Tom Douglas

Payback time can be bitter or sweet

Getting revenge and giving a helping hand are two sides of the same coin when it comes to paying someone back for something they did TO you or FOR you in the distant past.

And quite often the person on the receiving end has no idea that he or she has been cursed or blessed for once having done you a favour or a dirty in years gone by.

Take the late John Bassett, Sr. for instance. Anyone who knew this media mogul was aware that he would have given his second-born son in order to become a Canadian senator.

I’m probably the only person alive who was witness to the fact that Big John came within a hair’s breadth of gaining that Senate seat, only to have his chances erased with one stroke of a fountain pen by a vengeful former employee.

Bill Morrison carried grudges like a mongrel carries fleas. And one of the biggest grudges on his Get Even list was focused on John Bassett, Sr. I learned this one day when Bill, who was Executive Assistant to the federal Minister of Public Works, called me into his office. I was Communications Assistant to the same minister during the late Trudeau era and reported to Bill.

I knew something important was up because Bill’s usual scowl had been replaced by an ear-to-ear grin. "I’m about to do something I’ve been waiting to do for years and I need a witness," he said, taking a folded sheet of paper out of the inside pocket of his suitcoat. "But before I do anything, I have to give you a little background info."

Bill then told me that 20 years before he had been advertising manager at a Bassett-owned Ottawa broadcasting outlet. Big Bad John gave him a public dressing-down one day and fired him on the spot, telling him to clear out his desk and be gone within half an hour. Bill, much to John’s amusement and derision, promised that some day he would get even.

"And today’s the day," Bill told me, his triumphant grin growing even wider.

Bill further explained that there had been a secret deal between Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Ontario Premier Bill Davis whereby the province would support the PM in his efforts to patriate Canada’s constitution. In return, the Liberal Trudeau would appoint a Conservative Senator from Ontario, thus giving Davis increased status within his party – it was rumoured that he was contemplating a run for the federal Tory leadership at the time.

After the constitution had been brought home from Great Britain, it was time for Davis to call in his marker. Trudeau told him to provide a short list of candidates for the Senate seat and the deed would be done.

When the list arrived, Trudeau turned it over to his trusted lieutenant, Senator Keith Davey. Bill Morrison was a Davey confidante and, since Bill had worked for the Tories as well as the Grits during his long career on Parliament Hill, Davey turned the list over to him, telling him to deep six anyone he felt didn’t measure up to the job.

With a look of diabolical glee, Bill at this point handed me the single sheet of paper. There, in the Number Five spot, was the name John Bassett. Taking the list back from me, Bill slowly screwed the cap off a fountain pen and unceremoniously slashed a line through Bassett’s name. Bill Kelly, a Tory bagman, eventually got the Senate appointment.

Trudeau, Bassett, Davey and Morrison are all gone now so the story of one man’s revenge would have gone to the grave with me. But not now.

On a happier note, I was able to do an anonymous favour later in life for a man who had been kind to me when I was a kid.

Frank "Baldy" McDonald was a foreman at the Algoma Ore Properties sintering plant in Wawa, Ontario and also the father of one of my best friends, Brent (at right in photo). For Brent’s seventh birthday, Frank took a bunch of us on a tour of the plant and then treated us to a dish of ice cream in the plant cafeteria. He was a kind and patient man and I put him right up there on a pedestal with The Lone Ranger and my grandfather Kelly Greer.

Flash forward about 30 years. I was working as speechwriter for John Rhodes, the Member of the Ontario Legislature for Sault Ste. Marie and a provincial cabinet minister, when he called me into his office in Toronto one day. John was the cabinet minister responsible for the Wawa area as well and he had been given a short list of three names by the Wawa Tories. He was to choose one of those on the list for a Justice of the Peace appointment.

"You used to live in Wawa," John said to me. "Do you know anything about any of these people."

I started to say I doubted that I would since my family had left Wawa when I was ten, but my eyes then fell on the name Frank McDonald. "I know this guy," I said, memories of that thrilling tour of the sinter plant and the ice cream treat flooding back.

When John asked me what kind of guy Frank was, I gushed that he was one of the nicest people I had ever met. On the strength of that, Frank McDonald became the next JP in Wawa. He would never know that a kindness extended to a bunch of seven-year-olds decades before would be the deciding factor in his appointment.

John Bassett photo courtesy Canadian Communications Foundation

Tommy & Brent photo by Dorene Douglas

Rewriting A Bit Of Canadian History

As of this writing, Wess McIntosh is a 92-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force veteran of the Second World War. He says he plans to be the last living World War II survivor – and he’s literally taking steps to make that happen. He walks and bicycles almost every day and swims a number of laps daily in the pool of his Oakville, Ontario condo.

Wess decided at 91 that it was time to write his memoirs. The result is a self-published book entitled 'Permission Granted'. The first run of 200 copies sold out so fast that he had to order another 200 almost immediately. At last report, they too are selling like proverbial hotcakes. (Signed copies are available by email: wjmcintosh1914@hotmail.com or tmdouglas@cogeco.ca

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One of the many fascinating anecdotes in the book involves Wess’s contention that the historians got it wrong in explaining why Canada waited a week to declare war on Nazi Germany after France and Great Britain had done so. The popular theory is that Canada wanted to demonstrate the country’s independence from Mother England. A flimsy rationale at best – and one that Wess believes is incorrect.

Before joining the RCAF, Wess was a Leading Telegraphist with the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. He was stationed at the HMCS Stadacona naval base in Halifax when France and Great Britain declared war on September 3, 1939 and had a front-row seat at a little scenario that played out involving two of Canada’s warships. Here’s an excerpt from his book describing an incident that, if he’s taken seriously, might result in Canadian history books having to be rewritten:

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With war clouds on the horizon in 1939, the Canadian government, like its Allied counterparts, was frantically attempting to build up its stockpile of military equipment. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Herr Schickelgruber (Hitler’s real name, which became a widely-used comical reference to him during the war) would cross the line in the sand that Great Britain and France kept moving in an attempt to appease him.

Late in August, HMCS Chippewa received a request from the Canadian Navy for volunteers willing to sail to England to bring back to Canada the former HMS Diana, a 329-foot River class British destroyer. It would become part of our naval fleet under the new name of HMCS Margaree. Alva and I jumped at the chance, as did five of our fellow Reservists. We left with much fanfare and newspaper publicity aboard the CNR passenger train for Halifax on 30 August.

Two days previously, suspecting that I might not be returning to Winnipeg for some time, I had popped the question and Freda and I were married by Reverend H.B. Duckworth at Old St. Andrew’s Church on Elgin Street. We didn’t have much of a honeymoon, but then neither did a number of young couples in those troubled days.

Ironically, as our crew of volunteers was fighting the boredom of the cramped confines of a 1930s era railway coach on its way to Canada’s east coast, German SS troops were launching a false attack on a German radio station at Gliewitz in the Prussian state of Upper Silesia. These Nazi thugs were dressed in Polish uniforms to convince the world that Poland was the aggressor nation and to justify their invasion of Poland the next day. Mere hours after we reported for duty at HMCS Stadacona in Halifax, the world was on a war footing, the gates surrounding our base clanged shut in anticipation of Canada joining the fight, and I was in for the duration.

The odd thing about the whole situation was that the reason we had travelled to Halifax went by the boards now that war had been declared. We never did make that voyage to England to bring back the Margaree.

The Allies had run out of weasel room now that the Nazis had laughed in their faces one more time by invading Poland. On 3 September, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany and the entire world would soon be engulfed in a conflict that would eventually surpass the bloodletting of 1914-1918, which naively had been billed as The War To End All Wars.

In the past, Canada, as a member of the Commonwealth, had automatically been dragged into any war involving Great Britain. This time, we didn’t declare war on Germany until 10 September – a full week after England and France had decided enough was enough when it came to the antics of the Nazi bully boys who kept making promises and then breaking them. Historians point to this seven-day delay on Canada’s part as our way of asserting our independence as a nation after proving our mettle in the First World War.

I have another theory about this time lapse, though I’ve never been able to prove it.

For what it’s worth, here’s the McIntosh conjecture about that seven-day delay on Canada’s part. While Germany was preparing to pull its Polish joke on a nervous world, two of our six existing warships, HMCS Fraser and HMCS St. Laurent, were in port at Esquimalt on Vancouver Island. Sensing that the war balloon was about to go up, the navy ordered the ships to weigh anchor and head for Halifax via the Panama Canal. But before they could reach this shortcut from the Pacific to the Atlantic, German troops blitzkrieged across the Polish border and the game was afoot.

Canada desperately needed those two destroyers to reach Halifax as soon as possible so that they could join in the upcoming Battle of the Atlantic. But there was one big hurdle to overcome. The Panama Canal was under the control of the United States and isolationist America was determined to stay out of the war. It was common knowledge that they would refuse to allow ships of any country that had declared war on Germany to pass through the canal. The tedious alternative under such a ban was to steam all the way down the west coast of North and South America, navigate the stormy seas around Cape Horn and head north to a much-delayed arrival on Canada’s east coast.

You can imagine the excitement at HMCS Stadacona in Halifax as we followed the news of our two destroyers pouring on the coal as they raced to get through the Canal. As a telegraphist, I had a legitimate excuse to be in the wireless room, but it was amazing how many other sailors of all ranks found a reason to crowd into that tiny cubicle to hear the latest update. When the Fraser and the St. Laurent, after a week at sea, finally radioed that they had cleared the Canal, a tremendous shout went up from the crowd of wall-to-wall people, followed by the blaring of the horns of every ship in the harbour. Shortly thereafter, Canada declared war on Germany.

(Photo Montage by Darren Wallace)

Welcome To My Blog

I call this 'web log' or 'blog' "From Wawa To Paris" because, as I look back over my career to date, it never ceases to amaze me that a kid who grew up in Wawa would end up traveling the world, meeting so many interesting people and seeing sights that I thought would only be available "from a book that I took from the shelf".

This blog is a work in progress. Like Sinatra mentions in a great song entitled 'Cycles', I've been many places over the years and I am blessed - or cursed - with a memory for detail. With Scottish and Irish blood in my veins, I'm also a storyteller and have managed to turn that into a career of sorts. A good friend of mine, Jack Nadeau, once remarked, when I told him that I rented out my head for a living, that half a living was better than none. Did I mention that he was a friend?

The photo accompanying this posting was taken of me and my two brothers, Greg (middle) and Norm (right) in Sinterville, a small collection of ramshackle houses a few miles from Wawa. That's where Dad was sent when he returned to Sault Ste. Marie expecting to get his old executive job back at the Algoma Steel Corportation after being away fighting Nazi Germany for several years. Our dirty, gritty trip from the Soo to Wawa aboard an Algoma Central Railway train pulled by a steam locomotive ignited a love of travel in me that burns to this day.

My blog is a way of sharing travel stories and tips. It also allows me to highlight some of the other articles I've had published over the years and to promote the military books I have written. And finally, it lets me rant about some of the idiotic and downright disgraceful things people do to each other in our time and rave about the wonderful acts of kindness and common sense that, thankfully, still prevail.

And so it goes...

(Photo by Dorene Douglas)

Canada Gives U.S. Two Bits Worth

It's becoming more apparent with each passing day that our friends to the south of us are suffering a national nervous breakdown.

For evidence, look no further than the recent silly revelation that the U.S. Defense Department had issued a sensational warning that "mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on American contractors with classified security clearances travelling in Canada".

Turns out the coins were harmless Canadian quarters emblazoned with a red poppy, issued by the Canadian Mint (too late for the intended purpose as it turned out) to commemorate the 60th anniversary on June 6, 2004 of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy.

Paranoia is one sign of a nervous breakdown - and whether you hear "weapons of mass destruction" or "yellowcake uranium" or "Iranian nuclear build-up" on CNN's sycophantic 'news' broadcasts, our American cousins these days seem to see a bogeyman behind every global-warming-threatened tree.

In pop psychology, this is known as 'projection', which can be defined simplistically as 'a defence mechanism where one attributes to others one's own unacceptable thoughts'.

With an administration that spies on its own people, puts them on a 'No Fly' list for such so-called crimes as critizing the Bushwhackers in letters to the editor, and even exports 'suspected' terrorists to countries soft on torture - without a trial or even an idea of why they have been arrested - it's little wonder that their officials would suspect other countries of nefarious acts.

That being the current scenario in the 'land of the free and the home of the brave', here are some headlines we can expect to read south of the border in the weeks to come:

Canadian Bacon Laced With Mind Altering Drugs

CN Tower's Gigantic Telescope Spies On America

Ben Mulroney Unmasked As CSIS Undercover Agent

Canada Dry Loaded With LSD To Turn Americans Into Zombies

Communist Takeover Of Hollywood Traced To Canada's Mary Pickford

Leafs 'Throw' Hockey Series So 'Wired' Stanley Cup Can Spy On Americans

Canadian Cattle Force Fed Steroids To Make Americans Obese

Snowbirds From Canada Building Huge Arsenal To Attack Disney World

'Nuke The Canucks' Becomes Battle Cry As Canadians Selfishly Hog Water

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: HOLLAND LIBERATION CELEBRANTS VIEW THE CANADIAN FORCES FROM THREE PERSPECTIVES

Special to the Canadian Military Journal

Tom Douglas is copy editor for The Canadian Military Journal. The author of several military books and a freelance journalist, he was selected by Veterans Affairs Canada as one of six official media delegates covering 60^th Anniversary Ceremonies in Holland in May commemorating the Liberation of the Netherlands and VE (Victory in Europe) Day.

Like many Canadian veterans who have come within a heartbeat of making the supreme sacrifice in a combat situation, Gordon Webb of Ottawa is a master of the understatement. For instance, when asked what his most hazardous experience had been during World War II, the ex-Pathfinder pilot allowed as how losing all four engines on a bombing raid over Essen, Germany had been "rather harrowing".

Webb, a flight lieutenant at the time, explained that he was the "old man" of the crew at 19 ½ and had to make the excruciating decision to order his men to prepare to bail out when the engine failure occurred. They faced almost certain death. If they survived the bombs cascading out of other Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) bombers above them and the flak pockmarking the night sky from German anti-aircraft batteries, they would almost certainly have been torn limb from limb by the angry citizens of Essen when they reached the ground.

Displaying an easy grin that complemented his cavalier attitude about the predicament he and his comrades had been in more than 60 years ago, Webb explained why he was still around to tell the story. "Just before giving the command to bail out, I conferred with my flight engineer and we determined that our inner starboard engine had been hit by flak and the propeller was bent, sending a horrendous vibration throughout the aircraft that had shut down the other three engines," he said. "With nothing to lose, we made a successful attempt to shut that one down and restart the others."

Once more, understatement came into play when the 82-year-old ex-Pathfinder wrapped up his account of the event: "So we banked and came in over the target again, dropped our load and got home a bit late for dinner that night."

Offhanded irony came to the fore again when Webb was asked what he thought of today’s Canadian Forces (CF). "I don’t think you could say that our military have been over-treated," is the way he put it, underlining his comment with another huge grin. "Between wars, the military sort of gets short shrift. The politicians put the welfare of their armed forces on the back burner when they feel they aren’t needed. But as soon as there’s an idea that another war is coming along, then, okay, they start to think that they’d better do something. But by then it’s almost too late."

Webb cited a couple of examples. "Look how long it takes to get equipped. Take the current helicopter situation. We’re going to be way down the road when we finally get the new ones. And we really should have a replacement for the C-130. We need a bigger airplane so that we don’t have to go to Russia or the Ukraine to rent there. That really bothered me when that happened."

For Gordon Webb, service to his country was a family tradition. His father was in World War I and was wounded three times – the last time at Vimy Ridge. Gordon’s older brother joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939. Another brother served in the Royal Canadian Army and a third with the Canadian Merchant Navy.

Webb stayed with the RCAF at the end of hostilities, served in the Korean War and ended his career with the rank of wing commander. He has nothing but praise for the people who came after him and are currently serving in the CF.

"They’re bright; they really are," he said. "I spoke to quite a number of them at the mess the other night (at a veterans-only party thrown by Canadian military personnel serving in Holland). Every one of them I met impressed me. I guess we were like that. I don’t know – but all of them seemed so keen and so aware of the importance of what they’re doing."

One of those bright young individuals was Master Corporal Rod Verkoeyen, command chief clerk at Canadian Forces Information Operations Group in Ottawa, whose selection as a participant in the Liberation of the Netherlands ceremonies had a very special meaning.

"The Canadian Army liberated Holland when my father was 10 years old," said Verkoeyen following a ceremony at the Reichswald Forest Military Cemetery near Kleve, Germany. The burial grounds contain the bodies of some 700 Canadian airmen who served with the RCAF and the Royal Air Force during WWII.

"My father still has nightmares of the Nazis taking people from his village and shooting them," Verkoeyen continued. "He will always be grateful to Canada for saving the lives of so many of his countrymen. In fact, joining the Canadian Army is my way of repaying Canada for rescuing our family from almost certain death."

Verkoeyen, Sr. left Holland in 1948 for a new life in Canada. Settling in Windsor, Ontario, he joined the Essex Scottish, now the Essex Kent Regiment. His unit was preparing to deploy to Korea when that war ended.

"So that was the second time fate stepped in and gave me a chance to be born," said MCpl Verkoeyen, who applied for the Holland assignment so that he could be on hand when his father returned to his homeland as a flagbearer with the Royal Canadian Legion.

"When I learned that my father was going to be over here for the ceremonies, I submitted a memo through my chain of command, which was highly supportive all the way to National Defence Headquarters. The request was approved and here I am."

At the Reichswald ceremony, about 150 CF members and a small contingent of WWII veterans listened to General Ray Henault, chairman designate of the NATO Military Committee, as he spoke of the sacrifice of his fellow RCAF personnel and other Canadians in their efforts to defeat the Nazis. After the ceremony, Verkoeyen said it was a double honour for him to be taking part in the commemoration because of his Dutch and Canadian heritage. He is the fourth generation of Verkoeyens to serve in the regular forces, with both his grandfather and great-grandfather having been part of the Dutch military.

"My father has been deeply moved by this whole experience, as I have," said Verkoeyen. "I’m very proud and happy to serve my country and hopefully I’ll represent my Dutch heritage as well in paying respect back to the Canadian soldiers who gave their lives for my family. Every parade I’m on, every tattoo I’m doing, I’m just giving 150%."

Having heard from a member of Canada’s military from days gone by as well as from someone currently serving his country, it made sense to seek out someone who had plans to join the CF at some point in the future. The opportunity arose at the Holten Canadian Military Cemetery where a contingent of young Canadians formed part of the gathering in their capacity as the official youth delegation on the Veterans Affairs commemorative trip to Holland.

Jeff Whelan (at left in photo), a student at Vimy Ridge Academy in Edmonton and a sergeant with 395 Air Cadet Squadron, hopes to get accepted at Royal Military College and some day become a pilot. He suggested that he was still in shock at learning how young some of the veterans on the trip were when they first went into action.

"I talked to one guy who lied about his age and got into the fight when he was 16," said Jeff, who was born in Winnipeg and moved with his family to St. Albert, a suburb of Edmonton, seven years ago. "What really knocked me out was that I just turned 16 myself and it’s hard to believe that someone my age would have gone to war. It makes you feel very emotional to think that people so young would give up everything to make sure that we had a better life."

Jeff said he had had no idea what the older generation went through and wished that every young Canadian could have the experience he had in order to be able to pass on the stories and keep alive the appreciation for all the sacrifices that were made. "It’s absolutely essential for everyone to realize how great it is to be a Canadian."

The entire Netherlands trip ran a gamut of emotions from the good-natured banter of fellow combatants who hadn’t seen each other in more than 60 years to the quiet, wracking sobs of veterans who took time out from the various commemorative ceremonies to visit the gravesites of their comrades for the first time.

Even Gordon Webb, whose wide grin and devil-may-care attitude got him a peck on the cheek from a Dutch serving girl at a social gathering after a ceremony at Apeldoorn’s Het Loo Palace, finally succumbed to the seesaw of emotions he had been experiencing all week.

"This has been quite something," he said reflectively as he mentally reviewed all the events he had attended with his fellow vets during the Holland commemorative ceremonies. "I never realized it was such a big affair. But my overriding thought is that there has to be a better way to settle matters."

Webb grew silent, his eyes filling with tears: "We’re remembering the people who were killed. I’m all for that; I think that’s great. But surely we don’t have to drop bombs on people to solve our problems. I was part of it, but don’t we need some space somewhere where we can get things resolved without going around killing a lot of innocent people?"

The old Pathfinder pilot paused for a moment, stifled a sob and wiped away a tear: "I hope with all my heart that this can happen."

(Photos by Tom Douglas)

Rembrandt, a real ladies’ man, might well have invented the line: "Wanna come up and see my etchings?"

AMSTERDAM, Holland - One of the many surprises in store for the casual visitor to this city’s Rembrandthuis Museum is that, during his lifetime, this world-renowned artist was probably better known and more highly respected for his etchings than for his paintings.

The five-story building in central Amsterdam where Rembrandt van Rijn lived from 1639 to 1658 was converted into a museum in 1911. It contains many of the close to 300 etchings the artist produced in his lifetime. By drawing with a needle onto a wax-covered plate then immersing the plate in acid to cut or "etch" the needle lines into its surface, Rembrandt was able to print dozens of self-portraits, numerous landscapes and a number of biblical scenes

The Rembrandthuis Museum is a proverbial treasurehouse of paintings, drawings and etchings by the master, his students and other artists of the period. The gallery is also stocked with a copy of Rembrandt’s printing press, painting supplies of the era and replicas of many of the artifacts he spent a fortune acquiring as props for his paintings.

Being a financial as well as an artistic genius, Rembrandt realized that the new medium of etching was a relatively quick way to make money. His first etchings appeared in 1625 at about the same time as his first paintings, when he was a young man of about 19 years of age. Where many contemporary artists were content to compose a drawing, which they would send off to an engraver who in turn would forward it to a printer, Rembrandt saw the added value in performing the whole procedure himself.

And where other artists were content to charge a small fee for each etching produced, since in fact they were exact copies of the original, Rembrandt’s hands-on approach to each stage of the process allowed him to alter the product slightly after one or two prints were run off. Or he would use different colors and textures of paper. These tricks of the trade left his clients with the feeling that they had something unique, not just a limited print that dozens of others possessed as well.

If you’re in good shape, you can negotiate the twisting staircases leading to various Rembrandt exhibits on the museum’s five floors. These include his etching and press room, the laboratory where he experimented with light and shadow and his studio displaying artifacts from the 17th century – though not necessarily the curios owned by the artist since those were sold off when he declared bankruptcy during the latter days of his existence.

The Rembrandthuis Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Fridays until 9 p.m. Further information is available on the Internet at www.rembrandthuis.nl.

While it is highly unlikely that Rembrandt tried to entice any Amsterdam dollies into his bachelor pad by suggesting they take a gander at his etchings, the artist did have an eye for the ladies following the death of his beloved Saskia. Requiring a housekeeper to look after his young son Titus, Rembrandt made the mistake of becoming emotionally and physically involved with two of them.

The first live-in caregiver, Geertje Dircx, actually took the artist to court for allegedly reneging on a promise to marry her in return for her sexual favors. He was exonerated by the Commissioners of Marital Affairs, partly through the testimony of his second housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels.

The grateful Rembrandt, once Dircx had been carted off to a House of Corrections for perjuring herself, rewarded Stoffels by turning his attentions to her. Gossipmongers had another field day when Stoffels was rebuked by the council of the Reformed Church ‘for practising whoredom with the painter Rembrandt’ and the whispers grew to a roar when the housekeeper presented Rembrandt with a bouncing baby girl.

Rembrandt may have been a bit of a bounder, but he was also a master painter and today all is forgiven. To view the massive work Night Watch and world-famous The Jewish Bride – a painting about which Vincent Van Gogh is reputed to have said he would give 20 years of his life if he could view it alone and uninterrupted for two weeks – you’ll have to go across town from the Rembrandthuis to the Rijksmuseum (www.rijksmuseum.com).

Holland, and particularly Amsterdam, are wonderful places to visit at any time to take the artist up on his invitation to view his masterpieces. For additional information of a general nature, check Holland’s very informative official website at www.holland.com.

(Photo of Rembrandt's etching room by Tom Douglas)

Canadian-Dutch Ties Span Generations

BOVEN-LEEUWEN, Holland –

Another childhood illusion shattered!

All through elementary school, whenever there was a story in one of our readers about a little Dutch girl, the accompanying illustration would show an apple-cheeked maiden with blonde pigtails capped by a white bonnet with prow-like peaks on either side.

The girl would be dressed in a billowing, brightly-coloured blouse and hoop skirt, topped by a crisp white apron. Candy-striped stockings flowed into bright yellow wooden shoes.

To complete the picture, the pretty miss would be cheerfully toting a wooden yoke on her shoulders, the descending ropes each supporting a frothy bucket of milk fresh from the cow.

After my selection by Veterans Affairs Canada to cover the Holland liberation ceremonies for several Canadian publications, I managed, with the help of some Dutch friends now living in Canada, to track down the family my father had been billeted with in the Netherlands during the cold and bitter winter of 1944-45.

Sgt. Mel Douglas had landed at St. Aubin-sur-Mer in Normandy on D-Day and had taken part in the 19^th Field Regiment’s hard-fought drive through Northern France, Belgium and into Holland, where they and their comrades-in-arms were welcomed as liberators from the Nazi hordes.

The Canadians were invited into Dutch homes and treated like the heroes they were until they were called back into battle after a few short weeks of rest and celebration. My father roomed with the family of Max Coppes, a baker, in the small village of Horssen bij Nijmegen on the banks of the Waal River.

There were three young boys in the Coppes family at the time and Max’s wife was pregnant with what would be the couple’s only daughter. Both of my parents and Max and his wife are all gone now and it was the daughter I was destined to meet on my Holland visit this spring.

When I heard that the Coppes daughter was now living on a dairy farm in the adjacent village of Boven-Leeuwen, that picture of a Dutch milkmaid came to mind. I made plans to photograph her in front of a brightly-painted windmill with red and yellow tulips bobbing their approval in the background.

Scratch that scenario! Mies de Ruiter-Coppes, the mythical milkmaid, is an attractive brunette with short, wavy hair. When I drove my rental car up to her farm, she came out to greet me dressed in a smart blue-and-white striped jacket and navy-blue slacks. Designer leather shoes had replaced the yellow wooden clogs of my mind picture.

Mies and her husband Jan own and operate a farm with 150 head of dairy cattle. And to top it off, Mies is a member of the regional council governing a collection of villages that amalgamated several years ago. Some milkmaid!

To my surprise, I learned that the young girl I had pictured would be turning (gulp!) 60 in August – which really shouldn’t have come as a shock because I passed that milestone a few years back. But the mind certainly does play tricks.

I had actually met Mies briefly in 1963 when I made an unscheduled stop in Horssen to honour my father’s wish that I look up his old pal Max, whom he had lost track of once the 19^th Field Regiment resumed its push towards the Rhineland.

I was squiring an old school chum around Europe that summer in my tiny Ford Anglia, having spent the previous year working at the Royal Canadian Air Force Headquarters in Metz, France. We dropped in on Max unannounced – and he refused to have anything to do with me.

The problem, I learned later, was that he had forgotten all his black market English in the 18 years since the end of the Second World War and couldn’t understand a word I was saying when I walked into his bake shop and began blathering away. When it dawned on me that Max wasn’t getting the message, I made the fatal mistake of switching into high school German.

A sneer curled up the corners of Max’s mouth and he stormed into the back of the shop, where it was obvious he intended to stay until I left. Luckily, one of his sons, who spoke a little English, came forward and understood enough to go across the street to fetch English student Jan Sommerdijk to translate.

When Max learned who I was, he apologized through Jan for thinking I was a German salesman – he still held a grudge against Germans – and we partied the rest of the day. Coincidentally, it was his daughter’s 18^th birthday. Until the moment the translator explained that I was Mel Douglas’s son, Max had thought my dad had been killed about a week after he left Horssen. It had actually been another member of the regiment with the same last name and the wrong message had filtered back to the Coppes family.

It was Mies’s son (Max’s grandson) Jan-Pieter de Ruiter who e-mailed me to say the remaining family was waiting with open arms to greet me once again. He mentioned that I had apparently left Max’s wife a bottle of wine when I left that day in August 1963. The family had never opened it, but intended to do so during my visit.

That "wine" turned out to be a bottle of Mumm’s Champagne and as Mies prepared to tear off the faded pink foil she mentioned that her mother had turned over the bottle to her on her wedding day since it was considered a family treasure. Hearing that, I shot out my hand and stopped Mies from opening the bottle. There was no way I was going to despoil their family treasure. Today, it’s back in the family wine cellar and I have a photograph of Mies and myself holding the bottle as a souvenir.

The main topic of conversation on this re-reunion trip was how wonderful life had turned out for a group of people who had faced such deprivation and uncertainty in the dark days of World War II. When my father and Max first met, the Coppes family had literally been saved from starvation at the hands of the Nazis and Mel Douglas still faced months of heavy fighting, sleeping in slit trenches, with the constant awareness that a sniper’s bullet or bomb with his name on it could prevent him from ever seeing his family again.

Both families prospered after the war and each had three sons and a daughter, all of whom went on to careers that made their parents proud. There is talk now of Mies’s son Jan-Pieter and my son James getting together for a third generation reunion.

Which to my way of thinking is as good a way as any to celebrate the freedoms so many people more than 60 years ago fought and died to preserve.

Postscript: Tom and James met the Coppes family in Holland several months after this article was published and produced a travel documentary entitled "The Tulip and the Maple Leaf".

(Photo by Jan de Ruiter)

This article appeared in several geographical editions of Forever Young.

Keukenhof Gardens: The greatest (flower) show on earth!

LISSE, Holland - The world-famous floral parkland, Kuekenhof Gardens, in this small community a tulip bulb’s throw from Amsterdam, looked like it had been the victim of an artillery barrage when I visited there one December.

Mounds of dark earth littered the 32-hectare site, flower bulbs were strewn in all directions and a green scum covered the canals and ponds where swans normally swim in tranquil grandeur. Even the Juliana Pavilion, named after Holland’s former reigning monarch, resembled a war zone, with workmen frantically putting on a new roof and making extensive repairs to the exterior walls of this exhibition hall.

Standing there in a light rain with the smell of roofing tar in my nostrils and mud on my shoes, I found it hard to believe that by March 23 of that year, the Gardens would be festooned with more than seven million tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring flowers. And that season would be offering something extra: an exhibition designed in special homage to one of Holland’s most famous artists, Rembrandt van Rijn, on the occasion of the 400^th anniversary of his birth.

Having strolled the grounds of this 15^th century estate on past visits during the eight weeks of its annual opening to the public, it was a shock to the system to see the Keukenhof in its off-season drabness. It was like visiting the dressing room of your favorite movie star before the application of hairpieces, makeup, figure-enhancing undergarments and dazzling costume did its magic.

Not that there’s anything artificial about the Keukenhof Gardens. Each year, flower growers and bulb distributors, who are Royal Warrant holders, proudly display their wares in this natural setting that used to serve as an herb and vegetable garden for the kitchen outbuilding of an ancient chateau.

Even though tulips and other flowering bulbs are perennials, the Keukenhof staff plants new displays every year in order to offer a variety for the repeat visitor and a sampling of new products for the serious buyer. The scene of turmoil during my December visit was in fact ordered chaos as the planters pored over hand-sketched designs for the new flowerbeds and the construction workers spruced up the pavilions and restaurants on the grounds in preparation for the new season.

"The bulbs all have to be planted by mid-December to give them the 12 or so weeks they require lying dormant in the cool earth before they bloom," said Karin Hoogland, spokesperson for the Keukenhof. "That’s why tulips don’t grow well, if at all, in hot climates. They need that cold period as part of their natural cycle."

Everything about the Keukenhof Gardens is spectacular – from the windmill that kids enjoy climbing all over to the breathtaking display of red, yellow, white, blue and multi-colored blooms that undulate in the soft spring breeze for as far as the eye can see.

Wise tourists plan a whole day for their visit to the Gardens. Laced with footpaths that lead to one spectacular floral display after another, Keukenhof is a paradise for amateur and professional gardeners, parents wanting to instill a love of nature in their children and photographers looking for "can’t miss" opportunities to show off their expertise. Unless you stick your thumb over the camera lens, you can’t take a bad picture here.

There are guided tours available, bicycles for hire, musical performances on weekends and indoor displays during inclement weather. Kiosks throughout the grounds sell bulbs for planting back home as well as souvenirs and postcards. Five restaurants offer everything from snacks to hot meals and each dining area has a terrace where you can enjoy your refreshments and still take in the panoramic floral displays.

The Keukenhof Gardens are open daily from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for the eight weeks that the flowers are in bloom. Further information is available at: www.keukenhof.com .

For information about the Netherlands in general, including how to purchase an "I Amsterdam" card that offers free or reduced access to public transportation, museums, canal cruises and other attractions, go to the highly informative site: www.holland.com.

(Photo by Tom Douglas)

This article appeared in European Reporter and Oakville Today.

The Cretan diet offers a guilt-free vacation

"Just exactly what do you mean by destructive tourism?" I asked Judy Smith as she offered me another helping of owl.

The Grecotel marketing manager pushed her glasses back up on her nose, a slight frown crinkling her forehead. "A good example – or rather a very bad example – is an archaeological site like the Acropolis in Athens," she replied in a clipped English accent. "Millions of people have trodden on it and now no archaeologist could find anything of any worth there."

That was one of the reasons, she explained, leading to a decision by Grecotel S.A., the biggest hotel chain in Greece, to build a model farm in the hills above Rethymnon, the third-largest town in Crete, situated on the north coast of the island halfway between the two other major communities of Iraklion and Chania.

"Our aim was to try to avoid ruining something that is really virginal," said this ex-pat Brit who has made Crete her home for a number of years. "By offering the farm, we're saying to tourists: 'Look, instead of going into villages and annoying people, you can visit a farm and learn something about Crete – about our food and agriculture, our wild animals and our way of living.' That way we can avoid at least some of the instances of people sticking cameras in the faces of little old village ladies sitting on their front steps making lace."

By the way, that helping of "owl" Judy proffered isn't as disgusting or as ecologically irresponsible as it sounds. All over Greece they serve a delicious concoction that is perhaps the most representative dish of the famous healthy Cretan diet. It's a crisp-dried rusk made from barley and rye, topped with grated tomato, Feta cheese, oregano and olive oil. It's called Owl – or Koukouvagia in Greek – because the large doughnut-shaped rusk resembles the eye of that nocturnal bird of prey.

My visit to the farm, whose name "Agreco " is a combination of the words "agriculture" and "Grecotel", was the icing on the cake – better make that the olive oil on the salad – of the healthiest vacation of a lifetime. Much has been heard of the Cretan diet ever since an international study of the eating habits of the people of Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States and Japan found the lowest incidence of heart disease among the inhabitants of Greece.

The magic elixir? Olive oil and, as mother told us time and again, a high intake of fresh salad greens and vegetables. Add a bounty of seafood from the waters of the Mediterranean and you can almost hear your body saying: "Thank you, thank you" as it rebuilds itself out of the ruins of a diet high in animal fats, starches and sugar.

The 40-hectare Agreco and some 150 local farms supply fresh and healthy fare to the seven resort hotels in the Grecotel chain on Crete. And to make even better of a good thing, the food is organically grown.

"The demand for organic food outgrew Agreco's ability to produce it, so we embarked on a campaign to get other farms to follow suit," said Judy. "It was a little difficult at first because it's expensive initially to switch over to organic farming, but once we demonstrated our willingness to buy all the produce they grew, the farmers embraced the idea. Now our hotels all over Greece have adopted the practice."

A bonus for Grecotel's clientele in Rethymnon is that they can spend the day at the model farm, which is a replica of a 17^th century agricultural operation and mini-village. The buildings are constructed of Alpha stone from the nearby village of the same name and the complex also includes a church, a village square and a store selling such delights as olive oil, thyme honey, wine, traditional jam and glazed fruit.

Agreco is a showcase of organic, environmentally friendly, traditional farming methods: a donkey-driven oil press, water-operated flour mill, a giant vat for grape crushing by foot and a hand-operated winepress. The ground flour is turned into bread baked in a giant wood-fired oven. The gardens produce a plethora of organic salad greens, fruit and vegetables and the adjacent meadows keep the farm's bees busy collecting nectar that will become part of the island's output of famed thyme honey.

Visitors to the farm can take part in whatever activity is going on that day. They can emulate Lucille Ball by stomping grapes to their hearts' content, lead the donkey on its round-in-circles chore of olive pressing, get involved up to their elbows preparing bread dough for the oven or roll hand-made beeswax candles to be lit in the small stone church in honour of the local St. Nicolas.

Visiting children will thrill at the opportunity to come nose-to-nose with a wide variety of animals that make up a miniature zoo on the farm, some of them indigenous to Crete, others imported from around the world.

"It all started with a pair of native kri kri goats," Judy explained. "They're an endangered species and a couple of them were found injured up in the mountains. Someone brought them to the forestry commission vet near here to be nursed back to health and they became so domesticated we decided to keep them here."

Since the pair of goats, one male and one female, were true to their randy nature, there was soon a whole enclosure of their offspring. Word got around that Agreco would look after stray or unwanted animals and part of the property gradually became a mini Noah's Ark.

"We've got wild boar, ostriches, deer, peacock – you name anything that normally wouldn't be on a farm and we seem to have it," Judy said with an indulgent smile and a shrug. "Of course, we have the normal farm fare as well – pigs, donkeys, chickens and goats. Some of the youngsters turn up their noses at the smell, but we don't try to make it look pretty. It's got to be traditional; we're not trying to be something we're not."

After a busy day down on the farm, visitors are invited to stay for a 34-course dinner served on a huge open-air patio that offers a panoramic view of the lush Cretan countryside. The sunsets would (and, truth be told, did) make a grown man tear up at the sheer splendour of it all.

The banquet begins with such local delicacies as the already-mentioned "owl" and home-made breads smothered with a combination of green or black olive paste, farm-produced sour milk cheese and rosemary-flavoured olive oil. Other nibbles include wild artichokes, pickled wild onions and black and green olives from the farm's own groves.

Next comes a farmer's salad of organic tomatoes, cucumbers, purslane (spinach), onion, olive oil and homemade vinegar. Also handed round to the visitors at the big wooden table is an unforgettable salad of roasted eggplant, followed by courgette (zucchini) blossoms and vine leaves stuffed with rice and aromatic herbs of Crete.

Judy pointed out that the courgette blossoms have to be collected in the early morning when they are still open. Later on, the closed blossoms cannot be stuffed.

The next course consists of locally grown organic boiled vegetables and wild greens served with tomato sauce. A variety of organically produced olive oils will be passed round for sprinkling over the various offerings.

For the main course, diners have a choice of chicken with okra, fried rabbit in wine, grilled quail or oven-baked suckling pig with roasted potatoes tossed in oregano and lemon.

If there's still room for dessert, there's sfakianopita or home-made pancakes filled with cheese from the Sfakia area, served with quince preserves and pine kernels. Sweet tooth still not satisfied? How about some graviera or Cretan Gruyere cheese with locally produced thyme honey. Or traditional sheep's yoghurt with honey and walnuts. Or farmhouse fig or cinnamon ice cream.

And for the brave (or should that be foolhardy), the meal ends with an offering of the fiery tsikoudia, more commonly known as raki, the name that stuck after the end of the Turkish occupation of Greece. Distilled from the residue left over from the pressing of the grapes for wine, raki is the equivalent of North America's white lightning. Legend has it that raki was the potion that drove Ulysses and his crew off-course on their way home from Troy, but that's another story.

The farm visit and dinner costs a relatively modest 45 euros while a visit and lighter lunch on Sundays goes for 39 euros (2005 prices).

Back at the Grecotel Rithymna Beach, Creta Palace or El Greco resort hotel, a quick dip in the pool or a walk along a moonlit beach will top off an event-filled day and prepare the visitor for a good night's sleep, with dreams permeated by the perfume of lotus blossoms and the soft siren song of an offshore breeze. Crete, as tourists for centuries have discovered, is truly the land of myriad delights.

(Photo courtesy Grecotel)

This article appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Hamilton City Guide, Vancouver Sun, Windsor Star, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Regina Leader-Post, Edmonton Journal, Victoria Times-Colonist, Doctor's Review, East of the City, European Reporter and Travellers Notebook as well as on canada.com.

Just Some Old Guy

He checked the battered Rolex his father had taken off his own wrist and had given him the day he enlisted. The watch was older than he was. And it still kept perfect time. He just wished his other weather-beaten ticker was in the same great shape.

Never mind that. The ceremony was about to begin. The only one he'd ever missed was that year he'd come down with pneumonia. Calgary? Edmonton? He couldn't remember. It was back in the early '70s anyway. Since then, he'd attended every Remembrance Day service without fail. Wherever November 11^th found him, he'd find out where they were holding the ceremony and he'd be a face in the crowd when they got things going.

Somebody jostled him from the left. He glanced over and saw a couple of young business types in the kind of sharp three-piece suits he used to have custom-made a long time ago looking at him disdainfully. Oh well, he'd probably be wearing one of their suits in a few months, after a perfectly-coiffured wife dropped it off in a used-clothing bin in some strip mall. In the circles he travelled in nowadays, even a rumpled suit got you a little respect.

The young fellow next to him nudged his companion and did an all-too-obvious sideways gesture with his head. It was directed at him. Did they think because you were old and looking a little worse-for-wear that you didn't have feelings? He could envision their conversation in the trendy pub they'd repair to after their civic duties were done. "Who was the bum standing next to you?" A shrug and then the other wiseacre would say: "I don't know. Just some old guy."

It was enough to make you want to return all the ribbons and shiny pieces of metal they'd given you for doing the stupid things you had done. The things that might have got your fool head shot off, as your father had scolded when you got home – just before he wrapped you in a bear hug and wept openly on your shoulder.

But that was then and this was now. This year, November 11^th had dawned in Toronto. In a way, it was like going home. He'd attended the proceedings out in front of what they now called Old City Hall a dozen times or more. He preferred Vancouver. There was a 50-50 chance the sun would come out and you wouldn't have to stand there stamping your feet and blowing on your fingers to keep warm. But the luck of the draw had set him down in Toronto this time and that was how it was.

The luck of the draw. He remembered the first time his buddy Bob McKenzie had used the term. They were in a convoy in Holland and a German shell had hit the truck two vehicles ahead of theirs, killing everybody on board. Another time, they'd woken up in a slit trench after a night of heavy shelling and discovered a 125-pound dud bomb nose deep in the mud just above their heads. If it had gone off, that would have been the end of it. But, as Bob had mumbled stoically after they'd both lit up a Sweet Caps with shaking hands, it was the luck of the draw.

It was the luck of the draw when he got home after his war was over and found out his girl had married one of the local zombies instead of waiting for him. And it was the luck of the draw when his pre-war employer told him the shirker who'd replaced him had done such a good job that it wouldn't be fair to take the job away from him now.

He hadn't cared much about where he went or what he did after that. The years had turned into decades and the decades had slipped through his fingers like the nickels, dimes and quarters he'd pumped into payphones during the many frustrating years of job quests before he'd decided to quit trying. He had a small pension from Veterans Affairs for the shrapnel still lodged in various parts of his body from that final luck-of-the-draw incident at the Twente Canal that had earned him an early ticket home. He augmented the pension with odd jobs whenever his stash got low. Day labourer. Office cleaner. Night watchman. But he'd never stooped to petty theft or panhandling. A man had to have some pride.

In his spare time, he haunted the public libraries in whatever city he was in, devouring books on World War II, trying to figure out what it had all been about and why so many people had sacrificed so much for what turned out to be so little. There were still wars. There were still tinpot dictators. Nothing much had changed.

One thing the years had done was turn him into a walking encyclopaedia about WWII. He still didn't know if it was a term of affection or derision when the young people crashing at a Sally Ann hostel he was staying at in Kamloops that time started referring to him as Daddy Warbooks after they'd seen him absorbed in his reading.

Whenever he attended a Remembrance Day ceremony, all it would take would be the drone of an ancient Lancaster doing a fly-past overhead to get the videotape in his head rolling. The highlights of World War II would begin unfolding before his eyes as if it were 1939 all over again. In fact, he could hear the bomber's familiar deep-throated rumble coming in over Lake Ontario right now, probably on a flight path from Hamilton where somebody had told him they still kept a couple of Lankies at their aviation museum…

He could hear the whirr in his head as the film footage started looping through his brain. The rest of the Remembrance Day ceremony faded into the background as his internal memory screen, as it always did, caught him up in long-ago scenes of artillery barrages, men screaming and dying horribly, the smell of death filling his nostrils and his whole body shaking with uncontrollable tremors. He'd ride this one through just like he had most of the others. Never again would he allow them to cart him off to some hellhole and wrap him in wet blankets until the screaming stopped. Hang on, he told himself. Hang on…

The last ragged bugle notes of Reveille were still echoing through the stone and glass canyons of Queen and Bay Streets as the onlookers straggled back to their homes and offices, their annual Remembrance Day tribute to Canadian veterans now over. "Lest we forget" they'd murmur, then forget about it all for another year.

The old soldier, having once again won the internal battle against his personal demons, began to shuffle eastward along Queen Street toward "Flophouse Alley", as Lower Jarvis Street is known to many of the denizens of the hostels, shelters and rooming houses lining that once-fashionable thoroughfare.

One of the "suits" who had crowded in beside him on the sidewalk during the ceremony at the cenotaph called after him: "Hey, Pop, how's about joining me and my friend for a drink. We have a pretty good bottle of aftershave here. Or do you prefer Lysol?"

The old man didn't even flinch at the remark or at the guffaws accompanying it. He'd heard it all before – and much worse. What did bring him up short though was the high-pitched reprimand that followed the loudmouth's comment.

"Don't you talk to him like that. Can't you see he's a veteran? He's wearing his medals. He fought for people like you and now you treat him like dirt. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

His defender, he learned to his surprise as he turned around, was a young schoolgirl of about 13 or 14 who was standing amongst a gaggle of girlfriends, her hands on her hips and a stern look of rebuke on her face. The two men in their three-piece suits looked as though they were about to say something, then turned around sheepishly and quick-marched the few steps to the Queen-Bay intersection, turning sharply left down Bay Street and out of sight.

"That's not like you, Marcie," one of the other girls said. "What made you say those things? Who's the man you were sticking up for?"

Marcie shrugged. "I dunno. Just some old guy. But he could have been my great-grandfather. He was killed in the war."

The old soldier turned around and re-started his trek toward Jarvis Street. He was grateful for the cold wind that suddenly flared up because it gave him an excuse to wipe away the tears in his eyes.

"Maybe it wasn't in vain after all," he thought to himself as he made his way home.