The Squamidian Report – Mar. 18 / 06
Issue #198
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We just had our garage door openers replaced. The old ones were cheap and failing rapidly. It had gotten to the place where I had to help the door on my side of the garage up, as well as stand on the handle to make it stay down. Some times it would go up without help, other times it needed help all the way. By the end it wouldn’t go up or down under power. Good thing you can detach the door from the lifting mechanism. As I’ve stated before, we can’t get anyone local to do those kinds of things, they all want to work up in Whistler. So again, we purchased the replacement equipment through Home Depot in Burnaby and had them have their installers do the job. Sue took a ‘work from home’ day so she could be here and one young guy turned up and did the job quickly and correctly. We now have doors that go up when they should, down when they should and stay there. Each of our vehicles including the motorcycle now has a working remote that will open either door and there is a remote keyless entry pad on the outside.
It should be interesting to see what happens here when Home Depot as well as a few other big stores set up shop in town. One of the sites we are running the street services for in the Industrial Park will be a Home Depot. Currently we have a Mountain Buildall that is under the TimberMart umbrella. They have been here for a long time and have ticked off everyone with their price gouging and lack of service or interest. Home Depot won’t have any problem finding customers but they will have a problem finding competent trades people to do their installations. It wouldn’t surprise me if they ended up importing them from the city. Kind of too bad but I don’t see them putting up with the current ‘local’ way of doing things for long. However, a good shakeup will do this little town a lot of good in the long run.
There was a time when I could have and would have done that kind of repair myself. But it is often cheaper in the long run to have someone in a given trade just come and do it, get it over with and it’s done. Someone who knows the product and has the tools can do something in a few hours that would tie me up for a couple of weekends. And besides, I still can’t work with my stupid arm over my head yet after mucking up that shoulder back in late November.
*
Warren and Janice, Sue and I went for a walk along the Squamish River the other day. The water level is quite low due to the fact that there is no melting happening yet up where the heavy snow accumulations are. Most of the snow we had at the lower levels has gone now except for some shaded areas. Because the water is low there are numerous sand and gravel bars sitting high and dry that would normally be submerged. These are mixed up with old logs and stumps that floods and high waters have dislodged and deposited along the way. Some care has to be taken; the sand bars can be a bit unstable and can liquefy as you walk over them. Also, to fall into the water would not be nice for it would be about one tenth of a degree above freezing. But then that’s where it is any time of the year.
The leaves are not out yet, so the soft maples growing along the river look kind of un-earthly as they are covered in moss and ferns. Always looks funny to see ferns growing way up in the trees but that’s what they do here. The eagles are still around, we saw several soaring way up over the ridges. There are Canada Geese along the river as well as swans. Of course the normal little duck-like water birds are all over the place. Took some shots if you are interested. Just follow this link:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/Pictures/Hike1/river1.htm
doug
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Hello
everyone!
Spring is
on the verge of springing and I saw my first Robin the other day. Its times
like this that I like to think back on the days of my youth. Back when the
“Floyd St” gang was pretty much my whole world. This afternoon when I was day
dreaming while looking out the window of our office at the bright sunshine, it
took me back to the late 50’s. I had a friend that lived across the street from
me by the name of Volker. He was a German kid that had moved to Kitchener
directly from somewhere in the “Fatherland”. His dad was an electronics
engineer who worked for Electrohome. He had a special talent that Electrohome
needed so they had imported him to work in their plant on Wellington St. Volker
and I were the same age and he spoke English as well as anyone. I had invited
him to my 8th birthday so he could get to know the other kids on the
street. From that moment on, we became best friends. We weren’t in the same
room at school but managed to hang around with each other at recess and every
other spare minute we could muster. Volker and I spent a lot of our time in
Breithaupt bush playing cowboys and Indians and building forts in trees. We
were into collecting bird’s eggs back then and many a day of the summer was
taken up with that hobby. My dad had an Audubon Society bird book that he saved
up for and bought when he was a kid. Dad was born in 1913 so the book was from
1925 I think. Anyway, it had pictures of birds, their nests and of course their
eggs in it. Volker and I used this book as a reference so we knew what to look
for when egg hunting. In those days, there were so many different birds in the
bush that we were able to find a good many eggs for our collections. Part of
the fun was climbing the trees to see if there was anything in the nests we’d
spot. Many times we came down empty handed in fact, most times we found the
nests empty. But it was a great way to pass the time in the days before kids
had summer jobs. The part of Breithaupt bush that we spent most of our time in
was the section that went from Union St way back to Bridgeport Rd where today’s
Conestoga Expressway crosses Bridgeport Rd. There was a huge hill with a 4’
wide rut in it from the local bikers climbing it on their motorcycles. Of
course we called it “Motorcycle Hill”. It was very steep and the pathway up was
riddled with tree roots that had been exposed by the spinning rear wheels of
the motorcycles that climbed it. One day we were looking for nests when Volker
spotted one way up in a silver beech tree right at the top of Motorcycle hill.
He said he just had to climb up to check it out. The only trouble was that beech
trees have notoriously straight and branchless trunks. The first branches on
the tree had to be 20 feet up. I asked just how Volker figured he’d make it up
to the first branches so he could climb the rest of the way to the nest. He
said he didn’t know but he’d figure it out. We sat in the dirt at the bottom of
the tree till the light went on in his head. He said “I’ve got it! You can pull
me up with a rope!” I said “There’s only one problem, you weigh about twenty
pounds more than I do so how will that work?” He said we would have to get some
help so we’d have to leave that project till the next day. We had to go home to
find a rope long enough to do the job anyway and that would give us time to
round up the help we needed. The next day Volker showed up at my door with a
long rope from his dad’s garage and three other guys from the neighbourhood. He
said he figured with all the power at hand we could get the task completed in
short order so off we went. Upon arrival at the tree, the next problem was getting
the rope over the high branch so we could use it as a pulley. After many many
tries, we finally tied Volker’s size 12 shoe to the end of the rope for weight
and after a few more tosses, over it went. What a heck of a job it was! We tied
the rope around Volker’s waist and tied a few knots in the rope for better grip
for each of us. Now all we had to do was grab on tight and start dangling our
way down the motorcycle run. As we descended the hill, quite rapidly I might
add, Volker whizzed his way up the tree like an express elevator in the Empire
State Building. It was amazing to see how quickly he rose up the trunk of that
beech. All of a sudden, we heard a yell from above, he had cracked his head on
the branch we had the rope over. After he climbed onto the branch he hollered
down that he was bleeding a little but he was ok. He said there’s no way he was
coming down without that bird’s eggs. As he inched his way up the tree branches
we all held our breath. We could see the branches bending under Volker’s 150 lb
schnitzel and saurkraut stuffed torso. He was determined to reach the nest and
after about 5 minutes of grunting, he finally made it. All we heard was
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt!!!!” as the branch he stood on broke and
down he tumbled. Luckily he still had the rope tied around his waist and as he
fell, he toppled over a large branch and the rope stopped him about fifteen
feet from the ground. We had all grabbed the big knots on the rope as he
plummeted earthward and held on for dear life. As we jerked him to a stop we
were all screaming at the top of our lungs. Once we realized that he was safe,
we lowered him the rest of the way to the ground with a sigh of relief. After
we all settled down, we looked at Volker to find his face literally covered
with blood. The little bit of a cut was a huge gash in the top of his head. It
had stopped bleeding by then but it required no less than 6 stitches at the
doctors the next day. The whole effort had been a bust since he fell before he
even got a peek into the nest to check for the eggs. It’s just as well because
he probably would have dropped them on the way down anyway. That particular
adventure became one of the most oft talked about fun times we had that summer
and when I bump into one of the old gang now and again, we almost always wind
up rehashing that Volker in the Beech tree incident and laugh like crazy as we
recall the details. I often wonder what ever happened to Volker. He moved with
his family in 1959 to Culver City California and the last time he visited us on
Floyd St was in 1961 when they came back to spend a week with his dad’s sister
in Breslau. Volker and I wrote to each other for a couple of years but then
lost touch. His older sister Rita knocked on our door one summer day in about
1971 and said she was vacationing and just thought she’d drop in to say hello.
She said that Volker was in Dental College in LA and she’d have him write to me
when she got home. That was the last contact we ever had with her and I never
did hear from Volker. I even tried to locate him last year on the internet but
to no avail. I even asked my dentist if there was a way I could find him
through the American Dental Association. He gave me a phone number for their
head office in Chicago and said that they may be able to locate him for me. I
called and the lady on the other end checked their national membership list and
said there isn’t and never has been a dentist by that name in their
association. I guess he either quit, flunked out or never attended dental college
or………….who knows?!!!
Guess
that’s one mystery that’ll have to remain unsolved for me. I’ve tried with no
success to find him so now it’s up to him to make a move. Who knows, maybe
he’ll find me someday. Until then, I’ll always have the “Volker in the Beech
tree” story to remind me of our friendship. Until then Volker, hang in there!
*
Enough
for this week I guess. Thanks for tuning in everyone and I look forward to
talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… GREG.
PS: Something
To Think About>
A true
friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least
thought about acquiring.
Maxims 1678
PPS: I
know it’s a day late but Carole and I want to wish each and every one of our
fellow Squamidians a Very Happy St Patrick’s Day!
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The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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