#1932154 - 09/30/24 03:48 AM
Please indulge me for a moment,
|
Doofie
Doofie
Planeteer
Registered: 04/04/02
Posts: 14500
Loc: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
|
Every year around this time there is a Police Memorial Service held on the grounds of The Parliament of Canada. The event is intended to honour and memorialize members of Canadian Police Forces across the country who have given the ultimate sacrifice to their communities, with a particular focus on those who have died in the past year. With that in mind, even the smallest of concerns that might compromise any part of this memorial service is given a kind of priority. This is the setup to the story I just experienced.
I am a piper of no particular significance in the Peel Regional Police Pipe Band and have been for five years. We were on our way to the event in Ottawa when our police services bus experienced a mechanical safety issue near Kingston, Ontario. The bus stopped in Kingston and those in charge contacted a local truck repair shop. A service truck was dispatched and the mechanic determined that the brakes were compromised and unsafe for further travel. Parts were needed and they could not arrive before Monday. We were travelling in tandem with another bus of Peel Police representatives and so it was decided that we would transfer our gear to that bus and we would fit ourselves among those travellers for the remainder of the trip. After it had been determined that all of the gear had been moved from one bus to another, I looked around to confirm my pipes were where they should be. I could not see them but I did not panic, expecting that they were under the mounds of gear just transferred. I mentioned this to the trip manager and he confirmed with the broken down bus driver that all gear had been removed from the storage compartments and moved to the working bus. We comforted ourselves with some expectation that the pipes would emerge out of the pile at The Westin, our destination. Well, they didn't.
I looked at all the luggage that was amassed on the unloading dock and the registration area and my pipes were nowhere to be found. The logical thought was that they were still on the broken down bus. After my thoughts of horror at my eighty-five year old Henderson pipes being somewhere other that my immediate vicinity, my thoughts turned to how do I get them back to me the quickest way possible. My response was that I would return to the bus repair place on Monday and retrieve them. That would involve a twelve hour drive, partly through the busiest traffic in all of Canada, Toronto. If I travelled on my motorcycle it might mitigate some of the circumstances. What I forgot was that I was travelling with members of a police force who were masters at solving problems. Within minutes of the loss discovery one of our pipers was on the phone with the Kingston Police Department. He asked them to contact the truck service company where the bus was located. (It was already after hours and our phone calls to the truck service company yielded only message replies} Sure enough, they had a number to call that reached someone at the company who was still in their building. He went to the bus and found the pipes. He took a picture and sent it to our police piper, who them relayed it to me. The service tech said he would take the pipes to the closest Kingston Police Detachment. Another of our members contacted the Pipe Major of the Kingston Police Pipe Band, and asked him to pick up my pipes in the morning and bring them to Ottawa. The PM said that, of course he would do that, and at that point my worries were pretty much over. All I had to do was to be there in the morning and meet with the PM and get my pipes. There was this other little thing about asking him to hold onto my pipe case while we paraded and performed, but that was really a minor concern.
So, thanks, in great part to the brother/sisterhood of police force members, and to the brother/sisterhood of pipe bands, what could have been a catastrophic loss to me, turned into just another adventure in the long life of community support membership. We're all in this together, and sometimes it's not about me helping others, it's about others helping me.
There is a little anecdote to this. When we all had to pile onto the other bus in Kingston, the only place left for me was beside an African-Canadian women who I surmised was put out by the inconvenience of having to share a seat with me, or anybody. I surmised this by her silence and her reticence to engage in any way. I did my best to occupy less than my allotted seating area so as to respect her privacy and to not encroach on her personal space.
The next time I saw her was after all of the events were over. She was sitting in an area outside the room where we changed from our uniforms into our civies. As I walked by where she was sitting, she said to me, "This is the first time I've heard the bagpipes played together. It was lovely." I responded with gratitude. I thought she was speaking to me as a piper, but I also thought she was speaking to me as the man she sat silently beside on the bus. I think, for both of us, it was a moment where we thought if we had to do it over again we would do it differently. I could feel a kind of gentle laughter in her spirit.
If you got this far, thanks for sharing in some of the important parts of my life.
_________________________
"On religion, the common man finds it to be true,
the wise man finds it foolish,
and the wealthy man finds it useful."
-Seneca The Younger ~76AD
I'm David McMillan. My friends call me Chuck.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932164 - 09/30/24 04:04 AM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Doofie]
|
MadGuitrst
Offender Of Senses
Planeteer
Registered: 06/10/99
Posts: 22878
Loc: 3rd Stone From The Sun
|
Good story, Doofie! I'm really relieved and happy that you got your pipes back...it was feeling like it wasn't going to turn out that way. Also glad you and your friend broke the ice...some folks are just reserved around strangers.
_________________________
“When your 'education' limits your imagination, it is called indoctrination.” -Feynman
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932169 - 09/30/24 04:13 AM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: MadGuitrst]
|
Doofie
Doofie
Planeteer
Registered: 04/04/02
Posts: 14500
Loc: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
|
Thanks MG. When she told me that it had been her first experience of massed pipe bands I kind of understood her reservedness. Couple that with the invasion of her travel experience. I hope I have the foresightedness to calm the concerns of someone like her on the next challenging experience. You'd think by now I'd have that kind of thing figured out.
_________________________
"On religion, the common man finds it to be true,
the wise man finds it foolish,
and the wealthy man finds it useful."
-Seneca The Younger ~76AD
I'm David McMillan. My friends call me Chuck.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932174 - 09/30/24 04:21 AM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Doofie]
|
AL
First Certified Case in US of Trump Derangement Syndrome
Loquacious Planeteer
Registered: 04/16/99
Posts: 82795
Loc: Walmartville
|
Great story Doofie.
_________________________
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932188 - 09/30/24 05:22 AM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: AL]
|
Timster
Artist #'s - 130, 298, 412
Loquacious Planeteer
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 44201
Loc: Center of the Universe
|
Great read. Thanks.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932203 - 09/30/24 12:27 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Timster]
|
Mooseboy
That's "MR. Asshole" to you, buddy!
Loquacious Planeteer
Registered: 04/24/99
Posts: 37743
Loc: The Apogee of my Life
|
"a piper of no particular significance" would make a great name for an album. or a book
_________________________
No matter how far you push the envelope, it’s still stationery.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932208 - 09/30/24 12:42 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Timster]
|
jimmyrock
Department Head of Redundancy Department Head
Planeteer
Registered: 12/18/05
Posts: 10424
Loc: America's File Cabinet
|
beautiful!
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932215 - 09/30/24 01:11 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: jimmyrock]
|
Webster
Planeteer
Registered: 02/15/07
Posts: 18069
|
Oh man... I was worried there for a minute. So glad it worked out in the end. Great story Chuck. Thanks for sharing.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932217 - 09/30/24 01:16 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Doofie]
|
MadGuitrst
Offender Of Senses
Planeteer
Registered: 06/10/99
Posts: 22878
Loc: 3rd Stone From The Sun
|
Thanks MG. When she told me that it had been her first experience of massed pipe bands I kind of understood her reservedness. Couple that with the invasion of her travel experience. I hope I have the foresightedness to calm the concerns of someone like her on the next challenging experience. You'd think by now I'd have that kind of thing figured out.
Next time you're in a situation like that, just say, "hey lady, would you like to touch my pipes?" It works for me! 
_________________________
“When your 'education' limits your imagination, it is called indoctrination.” -Feynman
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932220 - 09/30/24 01:32 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: Webster]
|
Deeper
Planeteer
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
Loc: Too close to Nashville
|
That was beautiful, Chuck! I'm glad it had a happy ending. I hope you'll share more cool stuff like that!
My band was a pipe band, too. We passed pipes around quite often!
But seriously. What is a pipe band? Are you all playing bagpipes, or what?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1932252 - 09/30/24 03:40 PM
Re: Please indulge me for a moment,
[Re: MadGuitrst]
|
Dave Morris
Planeteer/Artist # 75
Planeteer
Registered: 02/15/02
Posts: 19517
Loc: Waterloo, Ontario
|
Thanks MG. When she told me that it had been her first experience of massed pipe bands I kind of understood her reservedness. Couple that with the invasion of her travel experience. I hope I have the foresightedness to calm the concerns of someone like her on the next challenging experience. You'd think by now I'd have that kind of thing figured out. Next time you're in a situation like that, just say, "hey lady, would you like to touch my pipes?" It works for me!
A REAL piper would say "lady, how would you like to blow my chanter"
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
