GRANVILLE STREET - VANCOUVER

Granville Street, Vancouver……..every city has one. You know that street in the part of town you don’t tell your mother you’re going to. A place that is full of vice and promise and a place where in no time at all you can find all the trouble you desire.


The somewhat strange aspect of Granville Street is that it is slap-bang in the centre of downtown Vancouver. Granville actually leads onto the main shopping street in Vancouver, Robson Street.

Granville Street is home to many of the lower priced, central city hotels, so a host of wide-eyed tourists traipse up and down Granville in wide-eyed wonder. Many in wide-eyed horror. I have stayed in such a low-priced hotel on Granville Street a couple of times now and wandered the street on many occasions. Although no expert on this city-centre part of Granville I am a keen observer of what goes on there.


If you were to walk down Granville around breakfast time you could probably get away with firing a shot down the middle of the road and not hit anyone as most of the denizen’s of Granville are late afternoon and night creatures. At this time of day the clean up from the night before goes on. A few drunken, hardy souls weave their unsteady way down the street searching for home or a darkened doorway to lie in.

There is a smattering of businesses along this part of Granville, fast-food outlets, sports stores and clothing shops but the most numerous tenants of the street are clubs and pubs, tattoo parlours and sex shops. Most lie dormant during the day and only spring into life in the hours of darkness as that is when Granville Street really comes to life.

As you walk along Granville at night your senses are pervaded by all manner of sight, sound and smells. There appears to be a beggar in every doorway, most with a chunk of cardboard with a message on it, my favourite being; “Homeless, Hungry and HIV positive.” A real winner that one it just makes me want to give.


Others are a little more industrious and they play a musical instrument, sing, well sort of, tell jokes or my favourite, play the spoons. The spoon man has a gammy leg, few teeth and wanders up and down Granville offering to play tunes with his spoons. He appears to pop up everywhere. One moment you see him outside your hotel and a few moments later he is on the other side of the road on the corner of Robson. How does he get there so quick? As he walks along he clicks the spoons on his leg in cadence with his limp. There is nothing much to it but it does have a certain mesmerizing tone to it. Spoon man is a hard worker as well, we saw him late one afternoon plying his clinking trade and from my hotel balcony 10 hours later I heard the spoons and then saw him accosting late night drunks as they left the clubs. No standard work day for spoon man it appears.


Fighting for doorway space with the beggars is a generally motley crew who appear to have no income or future. They are young people who are dressed in all manner of weird, colourful, torn and disheveled clothing. Tattoos are there badges of honour and tell their life story. Hair is optional or at the very least colourful. They often have a dog or two and sit in the doorway, chatting or trying to play and sing a musical instrument. They appear oblivious to the tourists who give them a wide berth and a distasteful look as they pass.

 The sex shops that advertise peep shows for 25 cents do a roaring trade with constant traffic in and out of their doors. Many tourists appear to shield their eyes and fumble in their clothing for a crucifix as they scurry past.


Night also brings out all the beautiful young things to Granville. The night clubs throb to the beat of music; long lines appear at the doorway where up to 10 burly bouncers, usually heavily tattooed stand arms folded in their apparent superiority. By their demeanor you would think these goons are the masters of the universe instead of plain dumb, intimidating muscle.


Granville around midnight is a people watchers paradise your eyes dart this way and that as there is always something going on. Girls parade past is the shortest of skirts, usually in a pack and a closely followed by drunken groups of young men doing stupid things to impress said girls. Sometimes they are impressed but more usually they are not.


The smell of marijuana fills the air; people appear to smoke the weed without fear of arrest. Young people stagger down the street looking for somewhere to be sick or hoping to find an easy way back home.


The throb from the nightclubs goes on and on. Granville Street has a life of its own.


Not once on these nightly wanders have I seen a police officer, not a one. Does that mean that there is no crime on Granville or is the crime self-regulated?


What I do know is that I find Granville Street an interesting amalgam of all levels of society, I am never bored walking the street just glad I don’t have to live the life and that I am beyond the days of nightclubbing and spoon-playing.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT CANADA

What I like about Canada:




The people. Well I have to say that I suppose but it is true Canadian’s are just about the  nicest and most polite people on the planet.



The lakes. They are everywhere here in the Okanagan. Cool and clear with the reflections of mountains glistening on the surface. They are both a summer and winter playground and form a chain of wonder that runs through the region.



Mountains. They form a wonderful backdrop to the sparkling lakes. The sheer granite bluffs are magnificent and shame some of the hills we call mountains in Australia. I see them everywhere and I want to climb every one of them.



Seasons. Hot summers and cold winters as it should be. Winters where snow carpets everything and the lakes freeze. The autumn/fall where trees wear a resplendent array of colourful cloaks and the autumn leaves drop to the ground leaving a multi-coloured carpet behind. Summers that are dazzingly hot and encourages you to take a dip in the clear-watered lakes. Spring where the lilacs and sunflowers bloom and the trees spout an abundance of ne foliage.



Wildlife. There are deer everywhere, walking down the road and in the front gardens. Big horn sheep that perch majestically on rocky outcrops. There are bear and cougar too but I am still searching for them.


Supermarkets. It is just different. Just a few tiny things that make shopping in supermarkets a treat. Similar products with different names.



Ice Hockey. I like it. Is this the fastest game on earth.



Curling. Once a doubter but now a believer.



A&W. My favourite fast food chain. Love those Uncle Burgers.



Roads. Generally they are great. The road over the Rockies from the Okanagan is a wonder.






There are many more likes but this will do for now. Of course if there is a like list there has to be a dislike list. That will be in the next blog. Perhaps it would be wiser to wait until I am back in Australia to publish the dislike list!

EDITOR'S BLOCK!

The snow has come and gone for now and been replaced by drizzling rain. Of course this turns the roads to slush and pristine white has been replaced by dirty, black piles of banked snow. Not a very nice sight and it is the other side of the 'winter wonderland.'

We have a very steep driveway here and we were having trouble getting the van up and down the icy driveway. So the tyres on the van have now been replaced with winter tyres that will give the vehicle more grip and that means we should be able to get up and down the driveway without too many problems.

There is also some heavy winter driving trips ahead over the next few weeks, firstly to Banff and then across the Rockies to Vancouver and then down into the States to California and back. So the tyres will improve the safety of the drive.

Tomorrow we head to Vernon in BC to spend the night with friends before heading east and onto Banff.

Confession time.

This blog was primarily to promote my book about the boy, Tommy Tippett who grew up in Sydney in the 1960's. The book of some 85,000 words took six weeks to write and in the 8 weeks sincce I completed the book I have edited just 70 pages. It is something I am just not enjoying and I find any excuse to put off an edit for another day. I am not sure why as without the edit the book won't go anywhere.

I now have the excuse of travel and Christmas to further put off returning to Tommy. The solution I think is a new years resolution around Tommy Tippett and a completion date for the edit.

Good idea! That's exactly what I will do.

In the meantime I will write a bit about this and a little about that. Some blogs will be contemporary and keep you up to date with what is going on here and now whilst in other blogs I will backtrack to another time when we were all much younger, but not as wise.

So hang in there, Tommy is on his way, sooner or later, well actually a bit later than sooner but I know he will be worth the wait.

akmacca08@live.com.au

PRINCESS PATRICIAS CANADIAN LIGHT INFANTRY

Earlier today a news story caught my eye. Within the story was a mention of a Canadian Army unit, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI). That bought back memories of a time long ago when I was a young soldier stationed in Townsville with the First Battalion The Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR).

I was into my nineteenth year and was into my third year in 1 RAR and I had just been transferred to Support Company after spending almost two years in Charlie Company. 1 RAR had almost completed the re-building process after the departure of National Serviceman in the early seventies.

With Charlie Company I had completed the second rotation as the Rifle Company Butterworth and not long after that trip Charlie Company was sent to Singapore to take part in a large exercise. On our return a bunch of Charlie Company soldiers attended Support Company courses and were transferred to that Company at the completion of the course.

The timing was perfect as Support Company had been selected to take part in an exchange visit to Canada. Support Company 1 RAR would be hosted with the PPCLI in Calgary, Alberta, whilst a Company of PPCLI would be hosted by 1 RAR.

The Canadians were considered the worlds best practitioners of United Nations peacekeeping missions and the aim of our visit was to learn from the Canadians and then bring these skills back to Australia.

At the time the Australian Government were pushing to have Australian troops included in UN peacekeeping missions. The Governments aim, I believe was to have 1 RAR show the United Nations that Australian troops were capable and worthy in being considered for future UN missions.

Our first few weeks in Calgary werer taken up in learning how to be effective peacekeepers. All of our Canadian instructors had a wealth of UN peacekeeping experience, primarily in Cyprus where they were the UN mainstays. The culmination of this training was to be a three day exercise which was to replicate a 'real' peacekeeping operation that the Canadians had conducted in Cyprus.

All the training and briefings were complete and the Company Group was visited by high ranking Army officers who stressed the importance of the exercise to both the Australian Army and the Australian Government. We were told in no uncertain terms that the spotlight would be on us and we were expected to succeed.

No worries we all thought, easy.

The Canadians were experts at the UN caper so they had mock villages in place as well as a sizable contingent of civilian belligerents and innocent bystanders. It was going to be as real as it could be in a training scenario. We were given our final orders and rules of engagement and sent forth to quell the civilian unrest.

I won't go into long detail now about how peace should be maintained on UN operations but one of the main pre-requisites is not to cause more trouble by your presence or shoot too many people..........unfortunately we did both.

Support Company 1 RAR was a mixture of youth and experience with almost all of the junior and senior Non Commissioned Officers and a smattering of the officers all having served in Vietnam. Some had more than one tour and several had also served in the Borneo conflict. The Battalion's ethos was training for war, not peacekeeping. I suppose you could say that we had a gung-ho mentality and if it moved shoot it.

The exercise started okay, we moved along rowdy groups, searched vehicles and were generally nice to everyone we met, but we just couldn't maintain the civility. The first incident occurred when a group of rock throwers were fired upon by Support Company troops. The umpire declared three civilians were killed and several wounded. The 1 RAR section commander thought this was a good result.

Wrong!

Within the exercise scenario the protests escalated and Australian troops were fired upon. Up until that time all of our training had been if you were fired upon, fire back and then win the battle. So that's generally what we did, we fired back and caused havoc. Our commanders tried to get the troops to adhere to the rules of engagement but it was too late, both sides were fired up and it was open warfare.

The peacekeepers had transformed into peacetakers. Shots rang out, rocks were thrown and barricades were stormed. Our response was section fire, including a belt's of M60. We were very impressed with ourselves when an umpire informed us that we had killed over 20 'civilians.' That was until the Company Commander got hold of our Section Commander and kicked him in the backside for not following the rules of engagement. "But sir," he said, "the buggers were throwing rocks at us, what do you expect us to do, roll over?"

The exercise was called off after several such incidents. From memory we hadn't got to the halfway point, but the powers that be decided that there was no point going on as the peacekeeping exercise had degenerated into farce, especially when troops and 'civilians' at one vehicle checkpoint got involved in a brawl.

Of course at the Junior Non-Commissioned Officer and digger level we were all pretty pleased with ourselves. We had shown our mettle and that we wouldn't take a backward step. And since the exercise was over a day and a half early we could probably all get on the piss.

Unfortunately for us that wasn't the view held by the Support Company hierarchy or the Australian Army senior observers or as we were told the politicians in Canberra. We were told in no uncertain terms the we were in fact all very naughty boys.

The result of this 'Peacekeeping' fiasco was that a report went back to the UN about Australian soldiers inability to conduct peacekeeping operations. Australian soldiers were too aggressive and warlike and would not be suited to serve with UN mandated peacekeeping missions.

So if anyone reading this served in the Australian Army from say, 1975 to the nineties ever wondered why you never got a UN guernsey..... well you now know that you can blame it all on the trigger -happy soldiers of Support Company 1 RAR!

akmacca08@live.com.au

DASHING DEER

It seemed that only a short time ago I was watching kangaroos bounding past the house where I lived. It happened on such a regular basis that I didn't even bother to look up. It was so mundane that the dog even stopped barking at them as they bounded by the back fence.

Now I find myself in Canada and confronted by a new type of bounder. Well to be accurate deer don't bound so much as leap, though those around OK Falls are more the ambling type of deer who just saunter down the middle of the rode going to one suburban garden after another.

The Australian in me still gets a kick out of seeing deer wandering around the streets. They really have no fear of humans and you can get reasonably close before they wander off. They crop grass close to busy roads all the time, yet in all my Canadian travels I haven't see one roadkill deer. The only dead deer I have seen were 2 dead deer beside a road in Washington, State, USA.

That tells me two things. American deer are dumber than Canadian deer and Australian kangaroos are dumber than all the animals in North America, because our roads are littered with dead kangaroos.

Just this morning I let the dog out into what passes as a backyard to be confronted by 2 deer happily chomping away on the remains of a summer garden. The dog thought about a chase but decided that discretion was the better part of valor and sat back valiantly and saw the deer off the property. The deer paid both the dog and I scant attention and wandered off when they felt like it.

Damn deer!

The other animal I have run into recently is bighorn sheep. I have seen them on the rocky slopes of the hills near where I walk the dog. They have only appeared recently so I assume that the onset of the cold weather and snow has driven them down from the higher peaks.

Sometimes I just see them far off silhouetted on a far off hill, but today they were relatively close to the trail a group of 5 bighorns who just watched my passage impassively never once taking their eyes from me or the dog. The buck was a huge animal with an impressive set of horns. Sad that these animals that are adept at suriving in such a harsh environment are often easy fodder for hunters gun's.

Not much going on with the book, still editing slowly with a target to finish by 07 December. What a relief that will be.

COLD CANADA

Sweltering in Melbourne one moment and freezing in Canada the next. Now I know why my body hates me at times.

Departed Melbourne without too much fuss though I did manage to leave my camera in my friends car. No problems, camera's were on special at the duty free, so I moved from a bulky Cannon camera to a lightweight model. Still it is an annoyance to leave stuff behind.

On most of my travels I avail myself of the Qantas lounge, something I have become accustomed to. But not this time I wasn't travelling Qantas so I had to wait with the great, unwashed masses and forgo free food, drinks, magazines and newspapers. I don't know how I survived.

I lucked out and scored a row to myself, thank you Air Canada! As I always do I slept little but watched several movies, the pick of which was Juilia V Julia. The Julie part all about a women that writes a cooking blog. She too wondered if anyone would read her blog. They did and it not only lead to a book but the film as well!

It was the first time that I had travelled Air Canada and I had no problems at all with the service. It wasn't the best airline food I have had but it was okay.

The plane actually landed early into a dull and bleak Vancouver Sunday morning. Rain and cold. My good moon at being off the plane soon dissapeared when I was given a going over by Canadian immigration. Apparently I came to Immigrations notice because I left and then returned to Canada so quickly. I must admit I was a little worried for a while as time dragged on, I had visions of being on the next plane back to Australia with my tail between my legs.

Thankfully that was not the case.

I had a three day wait in Vancouver and didn't really do a lot as I had been to Vancouver several times before. Also it was cold and wet and thoroughly miserable. So I managed to catch up on some sleep and reading.

Just yesteerday I hada wonderful trip back to Okanagan Fall through the Rocky Mountains. Huge snow covered moutains and pine trees covered in snow. To an Aussie who spent the best part of the last two years in the Central Desert region of Australia the snow was a wonderous sight.

So I am now back in my home base and trying to get up the motivation to continue with my Tommy Tippett book. Yes the first draft of 85,000 words is written but now comes the hard part, editing and honing the words that I wrote. Cutting and chopping here and adding something there. I really want to get on with the task but I am dragging my feet.

I have promised myself that I will start next Monday and I will hold myself to that especially now that I have placed the threat in writing.

Life is good I sit and write this as I look out over a majestic mountain range that runs down to the shores of a cold Lake Skaha. No complaints from me.

CANADA BOUND

The touring around the backblocks of Victoria has come to an end. My good friend Adrian and I saw quite a bit of Victoria in the first half of the week. It is beautiful country, luch green fields with fat shhep and cows, interwoven with area's of stately euclypt forrest.

I particularly enjoyed the old towns, some big and some real small, all had character and a interesting array of old buildings. Well that is they are old to Australian's, around 150-100 years old, our history doesn't go back all that far and the 1850's is a long time in Australia.

Victoria lived up to its reputation as being cold and bleak one moment and the next you are dazzled by bright sunshine and find yourself shedding clothes. Earlier in the week it struggled to get to a maximum temperature of 13c, whiclst today it was
34c. Crazy!

It was great staying with my old Army buddy and fellow Chinese tour guide, but I am looking forward to heading back to Canada and MORE cold!

Early start on Sunday morning, a flight to Sydney with Qantas and then a 12:15pm flight to Vancouver with Air Canada. I usually fly Qantas so it will be interesting to experience the Air Canada flight.

I will then have four days in beautiful downtown Vancouver before heading back to Okanagan Falls over the Rocky Mountains.

Nothing at all to report on the writing front as I am waiting for comments from friends and family about my first draft. Perhaps it is terrible as no one appears to want to give me feedback and they don't want to hurt my feelings.

I will certainly get cracking with the edit when I get back home as time is wasting and I really want to know if I am wasting my time or not.

And for all aspiring writers here is another story of hope See it can be done!