11h 11/11/2009 Edmonton

Within days of arriving in New Zealand in the mid '80s, I hitched a ride with a man who stopped to offer a ride, he said, because I looked like a Scot, with my beard and plaid tam upon my head. Himself a Scot transplanted to New Zealand some decades earlier his face noticeably went to remembrance, when he learned I was Canadian.

As he drove he told me of being a kid during the second world war, the rationing, the fear, the doing without. Then surely I disappeared in the car and he held out the hand not on the wheel and stared at his palm as if on its horizontal plane it held something and he told of an apple, red and travel weary in consistency, but an apple still. An apple given him at school, to all the kids at school, a gift from the orchards of Canada.

"Thank you," he said, tears in his eyes.

We drove in silence until coming down a long steep hill a small village came into view and he asked if he might buy me a beer. Again, "thanks," as we downed the beer in a quick couple of pulls, and back to the car to continue on our way.

Lest we forget.