The Confluence Issue 22

onfluence

The

Post Secret at CNC -Page 3 Post North in Review -Page 7

March 15th 2013

March 15th 2013

Featuring Andy

Garett Svensen, Production Editor Normally I’m the one to take the blame for The Confluence’s covers, but this week is a pretty sweet photoillustration by our Editor-in-Chief: Andy Johnson. We’re also featuring an excerpt from his upcoming work Nothing in Between. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as he enjoyed writing it.

Available at the CNCSU Office

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The Confluence - News

Andy does most of our content and ad recruitment and almost all of the copy editing on the newspaper. If you’ve submitted something, he is usually the first one to read it, respond, and prep it for the layout work that I’ll usually do Thursday or Friday. This week he gets to show off his graphic sensibilities and creative writing style.

Andy Johnson, Editor-in-Chief

Garett Svensen, Production Editor

Taren Johnson, Web Manager

CNC Trades Day Confluence Out Cinema CNC

Job Fair 10-3pm -Atrium

CNCSU Nominations Open

March 15th 2013

March 2013

Ski Trip

Ski Trip Payment Due International Women’s Day CNCSU Nominations Close

Confluence Out Bottle Water Free Day

World Water Day

29

31

CNCSU Elections

Farmer’s Good Friday Market CNCSU Sustainability Closed Showcase

30

A reminder:

The Confluence - News

St. Patrick’s Day

Gathering Place Opening -Atrium

Voting for the upcoming CNCSU elections will be held on the following dates in the CNC Atrium:

The Confluence is produced biweekly at the CNCSU office on CNC’s Prince George campus by Garett Svensen and Andy Johnson.

Monday March 25 2013 Tuesday March 26 2013 Wednesday March 27 2013

Weather

Monday, March 18: 0°C, -8°C, Sun and Cloud.

All submissions are welcome, the authors of edited works used in the Tuesday, March 19: 1°C, -11°C, Sun and Cloud. confluence receive a $20 cheque upon publication. Advertisement rates are Wednesday, March 20: 2°C, -9°C, Cloudy, Chance of Flurries. availiable upon request.

Thursday, March 21: 2°C, -13°C, Sun and Cloud.

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Environment Canada 7-Day Weather Forecast: For Prince George, BC. Submissions, inqueries and requests 15-21 March 2013 can be made to news.cncsu.ca, in Friday, March 15: 1°C, Snow. person at the CNCSU office room 1-303, or mailed to “The Confluence Saturday, March 16: -1°C, -6°C, Chance of Snow. c/o CNCSU 3330-22nd Ave. Prince Sunday, March 17: 0°C, -8°C, Sun and Cloud.

George, BC. V2N 1P8”

March 15th 2013

POSTSECRETCNC

pinned up next to someone else’s which makes it seem (pick one): out of context, feminist, anti-woman, preachy, conceited, depressing, PostSecretCNC: International hopeful, naïve, jaded… The Women’s Day is a project about card ownership of the secret is not just making. The idea is simple: write your yours anymore; it belongs to the secret on a card and drop it in a box. If writer of the card beside it, the man you add a drawing or picture, it might who relates to it, and the woman who take you five minutes - no big deal. walks away thinking about it.

Except that, for some of us, it is.

While I wonder about the story Sometimes the most difficult things behind each card, there are a few to admit are the secrets we keep from that stunned me into silence. What ourselves. First, we found, received, were the circumstances that led to or were given a blank card with basic this statement? As I collected the instructions on it saying “Share your cards, I thought about what each story” and we were resistant, “I don’t writer might have meant, or how they have any secrets”. Or we do not could feel seeing their card posted. believe this project is meant for us, “I I tried to interact with each secret, don’t experience any inequality”; “I give value to each story told or lesson don’t have anything important to say”. learned. I want the writers to know So we ignored it for a few days. We that someone spent time thinking slowly worked up to saying, “Well, about what they have to say and let there was this one time,” or “Okay, them know they’ve been heard - that this does bother me”. Once we had an their secret is not something that has idea, we questioned it, “Is this really to be just theirs anymore. I hope that true?” those who view the display walk away with the same awareness – that these This inner dialogue is something cards are from the people we pass in secret sharers struggle with as we the halls, sit behind in class, or who formulate an idea. It takes time clean up our mess in the cafeteria. It to admit our own mistakes or is a microcosm of our community; it experiences, to really own up to what is full of people who need an outlet to we think about women today. Then, say something – whether the agenda we have to put it down on paper, and was to bring awareness or hope to the add a personal artistic expression of readers, send a personal message to our story. The magazine cut-out can someone else, or just to get something be a glimpse of how people view out of your head and into the world. It themselves, while the hand drawn art is full of people who need someone to shows a particular ownership of the listen, who need someone to ask them story told. What about those hastily “How are you? No, really…how are written in pen? Were they difficult you?” to admit, written just so they could be forgotten? How do we fit such a This project is all about inspiring heavy, smothering, secret into a 4x6 these conversations. inch space?

But what I wasn’t expecting is that When the card is done, it seems so it would inspire a different set of small and insignificant. If you spill conversations, which happened before your coffee on it, the ink might run the cards ever went on display. As I and the paper wrinkle. Something so brought this idea of storytelling and big, suddenly seems so fragile, yet secret sharing to different people somehow still manages to feel like a including friends, family, coworkers lead weight in your hands. You drop and faculty members, I discovered it in the box and try to forget about it. a few things about people and their As you walk away, you think, “Did secrets. Secrets scare some people. anyone see me? What if someone asks Secret sharing can uncover ugly, me what I put on my card?” nasty things. Secret sharing can bring up bad memories, and either free us Days later, your card is displayed

The Confluence - Feature

Melinda Roy, Library Assistant

from them, or bind us closer to them.

I discovered two distinct groups who had difficulty with this idea.

For the first set, they were taught not to discuss certain things in an open public forum – politics and religion; and certain topics were kept between bedroom doors – sexuality, abortion, and birth control. Other topics like depression, self-identification, eating disorders, and abuse were things you outright denied, even to yourself.

Asking them to share whatever secret in an open, anonymous forum where you don’t know what someone is going to say when they see it, is a question that pushes their boundaries.

I tell these women that there is hope in the fact that people are sharing - that the secrets are not secret anymore. Even though we don’t know who they are, we know their secret.

There is also hope when people come to read the cards – the people that make up this community are actually interested in what the other members have to say. We learn from each other, whether we are the card writers or card readers. When I was writing my proposal for the project, I wrote “This project is for everyone. It is a place for those who feel lost within the community - or for those who are feeling the stress of exams - to speak up, to show the community that there are needs to be addressed, and to encourage students that they are not alone in their situation. I hope it will foster a community of sharing and openness where students may not be afraid to share with each other about their lives.”

OSTSECRETCNC

March 8th 2013

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rnational Women’s Day CNC Faculty Association:

body parts and historical precedents.

I found in these conversations that the men either shut down when I mentioned the “F” word (feminism) or Mick Frazier, got extremely defensive. To quote one Contributor of the cards: Every year towards the end of “When I talk to my husband, March, countries all over the world [friend, fiancé, brother, father…] participate in an event dubbed “Earth about the things I see in the world Hour” by turning off their lights and that make me feel bad to be a woman electronics for one hour of the date’s and he changes the subject, [gets evening. It is coordinated by the defensive, stops talking], or makes World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in an a joke, I want to buy him a t-shirt effort to raise awareness about climate I like to tell these men that inequality with a P on it for Patriarchy…Part of change. Other nations started contribis something everyone should be the Problem...or P for Please Please uting in 2008 following an example concerned about. They can shed light Please hear me. *I’m not accusing set when 2.2 million residents of on the roles that society has told you*. I’m saying what it’s like for Sydney, Australia first organized a city them to play – to be unemotional me.” wide black out of all non-essential wage-earners whose success in life lights on March 31, 2007. This year is determined by their career, just as The PostSecretCNC: International the event is being held internationally society tells women their main role Women’s Day project is not about on March 23rd at 8:30pm. is in the home, and if they work, making accusations, but about then they better be able to balance awareness, understanding, and giving Last year the WWF introduced a child-rearing, craft-making and meal voice to those who may not otherwise campaign to extend the efforts of the planning at the same time . PostSecret speak up. The stories, shame, and movement beyond one hour. The “I is a forum where men can tell other secrets of gender inequality belong to will if you will” effort is a social memen that judgments based on gender all sexes. This conversation of how to dia promotion designed to gather furdon’t help anyone. It is a project fix it is for the whole community. ther support from individuals through where people can stand up for their pledges. One person makes a large friends, mothers, wives and daughters, commitment on the condition that if and thereby stand up for a society CNC a number of others also makeFaculty a small As that promotes equality. The project, effort to affect a positive change.

Status of Women Com and feminism as I encounter it, is not about establishing a man-hating This year the campus community is matriarchy, but instead true equality A creative coming out in a bigopportunity way for “Earth for wo based on things like personality, Hour.” The local CNC Leadership talents and motivation - instead of stories, thoughts and exp Clubtheir is organizing a fund raising effort with Picksupport up of a Carrier blankLumber postcard a to raise money for the Downtown Community Garden.Resource At Noon on the Aboriginal Centre (A 14th and 20th of March in exchange Create an for a Education small donation(IE). a seedling will be planted on the contributor’s behalf, an achievement they celebrating will receive a small commemora- or tive candle andor thank you note, and future, a personal story or e their name will be placed in a raffle for anart. eco-friendly steel postca Submitstainless completed water bottle.

Earth Hour

March 15th 2013

The other group, mainly men, have rarely been asked to be vulnerable, and found it difficult to understand how valuable sharing can be. Their partners ask them to listen, and for advice, but the overwhelming response was one of confusion – “Is this really for me? Should it be for me? Isn’t it for International Women’s Day? I don’t get why anyone would want to look at something like that…

I’m not a feminist and so I shouldn’t be saying anything about it…”

POSTSECRET

March 8 The Confluence - Feature

International Women

“I hope my daughter won’t have to protest for her rights, but that she will be strong enough to if she must.”

4:00pm in a drop-box at: the L Student Success (CSS), ARC, Drop-box outside the Mailroom

Visit the CNC Library for mo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Page 4

Submissions will be displayed for public viewing from MAR

March 15th 2013

Excerpt from Nothing in Between Audrey’s suicide was less of a relief than it was a revelation; 3) My home town has become a war zone between poets.

The Confluence - Feature

For some reason I think back to 2010. I had applied to a joint Fine Arts degree between UNBC and Emily Carr. I had been accepted by Emily Carr, but had been rejected by UNBC. At first, I figured that perhaps my grades were too low for UNBC, but soon realized that this was not the case. My GPA was 2.86 that year.

Emily Carr requires a GPA of 2.5 and a portfolio. UNBC requires a 2.0.

My understanding of my rejection is based on three reasons, I’m white, I’m male and I had taken a class with Greg Kindle. I suppose these three factors were enough for Dr. Harper to consider me ‘other,’ his pc term for enemy.

I came to these conclusions last week after seeing the Fine Arts graduate lists of the past two years.

All the student names were female: Irene Cardinal, Jennifer Lazuli, Eileen Parker, and Lenore Biggs.

By A. Warren Johnson

It’s possible that I drew long bows with these barely tangential threads, but it seems the pieces are set out before me, almost perfectly aligned.

Still, I can’t help but feel this is only one dimension in a complex web. I suppose I will have to wait to see the significance of the grand design.

Page 5

For most people, when life gets in the way of their plans the need to escape is triggered, although rarely is this need fulfilled. In my case, payday has come and gone, and I’ve gone with it. I didn’t bother telling anyone—including *** employers, or family—what I was planning, I just wanted to get away. Like most of my high school counter-parts, I’m taking off to Vancouver. The only It’s 7:34 pm and I’m walking around difference between them and I is that I at least know I will have to eventually Grandville Street debating whether return; broke, pissed off and glad to be home. or not I should send Michael an email asking him to show me around April 14 Kingsway. I have about $600 on debit, but I’ll need $100 for gas and $50 for The sky in Cache Creek is much wider than back home. I wonder if the food. The rest could be spent on booze people here feel the same way, perhaps broader horizons have some link to a and cigarettes. broader mindscape. Who knows? While fuelling up I noticed the clouds, one in particular resembled the eye of Ra, not exactly sure if I should consider this a Down the street from Cherry Bombs, good omen, or if it is even important at all.

I notice a guy with one leg punching a gangster looking fuck in the face. I’m As the kilometres wear on, my thoughts turn to deconstructing the “war” impressed by how he balances himself back home. This helps pass the endless drive, which at times have been on his crutch as he makes contact. No punctuated by points of terror. The facts are pretty straight forward. My one else walking around me seems to growing dissatisfaction with my post-secondary education stems from three care. things: 1) my day-to-day anxiety has peaked, but has yet to subside; 2)

*** Cecil’s is a seedy strip club that reminds me a bit of the long closed Joe’s Place back home. The only difference is Cecil’s is bigger and looks similar to the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange. The smell of piss is consistent though.

I am sitting at a table near the stage; three empty bottles are sitting in front of me, a fourth one soon to join them.

A mash up between Nine Inch Nails’ Closer and Ke$ha’s Sleazy comes on as I finish the bottle and Misty Parker Guiley appears on stage. I applaud and notice I’m the only one clapping.

The server comes over to me and takes the four bottles off the table.

“You want another?” She asks as she sets the last bottle on her tray.

“Yes I would.” I reply as I hand her a ten dollar bill. “I only need two back.”

I continue.

I went to CBC. Went to tell them about John Allan. And the others who were involved. Roger tells me they are involved in the pharmaceutical The Sleazy remix ends and applaud, conspiracy. I told that woman, Sheila, Misty smiles at me. A remix of last about them pumping me with that year’s hit Call Me Maybe comes poisonous shit. John Allan, he’s on, Misty begins working the pole. afraid of me. Just like the rest of this I notice a guy in yellow and beige goddamn city. They know, they know jacket sitting down beside me. He that I know and that’s what makes begins talking, “It was completely them scared.” unnecessary!”

The Call Me Maybe remix ends and I look over at him; he’s got a bushy Misty winks at me. I’m not surprised blonde and grey beard and thick considering me and the conspiracy aviator glasses. I nod and take a long nut are the only two in the bar. The drink. For some reason he reminds server sets my beer on the table and me of Tom Bombadil. I’m unsure walks away. I look towards Misty. how to reply, I say nothing, but take The UFC match going on behind her everything in. in the mirror is still going; one of the guys has the other in what looks to “They picked me up for ninety-two me as a pile driver position. The only hours and gave me five injections.” difference is that they are wearing shorts.

I raise my eyebrows, nod and look back to the stage.

“Do you believe in hyper dimensional theory?”

“What the hell gives ‘em the right?

I broke into the warehouse, and I don’t answer and instead focus on instead of saying ‘good job, you Misty’s snatch. It’s a tucked in, fleshy could’ve froze to death,’ they took slit, accented with small red bumps and held me for involuntarily. This indicating razor use, rather than a isn’t Nazi Germany. Back when I was wax. in the military, Nicaragua, veterans were treated with respect, not in “Ya know, it’s funny, before my detainment. It’s nonsense.” mother was murdered, I would go down and gather driftwood. Back Misty loses her thong. I look over when those ships would port in Port at the guy sitting next to me; he looks Coquitliam. John Allan was involved around, raises a finger and gestures in this too, at least that’s what Roger for me to lean closer. I do and he tells me.” whispers in my ear, “I was there when they were shooting planes at Misty gathers her clothes and leaves the airport. They murdered him, they the stage. young guy, name was Eric. Don’t trust the Government, they seem to believe I’m a danger to myself, meanwhile the RCMP are out sexually assaulting young natives. That’s what Roger told me.”

I’m not sure where he is going with this and I nod, lean back into my chair She nods and smiles, slightly, as she and face the stage. Misty smiles at me walks away. Misty is a fairly pretty and I shoot her a half-smile and raise

March 15th 2013

my bottle in a mock toast. The server comes back around and asks if I need another. I order one more and hand her eight dollars. She walks away, doesn’t even ask the poor sonovabitch next to me if he wanted anything. He doesn’t seem to notice.

The Confluence - Feature

I decide to head to Cecil’s and have a few beers. I pass two Asian women holding up their phones and I think they are having a conversation with each other. I don’t understand anything they are saying. Next, I pass two homely looking guys texting outside of Camouflage. One is dressed in a long black trench coat and high heels; the other is wearing a shirt made of chainmail and hot pants. As I pass, I notice the guy in the trench coat is wearing fishnet stockings and a garter belt that clashes with his Watchmen t-shirt. Chainmail turns to trench coat and nods, they both smile.

I don’t smile and I keep walking.

woman, probably around twenty-six, although she does appear to be a few years younger. As she struts like a runway model down the stage I notice the reflection of a UFC match going on in the mirror behind her. I think about the odd juxtaposition between the aggressive homoeroticism and the dominant woman on stage, and how I am a bystander caught in this strange circumstance.

Page 6

The gangster staggers back and the hat he is wearing falls off his head.

The cripple hobbles closer and pushes the stunned gangster back a few more feet, picks up the hat and throws it in front of a cab. I wonder briefly who these two are and how they arrived at this moment. No one around me even blinks, just another Friday night on Grandville. The gangster tells the guy to go fuck himself and crosses the street, his hat still lying in the road.

For some reason this makes me think of Audrey and Leslie.

March 15th 2013

Post North: Exile and Desire Review?

The Confluence - Arts

Katherine Douglas, Contributor Fifteen minutes until the reading was scheduled to begin, and I was still in my swimsuit. I knew I was going to be late. It was a quarter to seven, and I was finally allowed to take leave of my course at the pool. As I grabbed my things and directed myself towards the change rooms, I realized that I still had to shower, dress, make my face and hair presentable, as well as walk to the event. It didn’t help that three people were bombarding me with texts; each of them demanding where I was, how long I was going to take, and whether I was going to sit with them or not. By the twentieth message, I abandoned my phone and finished applying mascara to my already curled lashes. It was at that time that I noticed that a pair of brown eyes staring intensely at me. A little girl, no higher than my elbow, kept watching me with such a serious face and studious eyes that she gave me the chills. I returned her look, but she remained unchanged. It was not until I was about to leave that she tugged on my coat and said “You are really pretty,” and before scampering off she whispered, “prettier than my mum!”

Quite the start to my evening.

Following the instructions that I was given, I walked into the Twisted Cork to be redirected to the new venue. The restaurant itself was busy, so busy in fact that the waitresses walked by me as if I wasn’t in the room. I called out to them, but I was being blatantly ignored. It was quarter after seven by this time and my phone kept vibrating from the never-ending stream of messages I kept receiving. Thankfully, my attempts for asking for directions were noticed by the bartender. He must have been at least ten years my senior, but that didn’t change the fact that he was really quite attractive. With a smile and a wink, he gestured with his head that the reading was next door.

Thanking him, I left the Twisted Cork somewhat reluctantly, but the buzzing in my pocket was an incisive reminder of where I had to be.

Page 7

The room where the Post North: Exile and Desire reading was taking

place was large and open. Although the walls were white and the floor was grey, the room itself bounced off a light blue hue. Tables filled with eagerly listening people were arranged around a piano and a tall wooden podium that stood at the other end of the room from where I had entered. To my left a small bar stood, and in front of it were two people I didn’t want to talk to in my sober state.

commentary. Three older women who, by the looks of them, had had a little too much to drink and needed to have their point made. They yelled angrily towards whoever was reading at the time that there was “TOO MUCH PENIS!!” and “WHERE’S THE VAGINAS??” They weren’t wrong. There was an unfair distribution of the sexes. Out of the fifteen readers who read that night, only five where female, and most of them were I scanned the backs of heads, trying terrible. Also, it seemed that every to differentiate strangers from the other poet included the male genitalia people I knew. One of my friends who in their poems, and in one poet’s case, had saved me a seat greeted me with everything that he had read was about a grin so large and unequal in shape penises. Only once that night was a that I knew she was already drunk. I woman’s genitals ever mentioned in a felt compelled to ask her how many poem, and only because some random she had consumed, and taking no space woman was lacking a vagina. offence in my enquiry she smirked Thank you, sex equality. Thank you, and pointed to the half empty bottle drunk sixty-year-old women for pointin front of her, “Well, this is number ing it out. five.” Alarmed, I told her to slow down but she shrugged and laughed The evening of poetry continued, at me. A friend to her right asked me and in my very social state, I had inwhy, and I told him to think of his troduced myself to many people. One liver. “It’s Friday” and “Nobody has of them included a very narcissistic time for that” was all that I caught man whose name I didn’t remember from under the poetry that was being at the time, and whose pants were read. A waitress arrived, carrying beer obnoxiously rolled up to show off to our table. One was given to me, but his socks. He took pride in his socks I hadn’t ordered anything yet. I looked because he was more than willing to at her perplexed and she explained show them to me. The Virgin Mary that someone had bought it for me. was imprinted on them, and she stared “Cheers to whoever that is” I said bleakly back at me as he explained before I downed it thankfully. where he had gotten them. He also felt the need to explain to me why he That beer didn’t last more than three hated virgins, which was quite amusminutes, and when it had disappeared, ing at the time. the room was abuzz and I could feel the shift in moods through my skin as Despite this, more poets read and I one poet read after the other. By the had another drink. What they read I first intermission, I had already concould not tell you because I was also sumed two beers and could not retoo busy listening to the commentary member much of what had been read. from the person who sat next to me, It was then that I remembered that I as well as listening to another man hadn’t eaten in the past six hours and recount the tale of how he had lost his that I had to write a review concernlip ring at a McDonalds. Of course ing the poetry and its poets. Graham they didn’t all happen at the same wasn’t going to be pleased with my time, but my conception of the linear paper. Despite this small feeling of order in which they took place had guilt in my stomach, the evening disappeared. One minute I was disprogressed and I found myself sitting cussing Harry Potter innuendos with a on the opposite side of the room from group of people, the next I was avoidwhere I was originally seated. ing being molested by some girl on my way to the washroom. It was quite Poet after poet, the audience, with the evening, although mine didn’t the aid of alcohol, was becoming actually end there. For me, the night more and more confident with their had just begun.

This is not a sexual metaphor: The heartwood of the infected pine Grows rubbery and soft, Exploding out of its blue-shafted trunk When metal meets the wood.

An untenable position as an infection Runs its course Siberian pine cuts as good as Canadian And it’s closer to Asia, being in Asia (Good luck on it growing back: Warm winters will render The lodgepole impotent) The shift is rapid to stuff in the ground Mountaintop removal’s just a decade away And a long, steel, bitumen snake Readies its toxic load Only when there is no profit In a permanent refractory period Will the Regan-worshipping, Shriveled dicks recall That environmentalism Is inherently A conservative ideology.

March 15th 2013

Layne Ongman, Contributor Thoughtful poems, people who see life differently Their senses like snares to their need to expose and gawk at the unglamorous-ness that is the human condition.

I’m Sitting, listening, breath soaked and cheaply stained by drinks bought

by Peter as he uses me as an arm rest.

I stare at the Christmas lights stapled to the window frame, and the crowsfoot stucco ceiling that looked like it would hurt to lay on.

An evening filled with Poetry so thoughtful and raw I wished I could have a borrowed someone’s sober mind to give them the attention they deserved. There was a pretty girl listening intently to the poets and I snapped my fingers when she did.

The poems that I could understand were about eggs and penises.

The Confluence - Arts

Michael Brigade, Contributor

My First Post North Poetry Reading after a Bottle of Bacardi

I like it here. People like to say words like Cock, Piss, and Fuck.

People like to hear it to, except the girl who brought her mom. She's dying inside and I'm laughing at her, because that used to be me.

Drinks found their way into my hand, and I found myself in the corner shouting things at the poets like "Take off your clothes!" Peter tells me he's a writer and wants to do heroin because It sounds like it would be fun, I tell him so would bowling.

The space between the corner and the stage was not far enough as I found myself channeling my inner Kelly Roader with an out of tune acapella version of the Rodeo song.

Thank god that girl took her mom home after someone said space vagina.

Page 8

F*ck You, I’m a Tree

March 15th 2013

What was in the Treasure Chest As job insecurity increased once again around 2006, Harry made a concerted effort to find the misplaced diplomas, without success.

During a vacation Harry asked an academic friend in Vya whether the universities would issue duplicates of the presumably lost diplomas. Unfortunately no, he answered. “But, hey!” he continued.

The Confluence - Arts

“That would be a great way for postsecondary institutions to make some more money by offering to reissue lost diplomas and charge a pretty penny!”

Two years later he was back in Vya after his mother's death to check on the family home, which had to be sold quickly under court order to settle estate matters. He had a friend, Bill, come over to look through the garage, full of old tools and possessions in boxes, foot lockers and filing cabinets now partly covered by the ugly, irregular webs of poisonous spiders.

By Paul Strickland

Several years ago Harry looked through closets from top to bottom and also looked thoroughly through steamer trunks in his apartment, but he couldn't find his university diplomas. One was for his Bachelor of Arts degree from Desert State, another represented his master's degree in English from UBC, and a third was for a master's degree in history from Desert State.

All he succeeded in finding during this search was his high school diploma and some university transcripts in envelopes.

Harry thought back to where the diplomas might have gone missing. During the deep recession of 1982-83, he had been out of work four months and did some couch-surfing at the homes of some friends in Palliser Springs. Maybe he'd lost track of the diplomas during that unsettled period.

He also considered the possibility he might have left them behind in a packet he'd brought into a gas station restaurant in Jasper during a move to a job in Glulamton eight years later. He'd brought it in for safekeeping along with some reading material he wanted to look at while stopping for lunch there. He had a habit, when under stress, of leaving lunch counters in a big hurry to get back on the road and sometimes forgetting something he'd brought into the cafe in the rush to get back into his car.

Page 9

All moving boxes had been accounted for when he moved into his first apartment in Glulamton. However, being very busy with the new job and trying to successfully pass the ninety days of probation at the Glulamton Record, he didn't have time to go through all the boxes to check their contents, and he just assumed the diplomas were there.

One filing cabinet turned out to contain only a few documents of interest among 1950s issues of Reader's Digest and 1960s issues of the Vya Evening Gazette. Then Harry decided a steamer trunk on a platform at the middle of the garage's south wall might be of interest.

Bill helped Harry lift the heavy steamer trunk up from the platform and put it down on the garage floor. In it were some 1960s issues of Saturday Evening Post and Ladies' Home Journal, but, amid the magazines of perhaps marginal historical value, Harry found what looked like diploma cases.

He opened them up, and found they were the real treasures in this chest.

One by one he found they were the diplomas from Desert State University and from UBC. They hadn't been lost after all.

At least something was going right.

Page 10

The Confluence - Arts

March 15th 2013

cnc’s 2nd annual

sustainability showcase presented by Thursday March 28, 2013, 11 am- 1:30 pm in the CNC Atrium With the Prince George Farmers Market, 10am-2pm & Documentarty Film Screening in 1-306, 12pm-1pm

Prince George Farmers’ Market Vendors

REAPS (Recycling and Environmental-

Information Fair Exhibitors

Action Planning Society)

Salvation Army (Table & Donations Bin)

Rivershed Society of BC

City of Prince George

City Waste Management

CUPE Environment Committee

Pitch In (Community Cleanup Sign-Up)

David Douglas BotanicalGarden Society

Fish Painting & Easter Oragami

Prince George Cycling Club

Composting Workshops & much much more!

Please join us in promoting awareness of our environment and how we can better protect the earth.