The Sun Comes Up Tomorrow, er, Here April 17th 2023

 Here it is,  the middle of April,  and our taxes are done.  Seems late, doesn't it?  It may have crossed the mind of some of you that we must really not need the refund if we waited that long.   While we could have used the refund in February and every day since,  we were out of country for a couple of months.  So there's that.  And for the first time in my adult life,  we owe the tax man what amounts to a tidy sum.  Tidy enough to strike the whine bone.   Yup.  Here I am,  a golden aged old dude on a fixed income having to pay the man.  

So, here's the surprise.  I was taking my daughter to the airport in Calgary when I got the text from our family accountant who I often refer to by name:  Carol.   She needed to share her denial, frustration, anger, grief and acceptance and couldn't wait till I got home.   That was likely because she hadn't got to the acceptance thing yet.   So there I was at a roadside Tim Horton's somewhere north of Calgary on the highway we call the Duce, (that's a whole other story),  when I found out that I needed to cough up a tidy sum within the next five days.  So what's a guy to do?   

Well here's what I did:   Nothing.  Not for a moment anyway.  Then I laughed.  I hit the acceptance thing early.  I know some of you who I know and love but who do not share my political values are thinking I am so committed to the current government that I even don't mind paying more tax.  Yeah, that's not it.  I have no political compass when it comes to me paying taxes.  I lived through several years of wage freezes under one government,  the birth of the G.S.T. under another.  I paid more for this and more for that to every level of government since I was about 17 and it always hurt.   Until I got my refund, that always seemed like a gift.  That I always planned to invest, or save or apply to something.  Which I usually spent on new bikes for the kids, a weekend away that I thought we deserved, or a Norville Phelps autographed Louisville Slugger left handers baseball glove .   But there I was realizing that there would be no toy or trip or 15 yr. old scotch and simply shrugging it off.  

I am no kid anymore.   I realize that you pay it if you made it.  I have seen our governments do what they can for so many who really suffered from the economic effects  through almost three years of pandemic.  I have seen how broken the entire world remains.  Gaylord Weston and the Walton crew made out like bandits over the pandemic.  But the bulk of us didn't.  Apart from the tragic and cruel deaths caused by the pandemic,  many struggling small businesses may never recover.   There are numerous mental health issues brought on by the isolation.   The world is an angry place.  People are angry with their governments.  They are angry with each other.  They want justice....... for what?  Don't know, and I am not sure many of those most upset know either.  

It hardly seems fair that all that death, destruction, heart ache, and restriction should come with a price tag,  but that is just the kind of slap in the face that comes with reality.   And through it all, we have seen the rise of some pretty confusing things.   Like Christianity in the far right reforms.   Like it or not, Jesus was a socialist.  He really did believe that others needs were more important than his own.  He worked as a carpenter until he gave it up to preach full time.  He didn't serve the poor by opening a furniture factory and hiring locals who would make somewhere around 400% less than him annually.  He didn't hit the Roman Governor up for tax exemptions for a palace that had a basement office,  or several teams of Arabian horses and assorted carriages to transport his ministry to the mountain where he sold the fast foods of the times to those who gathered at inflated prices.  

The pandemic has left us all feeling vulnerable.  Unfulfilled.  Tired.  Scared.  And it has allowed others to pounce.   But for all that,  I am tired of the words  "push back".   and "take back".   I am tired of making things great again.  And if "Sunny Ways" is going to do anything more than provide an opportunity for scorn and anger, it has to be more than a slogan.  

Tell you what:  I make old guy mistakes all the time.  I use words that are no longer acceptable.  When I refer to someone by a nickname that is no longer acceptable,  I get called out immediately if front of who ever's there.  It embarrasses me, but it happens because the person calling me out usually is someone who loves me and feels embarrassed too.  I want to do the right thing.  I don't always understand the fuss, but then again I was never a member of the minority of people who associate the names given to them by those who gained from colonization, and slavery, and so many other forms of racism or sexism.  

It is a complex world.  Not all of us fit into the cookie cutter life contrived by who knows who way back when.   For years so many good and decent people found the only possible way to exist was to be invisible.  None of those cultures or sub cultures want to hide any more.    And it scares us.  People like me who lived a pretty privileged life.  People like me who needed only to compete with people like me.  In a town or a city or a country where we all looked and dressed the same.  Where we all ate the same foods and drank the same beverages.  Where the people we dated were in the other change room during gym class.  Those who didn't conform are so much braver and stronger than one could ever expect them to be.  They no longer hide or withdraw.   They get right in our face. 

And for the record:   I won't even pretend to understand other cultures, races, or orientations,  but I THINK IT IS WONDERFUL.   And the only stumbling block for my embracing a new world where we live and let live?   That would be me.    The current pushback that includes the banning of books in a country that throws the word "freedom" around like they invented it is the last stand of those who don't want to admit the oppression of the vast majority who live outside the box.  And while it will never be over,  we are one or two speed bumps away from it getting better...... for everyone.   

The sun comes up tomorrow......except in the arctic in January..... but those guys up there have coped with that for centuries.