We Shall Never Surrender

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and with growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender."

(excerpt of Sir Winston Churchill's speech dated June 4, 1940)

I googled "The Greatest Speeches in History" and I found Sir Winston's Churchill's World War II speech to be voted number 1.  It was one of three famous speeches he delivered to inspire Britons during their darkest hour in the Spring of 1940, the other two being:  "Blood, Toil, Sweat and Tears" and "Their Finest Hour".  The British soldiers had just suffered defeat at the Battle of Dunkirk in France and needed inspiration.  The words of the speech are stirring and powerful, but the way that Churchill delivered it was equally important -- with complete confidence.  If you listen to the speech on Youtube, the Prime Minister starts the speech quietly and then builds the suspense to a powerful finale.  At no point does he yell; he just speaks evenly and smoothly and assuringly.  Contrast that with Adolf Hitler's staccato rants.  No wonder Britain and the Allies won the war. 

A veteran of World War I, he could put himself in the shoes of the soldiers on the battlefield.  He knew how to get his hands dirty.  In fact, he even considered landing with the Allied troops on the beach at Normandy in the D-Day invasion of June 1944, but had to be talked out of his decision by King George VI.  Churchill knew how to inspire the British people.

I heard someone say recently that inspiration literally means "God's breath".  I looked the word up online and discovered two related words "divine guidance".  I believe that it was divine guidance that led Churchill and Britain through the Second World War.  His speeches were a lifeline for his citizens.  It is remarkable that a man who suffered from a stutter when he was young went on to become one of the greatest orators of all time.



Photo courtesy http://4.bp.blogspot.com

      

The Painting

As Whitby feels a gentle breeze.
Swaying sailboats cast silhouettes.
In a window hangs a chemise.
Stone houses with red parapets.

Swaying sailboats cast silhouettes.
Cirrus clouds streak the sky in May.
Stone houses with red parapets.
Cobblestone walkways line the bay.

Cirrus clouds streak the sky in May.
The villagers cannot be found.
Cobblestone walkways line the bay.
Gentle foothills grace the background.

The villagers cannot be found.
Balconies are empty once more.
Gentle foothills grace the background.
Peace surrounds the "Inner Harbour".

Balconies are empty once more.
In the window hangs a chemise.
Peace surrounds the "Inner Harbour"
As Whitby feels a gentle breeze.

Linda Jonasson
June 30,2007.



Painting courtesy www.stephengulbis.com

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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

I'll give you a hint.  If you read my blog titled "The Berenstain Bears and A Leap of Faith" (June 1), you might figure out who's coming to dinner today.  They are a nice young couple named Lance and Nicole, the same couple we took out for dinner twelve and a half years ago. 

It was an unseasonably warm December day.  A thunderstorm hit as we prepared for the dinner and I struggled nervously to put on my contacts in the dark.  Our nerves disappeared, however, once we reached the restaurant.  Lance was dressed in a white and navy blue sports shirt and jeans.  Nicole was dressed in a pretty yellow embroidered top and pants. We sat in a booth together at Moose Winooski's and the waitor took our picture.  Rob ordered a party size platter of nachos that evening.  I ordered chicken fingers and fries.  But we weren't focussing on the food that night.  We talked up a storm as if we had known each other for years; and yet we had only met two days before.  I can still show you the booth where we dined.  The waitor took our picture, a keepsake from the magical evening.  As Nicole stood up to leave, we could see her round belly.  She was the vision of good health; her beautiful face glowed and her wavy hair shone.  As we said our goodbyes, we knew it would not be long before we met again.

Two days later the phone rang.  Lance announced that Nicole had just delivered a bouncing baby boy of 9 pounds and 20 1/2 inches long.  We jumped in the car and raced to the hospital to see him.  Nicole gave me her precious bundle and I held him like one might hold a fine piece of china.  Lance had already taken lots of photos of the new baby whom we named Thomas Lance:  a shot of him in a hand-knit yellow sweater with a hood that made him look like a little George Washington; a shot of him with a baby book, Pat the Bunny; a shot of him propped up with a soft white Teddy bear and a bouquet of flowers -- all gifts his birth relatives had given him.  There was also a picture of Lance's feet held up to Thomas' feet.  Both had very long toes; they were definitely related.  I fed Thomas his bottle and we chatted for two hours.  Then it was time to go.

We brought Thomas home 13 days later.  What a joy it was to see him grow!  And for the first six months we got a visit from Lance and Nicole.  Always a little nervous at first, once we saw the couple, our nervousness disappeared.  They got to watch Thomas grow like a weed.  We wondered how the visits would pan out.  Afterall, there was no manual to follow.  But God guided us every step of the way.  People wondered if Thomas' birthparents would be interfering; I found that the average Joe on the street had more unsolicited parenting advice than they ever did.  Lance and Nicole gave us their child; giving them these visits was the least we could do. 

Now Thomas anxiously awaits his birthparents' bi-annual visit.  At Christmas time, they come loaded down with gifts.  They must spend their entire pay cheque on presents.  Thomas rips them open, smiling ear to ear.  Now Jacqueline gets presents as well from them.  A couple of years ago she asked me who her birthparents were; when I said that Mommy and Daddy were, she looked disappointed.  So I suggested we make Lance and Nicole her honourary birthparents.  And she agreed.  She is in there like a dirty old shirt as they watch movies and play video games together. 

Today was our summer visit.  Thomas is shoulder to shoulder with Nicole now.  It won't be that many years before he reaches Lance's height.  We always play a soccer game in the backyard.  Usually it's birth family against birth family.  Usually, Lance, Nicole and Thomas win.  I'll use the excuse that they have youth on their side, even if it's a poor one.  Today they beat us twice.  Rob barbecued sausages and I cooked onion soup potatoes and broccoli with cheddar cheese.  We ate out on our new patio (Jacqueline snuck a couple of pieces of sausage through the fence for the dog next door).

The next time I say:  "Guess who's coming to dinner?" the weather might change, the menu might change, the conversation might change.  But one thing remains the same:  the awesome company.  Thank you for giving us your son, Lance and Nicole!  Thank you for being part of our family.  We love you very much!

The Amber Room

A caravan of 18 Wehrmacht trucks left the Catherine Palace and wound its way through the countryside of Russia to East Prussia.  Inside the trucks were 26 crates and inside the crates was one of Europe's greatest art treasures, the Amber Room.  Commissioned by Frederick the Great of Prussia to be given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1818 as a gift, the Amber Room was an entire chamber paneled in amber, sometimes called "the eighth wonder of the world".  Amber was worth ten times the value of gold at the time and floated in abundance on the shores of the Baltic Sea.  The Prussians had delivered the Amber Room to Leningrad in 18 wagon carts where it had been put on display in the Catherine Palace for the commoners to admire.

There it had sat for over two centuries.  However, when the Nazis invaded Leningrad in September of 1941, they captured the Catherine Palace (Catherine Palais) and occupied it as they did the entire city (the Siege of Leningrad).  Predicting their imminent arrival, the Russians had packed up many of their art treasures, but they had not had time to dismantle the Amber Room.  Hastily they had wallpapered over it to disguise the panels.

Now it was late 1941 and the Wehrmacht was at the gates of Leningrad.  They stormed the palace, ripped off the wallpaper and discovered the Amber Room underneath.  It took the German Army 36 hours to pack up the panels into the crates.  Six months later, the Amber Room arrived in Koenigsberg, East Prussia and was put on display in the museum of Koenigsberg Castle, the original location of its construction.  The treasure was on display to visitors to the city for two years. 

In August of 1944 the Allies bombed Koenigsberg Castle.  Soon after, the Amber Room disappeared.  Eyewitnesses said that they spotted the amber panels at the Koenigsberg train station.  Rumours spread that it was on the ill-fated ship the Wilhelm Gustloff which was torpedoed and sunk by the Russians in the Baltic Sea.  Others claimed that the chamber was hidden in an underground cave.

In March of 1946, Anatoly Kuchumov headed to Koenigsberg to search for the Amber Room.  He discovered some of the 25,000 German refugees hidden in the cellars of the burnt out Koenigsberg homes.  In the rubble of the former Koenigsberg Castle, he found small traces of the Amber Room.  He also found some partially burnt letters explaining the plan to evacuate the Amber Room to a castle in Saxony (West Germany).  Kuchumov discovered three stone mosaic pictures that once decorated the amber panels, although there had originally been four; this gave him hope that the Amber Room had been safely evacuated.  But where?  Evacuating the panels by road would have been virtually impossible given the condition of the roads at the time and the size of the load.  Likely the evacuation was done by train or by boat.  The last train left Koenigsberg on January 22, 1945, the precise time when the amber panels disappeared. 

Interestingly enough, a replica of the Amber Room, started in 1999 and completed in 2004, is now on display in Russia and has been viewed by many diplomats including Russia's former President Putin and England's former Prime Minister Tony Blair.  How strange that a regime as evil as the Nazis would have valued an artistic treasure as beautiful as the Amber Room.  Given that they were known for looting European art during the war, though, it should not be a surprise.  The mystery continues.



Photo courtesy www.geo.uw.edu.pl

Niagara: A History of the Falls

Pierre Berton's book Niagara:  A History of the Falls is an excellent read for both Canadians and Americans.  Mr. Berton's book is a history, geography, environmental, business and art lesson all rolled into one.  The reader learns how the Falls came into being and how it has slowly receded over the course of thousands of years.  We hear about the first European to explore the area, Samuel de Champlain.  We learn about the early entrepreneurs who set up shop in the town, some honest and many dishonest, taking advantage of their naive customers.  Niagara talks about the daredevils who were attracted to the Falls including Blondin who crossed the swirling waters several times on a tightrope, once even with a man on his back and once with a table and chair.  We hear about the schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor, aged 60 or more, who successfully plunged over the Falls in a barrel.  Pierre Berton also mentions Frederic Church who painted beautiful scenes of Niagara Falls, the artist who also created Sunset over the Ice.  Niagara also describes the natural ice bridge that used to form over the Niagara River belong the Falls every winter over which many people crossed.  Power generation schemes presented by inventors like Nikola Tesla (a proponent of the Alternating Current system) are also included.  Mr. Berton devotes a section to Red Hill, a daredevil and later rescuer of many victims of the Falls and the whirpool.  Red saved the crew of a barge that was headed over the brink and then got caught on a small island, its rusty remains still visible today. (On a Grade 8 tour, I was told that the men had to wait until daylight to be rescued and while the sky turned black, their hair turned white.)  Finally, the reader is given a thorough history of Love Canal, the toxic waste site on which new homes were built and whose residents later became deathly ill.  Pierre Berton manages to touch on so many different subjects and yet in such a cohesive manner.  We will never lose our fascination with the Falls.



Photo courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org

The TB Test

If it weren't for an x-ray technician botching a TB test, my husband Rob may never have been born.  Rob's Tante Doris (Aunt Doris) and her husband Onkel Ernst were born and raised in Germany.  After World War II they lived for a few years in Belgium and then planned to immigrate to the west, specifically Brazil.  As part of their preparation for the trip, they underwent chest x-rays to prove that they did not suffer from Tuberculosis.  Doris' x-ray passed inspection; however, Ernst's x-ray was rejected since it was considered too small.  So the couple waited for another x-ray to be taken.

In the meantime, the immigration ship sailed to Brazil without them.  They agreed that they would take the next available ship to the New World, regardless of where it was headed.  The next boat was bound for Canada and, with an appropriately sized x-ray this time, Ernst boarded with Doris and their young daughter Ursula.


The German-born couple settled in Hamilton, Ontario in 1952.  One of Ursula's first memories involved a train overturning near Ferguson Avenue, an exciting event for a little girl.  Ernst looked for work at Stelco but was turned down every time.  Discouraged, he was ready to give up when his life took a dramatic turn.

Doris suggested one day that they go house hunting.  Although Onkel Ernst was not in the mood, he went along reluctantly.  On Liberty Street, they discovered a house for sale that Doris fell in love with.  Striking up a conversation with the owner, the couple discovered that he was on his way back to Scotland.  The new immigrants explained Ernst's job search.  The Scottish man said that he was a Stelco employee; he recommended that Onkel Ernst show up on Monday morning at the steel plant and he would put in the good word for him.  Sure enough, Monday arrived and Onkel Ernst was hired; the couple bought the house on Liberty Street.

Back in Germany, Doris' sister Elfriede was considering defecting from the East to the West.  Onkel Ernst wrote Elfriede a letter (in code) in late 1953 stating that he and his wife would act as sponsors for her and her children to come to Canada.  Elfriede took him up on the offer, and although it took over a year and a half, she arrived with her kids in 1955 (see my June 2 post "Bon Voyage").  The threesome settled on Liberty Street with Ernst and Doris. 

On the day that Hurricane Hazel hit Southern Ontario, another German family was moving on to Liberty Street.  Karl-Heinz Jonasson, his wife, his daughter and brother, Albert, had just arrived a few months before in Hamilton.  Albert took a trip down to Lake Ontario and was amazed at the large rocks that Hazel had blown up on to the beach.

Within a short time, the Jonasson's met other families on the street including Ernst and Doris and their niece Irmgard and nephew Manfred.  Albert and Irmgard started dating and were married in 1957 at the German Lutheran Church.  Relatives joined the couple at the Germania Club for the reception. 

Ten years later, Irmgard gave birth to a bouncing baby boy named Robert Frederick at Henderson Hospital in Hamilton, the same hospital where I was born.  If not for the botched TB test, Rob may never have been born.  Some mistakes turn out to be blessings.



Photo courtesy http://www.omjournal.org

Our Ogopogo Encounter

 

     Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster.  Japan has Kawako.  And Canada has Ogopogo.  Possibly named after the Pogo Stick craze of the 1920’s, Ogopogo is a sea creature lurking off the shores of British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake.  My husband and I encountered Ogopogo in the summer of 1992, the year we married.  On an overcast Southern Ontario day, I, with confetti in my hair, and Rob, with a new ring on his left hand, hugged our parents goodbye and headed out west on our honeymoon.  It was like a scene from the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”:  we flew to Calgary (our stewardess saw the confetti in my hair and invited us to talk to the captain in the cockpit); we boarded a train to Vancouver; and then we rented a car to take us into British Columbia’s Interior.  Driving along the highways to the Okanagan Valley, we enjoyed a scene of endless blue skies, lush evergreens and white-capped mountains.  Little did we know we were about to meet a monster.

     After six hours in the car, we arrived in Kelowna and were treated to the breathtaking view of Big White Mountain just outside the city.  Rob slowly guided our rental car up the side of Big White, manoeuvring the tight curves carefully.  At one point we saw a sign that read: "Put belts on tires here." We didn't have to worry about traction, though, since it was the middle of summer.  About three quarters of the way up the mountain we spotted a black and white cow.  Don’t cows belong on farms?  Finally we reached the top of Big White Mountain, parked the car and stretched our numb legs.  Balancing our luggage, we found my Aunt Sandra's condo and unlocked the door:  inside, it was clean, neat and nicely decorated.  This would be our home for the next week, a wedding gift from my aunt and uncle. As the sun set, we could not hear a sound, save the occasional howl of one lonely dog.  We urbanites were all alone on Big White Mountain.
    
     The next day, as Ogopogo swam up the coastline of Okanagan Lake from his Rattlesnake Island home, we headed down the mountain, past the howling dog, past the wild cow and past the "Put belts on tires here" sign to the city of Kelowna.  Our destination was Okanagan Lake.  The weather was gorgeous for a beach day: an azure sky without a cloud, a gentle breeze, and a dry heat.  Opening our picnic basket, a recent wedding gift, Rob and I unpacked it and sat on a blanket eating egg salad sandwiches and drinking Nestea.  After lunch, clad in our swimsuits we waded into the crystal blue waters of Okanagan Lake, a 135 km-long and 5-km wide and 232-metre deep lake nestled between the Rocky Mountains.  It was our first swim as husband and wife.  We were running on the high newlyweds get when they first fall in love and feel like they are the only two people in the world.

  
     But we were wrong – someone else was in the lake with us.  Rob felt something brush past his hand, then saw a long shadow disappear into the depths of the lake.  As my 6-foot-4-inch husband raised his hand up to point out the direction in which the shadow had headed, I noticed he was no longer wearing his wedding ring.  I had heard of newlyweds losing their wedding rings (my Dad lost his in the first six months) but this was ridiculous!  “You’re kidding, right?”  I said to my husband.  “No, it’s gone!” he shouted with a shocked look on his face.  That shadow must have been Ogopogo and he must have eaten Rob’s ring.  I would have made a peace offering to the snake-in-the-lake like the 19^th-Century Native Indians did as they paddled in their canoes, but I didn’t have a dead animal in my picnic basket, only a stale egg salad sandwich.  Somewhere inside that creature was a golden ring engraved with the words “To My Rob, Love Linda – July 11, 1992”.  So much for a peaceful day at the beach!

     Yes, we lost the ring, but at least we didn’t lose each other.  I wasn’t about to let Nessie’s Canadian cousin ruin our honeymoon!  Back on that newlywed high, we hopped into our rental car and returned to Big White Mountain. The ski lift hung empty and there was no sign of life.  As we unlocked the condo, I heard the three words every bride longs to hear from her groom:  “I am starving!”  So I warmed some food up in the microwave that we had bought at Safeway in town, given that I was a newlywed and did not yet know how to cook.  After supper, we had nothing to do. The silence was deafening.  So we did what newlyweds usually do – we played Scrabble.

     The following day, we took a trip south to Penticton, near Ogopogo’s home.  The Okanagan's dry heat and fertile soil lend themselves well to growing produce.  If Kelowna was pretty, Penticton was beautiful!  We strolled arm in arm in the fruit orchards, basking in the sun’s warmth.  We picked cherries, Rob doing more eating than picking.  It reminded us of the Niagara Region of Ontario, just with mountains rather than an escarpment.  Aah!  Life was good.

     After five days on Big White Mountain, however, our honeymoon high started to wear off.  I found myself crying due to the isolation we experienced there.  A bride crying on her honeymoon; that just wasn’t right!  What happened to our wedded bliss?  Even though Rob wanted to stay longer to save money on a hotel (we had our first marital fight) we left the condo two days early and wound our way past the howling dog (now silent), the wild cow and the sign saying "Put belts on tires here".  We took one last drive through Kelowna and said goodbye to the sun-kissed valley, the crystal blue lake and a sea creature named Ogopogo. 

     The next day, Rob and I went shopping for a new wedding ring.  Even though it’s not engraved like the first one, it has served its purpose for 19 years.  We also made another purchase at the mall:  two snake-like stuffed animals covered in green fur with big eyes and shark-like teeth.  They would make good presents for our little nieces.  While I was disappointed that Rob lost his ring, I guess Ogopogo needed it more.  Thanks to the elusive sea serpent we now have a lasting memory of our Okanagan honeymoon.



Photo courtesy http://citizenshift.org