Monday, 17 February 2025

Artsy Winter Photos


     We’ve had a cold month of February.  Yesterday I got all excited because the afternoon temperature actually climbed above freezing (+2°C  36°F), but that excitement was misplaced because this morning our temperature was again back to a frigid -20°C  -4°F.  It is still winter.

    I measured the snow on the ground and found it to be 14 inches (35cm).  Normally we have about 24 inches on the ground at this point.  

    The cold temperatures have not stopped me from looking around for interesting things to photograph.  Here are a couple of recent ones.  

    I really liked the one above, with the bent stem of grass, buried at both ends in the snow.  The photo below shows flaky ice crystals that had formed on my pond outflow.



Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Leaving Las Vegas


    I have never been a gambling man.  I am one of those that prefer to have one bird in the hand, rather    I have never been a gambling man.  I am one of those that prefer to have one bird in the hand, rather than two in the bush, so I am pretty tight fisted with the money I have.  

    Back when I was working for the BC Forest Service, the workers all pooled money to buy a lottery ticket every week.  I think most of them did it, dreaming of winning great wealth.  I did for self defense.  I knew it would drive me crazy if our office won big, and every one left to retire, and I would be the only one still working there.

    On the Spring Break in 1993, we flew to Las Vegas to visit my brother Rob for a couple of days, and then flew on Los Angeles to visit visit my other brother Roy for a few days.  After those two really interesting visits, we flew back to Vegas to catch our flight back to Canada.

    Of course, one really can’t visit Vegas without going in and experiencing casino life, which I found very bizarre; all those people cemented to their stools in front of slot machines, spending their lives continually pressing the buttons to make the symbols spin around, hoping for a big payout.  The bright colored flashing lights and the constant dinging of the bells, all added to the strange chaos.  

    Naturally, despite my feeling about gambling being a mug’s game, I did try a couple of nickel slot machines.  I won $15 before I lost it, then quit.

    I found our flight home also very interesting.  When we were settling into our seats, everyone around us in the plane were talking about all the money they had lost.  The guy in the seat beside me told me his story.   He had missed his flight home, and so had to stay in Vegas for three extra days to catch another one.  During those three days, I guess time was heavy on his hands so he started gambling.  He told me he then lost “several thousands dollars”.  I guess their motto about some things “staying in Vegas” i



Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Saturday, 15 February 2025

The Day I was A Beatle


         Today it is hard to conceive the cultural shift that began with the Beatles.  In 1964 midwestern North America was extremely conservative in everything, including thought, music, dress, and hairstyle.  In the Beatles, I saw something I really liked, and tried to emulate.  In doing so, I created turbulence with most of the older generation around me.

    Surprisingly, my mother helped me out in my enthusiasm over the Beatles.  She saw me standing in front of a mirror one day, trying to turn under the collar behind my neck on my sport coats, in an attempt to make it look like one of the jackets that the Beatles wore.  She had lots of experience making, and adjusting clothing on her sewing machine, and so after a discussion about what I was looking for, she walked off with my sports coat and started to work on it.

    She did a great job transforming the coat.  The result looked just like a Beatle jacket that I could button straight up to my neck, which was round, like a sweater.  It looked just like a Beatle jacket.  I was eager to wear it, any chance I got.

    Mr. Hoover, our choir director, liked to have us present ourselves in a professional manner.  Before our tour to rural high schools, he called me in and talked to me about my hair, (I think on Vice Principal Buck’s behalf), but I explained again, that I liked long hair, and my hair length wasn’t hurting anyone, and so he soon dropped the subject.

    In order to appear professional and sophisticated on these tours, female members of the choir were directed to dress in formal type long dresses, while us males were to be attired in dark trousers, white shirt and tie, and sport coats.  My “sport coat” was my Beatle jacket.

    Off we went to the rural Indiana high schools.  While Evansville, my conservative home town always seemed to me to be extremely ‘out of it’ when it came to popular culture, I was in for a shock when we entered the doors of these rural high schools.  The students from these agricultural small towns had never seen any live person that looked anything close to what I looked like.

    I was noticed, followed around, with girls were pointing and giggling, kids were coming up and to look through the cafeteria windows at me as I ate my lunch.  It was all very strange and unsettling to be getting so much overt attention.

    I had always thought it would be great to have all the adoration and attention that the Beatles received, but after that day in those rural Indiana high schools, I began to realize how much I disliked being on constant display.  It became a real dilemma for me.   I wanted to wear my hair long, but I also wanted to just be left alone and anonymous.  This wouldn’t have been too hard in a big urban center, but the two didn’t mix very well in southern Indiana.

    That episode that began in Mr. Buck’s office did change the direction of my life.  I began to feel what is like to be discriminated against, because of a physical attribute.  I hadn’t hurt anyone, so why had I been treated like I had.  I began to feel a greater empathy towards blacks, the handicapped, and others who faced overt and subtle discrimination.

    Vice Principal Buck was wrong.  My long hair hadn’t made me end up in prison, although at one point, because of the moral stand I took against the Viet Nam war, I thought that prison might just be my fate.

    In the course of my life, the time spent in the Vice Principal’s office was of extremely short duration, but it had life-long implications for me.  It gave me some satisfaction and confidence knowing that when I was faced with threats and bullying that I felt was unjust, I had refused to cave in.  I had stood my ground and was prepared to face the consequences.  That stance, which I first took in Mr. Buck’s office, eventually led me to leave my home country of the United States, and to live the remainder of my life in more tolerable and open-minded Canada.

        I photoshopped the photo above to give you an idea of what my Beatle coat looked like.


View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca


Friday, 14 February 2025

The Concert Choir on Tour


   I was a member of our high school’s elite concert choir.  It was recognized for having some really talented vocalists.  I wasn’t really one of the outstanding soloist, but I had a solid background from years of singing in the church choir and could sing in tune, and carry the bass harmony parts.  I was one of the handful of Sophomore students, chosen to be in the Concert Choir that was made up of junior and senior high school students.

Several times throughout the school year, the concert choir would travel around and perform.   It had been on one of our previous choir tours, that we had found ourselves up in the big capital city of Indianapolis on Nov. 22, 1963.

I don’t remember anything about those concerts, but I will always remember that when we arrived at one of the schools ready to give an afternoon concert, we were told by some of the students that were there to greet us, that President Kennedy had been shot.

    I didn’t believe them.  I figured the big city kids were just trying to put something over on us country bumpkins, but as the day progressed, I kept hearing news of the killing from different sources and I began to think that maybe it had happened.  Sometime before we left Indianapolis that the evening,  I managed to buy a newspaper and seeing the news in print, erased any doubt in my mind about the event.

Anyway, in 1964 our Concert Choir was again scheduled to tour, this time to give performances at a couple of outlying rural/regional high schools.  I didn’t really think too much about the concerts beforehand, except to revel in the prospect of getting out of classes for a day.  Because we were to perform in smaller schools in rural sections of Indiana, instead of playing the part of the “country bumpkins” as we did in Indianapolis, we would be the urban sophisticates, and our audience would be the bumpkins.

    The photo shows me, the Beatle, in the choir.  I had an interesting day ahead of me.


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Thursday, 13 February 2025

February 10, 1964: The Most Extraordinary Day of High School, Part 3


             The photo above shows me with the outrage haircut that was going to “ruin my life”.

    After school, in line waiting to board the school bus, and then all the way home, my new celebrity status continued to make me the center of attention.  By this time, having told about getting called to the Vice Principal’s Office and being harassed by Mr. Buck so many times, I could repeat my story without much thought.  Of course, the day wasn’t over; there was more to come once I got home.

    Certainly, my hair did change the direction of my life that day.  That morning when I went to school, I had "long hair" just because I liked it.  By the time I climbed back on the bus to go home, it had become a matter of individual human rights and principle.  

            I was a kind, friendly, polite, and trustworthy guy, who didn't cause any trouble, and suddenly, I felt persecuted for no justifiable reason.  I thought it would be wrong just to blindly cave in to an authority, if I had done nothing wrong, and it seemed to me that they were using brute power without valid justification.

    The struggle intensified when my father got home from work.  Naturally, Mr. Buck had called my parents and told them of their son’s deviant behavior.  That night, I felt the beginnings of a chasm that began to open up in the relationship I had with my father.  Since I felt completely innocent of doing anything wrong and being unjustly persecuted, I had assumed that my father would support me, but I was mistaken.

    My crewcut father in his younger years had taken a stand that had gone against popular opinion.  During World War II, he was a non-combatant conscientious objector, and because of his moral stand, he had spent his military service working in an Army medical laboratory.  Since then however, he seemed to shy away from taking controversial stands.  He was a quiet, honest, law-abiding loving man, and when he heard that the school’s vice principal wanted me to get a haircut, that was what he wanted too.   

    It was a fractious evening of argument and loud debate.  In the end, my father drove me down to the barbershop at North Park shopping center and I allowed my hair to be trimmed in the back.  That was as much as I was willing to compromise.  

    First thing the next day, I did as I did as I had been commanded to do, I reported to Mr. Buck's office.  When Mr. Buck saw me, he was livid, and he escorted me back into his office again.  

    “I thought I told you to get your hair cut,” he snorted.

    “I did,” I replied.

    “It doesn’t look cut to me.” he said.

    “I got it trimmed in the back,”  I told him.

    Then, Mr. Buck, started in again on the mantra of how I was “ruining my life”, by not conforming to the norm, and that I was going to “end up in jail” because of my deviant behavior.  Finally in frustration, and having run out of threats and bluster, he told me to go back to class which I was more than happy to do.

    A few weeks after my appearance in Mr. Buck’s office, all the hub-bub about my hair had died down, although my popularity, and new status remained high. I was never again to be called down to the office, but I did experience another extraordinary day because of my long hair.


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

February 10. 1964: The Most Extraordinary Day of High School, Part 2


 (Continued from yesterday)  The photo shows me and my offending hair.


    This was turning out to be a really unusual day. That morning on the school bus, everyone was abuzz with talk of "The Beatles", who they had watched last night on the Ed Sullivan Show.  When I finally arrived at school and I got off the bus, there was even more excitement in the air.

    Suddenly, everybody knew about The Beatles, and just as suddenly, I was the center of attention because of my hair.  Students I had never met were coming up to me and calling me a “Beatle”.  Over night, my status at school had sky-rocketed to a level usually reserved for a star athlete after a big game.  I  felt like a celebrity.  I had suddenly become the school expert on the Beatles.

    I was beginning to suspect that maybe this whole Mr. Buck thing might be about my hair--but no, my hair was only 2 days longer than it was last week, and no one had ever said anything about it then, so there I sat, watching students, teachers, and staff come and go from the office, all giving me secret glances and whispering as they went about their business.

    So there I sat, looking at the, inspirational and the health warning posters on the wall in Mr. Buck’s outer office.  I picked at my fingernails, and looked at my shoes as I sat there for 15 minutes.  The bell rang, and through the glass, I could see the sudden hoard of kids surge by as they changed classes.  It didn’t take long for the word of my situation to spread, and some of my friends were peeking in to see what was happening to me.  By this time, I was pretty sure that my present situation did not have anything to do with some tragedy that had befallen my  family.

    After the late bell had sounded and the halls had once again emptied, I guess Mr. Buck figured the his target had been softened up enough by this time, because his secretary was buzzed and she picked up her phone, and nodded her head, looked at me and said, “Mr. Buck will see you now.”

    I grabbed my books and slowly shuffled in to Mr. Buck’s Office.  It seemed dark, and foreboding, but maybe that was just my perception.

    “Have a seat, David.” he said, motioning with his hand at a chair sitting directly in front of his desk.  I lowered myself down on the chair, looked up, to see that he was staring at me with his mouth set as he slowly shook his head.

    “What the hell are you trying to pull, David?”

    “What?” I responded.

    “What are you doing coming to school with your hair like that?" Mr. Buck countered.

    “Like what?” I replied.

    “Like a girl’s.  We are not going to allow you to come to school with that long hair.”

    “But, my hair isn’t that long.  Guys with ducktails that slick it back, have longer hair than I do.” I said.

    “Well, I don’t like it, and I want you to get it cut.” Mr Buck demanded.

    I guess I have a negative view of authority, and I replied that I didn’t really care for his hair all that much either, and then added that my hair wasn’t any different now than it had been last week, or the week before that, and no one had said anything about it then.  This whole thing was not about me, it was about the Beatles.  Everything had been okay, until they appeared on TV.

    After about 30 minutes of verbal sparing.  Mr Buck told me to go back out to the outer office, sit there and "think about things".  So, clutching my books, I rose from the chair and walked back out to my seat in the outer office.

    By now, it was time for the first lunch period, (there were 3, so that the school could get all of the students fed), when the bell sounded the halls again filled with students, and some with ‘early lunch’ were slowly walking back and forth past the office, staring at me and giving me hand signals, both the stroking of the index finger, which meant “shame on you”, and the thumbs up sign of support.

    Since the “Early Lunch Period” was my allotted time to eat, I was temporarily freed and allowed to go for a shortened lunch.  As I left the confines of Mr. Buck’s Office, I was suddenly surrounded by the curious.  I was the hottest news in the school that morning, so in between my eating, I had to repeat, over and over, the events of my morning.  Even people I didn’t know gathered around to hear about my incarceration.  I was not given a full lunch period, so I soon found myself, reporting back to my seat in the office, where I waited and thought, and waited some more.

    Then after 45 minutes or so, I was called back into Buck’s office, and he had at me again.   During this part of my interrogation the threats of being barred from school were replaced warnings of personal destruction.  The high point of this session was his remarks that I was “ruining my life,” and “if I didn’t make some changes now, I would probably end up in prison”. 

    This seemed a bit too dramatic a result for just having hair that was a bit longer than normal.  He concluded by demanding that I should go get my hair cut after school and to report back to his office "first thing tomorrow morning".  I was then dismissed and allowed to continue with my education


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca


Tuesday, 11 February 2025

February 10, 1964: The Most Extraordinary Day of High School


      Moles, God, I hated moles.  Not the furry blind animal that burrowed under the ground, leaving the scattered eruptions of dirt across the lawn that exploded into dust when I mowed over them.  Those moles were okay, animals were interesting.  It was those chemistry moles; gases with weight, that were giving me the grief. 

    I’d always liked science, at least I thought I did.  I had been looking forward to this chemistry class in high school, envisioning myself in a room full of bubbling beakers, test tubes, and little hoses coming out of boiling flasks, mixing colorful liquids, and creating powerful reactions.   Nowhere in those visions were there moles.  

    With a sigh, I glanced back down at my notes.  At the top of the page I had already jotted down the date:  Feb. 10, 1964, the day after the big Beatle appearance, and under that I had written the word ‘Moles’ then under that, “Number of moles” with a dash behind it, but that was as far as my enthusiasm had gotten me so far that morning. 

            Mr. Kirk, was up there droning on, and clicking the chalk board with his pointer near the ‘CO2’ symbol which he had just circled.  All this talk of moles, could only mean it was going to be a very very long hour, but the monotony was broken by a knock on the door and a 10th grade girl who came in and handed Kirk a note.

    “David Marchant, gather up your books and come up here please.”

    His words instantly vaporized the fog that had been gathering around my brain, and immediately Mr. Kirk had my undivided attention.  I closed my notebook, reached under my chair and grabbed my Chemistry book.

    As I stood up, I was suddenly aware that all of the 48 eyes that shared this chemistry class were on me.

    “What in the world was going on?” I wondered, as I slipped my Bic pen into the hip pocket of my jeans and tried to be nonchalant, as I walked up to the front of the class where Mr. Kirk handed me the pink piece of paper.

    “Looks like you have an appointment with Mr. Buck.” he said in his dry tone of voice.

    Now my mind was racing.  Mr. Buck was the Vice Principal.

    I knew who he was of course:  Sculpted dark thick oiled hair, above the heavy black rimmed glasses, as he went strutting through the halls with his suit coat open, held back by the hands in his pockets.  Mr. Buck was the one who dealt with the trouble-makers.  I had heard hundreds of stories, and rumors about him slamming tough guys up against the lockers and handing out weeks of detention and suspensions.

    What did he want with me?  Maybe something had happened to my family?  He probably was the one who had to break tragic news to students.  Suddenly, I was filled with dread and fear.

  That must be it.  I was a straitlaced, easy going, good natured, obeying all the rules, sort of 16 year old.  I had never even ever had the opportunity to say “Good morning” to Mr. Buck.  What did he want with me, unless something unexpected and terrible had just happened to my family.

    As I closed the chemistry room door behind me, the sound echoed down the long empty hallway.   My eyes focused straight, down the long hallway to the far end, where it gradually disappeared down a slope.  I had heard this was the longest hall in any school in Indiana.  Over a quarter of a mile from one end to the other.

    Normally, the hallway was filled with the hub-bub of students which limited your awareness of its length, but now with everyone in class except me, I could see past the long mid-section with the social studies classrooms, down past the area which held the business classes part of the school, then past the industrial shop class section, and finally down to the boy’s and girls gyms.   

    At the hallway intersection, I flashed my pink note to the Hall Monitor, the student assigned to oversee and secure that section of the building, made the left hand turn out of the long hall and headed toward the Front Office.  I entered Mr. Buck’s office and held up my note to the secretary and told her that Mr. Buck wanted to see me.  Instead of bursting into tears with sadness about me losing my family, she without emotion, pointed to the bench and told me to have a seat and wait.

    Strange, surely, if my family had been wiped out, she would have immediately put her hand on my shoulder and walked me into Mr. Buck’s office.  Why was I just sitting here waiting?   What was going on? 


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca