My brother and I have been working on a retrospect art exhibition for my late father Erik Dzenis. In that regard I ran across one of Erik's early paintings (I'm still verifying) it has been 60 years since I have seen the painting. It is a life size oil portrait of Clarence Decatur "C. D." Howe. Briefly CD Howe was the chief bean counter for WWII, when Britain or the USA wanted some war toys, they needed CD's signature on it; he was the bookkeeper. In short he paid for all the bombs and bullets that rained down on the artist painting his portraits many years later. Erik was a teenager, a struggling artist in the Latvian Academy of Art. when WWII broke out. He was trapped, first it was the Russians who invaded then it was the Germans, enslaving the country basically. While all this was going down, the Allies rained bombs on the entire theatre. I recall Erik said jokingly during a sitting , "so you were the guy". CD said "yes it was me". Both men paused to reflect on the irony of the moment as well as the enormity of what they both lived through. It was a positive outcome back on 1958. Erik went on to become a successful international artist, but he always carried his war scars with him; silently. We call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder now, we just called it normal back in the 60's.

Clarence Decatur "C. D." Howe, PC (15 January 1886 – 31 December 1960) was a powerful Canadian Cabinet minister, representing the Liberal Party. Howe served in the governments of Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent continuously from 1935 to 1957. He is credited with transforming the Canadian economy from agriculture-based to industrial. During the Second World War, his involvement in the war effort was so extensive that he was nicknamed the "Minister of Everything."