hall was attempting to use the lane for the first time. Instead, he found cars backed up all the way from Bremner Blvd. to Front St.

The officer finally said he’d notified parking enforcement. While waiting for them to show up, the Star chatted with a few drivers. When told it was illegal to stand in a bike lane, some said, “No it’s not,” and others, “It’s only for today.” Beck and Royal taxi dispatchers said they’d get their cars to leave the lane, but no one did.

Twenty minutes after the officer called for parking enforcement, no one had shown up. So, the Star called and was told a car would be sent out. Thirty-five minutes later, the lane was still full of idling cars.

Believe it or not there is a $60 fine for parking in a bike lane and if your car is idling the fine can go up to $5,000. The first time I rode south on Sherbourne from Bloor Street East in the designated bike lane I had to merge into fast moving traffic or hit a delivery van in front of the Sherbourne Medical Centre. Not only was the van in the bike lane he was strategically parked on the clearly marked “No Parking or Stopping Anytime’ sign. A pedestrian waiting at the bus stop just passed the parked van kept screaming at me “Lady don’t do it – just use the sidewalk for G-d’s sake. It wasn’t a one-off experience and the driver was parked there just after 4pm everyday I rode home. This year I am ready for him.

Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn’t just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.

Göbekli Tepe—the name in Turkish for “potbelly hill”—lays art and religion squarely at the start of that journey. After a dozen years of patient work, Schmidt has uncovered what he thinks is definitive proof that a huge ceremonial site flourished here, a “Rome of the Ice Age,” as he puts it, where hunter-gatherers met to build a complex religious community. Across the hill, he has found carved and polished circles of stone, with terrazzo flooring and double benches.

Maybe there is more to this ‘god’ gene business than I originally gave any credit to. But a standing stone temple being built 7,000 years before the pyramids – it boggles the mind…with endless possibilities and even more questions. I swear having only one life to live is just too damn short for the endless possibilities which the pursuit of knowledge offers.

I was pro-choice long before there was any choice, but what a great many on the ‘pro-life’ side forget to address is this; there more than one alleged right to life they should be busy defending. Get as fetists as you want in the posters, get graphic, hand out bloody dolls, coins, or whatever – but understand this – all you have accomplished is to turn any sane or reasonably minded individual against your point of view. Beating up clerks or doctors just paints you as thugs…and bombing clinics and murdering doctors is an unforgivable act of urban terrorism and put you squarely on the same side as the Taliban.

On the other hand, it was not until I had carried a fetus to full-term and given birth that I was able to succinctly answer the question; when does life begin? Now I know but even being able to answer it seems like a useless kind of thing to know. While I may appreciate the fact that life begins at conception; whose right’s trumps whose body? Here is the thing – while I can appreciate the miracle of being – I would not willingly force or compel any female to carry a fetus to term against her will since the physical well-being of that fetus is entirely dependent on the level of physical care exercised by the host-female. A woman is more than a womb.

Years ago, a Toronto Star columnist, (I believe it was Rosie Di-Manno) wrote a column lamenting the fact a woman had 17 abortions and counting. Di-Manno is probably as pro-choice as one could get, but even for her, this woman’s actions were well over the bounds of civilized behaviour. I always thought she had it wrong. The more willingly a woman is to use abortion as a form of birth control shows absolutely her general unfitness for even being a surrogate motherhood to a child who would, in the best case scenario, be destined to be discarded at birth.

And in the pro-life camp, I would like to ask; how far are you willing to go to restrain me from having an abortion if I deemed it is necessary? Will you bind my hands and feet to keep me from reaching for a coat hanger or a knitting needle? Does that sound too extreme? I would remind you of the time when the law of the land criminalized abortion and literally thousands of women preferred to risk jail and gamble on death rather than give birth.

Ask yourself – how far will are you really prepared to go? Will you be satisfied if you jail and make me a criminal because I refuse to become a host for another human? This is the path of the Handmaiden’s Tale and I will not let you lead me, my daughter, or even her daughter, there without a fight. Know this, I am not shy to shed much blood protecting my right to my own person or my liberty. Instead, I suggest you content yourself with imagining me and my sisterhood’s eternal damnation in the world to come.

When I first heard the Order of Canada was to be bestowed upon Dr. Henry Morgentaler, I was shocked, and thought – egad an abortionist has been awarded the Order of Canada. Why would the committee award the honour to someone who divides us??? Since then, I have a chance to read the papers and both pro & choice blogs, but mostly, it has caused me to reflect what life was like before Dr. Morgentaler fought the government and won. Well, he might divide us, but no woman in this country is driven in despair to reach for a coat-hanger or knitting needle and risk death or jail, and in my mind, for that fact alone, he deserves it, and my freedom demands it.

And for those of you who think a woman cannot be trusted to make the right decision, a decision which is in her own best interests, I ask you this; why does the expression and fulfillment of your value system demand a ‘woman’ give way to the despair of the coat hanger?

I cannot be the keeper of anyone’s conscience, and instead, I will trust women to be their own keepers.

Not only am I growing older but I am starting to feel ‘older’ which is worse. My relationship towards my possessions is now getting disturbing in that peculiar senior way. For example, I find the loss or aging of things most disturbing. Rather than greet it with a ‘hooray’ and see it as an opportunity to go out and buy new fun stuff; I mourn their loss/passing.

Case in point – my Roots Venetian Village flat bag is on its last legs. The inside lining is completely shot. I can no longer clean the stains off the outside the bag and the China Red dye is either bleeding off in patches or completely worn away at the corners. All of this wouldn’t necessarily put me in shelving mode but the shoulder strap is holding on with only a prayer and a miracle. Four years of toting this handbag every day through rain, sleet, snow and sunshine without a single thought to the rough treatment metered out…and now it’s finally succumbing.

I have travelled everywhere possible with this bag and everything fits in it – including a book and often lunch – plus a bottle of cognac. Okay, maybe a small bottle. I am trying to console myself with thinking thoughts about replacing it in dark chocolate brown or black but it’s not all that inspiring – especially when my mind drifts to the price of a new one. And if that wasn’t bad enough – apparently Roots has sold out of the bags…..

In the past year, I spent more time commuting between the eastern and western Canada and was forced to acknowledge some aspects of my personality had changed and not necessarily for a more pleasant me. My preferred method of transportation is anything over flying and I am no longer a good traveller. The constant hurry up and endless waiting of air travel; the rules, the restrictions drive my tolerance level for bullshit to ‘E’ for empty. I am no one’s favoured customer. If I had my way, the 9/11 Hijackers would not have died in their attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Centre but instead would be left in my care so I could torture them at will for all the horrendous changes for the worse their hijacking of those planes created.

The main lesson I took from the 9/11 Commission Report was the conclusion that it was primarily a failure of imagination on the part of those entrusted with security. The lesson I take from the North Western Air plane by a disenfranchised radicalized Nigerian is simply this; it was a human failure to implant and follow up established procedures.

So today, due to a new whole host of restrictive security regulations being implemented to flying into the United States to compensate for human failure; I simply choose never to fly into the US or have a changeover occur on US soil. I’ll gladly pay more not to be needless harassed in an experience that is already overtly invasive and restrictive. I chose not to sit for an hour held hostage with my hands clearly visible in my lap without benefit of book, blanket, pillow or iPod. I have broken no laws and do not wish anyone harm but those already long dead. If the freedom of our society is worth preserving the way to do so is not with endless restriction and regulation against the law-abiding nature of many against the risk of a few. Life is fraught with risk; some known but mostly not. I’d rather live a life unknown freely than a live a life regulated and govern by endless governmental restrictions and regulations.

Last night after trying to manoeuvre around a van whose driver thought nothing of parking in the bike lane which was clearly marked by a sign reading ‘NO PARKING” and nearly getting killed for my effort to merge into traffic to go around said van. In fact, a pedestrian was shouting at me “Lady don’t do it. For the love of G-d, don’t do it – take the sidewalk.”

Cyclists and drivers have been very much in the local news lately and I got a real moment of envy from this tidbit from an interview with a Toronto Police Constable who helped found the Toronto police bike unit.

You must get respect as a cyclist in police uniform, but what about in your own recreational cycling?

If you’re in a uniform, yeah, you get respect. But sometimes you get too much respect.

Let’s say I want to make a left turn … I stick that left arm out. Well, here’s a police officer in uniform sticking his arm out going southbound on Yonge St., and I’ve got two lanes of traffic come to a screeching halt because they think I’m directing traffic. Or they don’t want to hit a police officer.

This is the kind of respect as a middle-aged cyclist I can only dream of having. The really sad part is how gob-smacking fearful so many of my younger co-workers are at even the idea of riding a bike on the downtown streets. Its not other cyclists who scare them but the complete disregard so many, many car drivers have for the rules of the road.

When I was five my father took me out to Canadian Tire to get a new bicycle for my birthday. It would be a real grown up CCM bike. In fact, the bike was so grown up he bought a 18” frame with 26” sized wheels figuring this way he would never have to buy me another bike. I crashed head-first into the ditch the first time I took the bike out. The crash mangled me up pretty much as well as the bike. My father blamed me for the incident and refused to ever get me another a bicycle owing to my ‘carelessness’. It was my grandfather who saved the day and took me back to Canadian Tire to buy a more appropriate sized bicycle

I got my last bike when I was 13. My mother bought it for my birthday. I wanted one of the new ‘3′ speed bikes which had just come on the market. Instead, my mother bought me a high end English Lady’s riding bike because she didn’t want me to go any ‘faster’ on the road. I was deeply disappointed and I never rode that bike after the first time wobbling around the apartment building complex parking lot. You see, at just barely 5′1” my feet couldn’t even touch the ground with my legs stretched straight out and my toes pointed. My mother never learned how to ride a bike so the nuance of having a bicycle sized appropriately was lost on her, besides, she figured I would one day grow into the bike and refused to take it back to get me one more my size. I never rode a bike again till Isaiah Sender brought home the 22′ speed racing bike his grandmother bought him for his 12th birthday. She paid more for that bike than I ever would have and it cost almost as much as my rent on my 3 bedroom flat in downtown Toronto. Needlessly to say, it suited him perfectly. Yes, at 12 he was already towering over me and he still has room to grow with the bike. I took his bike out for a turn which necessitated the tribe coming and watching as they had several large and persistent doubts I could actually ride a bike. The Last Amazon brought the first aid kit thinking it would probably come in handy. While Isaiah Sender’s bike was really too big for me I discovered it is true – one never forgets how to ride a bike and I remembered how much fun it was to ride.

So for the next three years I kept threatening to buy myself a bike and just never got around to it; till this, my 47th birthday. I went off to Canadian Tire and bought myself the cheapest 18th speed bike I could get sized appropriately for me. Apparently, I most suited for a ‘youth’ bike. Isaiah Sender came with me and insisted on following beside me on the way home. I tried to give him my transit pass so he could take the subway home but he insisted on running beside me to ensure I didn’t get into any harm in the traffic. I learned a multitude of lessons. Isaiah Sender is in remarkable shape and a five km bike drive was pushing it for a 47th year old woman who hasn’t done any serious biking riding in the last 30 plus years. I will obviously have to work up to the up hill 2 km ride before I take the bike to work. I also learned Toronto’s roads are in appalling shape and I need to change the seat on my bike to something a with a more padding that would be kinder to my privates. And having ‘handy’ sons is wonderful for getting one’s ride ‘pimped’ out with fenders, bottle holder and the requisite old lady basket…or I suspect needing the seat changed.