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The New Year Prods Kafka To Think Of His Youth

03 January 1917

I still have fantasies about the Swiss girl – although not the type one might suppose.

(My father says I already have too many fantasies, and that I deal with them “too long, and too often” – he is certainly right.)

I make a mixture of what I shared with the Swiss girl, and what I imagine we would be like today. This is certainly more fantasy than not, for what would being together have done to us? Done to her?

But, in this tiny house – could she not join me?

Be here by the window, as I write this?

But she was so young, and such a girl, where I fear that I was never such a boy.

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Remembrance Day In Canada With The Jervis Bay

The major Remembrance Day Service is held in a hockey arena. Which I don’t like. So we found – in walking distance – a service at a small naval memorial/park with a Cenotaph. The park was in honour of the naval ship, The Jervis Bay.

HMS Jervis Bay

83rd Anniversary Nov.5 1940-2023

http://www.hmsjervisbay.com/.

I’ll stab at 400 – 500 folk there. Cars parked as far as ten minutes away. Raggle-taggle group of cadets. Trumpet player who had no trouble with the high notes.

Two good ole boys near us who looked as if they had been hauled from a brawl at the local tavern – but they had their poppies.

Sweet li’l kidlets.

MC who made old, old jokes and had to be corrected a few times about the Order of Service. And had to ask if anyone was present who might lay the wreath of the government or city or …
He chuckled over the one guy who volunteered a number of times: “We’re puttin’ ya to work today.”
A train whistle in the distance that gave a loooong blast for 11:00 (though it was a couple of minutes out of sync).


And TOTAL silence for the two minutes of silence.

Then home we went to watch the Service from Ottawa, with the Governor General, Prime Minister, Silver Cross Mother, Military Pipes & Drums, marching Military Contingent, and interviews with two sharp-as-tacks Veterans in their late nineties.
Best of both worlds.

DE

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Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, & A Cat In A Lighthouse

Paw,My cat/kitten

Black as gunpowder

With one white mitten,

Is having the time
Of his

Life.
We are in the Lighthouse,

On this Guy Fawkes Night,

Searching down the gunpowder

The dastardly villain

Has planted.
This has been part,
Of my traditions

For years.

Straight from

My Father.
“Remember Remember The Fifth of November.”

And though I tell Paw,

The cat/kitten,

To run wild

And

Search everywhere,

In truth,

He doesn’t want to

Stray too far

From my side,

Which is fine.

For,

In truth,

The Lighthouse is

A strange

And peculiar

Place.

So he stays near

To the glow of my

Lantern,

As I go through

My ritual.


We are both pleased.


And,

Will both

Have a

Fine Fish Feast,

When Guy Fawkes is

(As he inevitably is)

Brought low.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report

DE BA. UEL

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Franz Kafka Remembers A Young Love In The New Year

In Kafka In The Castle, I fill in the ‘missing’ diary entries from Kafka’s real diary. He either did not fill in these days himself, or he destroyed them. There are some estimates that Kafka destroyed 70% – 80% of everything he wrote.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

03 January 1917

I still have fantasies about the Swiss girl – although not the type one might suppose.

(My father says I already have too many fantasies, and that I deal with them “too long, and too often” – he is certainly right.)

I make a mixture of what I shared with the Swiss girl, and what I imagine we would be like today. This is certainly more fantasy than not, for what would being together have done to us?

Done to her?

But in this tiny house – could she not join me? Be here by the window, as I write this?

But she was so young, and such a girl, where I fear that I was never such a boy.

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Gunpowder, Treason, Plot, & A Cat In A Lighthouse

Paw,

The all black cat/kitten,

With one white mitten,

Is having the time


Of his

Young

Life.


We are in the Lighthouse,

On this Guy Fawkes Night,

Searching down the gunpowder

The dastardly villain

Has planted.


This has been part,


Of my traditions

For years.

Straight from

My Father.


Remember Remember


And though I tell Paw,

The cat/kitten,

To run wild

And

Search everywhere,

In truth,

He doesn’t want to

Stray too far

From my side,

Which is fine.

For,

In truth,

The Lighthouse is

A strange

And peculiar

Place.

So he stays near

To the glow of my

Lantern,

As I go through

My ritual.


We are both pleased.


And,

Will both

Have a

Fine Fish Feast,

When Guy Fawkes is

(As he inevitably is)

Brought low.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report

DE BA. UEL

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Remembrance Day

arms_land_artillery_royal_1

My father, Bombardier Byron C Estey, Service Number G4094 Units: 1st Anti Tank Regiment: 90th Anti-Tank Battery was on the crew of an anti-tank gun, similar to the one shown above. His job was to plot  the trajectory of the shells, so perhaps he would have stood in the same position as the fellow closest to the camera. The photo is taken during the Italian campaign in 1943, so my father was in the area.

Dad talked about the war, but rarely about the bad parts. He was full of amusing antidotes and descriptions and the tales of how people would act. He met my mother in England and it was love at first sight. He rarely neglected to add that he met her “…while searching for the ruins.” Those ruins were Hadrian’s Wall and my mother was also visiting them – with her boyfriend. So it goes.

My father was stationed in England for nearly three years. Canadian soldiers were positioned around London in case of a German invasion. Though such orders were never directly given, it was understood that the Canadians would ‘take no prisoners’ in the event of an invasion. My father had no problem with that.

He landed for the Invasion of Sicily and fought up through Italy. He was in what is classed as one of the bloodiest battles Canadian forces encountered, The Battle Of Ortona, called “The Italian Stalingrad”.  He spoke little about these eight days, which included Christmas amongst the blood.

Dad was never wounded (though he once stood up in his slit trench to see what the “funny noises” were and had his battle tunic shredded with shrapnel). He also contracted malaria, and the day the hospital tent was sweltering and he dragged his mattress beneath a tree, two doctors stood over him. They thought him unconscious and debated his condition. There was a new medicine for malaria and they discussed whether Dad was too near death to waste it on him. Since I am writing these words you may conclude they decided in favour.

I regret not talking more about the war with him, though he did not welcome such intrusion. I did once ask how close he actually got to German soldiers. He said: “Close enough to kill them.”

[image]  http://www.junobeach.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/arms_land_artillery_royal_1.jpg

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