The Squamidian Report – Jan. 19 / 08

 

Issue #295

 

Also in this issue:

A Note From Russ

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

Funny how the sunshine brings out the eagles. The long endless overcast of winter has kept them low in the trees and along the riverbanks. But the sun came out and suddenly there were eagles all over the place. I know that I’ve reported that the numbers of eagles are down, but there are still a couple of thousand around and when they start to soar high above the valley they are quite impressive. There wasn’t just a flock of them, there were swarms of them, hundreds and hundreds. They were at every conceivable altitude from treetop level right up to where they looked like little black dots. They moved up and down the valley, in an out of sight.

 

And then they were gone again. The following day was overcast and the only eagles visible were sitting dejectedly in the trees, hoping for a fish or something to come along. Then the sky cleared and there they were again, all over the place. Just thought you’d like to know.

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I guess I’ve hit that magical age, the one where things get turned right around and I start to wear my son’s hand-me-downs. Seems only fair after all. For many years he helped himself to my stuff, especially things like leather jackets and work cloths. Well, some of his stuff has been hanging in my closet for a couple of years now, unclaimed. So I figure its pay back time and I’m entitled to make use of whatever fits. There was a nice blue ‘Long & McQuade’ shirt from when he worked in that music store back in Waterloo that is now doing just fine as a work shirt for me.

*

And I guess I’ve now hit a new low for not coming up with anything to write about. Some weeks there just isn’t anything interesting happening, or anything that did catch my interest got squashed under a writer’s block. Good thing we’ve got some other more interesting articles here for everyone to enjoy.

 

doug

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A Note From Russ

 

Dear doug, my niece sent me this and I was wondering if you could use it in the Squamidian sometime.

 

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine.... and those who don’t.

 

As Ben Franklin said:  In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. 

 

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli (E Coli) bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

 

However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and or fermenting.

 

Remember: Water=poop, Wine = Health

 

Therefore, it’s better to drink wine and talk stupid than to drink water and be full of poop.

 

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information:

I’m doing it as a public service.

 

Prof. Russ

 

 

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

Well here we are in the dead of winter with a whopping 2” of snow on the ground. Let’s hope we don’t get much more or they’ll have to call in the Army to aid the cities in clearing the streets! Of course I’m just kidding! I’m actually surprised that we don’t have more snow than this since the initial snowfalls of this winter were pretty heavy. I really did think we were in for a good old-fashioned Canadian winter here in Southern Ontario. I’m sure we’ll get more snow before it’s all over but this seems really strange not to have much white stuff this late in January. I actually did have my first GREEN Birthday ever this year. I’ve had a couple of green ones in Florida and Dominican Republic several years ago but never in Canada. I even had my picture taken on the green front lawn on January 11th my B-day as a keepsake just in case it never happens again. Other than that, this year’s birthday wasn’t much different than any other. I always enjoy celebrating my birthday and haven’t hit one that truly bothered me yet. Some people say that they had a difficult time accepting their 30th birthday or their 40th or their 50th even but not me! I just keep sailing along and accepting what I know I can’t change. What the heck, if I’m here to celebrate my birthday I figure that’s a positive thing. If I wasn’t around to celebrate it that’d mean I’d be 6’ under and believe me that would be a bummer in my books. Like many of my brothers and sisters up at the St Mary’s Cardiac Care Gymnasium in Waterloo used to say when asked how they were doing “Every day above ground is a bonus!” I guess when you think of it that way there’s no use in complaining about getting older. It’s when you stop getting older that it’s no fun anymore!

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I was digging through the garage the other day and came across a kite that I bought about 3 years ago. I also found a contraption that I made to wind my kite string on that holds over a mile of string. I made it expressly to do just that, put my kite up a little over a mile in the air. Some of you might remember back a few years when I talked about doing that from the top of Mount Trashmore on Ottawa St in Kitchener. Well, finding the kite and string has gotten me enthused all over again. I guess I set it aside to do later and never got around to finishing the challenge. I’m determined to do it this year for sure. I’ve even posted a note on the rim of my computer monitor to remind myself to “Go fly a kite”! This should help me complete the task once the spring weather is here and things are warmer at the summit of Mount Trashmore. I’ll be looking forward to the big flight and will be sure to do a full write up on the event for The Ontarion Report.

Speaking of flying kites reminds me of doing that when we were kids. We lived in the north ward of Kitchener on the edge of Breithaupt Park. Part of the park was a huge section of flat fields that contained two baseball diamonds and a large soccer pitch. The field was on two levels and the upper one had no finished sports parks when we were kids. It was just a huge field that was covered in 2’ tall weeds of all kinds. It was a great place to run around and play in. Some of you may remember the Ontarion I wrote a couple of years ago about the time we as kids set that same field on fire with the cigars we were smoking. Well, we had many fun days in that exact field and flying our kites was another of the many things we did there. We never thought of making our kites with plastic back then. It seemed the only plastic we could get our hands on was from the cleaner bags that covered our parent’s clothes when they came from Newtex or MacIntosh Cleaners. That plastic was too flimsy to use for the kites so we stuck to news paper or butchers paper if we could find some. The frame of our kites was made from two crossed pieces of dowel and a few feet of butcher’s string. My brother and I were lucky to have a dad that worked at Burns Meats on Guelph St. When we planned on building kites, we’d ask dad to bring home some of that good string from work and we’d have the strongest string in the neighbourhood with which to make ours. We were always the envy of the other kids on the block when it came to string. (Ain’t that something to be proud of???) LOL! Anyway, Other than the odd box kite, most of the ones we made were the traditional diamond shaped kites. We never seemed to have enough dowel to make the frame for a box kite so the diamond shape had to be it! I remember one summer Saturday when a bunch of us headed to the field to fly the kites we had spent the morning making. Mike and Gord Beal, Doug and Bruce Dunnington and my brother Brent and I made up the group that day. Mike and Gord had built a beauty of a kite that was 6’ in height and 5’ across the beam. They had tied a tail on it that was about twice that length to try to stabilize it in the air. We were all thrilled with this monster so we put our kites aside in order to help the Beals launch their creation. We got the line stretched out and kept the monster flat until we were absolutely sure we were ready to let ‘er go up. Gord wanted to hold the big kite on his own and was sure he could do it, no problem. Mike and my brother each took a side of the big diamond and slowly lifted the nose into the wind. The breeze was a little stiffer than it should have been for a kite of any size but they let ‘er go anyway. Up she went strait as an arrow and the line peeled out of the winder like Gord had hooked a 25lb Salmon on a fly rod! WOW! Did she go up! They had about 200’ of good heavy string on the winder and when it reached the end, Gord (about 7 years old but only 3’ tall) tripped and down he went into the weeds face first. The monster of a kite was flying like an eagle and it dragged Gord for about a hundred feet across the field. He was screaming like a girl and we were all running after him. We finally piled on him like pro football tackles and stopped his wild ride! He let go of the kite string and we all watched as the kite drifted off into the distance. We figured the kite was a goner for sure. Gord had a few scratches on his arms, legs and face but he was too worried about losing his kite to even notice the blood running down his face. We watched as the kite disappeared from site. All that excitement took about 15 minutes but seemed to have lasted a lifetime. With the rest of us wanting to go hunt for the big kite, we decided to take the little ones home and get our on our bikes to start the search. Back then, you rarely ventured more than a few blocks from your own street. We all knew how to get to Lancaster St and thought that if the kite got further than that, we’d have to get our dads to take us out in the cars to look for it. We searched and searched the blocks between our street (Floyd St) and Lancaster St but to no avail. It was 4:30 on a Friday afternoon by the time we go home. We were kiteless and decided to sit on the Beal’s front porch to wait for their Dad to get home from work. Howard Beal worked at Burns Meats too and was only 5 minutes from work to home. Sure enough at five after five he rolled in the driveway in his 56 Meteor. Mike told him what had happened and we all piled in the car to go look for the kite. My dad came along just as we were about to leave the driveway and said he’d take some of the kids with him and go in two cars. He figured we’d have a better chance of finding it if we split up. Beals went down to the field and started from there and Dad took us strait down Guelph St toward Lancaster. We lucked out! At the corner of Lancaster and Guelph St there was a field up on top of a huge concrete water tank the size of a football field. On the Lancaster end of this field there stood a 40’ tall pole with an “air raid” siren on the top. There on the top of the siren dangled the Beal’s monster kite! We pulled into the Sunoco service station at the corner of Lancaster and Guelph and walked from there up to the base of the big pole. There was a ladder welded to the pole for access to the siren I guess. We all wanted my dad to boost one of us up to the ladder which started about 8’ off the ground but he wouldn’t let any of us attempt the climb. It wasn’t long before Howard arrived with Mike and Gord. Although we all thought our dads were OLD, I guess they were just in their late 30’s or early 40’s. Howard decided that he could climb the pole and retrieve the kite if my dad could give him a lift up to reach the ladder. Dad had seen a ladder at the back of the service station and went back to borrow it. Once it was in place, Howard had no problem climbing the pole to the top. He was untangling the kite which he had proclaimed to be in perfect shape. He had it almost free when a gust of wind came along and blew the big kite hard enough to snap the string. Away went the kite once more only this time it dropped strait down in front of the Sunoco Station and landed nose first on Lancaster St. We all ran over to the corner to check on the kite just in time to see a big Hogg Fuel Oil truck smash it to smitherines! There was a resounding WhooooOOOoooooo…that emanated from the whole gang of us. As Howard arrived at the corner to join us and hollered instructions not to go out on the road to pick up the kite, we all turned back towards his voice just in time to see Gord standing behind us with tears streaming down his cheeks. We all went quiet just in time to see little Gord look up at Mike and exclaim “See Mike, I told you we made that kite too damn big, didn’t I! Well YOU can have what’s left of it, I’m goin’ home!” and he walked away!

 

My dad picked up what was left of the kite and put it in Howard’s trunk. We piled into the cars and headed for home. Not another word was spoken all the way home and I believe that was the last time we flew our kites in that summer of 1956.

*

Enough reminiscing for this week!

Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

 

Bye for now.. Greg.

 

PS: Something To Think About>

When was the last time you flew a kite?

 

 

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The Family Site:

http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/

The Squamidian Site:

http://www.thedougsite.ca

The Biking And Stuff Site:

http://www.thedougsite.net

Have a good one..

the doug

 

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