My Palestinian hashish connection

Back in the day, my pal Abbie was a reliable source of Bekaa blonde. Abbie, short for Abdul, was a Palestinian from the West Bank.

Abbie had a dream, and it wasn't a dream about a Palestinian homeland.

He was of a more practical bent.

Abbie's dream was to have a variety store of his own. 

This was back before the big chains took over the variety store space. There was a time when an enterprising family could open a snack-bar/variety store in their front room. You had one of those every few blocks in every neighbourhood. If you ran a successful operation, responding to the needs of the community, you'd make a decent living. Plus, the real estate you were paying off would be your retirement nest-egg.

Circumstances intervened, and I didn't see Abbie for a few years. I'd been out and about making my mark in the world. Or not, but eventually I came back to the home town. One day I randomly walk into one those old-school variety stores for a pack of smokes, and there's Abbie!

Sure enough, he owned the business and he owned the real estate!

Fate had smiled on Abbie in the most unlikely way. 

Fate had cause a grape to fall from the produce shelf at Zehrs.

Fate then led Abbie into that Zehrs, where he slipped on that grape, sprained his neck, and got a concussion.

The only down side was he had to wear a neck-brace, at least in public, till the court case came up.

Long story short, Zehrs bought him a nice variety store, on a corner lot, with more than adequate living quarters, and Abbie and his extended family lived happily ever after!

Things fall apart

Back in the day, when I was doing course work at the University of Guelph, I had a prof who was tight with Chinua Achebe.

Tight enough to be invited to the wedding of one of Achebe's daughters.

That means I was but one degree of separation removed from The Great Man.

Those were the days when university professors would find the time to sit in the campus pub and share pints with their undergrads.

I think that's fallen apart. Hard to find the prof at the pub when she or he has 1,000 undergrads in that first year course.

From what I hear, it's hard to find a real prof at all. Most of the teaching is done by sessional types, as in they're hired for a semester to deliver one course, and then they and their Doctor Phil are set free to mosey on and find greener pastures elsewhere.

Which they don't, because there's a thousand recently minted Doctor Phils applying for every sessional job.

The old-school model of tenure and job security has fallen apart.

There was a guy tenured at the University of Guelph who was the brother of the Attorney General of Ontario at the time. Bit of a radical. I used to score my hashish from the guy who also supplied the brother of the Attorney General.

As things go, for a few months that guy had his supply lines interrupted, and as luck would have it, I had some alternative supply lines happening, and all of a sudden I was supplying my supplier, and my hashish was going to the brother of the Attorney General of Ontario.

Which I think put me two degrees removed from His Honour.

And then things fell apart.

As they inevitably do.

Achebe had it pegged way back in he '50's.

No matter how you strive and connive to thrive and survive...

Things fall apart.