Foes, friends and adversity make us stronger

I’ve always been one who believes that adversity brought a lot to our construct and makes us much stronger than success and in the same vein, the same can be said of enemies that do everything they can to make our lives a tiny bit more miserable and painful. 

They’re in fact contributing to, or fabricating, whatever adversity we’re facing. 

Friends of course are the soothing element in which we find refuge to forget the bad things that hit us, get some encouragement or even some constructive advice. 

This is where I can see and I now fully understand the relationship between the “love your enemy” approach preached by Mahatma Gandhi and all others non-violent leaders. 

By the way, this universal law is confirmed in sports in which aggressive adversaries are key to high performance, where athletic talent stimulate and allow for records. Strong opponents fuel excellence. 

Now, and only now, can I understand that concept, live comfortably with it, and say: “Give me a good enemy to help me advance in life...” 

Sometime, profound ideas take a long time to sink in!

Madame Huguette Beyl, 1921-2021

This past week, I learned that Mrs. Beyl, wife of Look ski bindings founder, the late Jean Beyl, passed away after she had celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this year, on January 2. 

She was the person who gave me my first job as well as my big break into the wholesale ski industry and I will always be thankful to her from trusting me and letting me into that tightly closed business in which everyone would give their first born to get a job ! 

Tough, pragmatic and very perceptive, she could read people well (at least that’s what I firmly believe since she thought so highly of me!) and, if anything, she understood and appreciated her retailers. 

She and her husband got shafted by Bernard Tapie, but what goes around comes around, and today Tapie, with his stolen millions, remains a poor and a pityful soul. 

I’ll miss Madame Beyl, as we used to call her, and hope she’s now in a great place after an exceptional long and productive life.

My first voyage ‘round the world, part 3

Just fifty years ago was also a Saturday like today, and my brother Gaston drove me in his Peugeot 204 from Montriond, my home town, to Megeve, France, where I was to meet the fellow Jean-Pierre Chatellard, that would be my room-mate for the next four months and began our journey to Genoa, Italy. 

One of his friends, by the name of Pellissier, I think, himself a ski instructor in Whistler, had offered to drive us south, in his van, taking the crate contained the ski gear needed for us and our teammates flying to Australia. I don’t remember too many details as my mind was too blindly focused on the adventure that awaited us all. 

We got to Genoa harbor in time for checking-in into our ship, the Galileo Galilei, a 28,000 ton ocean liner from the Lloyd Triestino Line, able to carry 1,750 immigrants, including some first-class passengers to Australia, after crisscrossing the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. 

While the ship was big and impressive for the times, we were far too cool to be impressed. After saying good bye to our ride, we took possession of our cabin and while we were doing that, heard that a strike from the entire crew of the ship was up in the air... 

 

Another pelican sighting

The Great Salt Lake is huge, over 17,000 square miles of land owned by the federal government and the state of Utah. 

This inland sea is too salty to be an ideal fishing spot, but it attracts over 10 million migratory birds each year. 

About two years ago, we spotted some American white Pelicans fishing in one of the ponds surrounding the Park Meadows golf course. 

We saw them again this year and this Wednesday I filmed and photographed some passing and fishing through Park City, that’s only 50 km as the crow flies from the Great Salt Lake. 

Isn’t it fabulous to see these birds in the middle of our landlocked, Rocky Mountain town?

Why isn't the Klu Klux Klan considered a terrorist group?

This is a question I always ask myself, when I see how Hamas is decried as a genuine terrorist organization. 

According to Wikipedia, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims, and atheists. This means that I’m one of its potential targets. 

The KKK was formed on December 24,1865 and has terrorized American citizens for the color of their skin and their views ever since, lynching close to 5,000 individuals according to the Tuskeegee Institute. 

Without a question if fits the criteria of a terrorist group that uses of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims. If ISIS or even Hamas are labeled a terrorist group for their acts, then surely the KKK fall into that category. 

The KKK does not care to publicize its actions and the police don’t seem motivated in investigating it, further its members can be found in in many forms of our government and it’s fair to conclude with certainty that the KKK is the best example of a modern terrorist group. 

So why is it not considered as such? Simply because we still are a nation of hypocrites.

Learning with videos…

This week, I’m repairing a wall that I had to take apart to address a plumbing problem, and since it’s not too large an area, I’ve decided to do it myself, by learning through YouTube videos and asking my son, who knows his way around drywall, for advice. 

It’s not the first time that I attempt to learn through videos, and depending on the task involved, the results vary vastly, both in time and quality. But plastering (or muddying, as experts call it) isn’t as easy as it appears on a computer or phone screen. 

It requires hours if not years of practice. A few years ago, I had covered the obvious truth about the time it takes to acquire a skill, aka “the 10,000 Hour Rule”, that proves that learning almost inevitably takes much more time than we would like to think or admit. 

So, on Monday, as I began my week with that project, I was quickly reminded that without a teacher available to correct me on spot, I was a lost soul, struggling like a rank beginner, even though I had seen hours of video, prior to getting my hands dirty with plaster. It's therefore much easier to observe than to literally gets one's pair of hands dirty! 

As a result, the next day, I decided to start the day by watching more video, in attempt to see what I was doing wrong the previous day and get a tiny bit more productive... 

The antidote to the “boring life”…

I don’t know about you, but when all goes too well, I get bored really fast. 

I seem to be someone who needs a smidgen of adversity every now and then to keep my interest high and use whatever little creativity I’m able to muster. 

This is why the idea of a perfect Heaven after death, if there’s such thing, scares the Bejesus out of me. 

Just like a piece of halibut needs seasoning to be edible, our lives need some pepper and salt under the form of challenges, anxiety, fear, pain and suffering, as long as all that “seasoning” doesn’t last too long or doesn’t leave damaging and permanent scars. 

When all goes too smoothly in my little boring life, I know – deep inside – that it’s time for some rough times to make me regain a healthy attention. 

If that stimulus doesn’t come naturally, I can create it in a hurry from a long list of things I hate to do!