Cloud Land

    Yesterday as we did our afternoon walk, the clouds that were covering Castle Creek were just beginning to break up.  This allowed the sunshine in which created some nice lighting.

Check out my photo-realistic paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Snow Drifts

    On January 19th I blogged about how McBride had made provincial news with its deep snow drifts after a storm.  The evidence is still around.  Yesterday while driving on Jeck Road we came upon this one section where road crews had had to use heavy equipment to clear a passage way though a deep snow drift that blocked the road.  While many of the fields that were swept clean of the snow now have bare sections, these areas where the snow had piled up will take quite a long time to melt.

My paintings can be seen at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Tortilla Flats

Tortilla Flats by John Steinbeck 

      January’s McBride Library’s Book Club theme was “Based on the Book”, meaning we were to read a novel and watch the film that was made from the novel.  I noticed that the Turner Classic Movie Channel was featuring films based on the novels of John Steinbeck, so I looked over the choices and chose Tortilla Flats to watch and read. I recorded the film and downloaded the book from the library's Overdrive site.  

        This novel written in 1935 was Steinbeck's first commercial success. It is about a group of poor, mixed race homeless alcoholic men, who inhabit the underbelly of Monterey, California's social structure, stealing for food and alcohol, and sleeping in the woods.   They are dead beats, living only for themselves and using self deception to rationalize their stealing by making up stories to themselves about how they are actually "helping" their victims by stealing from them. 

       The novel is built around the life of Danny, who becomes the most dominant member of the group after inheriting two run down houses in the area called "Tortilla Flats", but the main driver of the story is a man named Pilon, who is constantly scheming for his own interests.  Having the two houses gives Danny new status, but also a bit of responsibility that is a burden, but Pilon manipulates the situations for his own advantage.   To lighten Danny's "burden," Pilon offers to "rent" the second house, although no money ever changes hands. 

       The second house is soon full of a group of other "renters", as Pilon schemes to get out of paying the rent himself.  Carelessness causes this second house to burn down and all it's occupants end up living rent free in Danny's house. They are soon joined by others.  This ragtag group gains some cohesion over time and sort of becomes a dysfunctional family of sorts, sometimes actually working in the interests of others. 

       One of the episodes in the novel is about "Pirate", a bushy bearded man who lived in an abandoned chicken house with his five dogs.  He seems a bit slow, but everyday he cuts firewood which he sells for a quarter.  When one of the guys in Danny's house realizes Pirate never spends any of this money, he is eager to find and steal it, and Pirate and the dogs are invited to come and live in Danny's house, with the aim of stealing his money. 

      Over time it becomes known that Pirate's money is being saved to buy a giant religious candle to burn for St. Francis, a promise Pirate made to the Saint after his dog was saved by praying to the Saint.  Pirate's explanation touches the group and they become protective of Pirate's hoard until he finally saved enough for the Mass and candle.   All of Danny's group are then very proud of Pirate, and themselves for not stealing his money. 

       I found the constant drinking and stealing disgusting.  Morality was at such a low level with the group that when someone did do something decent, it felt like an amazing achievement, but it was usually a "one off" that was soon followed by  the return of the selfish behaviors that were typical of the group. 

Tortilla Flats the 1942 B & W film, stars Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamar, and John Garfield.   The film basically encompasses most of the stories from the book, although Pilon, played by Spenser Tracy becomes the central character and Danny does a supporting role. 

      The big difference between the film and book is the ending. The film is given a  "feel good," typical "Hollywood" ending. The book ends with Danny, blind drunk, and in a drunken rampage, dead, after he falls off a cliff.

       In the film, Danny ends up in the hospital after an accident. Pilon feels guilty about having tricked Danny and finds religion, and vows to St. Francis, he will get a job to earn money and buy Danny a fishing boat, so Danny, who of course survives, can marry the woman he loves and live happily ever after. 

       I didn't get much enjoyment from either the Tortilla Flats novel, or the movie. Most of the Tortilla Flats community were poor, but honest and hard working people, I was repulsed by main characters constantly stealing from the community just so they could get drunk.  I didn't find much to respect in the characters except for the Pirate and the love he had for his five dogs. 

Check out my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Where We Spent Our First Canadian Winter

    When we immigrated to Canada in 1973, I took a job teaching in a one-room school at a lumber camp in the BC Interior near Takla Lake.  We were young and looked at the whole thing as an adventure.  It was.

    The photo above shows our place of residence for our first winter.  It was a old small camping trailer with a rectangular wooden “mud room” attached.  Here is what I wrote about our first introduction to our new home:

We dragged our luggage up the two wooden steps, opened the door to what was to be our abode for the winter.  The “mudroom”, which was the Canadian term given to the rectangular wooden addition, was just a big empty space that ran down the entire length of the 18 foot travel trailer.   This room had only one  item in it--a orange 16 inch metal cube, with a screened fan in the front and a one inch thick, heavy duty, insulated electrical cable snaking out of the  back and attached to the wall--it was an industrial-strength space heater.

        From the mudroom, we entered through the aluminum and louvered- glass door of the trailer into the tiny kitchen/dining room, complete with a small two by three foot formica topped table sided by padded upholstered plastic booth-like seats on each side.  

The tiny table jutted out from a window, which allowed us to admire the bleakly painted plywood back of the mill office as we dined.  Behind the left booth seat was the kitchen area, which included a tiny stovetop, oven, and refrigerator that Frank had told us didn’t work.  Along the “kitchen” wall were cabinets and the kitchen sink.  From the kitchen, a narrow passage/hallway ran back to the bedroom, which was basically just a bed with a cramped space that allowed one to walk along one side of its sides to the end of the bed.  There must have been a closet or chest of drawers there somewhere also, but I can’t remember them.

A tiny bathroom was squeezed between the kitchen area and bedroom.  It featured a very small tub/shower, a sink, and an airplane-type toilet, featuring rubber flaps at the bottom of the toilet bowl.

    I don’t think we were too critical about our accommodations, it was small, but adequate, and besides it was all part of our northern adventure.  In fact, later when the camp bosses wanted to move us into a larger, but no more glamorous trailer, we opted to stay where we were.

    I do remember that the bedroom was almost entirely filled with a double bed mattress, which had one of its sides squeezed tightly against the wall.  That was my side.  One very cold morning I woke up with my face close to the wall and discovered that my breathing throughout the night had formed into  frost on the wall and the blankets that were tucked in between the mattress and the wall were frozen to the wall.  

    It was good that we were were young, foolish, and open to adventure during that winter.

    Below is a winter photo of the back of our trailer.

Take a look at my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Frozen Bubbles

    There is only one little spot on my pond that is not covered with snow; where the water from my waterline drains into the pond.  The ice there is very clear and as a result you can a lot of air bubbles frozen into the ice, all on different levels in the ice, one over the other, because they froze at different times as the ice formed.

View my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Some Morning Color

    This morning as Skye and I were walking around the pond, the Sun was highlighting the clouds with a peachy pink color.  Very quickly as the Sun rose, the Cariboo Mountains became illuminated with the color.

You can see my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Light on the Cariboos

    This morning as I looked out of the window, sunlight was illuminating one of the peaks of the Cariboo Mountains.  It’s a good feeling to know that, little by little, the days are getting longer.

You can view my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca