To Hell With Treeplanting

There was a complete dearth of people like Liv Tyler on the bus to Spain.

I was reminded once again that long bus trips just are not pleasant. It wasn't a horrific trip by any means. I've been on much nastier trips. Some particularly unpleasant treeplanting bus trips come to mind for instance.

Lately, I seem to have had a few mildly unpleasant experiences which have created a kind of twisted nostalgia for my old life. I was at a friend's engagement party recently. We were in the back garden in the evening and there were a few mosquitos. I think I got bitten twice but it was enough to transport me back to the camps and engender a wonderful warm glow that this was the worst bug experience I'd had in more than a year. It was nothing like being eaten alive by black flies in Northern Ontario or breathing in clouds of mosquitos in the Liard.

The bus trip was a bit like that evening. It was unpleasant enough to put me back in that frame of mind where I would be riding or driving (even worse) a battered old school bus for days at a time over terrible roads in worse weather, but it was still comparatively comfortable. There was air-conditioning. The seats reclined. And there was a "Casper the Friendly Ghost" video (amongst others).

It has given me a new repetoire of toasts along the lines of, "To Hell with Treeplanting" and "Death to the Spoon!"

I've discovered, by the way, that the English need to have toasts explained to them. It's not enough to turn to a random group of Englishmen and shout 'Death to the Spoon!" or "Thank God for the Newfies!" and expect them to raise their glasses with you. They need to know what the hell it is you're ranting about. I don't mind explaining but it seems only polite for them to join me in my toast first.

Why does it have to mean anything? Does "Cheers!" mean anything? They all mean roughly the same thing, "Drink with me and be my friend." Thus the subtle message that those bastards at Dave's birthday party were sending when they refused to drink until I explained what a Newfie is and why we should thank God for them was that they didn't consider me to be their friend. Bunch of bastards!

Anyway, the bus trip was one of those experiences that prompted an internal toast of "To Hell with Treeplanting". It reminded me of how unpleasant that life could be, but at the end dropped me off at a small Spanish Town with the Mediterranean stretched out before my feet and nothing to do but read books, swim in the sea, and loaf. This, as opposed to being expelled into a small Canadian town with a savage bug-infested wilderness at my feet and a summer of barely endurable toil ahead of me.

Death to the Spoon!