My Mennonite Mom...

A Tribute to My Mennonite Mom

As a child my mother, a loving and caring mother, did everything for me.  Naturally, I enjoyed this treatment without fully appreciating what was being done for me and in some ways against me.  I grew up a pleasant enough boy, tall and thin like a weed and a very picky eater because if there was something I didn’t like mom would make me something else. I grew up with options and without realizing it my mom had begun, at an early stage in my life cycle, to cater to me.  I let her do it. I still am, a picky eater although now I eat Indian and Thai dishes, but not olives, or sliced tomatoes. It’s something about texture.

Allow me one a few anecdotes which best illustrate the mother son relationship as I remember it.  My older brother Marvin owned a 55 cc motorcycle and later, I think we shared a 100 cc Yamaha. Human nature being what it is I soon craved something larger, as we all know bigger is better. Ask me later what my brother drives today.  I wanted a 350-cc Honda the next step in the exciting, macho escalation, road safety process. 

My mom being the loving protective Mennonite lady who she was, was emphatically  against my wish to purchase a larger motorcycle.  For once in her life, and to my utter amazement, she spoke out strongly against my potential purchase.  I had never seen this fiercely protective and somewhat angry side of my mom since that day that lives in infamy (not Pearl Harbour) when she quite deliberately picked up the formidable stick that she used to stir her laundry with before the days of automatic washers.  She once threatened to hit me with it, but never ever struck me, ever, even when I deserved it. But, in terms of the bike, she may have threatened me in a veiled sort of way such that if I bought the bike I would certainly have to leave home, what a fearsome specter I faced. 

I clearly knew that a life living on the street, friendless, eating only Kentucky fried chicken would not be a fulfilling one, so I had to weigh my options: bike and a meager, homeless existence, or stay at home, be loved (with the occasional bodily threat), well fed, pampered, but bike-less in a highly mobile world, clearly a moral/transportational dilemma of great proportions.

I bought a beautifully and gloriously seductively smooth riding, well tuned, purring Honda against my mother’s wishes and parked it in front of our house with my two VW bugs the Honda 55 and the Yamaha 100.  In addition to my several vehicles all the yard needed was a gnome, a tire swing and maybe a used washing machine.  Clearly, I was demonstrating elements of white trash in a passive aggressive way and all this to my own mother who made me grilled cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off with a side of tomato soup, sometimes with pickles.  Did I mention I was breast fed.  

Being essentially a moral individual in the broadest sense of the word I lived with that level of guilt to the time of my first accident and then it just got worse.  That first accident, meaning there was a second one, happened in the early Spring shortly after the purchase of what I often and affectionately refer to as my first love.  During the winter months city crews in temperate climates such as that found in Waterloo County pile salt and sand mixtures on the road, ironically for road safety.  However, as the snow melts and sand is left on the road for quite some time before Spring clean up begins.  Enter, stage left, the first bikers of the season eager to be out and experiencing the joy and freedom of that initiating and liberating Spring ride.  I was one of those guys.

I was driving somewhere in the Doon area near the Pioneer Tower.  I was making a left turn when my rear tire lost traction in the remnants of winter sand and I proceeded to fall to the road surface while still making my turn and firmly seated on my bike.  My leg was pinned under the bike and with the momentum of the turn the now horizontal bike began a series of revolutions pivoting on my foot, and ankle.  When all motion finally stopped and I found myself moments later lying on the road in mid intersection I couldn’t help to notice my shredded pant leg, the blood and the grit embedded firmly into my skinless ankle.  It started to hurt.

Oddly, before I did anything I looked around to see if anyone had been witness to my little accident.  Momentarily, I was more concerned with humility and losing face then potential scar tissue and future mutilation.  Slowly and painfully I righted my bike and made a mental note to weep for the useless crash bar and collapsible foot pegs that did almost nothing to protect me.  I drove on with no plan, but with growing pain I realized I had to do something.  Cell phones had not been invented yet so I had no means and no one to call.

Now I envisioned my mom with the wooden paddle and the emerging specter of living on the streets began to loom large.  I did the right thing and drove to Saint Mary’s hospital where I hoped my sister, a nurse, would not see me and report back to mom as to the nature of my injuries.  I was ready to explain that it was a hunting accident, but then there’s the whole issue of Mennonites and guns, because my brother and I did have a small arsenal, but again another story.

I parked my bike and did a mental inventory of the damage, other then a few cosmetic scratches and a broken mirror my baby was going to pull through. It was me I worried about.  As I walked toward the emergency room, I realized I was limping.  Rather badly.

In an efficient manner and with no wait (this was in the 70’s you know, waiting in hospitals, like cell phones had not yet been invented) my rather minor injuries were attended to.  Deep in thought and mindful of sandy road conditions, I drove home to mom. Does that sound pathetic or what? I was 22.

In all of this activity please notice that, I never mentioned my Dad.  Dad was always good with anything I did, in fact he often really had no opinion at all about things in my life.  I never really knew if this meant tacit agreement, loving approval or gross indifference to my life’s many choices.  I could, for example, say, “Dad I want to pimp for Puerto Rican illegal immigrant women on Yonge Street on Saturday, can I borrow the car?”  He probably would have thought that was fine. That is also an unfair exaggeration as he had never, to my knowledge, met a Puerto Rican, but the point was he, for whatever reason was not very engaged in my life.  Whereas, mom was, so what to say to mom when I got home from my fiasco on my bike.  

I opted for subterfuge, deceit and a decidedly clandestine approach. The beauty of my dishonesty is that I actually got away with it for almost 7 seconds.  My mom was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes, her back to me and without turning or even looking at me simply asked, “What’s wrong with your foot?”

What the hell?  How did she know?

She lovingly, but with brisk efficiency ran me a bath.  Dumped in some epsom salts and told me to soak. After all this I recall one poignant comment I made to my mom while soaking in the tub and quietly and soberly reflecting on the events of the day.

“Mom, could you bring me a wash cloth.”

A dish exploded on the kitchen floor.

I admit I did take my mother and the myriad of small and big things she did for me in my life for granted and in that way, as I look at it now, I was a bad son on so many levels.  I know that I wasn’t the perfect son, but was the perfect storm really perfect, which makes no sense at all but its a lame diversion for my guilt.

Now let me tell you about the time when I tried to tell my loving Mennonite mom that I was going to marry an Anglican.

Marty

Welland Canal

Welland Ship Canal Lock #1

The phrase, “We lived to swim another day” was still echoing in my ears when some weeks later at the sand piles adjacent to lock one my friend Kurt, at least at times I thought he was my friend, dared me to jump into the lock.  I know it sounds dangerous, but let me clarify. It wasn’t the actual lock with gates that raises and lowers a ship, it was still the entrance to that same lock.  The idea was to dive into the wake of a lake freighter behind the propeller to see where the turbulence would take you.  Back then we really didn’t need drugs to have wild trips, we had the Welland Ship Canal.  I

After the rafting incident, my mother in all of her wisdom, enrolled me into swimming classes at the St Catharines YMCA.  I think she was of the belief that these lessons were not for recreation purposes, it was more in line with survival skills.  Skills I often seemed to lack.

I always thought those lessons were somewhat suspect as we recruits, about fifty boys, were required to swim in the nude.  We were told that the wool bathing suits of the day would clog the pool filters.  How bogus is that, but it could have been true. 

Each class began with about fifty dripping wet naked boys of all body types sitting on bleachers stretched along the length of the pool anxiously waiting to see if our instructor would also be naked.  We often secretly wondered, at least I did, if the girls also swam naked and hoped against hope that one day we would have co-ed classes. I had to wait another 10 years for the unofficial co-ed saunas at the University of Waterloo for such an answer to prayer.  I think it was divine intervention of some kind.

In addition to turning me into a mediocre swimmer I made certain discoveries for the very first time during my swimming lessons.  Penises, I soon discovered, came in many sizes and shapes and what with the incredible cold while waiting wet and naked I was developing a very poor self image at an early age. Some penises were circumcised and some were not, some boys had pubic hair, Bill Sparrow had a lot, and most did not.  Never have I seen such a bizarre spectacle until going to a Turkish steam bath in Istanbul, with my wife, some fifty years later. 

After lessons we had some free time, Ron Cambray loved to swing his arms ape like in such a way as to smack square in the balls any one standing next to him just before he leaped into the pool.  One of our favourite games was to hyperventilate and see if we could swim the length of the pool under water with one breath.  It was these skills and experiences that of being at least a mediocre swimmer, the ability to hyper ventilating and getting whacked in the testicles and enduring intense pain which allowed me to survive Kurt’s dare at Lock one.

Back then, referring to my childhood, I was stupid enough to accept the dare and dove in the water, a respectable distance behind a Panamanian freighter.  I guess I was a little close.  Under water sounds are magnified, so the rhythmic swirling of the gigantic propeller and the bass sounds of the engines made me feel that I was about to be rammed or swallowed whole by the ship, as it was I was only tossed around like a dead weight.  I could not tell up from down, visibility was just about nill, the churning water felt like Ron Cambray standing next to me pool side. Had I not been able to hold my breath for so long I wouldn’t have popped up thirty feet further back of the stern, in one piece and still breathing.  

The sand dunes, as we called them, were huge piles of sand dredged up from the entrance to the lock to allow the ships enough draft to enter the canal.  I remember the dunes to be hundreds of feet high, in reality I’m sure they were much less.  They were our Everest and our play ground.  We would slowly trudge to the peak and because the angle of repose for the damp sand was so steep we were able to launch ourselves after a running jump and free fall for at least twenty feet.  We got innovative and tried sand boganning with pieces of cardboard which proved very effective.

Once most of the energy was sucked out of us we would sit contentedly at the top of the dunes surveying the lake and track the next approaching freighter entering the lock.  As the ship pulled along side the dunes we would jump, roll, slide and finally run to the canal’s edge and yell for the sailors to throw us coins.  Some sailors actually did and with these treasures we would hop on our bikes and ride up from the entrance to lock one to the top of the lock a journey that would take the freighter over an hour to finish.  

At the top of the lock was a bridge with a huge semi circular counter weight to balance the weight of the roadway as it lifted up to the sky making way for the freighter leaving the lock en route to lock two.  We placed our foreign coins under the counter weight and thrilled to the theatrics of having  them flattened under 20 tons of pressure. For a kid life just didn’t get any better.  I was fortunate to have parents who allowed me enough freedom to have fun, but at the same time rescued me from my fates. As a parent I made sure my kids grew up far inland away from watery dangers.

We were reminded of our mortality several months later when I was with my friend Art when he got the news that his sister Martha had been struck by a car while delivering newspapers.  Martha died on the road we travelled on to get to our favourite places.

The Diving Board, Welland Ship Canal, Lock #1...

The Diving Board 

The “diving board” was so called because we, or perhaps kids who played here and predated our own activities, had taken a stout plank of indiscernible dimensions and wedged it under the rock to make a very functional diving platform with no bounce what so ever.  The entrance to lock one consists of a landfill of huge boulders which creates an artificial and sheltered channel to funnel lake freighters from the open water to the canal lock system.  Our diving board was securely wedged under one of these boulders.  The Diving Board was our focal point.  It was a specific location and deserves proper noun status.

Before learning to swim I nearly drowned in this location as the water is quite deep here.  The entrance channel extends at least one km into the lake.  Before I knew how to swim my friends encouraged me to make my first dive off the board assuring me that the water was shallow and I could stand up.  Encouraged, I took a shallow dive and absolutely panicked when I made the rapid realization that this portion of the Lake was bottomless. The water was cold, I was scared and began hyperventilating as I thrashed wildly to save myself.  Someone eventually did save me. I had been initiated to the “Diving Board.”

The Diving Board became a second summer home.  A place where in our splended isolation we could share jokes, smoke, theorize about the mysteries of girls, look at our stash of Playboy magazines and build a raft to cross the “Great Water.”  We hoped to reach McNab school on the other side of what was really a bay formed by the lock one extension and the natural shore line.  We could easily bike there, but why would we when with greater personal risk and challenge we could go by water. 

We began this colossal construction endeavor by gathering up drift wood and logs along the shoreline using the Diving Board as the central depository. I think we had all read, or at least heard about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on the Mississippi River, still one of my favourite books.  Using vague but otherwise nebulous notions of nautical constructions and our vast knowledge of sea lore, along with our collective ignorance we proceeded, as a group, to build a raft that would transport us one day to our destination, a place where we hoped we could experience new opportunities and religious freedom, where there would be a chicken in every basket a car in every garage and where the girls were loose and available.  Our imaginations always got the best of us.

My personal vision was to claim all of the lands we surveyed for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinad of Spain in thanks for defeating the Moors and driving Islam out of Spain.  At the time I had a vague sense of history and reality.  What we really wanted to do was build something and get out on the water and have some adventures and maybe a quotient of raping, plundering and pillaging along the Lake Ontario coast line, where not even the OPP could stop us.  We were young, we were invincible.  We were stupid.

Construction began slowly at first, and eventually came to a complete stand still. The idea that many hands would make for light work was quite a bit of nonsense and really had no application to our project.  There were simply too many nautical engineers and too few labourers.  We all wanted to lead and direct.  Realizing the folly of our ways and reading up on recent labour legislation we soon devised a division of labour efficiently utilizing our means of production in such a way as to produce a raft that although did not reach or exceed any Canadian safety standards could float if proper counter balances were applied in the right places.  We had a raft!

The next step was the meticulous hours of planning that would go into garnering provisions and supplies for the journey.  This meant going home and gradually sneaking things out of kitchen cupboards sans detection.  My dad who bought the groceries had a pretty good mental inventory as to what provisions were in the house, so the risks of discovery were high.  The length we were willing to go to for discovery and adventure was irrepressible.  In the end we got a few cans of beans and some wieners, the staples to any diet.

The day we decided to launch was somewhat blustery.  We thought a healthy headwind would add to a heighten sense of adventure.  There were four of us and if we stayed in position the raft was fairly stable.  Our make shift paddles were an innovative combination of hockey stick and plywood fused together with high alloy aluminum screws in a secret bonding process.  We were psyched and we were ready. 

We paddled like galley slaves only to find we were making no headway and noted a gradual tendency towards being carried out into the vast open lake, into the abyss we call Lac de Ontario.  After only a few minutes I began to tire, we were paddling out of sync .  I was developing a blister. Morale was low, the taste of impending mutiny was almost palatable.  Like General Custer we were mainly bluster with no back up plan and no life jackets. I recalled with some degree of grimness the fact that I could not swim.  Collectively we hoped for the ninth mechanized battalion, the army corp of engineers, or even an out dated Sea King helicopter to come to our immediate rescue, but, as fate would have it was none of these.  

My Dad had found us and was pulling up in his blue Ford, my mom scrambling out of the passenger door before my dad had come to a full stop.  Images of Bonnie and Clyde flew through my head. My parents, usually calm, began to wildly scream at us to make for shore. 

 I don’t think the full impact of our folly really had registered in our adolescent brains. I began to get scared.  My fear spread to the crew and we paddled like demons to shore landing some 100 m north of the Diving Board. In another half hour or so, had my parents not appeared, we would have been a speck out on the Lake and located right on the freight lanes entering Lock one. Need I say more.

My mother was clearly upset and I don’t know if my dad was more relieved to get the beans and wieners back or that he had been instrumental in saving his sons from disaster and thereby preserving the blood line and his legacy.  In retrospect I think we at least merited a nomination for the Darwin Awards. 

We lived to swim another day.

Mennonites and Nationalism...it's complicated...

 Mennonites and Nationalism: The Twin Towers

The Welland Ship Canal joins Lake Erie and Lake Ontario allowing ships to avoid the discomfort of tumbling over Niagara Falls.  Pre-European native populations, as rumour has it, did not always by-pass the Big-Thunder of Niagara Falls and reveled in a purely spiritual way as they sent virgins to their death over the Falls to please any number of Gods. Mennonites on the other hand are monotheistic.

Oddly enough a few short centuries later people would almost line up to challenge the spirit of the Falls in barrels, both wooden and metal, one now deceased young man tried going over the lip of the Falls on a Sea-Do with a parachute that never opened, others fell over by mistake, while some used what almost seemed a more conventional route and walked a tight rope between the American and Canadian sides of the gorge.  Niagara Falls was and still is a Mecca for suicidal stunts.  As kids growing up in St Catharines we made our haj to the Niagara River area on bike several times in a summer.  

Depending on the season, the day, the time of day and our mood, we had several destinations between home and Niagara-on-the-Lake from which to choose. One, we went to the “Diving Board” near lock one on the Welland Canal.  Two, we crossed the bridge over lock one and proceeded to McNab School where we often would camp, hunt and live off the fat of the land, or, on ambitious days we would exercise option three and get all the way to Brock Monument and Fort George on the banks of the Niagara River.

It was along this river where American forces once crossed to engage British troops during the War of 1812 (for the record that war was a tie). In a brave attempt to recapture the Redan Battery taken earlier in the day by the American invaders. Brock led his fateful and historic charge and in the process took a fatal wound to his chest. Near death he still had the presence of mind to rally his troops who went on to win the day.  His Canadian aide de camp Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell was also killed when his horse was shot from under him and fell on the Lieutenant killing him. 

Today Brock and Macdonell are interred at the base of the Brock’s monument.  I didn’t learn any of this until taking grade 8 social studies at Lincoln Heights school in Waterloo several years later, so to me at the time I did not have a clue about any of the history, or that there had been two monuments. This is really the story of Canada’s “Twin Towers.”  The first had been partially destroyed by an anti British malcontent, Benjamin Lett, a left over from the Rebellions of 1837, by a bomb on April 17, 1840.  Nineteen years later, in 1859, the second Brock’s monument was inaugurated, placing Brock’s statue 56 m over the battlefield where he died. 

Brock’s monument represents more than just a limestone edifice to honour a war hero, it is a symbol on the Canadian/American border representing our Canadian sovereignty and British legacy.  The builders were sending a very dramatic and visible message to America that we would not be undone by military intervention, a process that would take about 2.3 minutes if done today.  This of course was all lost on me as I climbed the monument, and looked out the port hole like windows over the peaceful Niagara region while counting the 236 spiral steps to the top of the monument.  The Niagara Parks Commission maintains their claim that there are actually 235 steps to the top of Brock’s monument, but that is an issue between the Parks Commission and myself yet to be resolved using peaceful mediation tools.

Today, at hockey games other sports events and in my classrooms over the years I have sung “God Save the Queen” along with a reading of “The Lord’s Prayer.”  Later, it was “Oh Canada” with no “Lord’s Prayer.”  Somehow the nationalistic portion of our opening exercises prevailed and the religious component was dropped with some controversy. I lip sync, because I am tonally challenged, while students often sing with lethargy because they still don’t know the words and probably, like me at their age, didn’t know or care to know our history.  Many Mennonites choose not to sing the national anthem and it has nothing to do with lethargy or singing ability.

Mennonites take issue with nationalism, patriotism and its close association with war and the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us all about while the Cold War was still in its infancy.  Looks like he was right.  

Russian Mennonites were excommunicated from the church because they chose to fight in the Russian military against the Turks whose land both Russians and Mennonites occupied.  Mennonites always walk a fine line of hypocrisy between distancing themselves from the benefits they reap from militarism and remaining true to their pacifistic and non-violent nature.

At Goshen College, a Mennonite institution in Indiana, the American national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” until recently (Spring 2010) was not played, and now only an instrumental version at the discretion of the physical education department may be played before sports events.  

I’m sure Mennonites at Goshen are patriotic, but they also maintain that the American government has no right to grant them, or anyone, religious freedom.  Perhaps a naive position to take, but one that is safe in times of relative peace without a draft, but not so during the Vietnam War and World War II. 

Keith Graber-Miller, a professor at Goshen college, wrote that we (Mennonites) are, “First and foremost disciples of Christ and citizens of God’s reign, then citizens of the world, and finally citizens of a given country.”  

Graber-Miller’s perspective follows a continuum of decreasing allegiance and therefore puts Mennonites at odds with the mainstream society when it comes to both patriotism and nationalism.  In Canada the distinction is not as urgent as many Canadians are incapable of defining national identity to begin with, so in terms of being a Mennonite it is easier to do so in Canada.

My own father was a machinist in various factories.  He lived in a German community, Kitchener, Ontario, once called Berlin, spoke German and believed in non-violence.  There was much pressure and often ridicule directed against my father and people like him during the war with Germany.  As a machinist my Dad made components for the war effort.  It’s complicated.

General Brock, barring any further lightening storms, stands as an icon, gracefully and peacefully over the passing of millions of tourists who have no more of an idea of who he was and what he represented than I did as a child biking to the foot of his monument on a summer day in 1962. 

On Growing up Mennonite...

From Growing up Mennonite...

Mennonites in the Militia

Have you ever noticed that after a particularly violent summer storm, once the rain has abated and the rainbow is shining like a neon sign in Times Square, (God’s promise not to destroy human kind ever again, no matter how bad we get) beams of light stream out in a powerful geometric array from one central source (likely the sun) through cracks in the still dark cumulus clouds.  That my friend is “God Light” not to be confused with the “Spielburg Affect” in which ominous cloud formations herald the coming of alien life forms at Devil’s Peak.  “God Light” (copy right protected) is quite the opposite phenomena and a technical term and image I picked up either while attending Sunday School or Daily Vacation Bible School (DVBS) during the formative years of my Mennonite childhood.

“God Light” is one of those indelible images that never fades in my mind, in fact it is fixed in my mind through reinforcement from the numerous pictures I have viewed from decades of Sunday School attendance.  In my mind’s eye I also see Jesus Christ standing either on a mountain top or sometimes on a church steeple with long purple, flowing robes.  He is smiling, well groomed, sporting a trimmed beard and probably at the peak of his career at a time when his heavenly father was well pleased with his achievements here on Earth.  In this undated image Jesus was likely content in the knowledge that he could heal the sick, feed the hungry, drive spirits from swine, bring lizards back to life (a childhood trick apparently), and the source of much of his early success, turning water into wine.  God Light shines all around, and still takes my breath away and that may be about as spiritual as I get.

Going to church each Sunday was literally a ritual, while living in Waterloo we would get into my Dad’s 1950 Ford and drive the length of Weber Street to the Ottawa Street Mennonite Brethren Church.  My dad was a slow driver and would always make comments about drivers who passed him only to be at the next stop light at the same time.  My dad had his ways.  One of those ways was not to join the church.  Its not like membership at a country club.  Joining means getting baptized.  He never did, so in this way he was somewhat of a renegade.  I don’t know what stopped him but I think it was a real issue between he and my mom, and I’m sure church members in their shunning way were able to exert subtle and not so subtle pressures on my parents.

If there is one thing Mennonites are good at, that would be shunning and I say that with a total absence of pride.  There are so many things I am really thankful for having been raised Mennonite, but this cruel practice of shunning is not one of them.  Statistically, look at it this way, there are about one and a half million Mennonites world wide and at least a dozen different denominational categories.  For example, my tribe called Mennonite Brethren broke away from the larger Mennonite Church while still situated in the Ukraine prior to immigration to Canada.   

Enter one, Jacob Amman, truly the “Man of the Year” (1693) who introduced the concept of shunning by breaking away from the Mennonites.  He favoured the social avoidance of baptized Mennonites who left the church; so you see even the Amish were formed as a splinter group.  I’m not sure how far Mennonites can continue to splinter before they lose viability. I only mention shunning and its judgmental counterpart because my family felt the cruel hand of shunning because of my unbaptized father who liked to make wine and kept a TV in the house, and I later conjectured because I was a nuisance in Sunday School, a DVBS drop out, a German School reject as well as a total failure as a choir member and that’s what this story is really about.

I think to over compensate for my father’s sinful ways and to stave of the specter of shunning I was encouraged to do things like go to church regularly, and attend Daily Vacation Bible School in the summer months. Now that’s a double whammy, like taking cod liver oil and then licking the spoon.  In the bigger picture my sibs went to a Mennonite High School, Eden Christian College, we were also encouraged to attend Bible College where it was hoped we would meet our future spouse. I even volunteered, over my Spring Break, with Mennonite Disaster Service. I went to Pennsylvania to help after a flood season. There was also MCC for foreign service and the list went on.  Not to toot my Mennonite horn too loudly, Mennonites could be found around the world helping people.  They may shun each other, but will quickly pitch in to help others, doesn’t make any sense, but that’s all part of the Mennonite enigma. 

Driving through the suburban country side during summer months in most Southern Ontario communities, I often observe church signage advertising their Sunday schedule, or they make statements like “Jesus is the answer”  (What was the question?) and advertise, flea markets, bingos, upcoming miracles, UFO sightings and their Daily Vacation Bible School Program.  An opportunity for the chosen to go to a summer program, in a church, during the summer.  Yeah, that has about the same appeal to me now as it did when I was a kid. In fact back then it set shivers of fear and dread spiraling through my central nervous system. I think I developed ticks.  

Today, church educators try to spice things up a bit to attract kids to their summer programs. Themes are used, such as the Rainforest, or Ecology, “Superhero Missionary,” or whatever creative trick adult minds can devise to get kids inside a church during the months of summer these same months recognized, I might add, in the Bill of Rights and Freedoms as the “inalienable months of freedom.”  I felt then as I do now that DVBS is a violation of my civil rights. 

My mom wanted me to go to the DVBS at the local Mennonite church which happened to be a rival church, not our own MB church.  They wore a different coloured bandana. My mom was also able to over look the minor theological difference between the two churches and saw an opportunity for me to go to church in the summer when my friends were at the canal swimming, and generally having summer fun in the manner in which God intended.

The worst thing about VBS, other than it was in the church, in the summer, when my friends were swimming and having fun, was memorizing verses and reciting them in front of the entire church congregation at the end of the program, somewhat like a religious graduation ceremony.  I guess I shouldn’t complain because I have since learned that certain students and believers of the muslim religion will memorize the entire Quran.  This rote exercise in futility probably gives them about as much insight into living a righteous life as does memorizing IKEA assembly instructions, but at least with that you end up with a completed bookshelf, or chair and a free allen wrench.  At least I didn’t have to memorize the entire Bible, but I still have trouble with IKEA instructions.

My favourite verse was, “Jesus wept,” also the shortest verse in the BIble, unless someone can show me a verse with one word.

On the final day of DVBS, during the grad ceremony, I can still vividly remember walking to the pulpit to make my brief recitation.  My mouth was dry, my lips were cracked, my vision blurry, my mind as blank as blank could be.  There was no TelePrompTer, nor teacher to cue or coach me.  For a prepubescent kid I sweated like a pig as a hush fell over the congregation as if I was about to commit a felony or a miracle.  I was hoping the sweat on my shirt would form a pattern resembvling the image of the Virgin Mary and everyone would be distracted at such a revelation, but oh no, that little trick only works at a Catholic DVBS. They seem to have a “Mother Mary Monopoly”. I was of the Anabaptist persuasion, we separated from the mothership and formed our own franchise in the early days. I was so screwed. 

I was too nervous to ad-lib, and how does one ad-lib a Bible verse anyway.  I looked to the stained glass windows for inspiration, any God Light?  I at least looked for a bolt of lightening to strike me dead and end my misery.  As is normal under such a stressful situation I experienced a flashback, like a literary out of body experience, sending me back to two weeks prior.

Stage Directions: Page takes on a translucent-like appearance as reader participates in the flashback...

DVBS had just started and as far as my mother knew I had biked over to the church to attend. In reality I had doubled back, actually took my bike through the orchard behind our house and hid in our garage.  I was prepared to stay there for hours and remerge to synchronize with the DVBS dismissal time and then slickly tell my mom in all sincerity about the insights and Biblical revelations I had experienced in DVBS.

Had there been a mall I guess I would have opted for that distraction, but malls were still not really a mainstream phenomina and it never really crossed my mind to go to one, so there I was in a dark hot, humid garage on a summer day when my friends were at the canal swimming.  My DVBS subterfuge apparently did not allow for the fact that at some point in the morning my mother would take out the kitchen garbage and put in into the metal garbage bin in the garage where she automatically caught me doing my time.  Mission aborted.

She was speechless.

Flashback over. 

I was still speechless.  Stalemate.  Flashbacks only buy you so much time and when you come out of them you still are stuck in reality. Somehow I mumbled something and stumbled away from the podium after my stellar Biblical pantomime, likely bringing shame to my entire family and all of our ancestors which could likely result in an honour killing that same afternoon.  As a theological note Mennonites don’t actually openly endorse honour killings, nor do we practice ancestor worship, but in the religious sphere, I always felt that good karma derives from a sketchy knowledge of comparative religions like a Darwinian evolutionary survival skill.

My mom, bless her huge loving Mennonite heart, always wanted me involved in things, if not the unsuccessful DVBS program, than German School.

German School was offered in the basement classrooms of the MB Church on Scott Street where my family attended.  As an adult, who speaks only one language, I can well understand why my parent’s generation would desire to have their beloved culture and other Mennonite traditions live on through the German language and through the over achieving seed of their collective loins moi (mich?).

German, as taught in a MB German school, like the Quran and the three R’s taught in frontier pioneer schools was all taught by rote.  The first word I can remember learning in German class was Vogel, which means bird.  The paperback text book had a wonderful illustration of a Robin and I associated robin with hood and somehow remembered vogel.  Now every time I see a bird the socialist in me thinks of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. Funny how the mind works.  My first phrase I learned while in the Mennonite student exchange program in Germany was, “Ein Beer bitte.”  I had come a long way in linguistic development and cultural understandings.  My insights had no bounds.

None the less I must have been a disappointment to my parents.  Not only was I a DVBS failure with severe attitude and truancy issues, it soon became apparent that I had no discernible aptitude whatsoever at learning a language.  I still struggle with English. It is not without coincidence that later the church choir director would make a parallel statement about my singing abilities.

I can’t in all honesty say I don’t know any German at all as such a statement would be a complete disservice to my upbringing, because like most good Mennonite kids of my era I grew up watching Hogan’s Heroes (a WW II comedy set in a concentration camp, doesn’t sound funny.  I guess you had to be there) that along with German school and living an entire year immersed in Germany in the wine region of Bad Durkheim, it is safe to say, that today, I can fluently speak in excess of 60 German words.  In addition, while traveling I can identify German tourists at a glance, at a distance.  Clearly education, travel and cultural exposure was not entirely wasted on me. While I can’t boast being a prodigy, I can say, “Ich Bien ein Berliner.”  Which I’m told, after Kennedy said it, might actually mean I am a sausage.  Language is such a hit and miss thing at the best of times.

My mom, like mother Teresa, never gave up on a cause.  I was her cause.  Her youngest child who one day would be set adrift in a large and frightening, secular world considering Sunday School, DVBS, choir and German School, as they related to me, were no longer really issues of family discussion. My mother, despite her lack of formal education did have the ability to think out side of the box.  She lived by the phrase “paradigm shift” and made one with me.  My mom in her wise problem solving mode decided to send me to cubs, a decidedly English institution. In fact, at the time,anything not purely Mennonite was termed either “English” and remember to wrinkle your noise as you pronounce the word, or ”Canadian” another wrinkle.

I believe that I may have been the only Mennonite in my church or possibly community who served active duty as a cub.  As it turned out I had somewhat of an aptitude for cubbing. It did not involve a different language, there were no Bible verses to remember, I did not have to sing and it wasn’t held during summer months. As a result I rose rapidly through the ranks to boy scouts and eventually Rangers, the young adult version. 

Cubs was so very much not in the Anabaptist tradition. We wore uniforms with long socks, green shirts, and cute little caps. It had a somewhat cuddly neo-nazi look to it. Every little thing we did we got a badge for it and I thrived on positive reinforcement.  I had an arm full of badges for building fires (my dad was a pyromaniac), marksmanship (I loved guns), knot tying, map reading (I became a geographer), survival skills, arts and crafts, etc.  If we did something one of our leaders would be sure to pin a badge on our arm.  I learned to make presentations without freezing up in front of an audience.  Cubs did not use pulpits which took off a lot of pressure while public speaking.  I was truly built for the secular world.

I think my mom’s plan to change her timid little Mennonite boy into someone with a skill set marketable in the global economy finally started to pay off. I may have been a tad weak in my Mennonite traditions, but I turned out to be a damn fine cub. It was a start. 

During my grade nine year at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, at a time when Canada must have been far more militaristic then it is today, all male students were expected to join the militia. “Canada, you say.  What a pity.” My God this was the sixties, peace and love were in the air, Jupiter was aligned with Mars, Men were not yet from Mars, or women from Venus.  It was the era of the hippies, free love, drugs and oddly, high school students marching and carrying really heavy rifles.  There were no flowers stuffed down the barrel.

Its not like I volunteered for militia, apparently it was on the curriculum.  I didn’t have the vocabulary back then but since my hackles were raised I had an inclination that militia, as practiced in my high school was some fascist, neo nazi, bullshit perpetrated on a guileless, quasi patriotic civilian population by the vast Canadian military industrial complex, or was I thinking of another country?  I joined because I had to join.

The day I got my uniform I realized what pompous, narcissistic little shits the “regular” militia guys were.  By regular I was not thinking entirely of their colons.  The regulars actually wanted to be in the military.  I think I was experiencing a latent anabaptist reaction to a military presence.  I can never really be sure if at that moment I wanted Menno Simons to be proud of me, or it was a conversion of convenience, like marrying to get a green card.  Either way after just a week of marching in the hot sun in the parade ground, which doubled as the staff parking lot.  I concluded: let the Americans protect us.  They have more guns.  What  purpose did NATO and NORAD serve I asked in my own internal monologue. Personally, I wanted no part of the military.  I played my Mennonite card and with a note eagerly signed by my mom had me back on the streets faster than you can say, “Brunk Revival Campaign, born again Christian and Jesus Saves.”

Having given that vitriolic and anti militaristic statement I also have to admit that I loved to shoot a rifle.  Sorry Menno! Our school, buried deep within its bowels, had of all things, a rifle range.  I wondered what else they had buried under the school, or maybe some questions are better left unasked.  There were certain urban myths left unanswered.  Like did Jason Hurlbutt from 11-C actually move to Regina like school officials told us?

In order to pursue my love of shooting I had to put up with some of those mis cretin regular military types who also liked to shoot things.  We used old military rifles which were altered with a 22 bore, so the power they purported was illusory, but then so was the uniform.  My non-anabaptist friends wanted to know how they too could become Mennonite and get out of the militia while still being allowed to shoot a rifle.  My mumbled, inarticulate, but otherwise evasive answer had to do with a tangled web we weave when first we try to deceive and once I got passed the drowning of anabaptists I had pretty well lost my audience.

I have never attempted skit shooting, that may be more part of the Anglican tradition.

Marty Rempel

     

Mennonites and Virginity

Sacrificing Virgins to the Sun God

Sacrificing virgins to the Sun God is not precisely part of the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition, but it should be.  It’s lots of fun providing you don’t happen to be the virgin. Life is all about having the right role models and creative role playing.

Having recently lived in the Middle East I now have some understanding of the relationship between traditional Islamic theology and virginity and sacrifice. While on the economic side of the scale I can understand the function of demand, I am still a bit vague on the supply side of the equation.  Where do all of these virgins come from, certainly not Eastern European countries or the Middle East itself?  Or, is it just magical thinking?

I do however understand the motivational qualities of offering virgins for incentive.  Although given a choice between 72 virgins, which seems to be the standard rate for martyrdom for acts rendered against infidels, and say a dozen quality pole dancers; I would tend toward the pole dancers just in terms of experience over inexperience. This is really a moral issue of quality over quantity. However, when it comes to religion nothing is really logical.  Its all about faith.

My childhood experience with virgin sacrifice really has to do with innocent role playing and the co-operation of my sisters and some of her girl friends.  I have black and white photographs attached to black pages with photo corners in a very old album documenting some of our backyard butchery, and sacrificial rituals.  

Our role playing included a range of games including: “Cannibals and Missionaries,” ”Cowboys and Indians,” Cops and Robbers,” “Imperialists and Neo-Colonials,” and the ever popular  “Anabaptists and Catholics.” For those that don’t get it, anabaptists became Mennonites and broke away from Catholism.  I grew up Mennonite.  I just know this stuff. My friends just thought I was weird.

Each game really followed a template or theme in which forces of good were pitied against forces of evil.  Just like photography, the world in the 1950’s was a much simpler place and social issues could literally be viewed in terms off black and white.  It was not until the invention of colour photography that the world become a much more complicated place.

TV Westerns were all the rage when I was growing up.  I was weaned on multiple seasons of Gun Smoke, Bonanza, Rawhide and the Lone Ranger.  

I recall a particular joke about the Lone Ranger and his “Indian” side kick Tonto which taught me much about loyalty and friendship part of my core value system which I carry with me to this day.  Tanto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by a vicious Indian attack.  They had no cover and were nearly at the end of their defences.  The Lone Ranger in a rare gesture of candor, removed his mask and said to his life long partner, “I guess we’re gonners now.”  Tonto turned to the Lone Ranger and replied, “What do you mean we pale face.”

Each of the lead characters in the Westerns, so pivital to the formulation of my youthful values, were strong individuals with a clear sense of justice frontier style.  If you really want to understand the American Psyche today one need only understand the frontier mentality of rugged individualism, personal weaponry, subduing native populations, expansionism, the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, or just watch the steely nerves and determination Sheriff Mat Dilon, or the Marlboro Man, who sadly recently died from lung cancer. As an aside, do you think the tobacco companies are only selling us image with no nutritional value to their products.  Life is smoke and mirrors.

Besides getting an electric slot car tract with remote controls, the gift I wanted most for birthdays or Christmas was a holster with a twin set of six shooters. I Prayed hard and I got both three years apart.  I was blessed and I knew then and there that there was a God. Which does explain the power of the religious right in the Untied States.  Obviously, guns are next to Godliness, or is that cleanliness, whatever.  With 300 million hand guns, Americans are virtually on the right side of God, or so the analogy goes.

Cap guns as they were called were a wonderful invention. It brought an incredibly high level of realism to our role playing adventures.  Often when my friends came to play in my backyard no one wanted to play the down trodden native roles as we had already developed quite precise stereo types from the reality Western TV shows that we were bombarded with and eagerly absorbed. 

Is there a connection between the medium of TV and movies when it comes to violence in society. I would guess a tenuous connection at best.  Really, when you think about it how could, getting saturated by the medium with violent images in every direction 24/7 have any meaningful or long lasting impact on behavioural patterns especially on impressionable kids.  Its like saying advertising works.  

My neighbours did not appreciate our games because these games usually involved our occupying, at least temporarily, their yard as well as our own yard. As in the real world, games mimicking acts of violence require territory.  How does one “win” without taking away land or property from somebody.  The natural order of events and history all hinges on the haves and have nots, even Karl Marx knew that much. 

Our occupation of the neighbours yard involved running through their hedges, gardens and hiding in their window wells and garage, climbing their fences and wearing a path around their house, all reasonable collateral damage and well within our rights.  Its like the UN charter for kids.  How else could we bomb say a place like Libya today without some sort of universal charter.

Does no one watch the world news any more? How do the Americans win wars with out the death of innocent civilians...collateral damage.  Its like ice cream and apple pie. For some reason, our neighbours, the Wilson’s, frequently complained to my parents.  I never understood why that was.  My dad being a pacifist did not want to get involved and in a world where might makes right we continued to play our innocent little killing games like any normal Mennonite kid would.  I think it was written in the Bible somewhere about an “eye for an eye” next to the chapter on virgins and sacrifice.  I know its in there somewhere.

My Dad, who was a real handyman, built us a playhouse in our backyard, perhaps to lure us away from the neighbours yard. It became a focal point for neighbourhood play and probably bought me a few extra friends along the way.  It was an amazing playhouse unlike these modern day plastic versions, ours was spacious, with real glass windows that actually opened, shelves on the interior and furniture.  I grew up happy, content in my knowledge that real estate usually appreciates over time and I would have it made in the shade when it came time to sell.

My sisters used the playhouse in their silly girl simulation games involving themes of goodness, purity, and domesticity and often received the “Good House Keeping Seal of Approval” from our mother for their efforts.  Girls were handicapped and their imaginations were stifled because their TV role models hadn’t been developed yet. There were, as yet, no “Desperate Housewives” or “Sex in the City”; so naturally girls in the 50’s simply didn’t know any better. Boys, on the other hand, had a head start when it came to creative play.

Silly girl games did not pit forces of good versus evil as in the real world, instead they seemed to play with an abundance of plain goodness.  What fun is that?  Girls can be so weird.  No wonder boys and girls don’t want to play with each other at that age.  Its as if men were say from a different planet like Neptune and girls were from some other planet like Saturn or Mercury or something.  I’m still working on that comparison.

The playhouse had to be shared on a rotational basis.  Once the girls were finished playing and moved on to some other silly game like dress up, or Sears catalogue fantasy shopping games the boys could take over with a real game.  My favourite game with the playhouse was called “Under Siege” and we had to defend our fort against invaders, who could alternatively be pirates, Nazis, War Lords, Indians, Communists, or Catholics.   

I remember vividly, and with some degree of horror, as myself and three defenders were under a particularly harsh and unprovoked surprise attack of our fort by a wild horde of Native Americans (political correctness added later).  We were almost out of ammo, our food and water supplies were low, and morale was clearly starting to lag.  We were out numbered in a ratio of at least two to one. The sun was setting, mom nearly had dinner ready, yet we could sense a heightened level of hostilities, the proverbial calm before the storm.

We each defended a window as the invaders circled on their horses around and around the fort at dizzying speeds and with great agility, their war cries pierced the night air and we were getting scared.  In one crescendo of action and while delusional with adreneline my buddy, David, standing to my right took his toy cap gun by the barrel and using the handle like a hammer smashed out the glass window on our playhouse presumably to get a better shot. 

I was in shock and I guess a little over wrought myself from all the preceding action.  I screamed at him,  “Holy shit David this is only a role playing activity what the hell did you break the window for?” I was so upset I ended the sentence with a preposition. “My dad is going to kill me and he’s a pacifist.” 

David was speechless.  Gently I took his gun from his clenched fist. I calmly said, “David, step away from the window and nobody has to get hurt.”

Sadly the whole game came to a sudden halt and David forlornly walked into the setting sun stunned and overwhelmed at what he had done.  He had bridged the huge gap between fantasy and reality.

Upon reflection I concluded that some kids just can’t separate fact from fiction.  Needless to say David never again was allowed to defend the fort.  He eventually took on lesser enemy roles, double agents, cameo appearances and other riff raff.  He gradually drifted out of my life and his family eventually moved from the neighbourhood. The last I heard he had hit rock bottom selling hedge funds and was probably one of those guys providing the instabiltiy for the recent recession.  I no longer cared.

Fortunately, today, unlike my own childhood, kids have reality TV shows of every kind to discover their current and more relevant role models and form a basis for their own role playing activty. I rest in my senior years secure in the knowledge that through video games, demonstrating any number of life skills from car jacking to street walking and terrorism and through TV and the movies, that the kids of today are really our future, and what a future it will be in pana vision, and sorround Dolby sound at a theatre near you.


As for me, I was just content sacrificing virgins to the Sun God like any other Mennonite kid.

       

the magic of becoming a grandfather...

Surreal Reality 

On a summer night I was stalked by a Velvetween Rabbit,

with the state I was in it seemed so real.

I walked along the grass and heard the sunset

sizzle in the river at high noon, all my senses riveted

while sitting on the floor of a used book store in a futile effort

to make pictures appear in 3D much like life on a good day.

I bought a novel about an Oracle in hopes of divining the future.

The cloudy morning shrouded the Three Sisters.

I walked the mountain path, drank in nature, a rabbit

in a blue vest looked so surreal.

Negative shades are a form of nothingness like

an old man with a brown cap clasping the steering wheel

aimlessly driving a traffic circle

counter clockwise,

always approaching never reaching his destination 

until he uncoils and reads a bed time story to his sleepy

grandson about a Velveteen Rabbit,

as mother stands hidden by the door, a tear falls to the carpet.

With the state I was in it seemed so real.