Ashokan Farewell

[Above photo: An exquisite 1800’s church on Cape Breton Island. In a frightening and harsh wilderness, hope and community must have played an immense role in their survival.]

23 October 2024

The first boat directly from Scotland to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia landed in 1802, although settlers, both Scot and French, had trickled in earlier. The first settlers lived in stone piles with sod roofs and earth floors: damp, dark, and frigid in most seasons. It must have been very grim in Europe to choose to leave the known world, cross the North Atlantic in 4-6 months, and attempt to hew a living from this beautiful but cold and stoney island. Many of the Scots came from the Hebrides,  especially Barra and South Juist, so the terrain was familiar.  The Crown owned the land, so all crops and game belonged to the English royal family and the “nobility”, no matter who tilled the soil, snared the rabbits, or fished the rivers.

I just returned from a 9 day trip to Cape Breton with friends from the Bay Area. John is a gifted musician—fiddle, guitar, and mandolin—and a singer-songwriter. Check out “I like trucks” by Roy Zat (John Croizat) on YouTube and share it with a child—wonderful. Also, “I’m a salmon in the river”, which is also marvelous. We’ve known each other for 35+ years.

Celtic Colours is Cape Breton’s 10 day festival of Celtic and Acadian music and culture. This year was its 28^th. Groups played in several locations around the island each night, with each evening including 3 or 4 acts. A youthful fiddling prodigy from Scotland, an electrifying group from Ireland, Acadians from Montreal, pipers, step-dancers, Jay Unger (Jewish from the S. Bronx—“I was saved by the High School of Music and Art”.) who wrote and played the theme music [Ashokan Farewell] for Ken Burns’ Civil War series, and on and on. 

John arranged a sweet house, a B&B, on a tree-lined street in Sidney as our base of operations. We mostly ate in, since eating out wasn’t special. We drove a part of the famed Cabot Trail (John Cabot, an explorer, discovered Newfoundland.), visited a re-creation of the history of the island with mostly original structures, and played non-competitive Bananagrams to settle ourselves after an evening of stimulating music. We took long walks and got a good sense of the place. And all of it at the peak of the colors—oaks, birch, maples, and others in brilliant hues in preparation for winter dormancy.

We met people from Florida and Vancouver, BC and Madison, Wisconsin. And many from Maine. Like any activity, it served as a filter, all being taken with the music and setting, so compatability was assured. I definitely want to return to explore more of Cape Breton, the rest of Nova Scotia, and PEI. Even Newfoundland sounds interesting. We got on well as a threesome.  I was touched that they would include me, as couples often don’t include singles, especially for an extended trip.

In the week we left Portland I also had lunch with my cadaver-mate from medical school and his wife, who live in California, talked on the telephone with a high school friend, and visited in Stonington with yet another friend from California who I’ve known for 55 years. They reminded me of all those I’ve don’t see since leaving California. I miss them.

On the other hand, the day before yesterday my daughter, a friend of hers, and I took her boat from Brooklin to the island (12 miles) to check on her 12 sheep.  They are wild and elusive, so we had to scour the island to find them. Storm, the 3 month old puppy, was beside herself with the freedom and smells. She was so excited by the sheep, she’d bark and chase them, early evidence of her Border Collie inheritance, I like to think.

The weather was an unseasonably t-shirt warm, the sky sparkling, and the water flat calm. After returning to Ari’s, Poki and I had a long, easy talk which reminded me just how much we’ve shared in our 47 years together.   I think that kind of closeness in an intimate relationship is over for me, since it was born of long, shared proximity. I really miss it.

My brother and his wife are bearing up with his multiple health challenges; the latter and their treatments would have felled most but they are fighting a good battle. If there is an omnipotent, benevolent god, s/he has strange priorities.

I asked a friend to turn in my 400 handwritten postcards to undecided voters in Georgia, encouraging them to vote. It is a scary time, in many ways, for our country. Our impulsive and reckless former President threatens much of what makes us great—obeying the rule of law, honesty, kindness, a capacity to govern for all by consensus, admitting mistakes, and basic decency. His list of criminal and moral offenses, well documented in the NY Times two days ago, is staggering.  The election is certainly spawning a huge field of inquiry into how we, as humans, are drawn to powerful autocrats, even when their actions clearly demonstrate that they won’t be working for our benefit. “The Apprentice”, now in your local theater, is well acted and shows the level of greed, dishonesty, vengeance, and general destructiveness at an earlier stage of The Donald’s career. I get why moths are drawn to flames; I don’t get how this crude, rambling being is charismatic for so many. Vote early. Don’t vote often, at least in this election.

Off to Portugal to see family for 3 weeks in 27 days.