Rebecca Stewart & Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C.

 

While my grandmother and mother were very good teachers I believe my inspiration came from one man who was the biggest influence in my life. From Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C., I learned to think and to teach those thoughts in ways that others would understand.

I do believe in miracles. I met Brother Edwin in Austin, Texas at a Roman Catholic boarding school, St. Edward’s in 1958 and yet Brother Edwin met my two granddaughters many times as he did my Rosemary before he died.

Brother Edwin forced me into learning to play the alto saxophone and taught me to read music. He had two master degrees, one was in music and the other in mathematics. He had a way of teaching that went around hard facts and straight into our young minds.

His religion classes (only later I figured out that they would have been properly called theology classes) were often interrupted by our inclination to waste time by asking him what we thought were dumb questions. He answered all of them and kept the words God at a minimum. He knew what was afoot and used the opportunity to shovel Catholic Doctrine into us without seeming to be indoctrination.

One day, a few days before Easter ,he asked us, “Whence did the Easter Rabbit come from?” We had no clue. Here is his wonderful explanation that must be taken with a grain of salt and yet you can see how he brought information from the New Testament into his explanation.

He told us how driving at night in the Texas countryside you might spot a couple of bright eyes. You stop your car and you recognize a wild rabbit. Then he scurries away and appears in another place. This happens a few times until he is gone.

From there he told us that after Christ’s resurrection his appearances seemed to be random. Thomas the Apostle (henceforth called Doubting Thomas) did not believe in the resurrection. He stated he would have to put his fingers in Christ’s wounds. We know this did happen. We were then to understand that the appearing and disappearing Christ is why we have the Easter Rabbit.

While in Mexico I taught at a high school for foreign students, at a Jesuit University and at a school that sent us to teach English at Mexico based American companies (which is how I met my Rosemary).

In Vancouver I taught at Emily Carr and at Emily Carr’s Outreach Program and at Focal Point (a photography school on 10^th Avenue). If I am to take credit for having quite a few student fans I must state unequivocally that the credit must lie on Brother Edwin and the rest of the competent Brothers of Holy Cross who gave me an education that I could not possibly lose.

In fact after that sombre and sad Good Friday and Holy Saturday I can quote Brother Edwin who told us, “Had Christ not resurrected  everything before him would have been a sham. This is why Easter Sunday is more important than Christmas."

Taking Brother Edwin’s cue, I believe that come Easter Sunday, I will resurrect myself, and try to be a new man who sees in the short future dazzling opportunities to impart what is in my head to others.                                                                

Easter on Springer Ave, Burnaby - 1977

 

Knowledge of religions is useful even if you have doubts about them. Today in Spanish we call Easter Saturday Sábado de Gloria. My excellent on line Real Academia Dictionary of the Spanish Language has this to say about Pascua (Easter in Spanish)

pascua

Del lat. vulg. pascua, este del lat. pascha, este del gr. πάσχα páscha, y este del hebr. pesaḥ; la forma vulg. pascua, por infl. del lat. pascuum 'lugar de pastos', por alus. a la terminación del ayuno.

1. f. Fiesta, la más solemne de los hebreos, que celebraban a la mitad de la luna de marzo, en memoria de la libertad del cautiverio de Egipto.

All the above is that pascua in Spanish originally is from the Hebrew and it means Passover. It celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. If we have studied religions we would know that the crucifixion of Christ preceded Passover. Two religions coincided. So today, Sábado de Gloria, I find a tad of comfort in sharing a holiday with Jews.

For me Christmas and Easter are celebrations that I have always shared with my family. In past years my Rosemary made sure that we went to a nice Easter breakfast in a lovely place in Vancouver. After she died three years ago to me that close-knit family family feeling has fragmented. Yes, I am having dinner with my two daughters tonight. But it is not enough. It will not match the memories of Easters past.

Lying on my bed today the presence of Niño and Niña somehow ameliorated my Easter sadness of not sharing it with Rosemary. 

Harry Rankin

Joe Keithley aka Joey Shithead - Burnaby City Councillor

Art Phillips - the best mayor this city ever had

Jean Swanson - former Vancouver City Councillor

Gordon Price - Former Vancouver City Councillor

Mike Harcourt - Good at everything

Ray Spaxman - the best city planner Vancouver ever had

 My first open letter : An Open Letter to the Honourable David Eby, Premier of British Columbia

When my wife Rosemary and two daughters moved from Mexico City to Vancouver in 1975 we found a booming city that became more so by Expo 86. Since then I have noticed that the city projects could be performed more quickly if we brought the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids. Consider the following:

1. King Edward Boulevard from Larch to the West has been blocked now for a year.

2. The last two blocks going East on Lougheed Highway It is a major highway!) before Willingdon has had all kinds of blockages for a year because on the other side of Willingdon, equipment is being stored and somehow a Skytrain addition has not been finished. Who is at fault? Burnaby, the Province, Skytrain/Translink/Vancouver?

3. For almost a year turning East on Pacific on leaving the Burrard Bridge was blocked for a year. It seems to be free now.

4. For anybody living in Kitsilano, navigating on West Broadway and crossing Arbutus has been a nightmare for a year with no relief in sight.

Having recently been to Mexico City and Buenos Aires I can attest that Vancouver is becoming the pothole-and-uneven-street capital of this continent. Possibly because when concrete streets (the smooth ones) have to be cut up for new sewer systems for houses, the holes are filled with asphalt that is either higher than the road or it sinks.

A major route in Kits to go to Kerrisdale is the part of Macdonald that becomes Puget at King Edward. From there to 33d Ave it is one collection of bad asphalt and potholes.

Twelfth Avenue for a long time was the route to take to avoid the Broadway disaster. Now the stretch from Clark Drive to Commercial is continually blocked. No left or right turns are allowed on Commercial coming from any direction. Anybody going East on 12^th cannot turn left on Victoria Drive for most of the day.

In short, navigating in Vancouver is a disaster.

Now to slightly change the subject I have noticed that our Vancouver City Counsellors post lots of photographs (including selfies) on social media where they smile while holding their hands by their midriff.  What do these people do for our city? The one Counsellor I respect is Joe Keithley (AKA Joey Shithead) who does a good job in Burnaby. What happened to our Tim Louis, Gordon Price, Jean Swanson types and Harry Rankin types?

All I see on Twitter/X in relation to City Hall is that somebody is awfully busy using different colour lights at night to celebrate all kinds of people and situations. Perhaps, no lights, might celebrate our potholes.

As I keep writing in many of my blogs, without newspapers we have no way of knowing of the fine cultural events of our city. The CBC, not having to sell ad space could have a couple of hours of culture announcements on CBC Radio and a bit on CBC TV. If Pierre Poilievre becomes Prime Minister he will not have to defund the CBC. The CBC is doing a fine job all by itself.

In a previous open letter to our Honourable, MLA, Premier David Eby I posted these questions which few I know can answer correctly. If they cannot it has nothing to do with ignorance but the fault of the institutions mentioned:

Name the heads of the VAG, Maritime Museum, Museum of Anthropology, the MOV (few know what it is or where it is), Ballet  BC, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Opera, none can name or know of the existence of the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery at UBC. If you ask anybody when it was that they last went to the Maritime Museum or the Freddy Wood Theatre at UBC they answer in years.

Few know of the Orpheum Annex and Pyatt Hall. When I ask people if they have ever gone to the Telus Theatre (part of the Chan Centre) they have never heard of its existence.

A stellar musical orchestra (20 years of existence) is the Turning Point Ensemble. Few know it exists or that it performs at the basement hall of the Simon Fraser University Downtown Campus.

I used to go to many fabulous lectures at the Judge White Hall inside Robson Square. Many times I sat with Arthur Erickson.  Since UBC took Robson Square over the only activity there is the skating rink. Shame on UBC!

Our city is what it is now. What is City Hall and its smiling Counsellors going to do to change that? Should I invest on a car with a beefed up suspension and shock absorbers?  

Or should we call on the ancient Egyptians?

Christ and Cirineo - Titian - Niño & Niña 29 March 2024

Good Friday invariably transports me to a sunny day in Buenos Aires in 1950 when I was 8 years old. It was a not quite 3 in the afternoon. I was playing with Mario on the street and I knew I had to go into the house. On Good Friday my grandmother (Abuelita) prohibited us from listening to the radio. At precisely 3, my mother and I knelt and Abuelita read the last words of Christ on the cross.

I will not parade here my religious views. They, like my political ones, are private. But I would like to add a little knowledge that came via my grandmother. She explained that when Christ was struggling with the cross on the way to Golgotha, the Romans seconded a man called Cirineo (he was reluctant) to help Christ. Since then, my grandmother explained “a Cirineo” is a person who helps only reluctantly.

Now 71 years later, on today’s Good Friday, my thoughts are sombre (under the shadow in Latin). I look at my cats and I know that they and I share being alive and, together, they (perhaps?) and I miss our former mistress. It seems that a Good Friday is a day to think about the death of friends and relatives and a diminishing circle of those that are left.

The painting of Cirineo and Christ by Titian has an added interest for me. I know that Titian was the first artist to use the cochineal red that came from Mexico. A specific ladybug that feasted on a particular Mexican cactus when pressed produced a vivid red that was so valuable that the Dutch, French and English ships would board Spanish galleons for their gold, silver and the red  extract called cochineal. 

When I go no Cirineo will help me.

John Boorman and Sarah Miles - 1987

I have chosen to republish this blog from Easter 2021 not because I am lazy but because I think it still has that feeling that I had then of an Easter without my Rosemary and that melancholy persists.

 Lacrimosa dies illa

Seven last words

It seems that for Easter it is de rigueur to watch either The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur. This Easter weekend, my first alone since 1967 (when I met and then married my Rosemary), I have chosen to watch nothing.

For me Lent and Easter is all about my youth. On Thursdays in Buenos Aires my mother and grandmother would visit 7 churches on Holy Thursday. On Good Friday I was not allowed to turn on the radio. If I was playing outside on the street with my friends, I would be called in at 3 when my grandmother would read us the Stations of the Cross and Christ’s Last Seven Words.

Because I was around 8 this whole experience was one of ritual. Rito, in Spanish is closer to the idea of a religious ritual and not only to something done for tradition.

I believe that my religious beliefs are something personal and I will not reveal what they might be here.

Good Friday for me is sombre and melancholic as I remember my mother and grandmother. It is about growing up and finding it difficult to understand religious concepts. These became clear to me at the Roman Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas that I attended in the late 50s. And now, at 78, I find it interesting to investigate (fine essay on the subject in the NY Times) why it was that if Jesus was resurrected in perfection on Easter, he still had the wounds that ultimately interested the doubting St. Thomas.

One does not need to be extremely religious or to believe everything to find that subject of Jesus’s wounds as fascinating.

Easter is for me a moment for reflection and thinking about being re-born. Because my Rosemary died last December 9, my idea of being reborn is more about a preparation to die and to make life for my two daughters and two granddaughters an easy one to deal with. It would seem that for me to be reborn now is to shed possessions.

Anybody who has gotten this far might wonder why it is that I have photographs of film director John Boorman and actress (I am old-fashioned)  Sarah Miles. The reason is that I photographed them in 1987 when they were in town to promote the film Hope and Glory. It is an autobiographical film about Boorman’s childhood in war-time London. This fine film, without chariots or with the sound of Heston’s booming voice, replicates my idea that Easter is about growing up and discovering one’s reason in life and for living it. 

For me in this beautiful 2021 sunny Easter Sunday, I hope that I will make do without the presence of my Rosemary and somehow live life in a way that she would approve.