Today, I was thinking over the elements of a story. Do you remember those? I think I learned them in fourth grade. I remember Mrs. Moir drawing the diagram of a plot on the board. It was important that we throughly understood this concept. Nobody wanted to read a story where the climax happened at the beginning and then later the characters were introduced. That just wouldn't make any sense.

Just recently, I had been spending some time mulling over this structure, and then it occurred to me that I had seen this very same chart elsewhere, but it wasn't in fourth grade Language Arts. But it was sometime in elementary school. Ah! It was in health class.

Where I grew up in Canada, Sex Education was given a code name: Theme Five. I'm not sure why it was called that, but I imagine that it had something to do with the fact that it was the last unit in health class, and I needed a signed permission slip to participate. I always thought that it was funny how they gave it that name. As if the topic of sex weren't mysterious enough for an eleven year old; we had to make it into Area 51. But it's not like any of us really needed a class on it. Half of the class believed that sex had something to do with birds and bees and flowers and storks; and the other half, my half, had found a Playboy on the soccer field. We had already learned all we needed.

I didn't think much of the plot diagram at the time the "Health" teacher drew it on the board, but now it's bringing up all sorts of questions for me. Questions that might be best answered by a shrink. I certainly don't recall needing a cigarette after reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Eeeww. Is that why my mother always read those sleazy romance novels? It's one of those things that makes that makes your whole body convulse in illness. Brrrruaa.

Yesterday, I passed my checkride. For those of you who don't know the story, I hired on with a regional airline in June, and have been in training since. I have been in Toronto for the last two weeks, and yesterday, was the test to determine whether or not I am capable of my duties. I passed. So that's good news.

Anyway, my flight out of here is not until tomorrow. So, I've been having some difficulty filling the hours. It's now one o'clock. So, being that my fridge has to be emptied by tomorrow, I have started to drink the remaining beer in my fridge. After an hour of pacing my room, I decided to turn on the television.

God bless Canadian television.

As I flicked through the channels, I passed a program that had a lot of bright colours and movement. Now, I have been married to a woman for six years who loves colours and movement. So instinctively, I changed the channel back. What was on that channel? Some form of corporate dancing. There were twenty or thirty people dancing a choreographed dance all in sync with each other. Again, being that I have been married to Laura for six years, I have take somewhat of an appreciation for things like this.

The music was quite odd. The singer wasn't singing in English (mostly). Then I realized that none of the dancers were white. Then I realized that I was on an Indian/Pakistani network. Which brings me to my weakness. Music videos made by Arabs and Hindus. They are so terrible that I get mesmerized and am unable to change the channel. Well, between the group dancing and the pseudo-Hindu music, I was rendered useless. Besides, after a while, and a few beers, they actually started to get pretty good.

The show had been on for fifteen or twenty minutes before I realized that it was no music video, this is a movie! Hell yes! So for two hours I watched the movie Main Hoon Na starring Murli Sharma. It was a dramatization of the Pakistani and Indian conflict. There was a hero who was a military man, who infultrates a rogue group of Indian terrorists. But he's also in love with a girl. The story kind of fell off as I drank the last beer. So it might not be about any of that. What? It was in subtitles.

Yeah, I fell in love with the crazy dancing, singing and the plot that had been cut from the B reel. But basically, it was kind of a cross between The Sound of Music, Chicago, James Bond, and Wind Talkers. It was awesome. Here's a clip.

My childhood is somewhat of an mystery to most people who know me. Not a lot of people know how I was raised and what that involved. For most of you, I imagine you grew up taking trips with friends and family, or spending your long weekends with a multitude of people. That is not how my childhood went. Mine was better, and worse. By now you should be hearing some odd sounds coming through your speakers. These are the sounds of my childhood.http://moosejockey.com/index.php?blog_id=000199

I grew up on a river. It's hard to say which one I did the most growing up on, but I certainly paddled the North Saskatchewan, Brazeau, and Red Deer rivers more that a few times. My dad is an expert canoeist; he loves the river. And so, I learned from a very early age how to refinish paddles, enter eddies and tie knots. Till this day I can tie a bowlline or a double half-hitch with my eyes closed. I know, you'd think a double half-hitch would be called just "hitch," but it isn't. It doesn't make mathematical sense, but that's the way it is.

I can remember more nights sleeping on the shore of a river than I can anywhere else. That sound can lull anyone to sleep; after you pee three or four times of course. I remember thinking that the sound of grasshoppers was actually the sound that the stars made. It wasn't until adulthood that I realized that stars are silent. In the mountains of Alberta there is no man-made light. Even on a busy weekend, full of vacationing campers, your closest camping neighbor may be hundreds miles away; this is especially true when you canoe. There are no other people. Anywhere.

A full night can be found by lying on your back watching the stars. I cannot explain to you how many stars that one can see on a night up there, but I will say that on a clear, moonless night, the stars alone are enough to light your way through the woods. There is no smog. There are no people. It's just you, and the person you're with, a campfire, and the infinite canvas God himself painted. And of course, there is the river.
My father loved to paddle the rivers. He paddled class four rapids before covered canoes were popular or even available. It was in his blood. He would always buy new boats. He would take two and a half weeks of his three weeks vacation in a year and paddle some of the most treacherous waters in Canada. He would paddle on the weekends, and he would pout in the winter when the rivers were frozen over. To fill the hours he would read books about rivers, or he would spend his time going over the maps and planing the trips for Spring. I didn't really know my dad.

There were only a few times that I can remember actually talking to my dad when I was a kid. In those times, we were surrounded by fast-moving water. Those times were the best times I can remember. We had deep discussions. He'd tell me a little about his dad who had died just a few years before I was born. He would tell me about how he knew I'd grow up to do great things. He'd ask me my opinion about things, and really listen to the answer. He'd brag about me. He'd laugh. He'd sometimes cry, but I didn't care, we were together.

Whenever the trip was over, dad would close up. Sometimes things would get so rough between him an mom that when I would get home from school on Friday, the canoe was gone, and he would be on the river. Towards seventh grade, dad started taking more and more trips down the river by himself. We talked less and less. I stopped knowing my dad. I started to hate the river.

Today, something reminded me of nights next to the river. As I closed my eyes, I could hear a Chickadee talking while I lie in the tent. A loon, sang in the distance. A coyote howled from more miles away than I cared to walk. Some nights, most nights, I could hear distant thunder, a sure sign that there would be rain over night. The stars kept chirping. And then there was the river.

My father and I have come along way since high school. I actually have gotten to know my dad in the absence of the water, and we are very close. But I didn't figure it out until just today why he had such an attachment to the river. It's for the same reasons that I am so attached.

Every moment spent on or around the river brings hope to my soul. I can only speculate as to why, but I would guess that the water does it. The water comes from its mountain home across the land for a long journey to arrive at the sea. The water flows over rocks, and branches, and cliffs, it even gets dammed up some times, but it always arrives at the sea. There is hope in that I suppose. In the silence on the river, you can actually do business with yourself. In that stillness there, a man can see more clearly the difference between the way things are and the way things ought to be. That line is all to often blurred in regular life. In the quiet, you can hear that still small voice.

To me, the river is home. Sadly, it has been close to a decade since I have been there. Maybe the line is a little blurred in my life. I think that it couldn't hurt to turn down the volume to hear that still small voice.

In Canada, the third Monday of every May is a holiday; Victoria Day. This holiday exists in observance of Queen Victoria's birthday (May 24th). It used to be that the holiday would fall on the first Monday following May 25th, but it is much easier to remember this way.

Not many people in Canada call this holiday by its real name, most call it, "May long weekend," or just "May Long" for short. Laura hates that they call it May Long. But she's not going to change thirty-six million peoples' minds, so the name remains.

May Long is very weird in that it is observed by nearly every single Canadian. In fact, I don't know a single one who does not have a three-day weekend in May. Everyone has their own, slightly varying, tradition for May Long, but the theme is usually the same. Camping. It doesn't matter how prissy or whimpy a person is; he or she will go camping on May Long.

Here is the rundown.

Those who are lucky, leave work at around noon on Friday. They will go home, get all of their camping gear, food, cards, beer, beer and beer ready to load. At about three, they will all pile into a truck or SUV and drive out to a river or lake and set up camp. Next, a fire gets made. Music is played loudly. And all the while beer is being consumed. Just as dinner--steak, potatoes and beer--is served, it starts to rain. Hard. Most people don't care though. They will generally sit in rugged lawn chairs and laugh and joke until the wee hours of the morning; rain or not.

It never changes. Every May Long Weekend it will rain; or snow. You'd think that people would pack up camp and head for home. You'd be wrong. There are a few major reasons why this wont happen. 1) Most are too drunk by this point to pack up, let alone drive three or four hours home. 2) To pack up is a sign of weakness. If you pack up before Monday on May Long, you will never live it down. Besides, most people can't feel the cold after too many beers. 3) Despite the weather's track record, there is always a belief that the weather will get better. It usually does. On Monday afternoon, it is always sunny.

Weather or not, people always seem to have a good time. Someone always gets hurt a little, but usually he or she will be alright. To me, I always have to smirk at those Canadian kids who were born between February 15th and March 7th. I always look at them and think, "HA! You were conceived in a tent!" Because if it's raining and cold outside, there is only one fun way to keep warm I suppose.

This year, along with the last six years, missed May Long. That's OK though. When I finally get back up to Canada for a Victoria Day Weekend, it will be one heck of a party. Here is to the May Long Weekend, I wish I had been there.