Ground Control, Part 3

Throughout the barrage of seismicity, I had to facilitate the University of Toronto geotechnical paste fill analysis study and install a series of stress meters as the Levels became available again. This took years.

The paste fill program began in 2008 and ran until 2010. I had little to do with it for the first year. My boss, Dave Counter, spent a fair amount of time in contact with the U of T and negotiating with Production Engineering and Operations, prepping the program. A suitable stope or two had to be found (the heir and the spare or two, so to speak), the stress cells designed, the cages built, the tech work and data streaming set up.

That was not my gig. Lots of math and politics, two things Dave loved and I could do without. I did what I did best, crawling over muck piles, taking pictures and doodling maps replete with dips, dumps and strikes, drawing up rehab plans and inspecting the work as it was done, and installing the stress and extensometers as needed.

Then one day I was introduced to Ben Thompson, an expat Brit from Durham, a PHD in geotechnical studies, articling at U of T, and now running the program I was to make happen and have no credit in. That’s okay, I really didn’t know what it did, how it did it, or what we hoped to gain from it. But I did know how to rig, set up pulleys, drive equipment, work like a tank in heat that would have dropped him and his revolving door of undergrads and understudies, and keep them from getting run over or falling down a raise. I was affectionately referred to as Sergeant-Major. I deserved that. I demanded obedience when we were underground. When I speak, you listen. When I tell you what to do, you do it. No questions, no arguments. Understand? They did. We got on fine.

Ben tagged along with me a lot in those early days of the project, growing familiar with underground and absorbing what I babbled on about, lucky to visit a few spots he wished to see while I went about my business. He contributed to my knowledge and skill, too. He’d comment on the instruments we saw in No.1 Mine, those installed years before to monitor if and how much the 50 million ton wedge was still creeping along, their state, their orientation, their overall usefulness. The long and short of that was that they’d had their day. Some were corroded, some had been installed wrong, or in the wrong direction. Some were broken. They were giving little to no useful information.

Was the wedge still moving? Yes. That much was obvious. I didn’t need any gauges to tell me that. I noted relatively freshly ground rock in the faults we were supposedly monitoring, paint flecks discharged from the coat applied by a previous wonder-boy EIT who apparently had little idea how to paint across a fault (he painted them along their full length when he should have applied it perpendicularly so that travel could be measured, but enough on that).

I pressed Dave to inspect them with me, pointing out Ben’s comments. Dave did, he accompanied me, gave me a rather long-winded history of the wedge that I already knew having lived through its influence, lecturing me on the instruments’ installations, none of which I cared about. I wanted him to see that they were useless and that we ought to install new ones, but nothing ever came of it. Not on my watch, anyways.

Ben and I did get on, though. He liked to go out. So did I. He liked to watch live music. So did I. He like a beer or two. Me, too. He could get a little caustic after a few, though. I recall the Contiki German girls and their description of BBC English and Island Monkey English. Ben began the night BBC. He did not end the night BBC. He was working class. He came from Durham, the coal mining town famous for its violent strikes during the 1980s, made even more famous by “Billy Elliot.” And we invariably had more than a few. Unfortunately, after a couple, his accent grew thick, indecipherable at times. But we got on. We got on for years. We got on so well that I always met up with him whenever I travelled to Toronto, at least until he got married and moved to Kingston and then London. We got on so well that Bev and I invited him and his revolving door or undergrads and understudies for barbeques.

But all good things come to an end. The stopes came on line, were mined and mucked and once they were emptied we set about installing the carefully crafted cages, filled with their barrage of meters and gauges, their loops of cables linking and trailing them. Unfortunately, Dave got involved, taking charge at the eleventh hour. Type-A personality and all that. I was nudged aside. You can guess how smoothly things went after that. But Dave was in charge. Dave was paying the bill. So, we did what Dave said.

Disaster! There was a small seismic event when we were hoisting them in the first stope. We had to stop mid-installation for a long-hole blast. When we returned we saw that a slab had fallen on the trailing cable. We pinged the instruments. Nothing. No response. Most of the wires within the cable had been crushed and severed. We had to pull the cages back out, a time consuming task that took twice as long as hoisting them in. Then the wee wires had to be spliced together. That only took all weekend. Despite all that work, only a few of the cages did their job, so we had to do it all over again. Then again, we were going to do it all over again, anyways.

All the while, the rehab of the collapsed levels was apace. I monitored the installation of new support types, pull-tested the new support, laid out cable-bolt prints, and inspected them, too. And then, two years after the litany of Level crushing bursts had all but shut us down, I began installing the newest stress cells. Once again, my boss did all the initial prep work, only bringing me in at the last minute. I had only two days to prep for the installation. I had to drop everything else to make the deadline.

Here’s a bit of wisdom: never let an engineer head an installation. Or I should say my boss, more specifically. He had to be there. He had to show me how it was done. And he had to bring one of his faves with him. That meant I had to work with a couple engineers who didn’t know how to perform manual labour. That didn’t stop them from marginalizing me, downgrading me to just the muscle. FYI: I’m not that big.

Dave meant well, but he grew impatient. He grew frustrated when things did not go his way. He barked orders. He yelled. He fumed. He placed me in a potentially lethal position, atop a narrow platform atop our Toyota, working at arms’ length. And when the rods slipped from his hands they came cascading out of the overhead borehole we were pushing them up. They whipped about like wet pasta as they fell. And everyone ran. Except me. I was on a raised platform, if you recall, working at arm’s length, with nowhere to go. I turned my back to the whipping rods and closed my eyes and hoped for the best. I was only stung once or twice.

I was furious. I bit my tongue, lest I say something career limiting.

We only installed the one.

I went down the next day with Annetta, a visiting engineer, and Iain McKillip, our EIT. Dave deemed me “good to go” now that he’d shown me how to do it. He did. He showed me how not to do it. The sergeant-major in me rose up. I had the two with me sit for a tailgate planning session before we began. We set the rods and cable as I wished, keeping our workplace orderly and clear. I repeated my instructions, making sure they were clear, and we set about installing the first cell.

We installed three that day.

Dave gave himself a huge pat on the back when I gave him my report at the end of the shift, congratulating himself on being such a great teacher.

Ground Control, Part 2

I had barely enough time to acquaint myself with my new job in Engineering when things got busy. Things were always busy in Ground Control, what with my installing instruments, working with suppliers, testing new types of support, and having to lay out the support required for driving layouts and audit every heading. I had blast monitors to install and retrieve. We had to inspect every ground failure and support failure reported. I had rehab prints to put out. I had AutoCAD to learn. And I had to play politics with Captains and Superintendents. But things were about to get especially busy.

How? We were about to experience unparalleled ground failure from rock bursts like we’d never experienced before.

I was not involved in the first. My partner was. He was called down to inspect a lengthy collapse of the 7100 01 S after a 3.2 Mn (magnitude) burst. That’s the main drift that follows the orebody on the south side of the Level access. All production was accessed by this drift. In fact, without it, nothing could be done on that side of the Level. There are no side drifts, no bypasses of any sort. Think about it. No drilling, no blasting no mucking, no money. We were motivated to fix it. And we did. It took some time, almost six months, but we finally got it done just as I joined the group, just in time for the next burst, six months after that.

It was a big one, a 3.8. In fact it was the largest we’d ever experienced, the largest we would ever experience. To put than in perspective, a bad earthquake is about 5.0, but the epicenter is usually deep underground and can be five kilometers or more below the surface. Consider the damage such a quake can cause. Now consider a 3.8 Mn earthquake epicenter mere meters from where you’re standing. It causes the earth to move, to flow as though it were fluid and not solid; and when it finds an open space, it tries to crush it; rock fractures, it splinters, it’s thrown vast distances, all in the notion of closing the void it finds. It’s like a bomb going off right beside you.

It was large enough to damage, 6800, 6900, and 7000. It damaged 7100 again, but the new support held or it too might have been knocked out of commission too. It might have suffered the same fate as those Levels below it. It collapsed the accesses to 7300, 7400, 7500 and 7700, our main production block at the time. It also damaged 7800 and 7900.

It was a disaster. It cut off most of our active production at the time and forced us to shuffle production over the entire Mine too keep us from having to temporarily lay off the workforce. It did cause a break in production, the first we’d had since we’d undermined a fifty-million tonne wedge fifteen years earlier, when we’d almost crushed the Mine and our main shaft with it. That might have closed the Mine, but we were lucky and it didn’t. The workforce was sent home for a week then; it was sent home for a week now, to give us time to assess the damage and ensure it was safe to send anyone back underground.
I was lucky. I’d been standing under the worst of it on 7500 just seven hours before the event. I happened to be in the area, inspecting an unrelated event when my eyes wandered over the back (the ceiling) at the Level access intersection. The shotcrete had always been thin there, the surface riddled with cracks that snaked here and there. They’d never bothered me before. But they did that day. I thought they might be getting worse, so I noted it in my notebook, to remind myself to put together a rehab plan for the entire area. I drew pictures. I took pictures to show my boss, hoping that they might help me convince him that the area required a little TLC. Maybe a lot of TLC. A mechanic was even luckier than I was. He’d been lined up to work on a scooptram that had broken down in that exact same place. He’d stopped for a cup of tea before starting his shift, otherwise he’d have been working on that scoop when the event happened. He would have crushed under ten meters of fall of ground, along with that scoop. But that day was his lucky day. One should always take time for a cup of tea. It may save your life.

When I say that we sent the workforce home to assess that it was safe for them to return, that did not include me. I was in Ground Control. I was the guy who was always heading north with a clipboard and a camera when everyone else was running south, screaming that the sky was falling. I spent the rest of the week listening to the ground creak and grown, crawling over muck piles, making notes, drawing little maps, taking a lot of pictures. It was the quietest I’d ever heard the Mine. Aside for the creaks and groans and cracks that is.

I never once felt like I was in jeopardy. Maybe I’m a little reckless, maybe a little stupid, maybe danger doesn’t faze me. Either way, I was never worried, never scared. I had to tell a few supervisors and engineers who was accompanying me on those investigations to “grow a pair” more than once as they hung back or jumped at the slightest ping of ground. I forged on, hugging the wall, passing under the damage, but close enough to what support still existed to expect that it might still be holding back the back. And if it didn’t, I wouldn’t know for long. My exposure time was short, I reasoned; just a blink of an eye. What could possibly happen? They followed me. They always followed me. I think I shamed them into it. I never once told them that I might have a lump in my throat as I slid past that gaping maw of a damaged drift. I almost never did, though. Like I said, stupid.

We got hit by another 3.2 Mn burst 6 months later, ripping through the same Levels that were already damaged, almost killing a rehab team installing burst rated support. That’s what saved their lives. The ground snapped and undulated. The crew said the ground actually flowed until it met the new support they were installing and the damage was held at bay, stopping the wholesale collapse cold.
Looking back, we’d missed the signs. There were plenty of them but we hadn’t seen them. We ought to have. Maybe not me, though. I was too green and for as long as I’d been in Ground Control there were rock bursts. Prior to that, it had been a long time since I’d been in the field. When I was, it was with backfill, always at the tail end of a stope, always under shitty ground, so I’d grown desensitized to it. After that, I was in Oreflow, never straying too far from the shaft and oblivious to the goings on throughout the production levels of the Mine. So what did I know?

A lot, it turned out.

I began with Ground Control in June 2007, experiencing my first seismic damage inspections in July. The next was in October. There were more in February and April, then two in August. Two more in September, and another in October. All procurers to the main event in January. More followed in May and June. The third big one hit in mid-June, the one that almost killed that rehab crew on 7500.

Kidd never once tried to kill me during that time. She’d tried before. Many times. But she never did. She’d given up trying to kill me by them. Or maybe I’d just developed a sixth sense for when she was going to try again. No matter, I felt invulnerable all through that period. To think otherwise would have been foolhardy. Had I thought about it, I’d have never gone underground again.

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t been scared underground in decades. I don’t think I’ve ever been. What would have been the point in that?

Bev’s Lost Year

Her mother’s passing had been hard on her. She was in a funk for some time, but I suppose losing one’s parent can have that sort of an affect on you. I’ve yet to experience that.

When I was suggesting vacation options with Bev, she was disinterested. Of course she was; she was grieving. It probably felt like a betrayal to even consider heading out and having fun. That’s the reason why she didn’t go with me to New Orleans and New York. I was rather oblivious to the depth of her pain. Like I said, I’ve never lost a parent and had no idea how deeply it affected her. And I had no idea how long it would take her to push through her funk and pain and come through the other side.

Bev tells me that she was extremely depressed during that year of her life. She hid it well, focusing on work mostly. When she cried, she did so alone. She’s a very private person, not given to lavish displays of affection. She’s like a man in that aspect; you have to look for the signs, like her doing little things for you, routing out the lost, patiently sussing out what might be the problem with electronic devices, keeping track of utilities and personal taxes and dog grooming. She’s very much like her mother in that regard.

Her mother passed in March of 2009. She grieved, but somehow made it through our trip to New Brunswick without falling apart, not that she would fall apart; she’s not that sort. If she did, she’d do it privately, and in her own time, inside her head, where no one else could see.

She had work to occupy her. Then we went on our annual “big” trip. She didn’t have a quiet time between, not really. When things did get quiet, she got busy: she went to Manitoulin in August to convalesce. I was not invited. Neither were the dogs. “I need some time to myself for a little while,” she said. I understood. Sometimes you just have to go on a vision quest or some such thing to come to terms with yourself. If not a vision quest (I really don’t see the point of such things; you’ll only find yourself in the end), then certainly a walkabout. That I can wrap my head around. Put one foot ahead of the other. You’ll find yourself walking beside yourself the whole way.

She packed up for her walkabout. I fussed in the way I can, asking her if she had everything she needed for a week by herself, reminding her that she’d be able to get whatever she might have forgotten in Gore Bay or Little Current, and barring that, most certainly in Espanola. She left on her “Bev’s Big Adventure,” as she called it, the first time she’d ever actually ventured out on her own. Manitoulin was as good a place as any. Better than most. She knew it like the back of her hand. It held a cherished place in her memory, years of summer trips piled up, one on top of the other. It was a safe place. A good place to go and try to center herself.

She called a few times, to set me at ease and to give me updates on how she was and what she’d done. But, for the most part, she spent it with herself, cherishing the quiet and her memories and her newfound freedom.

But it was not enough. She was still sad, still depressed, still in need of time to heal.

Bev was working at the Mine for a while through this, subcontracted by Ross Pope to set up a cost accounting routine for D-Mine at Kidd. While there, one of the girls mentioned a Woman’s Wellness Weekend Retreat being held at Cedar Meadows in the spring of 2010. Bev mentioned the upcoming retreat to her friend Lynn who thought it a great reason to come up, so Bev and Lynn enrolled and set to room together while there.

I remained to hold down the fort and take care of the dogs in her absence. This is not to say that I did not hold down the fort or care for the dogs when she was around, just that I was to have the roost to myself while she went off and did what women do at such things, ridding themselves of their men for a time. Maybe that’s just the point, to be rid of us for a short time.

While there, Angel, the woman who’d mentioned the Retreat to Bev, put another bug in Bev’s ear. They should go to Vegas. The girls were on board, Bev said, naming a few who were. I spoke to one or two and found that they were not.

Time passed. Long story short, the Vegas week didn’t happen in September as planned. The girls backed out, one at a time, and the trip was downgraded to a weekend in Cochrane, or more specifically, a cottage just outside of Cochrane.

Lynn came up for that too, I suppose so that Bev wouldn’t be spending time “alone” with strangers. They bunked together again.

Bev began to come to terms with her mother’s passing. I can’t say how many times she cried; she never did in my presence, not really; I happened by a couple times as her composure was breaking down after seeing something of her mother’s; like I said, she’s a very private person; but what I can say as that she became her old self again, little by little, until she broke through and left her heavy grief and debilitating funk behind.

Would that have happened anyway, those times spent alone and in the company of women notwithstanding? Maybe. Probably? Who’s to say?

But her mother’s passing had prepared her for her father’s passing, still a few years away. She picked up pamphlets about palliative care and grieving and what to expect. These lessons served her well then.
But that’s just like Bev. It’s just like her mother too. Plan, make lists, be prepared.

Alma was a pragmatic woman.
Her daughter is much the same.
As they say, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

New York, Part 2

I decided to go to see the site of the World Trade Center. I knew that the clean-up had finished and that construction of the new World trade Center had begun and that nothing remained of the tragedy, but I was drawn there. 9/11 had affected me and I wanted to pay my respects to the victims, if only to visit the site of their deaths.

I headed south by subway (subway stations were conveniently placed all about Times Square, one just outside my hotel entrance at 47th and 7th, getting off at City Hall and wandered about City Hall Park, checking out the Jacob Wrey Mould Fountain and the statuary throughout before making my way to the World Trade Center and Financial District. I followed my map, walking the short distance down Broadway to Versey Street, rounding St. Paul’s Chapel to where the World Trade Center once stood, and still does in my memory.

I was not disappointed. It was a construction site with barriers up all around it, cutting off any and all view of what was. Trucks rushed here and there, delivering steel and concrete and what have you, drills and jack hammers and hydraulics and pneumatics threw enough dust and noise into the air that I retreated to St. Paul’s Chapel again.

What was remarkable was how little damage was done to the surrounding structures. St. Paul’s Chapel, just across Church Street was unscathed as far as I could see. So too all the other buildings across Church Street, but I suspect they were and had since been repaired and cleaned up. They would be. Business beckoned. Retail abounds at Century 21 and Wall Street is but a few blocks to the south. They would not have spared any amount to refurbish St. Paul’s, bringing it back to its former glory; it’s where George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the Nation, after all.

I walked down past Zuccotti Park to Wall Street, then back on the subway where I got off in Greenwich Village for lunch. I was terribly bohemian while there, trying sushi for the first time, listening to musicians talk trade at tables around me.

I spent the afternoon touring Radio City Music Hall. Primarily a cinema, it found its way to movies as well. Visions of a thousand films passed my mind as I approached it, its neo marquee rising high up its flanks, its lights ablaze day and night. Radio Days, Home Alone 2, Quiz Show, and most memorably, The Godfather, with Michael Corleone and wife Christmas shopping, Michael reaching for and grasping a newspaper bearing news that his father had been shot and expected to die.

Inside, it’s an Art Deco palace. The Grand Foyer, its staircases a cascade of Oriental murals, plush VIP lounges, the mezzanine and balcony and the great proscenium arch, over 60 feet high and 100 feet wide, a huge semi-circular void, its steam powered stage, so top secret during WW2 that the FBI had to guard it, lest its mechanics reveal how the Navy’s aircraft carriers dispatched its fighters.

Of course, there were Rockettes. I met one and had my picture taken with her.

I had time for another show. But which? I didn’t want to pay full price though, so I stood in line at TKTS and looked to see what was on sale. I recommend TKTS. That day’s shows could be on sale for as much as 75% off. If you’re willing to wait. The line is long. Some lengthy time might be spent waiting. But only for musicals; should you wish for drama, there’s a much shorter line on the other side. I was waiting on the much longer side. I didn’t have to wait too long. No sooner did I resign myself for a full morning of inching forward, a young lady in a short tuxedo danced up to me and presented me with a pamphlet for “Chicago.” Go to the box office and get 50% off your ticket price it said.

Done. Time and money saved.

I was off to see the city from up on high, atop the Empire State Building. A must. It too is an Art Deco wonder (can you tell whether I’m a fan of Art Deco?), all marble and arches and decidedly 1930s. King Kong surveyed the city from that vantage, so did Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan when so sleepless in Seattle that they had to fall in love atop it, as did Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr while having an affair to remember, not to mention Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne; even the Daleks and Doctor Who chased about the observation deck.

The lines were shorter than I was led to expect. I was up top in no time, eschewing the topmost deck, being informed that it wasn’t worth the extra cash. I beat the rush, the lines decidedly longer when I was leaving than when I arrived.

I had to visit J.J.’s Hat Center while I was in the Neighborhood. I bought a couple while there, a straw and a fur felt. I ought not to have. They were more expensive than those I’d bought from the Hatter in Toronto, but their selection was larger, their ambiance more lush. Long, tall, lazy ceiling fans, it smelled of wood and wool and fur and the ages. Glossy wooden display cases, glassed display doors glowed under the soft overhead lighting. Leather seating. An aura of style and a bygone age. It screamed masculine.

My final day was spent wandering up and down the city, taking in this and that and not really seeing much. I was too rushed. I snapped Pen Station and Grand Central and Madison Gardens from without, the formers from within a little.

June and I had shared a few drinks over the course of our mutual stay, but we spent our time crossing paths, odd for such a large city, but as we were staying at the same place, not impossible. We’d yet to have the dinner we’d set.

We finally did, that final evening. I’d caught sight of an Indian restaurant while wandering the streets nearby and suggest that. She like Indian, so a time was set. We were sat, were mistaken as a married couple as we both wore wedding rings, ordered and ate. And talked like Euro pals sometimes do. We discussed our pasts, our presents, what the future what might hold, and whether it was what we expected and desired. Family. Friends. Regrets. Defeats. Triumphs. And our separate glory days of old. Backpacks and flannel and Doc Martens and mosh pits and what was. And what would never be again. The past is past, we decided, best left there and not pined over.

I suggested a club I’d seen that morning, in the basement of the Edison Hotel where I’d seen a curious display, a sousaphone with a speaker set within, the horn throwing Louis Armstrong out into the space before it.

I noted the plaque before it. The famous Vince Giordano and the Night Hawks were playing there that night. Never hear of him or them. I looked them up online and saw that they’d written and recorded a number of movie scores. A few of them even wrote television scores. This was their under the table job, so to speak. Special guest Saul Yaged, a New York jazz clarinetist from the 40s and 50s.

June said that she liked swing and Big band. Go figure, two middle-aged ex-punk, new wave, grunge backpackers who’d mellowed so.

The bar was Art Deco, funneled to coax the music to the back of the hall. There were a couple dancers all decked out in ‘40s attire, bow-tied and tweed, floral and red lipped.

We shared an antipasto plate, danced a little even though we really had no clue what we were doing. I complimented Saul after his numbers. He was good, but he was 80 as well, so his lungs weren’t up to more than a couple songs at a time. He thanked me. And for the next hour I was his favourite fan in the front row.

We caught a set, no more. We both had flights in the morning, mine so early to necessitate a 4 am wakeup call.

New York

The Big Apple. I made it. It had been some years since I’d seen that fabled skyline from JFK and promised myself that I’d have to come back one day, and now I had.

I was fortunate to have arrived early, as well. I was supposed to fly from New Orleans to Washington to New York, arriving after 8 pm, but I was somehow bumped from American to Delta and now had a direct flight, arriving two hours early. That afforded me the time to do something.

But what? I asked the concierge. He suggested a Broadway show. He probably suggested that to everyone when asked. We were in the Entertainment District, after all. We were in Times Square, after all. The theatres were minutes’ walk away, seconds in a dash, depending on the crowds that were forever gathered under the blinding neon and LCDs that turned night into day every night. I had the concierge book me a ticket for “Billy Elliott,” showered and changed and had just enough time to grab a slice and a coke at Joe’s Pizzeria (again, the concierge’s suggestion) right across the street before racing to the theatre and sitting minutes before curtain. That’s a New York minute, in the classic sense.
Maybe not if you prescribe to this more modern definition of a New York minute: the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn (so said Johnny Carson).

It was latish when “Billy Elliott” ended, too late for me to go exploring an unfamiliar city, anyway, so I went back to the hotel and settled into the bar for a nightcap before going to bed. I did not get to bed early. In fact I went to bed fairly late, somewhere in the vicinity of 2 am. I met some people at the bar that night and had a Euro pal moment, most notably with June, a Korean Californian my age in NYC on business. We and a trio of friends from the Midwest sat up talking for hours until mutually breaking for the night. I never saw the trio again; I did see June every day.

The next day I rose slowly. I was a little late getting about my day, but what did I expect after staying up all hours? The weather matched my mood: overcast, a slight sleet washing the high-rises and streets wet, if not clean.

I discovered a quintessential diner a few blocks from my hotel. Ample food, super speedy service, dirt cheap; what else could you ask for? “What to do?” I wondered while I ate, glancing at my trusty guide. I thought I might see 5^th Avenue and then make my way to Central Park, weather permitting.

I found myself opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral and upon entering, found that Mass was in progress, so I found a pew and sat down. Tall, intricately carved, neo-gothic, it’s a sight to behold. It may be dwarfed by those buildings around it, but within, its height boggles the mind, its span wider than any church I’d yet seen, its central arch supported by massive pillars that require televisions set throughout for the devout to see the alter and priests. An organ played hymns. A choir sang. The gathered sang and kneeled and rose in unison, lined up for communion and were instructed to “go in peace, to Love and Serve the Lord.”

I walked over to Rockefeller Center, stood in Art Carney’s place where he once marvelled his fictional grandson with the magic of Christmas, with a little help from Coca-Cola, then found myself shopping for a while, waiting for the weather to improve. It did. The clouds had already begun to break as I emerged from Mass.

I unraveled the subway, making my way to Central Park, basking in and dappled by the now brilliant sun. I circled the southern fifth of the Park, enjoying the paths and bridges and its stately trees before emerging and strolling up 7th Avenue to Carnegie Hall, stopping to admire the statuary littered around the Columbus Circle while I was at it. I got there without much practicing (there’s a joke in there, if you know it). It was closed. But the box office was open, selling tickets for the upcoming season. When I mentioned how far I’d come, expressing disappointment that I’d just missed performances and guided tours by a week, the box said rather cheerily, “You’ll just have to come back, then.” I don’t think she had much skill at geography.

I applied the ticket I bought online for “At the Heights” that evening. I queued up for the box office to collect it. They couldn’t seem to understand why I didn’t have my ticket.

“We sent the ticket to you by mail,” they said. What did that matter? I thought. I had ID and the credit card I’d purchased the ticket with. Print me a new one.

I was more diplomatic than that. I did point out the fact that I had my ID and credit card with me for them to validate. “It arrived after I left home, I explained. “I’ve been gone a week.”

The two stars were absent from the performance. Holidays, go figure. I did see their chief understudies play the leads (the actors who normally played the main supporting roles), thinking that I probably saw a better performance because of it. They’d risen up through Broadway to get their parts. Unlike the two leads, who were American Idol winners with no prior theatrical experience.

I was exhausted from a day of walking when I returned to the hotel and I was a little old for clubbing, in my mind, anyway, so I found a seat at the bar and my bartender from the night before, indeed, my bartender for my entire stay, asked me if I wanted the usual. The usual? I wasn’t aware that I had a usual. I did have a few Glenmorangie scotches the night before, but I’d had a few imported beers too, I remembered. I’d asked him what scotch he recommended the night before, not being a scotch drinker but game to try one, and he had told me that nothing stronger than Coors Light ever passed his lips, but said that “this” scotch seemed to please most scotch drinkers. I found it odd meeting a bartender who didn’t like mixed drinks or malts, every bartender I ever knew partook, if only to speak on what they were serving. Not so him. But he was right. It was light and smooth and had pleased me the night before, so I suppose the Glenmorangie was my usual in his eyes.

I nodded. He poured. And June resolved in the seat next to me, her day of meetings complete. We did not stay up late that night. We’d both suffered enough from our excess the night before. We did discover an easy report between us, and said as much. She’d backpacked too, even if she’d traded her flannels and jeans and Doc Martens in for a power suit in years past, so she was well acquainted with the Euro pal phenomenon. We made a date for dinner the next night before we both begged each other’s forgiveness, each repairing to our rooms for the much-needed rest we’d denied ourselves the night before.

New Orleans, Part 3

Up and at ‘em. I was going to the bayou. I woke, showered, dressed, had breakfast and was on my way after I and the other tourists about town had been picked up, dispatched to the dock of the flat bottom boat that I’d spend the rest of the morning on, racing to and slinking through the fingers of the river delta, taking in the mangroves and lizards and birds and insects that crossed our path, where I learned that crocodiles can’t seem to get enough of marshmallows. They thought they were eggs. They kind of looked like eggs. But unless they have no taste buds to speak of, you’d think they’d have clued in that the things fed them from the boat had neither the taste nor texture of eggs. But hope abounds, doesn’t it.
I returned to the city where I booked my next day tour and set about enjoying more Cajun cuisine. I lunched at Arnaud’s, reputedly where Elvis ate every day while filming King Creole, savouring (Rockefeller) Oysters for the first time (me, that is, not Elvis). Four ladies were the only others in attendance in the front room when I arrived, and were still there when I left. One was celebrating a birthday, and after declaring, “Now, aren’t you a dapper young gentleman,” chatted me up and asked if I might take their picture, and once I had, asked if I wished them to take mine.

I tried to eat at Galatoire’s for supper that evening, but when I entered the atrium I was greeted with a rather formal, “Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”

“I’d like a table for one, please,” I answered. “Do I need a reservation?” I looked in, noting that few tables were occupied at that time.

“Not at this time, but I’m sorry, sir,” the tuxedoed gentleman at the maître d’s podium said, “we have a dress code in effect, and though I can loan you a jacket, I cannot lend you pants.”

I was wearing shorts. The day, like the day before, was hot and humid, and I had spent the day out on the delta, feeding marshmallows to crocodiles, so no, I was not wearing pants. Or shoes for that matter. Sandals seemed a more sensible choice at the time.

“Ah,” I said, already hungry and not wishing to trek back to and from my hotel in such heat, “may I make a reservation for tomorrow at five?”

He took my reservation and bid me good evening.

I spent my evening and night on Bourbon, again, this time getting a ticket for Preservation Hall, even if I was too late for seating. Ever been to? No? FYI: It’s hot in here, so bring a hand fan if you’ve got one. It’s an altogether unimpressive building, inside and out, decidedly weathered exterior, in need of paint, maybe even the wrecking ball. Its storied interior is as rustic as you might imagine. The hardwood creaks underfoot, the walls could use a spot of paint. That said, it’s a wonder of ambiance and history and I recommend it to one and all who’ve never been.

Generations of footfalls have worn paths into the floor. Paintings line the walls, each frame a musician with horn in hand, or a banjo, or a drum, all of them smoky and African. There’s a sign behind to “stage” (there is no stage; the musicians are at the same level as the audience, most of whom sit on pads on the floor or stand, with only a few benches in between) that states: Traditional requests $2, Others $5, The Saints $10. I was left standing at the first inner entrance with an amazing view of the band from just off stage. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was not in attendance, they tour a lot; but the band that was in attendance was just as good. Young. Co-ed. Not the trombone player. I think the trombone player was attracted to me, as she kept glancing over at me between solos and songs, smiling. Maybe I was wrong, but indulge me; I’m getting on and I’ll take what compliments I can get.

The next day I took a Katrina tour where I saw watermarks fifteen and twenty feet above ground, FEMA marks spray-painted in red over still empty homes. I saw pumps and levees, the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain. And I saw anger. I saw it and heard it from the tour guide who railed against FEMA and Bush and any government he could name. “We were abandoned,” he said, “left to rot when any other city would have been rescued long before. No one cared to do anything until it was too late. Why? Because we are a black city. Any white city would have had a quicker response. Old ladies died in their homes and were left to rot in their houses for weeks until their families were finally allowed to go in and remove them. See the marks on that house,” he pointed, “see that number? That was how many bodies they found in there and were left inside.”

I nearly suffocated in that shuttle. Exhaust leaked into it, making us all nauseous. We were happy to finally step out into the St. Louis Cemetery where we’d have likely become residences had we remained confined in it for much longer than we were. Beignets at the Morning Call Coffee shop in City Park, then back to the French Quarter through the Garden District.

I showered, dressed in a suit and made my way to Galatoire’s, the only person seemingly headed West while everyone else headed East. The NFL had its home opener that day and all of America had its eyes set on New Orleans and the Saints, they having won the Superbowl the year before. I’d never seen so much black and gold in my life. Or so many overly tanned people. A woman passed me, nearly mummified from so many years spent worshipping the sun.

“Nice tie,” some guy said as I passed. “Where’d you get it?”
“Toronto,” I said.
I heard him say, “Shit,” as I passed.

When I arrived at Galatoire’s, it was almost empty. Most people were out at the Stadium, they said.
The man I took for the maître d’, the day before, sat me. He asked me where I was from. He asked me if I had a regular waiter. I did not. When he heard I was from Northern Ontario he asked if he might join me, and spent my whole visit keeping me company. Good thing; shortly after I was seated, the place emptied out and I had the whole restaurant to myself. Sound carried, bouncing off the mirrored walls and green fleurs-de-lis. Low slung ceiling fans spun slow circles overhead. He said he’d spend decades travelling to Ontario with his father to hunt and fish each and every autumn, he said. I asked him, “Where?” North of Thunder Bay, he said.

After a time he too spoke about Katrina and how it had devastated his town. It was still having an effect, he said. “Tourism is down.”
“There seems to be a lot of people here,” I said.
“Not as many as there once was,” he said. “Tell all your friends to come on down,” he said. “We could use the business.”

He ought to know, he was the owner’s son.

New Orleans, Part 2

I landed in sweltering heat, collected my bags and took a cab into the city, the usual array of twists and turns that curl around circle routes, ring roads, culminating in a final plunge into the core proper. The big sky narrowed as the three and four-story buildings closed in and we lurched through cross-street after cross-street. I finally saw that fabled street sign, Bourbon Street, catching a glimpse of those getting a head start on their twelve-step program, clutching neon lime green flat-bottomed flasks to their chests or the more mundane plastic cup sloshing beer.

We burst back out into the light as we crossed Canal Street, only to slip back into the twilight of narrow streets again, the buildings noticeably taller on this side of Canal. I checked in, found my room, unpacked and rushed back out to explore, easing my way up Canal, inching past shops selling identical wares until I saw St. Charles Street.

I knew what I was looking for, Mayer the Hatter. I even knew where it was. I’d found it online, and wrote down its address and stuck it in my wallet, refreshing my memory online before leaving the Wyndham. Office buildings towered around it. A street car rattled past as I checked out the wares in the window, finally walking into the glorious air-conditioned space within. I could have lingered all night in its heavenly chill. But I had things to see. I worried over my decision, trying on this and that, brushing off the occasional suggested paper hat, focusing on straw, unsure whether broad or stingy brim suited my mood and look. I picked a classic stingy brim fedora and made my way to Bourbon Street.
Bourbon was easy to find. A collection of high school aged kids blared traditional New Orleans jazz at its entrance, under the red glow of a Walgreens neon, their drums a collection of flipped plastic pails, their brass tarnished and scratched and dinted. I slipped a couple bucks into their case and began to rubberneck the length of the street.

The sun was low, Bourbon already growing dim. True to its reputation, it did not take long to slip into the expected debauchery. Mere feet within was the first strip club, an ATM conveniently across from it.
I discovered that I was hungry. And not for strippers. I passed a Hard Rock Café, not interested in corporate fare, the usual homogenized crap, the usual pound of fries accompanying the usual deep-fried whatever. I kept on until I saw what I wanted on Bienville, Desire Oyster Bar, a little restaurant tucked in under the Royal Soneto Hotel, its doors thrown open to the night. I ducked inside, saw that it was full and loud and filled with the clatter of glassware and cutlery. I saw an empty table near the entrance, caught the eye of one of the waitresses and gestured to the table. Big woman, black, all smiles. She nodded. She came over, menu in hand and said, “Sit yourself down, dear. Take a look at that and I’ll be right back to take your order. You want something to drink?” Can you hear the southern drawl? Slow measured speech, unhurried, befitting the heat and the humidity that felt like I was swimming though the air. Fans rustled the air overhead. The din echoed off the tin plate and tile.

I asked what was on tap and ordered jambalaya. What else would I order? First meal in Nawlins, after all. The beer came, delightfully cold, hoppy enough to offset the bite and the heat of the jambalaya.
My belly full, I made my way down Bourbon, taking in the names of the streets and bars along the way, the Old Absinthe House, Rick’s Cabaret, Jester, Famous Door, Daiquiris, Conti Street, St. Louis, Toulouse, St. Peter, St. Anne. Court of the Two Sisters, Pat O’Brien’s, Maison Bourbon. Wrought iron railings followed my every step, twenty- and thirty- and forty-somethings leaning far out over the street, beers and daiquiris in hand. Herds of youths crossed around me, most carrying those neon green flasks in hand.

Human statues held fast here and there, portraying windswept statuary, all silver or gold. A cop astride a horse clopped past, traces of it left behind here and there. Hawkers declared imminent damnation, laughed at by the gathered, some saluting them with their fishbowl cocktails, others screaming vitriol back. A concerned citizen rushed me upon seeing my wedding band, asking me, “Does your wife know you’re here?”

“Of course,” I said. “Do you want her number to ask her yourself?”

I wanted away from the fray. I heard a trumpet and clarinet in Maison Bourbon as I approached St. Peter, where everywhere else was a cacophony of electric guitars and basses playing classic rock covers at near deafening levels. Once or twice I passed two bars facing one another, their doors and windows wide open, their bands dueling for patrons. All the bars had their doors and windows wide open. I felt compressed as I passed. But not targeted; that only happened each and every time I passed a cabaret, where girls in halter tops and hot pants and stilettos rushed forward to take me by the arm to draw me in. “How you, sugar?”

I walked into Maison Bourbon, the hint of air-conditioning rolling out of its open French-doors, and sat at the bar. All the tables were full, the patrons pressed together within the small space, back to back and shoulder to shoulder. It was a wonder that the waitress could navigate the space, her tray narrowly sweeping across heads as she reached and stretched and placed the most current tally of the table’s tabs.
I noted the location of the fables Preservation Hall down the street but dismissed it for the evening when I saw how many people had lined up outside it, so I tried a few bars on for size, The Krazy Corner, Ticklers (a thin piano bar, just sayin’), Pat O’Brien’s (three or four bars in one).

The day began to press down on me. Long hours of airports and flights and cabs had caught up to me. My head was swimming and I was in need of a bed. I decided to call it a night, what with my already having booked a bayou tour for the next day.

I’d promised myself that I would not spend the holiday belly to a bar.

Bourbon Street threatened such a vacation.