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Jack Downey ~ The Galloping Geezer

"Photo Credit to Julie Ann Biggs out on the Mekong River, Cambodia Vietnam Border."

Jack Downey Comments on Canadian Issues to Inform and Amuse.



Starbuck Valley Revisited




"The world of imagination and fantasy can help pass on to the child cultural and social messages [and] function as a way to experience vicariously things an individual could not do first-hand." C. Aminadav, International Journal of Adolescent Medicine & Health. 1995 APR-JUN, 8: Pages 103-106.

The Harry Potter books (authored by J. K. Rowling) have caught the imagination of children and adults alike. Millions of people are rediscovering the great joy of reading. Any book that can pull children away from the TV or Gameboy control is worth its weight in gold. This is a more sophisticated Hardy Boys - Nancy Drew or Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn series. How many of you older folks read 'Tom Sawyer, Detective or Tom Sawyer Abroad?' Do not bother. They were flops, but Harry Potter has weathered the sequel storm and he may be immortal. Books of this caliber allow the mind to visualize the characters and you become part of the environment, not as an observer but as a participant. No parent can take away this world from you. No adult can make you hang up your Harry Potter persona or stop your imagination and dreams of a thrilling world of young people traveling on a great adventure together. You are your own master/mistress, you are a hero even if you are unfortunate enough to be confined to a wheelchair or hospital bed. Harry et al are your pals and you can travel to far places with them. There is another Harry Potter book being written as you read! It is titled 'Harry Potter and Me,' It may never be put on paper but it will through out your life be in your mind and dreams. Games will be made up where you and your friends act out the characters from the book in various scenarios. Later in life, sleepless, you will conjure up these childhood friends and they will comfort you as you finally drift off to receive the blessing of visiting with your Harry Potter comrades again. You have honed the most important skill of human existence. You can read! Harry Potter was your teacher as Huckelberry Finn was mine.

Recently a sophisticated ex-teacher was sitting on the back deck waiting for me to get ready to go 'somewhere' together. She was reading Harry Potter, not to review it, but to enjoy it. I observed her facial expression through the kitchen window and could see her soft smile as Harry and pals were ambling along. When the danger level went up a look of concern spread across her brow. How can this be? 'Father Time' stood still and, in fact, took long years off her present age and took her back to her youth. She actually glowed when the gentle smiles spread across her face. You could see her stern 'teacher look' when the action was hot and heavy... truly amazing, a time machine. She was not Harry's 'teacher' she was one of the characters participating in the adventure, which one only she knows. It can't be Harry Potter because that's me.

I recently rediscovered another Canadian book of my childhood friends. 'Starbuck Valley Winter' is set on the West Coast of Canada and was written by Roderick L. Haig-Brown, the now deceased local magistrate and sports fishing guru of Campbell River, BC. The book I found was the Edited, Canadian School Edition, published by Science Research Associates (Canada) Ltd. 1968, original copyright 1944. It includes Notes and Questions by Eunice Lawrence for the teachers and is 24-karat gold.

The plot typifies two boys of teenage years in a time when Grade nine was enough education for all but a select few. To be sixteen years old meant you went to work. In Alberta in the 1950s the average education was grade 10 and that was when and where the stress was on the three Rs, not on elective courses like 'Sponge diving on the Sahara Desert.' If you failed to meet the Department of Education standard you repeated the grade and there was no such thing as 'streaming' or talking back to the teacher. Parents sided with the teacher and respect for the teaching profession was clearly shown. In the main, teacher's loved the low paying job and the students. Most students respected and even loved their teachers. Every one trembled when the principal appeared on the scene as he/she could see through walls and leap both Outhouses in a single bound. Here was 'the force' that made a school a place to be educated in. There was no room for Loblollies and any kid who was out of control was headed for the Reform School. We all carried jackknives to play Mumbley Peg with. Fistfights took place between the boys and you'd wipe off the blood from your nose and go to class. Every one knew 'it's a poor hide that can't take a tanning.' I can remember the name of every teacher I ever had and thank every one of them for giving me the gift of reading. I was horrible in math. I never cared about Bob who had 6 apples, Becky who had 4 apples, and two watermelons plus three Kumquats while poor William was stuck with 6 green pineapplse that split your lips open and blistered your mouth. Somehow we had to divide all this fruit up so little Esmeraldy did not come down with scurvy. Geography opened the world up to me and I have since traveled a fair bunch of it with out ever getting scurvy. I once ran into a dark skinned girl by the name of Esmeraldy in a Leprosarium I was in out in Laos. Esmeraldy never did have scurvy, leprosy yes, but never scurvy. So much for that dopey math problem. Euclid did not know the difference between leprosy and scurvy...Esmeraldy sure did when her toes fell off!

BHP; (Before Harry Potter) there was a period of time when all the fun books were unceremoniously jerked out of the schools because they were not 'politically correct or were stereotyping characters.' Harry Potter stereotypes Brit school kids. Some churches believe HP will lead children to sorcery. Let's get a grip! Kids are not stupid! They read HP because he is exciting and he has nothing to do with the deadly stupid adult TV world of mind numbing Sitcoms and Soaps. HP breaks every rule the 'do Gooders' used to have Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer pulled off the school curriculum shelf. HP is much like Shakespeare with the way life was lived long ago, Shakespeare had poor old Yorick's skull to chat up...sorcery that is for sure. To not ever have read Portia's speech in the Courtroom is a loss of such magnitude I shudder with compassion for this lesson in multiculturalism to be denied in our youth's developing years.

The Old and New Testaments, the Koran, The Wisdom of China and India by Lin U Tang and every religious book ever written is guilty in some degree of not being politically correct and stereotyping like crazy. The TV evangelists use all these faults to suck millions of dollars from those who would curse HP as the quintessential threat to the minds of the young and the old who can read. It is they who practice a twisted form of sorcery, not our pal HP! We want HP as Prime Minister of Canada. Why has Starbuck Valley been pulled? Two sixteen-year-old boys run a trap-line over the winter where animals are killed. The wolves and the cougars are shot for their bounty. All this so they earn enough money to buy a commercial fishing boat. Trappers Kill Animals folks! This book is not an orgy of wild life destruction. It has strong family values, work ethnic, in fact even animal conservation is part of the plot yet our kids can not go up in Starbuck Valley with the lads and eat venison and live in a log cabin with them any more. Well thank you very much but 'B cubed, Griff, good old Petie Brown, Brock, Pat, Dangerous Dave, Doc Steve and the Scout and Guide troops' and many others of my campanarios have been to 'Starbuck Valley' and 'Jackson's Valley' and came away refreshed. jack64.html and all these memories comfort us in our dotage. HP et al is welcome to join with Romeo and Juliet on our adventures as is Robin Hood, Friar Tuck the maid Marion, Michelle, Michelin, Blanche, Sister Peg, Grant, Michael, Sean and even Christina in her red gumboots with Merlin the Magician. We welcome all those that can read and love adventuring! We are anything but politically correct, but are easily steryotpeable. We are the ones that quote poetry, sing the old songs off key, love life and Canada's great diversity. We are the ones who pay 'The Piper.' We like 'Ray in the Dark' playing his Guitar around the campfire as the sparks go upward with the fragrant smoke in to the night sky. Above all else we can read!

Harrpy Potter for Priminister of Canada

Harry Potter For Prime Minister of CANADA


© Jack C. Downey CD




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