Been There, Done That

Was cruising through the 'net the other evening, looking for Calgary knitters with whom I might want to join. There is a guild called the Gillihook but for reasons that are even unknown to myself, I wanted something new, something "Northwestern"...I guess.


Anyway, I didn't even find the Gillihook. What I found was a series of items about a Revolutionary Knitting Group that had made themselves very public by knitting and protesting during the G8 Summitt in nearby Kananaskis last fall. This event got a certain amount of forum space at KR and all, some admiring comments, and a few chuckles too.

Now, I'm not against taking a stand, and I admit to having issues about which I feel passionate, but for me, knitting is a joy, a delight, a creative outlet, a way to relax, to create and to do something for myself and others.

I was a teen in the late sixties. I argued with my stepdad about Vietnam, as he was a WWII vet who worked as an Immigration Officer -- a job that required him to stop Vietnam War draft dodgers cold. I remember assassinations in the US in 1963 and then twice in 1968 (I lived 16 miles from the border between Quebec and northern New York State), and race riots...


I lived in Quebec, and went to university in Montreal when bombs were going off regularly in mailboxes, and when folks perceived as federalists were being kidnapped and/or killed by the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ). I remember the War Measures Act. I remember the guys from the Men's Dorms coming down en masse with whatever makeshift weapons they could lay their hands on, ready to protect us in case the then-terrorists discovered it was a statue of the young Queen Victoria in front of our residence, and put a bomb in her lap (they never did). I remember tanks on the roads up Mount Royal. And curfews. I remember my then-boyfriend, one of the Gov. General's Footguards, guarding His Excellency's home in the rain with a loaded rifle, which he was almost too terrified to use.

Now I am in my fifties, and my kids are almost grown and gone (DS goes off to university in September, he hopes)...my DH is disabled with the complications of Type 1 diabetes mellitus, and the world is a very different place.

I don't need to march; I don't need to take to the streets in protest. But I do need to knit. See you at Starbuck's on Friday, whoever you are! :-)