This weekend, barring disaster, myself and nine friends will head out to Tadousac, Quebec, to go sea kayaking and enjoy the fine Labour Day holiday on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Yes, I am sure that you will all wonder what disasters could possibly befall Dups on this journey. Do not worry, this time the Bible will be staying home, there seems to be no need to use Air Canada and I will not be playing with axes. However, before the journey could even begin, we needed to fix Mike’s car.

As it turned out (an omen perhaps?), our friend Mike Mannion’s left headlight suddenly fizzled and burned out. As manly men must, Mike decided, after we had gone shopping with Sarom for sustenance for ten people, that we should attempt a fix and replace the bulb. Mike is an ace chemist; I, well, some would call me an idiot but definitely a mechanic I am not.

“Okay, we’ll park under that street lamp over there. Damn it I wanted to do this in day light, but oh well.” The first sign things were going to go swimmingly…

Mike hands over the flashlight as we sit over the now open hood and consider the headlamp. As two academics we considered the problem. A bulb needed to come out; a new bulb needed to go in. First job, look for screws. “Look, hmmm, that looks like two screws.” Now for the screwdriver: a short stubby screwdriver whose bit threatens to fall into the car. Mike perches precariously over the hot engine, his arm deep in the bowels, screaming in frustration as he attempts to unscrew the screw and not lose the screw-bit in the engine. We suspected that rattling bits inside an engine probably wouldn’t help with the whole driving-six-hours-in-safety part.

Finally after several attempts, with passers by trying to ignore this scene and alley cats scurrying away with looks of disgust, we had two screws in our hands, but no bulb. Curses.

The two academics considered the problem again. We now had two screws from around the bulb, but it wouldn’t come out. With sighs of defeat, we reached for the manual. Odd there was nothing in there about screws amongst its clear pictures aimed at dummies… but wait, perhaps because all you have to do is twist the bulb out. Oh.

After several later attempts, having now discovered the ease with which headlamps are actually replaced, we considered the possibility of not putting the two screws back in. Until of course we considered the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, in our ineptitude, we had unscrewed a screw which kept the car together. We valiantly tightened the screws as much as possible.

So how long does it take for a chemist and programmer to screw in a light bulb? All told, it took 45 minutes to fix the headlamp. 40 minutes to screw and unscrew screws which screwed nothing in, and 5 minutes to put in the new bulb. Did I tell you how many university degrees we have between us? Never mind.

I’m not giving up my day job.

Well, to be honest, I was joking. Truly. When I said Montreal was going to shut down and Gerald Tremblay, the mayor of this fine city, would close all over and under passes, I was kidding. Yet, this afternoon, cracks apparently started appearing in the tunnels underneath The Bay in downtown Montreal. Suddenly there are fears of a collapse, the Metro Green Line has been suspended and Mr. Tremblay is meeting with reporters.

I’m not entirely sure whether to laugh or to shake my head. Where before I could speed on through an underpass, I’m a little bit more concerned if the entire downtown core barrels in on itself leaving Montreal a mere crater. It would make Boston’s Big Dig seem like heaven.

Seriously, I couldn’t have chosen a better city to live in. The tragic and yet comic value alone is unbelievable!

“With love to daughter Ellen aged 4 and mother Judy aged 30, August 4th 1858”

The gravestone is almost illegible. It stands crooked and slanted, weathered and beaten within the Belvedere Cemetery in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The moonless night casts no shadows, yields no clues. I wonder at Ellen and Judy’s life a hundred and fifty years ago. What took them from life, what transpired that a small little headstone is all that survives today, untended and alone? These questions drive historians mad, make them search for truth in the distant past. For me, the itinerant and tipsy wanderer heading home from a local gathering, it is not the past that gathers its cloak around me, but the present.

If all life has meaning, then what is the meaning of what we leave behind?

In Ferryland, Newfoundland, one of the oldest continuous European settlements in North America, pieces of pottery, burnt wood and jewelry yield clues to what happened. At Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump near Calgary, Alberta, the bones tell us how the Plains Indians hunted thousands of years ago. But the past is a story that influences the present. The past cannot simply remain encapsulated in history, it is of no point telling the story of a nail factory in Pennsylvania unless the story brings relevance to the present. In fact the because of our present-day surroundings, there is almost no choice but to allow the past to live through the present and the future to come alive within the past.

As such, voices of the past do not simply stay inside a bubble, they reach to us and tell us about ourselves in the now. We are their future and as much as they lived for then, they also lived for us, even if they did not know it at the time. Their lessons are taught to us and we learn. Their presence in the past gives us meaning to our present; our prescience into their present gives us clues to how we should perceive our own future.

What is it that you leave behind? A headstone, rudely carved? A child, a story, a thought, an idea? If all life has meaning then conceivably even a short life as Ellen’s in 1858 was placed there to tempt a swerving drunk into pausing and pondering thoughts of mortality on a moonless night.

I placed a flower on their grave and walked on.

Montrealers, prepare for a siege of epic proportions. Hot on the heels of the announcement that the Ville-Marie Expressway would be closed due to fears of another collapse like that of the De la Concorde overpass last year, Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay announced this afternoon that he was effectively going to shut down all roads leading into and out of Montreal next week.

Taking the city by surprise, the mayor looked tired and tormented during his announcement press conference which was short and hastily organized. As soon as the announcement was done, Tremblay was whisked away by plain clothes SQ officers without many chances for questions.

Effective Monday, all Montrealers should stay home and avoid any road which goes over or under another road. Currently no one seems to know when all the road work will be completed, though one official was quoted as saying that the same construction crew currently working on Boulevard St. Laurent would be contracted to do the work.

“It is of paramount importance that all the crumbling overpasses be fixed as soon as possible. We have discovered that the entire city is actually crumbling into dust due to improper cement mixing, so we are going to fix the entire city. We apologize to our residents and we ask for their help and patience during this trying time.”

Adding to the woes soon to be felt by Montreal residents, will be the Work Crew Conscription announcement. Tremblay announced that City Council had taken the unusual step of conscripting regular city residents to help with the work. He went on to say that tools such as shovels and cement mixers were being delivered to various residents who had been randomly picked to become part of Montreal’s Road Work Crew. In response to the safety and the possibility of cement being mixed incorrectly, one councillor side-stepped by saying “it’s okay, the original crews had no clue either so whatever is done this time can only be better!”

The problems with Quebec’s roadways have been getting worse and worse over these past few years. Most Quebecers are now used to seeing large concrete blocks falling out from overpasses and leaving metal girders exposed. Until today, City Council had adamantly stuck to the argument that the overpasses were safe, even when you could see the road below through the pavement. Naturally most residents had come to expect such shoddy construction practices over the years which have fueled the rising problems of speeding in Montreal and Quebec. Some analysts have traced the penchant of speeding and risky driving to the fear felt by most drivers that whole road sections would fall on them, or worse fall away from them.

Now, unfortunately, even the speeders may find themselves on a government conscripted road team pounding out the fresh tar onto the city streets.

In addition to redoing the over and underpasses, the Mayor also announced that the city would be adding three new overpasses to the infamous “Spaghetti Junction” as you enter Montreal. Two of the new overpasses would link other overpasses, while the third overpass would bridge the two new overpasses, as well as link highway 15 north with highway 40 west and highway 15 south for quicker and easier traffic flow.

“We have examined the entire junction from the air and have decided that it does indeed still look very pretty and enhances our status as the “City of Design”. These three new overpasses will complete the beautiful picture we see from above, while enhancing traffic flow for commuters.”

Please contact Montreal city council for more information.