Edward Willett's Blog, page 53

The Transit of Venus

I’m writing this on June 4, the eve of one of the rarest events in the solar system: the transit of Venus.

In astronomical jargon, a “transit” is what happens when a smaller body passes in front of a larger one relative to an observer…in this case, us.

The Sun, Venus and Earth actually line up every 584 days or so, but the orbits of Earth and Venus are tilted with respect to one another, which means that normally Venus passes above or below the Sun from our vantage point. Every few decades, though, things line up just right.

Transits of Venus occur in a “pair of pairs” pattern that repeats every 243 years. Two transits take place around December 8, eight years apart. Then, 121 years and six months later, there are a pair of June transits, which occur around June 7, again eight years apart. And then, 105 years and six months after that, the December transits occur again and the pattern repeats. The June 5 transit is the second of the current pair; the last occurred on June 8, 2004.

Should you observe tomorrow’s transit, what will you see? (Assuming you have safe method of looking at the sun, that is!)

During the transit, Venus appears as a large black dot moving slowly across the blazing disk of our star. It’s a striking demonstration of just how large the sun really is. Venus, an entire planet, is only a dot…and yet Venus is 67 million miles closer!

Should you not be in a position to safely observe the transit of Venus yourself tomorrow, rest assured that there will be plenty of other people observing it on your behalf. Over the centuries, transits of Venus have provided us with important scientific data.

The first known observation of a transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks in England on December 4, 1639 (modern calendar). Johannes Kepler’s calculations had indicated Venus should pass between the Earth and the sun, but he was a little off. Horrocks corrected Kepler’s calculations for the orbit of Venus and was the first to realize the repeating pattern. He focused an image of the sun onto a piece of paper through his simple telescope, and after observing all day finally saw the transit just half an hour before sunset, when the clouds (this was England, after all) finally cleared.

Based on his observations, Horrocks made a pretty good calculation of the size of Venus and estimated the distance of the Earth to the Sun at 59.4 million miles. He was off by a third (the actual distance is 93 million miles), but he was still closer than anyone else had been before that.

Calculating the “astronomical unit,” the distance from the Earth to the Sun, was one of the great scientific challenges of the age. For the next transit in 1761, expeditions were sent all over the world to make precise observations of the transit, because astronomers had realized that by measuring the start and finish times of the transit from various places around the globe, you could use geometry to measure the astronomical unit more accurately.

Unfortunately, in neither 1761 nor 1769 were measurements of sufficient accuracy taken. It wasn’t until the transits of 1874 and 1882 that at last the astronomical unit was measured to an accuracy of 0.2 percent.

Scientists did learn something else very interesting in 1761, though. Observing from the Petersburg Observatory, Mikhail Lomonosov detected a halo of light around the planet’s dark edge just before it moved in front of the sun’s disk. He correctly surmised that this was due to the refraction of sunlight through an atmosphere.

For the current pair of transits, research has been focused on using observations of Venus’s passage in front of the sun to refine techniques used in the search for extrasolar planets, which similarly block out a portion of their star’s light as they pass in front of it. The challenge is that the amount of light blocked by a planet is miniscule: Venus reduces sunlight by a mere 0.001 magnitude.

Related observations are being done on Venus’s atmosphere. For the first time, there is a spacecraft orbiting Venus during the transit: the European Space Agency’s Venus Express. By observing Venus’s atmosphere simultaneously from Earth-based telescopes and the Venus Express, scientists hope to not only gain a better understanding of the planet’s atmosphere, but to get a better handle on how to analyze the faint spectroscopic signals from the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars…where a water signature in an extraterrestrial atmosphere might just be a sign of extraterrestrial life.

If, somehow, you miss this transit of Venus (or you’re reading this after it’s over)…well, no need to fret. Just mark your calendar for the next one in December 2117.

I’m certainly planning to watch it…provided my new robot body comes with sunglasses.

(The photo: This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows Venus as it nears the disk of the sun on June 5, 2012. Venus’s 2012 transit will be the last such event until 2117. Credit: NASA/SDO, AIA)

Saturday Special from the Vaults: A History of Cumberland House

I’ve done quite a bit of writing for various historical sites around the province. Here’s something I wrote for Cumberland House a few years ago. I’ve never been there to see how it was use!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering…yes, the science column will return. It’s been on hiatus while I experimented with being an editor for Fine Lifestyles magazines again (it didn’t work out—I couldn’t support their editorial policies) and wrapped up my term as writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library (it ended last Wednesday). My main focus now is on writing Masks, my next novel (coming out under the pseudonym E.C. Blake) but I’m definitely going to resume the column: look for it to be back Monday.

Now, a journey into the past: the photos (copied from HistoricPlaces.ca) are of the old powder house and the boilers of the steamboat Northcote, the only things remaining of the old Hudson’s Bay Company post.

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A Brief History of Cumberland House

By Edward Willett

Cumberland House, founded in 1774, is the oldest permanent settlement in Canada west of Ontario. Established by the Hudson’s Bay Company on Pine Island in the Saskatchewan River delta region as its first inland fur trading post, it went on to become an important distribution depot for all kinds of goods, and was a transportation centre during the years when steamboats traveled the Saskatchewan River. After the steamboat era ended in 1925, the early post buildings were gradually abandoned. However, the Hudson’s Bay Company remained, serving the settlement which had grown up around the post.

Today, remnants of the post dating back to the 1890s—a thick-walled powder house and parts of the Northcote sternwheeler—are preserved at Cumberland House Provincial Historic Park.

The move inland

In 1774, the Hudson’s Bay Company had a serious and growing problem. For a hundred years the Company’s fur-trading posts had all been on or near the shores of Hudson’s Bay itself. Each summer Indians would travel hundreds of kilometres by canoe to exchange furs for guns, knives, kettles, blankets and other goods. But by 1774, fewer and fewer furs were arriving at the Company’s Hudson’s Bay posts each year. Independent fur traders, mostly from Montreal, had moved into the area after the English defeat of the French in New France. Instead of waiting for the Indians to bring furs to them, these traders, or “pedlars,” were using their large French-made canoes to take trade goods directly to the Indians, either at their camps or at trading posts erected along important water highways.

In the face of this competition, the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had many able explorers on its payroll but lacked both canoes and canoemen, realized it had to either change its way of doing business or face extinction. And so it ordered one of its servants, Samuel Hearne, to establish the Company’s first inland post “on or near Basquia” (now known as The Pas).

The Company sets up shop

Hearne, who had just returned from an arduous trip to the Coppermine River by way of the Arctic Ocean, had difficulty persuading men to accompany him, but on June 23, 1774, he finally set off inland from York Factory with 10 men in five small Indian-owned and manned canoes.

Hearne’s party arrived in the Saskatchewan River region in early August. After exploring the region, Hearne rejected “Basquia” as a possible site; instead, he returned to Pine Island Lake (today known as Cumberland Lake), which, he noted, the Indians thought “most practical, it lying in the middle between three tribes.” (Another influence may have been the fact that a pedlar, Thomas Frobisher, had built a house on the lake the year before.)

Hearne chose as the site of the new post the eastern end of Pine Island, which runs from Cumberland Lake into the Saskatchewan River and is bordered on the northwest by the Tearing River. That put it at the junction of three canoe routes, one leading west and southwest to the Saskatchewan River, one leading to the Churchill River and on to Lake Athabasca and further northwest; and one leading northeast to Grass River and York Factory. In fact, a canoe starting at Cumberland House could travel, without a portage of more than a day, to the Arctic Ocean, Hudson’s Bay, the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

In just four days, Hearne and his men erected a log tent, caulked with moss and roofed with thatched grass, to serve as their winter lodging. To the east they erected a temporary storehouse, 8.5 by 4.25 metres.

Small groups of Indians began arriving at Cumberland House to trade moose meat, fish and geese—but not very many furs. To his dismay, Hearne discovered that the pedlars were bringing 60 large canoes, each capable of carrying almost two tonnes of trade goods, into the North West that season. Cumberland House would be surrounded by rival traders well-stocked with liquor and a wide assortment of goods. Hearne’s own selection of trade goods was limited; the small Indian canoes he had used only had a cargo capacity of 120 kilograms or so. The Indians wisely chose to save their best furs to trade with the pedlars, not Hearne.

A hard winter

Hearne’s men suffered through their first winter at Cumberland House. Unlike the pedlars, most of them were unaccustomed to wilderness living. They sought the help of the local Indians, hiring men to hunt and fish and women to dry provisions, mend snowshoes and perform other duties.

Their own days were mostly spent cutting and hauling firewood, clearing snow, fishing, fixing nets, and cutting and squaring timber for proper houses to be built in the spring. They had very little time for the trading expeditions they needed to undertake to collect furs, and as the winter dragged on long hours, hard work and scant provisions took its toll on morale. The small number of furs collected must have made the hardships seem futile

Nevertheless, Hearne and his men survived, and Cumberland House was established—and although it must have seemed doubtful at the time, so was the foundation of a solid inland fur trade by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Competition and expansion

In May, 1775, Hearne returned to York Factory to take up a new post as Governor at Churchill. His replacement was veteran trader Matthew Cocking, who had a good idea of what an inland post required and asked for, and got, sufficient supplies. (Cocking wasn’t particularly thrilled with his new post, though, since he had a hernia that must have made the journey very uncomfortable.)

Cocking knew the countryside better than Hearne, and had the added advantage of being able to speak Cree. In his first winter at Cumberland House he netted 10 times the number of furs Hearne had collected. Things were looking up for the Company.

In April, 1778, William Tomison took charge. He both ran Cumberland House and organized the fur trade all along the Saskatchewan River. Called by one contemporary a “great, stubborn, honest and cross-grained” man, he was well-known to the Indians and, like Cocking, could speak Cree.

In 1778, Tomison’s men built Hudson House, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s second inland post, further up the Saskatchewan River. Other posts soon followed, as Hudson’s Bay and North West Company traders leapfrogged up the river in an attempt to gain an advantage. (The North West Company was founded in 1779 when a group of pedlars joined forces.)

In 1781, smallpox reached Cumberland House. The disease killed half the local Indian population. Tomison had the sick brought into the stockade and tended; those who were strong caught fish and cut wood. Although the Englishmen nursed the sick and buried the dead, none of them became ill.

Early in the 1790s, the Company rebuilt the Cumberland House post on the present-day site. The North West Company erected a post right next to it in 1793.

More than just furs moved through Cumberland House, which became an important distribution depot for all sorts of goods. Pemmican, dried meat, grease and other buffalo products were collected at the prairie posts further west and forwarded to Cumberland House. When the brigades hauling furs from the Athabasca and Churchill regions passed through Cumberland Lake en route to York Factory and Montreal, they were given buffalo provisions for their long voyage. On the return journey, canoes and boats heavily laded with trade goods were supplied with pemmican for the trip inland.

A stopping-off place

Cumberland House also became an important stopping-off place for many of the explorers and surveyors of the Canadian west.

Philip Turnor was appointed by the Company to pinpoint the longitude and latitude of the inland posts and to survey and map the best routes to the Athabasca. He wasn’t impressed with Cumberland House when he stopped there in July of 1779, writing that “the post could be called nothing but a warehouse from whence goods could be carried by flat-bottomed boats.”

David Thompson spent 13 years exploring and surveying the Nelson, Churchill and Saskatchewan Rivers. He stopped at Cumberland House for dried provisions in 1786. Three years later he commented on the enormous sturgeon caught there, weighing anywhere from 15 to 50 pounds, “the oil collected being sufficient for two lamps the year round.”

The most famous explorer to stop at Cumberland House was Sir John Franklin, who had been appointed to lead an expedition overland from Hudson’s Bay to the northern shores of the continent. He reached Cumberland House in October, 1819, and remained until January 19, 1820. He described Cumberland House as consisting of “log houses, built without much attention to comfort, surrounded by lofty stockades, and flanked by bastions. There was parchment covering the windows, imperfectly made by Indian women from deer skin.”

Just three years later, Samuel Black, on his way to the Rocky Mountains, described Cumberland House as “a large tolerably well-built house with glass windows and a gallery in front,” so some improvements had been made, although he still felt the post was a gloomy place.

Trade and community activity

Cumberland House became the Hudson’s Bay Company’s inland headquarters in 1818, when William Williamson was named the Company’s Governor-in-chief. However, when the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company joined together in 1821 to form a reorganized Hudson’s Bay Company, Norway House at the northeast end of Lake Winnipeg became the new inland headquarters. Cumberland House was reduced in status, but maintained its role as a distribution depot.

That role was enhanced by the introduction of York boats in the mid-1820s to help solve the Hudson’s Bay Company’s chronic shortage of canoes. Equipped with oars and a sail, one flat-bottomed York boat manned by nine men could carry the same amount of cargo as 20 men in small canoes.

For the Indians and Métis who hunted and fished in the area, Cumberland House still served as a district trading post. Company men continued to rely on Indian and Métis hunters and fishermen to supply part of their food supply, as well as hides and skins for clothing. A number of local men and women also worked at the post in various capacities.

By 1830, agriculture was becoming more and more important to the permanent settlement that had grown up around the post. One writer noted, “The introduction of domestic cattle from the colony of Red River gives a new feature of civilization to the place, and neat kitchen gardens furnish an ample supply of vegetables.”

In 1840, Henry Budd, a Swampy Cree who later became Canada’s first ordained native minister, established an Anglican mission and school. Following the Red River insurrection in 1870, a number of Métis left Manitoba to seek a new life in the Cumberland district. To administer to these newcomers, the Roman Catholic Church established a mission in Cumberland House in the early 1870s.

The community now consisted of a stockaded fur trade post with log buildings and a large warehouse, scattered Métis and Indian homes, and the Anglican and Catholic missions.

Rise and fall of the steamboats

In the spring of 1874 a new era dawned at Cumberland House with the arrival from Grand Rapids of the Northcote, the first sternwheeler steamboat on the Saskatchewan River.

The Northcote, about 46 metres long, nine metres wide, and drawing only a metre, was soon joined by others, including the Lily (used mainly for the South Saskatchewan River), the Northwest, the Manitoba, and the Marquis (which could navigate rapids). All were flat-bottomed and had Mississippi-trained captains. The Northcote could carry about 50 head of cattle, 3,000 sacks of flour, and general goods.

Cumberland House began a new life as a transportation centre. The Northcote and other steamboats dropped off supplies at Cumberland House, which were then carried by York boat and canoe to northern settlements and posts. From Cumberland House, the sternwheelers traveled to Fort-a-la-Corne, Prince Albert, Fort Carlton, Fort Pitt and other posts and settlements farther up the Saskatchewan River.

However, the Saskatchewan River, plagued by low water and numerous sandbars, made steamboat navigation treacherous. As a result, the sternwheeler era was short-lived. In 1886, the Northcote was permanently beached at Cumberland House, where her remains can be seen to this day, and by 1888, the Northwest was the only sternwheeler still in operation.

To revive shipping, a new group of steamboats took the sternwheelers’ place. These boats were smaller, and none attempted to travel the full length of the river. When the railway reached Flin Flon in 1925, the steamboat era ended, and so did Cumberland House’s role as a distribution and transportation centre. The Hudson’s Bay Company switched to more of a retail operation to serve the community of Cumberland House.

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The Northcote at the Battle of Batoche

The Northcote is famous not only for being the first steamer to arrive at Cumberland House, but for being involved in the only naval engagement ever fought in Saskatchewan.

On May 9, 1885, the first day of the battle for Batoche, 35 members of the “C” Co. Infantry School of the Midland Provisional Battalion boarded the Northcote at Gabriel’s Crossing south of Batoche, in an attempt to outflank the Métis positions and enable a two-pronged attack. The Métis responded by lowering the ferry cable at Batoche, which sheared off the steamer’s funnels and masts.

Without funnels, the Northcote’s boilers couldn’t get enough airflow to maintain steam pressure. The Northcote’s paddlewheel stopped turning, and she drifted downriver.  Once he regained control, the Northcote’s American captain of the steamship refused to return to Batoche, instead traveling on to Hudson’s Bay Landing for repairs.

 

 

Saturday…oh, all right, Tuesday…Special from the Vaults: Introduction to Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw

My 2007 book Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw, published by Red Deer Press, is just what it says: a collection of 10 walking tours (eight in Regina, two in Moose Jaw) that take you past a number of homes and commercial buildings of historical or architectural interest, with a brief description of each.

It wouldn’t have been possible if not for the work of Heritage Regina, which created and researched the Regina walking tours long before I came on the scene. I adapted their tours and added additional information from various sources. I also walked all of the tours and took a photo of every single building, although not all made it into the book. During the long, cold walks I regretted the fact that the timing of the book was such I had to do the photography in winter, but on the other hand, that meant you could actually see some buildings that in summer are screened by leaves.

The introductions to each section were brief histories of Regina and Moose Jaw. And that’s what I’ve posted below.

Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw won a City of Regina Municipal Heritage Award.

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Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw

By Edward Willett

A Brief History of Regina

At first glance—maybe even at second or third glance—there’s no reason for the city of Regina to be where it is. Before the construction crews working on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line reached Wascana Creek on August 23, 1882, there was no significant settlement here at all.

However, a few kilometres to the northwest, the banks of Wascana Creek are high and wooded (unlike here), and the region’s Aboriginal inhabitants used that terrain to construct “buffalo pounds,” corrals into which buffalo were driven, and then killed. (Sometimes buffalo were driven over the steep bank of the creek to be crippled or killed.) By the second half of the nineteenth century the Métis were also slaughtering a lot of buffalo in the area where Regina would take shape. As a result, the creek was littered with buffalo bones, which gave it its name: Wascana, a corruption of the Cree word for bones, oskana.

A cart trail from the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post at Fort Qu’Appelle crossed Wascana Creek 19 or 20 kilometres downstream from Regina’s future location. This was known as the “Old Crossing.” When the railroad surveyors first passed through, they chose a spot about halfway between the present site of the city and the Old Crossing for the railway to cross the creek. Land speculators quickly descended on the site, however. To outfox them, the planned crossing was secretly moved farther south, to a treeless area where the Wascana ran between low banks. When a CPR survey crew reached the spot (near where the Regina Golf Club now stands) on May 18, 1882, there were only three settlers camped there.

Yet, by the time railroad itself reached the location in August, Regina had become a tent town. Not only that, it had already been settled on as the new capital of the Northwest Territories, replacing Battleford, which was far north of the railway. Edgar Dewdney, lieutenant governor of the Northwest Territories, had made the recommendation. As early as May 10, he wrote, “From what I can gather the crossing of Pile of Bones Creek appears to me to be the most favourable point and the country around it is magnificent.” He made inspection trips along the railway route to choose a final site for the new territorial capital, and settled once and for all on the Pile of Bones crossing. Acting on his recommendation, the federal government also named Regina the headquarters of the North West Mounted Police. (The name itself, announced upon the arrival of the first train, was chosen to honour Queen Victoria, and was suggested by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of the governor general, the Marquis of Lorne.)

People second-guessed Dewdney’s choice at the time, and have second-guessed it every since. Regina’s townsite lacked water, was not well-drained, lacked hills to shelter it from prairie gales and blizzards, and offered no native timber for construction, fuel—or even shade. Dewdney himself didn’t exactly offer a ringing endorsement—he said it “was as good a point as any.” Its one important feature was that it had the railway (which bypassed Fort Qu’Appelle, a far more attractive location, offering water, wood and shelter, thanks to the valley it occupies). And, of course, it was surrounded by that “magnificent” country, specifically prime wheat-growing land.

It’s also true that a parcel of land just north of where the railway crosses Wascana Creek was owned by a syndicate what included Dewdney, two members of parliament, and various other prominent citizens. Dewdney denied his property interests influenced his choice, but it may have been an effort to thwart any possible gain on the part of him and his syndicate partners that drove the CPR to set up its station a bit over three kilometres to the east of the Dewdney-connected parcel.

Trouble was, the chosen station location was also some distance from the creek. As a result, when the railroad crossed the creek in August, there were actually two separate tent towns making up the nascent city of Regina.

Near the creek, according to a [Toronto Globe] report, there were two stores, two saloons (selling non-alcoholic beer only; the Northwest Territories was under prohibition at the time) and a livery stable. Near the station, located north of the main line and east of what is now Broad Street (in what was, unfortunately, a rather damp and muddy depression; a later joke held that in the spring, you could pick up enough soil in Regina to file a homestead just by walking down the street), there were other stores. The businesses operating near the creek quickly moved closer to the station, because they needed to be near the place where passengers and freight arrived.

The CPR owned most of the land along the railway, of course, along with its partner in promoting townsites, the Canada North-West Land Company, and was more than happy to sell them lots, many of them along what was then called South Railway Street, which later became Saskatchewan Drive.

It didn’t take long for tents and shacks to give way to solid, wood-frame buildings with false fronts. And the area where they took shape is still Regina’s downtown today. (Its development was cemented by the establishment of the city’s municipal railway on 11th Avenue in 1911.)

But due to the battle between Dewdney and the CPR, the first government buildings were widely scattered, strung out over four kilometres of mostly empty, windswept prairie. Government House (the Lieutenant-Governor’s residence) and the North West Mounted Police barracks rose on opposite sides of the creek near the railway bridge, while the North West Council and Indian Offices were built on a block on Dewdney Avenue halfway between the police barracks and the station. Meanwhile, the Customs Office, Dominion Lands Office and Post Office were located in the station area. And finally the Registry Office opened on Albert Street, midway between the station and the North West Council Offices, all by itself.

The press was not kind to the fledgling city. The [Manitoba Free Press] claimed, “The place is no more fitted for a town site than any other flat, dry, barren section of the line of railway.” An editor of Forest and Stream wrote, “I have never in all my travels seen so wretched a site for a town.” And the Ottawa Free Press said the name “Regina” for the former “Pile of Bones” was “too utterly utter. It reminds us of the woman who wanted a grand name for her boy and christened him ‘Britannia Rex.’”

It’s probably true that today Regina still has a reputation among people who have never been here for being flat, boring, and uninteresting.

Those people are wrong. In Regina, beautiful and historic buildings abound. The lush urban forest—every tree and bush of it planted by hand—provides beauty, shelter, and shade. The creek that the Toronto Globe once wrote of as consisting of “a series of shallow stagnant pools . . . of a dark brownish brackish appearance” has been transformed into Wascana Centre, one of the largest urban green spaces in the world, a sanctuary for wildlife and the crown jewel of what has become the Queen City of the Plains.

Don’t believe me?

Start walking, and you will.

 A Brief History of Moose Jaw

Although Aboriginal people had been camping at the Turn in the Moose Jaw River (today’s Kingsway Park) for decades or centuries, the town can trace its birth to a scouting tour by the CPR conducted in 1881, designed to identify the best location for its divisional point.

The origin of its unusual name is a little more difficult to trace. There have been a number of fanciful explanations, but the most likely is that it is an Anglicized version of the Cree word for “warm breezes,” moosegaw.

The railway settled on the union of the Moose Jaw and Thunder Creeks, halfway between Winnipeg and Calgary (the West’s other two divisional points). James Hamilton Ross had a hunch the railroad would choose that location, and so on January 2, 1992, he, Hector Sutherland, and three others arrived and set up camp. Ross established his homestead four days later, making him Moose Jaw’s first permanent resident.

Eight months later, the railway reached Moose Jaw. Tents, shacks, and small stores sprang up to handle the rush of homesteaders. The population boomed to between 2,000 and 3,000 people by May of 1883, by which time the city already boasted 100 buildings and 20 general stores.

Moose Jaw was incorporated as a town in February 1994, with John Edgar Ross as the first mayor. Construction, as was typical of prairie towns, spread out from the railway station—in Moose Jaw’s case, along Main Street, which was made extra wide in optimistic expectation of continued growth.

The early buildings were mostly of wood. On December 12, 1891, fire raged through them, destroying the first block of Main Street and, in all, a total of 21 homes and businesses. Four people died.

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 The Great Fire of 1891

The devastating fire of 1891 resulted form a combination of booze and kerosene, according to Moose Jaw: People, Places, History, the 2001 history of the city by John Larsen and Maurice Richard Libby, published by Coteau Books. According Larsen and Libby, the fire began at Jackman’s Hotel, and the man to blame was a lodger named George Waterfield. Bill McWilliams, the son of a man who was an attendant at Jackman’s, recounted:

“This guy came back from River Street and went upstairs and Dad went up shortly afterwards. He was drunk and was galloping around with a kerosene lamp, and Dad tried to get it away from him, and of course he said he could see where that was going to be disastrous. So he tried talking him into putting it down on the table, and hoped he’d go to sleep. Well, he did, but not till after he had dumped the lamp somewhere and started the fire. There was no hope, there was no fire department; just no hope at all.”

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Just four months later, another fire destroyed most of the second block of Moose Jaw. And over the years, fires have destroyed many other Moose Jaw landmarks.

In an effort to prevent further devastating fires, Moose Jaw town council passed a bylaw requiring all further downtown buildings to be made of brick—one reason why so many fine buildings do still remain to be seen in Moose Jaw’s core.

The flood of people immigrating to Moose Jaw also led the building of an exceptional number of hotels, many of them along River Street West. When immigration leveled off in the mid-1920s, Moose Jaw gained a reputation as “Little Chicago.” Rumours abound that Al Capone and other gangsters from Chicago frequented Moose Jaw during the years of Prohibition in the United States. Whether that’s true or not, the city—or at least River Street—was certainly known as the “sin city of Saskatchewan.”

By 1929, Moose Jaw residents had reason to believe their city would one day be one of the largest and most vibrant on the prairies. But the Great Depression brought those dreams, and many others, crashing down. Moose Jaw may well have been the hardest-hit city in Canada. Construction almost stopped, businesses closed.

The only plus side is that many buildings that might otherwise have been torn down instead survived until their worth as heritage buildings could be recognized.

In recent years, Moose Jaw has rebounded, with the construction of the Temple Gardens Spa, its popular Tunnels of Moose Jaw attraction, and other efforts, many of them centred on the rich heritage you will enjoy on these two tours.

 

A Tale of Two Fords: Edge Limited & Fiesta SES

Ford, for reasons best known only to itself, continues to provide me with the opportunity to drive media cars a they come through town. Which is how, in the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to drive a Ford Edge Limited and a Ford Fiesta SES.

Both fine vehicles, but both quite different. And for my taste (not to mention my size) there’s no question the Edge has…well, the edge.

I’ve noted in previous test drives that I’m not a huge fan of giant SUVs. But the Edge, though an SUV (well, I think Ford calls it a “crossover”), is on the smaller end of the scale (and nowhere near that behemoth of an F150 pickup I drove last year). In fact, I found it just about the perfect size: large enough to be roomy, with lots of luggage and other hauling-stuff-around space, but small enough I didn’t feel like I was driving the terrestrial equivalent of an aircraft carrier.

It had plenty of power, and it felt quite nimble–especially compared to (as I’ve also noted before) my Volvo S60. Love the car, but there are times when I’m trying to maneuver it that I think it’s the terrestrial equivalent of an aircraft carrier.

The Edge’s styling didn’t thrill me, but the interior was comfortable, and by this time I’m getting reasonably familiar with the Sync and My Ford Touch system–but not familiar enough with it to really pass judgment on it. At times I think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I think you’d need to live with it for longer than three or four days to really get the most out of it and get comfortable with its various modes and options. For the short period of time I have these cars, I’d have to say the touch/voice command system is more of a hazard than a benefit, since I find myself poking at the screen when I should probably be paying more attention to my surroundings.

Bottom line for me: a pretty great vehicle that offers more functionality than a car without the (for me) downside of driving a monster SUV. If I were in the market for this kind of vehicle, the Edge would definitely be high on my list.

Next up was the Ford Fiesta SES. Which was…very, very red.

I kind of like the styling of this little car, although the curlicue decals on the side aren’t really my style. As far as the red-and-black interior goes, though, I think I’d have to use that classic critical statement, “If you’re the sort who likes this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like.” It didn’t appeal to me, but I suspect 52-year-old Volvo drivers are not the target market. My wife suggested it was very much a “boy car,” although I think it might also be a “girl car”–interestingly enough, as I drove away from my house with it with my daughter in it (her comment: the dashboard looks like an alien–see the photo below) we ended up right behind a bright green version of the same car. Didn’t see if it was a boy or girl driving it, but it didn’t look like a color most young guys would go for.

The Fiesta was a hoot to drive, though. Small, nimble, with adequate though not outstanding power (but a really nice exhaust note that certainly makes it sound to the driver as though he’s got a something exciting under the hood), it was a dream to park and a comfortable get-around-town car.

Neither my wife nor I liked the seats very much: a little firmer than we’re used to. But my biggest complain is a function of size: mine, and the car;s. I wear size-13 runners, and I found my foot tended to get hung up a little bit between the brake pedal and the firewall, so that moving from brake to gas pedal and back again was sometimes a bit of a sticky wicket. Not a big deal for a three-day test drive, but not something I could have lived with over the long term.

I also found that rear-window visibility was more restricted than I would have liked: the headrests on the back seat can’t be lowered, and essentially limit you to the view between the two of them. (One thing I like about my S60 is that there’s a button on the dash that allows you to lower the rear headrests automatically so that you have maximum rearward visibility when there’s no one in the back seat who requires head support.)

That said, were I a young man who was not 6’2″, over 200 pounds, and with size 13 feet, I would perfectly happy with the Fiesta. It’s a fun drive. And if you like that kind of…perky…styling, it would be a terrific choice.

Especially considering the killer sound system with Sirius satellite radio built in. I think the most fun I got out of the car was tooling around blasting ’70s rock tunes. Made me feel like I really was a young man in his first new car!

It had been a long time since I’d heard ELO on the radio…

 

Saturday…er, Monday…Special from the Vaults: An interview with Persephone Theatre artistic director Del Surjik

I know, I know, I call these things “Saturday Specials” and here it is Monday. But I have a good excuse: I spent the weekend in Saskatoon at Dance Power, the dance competition in which my daughter and her studiomates from Class Act Performing Arts Studio were competing (they did extremely well!).

The competition was at the Remai Arts Centre, home to Persephone Theatre, a theatre I have fond memories of because I was in the very first production to grace its stage, Beauty and the Beast , in 2007, just before it officially opened (and before it was quite finished, actually, but that’s another story). While I was there I ran into Del Surjik, artistic director of Persephone, a couple of times, and confirmed to my chagrin that (as I had suspected) the profile I wrote of him for Fine Lifestyles Saskatoon back in the fall of 2010 had never run in the magazine. (Right after I wrote it, I quit being editor and so had no say in whether it ran or not.)

So here it is. Better late than never!

(References to “last season” or “this season” obviously refer to the time period when the interview was conducted.)

***

Persephone rising

Artistic director Del Surjik has presided over unprecedented growth in this jewel of Canadian theatre

By Edward Willett

Autumn, 2010

When Del Surjik, artistic director of Persephone Theatre, left Saskatoon two decades ago, “a young man seeking his fortune,” he didn’t really expect to be back.

The recipient of the first BFA in theatre awarded by the University of Saskatchewan, the North Battleford native, raised in Yorkton, had been one of the co-founders of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan (and associate director for its first five years) and also helped found the Saskatoon Soaps.

“It was a very vibrant, golden-age time in Saskatoon’s theatre history,” Surjik says, but nonetheless, he moved to Vancouver in 1989, freelancing a national career or seven years, then spending the next decade as artistic director of Pi Theatre. “It was the indie theatre scene,” he says. “Cutting-edge experimentation. That community in Vancouver expected to see some of the most provocative and urgent thought in theatre coming from me and my theatre. It was exciting work.”

Dogbarked

About five years ago, the late Tibor Feheregyhazi, Persephone’s long-time artistic director, asked Surjik to direct James O’Shea’s play Dogbarked. It was the first time Surjik had been back to work in Saskatoon and, he said, he “had a hell of a good time.”

Audiences had a good time, too. The show was a hit, and Surjik got to refresh his relationship with Feheregyhazi. The two stayed in touch over the next few years, during which time “he was regaling me with the tales of trying to get this building (the new Remai Arts Centre) built.”

After Fehergyhazi’s death in 2007, Surjik received a message from theatre staff asking him if he would be interested in applying to take over as artistic director. In the end he was one of 35 applicants, five of whom were brought to Saskatoon for intensive, day-long interviews.

In the end, Surjik was the committee’s unanimous choice.

“My wife and I sat down and had a hard talk,” he recalls. His wife, Johnna Wright, was then artistic director of another Vancouver theatre, Solo Collective. “It would mean her resigning and setting a succession plan in her theatre company as well as the one I was at. We were very integrated in the community, we sat on a lot of boards.

“What are all the things you can change in your life?” he muses. “New city, new life, new job.” Not only that, his wife was pregnant “with our first and only family member,” son Sascha. But in a way, that made the choice easier. “The notion of being able to raise my son as a prairie boy was a un-thought of until that time,” Surjik says. “It was hugely appealing.”

And so, 18 years after he left, Surjik returned to Saskatoon, his life “circling around  like I was the character in an epic novel.”

“A fantastic opportunity”

“For me, what a fantastic opportunity to take the helm of a regional theatre and come at it with the vigour of a mid-career theatre artist,” Surjik says.

He says one of the great artistic pleasures he finds in his job is the “alchemy” of figuring out a season, “choosing those plays that continue a conversation with the audience.”

Surjik says there are several such conversations going on at once, since you are communicating, not just with those who come to everything, but people who are brand-new to Persephone or even the city as a whole.

“I stay with a demonstration of the great breadth of styles and genres there are in the world of theatre. I think that’s a responsibility as a regional theatre. There’ll be musicals, there’ll be comedies, there’ll be period drama. There’ll be new work. There’s 2,000 years of amazing variety to tap into. All these writers out there writing new work as well. We’ll keep mixing it up!”

Another consideration, Surjik says, is “finding good vehicles for the artists to bring their best work to the stage.”

“We want to nurture the local acting pool,” he says, not only people who live in Saskatchewan, but those who trained or lived here and then went elsewhere. “You have to give hope to the artists who live here that their regional theatre is a an avenue of employment. Otherwise they’re going to have to go elsewhere or withdraw from the art form.”

Co-productions, such as last season’s Thunderstick, a co-production with Theatre Network in Edmonton, and this season’s opening show, Great Expectations, with Blackbird Theatre of Vancouver, gives local artists exposure in other cities: the shows open here, then travel to the other centre.

Surjik also believes in supporting other local theatres. Last season, for example, there was a co-production with Saskatchewan Native Theatre Co. on the second stage. “The health of the entire theatre ecology is what’s important,” he insists. “We don’t live in the ecology on our own.”

That philosophy encompasses the whole province. “Ruth Smillie (artistic director of Regina’s Globe Theatre) and I have a great relationship. We made history last year by having a Globe show at Persephone: we brought in Elephant Wake. Ruth and I are hoping that with two really great strong regional theatres in the province, we can spin the momentum that’s going on.”

Under Surjik, Persephone is also helping to develop Saskatchewan playwrights. This year’s Deep End Series will premiere three new Saskatchewan plays, for example.

“They are there because they need to get done. I read them and I had no choice,” Surjis says. “I love writer, I love scripts. We don’t begin without any of these words. If we have a good script, we have the bedrock upon which we can build a really great show.”

An “extraordinary” facility

Surjik is enthusiastic about everything about Persephone, but particularly the Remai Arts Centre. “It’s extraordinary. There’s no theatre that’s the equivalent of this in Vancouver.”

Rawlco Radio Hall, the main auditorium, is “phenomenal,” he says; extraordinarily intimate. “The back wall of that theatre is 12 feet closer to the stage than the back wall of the old theatre,” he notes, and yet there are more seats, 421 in all. “And we’ve got the second stage. And a lobby that actually holds the people in the theatre. We can have two shows running at once, in the BackStage Stage and the Rawlco Radio Hall, and those audiences get to mix, which is a really cool thing.”

Even more extraordinary: the theatre was built on budget and without a mortgage, “at Tibor’s unequivocal insistence. I can’t name another project where that has happened.”

The community has embraced the facility wholeheartedly. “The community use blew us away,” Surjik says. “There’s something like 500 days of combined use in a 365-day year. It’s a very busy place!”

And Persephone’s own success has been “incredible,” he adds. “Typically after the first year of a new building you’re supposed to have a spike and then it’s supposed to dip down, and then a nice slow rise up to a new plateau. That hasn’t been the case. It’s just been growing and growing and growing.”

And so, brand-new though it is, the Remai Arts Centre will soon be expanding, taking advantage of the impending arrival of a new neighbor: the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, formerly the Mendel Art Gallery, which will be built on Persephone’s current parking lot.

“This is going to become a cultural block,” Surjik says, and since the new building is going to wrap around the theatre, Persephone plans to take advantage of it to enlarge the second stage, add additional dressing rooms and stage-management office space, and expand the shop area.

And don’t mourn the lost parking lot: it’s going underground, which should literally warm the hearts (and other body parts) of January theatre-goers.

A heritage of culture

Persephone’s amazing growth is a testament to this province, Surjik thinks. “This province’s people care about their lives having a cultural component. We have a heritage of it.

“It’s part of a questing life. If you are living a full life, you’re asking questions, you’re testing your beliefs and opinions against others’, you are in contact with your community. These are all important things to having an agile, healthy and forward-thinking society.”

And that, he thinks, is the kind of society blossoming in Saskatoon. “There’s a cycle in the arts where a city is hot,” Surjik says. “Toronto was hot. Edmonton was hot for a while.” Now, he believes, “the eyes of the nation are going to turn and look at Saskatoon.

“It’s coming, and we’re going to be ready for them. There’s going to be a lot going on. There already is a lot going on. It’s time for them to discover what a wonderful place this is for artistic endeavour.”

 

The Fifth Princess by Alice Willett

This is the short story my 10-year-old daughter Alice (that’s her in the picture–she’s the one on the right) entered in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Book Week 2012 Writing Contest for Kids & Teens. She didn’t win or get an honorable mention, but I still think it’s pretty good. (It’s also possible she was disqualified because, try though she might, with everything I could suggest, she couldn’t get the story under the 1,500-word limit…although she was close. But since the first version of this story was more like 2,500 words, and at that, she’d left out some elements she intended to include, I thought she did pretty well.)

Anyway, enjoy!

***

The Fifth Princess

By Alice Willett, Age 10

When the fifth daughter of the king and queen of Averandel reaches the age of fifteen, she will fight the peril that befalls us.

š›As Princess Jennifer climbed the mountain to the dragon’s lair her mind was focusing on one thing: slaying the dragon. She could not fail.

Ever since she was a little girl she had dreamed of being a Wanderer of Averandel. She would fight monsters and wander around at pleasure. Slaying this dragon would show her parents once and for all she could be a Wanderer.

The Mountain of Zurg was very tall. Jennifer knew the dragon’s lair was up at the top. She looked down to see how far she’d gone. Quickly looking up from the dizzying view, Jennifer kept climbing.

Directly below, a young prince was riding his horse to the forest. His mind on catching a deer, he didn’t look up. If he had he probably would have fainted, because Prince Suran of Ameran was definitely not the most noble prince. He wasn’t brave or courageous. He thought he was, but that was far from the truth.

As Jennifer climbed farther, she thought about the best way to slay the dragon. She figured if he started flying she could crawl under him and slay him from beneath. Jennifer put her hand on a rock, thinking it was solid, and…

…it happened so fast she didn’t even realize she was falling. When she did realize, she started screaming. Grabbing a branch, she stopped screaming, looking at the rocks falling away beneath her.

Now even when you’re not noble you do notice screaming, falling rocks and falling dirt. In fact, so much dirt fell on Prince Suran’s freshly cleaned clothes that he thought it proper to look up. Of course he almost fainted, because above his head was a young girl in a tunic, boots and leggings, hanging by one hand off a branch. Since Prince Suran thought he was noble he thought the right thing to do was help her. So he yelled up, “My dear lady, may I ask what you are doing up there?”

Jennifer snorted. “What does it look like I’m doing? A geography lesson?”

Prince Suran, taken aback by this rudeness, yelled back, “No, my lady, I was just wondering how you got up there.” Then, as an afterthought, he yelled, “By the way, I’m Prince Suran of Ameran.”

“Well, to answer your questions, I got up here by climbing and I am the fifth daughter of the King and Queen of Averandel, Princess Jennifer. I was going to slay the dragon.”

Thoroughly confused, Prince Suran yelled, “Pardon me, Princess, but did I just hear you say ‘slay a DRAGON!?’” Prince Suran had never in his life even thought about slaying a dragon.

“Yes! I was on my way up the mountain when I slipped on a stone.”

Prince Suran thought for a moment. Then he yelled up, “Then I will come to save you, so the dragon,” (his voice wavered), “won’t hurt you.”

Jennifer frantically yelled, “No! I can save myself!” Jennifer knew that if this clumsy oaf climbed onto the mountain rocks would fall, and that could wake up the dragon. He’ll kill himself and me, and that would kill Averandel!

“Nonsense!” the prince yelled up. “Wouldn’t allow it! Must come up!”

Jennifer shook her head miserably as Prince Suran started climbing. No sooner had he begun than (as Jennifer knew would happen), the dragon came down, picked Prince Suran up in his powerful claws, and flew away with the prince flailing helplessly. “Helllllp!” he screamed.

When the dragon was no longer in sight Jennifer gingerly climbed down the mountain. Back on the ground, she took one look to the sky and cursed. (Now, as Prince Suran isn’t a very noble prince, Jennifer is definitely not a proper princess.)

Jennifer knew the dragon had three mountains: Zurg, Zorg and Zarg. Zarg was the farthest away, and she was sure that was where the dragon had flown to. Jennifer knew there was a secret passage through Zorg that would take her to Zarg quicker, but first she had to get to Zorg.

The field which the dragon had chosen to guard his mountains was dangerous.  Jennifer thought about each type of monster she might face and how she would fight it.  She thought about many monsters, each more dreadful than the last. At the end she thought about the worst yet: a Batax, part bat, part snake. Jennifer shivered, but she kept walking towards the not-so-distant Zorg.

#

Zorg is even taller than Zurg, Jennifer thought as she looked up at the towering mountain. I’m glad I don’t have to climb it! She walked around the mountain, looking for the dragon’s secret passage. After passing around the mountain a few times (it was tall, not wide), Jennifer noticed an odd swirl on a stone. Tracing her finger over the rock, Jennifer hoped nothing bad would happen.

Nothing bad happened at all. Instead a huge boulder moved to reveal a dark passageway. Without a second thought, Jennifer walked in.

#

“If only I had a light!” Jennifer said, and clapped a hand over her mouth. All she needed now was every monster in this cave to come looking for the source of the noise. You’re a real smarty, aren’t you?

Luckily, she still didn’t see any monsters. She kept her hand on her mouth, just in case. Because of her noise Jennifer was extra wary. Every little sound she jumped at. Oh, stop this nonsense, Jennifer thought. A twig snap isn’t going to hurt you.

At that moment she felt a gust of cold air on her face. Looking up, she saw something flying above her head. Her heart almost stopped. “A Batax!” she breathed.

With a screech, the Batax swooped down at Jennifer’s head. Jennifer thrust her sword at it, hoping to hit the wings. Flying at top speed, the Batax knocked her only weapon to the ground. Backing away, Jennifer’s mind raced. What could she do? I’ve got it!

Pretending to retreat, Jennifer saw the Batax relax. She spun around so fast the Batax looked surprised. Grabbing the Batax’s wing, Jennifer reached for her sword. Shrieking, the Batax frantically tried to escape. It was no use. The Batax looked down, ending its struggle.

Raising her sword, Jennifer paused. The Batax looked so sad and defenseless that Jennifer couldn’t bring herself to slay it. She lowered her sword.

“I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me,” she whispered.

To Jennifer’s surprise, the Batax spoke. “Fine,” the Batax said in a gruff voice.

After a moment of shock, Jennifer found her voice again. “Um…hi? I’m Jennifer? What’s your name?”

“Batax 5.”

“That’s your name?” Jennifer said, trying to contain her laughter.

“Unfortunately,” Batax 5 said.

Still giggling, Jennifer asked, “How do I get out of here?”

“It depends on where you’re going.”

“I need to get to the top of Zarg,” Jennifer explained. “I’m going to slay the dragon.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” Jennifer replied.

“Well, I think you should know something about this dragon,” Batax 5 said.

“What’s that?”

“The dragon you’re dealing with has an allergy to roses.”

“Roses?”

“Not just one rose. He’s only allergic to five roses. No more, no less.”

“How am I supposed to get five roses on top of a mountain?”

“There is a secret nook by the dragon’s entrance that holds a small patch of roses.”

“So I have to pick five roses and hold them under the dragon’s nose?”

“Exactly,” Batax 5 said.

“Is there anything else I need to know about this dragon?” Jennifer asked.

“Yes. There is a prophecy that a young girl about fifteen will slay him.”

“Hey, I’m fifteen!” Jennifer said. “What does the prophecy say?”

“When the fifth daughter of the king and queen of Averandel reaches the age of fifteen, she will fight the peril that befalls us.”

“I’m the fifth daughter of the king and queen of Averandel!”

“Oh. This prophecy works out for you, then.”

“Thank you for your help, Batax 5.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for not killing me.”

#

As Jennifer sneaked towards the dragon’s entrance, she found the nook with the roses in it, and picked out five. She called, “Oh, Mr. Dragon! Look who’s here!”

The dragon walked out holding Prince Suran wrapped in his tail.

“I’ve got a present for you, Mr. Dragon!” Jennifer cooed. “Five roses.” Jennifer shoved the roses in front of the dragon’s nose.

Backing away in horror, the dragon started sneezing fireballs. Dodging, Jennifer ran to the dragon’s stomach, yelling at Prince Suran, “Don’t move!” Prince Suran, frozen in shock, just nodded.

Dropping to the ground, Jennifer dodged a giant fireball, ducked under the dragon’s belly and without a second thought thrust her sword into his stomach. The fireballs stopped immediately.

Jennifer quickly crawled out from under the dragon and backed away before the dragon fell. Grabbing Prince Suran, who seemed to have fainted, she headed home.

#

“How can we ever thank you?” the King and Queen of Ameran said.

“Oh, you don’t need to thank me—” Jennifer started.

“No, we must!” the mother of Prince Suran persisted. “What do you want?”

“Well, I’d like to be—”

“I know!” the King interrupted. “You can marry our son!”

Jennifer’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? Why would I want to do that?”

Before the prince’s parents could reply, Jennifer’s own parents said, “She doesn’t mean that, she just means that she doesn’t want to marry yet.” They turned to their daughter. “Is there anything you want?”

Jennifer started smiling. “Well…there is one thing.”

The King and Queen looked at each other. “Name it,” they said.

“Well, I would like to be…” Jennifer pretended to think. “A…Wanderer of Averandel?”

The Queen looked at the King. “What do you think?”

“If that’s what you want,” he said to Jennifer.

“Oh, that is exactly what I want.”

“Do you think you’re ready?” the Queen asked.

Jennifer’s smile was from ear to ear. “I am definitely ready.”

Saturday Special from the Vaults: The City Must Die

Chapter One of a YA novel I hope to finish someday… The City Must Die (that’;s an entirely fictitious cover).

Why is it unfinished? Well, because I sold Masks instead, I guess. But reading this over again for the first time in months, I realized I really want to write this one.

There’s actually a different version of this, too, one in third person and starting off with a completely different character’s viewpoint. But I like the first-person approach best, I think, so if I do get around to finishing it, I’ll probably carry on with this, which is about half of what I’ve written in total. Whole thing is planned out, though.

Anyway, enjoy. And let me know if you’d like to see it carried on!

***

The City Must Die

By Edward Willett

Chapter One

I never meant to destroy The City. It just sort of happened.

Not that The City is really, you know, gone. I mean, I can see a big piece through my bedroom window, sticking up above the ridge on the north side of the farm. It kind of looks familiar, like maybe I used to walk by it when I–

Oh, I’m doing this all wrong. I knew I would. “Write down what happened,” Fedlar said. “For posterity.”

“But isn’t it a big secret?” I said. “I mean, we’re not supposed to tell anyone–”

“It’s a secret for now,” he said. “But not for always. Someday, someone will want to know.”

So I guess I’m writing this for you, Mr. or Miss Mysterious Someone way off in the Someday. And I guess I should start at the beginning. Which would be my fifteenth birthday.

You’d think turning fifteen would be really special. And I guess it was. But not in a good way.

See, when you’re the Ward of an Officer, which is what I was, back when all this started, there are Things Expected of You, one of which is to hold great big birthday parties, every year, for every girl within two years of your own age.

Whether you like them or not.

Which is why, on the day this all started, I was sitting on a dais in the really much-too-warm dining room of Quarters Beruthi, watching the Amazing Belgrani make himself disappear in a puff of purple smoke.

Which may sound very exciting to you, Someone in the Someday, but you have to realize I’d seen the Amazing Belgrani before. At Vessa Stillmore’s sixteenth birthday party. At Shelli Antonin’s fourteenth birthday party. And at the really boring party Parisi Hedmore had thrown just the week before just because there hadn’t been a party for ten whole days days.

The Amazing Belgrani was amazing enough, I guess. But the fourth time you see someone disappear in a puff of purple smoke, it kind of loses its appeal.

Besides, that smoke smelled like moldy cheese, and not the good kind of moldy cheese, either.

I coughed (covering my mouth, of course; I was a very well-brought-up Ward), waved my hand idly in front of my face, and turned to look at Sallia, my personal servant, hovering just off my left shoulder. “The main course now, please, Sallia,” I said.

Sallia curtsied in precisely the proper manner of a servant acknowledging a command from the young mistress of an Officer’s house, but then rather spoiled the effect by winking her left eye. I winked back, then folded my hands in front of me and peered out at my guests.

“Peered” is the right word. The theme for my party, which I had had nothing at all to do with–there were People who decided that sort of thing for me–was Primitive Romanticism–you know, candles, gowns cut daringly low in front and even lower in the back, big hair, lots of ribbons. All well and good, I supposed, and many of the girls looked lovely–I wouldn’t know about myself, though I doubted it; frilly dresses and I never really got along–but the candles seemed to have been made according to some far-too-authentic recipe involving rendered animal fat, and they smoked. Worse than the Amazing Belgrani, in fact, though not as smelly. So I could really only see the girls in the seats closest to the dais at all clearly; the others were just kind of faded silhouettes in the fog.

Plus side: I couldn’t really see Bacrivia Jonquille and her catty little clique, whom I had made certain were seated as far away from me as possible.

Did I mention we were required to invite all the other girls within our age group? No matter how much they reminded us of snakes?

The sad fact was, I reflected as I peered down at the twenty-three perfectly coiffed heads at the lower tables, I only had two real friends among the lot–and they, naturally, were seated at the head table with me.

Not that they were paying the slightest attention to me at that moment. Lissa and Sandi had been giggling, heads together, all through the Amazing Belgrani’s act, which of course they had seen just as often as I had. I suspected they had been talking about boys. Unlike me, they had actually met real-life examples of those mysterious creatures during their outings to their father’s estates on Lake Glass, or balloon trips to Green Plateau.

Unlike them…unlike everyone else in that room…I had never been out of The City. In fact, I had never been off of the Twelfth Tier. Which was another reason I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be turning fifteen. All it meant was that I had spent another full year as a caged pet. A pampered pat, I had to admit–I took a sugared pink bon-bon from the bowl by my plate and sucked on it to ease my woes–but caged, nonetheless.

I became aware that Lissa and Sandi had quit giggling and were now looking me. And they weren’t just giving me ordinary looks. They were giving me Significant Looks.

Oh, great, I thought. They’re going to try to make me feel better.

I dug up my best fake smile and hung it on my face. The things we do for friends.

“Millicred for your thoughts,” Lissa said, leaning in. “You look like you’re a million kilometres away.”

I wish I was, I thought. But all I said was, “Just thinking. Sorry. Side-effect of maturity. You’ll understand when you’re older.” Lissa’s fifteenth birthday wasn’t for another two twenty-days.

“You can’t blame her for looking like she’s at a funeral,” Sandi put in. “After all, a funeral would be more fun. At least at a funeral we wouldn’t have to watch the Vaguely Amusing Grand Belly again.”

Vaguely Amusing Grand Belly! I liked that. My smile turned a bit more genuine.

“Why our mothers put us through this…” Sandi continued, then suddenly turned bright red from the top of her head all the way down to her chest, a great deal of which was exposed by the silly Primitive Romantic dress. “Sorry!”

You couldn’t be mad at Sandi, not for long. It was like being mad at a puppy. “It’s hardly news to me I don’t have a mother, Sandi,” I said. “Or a father. I have noticed their absence from time to time over the last fifteen years.” I sighed. “I’m living proof that these horrible traditions exist independently of parents. Maybe they’re an Order of the Captain.”

“May She live forever,” Lissa and Sandi said in unison. It was the automatic response to every reference to the Captain, although considering She’d ruled The City for, supposedly, more than five hundred years at that point, I did occasionally wonder why she needed benedictions from the beneficiaries of her beneficence.

(So I like alliteration. So sue me.)

“If you could do whatever you wanted for your birthday, instead of hosting these stupid parties,” Sandi said, “what would it be?”

“I’d go horseback riding,” Lissa said instantly. “I only got to go that once, last summer out at our estate, and it was incandescent.”

“Incandescent” was the word of choice for something really wonderful that half-year. I thought it was a silly choice, but nobody asked me.

“I’d go paragliding off the Silver Cliffs,” Sandi said dreamily. “What about you, Alania?”

I felt my smile fade, and I looked up at the dining room ceiling. That night it was programmed to display holographic stars. They were the only stars I’d ever seen. “Me?” I said. “I’d just go…out.”

Which of course earned me more Significant Looks from Sandi and Lissa. And then they exchanged Significant Looks with each other. I knew exactly what they were thinking. Poor Alania, shut up in her guardian’s house her whole life. Never allowed to leave the City. Never allowed to leave the Tier. Never been anywhere. And never told why, either.

It was, after all, exactly what I’d been thinking. But it wasn’t their fault I was a prisoner, and they were my only real friends. I didn’t want them to feel bad on my birthday. I could look after the feeling bad all on my own.

I forced my smile back onto my face. “But since we’re all stuck here, let’s make the best of it.” I looked to my left, where the Vaguely Amusing Grand Belly’s props had been cleared away and the next act, the Seventh Tier Acrobatic Association, was setting up. I felt vaguely interested. Them, I’d never seen. “The entertainment is about to continue, and the main course is about to arrive. I had the Master Chef make my favorite: candied vatam with mashed sweebers and red gravy.”

“Incandescent!” Sandi and Lissa said in perfect unison, and I couldn’t help but laugh; probably my first real laugh of the evening.

It didn’t last long, though, because just at that moment I heard a deep gong, the kind that gets inside your bones and vibrates your whole body. It came just as the Seventh Tier Acrobats were rushing into the room: the one in front pulled up so short the others piled into him and they all collapsed into a tangle of gold-spangled tights and leotards. While they were sorting themselves out, the dining room’s main door slid silently open. At first all I could see through the smoke was a square of light, much whiter than the yellow candlelight, and two silhouetted figures. But I heard a gasp from the girls seated nearest the door, and as the figures walked toward me, I understood why.

Both of them wore the crisp white uniforms of City Crew, but that hadn’t sparked Bacrivia’s startled reaction: both of her parents were Crew, and everyone there had at least one Crew parent.

It wasn’t the man on the left they were reacting too, either. That was Second Lieutenant Ipsil Beruthi, my guardian, and they couldn’t have been surprised that he showed up at his Ward’s party–although, to tell the truth, I was.

No, the man they were reacting to was the second man. He wasn’t anything special to look at–not much taller than me, really, a little paunchy around the middle, with neat gray hair and a little gray mustache just the same width as his nose. But he had a lot more gold braid on his hat and shoulders than my Guardian.

Which is what you’d expect, on First Officer Staydmore Krenz.

Maybe by the time you read this, way off in the Someday, that name won’t mean anything. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that Staydmore Krenz showing up at my birthday party was about as shocking as waking up one morning and discovering the sun had changed color.

The Captain, as I’d just been thinking, had ruled The City for centuries. But nobody every saw The Captain. We just knew She must still be alive and in charge because…well, because The City kept running, and that proved it, didn’t it?

Sounds kind of silly, now, although oddly enough, I guess what happened proved that it was true…

Anyway, even though The Captain was the One In Charge, the day-to-day governing of the City and the surrounding Homelands actually fell to Krenz. Which made him nothing less than the most powerful man in the world.

And I was pretty sure I hadn’t invited him to my party. I mean, you wouldn’t forget something like that.

I’d only seen pictures and viddies of him before. He was shorter than I’d expected. And fatter. Not fat, exactly, but…thick. Solid. He had gray hair cut very close to his head and no neck to speak of.

He sort of flicked his hand at all the girls who had stood up as they realized who he was, and said, “Please, ladies, be seated, be seated. Go on with your festivities.”

He had the kind of deep booming voice that fills a room even when it isn’t particularly loud, though it certainly left you with the impression it could be louder if it needed to be. Much, much louder.

The girls looked at each other, then up at me, and then rather hesitantly sat down again. The whole room sort of glittered as all those jewel-decorated heads tilted toward each other, and the sudden outbreak of whispering sounded like air leaking from a compressor.

Lissa and Sandi sat down, but I stayed standing. I was the hostess, after all. And did I mention all that drilling in manners I’d had? Somehow it not only kept my astonished body on its feet, it managed to keep the astonishment out of my voice as I heard myself say, “Guardian. First Officer. So kind of you to come.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sandi and Lissa trying really really hard not to look like they were eavesdropping. They failed.

“Happy birthday, Alania,” my guardian said. He didn’t offer his hand. He’d never touched me, that I could remember. One of my earliest memories is of tripping over something in that very dining room and banging my head on the sharp corner of a table. My guardian was right there, but he stepped away from me and had a servant pick me up and comfort me. That pretty much defined our relationship from the very beginning.

But, like I said, years of training in being polite, etc.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“May I present First Officer Krenz?” he said.

Unlike my guardian, Krenz held out his hand. I found myself rather reluctant to take it, but…well, most powerful man in the world, ruler of The City, etc., etc. I put out my own. His hand felt smooth and dry, and his grip was firm without being painful. “Alania,” he said. “A pleasure. Ipsil has told me so much about you.”

He let go. I pulled my hand back and resisted the urge to nervously dry it on my pale green skirt. I couldn’t imagine exactly what my guardian could have told him about me, since as far as I knew he knew nothing at all about me beyond the fact I took up space in his house, but I couldn’t exactly argue the point.

“Thank you,” I said again. That seemed safe.

“I’m sorry to take you away from your dinner,” Krenz went on, glancing around. The servants had emerged with platters, now being uncovered on each of the tables. The savory-sweet smell of roast vatam rose with the steam from mounds of golden-pink protein slabs. The food hadn’t made it’s way to the head table yet, though; I suspected Sallia was understandably reluctant to interrupt whatever it was the First Officer had come to say.

Krenz’s eyes wandered up toward the ceiling and the wire strung high overhead between two pylons. “And the entertainment,” he added. “The Seventh Tier Acrobats are very good.”

“My guardian hired them,” I said.

“I know,” Krenz said. “I recommended them to him.” He smiled at my guardian, who smiled back–or at least curved up the corners of his mouth.

Krenz looked back at me. “Unfortunately I have another meeting this evening and can only stay a few moments. I’d like to talk to you, if I may…?”

He made it sound like a question, but I knew better. You did not refuse a request of the First Officer. I trust I’ve made that clear by now.

“Of course, sir,” I said. I looked at my guardian, who took the hint.

“The music room, Alania,” he said. “I’ll stay here and fulfill your duties as host until you return.”

“Which won’t be long,” Krenz said.

I looked from my guardian to Lissa and Sandi, who had given up all pretense of not eavesdropping and were frankly staring, eyes wide. I suddenly had a mental image of the dour Second Lieutenant Ipsil Beruthi gravely engaging in small talk with my two friends, and had to bite my lip to keep from grinning. I winked at the two of them, then smoothed my expression–not without difficulty–and turned back to the First Officer. “This way, sir,” I said, and stepped down from the dais to lead him out of the dining room.

Since I couldn’t imagine what the First Officer wanted with me, I wasn’t particularly worried yet–just curious. And so I have to admit that my favorite part of the party to that moment was leading the First Officer right past the table occupied by the odious Bacrivia Jonquille and her coven. Much as I would have liked to, though, I did not stick my tongue out at them as I passed. I simply sailed by like the grandest of grand airships, studiously ignoring them.

(What had Bacrivia Jonquille done to me? I’ll keep that to myself, if you don’t mind. Posterity doesn’t need to hear all the embarrassing details of my younger life. Besides, this is the last time Bacrivia is going to show up in this account, so you don’t need to worry about her. I know I don’t, any more. As to why she seemed to have it for me from the moment we met at the age of nine…well, maybe I understand that a bit better, now. Now that I know the truth about my birth and how I came to be a Ward of the Officers. But I’ll get to that later.)

Where was I?

Oh, right, leading Staydmore Krenz to the music room.

It was three doors down the hallway to the left, a hallway painted white, trimmed in gold, and punctuated with statues of the heroic-nude-gazing-off-into-the-distance type. (What is it with sculptors and nudes? I know, I know, celebration of the beauty of the human body and all that, but whenever I looked at those statues surrounded by those snowy white walls I thought they just looked silly…and cold.)

The music room was also white: white carpet, white walls, white ceiling, and the concert kebe in the centre of the room, which I was spectacularly mediocre at playing despite years of lessons, was also white.

Floor-to-ceiling glass cabinets in all four corners of the room housed other instruments: strings, brass, woodwinds, electronics. I’d never seen any of them so much as taken out of the cabinets for dusting, much less actually played. Sometimes I wondered if they were just holographic projections.

Along the far wall of the room, ideally positioned to allow people to sit on it and listen to someone playing the kebe, was a rather spindly white couch with golden legs, and a matching chair, with a glass-topped table in front of them. I gestured to them, and Krenz promptly sat in the chair. I took the couch, carefully arranging my long dress around my ankles and then folding my hands demurely in my lap. I was rather horribly aware of just how low-cut the ridiculous Primitive Romantic dress was, but I resisted the urge to tug it up a little higher, figuring that would just draw attention to my cleavage–or worse, lack of it.

Krenz leaned back, one arm thrown casually over the back of the chair, thoroughly relaxed. “I won’t keep you long,” he said. “I know how anxious you must be to return to your party.”

Of course, I wasn’t anxious at all. This was far more interesting than a tight-wire act. But what in The City could he possibly want? “I’m entirely at your service, First Officer.”

“I just came to congratulate you on reaching this milestone,” Krenz went on. “Fifteen years! It hardly seems possible.”

Which was, of course, beyond weird. Until the First Officer had appeared in dining room, I hadn’t even known he knew that I existed. Now all of a sudden he was talking like he was my favorite uncle.

Not that I had an uncle, favorite or otherwise.

And what kind of “milestone” was fifteen, anyway? I  always thought it was a singularly uninteresting age. You were already a teenager, but you had a long way to go until you were an adult, which in The City didn’t officially happen until you were twenty.

“You’re too kind,” I said, letting my etiquette training handle things.

Krenz laughed. “and you’ve been very well brought up,” he said. “Because I know perfectly well what you really want to know is what in the Captain’s Name I’m talking about.”

Now, look, I’m no prude, but I have to admit the casual way he took the Captain’s name in vain shocked me, just a little. I guess I let a little of that show in my face, because Krenz raised his hand. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “Pardon my language. I’m not used to the company of young ladies.” He leaned forward, his smile broadening. “But that’s about to change.”

All of a sudden I was really aware of just how low-cut that silly costume was. And took a giant step away from feeling curious and excited and into a big pile of totally creeped out. “Um…sir, I’m…”

For the first time, Krenz looked startled himself; then he suddenly chuckled. “Oh! I’m sorry, that came out rather badly, didn’t it? Don’t worry, Alania, I’m not making inappropriate advances–I’m old enough to be your grandfather, for Captain’s–sorry, for goodness’s sake. I just mean that…well, you’re circumstances are about to change. For the better, I believe.”

I didn’t say anything. I figured eventually he had to tell me what he was talking about.

Didn’t he?

Not right away, apparently, because the next thing he said was, “Have you been happy as the ward of First Officer Beruthi?”

Trick question, I thought. I didn’t know what was going on, but I did know I didn’t want to bad-mouth a fellow Officer to Staydmore Krenz. “He…has taken very good care of me,” I said. Which was true, as far as it went. I mean, I was healthy, I had everything I wanted–and lots of things I didn’t, like the birthday party dragging on in the other room. And sometimes I was happy. With Lissa and Sandi, sometimes. Occasionally when I was by myself. And the rest of the time…well, nobody was happy all the time. Or even most of the time. Were they?

Krenz chuckled. “I’m sure he has,” he said in that indulgent, aren’t-you-cute some grown-ups invariably use with children. Of course I wasn’t a child, not any more, but he probably didn’t realize that from his advanced aged. “I’m sure he has,” he repeated, “but between you and me, he can be a bit of a cold fish, can’t he?”

“He…doesn’t believe in spoiling children with too much affection,” I said, even more carefully, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible.

Krenz snorted. It wasn’t a particularly dignified sound. “I’m sure he doesn’t. Well, I’m grateful to Ipsil for volunteering to raise you in the…absence…of your parents, Alania. He has done his duty well.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of them. “but now that you are fifteen, we believe it is time for a change.”

We who? I wondered. And what did the First Office know about my parents? More than me, that was for sure, since I’d never been told anything about them beyond the bare fact that they were dead, and that it was involved with something called the Secret City Rebellion. Sallia had murmured that to me once. “But the subject is forbidden,” she’d added. “I can’t say any more.” And she’d hurried away.

“Sir?” was all I said out loud.

Krenz looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re going to have a new guardian, Alania.” And then, before I’d even had the chance to digest that bombshell–uh, sorry, guess that’s what the Teacher would call a “mixed metaphor”–he dropped another one. “Me.”

I just stared at him. I’d heard the words, but they made no sense. It was as if he’d said I was going to sprout wings and fly to the Barrier Range. Ward of the First Officer? Me? Leave Quarters Beruthi, the only home I’d ever known?

Well, sure, five minutes earlier I’d been dreaming of just that, but I’d been hoping for a trip to the country, not moving into Quarters Krenz.

If I were Bancrivia Janquille, I thought, I’d be squealing with excitement. She has real parents and she’d dump them in a second if she thought she could do better. Just like she dumps her “friends”…

Sorry. Forgot I wasn’t going to say anything else about her.

But for me, the thought of moving into Quarters Krenz was frightening, verging on the terrifying. Quarters Krenz was not only four times the size of Quarters Beruthi, it was a fortress. Every entrance was secured and guarded by armed petty Officers.

I already felt like a prisoner in Quarters Beruthi, where at least I could go out into the streets of Twelfth Tier whenever I felt like it. How much worse would it be there?

What about Lissa? And Sandi? They were the only friends I had. Would they even be able to visit me? And what about Sallia? She’d been my servant for as long as I could remember. She was as close to a mother as I’d ever had. Would she be coming with me?

I opened my mouth to ask…but then closed it again. This was the First Officer. I was a well-brought-up Officer’s Ward. You didn’t question the First Officer that way. It would be impudent, improper, impolite–and possibly imprudent. There were stories…whispered by the servants, never by anyone else…that some of those who had questioned Krenz’s decisions had simply…vanished.

Executed, or maybe exiled to the Middens, the vast garbage dump that filled the canyon The City spanned on its enormous metal legs. Thieves, murderers, the insane, mutants, monsters…there were plenty of whispers about what lurked down there, too, and those whispers came from the girls as well as the servants. The Thing from the Middens was a reliably scream-getter at any Twelfth Tier girls’ sleepover.

I didn’t really think Krenz would have me killed or exiled. That sort of thing just didn’t happen to well-brought up Wards.

But I didn’t see any reason to risk it. Especially not when I took a good look at the bright-blue eyes behind Krenz’s easy, friendly smile.

They looked as cold and blue as the sky above The City on a midwinter morning.

His smile was fading, which made those eyes looke even colder. He obviously wasn’t getting the reaction he expected.

“Sir, I…I don’t know what to say,” I finally managed, truthfully. “Why me?” Who am I, was what I really wanted to ask, but I knew it wouldn’t be answered, and Krenz didn’t want it asked. All I knew about my birth was that some mystery surrounded it, something to do with something called the Secret City Rebellion. Sallia had told me that once, in response to my endless questions, but then had said, “But the topic is forbidden. Don’t ask me again,” and had hurried away. I had asked her again, of course, but she’d never said anything more.

Which left me free to make up my own stories, of course. Sometimes I imagined that my parents must have been heroes, giving their lives to save the Captain from evil mutineers. More often I thought they must have been mutineers themselves, and had been executed, while her endless imprisonment was to punish her for her poor choice of ancestors.

Sometimes I even liked to pretend that they were still alive somewhere. Maybe they’d been exiled off in the Barrier Range, and I was a hostage to their continued good behavior. That would explain why I couldn’t be allowed to leave the City.

For about two weeks when I was ten I convinced myself that Beruthi somehow blamed himself for their deaths in the mysterious rebellion and had taken me in because he was a man of deep compassion. I hadn’t been able to sustain that daydream very long, however, since he so obviously wasn’t anything of the sort.

But none of those explanations explained this.

Krenz’s smile had given way to a careful expression of grave compassion. “I can’t tell you why,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know it isn’t fair. You’ve spent your whole life wondering who you are, and who your parents were, and no one will tell you.”

I blinked. It almost sounded like he’d read my mind. But not even The Captain was reputed to have that ability.

He leaned forward again. “Alania, I promise I will tell you, soon. But not yet. For reasons of City Security, your origins must remain secret.” His smile suddenly returned, but there were a lot more teeth in it than before, and his eyes were as cold as ever. “Suffice it to say, young lady, that you are…special. Quite possibly–quite probably–unique.”

And then stood up, so suddenly it startled me. “Well,” he said. “I must get to my meeting. Go back and enjoy your final evening here, Alania. I’ll send an escort for you tomorrow–it will have to be rather early, I’m afraid–to bring you Quarters Krenz. Everything from your rooms will be packed up for you after you leave; don’t worry about that.” He held out his right hand, and, still feeling kind of numb, I put out my left and let him help me to my feet.

I tried to pull my hand free, but he held on, shifting his grip to my wrist. “Just one more thing,” he said. “A…precaution. Nothing to worry about.” He took something from the pocket of his uniform jacket with his free hand. I’d seen it glinting there and had thought it was a pen, but it was too big around for that. He held it up, and I saw it had an opening at one end. “Put your middle finger in here.” He guided my hand toward it.

It wasn’t like I had much choice. I extended my finger and he slipped it into the opening in the strange little device. Soft rubber squeezed it like mechanical lips. “This may sting a little,” he said then.

Something jabbed my fingertip, the pain sharp and sudden. I yelped and tried to jerk my finger out, but Krenz held it immobile. “A simple blood test,” he said soothingly. “Nothing to worry about.”

The tube beeped, and the rubbery lips released my finger. Krenz let go of my wrist and an pulled my hand back, resisting the urge to suck my finger, which would definitely not be appropriate for a properly brought up young ward of an officer. I did take a quick look at it, though; a tiny round spot of synthiskin sealed the hole made by the needle.

Krenz raised the silvery tube to his face, and green light flashed, reflecting for an instant in his startlingly blue eyes. “Excellent!” he said. He slipped the tube back into his pocked. “Well, I’ll leave you to your celebrations, then, Alania,” he said. “Once again, congratulations. I look forward to getting to know you better in the weeks to come.” He headed to the door. “I can show myself out,” he said, and a moment later the door closed behind him, leaving me alone in the silent music room.

My knees suddenly felt just a little shaky, and I sat back down on the couch so hard I thought I felt a spring give way. What had just happened? In the morning…in just a few hours…my whole life was going to change forever. I felt as if the whole world had been turned upside down and dropped on my head.

All I wanted to do was run to my room and cuddle a stuffed animal or four, but I was–still–the properly brought up Ward of an Officer–Ward of the First Officer, tomorrow, I thought, which did nothing to undo the urge to hide–and there was a rather ostentatious party going on just a few doors down the hall at which I was the guest of honor.

Besides, I knew my guardian–my former guardian–had to be getting tired of Sandi and Lissa, and they had to be getting even more tired of him. Plus they must be dying of curiosity.

Could I tell them?

I didn’t see why not. The First Officer hadn’t indicated it was a secret, and everyone would find out soon enough.

And then I thought of the look on Bacrivia Janquille’s face when she found out, and I felt a little bit better. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, in Quarters Krenz, I thought. Maybe I’d finally find out the truth about who I was, and who my parents were. Maybe Krenz would be a wonderful guardian. Just because people called him a cold-hearted monster who would exile his own mother to the MIddens if she crossed him…

Ulp. Better not start thinking like that.

One thing at a time. Get up, go back to the party, be a gracious host, tell Sandi and Lissa what had happened, rub Bancrivia’s nose in it. All of those things were doable, and they were all I had to do tonight.

Tomorrow would take care of itself.

 

 

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Intro and Chapter 1 of Johnny Cash: The Man in Black

I’ve posted the openings to my Enslow biographies of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix–guess it’s time to give Johnny Cash his due.

I enjoyed writing about Johnny Cash because a) he was a really interesting guy and b) I grew up listening to him. My folks liked country music, and Cash was one of their favorites.

My only regret was that I didn’t find a place in the book to mention that Cash liked to fish in northern Saskatchewan. Normally, I never pass up an opportunity to sneak a little Saskatchewan into a book.

Herewith the introduction and first chapter of Johnny Cash: The Man in Black.

And, of course, a link to where you can buy it.

Johnny Cash: The Man in Black

By Edward Willett

Introduction

On January 13, 1968, a gray, gloomy Saturday, Johnny Cash entered Folsom State Prison in Repressa, California. With him were a crowd of musicians, technicians, photographers and reporters. Cash was about to do something no one had ever done before: record a live album in front of a crowd of prisoners.

With more than 3,500 inmates crowded into five enormous cellblocks, Folsom State Prison, the state’s second-oldest, held some of California’s worst offenders. About 2,000 prisoners assembled in the dining hall to hear the first of two shows. Armed guards patrolled overhead on walkways. The prisoners couldn’t be left in darkness, so the bright neon lights remained on throughout the concerts.

Marshall Grant, Cash’s long-time bass player, intended to bring Cash onstage with a big dramatic introduction as he always did, but Cash’s new producer, Bob Johnston, had other ideas. “All you gotta do,” he told Cash, “is walk out there and jerk your head around and say ‘Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.’”[1] Cash, he thought, “needed to assert control right from the start.”[2]

Cash took his advice. He walked out, grabbed the microphone, and said, “Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.”

It would become one of the most famous phrases in the history of American music.

The audience of prisoners exploded. Cash’s songs kept them at a high pitch of excitement and appreciation. He sang songs they could identify with, songs about prison and crime, loneliness and separation–and a few just for fun.

Unlike an audience on the outside, the prisoners didn’t just respond at the end of the song. Instead, they applauded whenever they heard a line they particularly identified with. Five tape machines running simultaneously in a truck in the prison yard captured their noisy appreciation and helped make not just a great live album, but what is generally considered one of the best live albums ever made.[3]

The album sold six million copies. It reached number 13 on the pop charts. It led directly to the equally popular Johnny Cash at San Quentin, which in turn led to Johnny Cash hosting his own television show on ABC. In 1969, Columbia Records announced that Johnny Cash had sold more records in the United States that year than the Beatles.

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison also solidified the public’s perception of Johnny Cash as an outlaw, a rebel who followed his own path, no matter what the cost.

Thirty years later, his reputation as a rebel with a cause–the cause of the ordinary man–led to an amazing comeback, as he released acclaimed albums that found a whole new audience among listeners who hadn’t even been born when he recorded at Folsom Prison.

But the Folsom Prison recording itself was an amazing comeback. At the time he recorded it, many people thought Johnny Cash was already washed up, a has-been who looked old before his time due to years of hard touring and drug abuse.

For Johnny Cash, the road to Folsom Prison and beyond was a rocky one. It began in the darkest years of the Great Depression, in one of the hardest-hit states: Arkansas.

Chapter 1: Early Days

Johnny Cash was born on February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. He was the third son of Ray Cash and Carrie Rivers.

Ray Cash was from the nearby town of Rison. He had met Carrie in 1919 while he was working cutting lumber near Kingsland. During his time there, he boarded with Carrie’s parents, John and Rosanna. He was 22 and she was 15, but despite the age difference they married just a year later, on August 18, 1920. Their first son, Roy, was born in 1921. Their daughter, Margaret Louise, came along three years later, and their second son, Jack, was born in 1929.

When Johnny Cash was born, his mother wanted to name him John, after her father. Ray, on the other hand, wanted to name him Ray. When they couldn’t agree, they simply named him J.R.

Ray Cash was a sharecropper, a farmer who didn’t own his land, but was allowed to use it in exchange for sharing part of the crop with the landowner. Cash farmed cotton, but after the Great Depression hit, he couldn’t make a living at it. Between 1928 and 1932, the price of a five-hundred-pound bale of cotton dropped from $125 to $25.[4]

Sidebar: The Great Depression

When the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, it triggered the Great Depression. It was the worst economic collapse in modern history. Banks failed, businesses closed, and more than 15 million Americans, one quarter of the workforce, lost their jobs.

President Herbert Hoover called it “a passing incident.” He was wrong: it would last until the 1940s.

In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President on the promise of a “New Deal” for Americans to help deal with the ravages of the Depression. The Dyess Colony where Johnny Cash grew up was just one of many government programs aimed at helping people cope.

In an era when women typically didn’t have jobs outside the home, men were expected to provide for their wives and children. That made not being able to find work particularly hard on husbands and fathers, who found it humiliating to have to ask for assistance.[5]

Johnny Cash recalled later that Ray Cash had to take on whatever work he could find, wherever he could find it. He worked at a sawmill. He cleared land. He laid railroad track. “He did every kind of work imaginable, from painting to shoveling to herding cattle.”[6]

When Ray Cash couldn’t find work, he’d hunt, feeding his family with small game like rabbits, squirrels, and opossum. And sometimes, when he had to, he’d ride the rails, traveling “in boxcars, going from one harvest to another to try to make a little money picking fruits or vegetables.”[7]

“Our house was right on the railroad tracks, out in the woods, and one of my earliest memories is of seeing him jump out of a moving boxcar and roll down the ditch in front of our door,” Cash wrote in his second autobiography, published in 1997.[8]

A new deal

Then in 1934 the family got a chance at a better life. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had set up the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to help Americans hard-hit by the Depression. Among its programs was one that offered to relocated needy families to a brand-new, model community. Originally known as Colonization Project Number One, the new community was later renamed Dyess, after an Arkansas government administrator.

Dyess was built on 16,000 acres of reclaimed swampland in Mississippi County, Arkansas. It had a town hall, a movie theater, a cotton mill, a cannery, churches, a cotton mill, shops, a school, and a hospital. Families relocated to Dyess would each receive a brand-new house, 20 acres of land to clear and farm, a barn, a mule, a milk cow, and a hen coop.[9]

To apply, families had to answer questions covering everything from their debts to their church preference, farming experience and club affiliations. Initially the Cashes were told they hadn’t been accepted, but for some reason that decision was reversed, and on March 23, 1935, a truck arrived to carry the family from Kingsland to Dyess. J.R., his father, his two brothers and the family’s belongings rode in the back under a tarpaulin. J.R.’s mother and his two sisters (his second sister, Reba, had been born the year before) rode up front next to the driver.

The 250-mile drive took a day and a half on narrow and muddy roads. Cash said the first song he could remember singing was “I Am Bound for the Promised Land,” as he bounced in the back of the truck.[10] On March 24, the family arrived to House 266 on the dirt track known as Road Three. There they found “a newly five-room house, a barn, a mule, a chicken coop, (a) smokehouse and an outdoor toilet. No plumbing, no electricity.”[11] But it was theirs. For the Cashes, it really did look like the Promised Land.

Settling in Dyess

The Dyess colony families were expected to be largely self-sufficient, growing their own food. However, they were also expected to grow cotton, which they sold collectively, sharing in any profits from the cotton gin and the store.

As Ray Cash and his oldest son, Roy, cleared the land of the thick vegetation that covered it, the three younger children played and Carrie Cash gardened. She grew the fruits and vegetables the family would need for the next winter, then canned them at the community cannery. Home economists from the government taught canning, cooking, dressmaking and other homemaking skills to the new colonists. Children received regular medical check-ups. Dyess, Johnny said later, was really a “socialistic setup.”[12]

Ray Cash had to make a yearly payment of $111.41 on his house and land. He made each one promptly. Each farmer also received an advance payment on his crops each year. Cash was one of the few who always repaid that advance promptly. Thanks to his hard work, by 1940, he had enough money to make a down payment on a farm next door, which doubled his land from 20 to 45 acres. By 1945, he owned both his land and house. [13]

At times the land itself seemed to be working against him. In January of 1937, the nearby Tyronza River and one of the main drainage ditches flooded. Carrie and the younger children were evacuated to Kingsland. Ray and Roy tried to stay at the house, but after a week they had to leave, too.

When the Cashes returned home on February 16, they found their house covered with silt. Snakes were living in the barn and hens had laid eggs on the living room sofa. Driftwood littered the land. But the farm survived. In fact, Ray thought the silt actually improved the soil. Afterward, he was able to harvest two bales of cotton per acre, along with soybeans and corn.

Starting school and starting work

The year after the flood, 1938, J.R. Cash turned six years old and got a new baby sister, Joanne. He also started school. When he wasn’t in school, though, he was expected to help out in the cotton field. He started out carrying water to the bigger workers, but as he grew older, he picked cotton alongside his father and older siblings.

Picking cotton and stuffing it into a six-foot-long canvas sack he had to drag along behind him was hard work. Ray Cash made it even hotter. He wouldn’t let anyone slack off, and he had a quick, hot temper. According to Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, when Roy Cash, J.R.’s oldest brother, made a mistake or was impertinent, his father would rip the leather reins off the mule and whip him.[14]

Johnny Cash always said his father never laid a hand on him, but he admitted his father verbally abused him more than once. His father could be harsh in other ways. When J.R. was four years old, he made a pet out of a stray dog. About a year later, Ray shot the dog in the head with a .22. He didn’t tell his sons about it until they found the body. He claimed the dog had been eating scraps intended for fattening the hogs.

“I thought my world had ended that morning, that nothing was safe, that life wasn’t safe,” Cash wrote in his second autobiography. “It was a frightening thing, and it took a long time for me to get over it.”[15]

Aside from the movie theater, Dyess didn’t offer much culture. But at least it had music. People sang as they worked in the fields. In the Road Fifteen Church of God that Carrie made J.R. attend, guitars, mandolins and banjoes would sometimes accompany the music.

Music takes hold

All that music began to take hold of J.R.’s soul. After his father bought a battery-operated radio, and the house was full of music. On Sundays it was mostly church music, but the rest of the week it was country music. The first song Cash remembered hearing on the radio was “Hobo Bill’s Last Ride,” the sorry tale of a hobo who died of neglect. Sometimes the signals drifted in from such far-away exotic places as Cincinnati and Chicago.

Ray Cash thought J.R. was wasting time when he listened to the radio. Carrie Cash, however, loved music. She played the piano in church and sang to the children in the evenings. Her father had taught singing, and she wanted her family to have music in their lives as they grew up just like she had.[16] That family had expanded again with the birth of a final child, Tommy, in 1940.

“We sang in the house, on the porch, everywhere,” Cash remembered. “We sang in the fields…I’d start it off with pop songs I’d heard on the radio, and my sister Louise and I would challenge each other: ‘Bet you don’t know this one!’ Usually I knew them and I’d join in well before she’d finished.”[17]

Roy Cash, J.R.’s big brother, even played in a band. The Delta Rhythm Ramblers, an amateur band made up of him and four schoolmates, won first place in a local talent contest in 1939, the year J.R. was seven. But the Second World Ware ended Roy’s brief musical career. The Delta Rhythm Ramblers broke up in 1941 as its members were drafted into the armed forces. Roy himself joined the navy.

After Roy left, J.R.’s next-oldest brother, Jack, became his mentor.

J.R. and Jack

Jack impressed everyone who met him. Even though he was just a young teenager, he was already talking about becoming a Baptist minister. J.R., two years younger, idolized him. Not only did Jack seem tougher and smarter than everyone else, he also seemed more Christian. “There was nobody in the world as good and as wise and as strong as my big brother Jack,” Cash wrote years later.[18]

J.R. went to church twice on Sundays and attended Bible study every Wednesday night. Influenced by that and by Jack’s example, early in 1944 he decided give his life to Christ. He was 12 years old, the “age of accountability,” when a child is old enough to decide whether or not he will be a Christian.

As the congregation at First Baptist Church in Dyess sang the old hymn “Just As I Am” on February 26, 1944, J.R. walked down the aisle to the front of the church. Jack was sitting in the front row. J.R. took the preacher’s hand, then knelt at the altar. “It was like a birthday rolling around,” he wrote in his first autobiography. ”I felt brand-new, born again.”[19] He also felt closer to Jack than ever before.

But then came Saturday, May 12, 1944.

J.R. decided to go fishing in one of the large drainage ditches. He asked Jack to go with him, but Jack refused. He was heading to the school workshop, where he earned extra money by cutting fence posts.

The two brothers started out walking together, then separated. About noon J.R. headed for home. As he reached the place where he and Jack had split up, he saw a Model A Ford heading toward him. The preacher was driving. J.R. father was with him. Ray Cash told J.R. to throw away his fishing pole and get in, and J.R. knew something terrible had happened.

As they drove on, Ray told J.R. that Jack had been badly hurt. He’d been pulled onto the circular saw in the school workshop. The blade had ripped through his clothes and into his stomach.

Jack lingered for a few days. On May 20, he asked his mother whether she could hear the angels singing. He told her he could hear them, and that was where he was going. Then he died. “After Jack’s death I felt like I’d died, too,” Cash wrote in his second autobiography. “I was terribly lonely without him. I had no other friend.”[20]

Even worse, J.R.’s father blamed him for Jack’s death. “Ray told him bluntly that he should have died rather than his faithful brother, and he had no business going fishing while Jack was out working for the family,” Steve Turner wrote in his authorized biography, The Man Called Cash.[21]

The tragedy, his own guilt, and his father’s accusation had one positive outcome: it kick-started J.R.’s creativity. “It’s when I started writing,” Cash said. “I was trying to put down what I was feeling.”[22]

“Putting down what he was feeling” would eventually make Johnny Cash one of the greatest American songwriters in history.

But in 1944, his first steps along the road to fame were still more than a decade away.

INTRODUCTION

[1] Streissguth, Michael. Johnny Cash : the biography. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2006, p. 150.

[2] Turner, Steve. The Man Called Cash. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2004, p. 124.

[3] Kot, Greg. “A Critical Discography.” Cash: by the Editors of Rolling Stone. New York: Crown Publishers, 2004, p. 188.

 

CHAPTER ONE

[4] Turner, Steve. The Man Called Cash. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2004, p. 17.

[5] PBS.org. “The American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl: The Great Depression.” < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl..., (May 16, 2008).

[6] Gross, Terry. “Interview with Johnny Cash.” Fresh Air (National Public Radio), August 21, 1998.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Cash, Johnny, with Carr, Patrick. Johnny Cash: The Autobiography. New York: HarperCollins, 1997, p. 5.

[9] Turner, p. 17.

[10] Cash and Carr, p. 13.

[11] Harrington, Richard. “Walking the Line; Johnny Cash’s Craggy Legend,” The Washington Post, December 8, 1996.

[12] Cash, Johnny. Man in Black. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975, p.24.

[13] Streissguth, Michael. Johnny Cash : the biography. Cambridge : Da Capo Press, 2006, p. 13.

[14] Ibid, p. 16.

[15] Cash and Carr, pp. 237-238.

[16] Turner, p. 20.

[17] Cash and Carr, p. 71.

[18] Cash, p. 34.

[19] Ibid, p. 38.

[20] Cash and Carr, p. 37.

[21] Ibid, p. 23.

[22] Ibid, p. 25.

Saturday Special That’s Not Actually from the Vaults: The Seven-Sentence Story

I’m conducting a workshop this afternoon on writing science fiction and fantasy, in my role as writer-in-residence (for just one more month!) at the Regina Public Library.

Now, it’s easy to just talk for an hour and a half about writing, but I want people to actually do some writing: and to that end, I’m going to make us of an exercise that SF author and high-school teacher Jim van Pelt came up with, The Seven-Sentence Story.

Since I want to make sure everyone writes SF or fantasy, I’ve made one alteration to his rules, insisting that the first sentence establish the fantastical nature of the piece.

Here’s how it works:

The seven-sentence story

1. Introduce what the main character wants and the first action he/she takes to accomplish that goal; establish it’s a science fiction or fantasy story with some fantastical element.

2. The results of the action the charact takes in sentence #1 has to make the situation worse. The character should be farther from the goal now.

3. Based on the new situation, the character takes a second action to accomplish the goal.

4. The results of the second action the character takes from sentence #3 is to make the situation worse. The character should be even farther from the goal now.

5. Based on the new situation, the character takes a third and final action to accomplish the goal.

6. The third action either accomplishes the character’s goal, fails to accomplish the goal, or there is an unusual but oddly satisfying different result of the last action.

7. The denouement. This sentence wraps up the story. It could tell the reader how the character felt about the results, or provide a moral, or tell how the character’s life continued on.

Now, I’m a strong believer in the notion that if you’re going to ask students to do something, you should be willing (and able) to do it yourself. So I wrote my own seven-sentence story. This took me about 15 or 20 minutes, start to finish, including one pass at revision.

My attempt:

1. Anethor, strapped to the belly of the great dragon, stared down at the pointed tops of the spindly towers of the great city of Karrnikk, saw the wizard on his balcony right where the bribed servant had told him he would, drew his sword, and pulled the quick-release buckle on the straps…

2. …or what was supposed to be the quick-release buckle: the mechanism only released the strap holding his upper body to the beast, not the one holding his legs, so that instead of falling free, ready to spread his mechanical wings and glide down to the attack, his torso fell with a jerk that threatened to snap his spine—and he dropped his sword.

3. The blade fell, twisting and spinning, the red light of the setting sun flashing off of it with every turn, while Anethor, swearing, hanging like a cased ham from the oblivious dragon’s stomach, drew his dagger, jackknifed himself up, and slashed through the remaining strap.

4. Now at last he fell free—but that suddenly seemed far from a blessing, as he pulled the cord to release his wings, only to have the cord come free in his hand and the wings remain neatly tucked away in their leather backpack.

5. Undone by what could only have been sabotage, he looked down at the pointed towers hurtling toward him and had no other choice but scream his teacher’s name: “Taaaaaannnnniiiiissssss!”

6. Instantly his plunge toward destruction halted and, light as a feather on the breeze, he wafted down to the wizard’s balcony, landing upright with no more impact than if he had stepped off the curb, finding himself face to face with the Wizard Tanis, who smiled slightly and inclined his head.

7. “A valiant attempt,” said the old man (which, Anethor thought, was some consolation, since as Master of the Apprentices to the Assassin’s Guild, Tanis had seen a thousand attempts by students trying to get close enough to kill him without him being aware of it), “but you forgot one very important rule,” and here Tanis’s smile widened, as he looked up at the winged beast circling overhead, showing its fangs in a toothy grin: “Never trust a dragon with a secret.”

I look forward to seeing what the students come up with!

The SpeechJammer

As a writer, freedom of speech is near and dear to my heart. It’s one of the basic principles of the democratic form of government. And yet it seems to be constantly under attack, for one simple reason: it’s easy to say you believe in free speech when people are saying what you agree with. It’s a lot harder when they start saying things you vehemently disagree with.

“He/she/they shouldn’t be allowed to say that!” is perhaps a natural human response, but it’s still one that must be overcome if free speech is to flourish. Which is why I find a recent technological development rather disturbing.

Imagine if, instead of shouting down people who say things we disagree with (as, disturbingly, so many people seem to think is the best way to deal with disagreeable speech, even—especially, it sometimes seems—on university campuses), squelchers-of-free-speech had a gun that could prevent someone from talking.

It sounds bizarre, but that’s exactly what Japanese researchers Koji Tsukada and Zautaka Kurihara believe they have come up with.

They call it the “SpeechJammer,” and it works because, in order to speak properly, we need to hear what we’re saying: we modulate our speech based on this auditory feedback. Singers can sing better when they can hear their own voices over headphones in the recording studio, or over the monitors on-stage: radio personalities, ditto.

But interfere with that auditory feedback by delaying the sounds coming back to our ears by just a tiny bit, and we become discombobulated: it’s thought that the delay actually interferes with our brains’ cognitive processes. And that’s exactly what the SpeechJammer does: it squirts a person’s own words back to them after a delay of 0.2 seconds.

As the researchers put it in their paper, “This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately the speaking stops. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker.”

The researchers’ prototype SpeechJammer consists of a directional microphone and speaker attached to a box that also holds a laser pointer and a distance sensor (and, of course, a computer, which computes the delay based on the distance to the speaker). To interfere with someone’s speech, you point the SpeechJammer at the person talking, using the laser pointer as a guide, and simply pull the trigger. It can be effective up to 34 metres away.

The researchers conducted a preliminary study with five participants, testing various settings and using the SpeechJammer on two different kinds of speech: “reading news aloud” and “spontaneous monologue.”

They found that speech jamming occurred more frequently in the “reading news aloud” context than in the “spontaneous monologue” context, and that it never occurs when meaningless sounds such as “Ahhh” are uttered over a long time period.

Their preliminary study has pointed them toward further research to make their device work better, but the technology seems so simple and straightforward (so straightforward they’re not even attempting to patent it) that it will almost certainly find real-world applications.

Which is where it gets a little creepy. Imagine politicians cut off in mid-speech because someone is jamming them. If you think that sounds grand, you’re not thinking hard enough, because it won’t just be the politicians of the hated other party getting squelched, but the brilliant orators of your own beloved movement.

Or imagine you’re at a meeting where your boss is presenting changes to the workplace you strongly disagree with—but you are unable to voice your concerns because the conference table is equipped with a SpeechJammer at every seat that allows whomever is chairing the meeting to literally control who gets to talk, and for how long.

That’s not to say I can’t imagine plenty of occasions when I think such a device might be useful and even desirable—but the point is, you might imagine plenty of occasions, too, and they’re probably not the same occasions.

As Peter, Paul and Mary didn’t sing (but might have), “If I had a jammer, I’d jam you in the morning, I’d jam you in the evening, all over this land…”

The world might be quieter. But a lot less free.

(The photo: Me, giving a speech.)