Geezers with Guitars

(Paul and I playing at the Thorndale Acoustical Music Club.
Photo by George Barnett)

I love playing my guitars. For about three years, I have been jamming most Wednesday evenings with Paul Pedersen, another guitar player. He responded to a Kijiji.ca ad I had placed captioned something like: Talentless Geezer Seeking Jamming Partner. He was still living in North Bay, Ontario, but had taken a job in London, where I live, and thought that answering the ad might help him get to know someone here and that as a lover of music he might have some fun as well.

The relationship has worked out well. We started playing mostly old songs from the thirties and forties with an occasional inclusion of something a decade or two younger. Once we got to be comfortable with each other and our respective playing styles, we started bringing original material to our sessions and found that we were each able to enhance the other's work and soon we played more original material than anything else.

We are slowly starting to record some of our original songs, all instrumental, at a studio of a new friend of ours named Kent Thorburn. Unfortunately, we all live somewhat hectic lives and getting the time to record is difficult.

Paul and I call ourselves Geezers with Guitars and I have created a website and a FaceBook page under that name. I will slowly be adding recorded material and to start there are a few representative compositions of both Paul's and mine and also our version of a song called Sweet Dreams by Don Gibson. Have a look/listen on the Songs page of the website if you are interested. Remember, we do this for fun, not with any great desire to wow anyone. If you like anything we do, send a comment to us from the Contact Us page of the website. That way both Paul and I will see your comment and will be (hopefully) encouraged. Don't forget that we are old and feeble and that any negative comments might be perilous to our health ;-).

Life is all about having fun and this part of my life is a lot of fun.

Happy 18th Birthday, Zach!

It seems that all I am writing on this blog these days is birthday posts. I certainly wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to write about an occasion as momentous as my son's 18th birthday, so I think it is time for some reflection.

I was 47 years old when Zachary was born. Several months before he arrived, I had taken a solitary trip, at my wife's urging, to find my brothers in Germany. I have written about this before but here is a brief recap: In January of 1945, near the end of World War II, my mother, along with tens of thousands of other Germans who had resided in Poland, were fleeing towards Germany to the west to escape the advancing Russian army. She had become separated from my father through a series of misadventures and was alone with my sister Wanda, aged about thirteen at the time and my bothers Albert and Erwin, aged respectively 3 1/2 and 1 1/2. I was not yet born. My two brothers got sick and my mother took them to a clinic in Graal Muritz, a seaside resort in what would later become communist East Germany and there they died.

Because the refugees had no choice but to keep going, nothing was known about where my brothers were buried. I made it my quest to travel to Graal Muritz and find out. I needed the closure. The trip and the emotional turmoil I experienced are too much to address here in a few words, but I visited the clinic and was told that when the Russians arrived all patient records were destroyed. A receptionist at the clinic helpfully suggested I visit the local Lutheran Church to see if they had any records. I met with a kindly pastor there and he found an old ledger with my brothers' names and their times of death and where they had been buried. He also warned me that I shouldn't expect grave markers as so many children had died that the bodies were simply stacked one on top of the other.

I found the cemetery. I spent most of one day there, walking around, grieving and getting the closure that I needed. The rage I had felt for years was stilled and I felt mostly just emptiness and disappointment. Disappointment that I would never get to meet my brothers, disappointment that they had been cheated of their lives, disappointment in the human race for repeating the same insane behaviours century after century, seemingly never learning from experience that hate and violence breeds, not surprisingly, more hate and violence.

The photo above is of the church in the cemetery at Graal Muritz where my brothers were buried.

When I returned to Canada, I was very ready for something more positive in my life. A little over two months later, Zachary Alexander Pedde was born. For many years, I had been ambivalent about having children. I needn't have been. My son has been a source of joy and pride and has given me a sense of continuity that I needed.

As Zach grew up, I talked to him often about my brothers, about my family history, about history generally, about war and peace, about everything I could think of that would help him come to his own conclusions about the meaning of it all. At age eighteen now, I know that he is equipped to handle life's surprises, its frustrations and disappointments, and still be receptive to and grateful for, its beauty and pleasures.

Life is, as Thomas Hobbes first told us: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." It is up to each of us to find joy and peace and meaning in our life. I think I have accomplished quite a lot in my life and I am proud of my achievements. But if I had never accomplished anything in my life but to be the father of Zachary Alexander Pedde, I would be proud to have that honour and distinction. He is a special young man and I am very proud to be his father.

I love you, son.

Happy 18th birthday.

Dad

On becoming a 'senior citizen' . . .

This past Sunday, I turned sixty-five years old. Hurrah! That last sentiment, normally expressed with laudatory or congratulatory intent, is here laden with more than a little sarcasm.

Getting old sucks. I'm in pretty good health, overall. Everything still works satisfactorily, so I am less disgusted with my physical and mental state than I am with the fact that my time on earth is slowly running out. My father lived to be 94, my mother 88, so my genetic influences are pretty good, but let's just say that I wish I had fifty or sixty or a hundred more years to live rather than a mere thirty or forty.

Why?

Because I am a curious guy. Every day I wake up excited about what the day will bring. I like running my businesses and don't expect to retire, probably ever. I like watching my son grow up and am constantly amazed by all the little things that puzzle, perplex, amuse and sometimes mortify parents around the world. Zach is seventeen, about to turn eighteen. Yes, we're both Leos. I don't believe in astrology but interestingly both my son and I share some of the more stereotypical Leo traits. Like most fathers and sons, we butt heads on occasion, but I have to say that he is turning into an outstanding young man and I am very proud of him.

I am also curious to see if humankind will ever get its collective head out of its fat ass and realize that individual responsibility, rather than delegation of responsibilities to incompetent and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, is the answer to everything. Why is it that so many of us have so little faith in ourselves that we bind ourselves in servitude to groups of meddlers who are almost always inferior to us in every way?

I don't understand.

Maybe that is why I want to hang around for a long, long, time. I seek understanding every day. Maybe someday I will find it. I am frustrated every day. Maybe some day I will wake up without frustration. Maybe then, I will be ready to 'go.'

I suspect that it will be a long, long, time until the world makes any sense to me. Given that I want to hang around for a long, long, time, I guess that is a convenient co-incidence.

Don't worry that I am letting things eat away at me and that I will become a bitter and disillusioned old man. I take life as it comes and look at it and everything around me with bemusement. I don't always like what I see but I don't let it destroy me. I prefer laughing and loving over grousing and hating.

It's my life. As long as I will be able, I will live it on my terms. I hope that you, dear reader, and I both are around when I write a blog post on the occasion of my hundred-and-thirtieth birthday.

New concept drawing for Roca Milagro site plan

My friend John Cornacchia and his staff at Globacorp have produced a great conceptual design for our Roca Milagro development. It will help us all understand what the project might look like when complete, how large the lots are and how everything relates to the green areas, the river and the streams.

If you would like a high resolution PDF file to see the details of the site plan better, please email me and I will send you a copy.

And yet more Berlin Wall . . .

Photograph by Dr. Friedhelm Pedde

In response to my posting of the Fall of the Berlin Wall article by my cousin Dr. Friedhelm Pedde, I got a very nice personal account of a visit to Berlin long ago from an old friend, Paul Miniato. With his permission, I am posting it below. If any other Atavist reader has similar stories, please send them along and I will post them.

Here is Paul Miniato's account of his visit to Berlin:

In the summer of 1972 I visited Germany on a university exchange program -- I had a job as a waiter at the a hotel in Schwangau in the south of the country. As a 21-year-old student, the job helped me practice the German I had been learning at UVic.

As a new 'libertarian' -- but one who had never met another in person -- I was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to discuss the politics of freedom. Some of my earliest discussions took place with the guests of the Hotel. The first self-avowed libertarian I ever met was a US serviceman stationed in Nuernburg -- when we met, he took me to the windswept deserted stadium that had hosted Hitler's rallies, but that's another story.

At the end of the summer, we students assembled again for a three-day trip to Berlin. My visit to the Wall turned out to be one of those days that I never forgot. During the day we visited a "museum of escapes" that documented many of the successful attempts that had been made to get over, under or otherwise through the wall. I remember one exhibit showing a van which had been "armoured" to make a run through a checkpoint -- body cavities filled with concrete, windows replaced by sheet metal plates filled with drill holes. (They made it -- with some casualties I think -- but after that the checkpoints were littered with tank stops to prevent future trips like theirs.)

Late in the day, I found myself on an observation deck that had been built on the west side of the wall to allow you to look over. There we could see the sites your cousin has photographed, only the dogs were still running and the guards still patrolling. On that platform was a former East German guard who had made the escape -- we spent much of the evening into the wee hours listening to his accounts of the life of the guards. I also learned that the former guards were actually the sponsor of the museum of escapes.

By that time, most of the escapees past the wall itself were the guards themselves, usually in pairs. Apart from everything else to stop the regular fugitive, the guards had special instructions. They were rotated constantly so that two guards never served more than once together. Each of them was under orders to shoot the other should they attempt to go over. Even broaching the subject would be cause for instant arrest. Failure to stop your partner would be a serious offense, if not a capital one. Still, an amazing number of guards were able to suss each other out in a few short hours, and make the break together.

It was an evening that had quite an effect on me -- I can still feel the electric atmosphere as we stood in the dark and stared over the concrete and listened to these stories.

The following day, some of us actually went over into East Berlin. I was with a group of three who spent hours having our passports checked before we were allowed to enter. After the night before, it was a daunting crossing, but I guess we figured that as Canadians we were "off limits". And I remember the feeling of how gray it was in East Berlin, and seeing all the still-unrepaired ruins from WW2 -- none of those on the West by '72. I was struck by how all the pedestrians stopped and stood for a red light at a crossing on a relatively narrow street -- when there was not a vehicle in sight in any direction. And we couldn't even buy an orange or a banana -- as students, we'd lived on fruit stands in the West.

Coming back at the end of the day, I wanted to bring back some East German coins. Technically this was illegal -- you were supposed to spend or return the currency you were forced to convert at lousy rates upon entry. So I stuffed the coins into my shoe. A minor crime, I'm sure -- but as a young student I was nervous enough -- and as the truth be told, it probably wasn't the smartest thing I ever did. Still, I didn't give myself away and "smuggled" out the contraband.

That was the last time I saw the Wall, although we have a small piece of it in a leather bag here at home. Bought it when it came down. The Wall always symbolized for me the true meaning of freedom -- or rather its absence. I must have mentioned it often enough. When it finally came down, a friend of mine called me from overseas to congratulate me. (Not that I had a lot to do with it -- although I always like to think that helping ISIL send copies of books by Rothbard, Mises, Hayek and Rand behind the Iron Curtain had played some small role.)

It's on my list to revisit Berlin some day. Perhaps that old observation platform is still there and I can stand on it and watch the kids from both "sides" playing in the old "death strip".

In freedom,

Paul

More Berlin Wall . . .

Photograph by Dr. Friedhelm Pedde, 1989

In the photograph above, excited West Berliners congregate at and climb onto the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. Days or weeks earlier, this would have been extremely dangerous. Enforcement of prohibition of travel between East and West Berlin stopped November 9, 1989. To read all about it, click on the link below for an article written by my cousin Dr. Friedhelm Pedde, an archeologist in Berlin who witnessed the events first hand as they unfolded.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall - by Dr. Friedhelm Pedde

The Fall of the Berlin Wall - 20th Anniversary

Demolishing the Berlin Wall the hard way. Photograph by Dr. Friedhelm Pedde

The link below is to a PDF document that contains something near and dear to me. I hope you will download it, read it, share it, spread it around far and wide.

I was in Berlin in 1992, not quite three years after the Berlin Wall came down. I spoke with former East Germans who were still bristling at the fact that they had been kept isolated from the West, deprived of social and economic freedom and opportunity, always facing the certainty that they would be shot if they were to attempt to flee to the west to improve their prospects or reunite with family.

Next Monday, November 9th, marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. I asked my cousin, Dr. Friedhelm Pedde, an archeologist in Berlin, to write an article about the fall of the wall. His perspective and some personal anecdotes are included, as are some personal photographs taken by him in the days after the momentous event. I am grateful for his time and effort.

Freedom is the most precious thing we can enjoy. Let's protect it, and to the extent that it has been taken from us, wherever we might reside, let's take it back.

I welcome comments on the article. I will pass them on to my cousin.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Julius Pedde, 1904 - 1998

It's hard to imagine that my dad, were he still alive, would be 105 on September 7th, this coming Monday. Yikes. Had I been born when he was in his twenties, I would be in my eighties now instead of a mere (!) 64. How the world has changed since my dad was born on September 7, 1904.

I don't think my dad ever really knew what to make of me. We disagreed on just about everything -- especially religion and man's place in the universe, but he was never anything but gentle, consistent, and helpful. I still miss him, although he died at age 94 in December of 1998.

Like just about everyone in the last generation of Peddes, my father lived a turbulent life. The upper picture shows my father in Poland with his first wife, Emma, in 1932 or so. The little girl in Emma's lap is my half-sister Wanda. The girl beside Emma is her daughter from her first husband, who had died and left Emma a widow. Before Emma herself died a couple of years later, she and my father had lost a son named Bruno who was born in 1933 and lived less than one year.

After Emma died, my dad took care of Wanda by himself. The relatives of Wanda's step-sister took custody of her as it made no sense to them to let her stay with my father and Wanda. In 1937, my father married my mother. It is said that he asked Wanda to make a choice between two women he was interested in and she chose my mother. I guess I have her to thank for making me possible. Thanks, Wanda.

In the second picture above, Wanda stands behind my father and mother, sometime in 1944. The two boys are Erwin and Albert. I never met either; they died in 1945 before I was born.

I don't know how my father and mother, and everyone else who endured such turmoil in their lives, coped with it all. All I know is that I had a great childhood, with loving parents, and they never whined or complained about anything. When times were tough, they sucked it up and battled through until things got better again. That is one reason why I am so disgusted whenever I hear any 'woe is me' talk from anyone, especially if it is accompanied by petitioning and pressuring our political masters to take from the rest of us to make their lives easier.

My parents and grandparents took care of themselves and their families. When times were tough, family and friends helped. They didn't resort to political extortion and expectation of hand-outs. They were proud and self-sufficient. We could, and should, learn a lot from their example. Your family, dear reader, was likely no different. The notion of entitlement to someone else's efforts and money was absent. They were strong and independent. That is a philosophy and behaviour we should emulate; instead many of us are weak and dependent. And shameless, too.

Dad: Thanks for setting a great example for Wanda and Alfred and me. I hope that I may do the same for my own son. I promise to be strong and to follow, as best I can, your example.

Peddes Everywhere

A bunch of Pedde cousins and my son Zach, Gananoque, Ontario, August 2009

I'm back in my office after a whirlwind week that included a family reunion in Gananoque, Ontario, and a leisurely detour through upper New York State to get back home. Now, it's time to catch up on all the work that inevitably piles up when I am away.

The family reunion was great. Some of us hadn't seen others for many years. My brother hadn't seen one cousin for decades and had never met another. My son met two of my cousins for the first time.

My cousin Friedhelm, an archeologist from Berlin, did a presentation on the origins of the Peddes. I can't remember much of it because there was so much detail, but the presentation was fascinating. Friedhelm has promised to formalize the information so that I can put it on the www.pedde.net website for other Peddes to enjoy.

We had a truly great time. We talked, laughed, jammed with guitars that my brother and I had brought along, and the time went very quickly. Occasions like this allow some introspection and I realized in discussion with others that I had three Pedde cousins named Horst. What are the odds? One Horst is son of my uncle Gustav who disappeared in World War II. Another Horst is son of my uncle Eduard who died at age 98 in Kelowna, B.C., a year or so ago. The final Horst is son of my aunt Wanda who lived in Poland until she died several years ago. There are two Richards, sons respectively of uncle Eduard and aunt Wanda. There are three cousins who have 'fried' (Friede means peace in German) as part of their names. There is Wilfried, son of my aunt Maria, Friedhelm, son of my uncle Adolf, and of course yours truly, Siegfried. The desire for peace was strong among rational Germans during and after World War II.

We are planning another Pedde reunion for 2012, probably in some part of Germany significant to the family. If we are lucky, perhaps my sister Wanda, and some cousins from Poland and Germany who didn't make it to this reunion might attend.

It will be fun.

Pedde Family Reunion, August 22, 2009

I am taking a week off. I know, how dare I, with so much to do, not least pointing out to everyone who will listen that we are descending pell mell into a hell of economic misery, thanks to misguided and incompetent bozos in various levels of government. Worse, while they are at the wheel, it is we, the electorate, who without much prompting have our foot on the accelerator. What's wrong with us? Are we all masochists at heart, not happy unless everyone is reduced to the same level of misery as everyone else?

Maybe I need a week off to get my mind off this stuff. I will be in Gananoque, Ontario, for a few days, at a family reunion I have put together. My cousins Friedhelm, Gunter, and Horst from Germany, cousins Richard and Horst from Texas, and my brother Alfred and sister Wanda from Ontario will all hopefully be there. Some of our kids will be there as well, in particular my brother's kids Jasmine, Amber, Jordan and Jessiah, my own son Zachary, and my sister's daughter Rita. It should be fun.

I put together a huge poster for the event, a smaller version of which is displayed above. I love looking at old photographs. They remind me that the human race has been around before my generation and will in all likelihood continue to exist after I am gone. I can't see how, given our propensity for collective stupidity and a seemingly total abdication of common sense and personal responsibility, but maybe things truly do move in cycles and those laudable and currently absent qualities will return again.

I sure hope so.