Speak up loudly in the face of racism
Sometimes it just feels good and right to fight back
I’ve had an unusual experience since writing my last column.
One Friday evening I was on one of those long, three-axle city buses, seated, facing inward, between the two doors near the front, on the offside of the driver. I had my walking stick, what the Irish call a “shillelagh” — a threefoot long stout piece of willow with a large knob at the top. Such a stick was outlawed “as a weapon” when the British occupied Ireland.
A stop later, a Sikh gentleman boarded the bus and seated himself on the driver’s side, just before the end of the front unit. A couple of stops later another person came aboard with a bandana wrapped around the lower — another around the upper — half of his head, so others could only see two glittering eyes in the narrow gap between them.
On his way to the back, he stopped by the Sikh to loudly tell him what he thought of turbans before proceeding to seat himself near the rear of the second unit. There he started loudly airing, with a generous lacing of the F-word, his views of the world generally, and of people wearing turbans in particular, taking a brief break to come forward and harass the man before returning to the rear of the bus.
Meanwhile, a Rubenesque Indigenous woman in her mid30s got on the bus and seated herself on the driver’s side, halfway between the Sikh man and the driver, kitty corner to me.
A few minutes later the abusive person came to his stop. He decided to have some fun at the woman’s expense before getting off. And when she tried to ignore him, he looked as if he was going to strike her.
I decided enough was enough, got up from my seat, and told him to get off the bus. For emphasis, I gave him a good whack in the ribs with my shillelagh. Then, when he turned on me, I stared him down (with my stick perhaps doing most, if not all, the persuading). He got off the bus.
The woman thanked me before she got off the bus a couple stops later. It took the security people (who the driver had been frantically talking to all along) and city police a while to show up — long after the perpetrator was gone.
Since then life has been much less exciting.
I went canoeing with a friend on the North Saskatchewan River. We launched several miles upstream and his dog sat in the middle of the canoe. The trip to a downtown landing spot should have taken three hours but took five. The dog, even though only medium-sized, created problems; she wouldn’t quietly lie down, and every time she fidgeted the canoe wobbled a bit, which made me nervous since I didn’t particularly want to end up in the fast-moving river.
We ended up in the drink anyway. Part way through the trip we were going to take a break. As we got close to shore the dog decided to jump out, upsetting the canoe. Fortunately, the water was only a couple of feet deep but I got soaked to the waist just the same. So our break took much longer than planned as we sunned for more than an hour to give ourselves a chance to dry out.
One really annoying thing was that the power boats that passed by didn’t have the common courtesy to slow down. The canoe bobbed up, down and sideways in their wake. While once I wouldn’t have objected to ending up in the river, those days are past.
(This raises an interesting point. While I often encounter people who are considerate of others, there now seem to be growing numbers of self-centred people, oblivious to the world around them. If I see one coming toward me, listening to their ear pods, eyes glued to their phones, I don’t get out of their way. I bring them back to the real world by letting them bump into me.)
The only other thing worth mentioning has been the weather. After a month of nearly daily rain, the weather turned hot, hot, hot. While other tenants fussed about the heat, I ignored it. But I had to water my garden on the south side of our building twice a day. Not only is it in the hot sun most of the day, but it’s also in a bit of a wind tunnel between our building and the one next door (which has an enormous drying effect).
Another of my gardens is on the south side of an office building, the brick cladding of which is being cleaned.
Whatever they used to that end, drifted over onto my garden, killing some plants and burning others. While many have started to recover, we can now only use the new growth for culinary purposes.
The operator claims he “only used water” and, if so, it makes one wonder about the quality of the air we breathe.
When it comes to finances, some parents are very independent and private about the handling of their money. This is always a touchy topic, but should be discussed if you see a decline in their standard of living and are concerned. Christine Ibbotson
I decided enough was enough, got up from my seat, and told him to get off the bus. For emphasis, I gave him a good whack in the ribs with my shillelagh.