O Canada! 2008

Another Duffy adventure.

Our globetrotting correspondent Ben Duffy, who will graduate with distinction from UMass this spring, has filed his first traveling report in a while. But before getting to that, the latest report about my brother is more about the weather in Nevada than himself. Hey, no news is good news when it comes to this disease!

It has been an exciting day back home in Fernley Nevada -- and not in a good way. We were watching CNN this a.m. and saw that the huge storms have caused lots of water to come pouring down from the Sierras causing a levee to break this morning on the canal in Fernley. Freezing water flooded into town at 5:00 a.m. Hundreds of homes and some schools were flooded. We are very fortunate because neither our house or Chanen's house was involved, thank God!

Other than that, day +9 was pretty uneventful at the hospital. We are anxiously awaiting the stem cells to engraft and start to show up as white blood cells, but it did not happen yet. John's white count was still zip zero zilch when checked today. Normally, they will start by day +11, so I guess we are jumping the gun, but it is hard to wait. Seems like we have been waiting for this moment for about 9 months. Interesting correlation, huh? Sort of like anticipating that new baby to arrive!

We are just getting hammered by storms in the west and there is another one on the way tonight. We love getting the precipitation, but it would be nice if it just spread itself out over a few months instead of coming all in 3 or 4 days.


Hope you are all doing well. Have a wonderful and blessed Sunday!

Love,
C&J

And now here's Ben's latest:

Hello everyone,

I just got back from the most amazing trip to Quebec City. I went with my girlfriend, Ai-Ya. She had never been anywhere quite so cold before. It's really something of a Winter Wonderland.

One thing I learned quickly about Quebec City is their staunch pride in their French heritage. They really consider themselves Quebecois first, and Canadian second--if at all. In the few days that I was there, I saw the blue and white flag of Quebec almost everywhere, while the red and white flag of Canada was much harder to find.

Quebec City is filled with history. This is the entrance to the provincial parliament of Quebec (l’Hôtel du Parlement), which was once the capital of all of Lower Canada, back when it was British territory. If you look closely, you will see that the foreground is occupied by a statue of American Indians--who have a strong presence in Quebec Province, even to this day--and in the background are the statues of two men--General James Wolfe (on the left), and Marquis Louis-Joseph de Montcalm (on the right). Wolfe's British forces defeated Montcalm's French forces here at Quebec City in 1758. 

The historical significance of the battle was enormous, because it was essentially the end of French influence in North America. The history is a bit more complicated than that, but basically France lost their prized New France and thus they pulled out of North America. The British wrongly believed that over time, the French would Anglicize themselves because they were under British rule and surrounded on both sides by English-speakers. They were wrong. Essentially, that's still what the Quebecois are angry about after all of these years.

The final battle between Wolfe and Montcalme took place on the Plains of Abraham in 1758, part of the French & Indian (Seven Years) War. Today, the Plains of Abraham is a large downtown park. When we were there, the main activity was winter sports, as city residents came out in droves to enjoy their park.

In the river floated large chunks of ice. Across the way, you can see the cliffs where General Wolfe set up his artillery batteries and pounded the city.

Ai-Ya and I posed as General Wolfe and Marquis Montcalm:

Ai-Ya even found a guidebook of the city in her native Chinese:

The Old City section of Quebec is old and very European. It reminds me of a lot of German cities I have seen, except a whole lot colder:

This is the restaurant aux anciens candiens--which happens to be in the oldest house remaining in the city of Quebec. It was built in 1675-1676, and now it's a super fancy-schmancey French-Canadian restaurant. We ate there, just for lunch because the lunch menu was much cheaper.

Instead of the soup of the day, I substituted escargot--that's French for snails. I must say, they were quite delicious. I suppose anything tastes good when you drown it in garlic butter. For the main course, I enjoyed a slice of traditional Quebecois meat pie, made from various types of wild game. The place was really fancy, and they went out of their way to be make themselves as traditionally French (Canadian) as possible. Here was a picture of our waitress, Kathleen:

This New Year's was very special for Quebec, because it marks the 400th Anniversary of the founding of the city, as noted here on this bus stop (and everywhere else in the Old City):

Quebec's founder was Samuel de Champlain, who had an accomplished life and a long list of achievements, but he was also the founder of this city and of New France. His statue takes a prominent space downtown next to the Château Frontenac:

This building downtown displayed the number "400" to mark the occasion of Quebec's 400th Anniversary:

Quebec Separatists seized on the 400th Anniversary Celebration in order to shine the spotlight on their issue. The main New Year's Eve Celebration downtown was briefly interrupted by some passionate people who wanted to use the opportunity to make a political statement about Quebec Nationhood. Not that I'm against that--I rather enjoy making political statements of my own. This was the best picture I could get. Translating from one language to another is always tricky and approximate, but I would translate this as "400 years a colony--and when are we going to have a country?"

More Quebec Separatists crashing the New Year's Eve Celebration:

I spotted this sticker downtown in a small park. It says "Yes to a free Quebec", and its sponored by the Comité national des jeunes du Parti Québécois. 

One evening, I sniffed out a really cool local bar, and we walked in to find some seperatist sentiments, including this sticker, which borrows from an old anti-war slogan. It says: "Give A Chance to the Country" (meaning, the country of Quebec"):

So Quebec Seperatist feelings run high in the city of Quebec. Another item of local pride--I'm not sure if it's quite as nationalist in nature--is the visibility of old Quebec Nordiques hockey apparel around the city. The Nordiques were part of the NHL from 1979 until 1995, when they picked up, moved to Colorado, and changed their name to the Avalanche. This throwback Nordiques jersey was for sale at a shop in the Old City. It was so sharp, I wanted to buy it, but jerseys like that cost big bucks. I took one look at the price tag and just decided that taking a picture would be almost as good a souvenier.

Although I took this picture on December 30th, this is basically what the New Year's Eve celebration looked like.

 



We were walking around down where the main festivities were, when we ran into this creepy guy. He seemed to take quite an interest in Ai-Ya, and she was afraid of him. First he asked her if she was from China, and when she said no, he asked her if she is from Taiwan. That's not bad, considering the fact that just minutes before, some other guy we met in an elevator asked her if she was Japanese. He said that he had a Japanese wife. Actually, Ai-ya says that many people--even people from the Far East--mistake her for Japanese because of her complexion, or Korean because of the shape of her face. So this guy was pretty astute to know that she was Chinese-Taiwanese. He also guessed that I was from Germany. "Why, do you speak German?" I asked him in German. He said no. Then I responded to him in French that I was actually from the United States but that I had lived for three years in Germany. He was quite impressed that an American could speak both French and German. Still, Ai-Ya wanted to get the heck away from him as a quickly as posible, because she thought he was a skeez-ball.

Wandering through the Old City, we came to Quebec's most recognizable landmark, the Château Frontenac. This thing is really a sight to behold.

In front of the Château Frontenac was this man, selling Tire sur la Neige--melted maple taffy on fresh snow. A winter treat! 

On New Year's Eve, we took a wonderful trip outside of the city to Ile d'Orléans. Ile d'Orléans is an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River that is bascially just tiny farming communities. It's rustic quality means that a lot of tourists come out there in the summer, but we were there in the dead of winter. There is really only one road to speak of--Quebec Route 368--which runs a ring around the island. We first stoppd at this one apple orchard and met farmer Joe Giguère, who was selling his unique brand of hard cider, Un Goût de Péché (A Taste of Sin). We both bought a bottle. Mr. Giguère was a really nice guy. We asked him if we could get his picture, and he asked if Ai-Ya could be in the picture as well. Ai-Ya was a big hit. 

There was something eerliy calm about seeing Mr. Giguère's orchards lying under the deadly silent blanket of winter:

We stopped to take this picture of these long-haired cows standing out in the middle of the Canadian winter...

...and we got stuck on the side of the road. Yes, the car was hopelessly gone. I have never felt like such a stupid tourist in my life--we pulled over to snap photographs, and we got ourselves in a heap of trouble.

I breathed a sigh of relief when a woman came down from the farm house in a giant Dodge truck. "Vous avez besoin d'aide?" she asked me ("Do you need some help?") "Oui, nous avons besoin d'aide," I replied. She checked out the situation, went back to the house and came back with her husband, Pierre. Together, those two had us out in a jiffy. Country folks are good like that. They just wanted to help us. Here I am with our savior, Pierre the farmer. Altogether, I don't think that we lost more than twenty minutes: 

We continued on our way around the island. By the way, this is what the river looks like. Ai-Ya wanted a picture of this to send back to tropical Taiwan, where no one has ever seen anything like this. She said that her friends would ask her if she was playing with penguins:

This street musician was playing the traditional backwoods music of Quebec. 

During my time there in Quebec, I really learned to like that music. It's on the radio pretty much 24 hours a day. It sounds vaguely Irish, mixed with Bayou music. At that bar we went to with all the locals, they had a musical duo that played a lot of different types of music, including this Quebecois backwoods music. When they played those songs, all of the people got very excited, were clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and singing along with the music. You could see that these were the songs that they grew up with. As you can see, the Quebecois are very proud people who are very attached to their culture, including their music.

We had a great time, and I would recommend that anyone go and visit this city. We had so much fun in the three days that we were there.

BEN

Thanks Ben, and be sure to keep us informed about any of your future adventures!

 

Finally, here's a little U2.

 

Travelers

Everybody's on the road.

Somehow I never noticed before that the wall in the downstairs bathroom of Northampton's Haymarket Cafe is an exhortation to do one's electoral duty.

Can you believe the results out of Iowa? If the Rev. Huckabee becomes president these toys from the window of a Hamp novelty store may become mandatory for all children.

It seems like all my friends are traveling these days. Ben Duffy has sent me some great stuff from Canada which I will show you tomorrow, but others have sent travel pics as well. My former City Limits editor Jordan Williams and his faithful companion Micheline were recently at the Grand Canyon. 

Take a look at this gorgeous Arizona sky!

Traveling even farther afield is former Springfield City Councilor Mitch Ogulewicz and his wife Cindy, who were recently in France. Here they are at the Louvre.

Of course they had to visit the Eiffel Tower. 

Mitch, a proud veteran, visited the United States Cemetery at Normandy, where over 10,000 American servicemen are buried.

Speaking of veterans, legendary Pine Point activist Millie Dunbar was recently praised by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. In the middle is State Senator Gale Candaras.

Blogs and Clean Government

The Valley blogosphere takes down Mazza-Moriarty.

 



No one has said so officially, but the controversial nomination of Springfield City Councilor Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty to a position that she appeared to be the least qualified candidate for seems to be dead. In no small measure she lost the job, which had once seemed a certainty, due to pressure from citizen-based media.

In the past, there were few barriers to placing undeserving hacks in high-paying taxpayer financed jobs. When Francis Keough was made the homeless shelter director, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from homeless activists were censored. When Gerry Phillips was made director of a city job training center, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from educators was censored. When Brian Santaniello was made Election Commissioner, a position for which he had no known qualifications, the cries of outrage from good government activists were censored.

In those days, if you didn't own a printing press or a TV or radio broadcasting tower, and the powers that be that controlled those presses and broadcasting towers decided not to report your point of view, then you were just plain out of luck. Oh, you could do like I did and print your own little zine and pass it out on the streets, but then the power players would point at you and say "If he had any credibility, wouldn't he be working for a newspaper or broadcasting station?"

Well guess what? We don't need your fuckin presses or broadcasting towers anymore!

Today every individual with access to the internet is a printing press. And a TV Show. And a Radio Program.

WE ARE ALL MASS MEDIA NOW!

The day of their monopoly control over the dissemination of information is over.

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S MEDIA!

The revolution is already underway and the revolution will be blogged.

When it was announced that Councilor Mazza-Moriarty was being recommended for the 65 to 70 thousand dollar job as administrator of the International Baccalaureate middle years program at Van Sickle Middle School, it was reported at first like a done deal, despite the fact that as reported in the Springfield Republican yesterday these were Mazza-Moriarty's qualifications:

A homemaker, Mazza Moriarty taught algebra from 1998 to 2000 at the High School of Commerce and has a master's degree in business administration from Western New England College.

However, the supposedly less qualified competitors for the job brought these credentials to the table:

Officials said the other two finalists were Catherine Luke, of Chicopee, and Donald A. Lacharite, of Warren.

Luke has a doctorate in education, is a consultant and has experience in the International Baccalaureate Organization programs, officials said.

Lacharite has 15 years of experience as a principal in Leominster and at Brookfield Elementary School and White Brook Middle School in Easthampton, officials said.

No sane person could compare those contenders and conclude that Mazza-Moriarty was the most qualified. But no one could have said so about Keough, or Phillips or Santaniello or so many others who in the past simply waltzed into their positions past far more worthy contenders. So what' the difference?

Citizen's media. No longer can those in political control determine what the public knows. No longer can they control how much coverage critics can receive, if any. Today a sleazy deal can have a public spotlight cast on it by any member of the public that cares to cast it. It doesn't really matter much whether the blogosphere even covers a certain story, the very fact that it exists and could cover it makes it something that political people must take into account before taking any action. No one wanted to have to defend the Mazza-Moriarty appointment to the army of bloggers that would have descended had she been appointed. Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty was the Valley blogosphere's first scalp.

Trust me, she will not be the last.

Here's the latest on my brave brother:

We are back at the hospital this afternoon -- It is a special room where the air is controlled so that we don't share with the rest of the hospital. Since nobody is sure what the rash is yet, we cannot put other patients at risk. So, this time I not only have to gown up and mask up, I also have to glove up. Have you ever keyboarded with gloves on?

Mr. Tough Guy just about did himself in this time. His temp was spiking last night and we have orders to call at a certain temp, but he didn't want to. I said "I'm calling the hospital" He said,"No!" He was sure it would go back down and be OK. I chose to not call, but just kept monitoring it every half hour. So, when we arrived at the Infusion Center this morning, it was still up and everyone was scurrying around to get antibiotics and antivirals started. The nurse just looked at us and said, "Like was your phone broken last night?" We felt pretty stupid.

It has been a tough day for sure. Lots of temperature fluctuations and chills. They just checked his temp and it was 103.4. So some more meds are on the way. We are set to stay until his white cell count goes back up -- probably 5 days. I am feeling relieved and I think he is too. It is a lot to manage on our own and a lot of important decision making involved. Life and death decisions. That will all be done by the professionals now.

God is good and we know that He is in our corner. We continue to pray for a great outcome from this transplant. Sometimes it seems like the treatment is worse than the disease, though. Thanks for being there for us.

We love you all,
C & J

This morning it was only five degrees out! However, that did not prevent me from catching the dawn express from Northampton to Amherst. 

The mist was rising on the Connecticut River as we crossed the Calvin Coolidge bridge. 

Slowly the sun rose over the farmfields of Hadley.

 



The church next to the Hadley Town Hall was bathed in twilight. 

Finally, here's my new year's resolution. 

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at him. She says hello.

He's rather taken aback because he can't place where he knows her from. So he says, "Do you know me?"

To which she replied, "I think you're the father of one of my kids."

Now his mind travels back as he looks with panic into her eyes, "My God, are you the stripper from my brother's bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table in the basement?"

She looked into his eyes and stated calmly, "No . . . I'm your son's teacher."

Valley Winter Reflections

Assorted Places.

I was in Westfield last week and stumbled upon this evidence of the Irish troubles as manifested here in the United States.

Here are some interesting facts about Irish-Americans from the 2000 United States Census.

10.8% of the total US population claim Irish ancestry - the equivalent of 7 times the population of Ireland itself.

Irish-born people in the US numbered 156,000.

Irish-Americans were the largest ancestral group in Washington DC, Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Here is the site of the former Fire and Water Cafe in Northampton.

I used to have a lot of fun at that place in the 1990's. They had the best amateur poetry readings in the Valley. I never read any poems there, but always enjoyed listening to those who did. It was a terrible cultural loss when that joint closed, but who ever made money off of poetry?

Northampton's Packards now has a political message on its front.

Of course the main reason to visit Packards is not for its politics but for its museum of Northampton business history.

More than a year ago I was complaining about how difficult it was to find and use a payphone at UMass one day when I was a call-in guest on the Bax and O'Brien Show. At the time I wrote about how hard it was becoming to find a payphone, which were once everywhere on campus. I ran this picture showing the few phones there were remaining by the Campus Center poolhall, where when I was a student you sometimes had to wait in line to use the phones! 

The other day I noticed the few remaining phones have been completely removed and the wall painted.

 



Hey, in this day and age when everyone has a cell phone, what good are payphones? Anyway, the payphone has not yet completely vanished from the campus. These few remain, but for how long?

Here's the latest on my brother:

John is going back to the hospital today. When we arrived at the Infusion Center, they were concerned about his mouth sores, his rash, and his temperature. So it is not his choice, but he is going to be readmitted. The hospital staff will be able to watch things better and can take some of the decision-making load off of us, so that will be a relief actually.

A stem cell transplant is not for sissies! He has had some blood samples and cultures taken to see if they can find the problem causing the fever, and they think the rash could possibly be shingles.

John had to get fluids, potassium, and platelets today. He is feeling really rough, of course, but still trying hard to stay awake, and eat and drink adequately. The mouth sores are horrible and he has a red, raw rash on back, chest, neck, and head. The poor guy looks like a train wreck! As bad as it seems, the doctors and nurses continue to tell him he is remarkable and doing better than most.

Just a couple more days and we are expecting to be over the worst. We trust in our faith - that the Lord will bring us through this and we will see victory over this cruel disease soon.

He is still trying to joke, smile, and stay awake, but he is in basically just in misery. Please keep him in your prayers as I know you have been.

Love,
Connie

At Amherst College these odd signs have appeared with no explanation. 

They show people's faces with cryptic writing, but what does it mean?

Wise readers, do you have the answer?

Speaking of Amherst College, the boys of Amherst are completely unfazed by the trials and tribulations of our brutal New England winters. 

Route Nine Hike 2008

Going down the road.

The weather lately has been nothing but snowstorms interrupted by arctic blasts! In Northampton yesterday I saw this person shoveling their roof. 

It's no joke, if the snow piles up too much then in extreme cases your roof might collapse, or more commonly, your gutters will bend and fall off. Repairing or replacing them can be expensive.

The Northampton Fire Department has been going around shoveling out fire hydrants.

Poor Calvin Coolidge has found it impossible to preserve his dignity with a fluffy white snow hat on his head!

To the kids of Hamp weather like this is nothing but an opportunity for creative fun, as evidenced by this snowman that appeared in my neighbor's yard. Of course this being politically correct NoHo we can't call it a snowman, but instead must refer to it by the gender neutral term "snowperson." Whatever you call it, that snowbeing has a nicer scarf than I do!

Yesterday was New Year's day and unfortunately there were no buses running. Therefore, I decided to walk to Amherst. I knew I could count on getting a ride back from my friend, so I resolved that I would walk to Amherst via the Rail Trail. I knew that would be very scenic, as well as inspiring, since I do some of my best thinking while walking.

To prepare myself for my two and a half hour stroll, I geared up with a strong jolt of caffeine at the Northampton Starbucks. Here is a picture I took from my table, looking out at the History of Women in Northampton mural.

 



At the Rail Trail I prepared to cross the trestle over the Connecticut River.

 



Despite its snowy banks, the mighty Connecticut remains unfrozen.

On the other side of the river the farm fields of Hadley, so vibrant green in the summer, are a white wasteland in winter.

As I walked along, I soon realized I would never be able to get to Amherst by the Rail Trail. It is unplowed in winter, and not enough people have walked on it to make a clear path, so instead I turned off the trail and onto Route Nine, coming out by the animal hospital.

 



What the hell, I told myself, I'll just walk along Route Nine straight into Amherst! It was very pleasant, with most of the sidewalks cleared. I looked at many of the houses and businesses with a closeness I seldom get to do when I drive past. I like the patriotic paint job this person has on their truck.

 



Route Nine is very rural most of the way. There wasn't a beast in sight as I passed the Long Hollow Bison Farm. The bison must have all been huddling in their barn safe from the cold.

Unfortunately the rural nature of Route Nine is rapidly vanishing. Even the arctic weather has not prevented bulldozers from working on clearing the land for the new Home Depot hardware superstore.

Is this the ultimate destiny of all of Route Nine?

At last I arrived in my beloved Amherst. Greeting me was this carrot nosed snowman/woman/person/being/whatever and their faithful snowdog. 

My Route Nine hike was indeed an invigorating and refreshing way to spend the first day of the year!

By the way, tomorrow is the Iowa caucuses, the first step in the presidential election process. Here are my predictions of how it will turn out:

On the Republican side:

1st Place: John McCain
2nd Place: Mitt Romney
3rd Place: Fred Thompson
4th Place: Mike Huckabee

On the Democrat side:

1st Place: Hillary Clinton
2nd Place: John Edwards
3rd Place: Barack Obama
4th Place: Joe Biden

Here is my sister-in-law's latest update on my brother John:

We spent most of the day at the Infusion Center. So what else is new, huh? We are on day +5 since the transplant. John received several bags of goodstuff today -- 2 units of red blood cells, a liter of fluid, & 2 units of potassium. He also spiked a little fever while there -- and escaped being readmitted to the hospital by the skin of his teeth. They gave him an antibiotic at 2:30 and by 3:30, his temp was going down. It is just so tricky with a lack of any immune response. Each evening we have been fighting that little fever thing, so guess that is just going to happen. 75% of patients do have to be readmitted, but we really want to be in the 25 % that don't. So we will keep praying and hoping for God's favor.

What a caregiver! This morning, I gave him a strawberry smoothie to drink. He said it tasted good and felt good on his throat. He only gulped one swallow when he stopped and said, "Honey, this tastes like yogurt." We suddenly read the label and realized it has live cultures in it -- a "no-no" on the neutropenic diet! Gosh, you really have to read those labels and stay on guard. I almost poisoned my sweetie!

His mouth pain is worsening and he resists the oral pain pills, so today the doctor ordered a Fentanyl patch. It constantly gives pain relief through his skin -- in addition to the mouth swishing pain reliever. He has been really snoozy today -- they give Benadryl before the infusions and with all the various meds, he just nods off. We start up the Neupogen shots again tomorrow, so hopefully they will get some action going on sending out some new white blood cells from his marrow -- he needs those protection soldiers! We have another 4 nasty days, and then we will start to have good ones again. Whew! But the wonderful part is that once those good ones begin, we should be at home plate. We've run the bases and we don't have to do chemotherapy anymore! Hallelujah! Thank you Lord Jesus! We are trusting that John will have a complete healing and many years to chase and tease the grandkids!

Thanks so much for hanging with us through this.

Love,
Connie

Finally, here is a heartwarming holiday classic.