Everything Was Better During the War
Calvados, chaos, and the lessons we learned but forgot
At Christmas 2015, my wife gave me a bottle of aged Calvados. I had never heard of Calvados until I was about 22 years old and read Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque. The book introduced me not only to the apple brandy but also to the dark story of life on the fringes of society in Paris in 1938. That Christmas, as I sipped the Calva and re-read the novel, I was struck—almost scared—by the parallels to today.
Migrants come from different places, but marginalization remains the same. Political leaders still speak about “outsiders” as threats rather than people in need. The disconnect between those in power and the average citizen continues to grow. At the latest inauguration, the front row was filled with billionaires—people who lost touch with daily life long ago. Across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, we’re caught in a storm of escalating rhetoric, political chaos, and a growing sense that those in charge—whether elected or self-appointed—are more focused on their own interests than the common good.
In the U.S., a tech billionaire with unchecked influence spreads conspiracy theories and fuels extremist narratives, while the President alternates between incoherence and reckless statements—floating the idea of "taking" Gaza, musing about buying Greenland, and threatening economic "force" to make Canada the 51st state. Meanwhile, Europe’s far-right movements are gaining ground, capitalizing on fears of migration and economic instability. In Canada, frustration with leadership led to the Prime Minister’s resignation, setting up a leadership change in March and an election later this year—just when things feel more uncertain than they have in decades.
People call for change, but change means different things to different people. Some long for "the good old days," imagining a return to something simpler and safer. But nostalgia has a way of smoothing over past struggles, making the past seem more appealing than it really was.
This reminds me of a satirical song the late Norwegian troubadour Ole Paus released in the early 1980s, simply translated as “Everything Was Better During the War.” It mocked the way people romanticize hardship when looking back.
It’s a cute little song with a provocative text. I know a few of our readers will understand them. If you don’t speak Norwegian, here’s a link to the words that you can run through your online translator.
The question now is whether the changes we face will bring better times—or if we’re destined to experience a chilling repackaging of a past we thought we had left behind.
When it comes to your life it’s not what you’ve got
Cause where you’ll end up that won’t mean a lot
It’s what you can give to aid others along
That will make you content and help you feel strong
When it comes to your job it’s not what you earn
It’s what you contribute and what you can learn
Changes will come but change can’t decide
Where you will go or how high you’ll fly
It’s the way we respond to the changes we’re dealt
That determine how good or how bad they’ll be felt
Changes will come but change isn’t fate
Change doesn’t mean going back to be great
This is an updated version of a New Year's note I wrote in 2017. The words in the poem feel just as relevant today.
Stay safe, Always Care
Holy SH*T we went viral!
This note, posted on Feb 1 has gathered over 11,500 likes, 850, restacks and generated more than 600 new subscribers to the Always Care Community!
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I’d really like to read The Arch of Triumph again. That’s best done when I can sip Calvados together with Ravic as he sneaks around in the Parisian underworld; a “sans papiers” hoping for a chance to escape pre-war Europe.
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Hi! I’m Paul. I was born, raised, and currently live in Canada. After high school, I embarked on a gap year in Europe. It lasted four decades. I went to university in Norway and started my hotel career in the basement of a five-star hotel in Oslo. The manager who hired me told me I was too old, too educated, and had too many opinions to be a security guard. He also told me that the only other person who applied for the job didn’t want it.
Thirty years later, I left that same company. It had grown from a small regional hotel chain in Scandinavia to become a large, global, multi-brand company. I moved from Norway to Denmark to Belgium. The company awarded me their highest individual honour for leadership, and security professional peers selected me as the world’s most influential corporate security executive.
I’m a hospitality professional. I’m a security professional. If you ask, I will tell you that security was my job, and hospitality was my business.
Today, I’m an educator and a consultant passionate about hotels, hospitality, and keeping people safe during their travels.
In addition to the Always Care Community, I also write for Risk Resiliency’s Keep Travel Safe. If safe, secure hospitality, hotels, and travel are important to you, please follow us there!
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, this is a newsletter of how life has made me an emigrant, an immigrant, and gifted me experiences I never dreamed possible.
Thanks for reading. Your support is my motivation and I’m genuinely grateful that you’re here. Please share, subscribe, and connect with me.
How in the world did I miss that note? I look at notes every day, and somehow never saw it. Substack is a weird place.
I hear Trump has been back going on about the 51st state thing this weekend. In the meantime, Vance's remarks in Europe chilled me.