Living within the sound track of Da Nang, 1970, or “Apocalypse Now,” one of my favourite movies, while sniffing in, not, “napalm in the morning,” but nearby burning trees, changes your perspective. Not to mention wondering if the nearby large natural gas facility will better emulate the napalm thing.
For at least the last 24 hours, questions like:
Are the Blue Jays for real, or will another long bad streak follow, like the last time, the recent powerhouse efforts of the re-configured team from the center of the Canadian universe?
Will the Habs again play like tiny dervishes all regular season and then get pushed around, and into an early playoff exit, again?
Will the Toronto Maple Leafs win even as often as last year, now that all of their elite playing talent inhabits the front office?
Does anyone still believe the B.C. Lions have an elite quarterback in Travis Lulay?
Does anyone still believe Stephen Harper, our long term prime minister and the chief symbol of our democracy, is an honest man?
Are we now so bored and jaded with the money-laden politics of modern times that none of us will vote by the time the election finally rolls around?
Will anything get done to create that second river crossing, or create activity for our myriad of underused recreation facilities?
Even if (a bit more relevant) everybody on earth began to believe that anthropogenic input was part of the warming and drying around the world, is there anything meaningful that can be done about it?
Etc.?
All seem a lot less important, if not, for the most part, trivial - certainly not urgent.
That may be selfish, but standing in your driveway preparing to load what few things, like pets, personal electronics, medicines and the necessities of a not-so-small home-based business so as to foresake your home and the life centered upon it tends to lead to introspection.
We seem, so far, to have weathered the threat, thanks to rapid and effective response from all the firefighting crews and bosses in the neighbourhood. There is still fire in the nearby woods, and the, “whap, whap,” rotor blades is still quite loud and insistent, but we are told we are no longer under immediate threat.
So, back to the questions.
I hope the answers to all of them accord with increasing prosperity. My answers would be, “Yes, No, Yes, No, No, No, Yes, Yes,” positive thinker that I am.
Have a good weekend, the penultimate pre-school one. We will.