Hitchhiking Memoir Part 9: Pancakes, Institutional BS and the real revolution

Well... here we are. Part 9 of the hitchhiking memoir. It will be kind of fun stand alone... but it will make more sense if you have been with me since day 1... (AKA Part 1). I have all the links provided below. This is just part of a 10,000km hitchhiking adventure that I went on... it is full of stories and thoughts and life and all the best things. If you like it, upvote it and resteem it and most importantly... tell me something and we can share ideas and stuff. Cool? Cool!

Part 1:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-1
Part 2:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-2-globalization-callcenters-and-drywall
Part 3:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-3-sobriety-warehouse-workaholics-the-big-idea
Part 4:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-4-humanity-stripped-tourism-and-fear-doubt-courage-and-the-will-and-a-bmx
Part 5:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-5-tipping-point-survival-the-homeless-and-getting-robbed
Part 6:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-6-day-one-on-the-road-cannabis-homophobia-and-cold-beans
Part 7:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-7-waking-up-under-a-bridge-sexism-and-15-000-litres-of-malt-liquor
Part 8:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-8-mosquitoes-truckstops-and-the-meaning-of-life

Enjoy Part 9!

I made a phone call the night before at the Driftwood truck stop... Interesting name for a town in the middle of nowhere that is pretty much just a truck stop. Well... this piece of driftwood made a phone call the night before to his cousin. I am going to be down in their hood, aka Ottawa, soon... so I thought I would give them a heads up. The call cost me $3.35 and I got cut off and was not about to feed this mechanical tyrant any more money. He got the jist. I told him I would be by around 3:00. If there is someone around I will stay for the night. If there is not... oh well. Onward. I was really hoping to stop by and see my family. They always came to Alberta, cause there are more of us there. I have never been out to see them.

It was another peaceful drive with Gord. We got along wonderfully... not really a disagreement or a bad word or even hint of negativity out of either of us... and we were sharing close quarters for a few days. This guy came up really huge for me. Straight driving for three days. I slept a lot in the truck. I did not really sleep at all the night before with the bugs and the stars and the premature honk and the meaning of life and the sunrise. Gord even went so far as getting off of the freeway, and taking a half hour, or more, to turn around so that he could drop me off in town rather than on the side of the road. This guy was a class act through and through. We said our good byes and our thank you’s... all love.

I got to a gas station and made a call. My cousin was home. The hole gang came to pick me up, minus my uncle who works out of town. This was exciting. It was hot. I was looking and feeling like a hitchhiker. Stubble, sweat, rugged and musty. I got to what felt like home and had a shower, a shave, and the royal treatment. It was wonderful. Food at my disposal... comfortable places to sit. You really grow an appreciation for a hide a bed when you slept under the Trans-Canada highway.

I just visited, went for a walk around the neighbourhood, and enjoyed my downtime. My aunt told me that in Ontario it is against the law to hitchhike on 400 level highways. This should be interesting.

My hide a bed sleep was nice. What was even nicer was the pancakes waiting for me upstairs. I had 7 of them and then my aunt took me to my next roadside. She left me on the number 7 highway, which links up with the 400 level freeway to Montreal. I have no real moral objection with hitchin a ride on an illegal road, it may happen soon. I have more of an objection with people forming an institution which gives itself authority to tell people what they can be fined or imprisoned for doing. My Aunt figured that this would be the best place to start from, and I was happy to have her looking out for me... giving me a chance to shower, shave, sleep and eat good food. If I do end up on a 400 highway with my thumb up, and odds are pretty good... I hope a good samaritan gets to me before a hungry officer.

So, here I am, standing on the number 7 highway... waiting for a ride to take me to montreal. That old montreal sign is still holding up, by the way, a bit beaten and tattered, but it’s strong... made of cardboard... high quality stuff you know. Fifteen minutes or so and a truck pulls over and I am off to the races yet again. Jean-Michelle, a carpenter by trade, decided to leave work early and for whatever reason took the wrong turn. It is funny how things work that way... Since he made an error (or what he thought at the time was an error) he ended up getting the chance to hop out of the box and help someone out, meet someone new and all that good stuff. This is one thing that really becomes apparent to me on this journey. Every time somebody stopped to pick me up I felt like I was being taken care of by the great river of life that is continually flowing. This “mistake” that Jean-Michelle made ended up helping me out immensely. I felt like forces higher than me or Jean-Michelle were making things happen at that moment... taking care of me and ensuring that I get from point a to point b in one piece.

Jean-Michelle was a really nice guy, a guy who picks up a hitchhiker... go figure. He took me out of the humungous land mass known as Ontario and into the uncharted province known as Quebec. He stopped for an iced cap at the lands most popular drive through... which is another trend I have been noticing... pavlovian dog response to good old Timmy Ho’s. He offered me something and I thanked him but passed on his offer. He drove me to his home in Thurso, switched cars, picked up his dog and kept on driving. He told me that he likes to go for drives with his dog often and having me to deliver to a roadside somewhere just gave him a good excuse to do something he loves to do. I was good with the plan. A really friendly big grey mutt was riding in the back seat with me now. It was a fairly pleasant ride and I was fairly silent and enjoying the Quebec landscape. Nice old trees, really green... old big victorian style houses with lattice climbing plants and old shudders.

I ended up getting dropped off 20 minutes shy of Lachute. Jean-Michelle gave me some directions on how to get into Montreal and said his farewell’s and good luck’s. I said my thank you’s and we parted ways. Before I even had the chance to write a bit of what had happened a Chevy Malibu had pulled off to the side of the road for me. I ran up to the car and met a nice fellow around my age by the name of Martin. We had a really good conversation about music, art, politics and typical issues that seem to be prevalent today.

Martin is a Quebecer through and through. He supports separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada and broke it down quite nicely for me. He also played me some good music that supported this movement which certainly is not dead, but rather waiting again for another chance. I have not really put much thought into the separation issue except from a ’12 year old kid in the prairie’ perspective or a ‘don’t really care too much for this class’ university student perspective. The text books can break it down and the news can slant a story any way they want and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Canada is a theoretical entity actualized by a collective will and certain bills and laws have been ‘passed’ that we as a collective accept as true. In reality, when we strip away all of the glitter and all of the B.S that we have been piling up for some hundred odd years, there is land that people settle on. There are institutions in a constant power struggle, which today is realized through money and control of labor. These institutions are a direct result of that B.S. that has been piling up, building up to this moment. Je Me Soviens, I remember, written on the licence plate of every Quebec automobile. The battle on the plains of abraham. A fight for control of this colony... French or English, forget the Indigenous popultion completely... draft up some treaties and make them believe in them. Make them believe in the same B.S. that the rest of these people believe in. Louis Riel stood up against that B.S early on and got hung off a cross-beam by the neck for it.

When this issue is discussed, so much of that B.S. becomes the issue. If “Quebec” were to “separate” from “Canada”... there are a lot of things we have to believe in before that supposition would even make sense. We have to believe that there is a Quebec, that it has a border and that it is a part of Canada. We have to believe that there is a Canada and Canada is a country and this country is .... government ....currency ....constitution .... I could go on all day explaining an outside the box perspective. When we suppose Quebec is to separate from Canada there is a few arguments that I cannot even bear to hear. “What about Canada?” Yes. What about Canada. What about currency?What about governement? What about border policy? Immigration policy... blah blah blah… All of these are examples of how the B.S shoveller is successful in getting that B.S. implanted into our brains. It is all power and control. Border policy, tariffs... who says you can cut down this tree and sell it anyway, some bill some guys passed?

So, they care so much for the great nation that they wear red and white and have a huge pep rally to save a theoretical entity that still to this day only exists in our minds like a comfort blanket or a thumb to suck on.

On the other side of the fence things are not much different. They lost long ago. Now the evil centralized Ottawa can perpetually screw over poor old Quebec. We want poor old Quebec to screw over poor old Quebec instead. Pride is a hard thing to lose and it even gets passed on down the generations. The propaghandi line “the battle of 1812 lives in our hearts” always makes me laugh. It seems that we as a whole would rather live for the decisions that were made in the past and the battles that have been fought in the past than make decisions for a future. So, the B.S. shoveller has drawn up a constitution and a bunch of laws and procedures that enables geographical regions to “separate” from the nation if a majority is in favour. All the while, the constitution is just aged paper, the laws are just invisible bars inside a mind and this land has always been and will continue to be land. Good for work, play, food, relaxation... whatever the heart desires.

Fighting battles of the forefathers... continuing a perpetual power struggle.... sitting inside a box built long ago by a B.S. shoveller who continues to build the pile higher and higher. Louis Riel fought those very institutions... that very concept. He was not a traitor for doing that... but he paid the price. He fought to keep the land as land. Land to live on... land to call home, land for everyone to enjoy freely and equally. Not institutionalized. Not constitutionalized. Not cut up and divided and sold to the highest bidder. Colonized and leeched like a coal mine until the coal is gone and then abandoned.

Fighting within the institution means that we accept it as true. Playing the devil on his home court. That is a stiff advantage. We can tug that rope within that structure... but when the whole foundation shakes, its the people outside the structure with the wrecking ball that are making the real change. Pull the rope until you die, or... let go of the rope and come outside. Come out of Quebec. Come out of Canada. Call the land whatever you want. You have just as much of a right to name the land you live on as anyone else... because... it is your land. It is your home.

I think it is wonderful to see spirited people believing in their struggle. I will always support them. Martin was definitely a spirited man who believed that Quebec has been getting the shaft, and it is true. I think the real struggle lies beyond separation from Canada. I feel each and everyone of us has to separate our minds from the mind frame that has been built around our minds... framed like a picture painted before we got a chance to add a brush stroke.

I call Canada home. I call Alberta home. I call Edmonton home. I live outside of the structure. I live like it is a land. Free and equal with everyone else here. I am aware of the B.S. being shovelled and the stone palaces that are built on that foundation of B.S. These palaces are standing on a theoretical concept, one that is inherent with flaws and illogic, one that will not stand the test of fire. For the second the fires light up in humanities soul, those palaces will cease to stand. I put no faith in them... my faith is placed on a foundation that is solid, like a rock. One that will stand the test of time and the test of fire. For the fire is ready to light in humanity and has been lit in my heart and my soul and I hold a torch. Everything is as it should be, it is all right here and right now. All we need is recognition.

Louis Riel hung off of the cross beam for fighting to keep home, land, and people in control. Jesus preached a similar message. Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Che Guevara. There are so many people, branded as monsters (in true Jay Jonah Jameson fashion), menaces or what have you for fighting for people... the good of the people, against dehumanization, against turning us all into numbers and labor robots. Property of the state. Institutionalized. They cannot hang us all. They are ‘we’ inevitably. They are simply more shackled down. They need to be freed more than any of us. It is a 24 hour a day job to keep power... to keep this on lock down. It enslaves the oppressor. The oppressor is oppressed, a thousand times more-so than those he oppresses. I know so many people who do not like working their job, but do it so that they can live and do the things they love. Those on the top of this theoretical mountain are just as busy as we if not more-so.

Do what you will Quebec... you are already complete to me for my mind has already had the revolution.