Cutlass Country

As I walk along Kitsilano Beach...through the winter trees...my morning mind is blown
by the sight of five men bundled up from the cold...their faces ruddier than usual...
flailing away at the tangle of black berry bushes...near the path above the shore.
Arcing through the air...jerkily...in their unacustomed hands...are these long
cutlasses...["machetes" please...you're in Canada now!]. I almost find myself gawking
...as one or two of them look up at this strange figure in Ontario parka..navy blue
toque...and grey running shoes...a knowing half smile on his morning face. The irony
of the situation does not escape me. I had a cutlass in my hand by the age of seven...
and with a fork stick in the other...soon learned to cut many a swathe through the
"Jack in the Bean Stalk" grasses that sprung up in the fields close to our thatched
roof house. This morning...as in a much twisted piece of deja vue...I find myself
looking at these new comers to the world of the machete...awkwardly slashing away on
behalf of the Vancouver Parks Department...with a tool that to many south of the
Tropic of Cancer...is familiar as a fork to a Canadian. My moment of smugness vanishes
...as my old respect acquired in the steamy heat by the Mother River returns...for
anyone who works with his hands...and the recognition that I never had to swing a
machete...at minus three degrees Celsius................Quester.