A Blight on Our Nation

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Lynn

My readers are well aware that I am a hockey fan.  In Canada, hockey is considered OUR sport of choice and the Stanley Cup is the pinnacle achievement for any hockey player to win.  Again, no secret that my favorite team is the Montreal Canadiens and because I live in the city, I cheer on the Calgary Flames as well.  There is great rivalry between the NHL teams in Canada and the U.S.  There is also great rivalry between the nations as a result.  When a Canadian team plays a U.S. team it becomes a Canada VS U.S.A. event even if the majority of players on a U.S. team may be Canadian born, and vice versa.

I will admit I had little interest in who won or lost the Stanley Cup this year with the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins getting to the finals.  I am a fan of neither team, however I am a fan of hockey in general and I enjoy watching the playoffs regardless of who is playing.  That said, being Canadian I favoured the Canucks to some degree…it’s the Canadian thing to do to cheer on the Canadian represented team.  However it was not lost on me that the majority of Boston’s team had some hometown heroes on their roster.

It is not the final game however that will be remembered, it will be the riot that followed on the streets of Vancouver after the Canucks loss 4-0 to Boston in the seventh and final game.  Vancouver already has a tarnished reputation for the rioting in 1994 after Vancouver lost to New York in that Stanley Cup final.  One would think that city officials in Vancouver would learn after that event to not allow large group gatherings in the downtown core.  However, insisting that Vancouver fans had learned to behave better, today they are likely rethinking the decision to allow tens of thousands of people to watch the game on wide screens set up in the downtown area.

Town officials say it was initially a “small” group of troublemakers that started the riot and fanned the flames of violence for the night.  However as I watched with shock and horror the news footage of the vast numbers of people on those streets who stood and  cheered on the destruction; took pictures of themselves by the burning cars and then aided and abetted those who entered the Bay department store to loot and continue to vandalize, there seemed to be more hooligans than law-abiding citizens on the streets of Vancouver last night.

Unfortunately what happened in Vancouver last night not only tarnishes the city’s image…again…but casts a dark shadow on our entire Nation.  No one will remember the hard-fought victories of great hockey teams paired up throughout this year’s play offs.  Sadly, shopkeepers and business owners will return to work this morning and spend their day or days cleaning up the mess, counting the cost to their livelihood as a result of last night’s rioting.  Certainly they will not remember the Stanley Cup Playoffs with any kind of fondness.

It will be bantered about for months, perhaps years who’s to blame for this violence.  There will be no definitive answer.

It is a sad day in our Nation.

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Dry Grad

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Lynn

Sunday morning, May 29th.  The kids are just starting to wake up after cat-napping on and off all night.  I hear giggling from a few of the girls who have decided an early morning swim would help them start the day at 5:00 a.m.  A few voices are heard upstairs, a little more subdued than the night before but still the familiar tunes of Mario being played on an X-Box filters down to me.  Four boys are outside throwing a football.   The sun has barely come up, but there they are passing the ball around oblivious to the fact that it’s only 4 degrees celsius.  I glance into the family room and see a few more young people sprawled on the floor and draped over couches.  I am amazed they were able to sleep at all considering the noise and laughing all around them throughout the night.  Suddenly two girls are sitting by my piano and their voices blend together in harmony, singing praise and worship songs.  It is Sunday after all.  One of the girls still has her hair neatly coiffed from yesterday, and I remember the beautiful gowns and tailored suits of the boys as they escorted their dates up the aisle celebrating their grade twelve graduation. 

Graduation.  It is a time of celebrating, but these particular graduates have opted to celebrate differently than other grads. 

I don’t know when the world started to turn upside down around Graduation, but it is like all rules, laws and morality flies out the window at After-Grad parties.  Named “SafeGrad” as if it legitimizes it in some way, suddenly it’s okay to serve liquor to minors.  Suddenly it’s okay for parents to allow their children to stay out all night, knowing that they will be drinking.  Suddenly police, parents, schools and others seem to turn a blind eye to SafeGrad parties and say it’s okay for one night for teenagers to get drunk as long as they do it “safely”.  What???  I am perplexed that well-meaning parents, even Christian parents, allow their children to participate in this form of celebration at Grad when it would definitely not be tolerated at any other time of the year.    

My daughter graduated from a public high school in 2002.  When we, as parents, met as a planning committee to discuss “SafeGrad”, (Note: SafeGrad is a long-standing high school tradition where new graduates — both minors and those of legal drinking age — are bused to a secret location to drink alcohol and party under the watchful eye of parents and volunteers after graduation ceremonies.  The event is highly organized with strict rules, which include that no outside alcohol is allowed and minors can only be served alcoholic drinks by their parents.  The supervised and controlled drinking environment with a guaranteed safe ride home prevents drinking and driving and keeps the graduates away from unsupervised bush parties.) I was the lone dissenter.  I asked if we could offer a “Dry Grad” to those students who did not want to drink alcohol, but still wanted to go to a party.  I was laughed at.  One mother actually said, “No one will come to that kind of party.  They want to get drunk, and we should let them.”  I suppose it got me a bit riled up (I’m not one for backing down easily), so I quit the “SafeGrad” committee and instead sent word out to the graduating class and their parents, through my daughter that we would host a Dry Grad in our home for those who did not want to attend SafeGrad.  Fifteen graduates attended.  They swam in our indoor pool, soaked in a rented hot tub, and played board games and watched movies.  My husband and I stayed up all night as the chaperones and in the morning my husband cooked up a batch of pancakes for the teens.  It was a wonderful, fun-filled evening and the grads had a blast!  

It was a no-brainer when our son graduated for us to offer to host a Dry after-grad party.  This time fifty teens attended!  They brought a huge sound system and blared music throughout the house all night long.  They swam, they sat by the campfire, they even set off fireworks at 1:30 a.m. (good thing I had warned my neighbours in advance…hahaha).  We had set up video games in two rooms, and then at around 4:00 a.m. when the grads were starting to power down a bit, we put in a movie and although some snoozed, others continued to play Dutch Blitz, or video games or swim all night long.  There was laughter and fun and there was absolutely no alcohol.  It proved to me that not all kids want to get drunk on their grad night.  These graduates partied, but they partied safely and there were no regrets the next morning.  I overheard one young man say to his friend as they were leaving, “I know a bunch of guys that are waking up this morning with hang-overs and are puking sick.  I am tired but I feel great and I had fun last night.  Wonder if those guys can say the same thing this morning?” 

Congratulations BCS 2011 graduates!  It was an honour and a privilege hosting your after-grad party! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Family Life, Proverbs 16:9 - Journey Thoughts | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Graduation Day

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Lynn

You know that book of Robert Munsch, “Love You Forever“?  I don’t know how many times I have read that book to my son when he was little but today its words ring true as never before.

The other night I crept into my son’s bedroom and just watched him as he slept.  His hair looked tousled and his long legs dangled off the edge of his bed.  I wanted so badly to reach out my hand and touch his face remembering the chubby cheeks and dimples in his baby hood, but I held back, after all at eighteen years of age he likely would have been thoroughly creeped out!  Yet as I watched him sigh in his sleep, tears welled up in my eyes, my mother’s heart softening with longing for the years when he truly needed me for everything.  I remembered when only my hugs and kisses would soothe his “boo boos”, or comfort him, or encourage him.  Those days are long past.

Today he walks across the stage and receives his high school diploma.  He won’t admit it, he’s too cool for that, but I know he’s excited.  He wouldn’t let me fuss at him when he tried on his tuxedo for the Graduation Banquet but all I could do was fuss because had I just stepped back and paused to admire him, so tall, so perfect, so grown up, I would have dissolved into tears.  Fuss covers over a multitude of tears.

God gave him to me for such a short time it seems to me, a blessing immeasurable in my life.  Although memories of his childhood flood over me, I know he is not a child any longer, but a grown young man, ready to tackle the world after high school.  I will likely shed those multitude of tears some time over this weekend but today as I see him in his cap and gown I will say:

“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”

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