Photograph by David Anthony Hohol

The Canadian Prairies are as beautiful as any place on the planet and Alberta may epitomize their essence. Alberta is where the Great Central Plains meet the magnificent Canadian Rockies and contains awe-inspiring mountains, wondrous rolling hills and mystifying flat lands. The altitude provides Alberta with month after month of star-filled skies to wish upon and dream under.The golden fields of wheat and barely that dance in the wind and the grasslands that sparkle with wolf willows or prairie sage make Alberta a place of amazing beauty.

The picture above is a recently turned field of wheat soon ready for harvest centered by a former homestead since abandoned and left to only remind us of a lifestyle that seems so long ago, but in the annals of time is only yesterday. We have come so far, so fast and sometimes we forget as a result; forget that simplicity is the truest form of beauty.

From David Anthony Hohol…

The summer, for most of my life, has always meant time on the family farm. Sitting in the same house where my father was raised, the same house in which my grandfather was born, and the same house my great grandfather built with his own hands with timber from the trees atop his land, always grounds me to the world beneath my feet in a way no other place ever can. The sense of lineage is so thick, there are times I almost have to reach up to brush it away from in front of me so as to see the present more clearly and than days past.  While always close to my grandmother, since my grandfather’s passing, she has become my life’s matriarch and a living piece of my soul. I am so very blessed to have reached middle-age and still have her there to greet me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek, as I pass through the only door that has always been there for me to open. I cherish every minute of our time spent chatting over breakfast or watching old movies like tiny gold coins falling into my open and waiting hands.  Now in her eighties, she still provides me with the only home I have ever known and for that I am a lucky man indeed.

From the second I return from my latest trek across the globe, I see my grandfather everywhere; sitting in his chair that still graces the rustic farmhouse living room, in the corrals behind the barn rolling out hay bales to his cattle, or out in the fields as I drive across the family land in my 1973 Chevy Scotsdale. Perhaps, most of all, I see him alive and well in my uncle, the only of his four children to carry on the tradition of farming and now the fourth generation to do so.

I hear my grandfather’s voice sometimes; sometimes in the wind, sometimes in the rustling of the towering poplar tress that surround the home quarter, but most often when passing through the ever-present herd of cattle grazing the pastures for yet another summer under the golden Alberta sun.

One thing my grandfather and I always did so easily was just talk. The flow of conversation between us was effortless and I’ve often thought it was simply because we loved talking to one another. We could easily talk our way through entire ball games or even a Hockey Night in Canada double-header, but it was while working out in the fields when the conversations between us became somehow special.

Working together with our hands and our backs, we would talk all day long and in turn we each learned about the kind of men we were; the kind men we wanted to be. Two men in the throws of physical labor, working side-by-side, is a very primal, very masculine ritual. When the two men are grandfather and grandson, the undertows of blood and family only serve to heighten the tribal nature of the experience.

Perhaps we never talked more than while hauling hay bales together. Stacking 50 bales in the back of a half-ton is like completing a puzzle, with each bale sliding into its specific place and in a specific position, until the load is complete. Afterward, we drove the load back to the farm for unloading, to then start all over again. During hay season, my grandfather and I would haul thousands of square bales back home from the fields to the northeast corner of the barn, where the stacks would sometimes reach 30 feet high. With my grandfather being in his mid sixties and me in my early twenties, I was often amazed at his stamina. The young strong man that I was was dog-tired after a day of hauling bales with him. Farm work is a good tired though. It’s not nerve tiring, but physically tiring. After a good supper and a solid nights sleep, one wakes up the next day feeling ready for more. Regardless, when hauling bales back and forth all day long, for days at a time, all there is to do is talk. Our topics of conversation were all over the scale and talking about anything and everything slowly turned grandfather and grandson… into friends.

The conversations we had are countless, but two always stand out in my mind and in the end, reveal the genuine friendship we shared with one another. One summer as we were stacking bales out behind the barn, I began to get on my grandfather’s case for not taking his blood pressure pills. He eventually he got irritated and told me I didn’t understand his situation. I then said, “What do you mean, I don’t understand? I understand you need to take the pills to stop yourself from having a heart attack for Christ’s sake. What else is there?”

It was then he angrily replied, “Dave… If I take these pills,” but then paused for moment before he continued.

“If I take this fucking pills, I can’t even get it up… I can’t even be a god damn man… do you know what that’s like?”

I didn’t know what to say, so quietly answered him as honestly as I could. “No.. I don’t.”

After a few minutes of silence, he then said with a smile, “Don’t think I still don’t give it to your grandma once in a while, Dave” and let out a laugh and I couldn’t help but follow suit.

Like I said… we were friends. Beyond the conversations we had were his stories, and boy oh boy how I loved to hear them. Although he would tell me about painful and disappointing times, more often than not his tales were filled with laughter of life. Whether it was the one about a guy he once knew that would shit his pants for a beer or the one about the farting horse, he always had a great punch line. The stories he told about he and his older brothers and their days as boxers however, stand above them all.

Because a farming community could not spare a lot of money for sporting events and because distances were long a far from major centers, small towns depended mostly on themselves for entertainment. It was for this reason that boxing, for a time, was very popular in small towns across the country. I knew that there had been a lot of boxing in the area, but until my grandfather told me stories I had no idea just how incredibly popular it was. The entire town, as well as others from neighboring communities, would pack the town hall to watch professional boxing cards on a regular basis.

My great uncle Albert told me that it was the high school principal, Jack McLaughlin, a boxer of some note in his day, who started the Two Hills boxing club. Boxing became popular not only in Two Hills, but in towns like Vegreville, St.Paul and Bonnyville and it was not difficult to line up a good card, because some of the men in the area became name fighters. My grandfather told me that he and his older brothers, Albert and John, would all appear on the same five-bout fight card sometimes and they would always win, as the Hohol boys had a tough as nails reputation throughout the county. The oldest brother John became a ranked fighter and was an Alberta welterweight champion. My great uncle Albert was also a good fighter, but told me himself my grandfather was the best fighter out of all three brothers. He described him as a natural who surely would have become ranked nationally if he had continued to fight. Sometimes I think that If I could have one wish granted to me, I would choose to go back through time and be there at ringside to see the three Hohol boys all fighting on the same card.

With that said within only a short time all the fighting in the area came to a tragic end. On a hot summers night back in 1944, Two Hills Hall was standing room only. After my grandfather and his older brothers all convincingly won their bouts, all three stood ringside to take in the main event. Two men who had become well known fighters, St. Paul’s George Werenka and Cyclone Fred Taylor from Gibbons, were about to clash in a heavyweight battle. My grandfather told me there had been several weeks of build up for the fight and the winner was expected to move on to the national boxing scene. According to my grandfather it was a hard, tough fight and Taylor landed more punches, but Werenka landed the much heavier ones. At the end of the eighth round Taylor walked over to his corner and sat down. Suddenly he went limp sliding off his stool and laid unconscious on the canvas. Taylor was taken to Edmonton, but died at the entrance of the University Hospital. My grandfather said it was a shaking experience for he and his brothers, as well as the whole town. Werenka was not held responsible and went on to become the Canadian Navy’s heavyweight champion. Shortly thereafter, the Edmonton and District Boxing Commission tightened requirements for staging professional boxing and fairly so. The changes were of a nature that made it impossible for small towns to afford to promote boxing and as my grandfather said, it was as it should be.

This was one of only countless stories he told me over the years and these stories of his youth and his days as a young man were magical to me. They always whisked way to another time and another way of life far away from the world that is today. Even more importantly, his willingness to share not only the stories of his life but his emotions, his feelings and his dreams led me to get to know the man as well as I have ever known anyone in my life, and in return he got to know me. The connection was felt by us both. We were friends and like old buddies we would argue about sports and politics, pissing each other off at times. At the same time we would share the most intimate and personal feelings with one another.

My grandfather passed away on January 20th, 2003. I think of him 10 seconds out of every day and afterward, always think of how lucky I am to have had in my life. Then I realize he’s still right here with me and I journey back into the big wide world, my wings lifted once again by his ever-present memories, and above above all else by the living monument to his life that is the family farm.

Yes. I am indeed a lucky man.

Home is a concept many of us take for granted. When we have free time, when the holidays come, home is often the first place we go. For many of us, how our roots took hold and grew from our very beginnings defines who we are, and in turn, how we go about living our lives. For some of us, the question of home becomes much more complex and in the ever-shifting, porous and migratory atmosphere of our New World, the definition of home itself may be changing. Lara Matossian-Roberts takes RELATIVTY OnLine inside the tragic beauty of belonging everywhere and nowhere, and how it forever changes those living within such a social construct.  

At a bus stop, where my husband and I waited for a bus to take us from rural Sagadi in Lahemaa National Park in north Estonia to its capital city Tallinn, we met an Italian. On hearing that we reside in Dubai, he smiled, shook his head slowly and said, “Ah, like living in a plastic bubble.”

We smiled and said, “Oh, so you know about Dubai?”

“Yes, from the news on TV and in the paper,” he answered.

I remember back in 1990, when my family and I first went to the U.S. to visit my grandmother, aunt, uncles and cousins, along with people in general had no idea where Dubai was. When we pointed out it was in the Middle East, that it was a Gulf country, the classic question was, “Oh, so do you ride camels and live in tents?” 

I am serious.  So were they.

Dubai, the little big city in the UAE, was where I was conceived and has been my home since I was three months old.  It’s my home because I’ve seen it grow – at a slow, steady pace in the first couple of decades of my life, then in an explosive, frenetic way following my graduation from university.  It also feels like home because I can say what building, establishment or hotel used to stand where there is something more recent now.  I can understand the language, although the Emirati dialect itself can be a little tricky for me. Emiratis have their own vocabulary and their gulf pronunciation is unlike my Lebanese one.

I am, to a certain extent, familiar with the Emirati customs and traditions.  I don’t find the ladies’ shela (the black scarf that covers their head) and abaya (the thin, black, dress-like garment they wear over their clothes) or men’s kandoras (white, long, dress-like tunic) and headgear odd.  I grew up seeing it.

I also grew up with children who’d come from many other parts of the world, so, I had the fortune of becoming familiar with, not just the culture of the Emiratis, but also that of the other ethnic groups, who like me, were at home in Dubai.  Yet many of those children actually went ‘home’ for the summer to India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, or Jordan because they had an actual, physical home they could go back to. . . whereas we didn’t. 

My father had some family left in Iran, although almost all of them are now seeking freedom from the regime the Islamic Revolution brought to its people. Many have ended up in some country in the West, so, over the course of our childhood, we’d visited less than a handful of times.  We certainly didn’t have a home there and never intended to make one.  Even my father hasn’t lived in Iran since he was 14 years old.  So, although I’m an Iranian passport holder, it was never a case of ‘going home’ to Iran to spend the summer vacation.

The same is true of Lebanon.  The war in Lebanon prompted most of my mother’s family to flee, but once it stopped, we went to visit – once.  I also went to university there.  So, although my mother’s an Armenian from Lebanon, and although my years at university there place Lebanon in a very special place within me, I really cannot call it home. It was never even considered a place to spend our summer vacation, until the war stopped.

I am familiar with many aspects of Iranian culture.  I can recognize Farsi, maybe understand a word here or there.  I know some of the more traditional dishes and can even make them myself.  I know a little about what the music sounds like.  I know about some of its festivities and celebrations and can recognize Iranian traditional art, but feel completely and utterly disconnected from Iran itself.  There is no way Iran and home can be associated with one another.

It is, unfortunately true with Lebanon as well.  When I speak Arabic, I sound Lebanese.  I can dress up to look exactly like the stereotypical Lebanese (always dressed to the nines).  I cook Lebanese food regularly.  I am very familiar with its traditional and pop music and I certainly feel more connected to Lebanese culture than I will ever feel to Iranian culture – a whole lot more, actually.  However, I can never refer to Lebanon as home, as much as I would like to.

The sorest point: Armenia.  I am Armenian.  That’s my ethnicity.  I speak Armenian at home, yet I can read and write it only as an elementary student – although my mother never stopped trying to teach me and my brother at home.  My parents even put us in Armenian school.  It was held once a week – on the weekends – on the grounds of the church, for only a few hours.  My brother and I hated it!  We couldn’t get along with the other Armenian students and we found the entire thing rather tedious.  We only went for a year, at the end of which my parents pulled us out following our incessant complaints. 

Sad, isn’t it?  Even now, I don’t seek out other Armenians from the community in Dubai, or have the slightest desire to make friendships with them.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite: I have actively cut myself off the community.  Growing up in Dubai, we would go to Armenian Church quite regularly, and not just for Christmas and Easter mass.  We would go to all the celebrations the community organized for Christmas, New Year and Easter and never missed the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24^th.  But, now, as an adult, many aspects of this community put me off and I don’t want any association with it.  I did, however, make some good Armenian friends when I was studying at university, and am still in touch with a few of them.  Having said that, I wouldn’t – and I don’t – feel at home in the company of Armenians from the community in Dubai.

And Armenia itself?  Well, we’ve never been.  It’s a foreign country to me.  I only cook a little of proper Armenian food, as opposed to Turkish Armenian food, because I learnt to from a cookbook.  My mother’s Armenian cooking is basically Turkish Armenian, which is what she learnt from her mother who grew up in Armenian provinces in Turkey.  Proper Armenian cooking is more influenced by Russian cuisine.  As for other aspects of Armenian culture, I don’t follow its day-to-day news, although now, with the Internet, it is easy and accessible.  Sure, I know a lot of its traditional and folk music and some about the authors of classical literature, but I don’t know anything about the current pop scene or its contemporary authors, artists, dancers, musicians, or geography. I wouldn’t be able to name a single street in its capital of Yeravan.  I would stick out like a sore thumb in Armenia, especially because I speak the Western Armenian spoken by Turkish-Lebanese Armenians.  I would be considered, a tourist, a foreigner – in the only country that I feel I should belong, but know I never will.

So, I’ve come back, full circle, to Dubai; the place foreigners see as the land in the plastic bubble that has a ski slope in the desert and man-made islands.  It’s the only place that comes close to what I can hope to call home, but I can never be its citizen and, although I’ve lived there all my life, all I have is a resident visa that expires if I leave the country for more than six months. 

With ever-changing rules about immigration and residence, and with the threat of deportation for any reason the government sees fit, I don’t kid myself. Emotionally, Dubai may be the only place I may feel tempted to call home, but rationally. . . I know I am only a visitor.

From Lara Matossian-Roberts . . .

I was actually watching Armenian television the other night.  The channel is a free-to-air one my parents get with their provider.  When we first discovered it, we were ecstatic; finally something from the homeland we’ve never been to. 

That excitement has long worn off.

The program, that had a Russian name, was an Armenian-Russian collaboration similar to some kind of Oscar’s ceremony.  There were long episodes of different hosts chatting to one another in Russian, Armenian or a combination – a male and a female, a Russian and an Armenian – followed by some kind of performance: a dance, a song, a stand-up comedy or even a bizarre combination of all of the aforementioned, then the performers were presented with a mundane bouquet of flowers.

I was slowly ambushed by a host of feelings. 

First, it felt odd watching a people I was meant to belong to, but clearly didn’t.  I didn’t really relate to the Armenian they were speaking.  Not only did it sound foreign to me, but it also sounded downright flat and unappealing.  I found myself concentrating to keep up.

Armenians from Armenia and Iran speak Eastern Armenian.  Armenians from Turkey and the Middle East speak Western Armenian.  My father’s Armenian from Iran and my mother’s Armenian from Lebanon, but I speak Western Armenian, like my mother.  And although I am familiar with Eastern Armenian, thanks to my dad and the few holidays I’ve had with his side of the family, I not only find it sadly funny, but highly annoying as well.  I find myself thinking, why can’t they speak right!  I know, it’s neither patriotic, nor very PC, but it’s the truth!

So, given that it was an Armenian-Russian collaboration, they were speaking mostly in Russian.  Although I knew Armenians from Armenia spoke Russian because the country was part of the former USSR and learning the language was part of the curriculum, it felt particularly disturbing watching them speak it.  That was largely due to the fact that I have personally spent a lot of breath trying to explain to a lot of people who’ve met me over the years – and mistaken me for a Russian – that I wasn’t Russian.  And here were ‘my people’ speaking the language like they actually were Russian!  And, they actually were, along with a bunch of other hapless nations, up until their independence in 1992.

I also felt … embarrassed.  Yes, embarrassed.  Here’s why.  Growing up in the UAE, the only contact I had with Armenian music and entertainment was the sad, sad band they would fly out of Syria to sing at the annual Christmas and Easter balls.  Someone from the Armenian committee that organized these events had some relative in Syria who was in a band, so we were subjected to this, year in, year out.  They would mostly sing traditional type Armenian songs, so I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the typical Armenian melodies and rhythms.  On television, however, that seemed to be a thing of the distant past.  For, I could swear they were singing some American Beyonce type number.  The melodies were unmistakably hip-hop, but they had Armenians words to them.  Eastern Armenian words.  I must admit the combination made me cringe and I found myself covering my face with my hands, only to let them slide a little lower and allow my eyes to be lured back to the screen by the same force that holds spectators in a bizarre trance when glaring at a freak in a freak show.

My mom saw my reaction and said, “I told you, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

I played the devil’s advocate.  “Well, mom, they want to be part of the modern world, and this is the best way they know how, by emulating the most popularized culture.  Can you really blame them?”

“Yes, but what about originality?  Why can’t they have their own sound?  Why do they have to take someone else’s sound and graft it onto theirs?  Come on, this is sad.”

“It is sad, mom.  It certainly doesn’t work for me and I am supposed to be part of the young generation.”

“Yes, but I suppose it may work for them.  They have experienced the evolution of the music while we haven’t.”

The cherry on the top was a performance by two young Armenians – one male, one female. The male was in hip-hop garb: baggy trousers & t-shirt with bandana, cap and bling.  The female was in a tight, sexy dress that clashed with her nerdy eyeglasses and not-very-sexy frizzy hair.  The look just didn’t work.  They were singing a current American hip-hop hit whose tune I recognized, but not the words nor artists, with the American flag projected on the screen behind them. They were singing the actual song with its English words, and I couldn’t understand it.

I couldn’t decide what made me feel more miserable.  Armenians singing Armenian words to hip-hop tunes or Armenians singing the actual hip-hop songs in English.

Finally, I guess I felt sad.  I’ve spent my entire life explaining to others all about being Armenian, and yet here I was, completely alienated by its current culture.  Not just that, but completely uninterested to have any connection with it based on what I had seen being broadcast that night.

My experience of Armenians is that they hold on tight to their Armenianess.  Armenians are always proud of being Armenian, and watching that show, I felt betrayed.  I couldn’t help but think of them as hypocrites.  I am aware that I may be harsh in thinking so, but how can someone like me, from the Armenian Diaspora, who hasn’t even set foot in the country, hold on to any semblance of Armenianess, whatever that may be, when Armenians in Armenia itself are losing track of their own cultural identity?