Why Parents Drink

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to 'Dad.'

With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter:

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with You and Mom.

I have been finding real passion with Lucy and she is so nice. But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it' s not only the passion...Dad she's pregnant.

Lucy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Lucy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Lucy can get better. She deserves it.

Don't worry Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.

Love, Your Son John

PS: Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the Report Card that's in my center desk drawer.

I love you.

Call me when it's safe to come home...

On Trouble the Water, about Katrina

My wife and I just viewed the documentary, Trouble the Water, which follows the story of a young couple in their 20s from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans who were unable to effect an evacuation prior to Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. It was a pretty moving story, shot mainly on camcorder by the wife of the couple, Kimberly Rivers Roberts, who's also an aspiring rapper, of all things.

http://www.troublethewaterfilm.com/content/pages/the_story/

The film brought to the surface many important themes related to the displacement of the Louisiana National Guard to Iraq and the fighting of the so-called War On Terror when there was so much of a greater need for domestic help on US soil, and the egregious mistreatment and lack of disaster support both during and after the storm of the residents who hadn't the means to evacuate the city. I find it impossible to believe that if the worst-affected areas from the broken levees were affluent, white neighbourhoods, that those areas would have been left so sorely neglected for so long. In short, I was deeply moved by the racist undertones (nay, overtones!) of this reality.

One of the take-home messages from the film is clearly to become more involved in your own community. I took this to heart, and it made me think once again of the impoverished black communities just minutes from me of Cherry Brook, North Preston, and the like. In the 1960s, when the City of Halifax built a second toll-bridge to span the harbour between Halifax and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, they forcibly displaced the black residents of the Halifax harbourside community of "Africville" to these other communities far east of Dartmouth, probably 30 km away and well out of sight of the city of Halifax proper. When I drove through these communities out of interest a couple years ago, it nearly broke my heart to see how run-down the houses and infrastructure were there, and how little awareness there is about the condition of those properties in the general population of Halifax. You can call it White Man's Guilt, but I felt compelled to try to do something, anything, to try to alleviate the suffering and poverty out there.

I still haven't figured out anything meaningful to do other than make some cash donations to a couple of the local community associations in that area. Viewing Trouble The Water made me reconsider that arms-length involvement though, and made me wonder if there wasn't something more hands-on that I could do, if possible. I'll think about it some more.