Machines with Screens

Machines and I don’t get along. I have never done them any bad, but they have never liked me. Whenever we meet, they treat me like an idiot. That happened again last week when I had to make a trip into the Big Smoke.

Going to the Big Smoke is stressful, so I decided I might lessen the strain by taking the train. Avoid the craziness of Highway 400, and the alleged city ‘expressways’ that are clogged arteries into that heart of madness called Toronto.

Go Train service now reaches as far north as Barrie so I decided to get a ticket there, hop on and ride relaxed.

I arrived at the Barrie waterfront station early one morning but could not find anyone to sell me a ticket. I wandered about looking and found a sign with a pointing arrow and the word ‘Tickets.’ I followed the arrow, then came face to face with . . . a machine. Apparently ticket machines have replaced humans at some GO stations.

I panicked. Did I have any coins? Could I remember my credit card password? Would I end up wrangling with the machine as the train pulled away without me?

I approached the machine cautiously. You can’t let them sense your nervousness. If they do, it can be bad. Very bad.

The machine seemed friendly enough. Big numbers with instructions. You spoke to it by tapping its screen, which was reasonably readable. Not like some parking meters that in the slightest bit of sunlight, you have to squat and bob your head up, down and sideways to see what they are asking you.

I tapped the GO’s screen and pushed my credit card in and out with mounting frustration as cancellation slips piled up around my feet. I began making faces at the thing, and shouted not-so-nice words.

“Do you need help?” came a voice from an open door of the train on the other side of the fence.

It was one of the train operators and he jumped onto the platform and came through a gate to either help me or restrain me. Turns out it was to help.

He obviously had never bought a ticket because he read the instructions slowly and tapped the screen cautiously. Then he paused.

“Oh, there’s a key punch board over here,” he said with surprise.

And, there it was, partly hidden away. After working with the screen you had to move over and tap the keys to enter your credit card information.

On board, I settled into my seat. There were nine other passengers in my section and I thought it would be nice to chat with someone. When I looked around, I saw all nine faces buried in cell phone screens.

Apparently the only way I could chat with any of them was to get their online addresses. With no one to chat with I sat back to think, which can be dangerous.

We live in a society that deals more with screens than people. We do banking with screens, shop through screens, buy tickets on screens. We even order our hamburgers and fries at MacDonald’s on screens.

I wonder about the jobs the machines with screens have eliminated. The GO train ticket seller might have been a single mom working a couple hours a day to help make ends meet. Or, an old guy whose pension was cut by a corporate CEO obsessed with building a better bottom line. Or, a lonely person seeking social contact with people through part-time work.

It is only the beginning. Already there are driverless cars, delivery drones, and Artificial Intelligence could bring even more. The future is more screens and fewer face-to-face dealings with humans.

I can imagine myself walking in the woods, brushing my arm against a plant, then noticing a rash rising on my skin. I photograph it with my cell phone and message the image to an online site.

The words Poison Ivy then flash across my phone screen. Seconds later a prescription appears. I go into town, find a kiosk and feed it the prescription code and my health card. A tube of poison ivy salve drops into the kiosk’s dispenser.

That’s the future, eh?

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y

The Bear and the Backscratcher

Back scratchers do not have video screens, so I was surprised when my 10-year-old grandson Anderson asked me to make him a wooden back scratcher.

Kids do make odd requests so I agreed to carve a back scratcher with his name on it. My only concern, besides my dubious woodworking ability, was that when other grandchildren saw or heard of this, they too would ask for one. I could see myself trapped in a crowded workshop for months, patiently carving back scratchers.

So I decided to invent a story about how I got the back scratcher; a story that would explain why it would be impossible to get another. The story went like this:

I was walking the woods at Shaman’s Rock when I came across an old guy sitting outside the entrance to a cave. He had silver hair grown well below his shoulders and a silver beard that touched his belly button. The patch of face not concealed by hair was wrinkled and tanned brown by the sun.

He was carving a piece of birch branch and paid little attention to my approach.

“I’ve never seen you out here before,” I said to him.

“There are many things out here that you do not see, nor hear,” he replied, raising his head and revealing a pair of dazzling blue eyes that illuminated the darkness of his face.

“So what are you carving?” I asked.

“Back scratchers. For the bears.”

“Back scratchers!. Bears don’t use back scratchers.”

Those bright blue eyes locked me in a look that said “you have much to learn and much to understand,” then he told me a story.

He was walking the woods when he saw a bear rubbing his back against the rough bark of an ancient oak tree. The bear spotted him and summoned him to come and talk.

“Do me a favour old man,” said the bear. “Scratch my back. The itch is driving me crazy.”

The old guy knew that it was important never to upset a bear, or any of the forest animals. So he scratched the bear’s back as it sighed contentedly. Scratching through that thick fur coat was tiring work.  

Back at his cave the old guy realized the bear likely would come looking for him to scratch its back again. And, it would tell other bears who would line up to have their backs scratched.

Then he was struck by an idea: He would make the bear a personalized back scratcher and show it how to use it.

The bear loved the back scratcher and as word spread, other bears came to the cave to place their orders. The old guy was happy because carving back scratchers was much more enjoyable and less tiring than scratching a bear’s back.

“So the bears are happy,” said the old guy. “And when the bears are happy, everyone is happy.”

I gave the old guy a skeptical look and was about to tell him how ridiculous I thought his story was when he stared into my eyes and said:

“When you help and respect nature and all its inhabitants, it will help and respect you.”

Then the old guy simply vanished and I found myself standing in the woods with a freshly whittled and decorated back scratcher. Carved into its middle was the name Anderson.

I’m sure Anderson will enjoy his back scratcher. When the other grandkids see it and ask for their own, I’ll tell them the story of the old guy and the bears and how I keep looking for him in the woods to ask him for more back scratchers.

The story might keep me off the back scratcher assembly line. Yeah, good luck with that.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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My First 100 Days

Judging the first 100 days in office is ridiculous, artificial and something invented by the news media.

That’s how U.S. President Forrest Trump sees it. I feel it is important however, as president of my family, to review my performance for the first 100 days of each year.

Trump’s first 100 days have been fantastic, spectacular, unbelievably good, the best of any president ever and best of any to come. He instantly achieved his prediction of being “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

My 100 days report card is not nearly that effusive because I don’t have his vast store of superlatives. But I can report some modest successes, and some failures.

First, in the area of foreign affairs, I had none. In fact I didn’t even have any domestic affairs.

I did travel abroad for consultations. I went to California to ask my granddog Rusty to join my cabinet of advisors. When it comes to cabinet advisors, I pick only the best of the best.

Rusty is a pretty smart cookie with ideas on how to make life even better for the family pets. He is thrilled to be in my inner circle because the publicity will boost sales of a new dog food that he is promoting.

I also travelled to Hamilton for talks with Louie, my first great-granddog. He is a chocolate brown lab and advised me that more money must be spent to ensure a constant supply of tennis balls are available at the cottage shoreline.

Over in Mississauga I met with Georgia, my Great Dane granddog and senior special advisor. She told me that our family congress would vote for a budget that includes money for a new, larger and more comfortable couch. Grandcat Rainbow agreed wholeheartedly.

Money has been a problem during the first 100 days. The nine-year-old presidential pickup truck needed major repairs. So did two of the presidential teeth.

Despite these financial setbacks I remain steadfast in my promise to build a wall to keep the red squirrels out of our great cottage land. They are aggressive, noisy good-for-nothings. Bad, bad. Totally destructive.

Nobody builds walls better than me because I have fantastic ability and I am really smart. Squirrels are dumb and actually I would like to see them ride the MOAB into squirrel heaven.

Unfortunately the courts stupidly have ruled that red squirrels are a protected species and must be treated nicely. Dumb. Really dumb. Judges need their heads examined.

Meanwhile, the first 100 days infrastructure program is running a bit behind. The new back window project and some other stuff are not  completed yet.

These projects and the squirrel wall are making it difficult to bring in a balanced budget, which is a must because I am not allowed to increase our debt.

Ontario Premier Kathy says she is going to balance her budget despite millions of dollars of new vote-getting spending. She can do that because when she wants to spend more, she borrows more.

Her debt, now more than $300 billion, equals the debt of all the other nine provinces combined. Interest charges on that debt are $12 billion a year.

If I run up too much debt, a guy with a head bandana and tattoos arrives in a tow truck and takes away my pickup. And the bank kicks me out of my house. Then there’s nothing to do except wander into the woods, sit on a tree stump and listen to the birds.

I can report that I did file my income tax return ahead of this week’s deadline. I am willing to make my returns public in case anyone out there needs a really good laugh.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good first 100 days. However, I didn’t realize that being president of the family was so complicated. Hockey tournaments to drive to, baseball practices to attend. School concerts. Easter gatherings. Helping to pick out birthday and anniversary cards.

The media doesn’t understand all the complications I must deal with. Reporters  are meanies who say everything I do is wrong. I’d like to hit them so hard their heads spin. But then my editor might not let me write this column anymore.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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Stale Pretzels and Soda Water

The cattle are prowlin', the coyotes are howlin'

Way out where the doggies bawl

Woo - hoo - woo - ooo - ti - de

Woo - hoo - ooo - oop - i - de - de

Woo - hoo - woo - ooo - ti - de

Yodel - odel - lo - ti – de

Singin’ his cattle call

Anyone remember that catchy but smooth yodellin’ tune? Tex Owens wrote it way back in 1934, but it has jumped out of the past and taken over my head. I’ve been humming it ever since David Dao boarded a United Airlines flight a doctor and got off a patient.

Video clips of Dr. Dao being dragged off the flight by the feet, screaming and bleeding, showed the entire world just how far the airline industry has descended into passenger Hell.

Round ‘em up, stuff ‘em in and ship ‘em out. Rawhide! Keep ‘em movin’, movin’, movin’, there’s a  bigger bottom line at the end of this ride.

Commercial airline travel these days is about being shoehorned into an increasingly crammed seating area and fed tiny packages of stale pretzels with half-filled plastic cups of soda water. Set up a compact laptop on your fold-down seatback tray and it gut punches you when the guy in front tilts his seat back one inch.

All that after being pushed through the airport check-in obstacle course, and the unpacking and undressing at security. Then after being vacuum-packed into your seat comes the anxiety of wondering whether a computer will bump you from the overbooked flight.

It didn’t used to be this way. Back in the days before airline CEOs became bean counters, passenger comfort and satisfaction were important. Claude Taylor, who ran Air Canada roughly 30 years ago, personally replied to passengers who complained about service or offered suggestions.

Then there was Max Ward, the bush pilot who built a world-class airline with a passion to make flying an enjoyable experience. And it was, until the Transport Canada  bureaucracy drove Wardair out of the business.

Wardair gave passengers first-class treatment for economy fares. Cabins were decorated in bright holiday colours. Dinners featured filet mignon cooked on board to the passenger’s preference. It was served on Royal Doulton china, with stainless steel cutlery and linen napkins. Flight attendants hand delivered individual food trays to each seat.

Drinks were free and coffee was fresh percolated. Then there was that fabulous dessert trolley.

Max Ward has been quoted as saying: “In the airline business, it’s about the journey, not the destination. It’s much more than merely getting our valued customer from A to B, and the level of service a passenger receives is indicative of exactly how the airline values the customer.”

Airline passengers today know how the carriers value them. Maybe you get to your destination, maybe you don’t. If you don’t get bumped from a flight, you arrive at your destination burping up stale pretzels.

United CEO Oscar Munoz presumably has learned a bit about the value of customers since Dr. Dao was beaten up on one of his airplanes. One of his first  statements on the incident called Dr. Dao “disruptive and belligerent” and praised the United crew.

When the incident caused millions of dollars in United stock losses, Munoz threw on the reverse thrusters and has been falling over himself apologizing to Dr. Dao, saying his treatment was horrific and promising that nothing like this ever will happen again.

He certainly hopes not because the United board has decided that his $18-million-a-year pay cheque now will be tied to a new customer satisfaction pay scheme.

Max Ward never made that kind of salary. He paid himself less than his pilots and ploughed the savings back into building a customer friendly airline.

Meanwhile, I just can’t get The Cattle Call song out of my head. Tex Owens said he wrote it after watching the snow fall in Kansas.

“My sympathy went out to cattle everywhere, and I just wished I could call them all around me and break some corn over a wagon wheel and feed them.”

Cracked corn, eh? Sounds a mite more appetizing than stale pretzels.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y