The Squamidian Report – Aug. 9 / 14
Issue #637
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
When we had finished brunch the two ladies headed north and the rest of
us headed south, back to Squamish and Vancouver. Oh, I guess I should
start at the beginning. Getting a bit ahead of myself I guess. So, two
of our lady riders, Mary and Rebecca, headed out on a nice motorcycle
road trip with the Queen Charlotte Islands as their main destination
where they intend to take in a music festival and do some isolated
camping. Mary, the same lady who had just broken her arm a month and a
half ago, had ridden solo to the Charlottes last summer and had the
time of her life. This year, Rebecca decided to join her. They headed
out last Sunday morning. We met them in Horseshoe Bay at our usual meet
and then some of us escorted them as far as Whistler where we stopped
for brunch and then sent them on their way.
There is something really cool looking about a motorcycle that is
loaded down and packed with travel gear. It says something about the
rider, indicating a free spirit, an adventurer. Its just really cool.
In this case it is even more so because they are both women, hitting
the open road, broad smiles on their faces and excitement in their
eyes. Its common to see some guys doing a road trip, or a man and
woman, or several thereof but not as common to see women heading out on
their own. It says a lot about their determination character. Every one
of us were invited to tag along but none of us could fit that
particular couple of weeks in. It would have been great for 'the wife'
and I to be on that ride. But, there was one little tiny thing about
them that would have ended up driving me nuts. You know how women tend
to take forever to get ready? Well, double that. Guys would just zip up
their riding jacket, pull on their helmets and gloves, climb aboard
their bike and away they'd go. With these two, it took forever for them
to gear up. They's have to compare what they were wearing, how
everything was, and so on, and thats after rummaging through their
packs looking for who knows what. With a final wave, they headed north
toward Pemberton and up over the Duffy to catch highway 97. We then
mounted up and headed back south. I dropped out in Squamish, obviously,
and the others continued on back to the city.
That was last week and last weekend. This is this weekend and guess
what. We are not even home right now. So, if this Email looks a bit
different its because I'm not at my computer, its being assembled and
formatted through Webmail. Heck, you might not even receive it in which
case you won't be able to tell that it looks a bit different. This is
our CMC Cache Creek weekend. Many of my chapter riders, and many riders
from Vancouver Island rode to Cache Creek (hereafter known as CC) on
Friday with the intention of doing 'local' scenic rides in the CC and
Kamloops areas on Saturday. Because my chapter riders elected to
do the Duffy route, they staged in Horseshoe Bay and rode up to
Squamish where 'the wife' and I hooked up with them. No point in us
riding down to the Bay, and then back, especially because there is a
huge music festival happening this weekend in Squamish and traffic is
the pits. Anyway, 9 of us rode to CC, had a great time doing so, and
hooked up with a couple dozen other CMC riders. I'll fill in the
details next week.
Oh hey, we spent last Monday evening sitting on our deck watching two
water bombers and two Helicopters and a spotter plane fight a small
forest fire that was just over the ridge from here. Thats way too close
for comfort. It had of course been started by a careless person dong
something stupid. The whole of BC has been having a very hot dry summer
and every type and kind of fire and flame are currently pretty well
banned but that does not seem to register with some, ever.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
It’s absolutely amazing how much and exactly what you can accumulate
during 41 years of marriage and family life! The other night Carole and
I decided we were going to clean out our “basement storage closet” the
following day and just see what all was in there that we hadn’t used in
years. I built this walk in closet to house some of the boxes of stuff
we packed when we moved from Linwood to Kitchener back in 1998. I also
made it large enough to hold our winter coats and boots during the
warmer months. I know we have been using it for that purpose and have
faithfully brought up our winter clothes once the colder weather set in
each year. However, each year, one or two items were left in there from
the year before and eventually the rack on one side of the closet
became jammed with stuff that became donate-able! LOL! So, earlier this
week we took an afternoon and figured we’d have it cleaned out within a
couple of hours. Well, a couple of hours had turned into several days
and still we have not accomplished our goal! I’ve taken half a dozen
bags of perfectly good clothes to the Salvation Army store. In digging
through large tub after large tub of stored clothes we found not only
treasured memorabilia but clothes we had forgotten we even owned. I
have collected tee shirts of all kinds over the years and have worn
some of them so much that they were paper thin when packed away. I
found everything from tee shirts with graphics showing the courses I
took at the Ontario Fire College to one that showed a blonde woman
cartoon figure with huge breasts and a furry little flat tailed animal
between her lags and a caption that read “If You’re Really Canadian,
Show Me Your Beaver” on the front! LOL! I guess at one time I was brave
or foolish enough to wear that tee shirt in public. I actually think it
was given to me as one of those “Special” birthday gifts! Hahahaa…..
Sheesh!
Of course we came across about two dozen issues of Waterloo Fire
Department uniforms from over the 30 years I spent on the job. Some of
the pants were brand new and had never been worn. I had upwards of 40
or more shirts of either light blue colour or black which were the
latest style and issue of uniform wear. They had two different style of
shoulder flashes on them from the times the design changed depending on
who the Chief was at the time. It seamed that every time we got a new
Chief, the new guy wanted to design his own WFD Patch. Since I’ve
retired (it’ll be 12 years this August 31st) the department has changed
that design three times. I had been hanging on to the old uniforms for
nostalgia sake I guess but finally figured this time that one complete
uniform placed in a plastic suit bag would suffice to maintain my
career memories. So I now have my dress tunic, a couple of black shirts
with the officer’s gold shoulder flashes on them, a couple pair of new
dress pants, a tie or two and my uniform hat in the bag! Who knows,
maybe in 30 or 40 years I’ll open that suit bag once again and see if
the uniform still fits me! LOL! I decided to donate all of the rest of
the uniform pants, shirts, p-jackets, windbreakers and tunics to the
used clothing store for charity. I can’t recall the name of the store
but it’s the one that’s down across from Costco on Sportsworld Dr. It’s
“somethingorother Village”. The lady there thanked me for the donation
and said that they would gladly sell or give the shirts etc to needy
people and that there was no need to have removed the shoulder flashes.
That was good to hear because I hadn’t taken the time to remove said
flashes anyway! The only piece of clothing from the Fire Dept that I
DID remove them from was my uniform winter coat. It was a new one that
I had been issued the winter before I retired so it was virtually new.
I had taken the time to remove my nametag from inside and the shoulder
flashes as well. I’m sure that some street person will make good use of
that heavy-duty coat. It had a hood on it as well and a fur collar that
would even keep someone warm on a cool summer or fall evening not to
mention a cold winter day or night. The lady told me not to be
surprised if I saw my shirts turning up among the Region’s homeless
wandering KW or Cambridge’s main streets! I’m sure with that many
shirts available there will no doubt be many on the streets!
With most of the clothing sorted out, we also found many other items
that we had forgotten we even owned. We are sorting with the idea of
having a blockbuster of a garage sale sometime before the end of
August. I know I’ve said in the past that they are hardly worth all the
effort anymore but with all this good stuff at our fingertips I figure
we’ll try it one more time and see if I can’t make enough to finally
buy that new Ferrari!
We’ll have everything from clothes to furniture to games and household
items in this upcoming sale so I’m sure it’ll attract loads of
attention on a sunny weekend day. I’ll have to dig through the garage
and the rest of the house as well to see if there isn’t some good
“STUFF” in those locations that will make the sale more exciting! Maybe
an old bicycle or two and who knows, maybe even a motorcycle will make
an appearance! LOL!
No wonder this “master” sale can’t be thrown together in the space of a
single week. I figure we’ll have it all set up within the month of
August and hopefully we’ll pick a weekend with loads of sunshine to
help our cause!
Once we manage to decide what items we’d like to keep, the basement
will finally be navigable once again and the closet door will be shut
for another 16 years!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
Something To Think About>
Glass takes one million years to decompose, which means it never wears
out and can be recycled an infinite amount of
times.
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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