Yer local rambler has just returned to relaxed and beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake after 16 days in Vietnam. Both areas are beautiful geographically, but what a shocking difference in interpersonal attitudes.

It seems to me we often have it wrong when it comes to our interactions with our neighbours and fellow NOTLers.

To catch up with the local news and happenings, when I returned I picked up the last three weekly copies of The Lake Report. Why can’t we just love each other, be kind, and get along with those folks who have different ideas about where Niagara-on-the-Lake should be heading?

I sincerely wish the locals could take a pill, relax and be kinder about development and the roundabout.

Reading between the lines of The Lake Report, I could feel big doses of anger, crankiness, know-it-allness, frustration and shortness.

Intelligent change can be good, and I believe our elected leaders are doing their best, in good faith, as they navigate the myriad rules and regulations put in place by our various levels of government.

And why would any jurisdiction have an election campaign during a doozie of a winter storm?

I was wearing shorts and light apparel, in a faraway part of the world, so didn’t have to risk my life to door knock for Gates, or drill into frozen and snow-covered ground to install orange lawn signs.

Thank goodness the Trumpster is so easy to dislike. His bullying behaviour made the recent hockey win even sweeter.

I was in Vietnam, totally unaware of the Four Nations hype job. Tell me, please, who were the other two teams?

Let me ramble back to interpersonal attitudes.

The main purpose of my trip to Vietnam was to “close a circle” in my life. How self-centred, shallow and self-focused my life has been.

Vietnam should have been a central issue in my life in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I vaguely remember feeling a bit guilty.

Not a worry in the world about going to war in Vietnam, just because I was a Canadian citizen.

My American pals had lots of worries and one of them got picked early in the infamous Fishbowl Lottery on Dec. 1, 1969. He got killed in this unpopular war.

I was somewhat aware of the War in Vietnam and the many protests. President Eisenhower talked about the communism domino effect in Indochina. Demonstrators chanted “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Kent State. It was serious stuff.

Coincident with the civil rights movement and the Black Liberation Front at Cornell, Woodstock, music and drugs, women fighting for more opportunities and respect, was I actively involved or acutely aware of any of these issues?

Not really. I was very intent on having the absolute best possible times studying in Ithaca and working summer jobs on Cape Cod and Nantucket. Studying hard enough to get my degree, elegantly printed on parchment.

Looking back, my ambition was to get a degree, not to get an education. Big difference, eh? Shortsighted. Dumb.

The Cornell Black Liberation Front chapter took over our student union building, wearing balaclavas and brandishing really long and loaded rifles. A chilling picture on the cover of Time Magazine.

To reiterate, my main goal was to get a degree and to have a non-stop great time. Pangs of guilt over the years, and last month, a trip to Vietnam.

Day tours of the DMZ, and some of the areas that were totally destroyed with Agent Orange and other chemicals. Tens of thousands of bombs dropped on huge swaths of land. Entire villages decimated.

An afternoon, three brutally reflective hours spent at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. Reflecting. I couldn’t eat that evening. Or sleep that night. Two days later, I went back, alone, for another three hours of contemplation.

Spoke with a lady from California whose older brother had served in combat in Vietnam. “He made it home, luckily. But he was never the same. He never recovered from his horrible time in Nam. In those days, no PTSD counselling. You are home. Figure it out.”

As she left, “Thanks for listening to me.”

So there, I now have a much greater understanding of the Vietnam War.

Today, over 100 million people in Vietnam have somehow moved on. In Vietnam, and here in Canada, they are hardworking, honest, happy, smiley, gentle and kind.

There’s that word again. Let’s be kinder to each other.