“Travels to a Different Time” : 14July1973: Ios, Greece: Wild Bill Continues to Be a Pain in The Ass: Dinner With Maria the Lesbian

Wild Bill’s puke has a terrible smell to it so I slept out in the porch and was ravaged by mosquitos. Must have had twenty bites on my hands. Thank God no malaria in Greece…hopefully. Watched the sunrise. Am I a dreamy hippie? I headed down to the village below and bought eggs, just baked bread and some incredible Ios honey. Mom cooked up a mess of eggs which we had with warm bread Ios honey and orange juice. Who needs bacon and eggs! We just chilled out and read until 2 when we went down to the village beach. Up the hill to shower and head out for cocktails. I feel like Holden Caulfield in “Catcher of the Rye” saying “cocktails” but it was a beer for me and ouzo for Mom. Cool a minor (by one month) drinking a beer with my Mom. We met up with Maria (and her sweetheart) a Greek lesbian for dinner at the “windmill restaurant”. My God in Europe German POW’s, interpreter for Canadian liberators of Holland, prostitutes, Turkish conmen and many nefarious characters. I am living “Casablanca”. In any case we ate like kings for about $1.25 each. After dinner Mom went up to the windmill and performed her gurgling windmill impression. We had an ice cream on the way home and the puker Wild Bill had his friends over in the room playing guitar and smoking something I think was not tobacco. It took them an hour to clear out. Damn stupid pukehead.

Golf and Your Mental Game: Wasting Your Experience by Being Judgemental

Play 50 rounds of golf in a season, Marshall 8 hours a week in a seven-month season and then suffer through a rotten winter and you may gain a valuable insight. That past season and all those games were in the past and what did all the fretting and continually judging yourself accomplish? Most likely nothing but pain in the past which today means nothing. The more you heap value judgements on your game the more mental energy you waste and steal from being in the present moment. Isn’t it preferable to let those judgements stop commandeering your game and be in the game? If you are continually evaluating and judging good and bad you in effect lose your mind to judging instead of playing golf.  Golf is a beautiful game and you are simply wasting your energy by judging each shot as good or bad creating a vast data bank of comparisons from last year, the last round and the round you are playing. You have made the shot. The shot is done. Isn’t it rather fruitless punishing yourself or patting yourself on the back for a shot of the past? Continual self judgement is toxic in that it prevents you from seeing things as they are and mobilizing your true potential. Put in simple terms your mental energy should be spent on thinking about your next shot and not wasting it on the past.

“Travels to a Different Time” : 13July1973: Ios, Greece: Wild Bill Pukes Up His Dinner and Lots of Retsina: No More Greasy Goulash: Shark Attack

On the way home from picking up breakfast supplies I had a wipe out and the glass bottle of water broke and I cut my hand. Not badly and its nothing a bit of salt water can’t fix assuming the sharks don’t smell the blood and attack! Went to village beach to hang out. I finished reading my book while standing waste deep in the ocean. No oozing blood so the sharks can’t smell me. After dressing up Mom and I headed out for a drink with some mezze of octopus, cucumber, feta cheese and tomatoes. Mom had an ouzo and I had an Alpha beer. Greek beer is decent and hits the spot in the heat. Went to Yianni’s for supper and after being traumatized greasy Yugoslavian goulash with its gristly beef we both had a delicious beef and rice dish. The beef was so tender and the sauce rich. Although the daytime heat can be intense here the evenings can be cool. We came home and Wild Bill puked up his dinner and obviously he had too much retsina. I had to move out to the porch to sleep as the stench was unbearable. Thanks Wild Bill.

“Travels to a Different Time” : 12July1973: Ios, Greece: Watching Sunsets with the Freaks: Watching Sunsets with the Freaks

Up early to watch the sunrise on the coast below the village. Spectacular! Picked up some breakfast supplies and headed to a supposedly fantastic beach. We had to take a bus then a put putt boat. What a beach. Crystal clear waters and beautiful sand. No speargun fishing this year. Came home for a siesta and headed down below to Yianni’s for a top rate dinner. We are used to the small Greek restaurant servings but there was more quantity than we expected so we passed the extra food to a German chick and her boyfriend. Before dinner we joined the freaks on the edge of a big hill listening to classical music. Yorgo the sole village policeman attends as well and he looks nervously at all the freaks. Is that dope I smell? We will make watching the sunset a regular activity. My mother is the oldest hippie in the group! I must give her credit for living like a vagabond. It takes some guts at her age. Many her age criticize freaks but she sees most of them as intelligent and good kids. Points for that Mom!

Freaks is not a nasty term. It is what many of the hippies call each other. Sort of a brotherly term! Long hair, strange clothing and jewelry and of course for many dope. Greece is close to Turkey and lots of hashish comes into Greece from Turkey. I understand they catch a few hippies every year trying to smuggle it into Greece.

“Travels to A Different Time” : 11July1973: Piraeus and Ios: Overweight Greek Brats and Hippies: Who is Mom Sleeping With?

Up at 6 a.m. somewhat spaced out by grungy bus travel, transatlantic crossings and a late-night movie I shouldn’t have watched in Bangor the night before our flight. All we could find to eat was a package of cookies. There was mass confusion on the docks with shouting and arguments. There is nothing like travel exhaustion to give everything a surreal edge. On the ship we met a Greek girl Athena who is going to university in New Jersey in the fall. There were loads of hippies more than the usual on an island steamer. There were also a large number of overweight Greek kids. A strange crowd of passengers. We traveled last year to a Yugoslavian Island of Murter where there is a deaf mute camp. Is Ios a haven for hippies and overweight children! We had some chow at the snack bar on board. For once I am not starving on a continual basis. We stopped at the island of Paros a beautiful looking island and we said good-bye to Athena. After 8 hours of sailing, we arrived in Ios and had a trouble finding a room. Mom forgot the Munich bag we purchased with Fritz last summer. What ever happened to that guy. Not a question I think I should ask. I had to tear back to the ship and rescue the Munich bag. Mom went up the hill to a village and found a room but as we trudged up the hill to check in she forgot where the hotel was. After an emotional time we found it and off to a true Yugoslavian greasy dinner one doesn’t expect in Greece (pardon the pun). What did Mom book? Why am I sleeping in a room with three others. Where is Mom?

RKS: A Rare Beira Wine from Portugal

Just south of the Dão wine region in Portugal you’ll find the Beira Interior Region. At best at the LCBO Vintages releases might feature a handful of wines from this region each year. Pity.

The Quinta dos Termos is from the Beira Interior and is a blend of the usual Portuguese grape suspects namely Touriga Nacional, Trincadeira, Tinta Roriz and Jaen. While you often see Jaen in Dão red blends you will not see it in Douro blends. It has good colour but is low in acidity and tannins. It is believed it is the same gape as Mencía in Spain.

Its nose is brimming with red cherry, red currants and milk chocolate. It reminds one of a Merlot from Washington State. On the palate it has moderate tannins and the cheerful cherry transcends into the palate with some home-made strawberry jam bouncing about on the finish. And it digs deeply and forcefully with a hint of pepper.

The wine is a great sipping wine and would pair well with pesto coated lamb or shrimp and okra Gumbo. An outstanding example how acids and tannins can merge and create a top rate wine at a head scratching low price. At this price Merlot lovers ditch American Merlot and give this beauty from Beira Interior a whirl. It will only improve with a couple of years of ageing and can happily rest until 2025.

(Quinta dos Termos 2017, Beira Interior DOC, Quinta dos Termos, Belmonte, Portugal, $13.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario #14550, 750 mL, 13%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 94/100).

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been selected as the Canadian Association of Journalists 2021 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the law enforcement category.

The Mounties received an unprecedented double-citation from this year’s jury. The first citation was bestowed on the RCMP for their efforts to impede journalists from covering public opposition to the logging of an old-growth forest at Fairy Creek, on Vancouver Island. In particular, the jury took note of the RCMP’s efforts to obstruct journalists’ access to the area through the use of illegal exclusion zones and other methods of obstruction. 

“This summer multiple journalists, equipped only with pens, notebooks and camera equipment, were treated like criminals by the RCMP as they did their job, which was to document police activities and to tell a story of significant public interest,” said Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ). 

“This year’s Code of Silence jury agreed that the efforts demonstrated by the RCMP to suffocate press freedom and the public’s right to know about events taking place at Fairy Creek deserves the spotlight.”  

Late last year, Fairy Creek surpassed Clayoquot Sound as the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, as nearly 1,200 arrests have been made. Reports from December 2021 reveal the RCMP has spent nearly $9 million enforcing a court injunction at Fairy Creek — enforcement which saw journalists erroneously obstructed from accessing the area to report on the story. 

In July, the CAJ, in partnership with a coalition of news organizations, applied to modify the injunction instructing the RCMP not to interfere with journalists’ access absent a bona fide operational reason for doing so. The request was granted by the B.C. Supreme Court, with the presiding justice reminding the RCMP of the media’s “special role in a free and democratic society, and the necessity of avoiding undue and unnecessary interference with the journalistic function.”

This year’s Code of Silence jury also awarded the RCMP a second citation for its outstandingly poor performance with respect to adhering to the rules of Canada’s federal Access of Information Act.  

According to the materials provided to this year’s jury, the RCMP performed among the worst federal agencies in fulfilling access to information requests in accordance with mandated timelines. In its deliberations, the jury reviewed multiple examples of requests that exceeded the legislated 30-day time limit and where the agency failed to provide notice of time extensions, in direct contravention of Canada’s Access to Information Act. 

“The unwillingness of the RCMP to meet basic requirements of transparency—to which they are legally obligated—is sadly nothing new,” said Jolly. 

The force was recognized for its excessive secrecy in 2017, after failing to respond to a single request for information filed under the Access to Information Act.

“The opportunity that lies at the feet of users, however, is to work together to re-imagine what a better, functional, and more transparent system, with teeth, would look like — and to push those plans forward is long past due,” said Jolly.  

The Code of Silence Awards are presented annually by the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), the Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University (CFE), and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). The intent of the awards is to call public attention to government or publicly-funded agencies that work hard to hide information to which the public has a right to under access to information legislation. 

This award completes this year’s Code of Silence program. In addition to the RCMP, Stratford City Council (municipal), the provincial government of British Columbia (provincial), and Indigenous Services Canada (federal) headlined this year’s winners. 

For further information, please contact: 

Brent Jolly

President, Canadian Association of Journalists

“Travels to a Different Time” : 9July1973: Off to Athens Again via Bangor, Maine: The Bus is Full of Weird People: Bearded Man Spits Into Grape Juice Bottle and it Rolls Up and Down the Aisle

We decided that Mom would come with me for a couple of weeks and then head home. We are flying into Athens via Bangor, Maine. We have tickets in hand so we are confirmed! No waiting around to see if there are no shows this time. Why Bangor? The flight is coming in from Dallas full of Holy Rollers and Bangor is a refuelling stop.

Our bus to Bangor left at 10 a.m. and we got a lift from the Platts to the bus terminal in Montreal. Why do so many weird looking people take Greyhound? We had to change buses in the terminal as the air conditioning was not working. We stopped to pick up a few passengers in Sherbrooke Quebec and soon after that it was customs. We then stopped at a series of hick towns in Maine. The temperature outside was 98. A strange old man with a big beard was sitting in font of us. He had a terrible hacking cough then spat into his bottle of grape juice and put it on the floor and it started rolling up and down the aisles making a clunking noise. Upon arrival we took a cab and checked in to the Twin Cities motel where we stayed on our way home from Frankfurt last year. We are in room 216 and had a rest as we were grunged out from bus travel. Not the better way to travel. We had a swim at the outdoor pool and dinner at the White Elephant. We ate there last year. The food was fantastic and these Yanks know how to serve a hungry teenager. I watched the late-night movie called “The Hustler” which was excellent.

10July1973: Flying to Athens with Texan Holy Rollers Hitting the Bourbon and Seven Up

We had a planeload of Baptists from Dallas to deal with. I heard, “Honey. Bourbon and Seven please.” These Baptists know how to pound back their bourbon. Well Mom and I pounded down lots of milk as who knows when I’ll see that beverage again. Mom phoned our friend Niovi in Athens and we were shocked to hear she was now divorced. It was either a ship to Varna in Bulgaria or another Greek island and we chose the Greek island of Ios.

RKS Wine: The Three Styles of Pinot Noir

Try to simplify Pinot Noir and you are asking for trouble. I like trouble.

The first style is the soft and sensual style. Low tannins with aromas of raspberry and ripe strawberries. Think Okanagan Pinot Noirs from Canada’s British Columbia such as the Pinot Noirs from Stag’s Hollow or Meyer Family Vineyards.

Then there is the full attack Pinot Noir with a robust and forceful and almost aggressive nose and palate. I have experienced this style with several Chilean Pinot Noirs particularly those from Villard.

Then there is the middle road such as Flat Rock Cellars in Niagara, Ontario. The 2020 Flat Rock Cellars Pinot Noir is neither soft and sensual nor aggressive and serves as a good example of the middle road. As for aromas think of raspberry, strawberry, black cherry and cactus pear all with a bit of edge to them. On the palate there is a bit of chalkiness perhaps courtesy of the limestone soil and no lazy tannins. It has a bit of bite to it and enough to handle Argentinian flank steak with chimichurri sauce with an Argentinian red onion salad. There is red cherry, red currants and a smidge of blackberry. It has a moderately long finish. A soft and sensual Pinot Noir makes a great sipping wine. This middle of the road Pinot Noir really calls for food. It is a youngster and if you want to wait until 2024 it will have softened but not to the degree it will lose its middle of the road genetics.

The advantage of a Pinot Noir like this one from Flat Rock is that it has the ability to match more foods than the soft and sensual or aggressive Pinot Noir. It can handle beef, lamb, chicken, duck, salmon and many pastas particularly those in rosé sauce. At $21.95 it is a good buy but at $15.95 a compelling buy.

(Flat Rock Cellars 2020 Pinot Noir, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Flat Rock Cellars, Jordan, Ontario, $15.95 ( LCBO store manager markdown from $21.95), Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 1545, 750 mL, 13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 90/100).