The Lieutenant Governor's Crib

I was invited to the Lieutenant Governor's expansive residence last evening to view a retrospective collection of his photographs, all taken during Herménégilde Chiasson's six years as the Queen's representative in New Brunswick.

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There, I've just told a small lie or, at least, I've spun the story to enhance my fragile sense of self-importance (another lie). Technically speaking, I was invited to the LG's pad but let's be honest here, if it wasn't for my wife's career and pleasant public persona, I'd never be invited to go anywhere of political significance except the White House.

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Wendy and I had a private, behind the scenes tour of the White House by the nephew of a birdwatching friend of mine. The nephew had White House security clearance. This White House tour was pre 9/11 but post 'not so little blue dress with stain', to put things into a hysterical timeline.

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Our visit to the West Wing also happened to coincide with Al Gore's finding out that he had lost the election to the illiterate buffoon known as Dubya. It was a big day n Washington, both for us and the thousands of American military personnel who would die or be maimed as a result of George W's ill conceived war on terror. To call George W bird-brained really isn't fair to chickadees, which are actually quite intelligent...so I won't.

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I really enjoyed my visit to the LG's residence. His collection of photographs was thoughtful, at times playful, and full of symbolic significance. The only downside to the visit was that the temperature in Old Government House, as the official residence is known, was somewhere in the vicinity of that needed to smelt iron. I'm sure my glasses were beginning to warp in the heat, drooping across my nose bridge like one of Dali's sauteed pocket watches.

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I'm not much of a conversationalist, at least not when it comes to chit chat or pleasantries, so I tend to get lost in the landscape. I study people, stare out windows, count ceiling tiles and generally just snoop around. Yesterday, at Old Government House, I was captivated by some John James Audubon prints that graced the hallway walls of the second floor. I discovered that Audubon, the best known birdwatcher the western world has ever known (George Michael, of Wham, was a distant number two, though that's an openly interpretive ranking).

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While admiring the prints I learned that Audubon spent a week in the Lieutenant Governor's residence. This happened during September, 1832. Here's quote from the New Brunswick Museum's web site:

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There had been other direct connections between Audubon and New Brunswick. In the summer of 1832 he and his family made a voyage up the St. John River in a boat he described as “a mere scow, commanded by a person of rather uncouth aspect and rude manners.”

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It makes me wonder if John James came up the river on a 36 foot Baja offshore racing boat, because it sure sounds like the guy who drives that noisy stinkpot on my lake...the uncouth scoundrel.

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The Province of New Brunswick owns one of only five sets of original, elephant folio edition Audubon books in Canada. There are 134 sets remaining in the world. Their value? Estimated at $10 million per set. Cha ching! It's amazing that a myopic premier hasn't sold them to get a bigger government jet, or a fleet of Bricklins for the ministers!

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I already knew of the provincial Audubon collection, though it was nice to be reminded of them during my visit to the LG's crib. I think that it's been healthy for New Brunswick to have an artist in residence at Old Government House, as opposed o someone who's simply rich or politically connected. Hermenigilde Chiasson has been our LG for six years, though he's given us twenty years of representation. He is the hardest working LG in Canada, perhaps of all time.

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Now what will he do as his term approaches its final days? He is a man of immense talent: poet, film-maker, photographer, journalist and so much more. He has five degrees including a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris. To me, it seems that he's got all the qualifications necessary to become a leisurologist.

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Herménégilde, just call my secretary when you're ready.