Sixty Shades of Orange
Oct. 2nd, 2022 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterWhat does the colour orange mean to you?
There's that cheesy knock-knock joke that ends with "Orange you glad I didn't say 'banana' again?" There were the ill-fated and ill-advised Orange routes on OC Transpo, whose lives were nasty, brutish and (mercifully) short. There was some furniture I had in the 1970s, only one piece of which I still have - an orange, vinyl-covered hassock in which, when you open the lid, you can store more vinyl, in the form of LPs. I'm not sure if these very useful pieces of furniture are still sold (except possibly in antique shops), even though vinyl is definitely enjoying a revival.
You may think of oranges or of any number of orange-flavoured beverages: orange juice, Orangina, Grand Marnier liqueur, Honee Orange (bottled by Pure Spring, which once had a factory in the Ottawa area), Honey Dew coffee shops' eponymous orange beverage, or Orange Crush. I was never a great fan of Orange Crush, but who could forget all those cans of Orange Crush at memorial sites for Jack Layton? Orange, of course, is the colour generally associated with the NDP.
But what I mainly want to talk about now is Orange Shirt Day. Federal public servants now have a day off for Truth and Reconciliation Day, which since 2021 is marked on September 30. As a retiree, I'm off every day (at least in terms of paid employment) but I opted upon retirement to join the Retired Members Guild of PIPSC.
On Friday, I decided to gather with other PIPSC members and attend the ceremonies on Parliament Hill. The plan was to meet at 10:30 AM at Bank and Wellington. Registrants would then get crossed off the list and the first 60 would receive orange "Every Child Matters" hoodies with the PIPSC logo on the sleeve (I hope they had a union label inside!) We would then head for the Hill to join the... (Party? Ceremony?) to begin around noon. According to the e-mail I got when I registered, the National Capital Region executive (of PIPSC) would provide lunch after the ceremony "at a location to be determined".
I got there in good time, wearing my orange "Every Child Matters" T-shirt (which I had ordered online last year) over a turtleneck. I wasn't among the first 60 registrants so no orange hoodie, but I did get my name checked off the list. And then? Well, I saw a couple of people I knew or vaguely recognized from previous events. But the event wasn't as structured as I had expected and we didn't really start marching to the Hill in a coherent group. I had thought that one of the PIPSC people there would probably at least speak to the group and explain how they expected the day would unfold, where we were to assemble for lunch, where the various amenities were and so forth.
As people started drifting along Wellington Street up to Parliament Hill, I kind of stuck close to identifiable PIPSC people or people sporting the PIPSC-logoed orange hoodies. I did meet other members of the AFS group (which I belonged to before I retired). When I got to the Hill, I noticed off to one side a group of about 4 or 5 people I recognized as part of the PIPSC group being photographed with Jagmeet Singh. Once the photo-op was over, I hung around with them for a while and we listened to the proceedings going on at the stage farther up.
It was well attended and the weather was great, if a little chilly at first. Parliament Hill was a sea of orange and ribbon skirts and banners from various interested groups. A number of people brought their kids and a few had dogs too. The MC announced that there would be further ceremonies at Lebreton Flats (Pimisi?) beginning at 1PM. That's probably where PIPSC was distributing boxed lunches too, although I never did make it that far. One of the group I was with was worried about the walking, another about the relative scarcity of public washroom facilities, so we ended up going to a restaurant on Sparks Street instead. Over lunch, we talked about a lot of things, I got invited to join a book club, and we exchanged contact information so we could keep in touch.
After we went our separate ways, I headed through the Byward Market and along Rideau Street, where there was yet another table of literature about indigenous issues, staffed by some very chatty and well-informed people. I've got quite a bit of reading ahead of me!
There's that cheesy knock-knock joke that ends with "Orange you glad I didn't say 'banana' again?" There were the ill-fated and ill-advised Orange routes on OC Transpo, whose lives were nasty, brutish and (mercifully) short. There was some furniture I had in the 1970s, only one piece of which I still have - an orange, vinyl-covered hassock in which, when you open the lid, you can store more vinyl, in the form of LPs. I'm not sure if these very useful pieces of furniture are still sold (except possibly in antique shops), even though vinyl is definitely enjoying a revival.
You may think of oranges or of any number of orange-flavoured beverages: orange juice, Orangina, Grand Marnier liqueur, Honee Orange (bottled by Pure Spring, which once had a factory in the Ottawa area), Honey Dew coffee shops' eponymous orange beverage, or Orange Crush. I was never a great fan of Orange Crush, but who could forget all those cans of Orange Crush at memorial sites for Jack Layton? Orange, of course, is the colour generally associated with the NDP.
But what I mainly want to talk about now is Orange Shirt Day. Federal public servants now have a day off for Truth and Reconciliation Day, which since 2021 is marked on September 30. As a retiree, I'm off every day (at least in terms of paid employment) but I opted upon retirement to join the Retired Members Guild of PIPSC.
On Friday, I decided to gather with other PIPSC members and attend the ceremonies on Parliament Hill. The plan was to meet at 10:30 AM at Bank and Wellington. Registrants would then get crossed off the list and the first 60 would receive orange "Every Child Matters" hoodies with the PIPSC logo on the sleeve (I hope they had a union label inside!) We would then head for the Hill to join the... (Party? Ceremony?) to begin around noon. According to the e-mail I got when I registered, the National Capital Region executive (of PIPSC) would provide lunch after the ceremony "at a location to be determined".
I got there in good time, wearing my orange "Every Child Matters" T-shirt (which I had ordered online last year) over a turtleneck. I wasn't among the first 60 registrants so no orange hoodie, but I did get my name checked off the list. And then? Well, I saw a couple of people I knew or vaguely recognized from previous events. But the event wasn't as structured as I had expected and we didn't really start marching to the Hill in a coherent group. I had thought that one of the PIPSC people there would probably at least speak to the group and explain how they expected the day would unfold, where we were to assemble for lunch, where the various amenities were and so forth.
As people started drifting along Wellington Street up to Parliament Hill, I kind of stuck close to identifiable PIPSC people or people sporting the PIPSC-logoed orange hoodies. I did meet other members of the AFS group (which I belonged to before I retired). When I got to the Hill, I noticed off to one side a group of about 4 or 5 people I recognized as part of the PIPSC group being photographed with Jagmeet Singh. Once the photo-op was over, I hung around with them for a while and we listened to the proceedings going on at the stage farther up.
It was well attended and the weather was great, if a little chilly at first. Parliament Hill was a sea of orange and ribbon skirts and banners from various interested groups. A number of people brought their kids and a few had dogs too. The MC announced that there would be further ceremonies at Lebreton Flats (Pimisi?) beginning at 1PM. That's probably where PIPSC was distributing boxed lunches too, although I never did make it that far. One of the group I was with was worried about the walking, another about the relative scarcity of public washroom facilities, so we ended up going to a restaurant on Sparks Street instead. Over lunch, we talked about a lot of things, I got invited to join a book club, and we exchanged contact information so we could keep in touch.
After we went our separate ways, I headed through the Byward Market and along Rideau Street, where there was yet another table of literature about indigenous issues, staffed by some very chatty and well-informed people. I've got quite a bit of reading ahead of me!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 11:04 am (UTC)