Tag Archives: history

Same memories different stories

An interesting fact about the stories we tell over and over again is that with each telling we change the memory. Some stories change very little, either because we have told it so often we remember the recent telling of it as if it was just yesterday. Others may change little because the memory induces such strong emotions that we feel like we are re-living the experience as we tell it. But other stories change quite a bit.

You might ask a friend or family member the question, “Do you remember the time when…?” They do, and when they share their version, that version partially becomes your version as well. “Was it me or you that noticed it first?” A simple question, and then your friend responds and their answer becomes yours… whether or not their memory was correct.

I’m always fascinated to hear a shared story told by two different people, each filling in gaps for the other, each taking turns correcting the other. What does one person consider important that the other doesn’t? What subtle contradictions are there? What is a core memory for both?

One memory, two slightly different stories… two truths, and no lies, even when the stories don’t match. That’s the interesting thing about our memories, they tell us the truth we remember, they tell us ‘our’ truth. And the reality is that the very next time we tell the same story, that truth might just change a little bit.

Fog and moon

A couple days ago some fog rolled in. Coming home from a dinner, my wife and o say a large coyote wandering down our street. Thankfully our daughter has already brought our cat in for the night. As we got out of our car the coyote was strolling past our driveway and I let out a little shout to ‘Keep going’, spurring it into a faster pace as it went by.

Last night I had a hot tub and the fog was still around. It was eerie seeing the bright moon through the misty fog, and it made me think about what life was like living in caves a couple hundred thousand years ago. No doors to keep out the wild animals, and all kinds of superstitions around the weather and the meaning of different events.

Back then, life was short and ailments like a tooth ache that today could be fixed with a root canal could end up being a fatal and unrecoverable infection. A bad winter could mean starvation. A pack of wild animals could wipe out an entire family. The world was a harsher, more dangerous place.

Today we sit in the comfort of our cars, our homes, and even our hot tubs. We are protected from wildlife, weather, and even other people. And when we look out at the moon on a foggy night it’s not nearly the same experience as our great ancestors. No, to us the fog and moon are an enjoyable sight, a moment to contemplate the hardships of a time long gone… from the comfort of modern amenities.

Health and history

I had a dental cleaning today. I get one every 6 months. As I was sitting in the chair I thought about how far we’ve come in dental hygiene over the last few hundred years. I thought about how debilitating it would have been to need a root canal before root canals were a thing. Tooth aches can be an all consuming pain, and life before dentists could have been an agonizing experience.

So many inventions have saved lives: from penicillin to pacemakers, vaccines to vitamins, antibiotics to aspirin… science and medicine have been invented, created, and discovered to make our lives less painful and a lot safer.

We still have a ways to go with the likes of cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases yet to be beaten, but we’ll get there in my children’s lifetime, if not mine. Technology is getting better and the science of longevity is very promising. Soon our visits to the washroom will be more like doctor visits, with our urine and faeces being sampled and tested by our toilets, and an app on our phones will notify us if there are any health concerns to worry about.

It’s a marvel to think about how much has been done in the world of science and medicine to make our lives healthier and longer. It took a dental assistant getting plaque off of my not-flossed-regularly-enough teeth to help me appreciate the value of modern science. And, I’m happy to report that I’m cavity free!

The ugliness of war

Last night we went to the play Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents. It’s two juxtaposed stories of Canadians during World War II. The main characters are a Japanese woman from BC, and her family who are sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbour, and a young Canadian from Quebec who joins the war, is sent to Hong Kong, and spends years in a a Japanese prisoner of war camp, first in China, then in Japan.

The story culminates into a dinner between her son and his daughter dating, and the PTSD suffering former prisoner of war being invited to dinner to meet her daughter’s boyfriend’s family in Medicine Hat, Alberta. This Japanese family lived here after they lost everything in BC, and had no reason to return when they were finally permitted to many years after the war.

It’s a story of family, love, and friendship through hard times. It’s also a story of patriotism, racism, and death. Yet humanity prevails. Ultimately it is a story of the ravages of war, the impact it has on those who fight, and also the civilians who suffer. It tells both of these sides of the story beautifully and leaves you feeling compassion for all the victims war… those who die and those who survive.

I am left reflecting on the fact that despite this being a Canadian story about World War II, it could also be a story about Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, or the Ukraine today. A story of war does not just come from history, there are similar stories happening today. Continuing and enduring stories of patriotism, racism, and death. They leave behind survivors that have suffered the ugliness of war. An ugliness that takes many lives and leaves both emotional and physical scars on those left behind. Survivors search for humanity in an inhumane world. We are fortunate if we do not face such hardships and we should be compassionate to those that do.

It was a beautifully sad play.

Anglicizing names

When my father’s father escaped the Ukraine and found his way to British Guyana he changed his last name from Trusu to Truss. When my mother was born in Barbados, her Polish last name was Birsztajn. But before her older twin sisters started school their parents, my grandparents, changed their name to Bernstein. Birsztajn was too hard to spell and pronounce. My grandmother on my dad’s side had her name changed by her parents from Ng Fong Hing to just Hing.

I grew up only knowing Truss, Bernstein and Hing. It wasn’t about trying to hide anything, it’s just what was adopted and accepted. None of these families tried to hide their heritage, they just wanted their names to fit more easily in the new countries they found themselves in.

I’m not sure that would happen as often today? Many people still change their first name to fit in, but few change their last name. It was just something that was done back then, and it speaks to the eclectic nature of my heritage that 3 of my 4 grandparents had anglicized last names.

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My 4th grandparent’s last name, my mother’s mom, was Gonsalves.

A piece of living history

Yesterday Jowi Taylor brought his Six String Nation presentation to Inquiry Hub. The guitar named The Voyageur is built with 64 unique pieces of Canadian heritage, and Jowi’s storytelling brings some of those pieces to life.

I first met Jowi, and Voyageur, a decade ago on a retreat to an ‘Unplugd‘ conference near Algonquin Park in Ontario.

In my ‘Thank you’ to Jowi at the end of his performance yesterday, I shared that he and I had met at this conference and that the first time I heard The Voyageur played was by Bryan Jackson, a teacher and now Vice Principal here in Coquitlam. Bryan sang an original song about a profound piece of graffiti written on a wall in Winnipeg. I shared how uniquely Canadian this was, and that the thing I love most about what Jowi has created is that the guitar is a piece of living history.

For many, history is in books, and places to visit, and items you can’t touch in museums. The Voyageur guitar brings Canadian history into schools and communities, it creates special memories for the people who touch and play it. It brings history to life. My student, Trevor, will always remember getting to play this guitar that has been touched by so many famous Canadians, and played by Canadian music legends across the country.

And like me, there will be students and adults in the audience that will remember the stories told by Jowi about how this amazing guitar was brought to life.

Here is my first memory of Bryan Jackson playing The Voyageur at Unplugd, back in the summer of 2012: “Graffiti”

Learn more about Jowi’s Six String Nation here.

The free world

The free world isn’t free. It’s not. When a privileged few get to decide what people can and can’t do based on their out-dated beliefs, that’s not free.

More Than 1,500 Books Have Been Banned in Public Schools, and a U.S. House Panel Asks Why

“Most books being targeted for censorship are books that introduce ideas about diversity or our common humanity, books that teach children to recognize and respect humanity in one another,” said the chair of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Rep. Jamie Raskin.

When believers of religious dogma limit the choices of non-believers, that’s not free.

We don’t live in a free world, we live in a world of privileged and unprivileged. A world of bias. A world of inequity.

If I took headlines of today, like the article above, or headlines on abortion laws, or on free speech on college campuses, or on lack of social programs, and I stripped away today’s date, in 25 years you wouldn’t know when the article was written dating back as far as 75 years ago. It’s 2022 but if I told you that the article above was written in the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s, you’d believe me.

Think about that. How much freer have we become? How much more civilized?

The stories we believe

We don’t perceive reality. We quite literally make it up. Our beliefs are fiction. It’s not an easy thing to accept. But this, unlike our beliefs, is true.

Religion, politics, relationships, even theories are all based on the knowledge that we’ve either had passed down to us or that we consumed. Relying on other people’s beliefs.

Then we make judgements and then we stand by them. Some are good, some are bad, all are judgements… not reality.

Think of the stories that have been passed down to us. From origin stories to cavemen to great floods. How many people believe that early humans lived at the same time as Jurassic dinosaurs? That’s just one story many people have wrong.

There are so many more. We should be more humble, and less susceptible to stories that don’t move us towards being more loving, caring, and kind people. We should worry less about tribal stories that keep us apart.

Why can’t the stories we choose to believe help us make the world we live in a better place to live? But then again, that’s the reason for religious wars… the strongly held belief in a better world. It’s an endless loop.

We need better, more believable stories, the current ones aren’t working.

Come Together

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers falling in New York. I’m guessing everyone over the age of 35 can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they found out about this. I bet they can also describe at least one visual from that incident that clearly sticks out in their minds. A few months later, I got to hear a first-hand story of an educator that was in a nearby building, and what the evacuation was like. Four years ago I visited the museum at ground zero, and what we thought would be an hour-long visit was almost 3 hours.

What strikes me now is not just the horror of what happened, but that this was a defining moment for so many people. It changed their perspective on the world. It made the world a more dangerous place, where just getting on a plane or going to work could cost you your life because of the decision of a few people intent on doing something evil, based on the illusion that they will benefit greatly in the after-life. How many people have died across the world, across the past few hundred years, in the name of a God that wants to punish non-believers.

It was also a time to come together. To feel a common pain, and to support those that needed help. It was a time when political affiliation and religion gave way to being a good samaritan, a good human being.

Why do we need a man-made catastrophe to make us come together? I think now more than any time since 9/11/2001 we could have people find a way to coexist with their neighbours/neighbors in a tolerant and caring way… no matter their political or religious ideologies.

If we don’t come together now, there will be a man-made reckoning soon… because we live in a world where a few crackpots can weaponize and wreak havoc on a scale that will make global news. And so I’d rather we find a way to use tolerance rather than violence to move us out of false dichotomies. I want to see us come together before the under 35 year-olds are put through their own defining 9/11 incident. I fear that if we don’t, the incident might be more divisive rather than unifying, and that scares me.

Canada Day redefined

Usually this day is a day when I would wear red and white. I am an immigrant, but I am a proud Canadian. I have met many people who, like me, were not born in this country but fully adopted it as ‘home’, and like me many people feel like the adoption is mutual. Canadians accepts us as Canadian, despite being born abroad.

But today I will wear an orange shirt. Today I find it challenging to show pride in a country that secretly buried its children on Residential school grounds. Today I stand with the people who did not immigrate to Canada, but who were forced off their land, and forced to send their children to schools that abused them and attempted to colonize them, and stripped away their different languages and their cultures.

This isn’t the Canada I’ve grown to know and love, but it is every bit my Canada. This tragedy is not a history to remain buried, it is a history to face, and reconcile. I will wear red and white again on Canada at some point in the future, but to heal the wounds that run so deep, and generationally hurt so many people so deeply, I choose on this day to wear orange. I choose to say that every child matters… those that died because of racist segregation at residential schools, those that are dealing with generational trauma, those that hurt knowing the truth and are awaiting reconciliation.

I am not wearing orange in defiance, I am wearing it in unity, in solidarity. I am Canadian, and as a Canadian I am not someone who can be proud of the history of buried and forgotten children that have recently been discovered. As a Canadian I will wear orange to represent the Canada I want to live in, one where we do not forget our past, and we remember that every child matters.