Week 8 - Beer, Chocolate, and Remembering

by Tim Perrin

Monday, September 19, 2005

Belgium has turned out to be a delight, but that is primarily due to our marvelous hosts.

After saving us from ourselves, Dirk and Magda were phenomenally generous and fun. Magda had to work too much of the time so we didn’t get to spend as much time with her as we would have liked, but Dirk retired obscenely young and was able to take us to Brugge for the day.

Today, Brugge is about 15 km from the sea, but in the 1500s it was a thriving sea port. However, its sea access silted up and that was that.

Today, it’s a pretty tourist town trading on its medieval heritage.

I have to say that I thought I would be getting tired of medieval towns by now, but I’m not. (Talk to me in another six months.)

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

In Canadian military history, the name Passchendale is one of the most important. The Passchendale action was merely part of the larger battle that took place around the town of Ypres, which had the unfortunate fate to become a place the Germans wanted and the allies decided to defend. In fact, there were three battles for the town. The first occurred in late October and November 1914. In the second, in April and May of 1915, the Germans tried out their new secret weapon, chlorine gas. After this attack failed, the Germans contented themselves with merely blowing the town to bits with constant bombardment.

But it was the third battle of Ypres that has come to be known simply as the battle of Passchendale. Unlike the others, this was launched by the allies. The British commander, General Haig, hoped to break through the German lines, though why he thought he could do so after three years of stalemate is beyond me. Nonetheless, in July, he started a 10-day bombardment of the German positions. So much for surprise. When the troops came out of their trenches, the German machine gunners were ready for them. Over the next three-and-a-half months, more than 310,000 allied troops were killed and wounded, more than 250,000 Germans. In the final push in early November, British and Canadian troops survived mustard gas attacks to take Passchendale ridge, General Haig declared victory, and everyone dug in for the winter. At its greatest, the advance had been about five miles.

More than 12,000 victims of the various battles in and around Ypres are buried at Tyne Cot War Cemetery in Passendale (the modern spelling), about eight kilometers northeast of Ypres. About 1,000 of them are Canadian, more than half of them unidentified. Another 35,000 names of men whose bodies were never found are inscribed on the marble walls of the cemetery. Below one panel, we found a note:

James Smith Graham:

We are sorry that life was taken from you so early and that we never
had the chance to know you.

From your grandchildren,
Hugh, Alison, and Jean.

It reminded me of the notes you see at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

The cemetery was built in this location because a first-aid station was set up in a cottage (the Tyne cottage) and they had to bury the bodies nearby. Today, the memorial is built around the cottage. You can still see one of the walls through a gap in the wall of the memorial.

There were several Royal Flying Corps pilots, just 18, lieutenants at that age, shot down over the battlefield.

One of the reasons I go to the cemeteries is to say that I remember and to say “hello” to the guys there. They died a long way from home and I’m sure there are many who have never had a visitor from home. I know they’re dead, but if there is an afterlife, and if they are watching us, I want them to know that even though I disagree with war, I recognize what they did and the sacrifice they made, and how they suffered, and in the long run, the life it bought for me.

(There were also two German buried there. I made sure to tell them hello as I expect they don’t get many visitors in this cemetery full of Brits, Canucks, Aussies and Kiwis.)

It was also at Ypres that Canadian field doctor John McCrae knocked off a few lines of poetry while he was sitting on the bumper of an ambulance. He didn't think much of them and he tossed the piece of paper away. But one of his friends picked it up and sent it to Punchwhich printed it--without a byline--on December 8, 1915. McRae's poem was printed at the bottom of page 468, right after an ad for "The Little Dentist.--Entire outfit, including minature Forceps, Gags, Gasbags, etc. Will keep an entire nursery happy for hours. Help baby with his teething. 5s 6d."

It was called "In Flanders Fields."

Today, in the museum at Ypres, there is a small glass display case devoted to McCrae and his poem. I particularly appreciated the fact that it included a "refutation" from artist Brody Neuenschwander who had tried to prepare a calligraphic interpretation of the poem but who had found himself unable to do so. "It was not difficult to make backgrounds that suggested the grayness of the Flemish skies," he wrote, "and the deeply depressing aspect of the mud and the death of the trenches. But everytime I placed the words of the poem over the background, I read the words, 'Take up our quarrel with the foe,' and I saw that it did not work.

"John McCrae's own handwritten copy of the poem has become an icon of the famous text. We see it, we know what it says, we accept it. But do we stop to ask what the poem actually says? Do we want to know why so many young men were so willing to follow their comrades to the front? Do we have any idea of the social and politcal pressures, propaganda and un-critical patriotic enthusiasm that allowed the leaders of the time to commit this vast slaughter?"

On the way home, my eye was caught by a sign not far from Dirk and Magda’s house that said “452 Sq. RCAF Memorial” and pointed down a little side road. We did a u-turn and turned down this short dead end. On the edge of the lawn of the farmhouse at the end of the road was a marble marker commemorating the crew of an RCAF Halifax that crashed nearby in 1944.

Memories of the war(s) are everywhere in this part of the world.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

On Wednesday, we finally said goodbye to Dirk and Magda and moved on to the tiny village of Tiegem where our hosts were Jan Glorieux and his orange tabby Leo Russo, the cat-athlete.

As I said in my last post, Jan is one of the neatest guys I have ever met. Bright. Fun. Educated. Loves to discuss anything, including politics and religion. He and I got into some great discussions about Catholicism. He was one of the few people I know who would go head-on with me about the church. I loved it.

Leo loved Terre, meanwhile. She would carry him around while he purred so loud we thought there was an earthquake going on.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Lazy day. We walked in the countryside then to a park where we came across the chapel of St. Arnold of Tiegem, the local saint. Terre was shocked to see her first relic (other than the one to which she is married). At the front of the church was a glass display case containing the arm bone of St. Arnold. At special times of the year, the devout kiss the display case to show their devotion.

We decided that what we need in North America are local saints, someone from the neighborhood whom we could venerate, whose finger bone we could keep under glass somewhere to take out once a year and kiss, and who could do miracles for us, like give the BC Lions a winning season or help the NDP win another provincial election this century. We are open for nominees.

Friday, September 23, 2005

We went to Jan’s school in Oudenarde in the afternoon as surprise guest teachers for his English class. Terre, of course, was a brilliant teacher, devising a lesson plan as she sat in the staff room. I, of course, winged it.

Jan asked those students who thought they were pretty good in English to hold up their hands. They came with me to another room where, of course, I talked about Canada.

Terre got the other students. She engaged the less confident students by asking them to tell her what she should experience in Belgium. It'a always easier to talk about what you know. (Terre says that why I talk too much - I know too much about everything and don't know how to shut up and let someone else speak.) The students talked about Belgian french fries (French fries were invented in Belgium and should be called Belgian fries), Belgian chocolates, Belgian beer, and the famous Belgian statue of a pissing boy, the Mannequin-Pis, which one of the kids was kind enough to draw for her on the blackboard. The students wanted to move to Canada until they learned that the legal drinking age is 19 in Canada. In Belgium, it is 16. In fact, we ran into many of the students when we stopped off for a drink at an outdoor pub after school in the town square.

It was my birthday* and they bushwacked me with a delicious box of Belgian chocolates and all the kids sang "Happy Birthday" in English. They sang quickly but with big smiles on their faces because the bell had already rung and it was Friday, last period, and they wanted to GO! However, so did we. In fact, we beat them to the pub!

*56 if you must know.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

We started to go on this tour of some abbeys in the region, but all of us, Jan included, copped out after the second one. Sorry, but booooring.

At the first one, the good sisters regaled us with a 50-minute presentation (in Dutch) on the history of their Order. I’m sorry, but I didn’t take notes (It’s hard to do so when you are nodding off) so I can’t really share with you any of the thrilling highlights here. Suffice it so say that a bunch of women decided to live together and be nuns. The End.

At the second stop, we saw the school that the King’s son used to attend. This should have been a warning, because, half an hour later, we were in the cafeteria for lunch. “Oh no, Jan. This one is on us,” I said. The three of us had sliced turkey loaf with gravy, nuked frozen veggies, fries, and a dessert. Total: $54 in Canadian funds (or 36 Euros for cafeteria food!) Ouch! They have got to be kidding.

That evening, Jan and I played dueling keyboard artists. He won. Terre and the cat left the room whenever I started to play.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Jan insisted on taking us for lunch at a very nice Italian restaurant in Oudenarde. He knew we couldn't afford the high Euro prices to dine out but he really wanted us to experience a good meal in a restaurant before leaving Belgium. Suffice it to say, the food was delicious - much better than the cafeteria—and even more expensive. Thanks, Jan. It was a real treat for us and so very kind and generous of you.

Jan doesn’t like long, drawn-out goodbyes, and neither do we, so we walked back to the car, I shook his hand, Terre gave him a hug, he climbed in his car and drove away. We climbed in ours and were very, very sorry to see him go.

I started her up and headed for our next stop.