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The Squamidian Report – Aug. 24/19 * Issue #900 *
who’da thunk it! Including: From Sus From Russ From Lorne From Maggie The Ontarion Hi All, OK, I guess I promised to write about an over-night bike ride we did so what happened was we rode up to Clinton to meet up with the lady riders who had ridden up to the Yukon and seeing as how their timing would put them into Clinton on the Monday afternoon or evening several of us decided to meet them there and escort them for part of their way home on their last day of riding which we did and it was quite nice because our part of the ride took up up over the Duffy and was basically a pretty easy ride being somewhere under 400k so we got there and checked into our motel and had a bit of late lunch before the lady riders arrived after which we had a motel parking lot party and then everyone retired to their rooms for a good night’s sleep and we them met at the gas station for about 8:30am or so for the ride south with a short stop in Cache Creek for breakfast before continuing on our way which took us along the Thompson River just like I had done a week earlier and down to Lytton where we and another bike turned off in order to take #12 back up along the Fraser Canyon rather that ride down to Hope and in through the Fraser Valley like the others were doing which meant they would run into heavy traffic while we simply enjoyed the ride back up to Lillooet and back over the Duffy and down through Pemberton and Whistler to home so we had a great ride home which was something under 500km because of our backtracking up from Lytton and thats about it because if I type this sentence any longer I’ll have to stop and take a breath. *
So,
here we are at our 900th addition of this silly news letter. I know
that I’ve written about interesting things over the years as well as
total fluff when there was nothing to catch my attention. Often a topic
will pic itself and the column will seemingly write itself. Other times
there seems to be nothing at all and it becomes a struggle to just get
a few lines down on the proverbial page. Humm, when thinking in terms
of ‘pages’, it would be interesting to see how high a stack of paper
pages it would be if all those issues were to be printed out. I don’t
think I’ll bother to try. It can remain one of those never-to-be-solved
mysteries. Another mystery is how much longer we can keep this letter
going. The answer lies hidden in the interest being shown by the
readers. So, its up to you guys.And now I’ll end my part with a big thanks to Greg, Russ, and Lorne for their weekly endeavors. Always interesting and clever with a nice dose of humor. And thank you Nova Scotia Sus for your occasional submission, always welcome. Others have been involved once in a while, such as Carl, of Australia fame. Thank you. We’ve even heard from Sus’s niece in Europe, that was great. Heck, we’ve even heard from ‘The Wife’ once in a while over the years so it can’t be all that hard to type out a few lines or a small novel, and share it with the readers. So, lets see how much further this thing goes. doug
**** From Sus Wow #900 edition of the Squamidian!! Thank you so much Doug for all your hard work each week getting this newsletter together for all of us to read. The world is a much smaller and friendlier place hearing from family and friends on a weekly basis. We are extra busy at this time with our gardens what with all the plentiful veggies. Even though its been fairly dry our gardens have flourished. And now all the canning and freezing begins. The garlic is pretty much ready to harvest so I will be using my hairdressing skills to braid them in bunches of 12 and hang them to cure. We braid the onions too, its a great way to store them for winter. Hope you all have had a great summer. I will keep this short since there will be many more writers this time celebrating #900. Keep up the good work Doug,
Sus **** From Russ I have now been retired for one quarter Century! The last ten years have been spent in complete leisure here in Point Clarke, on the shores of beautiful Lake Huron, an ocean of fresh water and with a reputation for having the best sunsets in Canada. This is ‘Heaven on Earth! I ask you; could any ‘soul’ get ‘tired’ of Heaven? Believe it or not, retirement can become ‘boring’! My life is pretty routine and humdrum most of the time. But, I look forward to Saturdays because that’s when Doug sends out the GREAT SQUAMIDIAN! Awakening with the rising sun, scratch whatever’s itchy, listen to the early morning news from CBC, tumble out of bed, shower, have a good healthy breakfast of cold cereal (very high in fibre and burlap), washed down with 2%, grab a cuppa, and head for my office. Ahh – the highlight of my week – sipping black NABOB while reading the Squamidian! I’m fond of reading Doug’s column as, without fail, he’s had something of ‘value and interest’ to present us each and every week for over seventeen years!! What an accomplishment!! We love to read about, and often view pictures he’s taken of the Rocky Mountains as he proudly ‘rumbles’ along on his Harley. On a sad note, the Gondola: Doug has been the ‘unofficial promotion manager’ of this great, breathtakingly beautiful riding experience since it’s inception. He writes his own music, and sings and plays his stuff for appreciative visitors “up top”. He often includes photos of the Gondola and the ‘wrap-around’ snow-capped mountains. His photography is outstanding (second only to my son, Mac (LOL). I wish to state here, that we all are so sorry/astonished/shocked, and angered by the criminal destruction of this World-famous Sea to Sky Gondola! Incredible damage!! But, we know it will be rebuilt someday, and when the perpetrator(s) are caught, and we are certain they will be, they should ‘give them as many free rides as they like, hanging from their balls from the NEW main cable! We readers of the Squamidian can always depend on Greg Payne to write a palatable, and often educational account of his loving MG, where it takes him and Carol; his long, successful career as a Firefighter. He keeps the K-W area ‘alive’ with his memorable accounts of people and happenings, and his ‘other career’ – keeping Zehrs meats from spoiling! I especially enjoy reading his excellent stories of his travel’s abroad . How can you remember the exact details of things you see, and recount them so clearly, we ‘are right there with you’; seeing, tasting, revelling, and thoroughly enjoying the ‘experience’ along with you. And what can we say about another regular contributor to the Squamidian? , brother Lorne. He writes as he speaks – short, and to the point, but always ‘flavoured’ with his very ‘dry’ humour. Lorne - - I laugh out loud as I read your ‘stuff’! We all can’t have funny stuff to write about; but, you have the rest of us at a disadvantage: Clocks that run backwards; Cement that turns pink; Downgrading from V8’s to V6’s to 4 cylinders ‘shamelessly; Adult entertainment, that is; chipmunks climbing up inside your pantleg, and performing “violent act of sex”; one monster toad, showing off his climbing skills (I remember that same toad from years ago – still trying to climb up those cement steps – why?) no fees, no contracts, just sit, watch, and swat. Lorne, our message to you is; as the bride said on her wedding night, “please don’t stop – I love it”. Unc. Russ.
**** From Lorne Happy 900th. Welcome rain. The apples and pears were about the size of cherries. Late August should be about 3/4 the size of matured fruit. The recent rain brought them to about 1/2 size. Now to keep the squirrels from eating the seeds and leaving the pulp in little piles on the ground. I have finely completed the estate planning. Between the professional planner with 172 items to address, and the lawyer, who prepared the will be able to live the life. An earlier one was drawn up some years ago didn't seem to cover everything, or so they said, the total cost is close to 2 grand. That money to pay the bills will have to come from ****
From Maggie The 900th squid! Wow! Congratulations Doug and Greg for keeping this going. I considered many things to write about – such as our trip to Spain and the UK in the Spring, but rather decided to write about being here in Thornbury! We are currently here for a few days with my son Simon and the grandchildren, Dylan and Ethan staying at an AirBnB. It is very nice and though we are not in one of the lovely homes ON the water, we are on the other side of the street, and can see it. For houses on the other side of the street, there are many access points to the water. The kids have loved the essentially sandy beach and big rolling waves, but mostly we have spent hours skipping stones – and my arm knows it! Yesterday we went to Collingwood’s Scenic Caves. I hadn’t been there in about 35 years. Lots of good hiking and climbing over rocks and squishing through rocky places. I was much thinner 35 years ago and made it through Fat Man’s Misery – a one foot wide crevice – not this year! The grandkids wiggled through no problem. Thirty-five years ago there was no suspension bridge slung across two parts of the escarpment. It really is something – 420 feet long and about 100 feet down. Like any suspension bridge it rocks as you walk, but the views of Collingwood and the bay are worth the rockiness. This bridge really is a feat of engineering as well. There are four enormous 3 inch thick cables that keep us up in the air as well as huge towers either end. The sign claims that the bridge can withstand the weight of people packed like sardines the entire length stacked four people high. As we rocked high above the trees, I looked at those thick cables and thought about the tragedy that befell the Squamish Gondola. My heart went out to all the people in Squamish affected by this and hope that the gondola will be restored back to its glory soon. Maggie
 **** THE ONTARION REPORT DAMN! I just spent over an hour composing this week’s Ontarion just to have it disappear when I “saved” it to my desktop! Oh well, I guess these things happen once in a while. Of course it wasn’t anything that I did wrong but someone has to take the blame so it might as well be me! So, here we go a second time for this week! *
Hello Everyone!Although I’m not directly affected by Doug’s write up of last week about the Gondola being sabotaged, it still bothers me to think that some senseless idiots would do such a thing! When something like that occurs, the whole country is affected because it’s happened to a national attraction! Of course the residents of Squamish are affected the most because that particular attraction being local to them brings in a lot of tourist dollars to the area not to mention the notoriety of the town. I guess that Doug and Sue will have to find something else to fill their mornings until the gondola is back in operation next spring! Such an act of vandalism reminds me of the times over and over when idiots smash our local bus shelters during the night. It’s happened many times that our local shelters have been vandalized and have had to be replaced. I actually stopped and asked the fellows that were replacing the shelter one time how much it cost to do so. The man that I talked to said that a company out of Toronto employs them and that they are paid a day’s wages to come here from Toronto to do the job. The glass panels that are broken he said cost approximately $1200.00 each and usually two or more panels are broken each time. This amounts to approximately $2400.00 plus the men’s wages and vehicle expenses each time they have to travel to KW to replace a shelter. So by my figuring the transit authority pays out at least three thousand dollars for each incident. Of course they most likely have insurance that covers the cost but when they make a claim, their premiums must increase and that means that that cost must be recouped by them in the form of increased fares to the transit customers. With this situation in mind, I shudder to think what the cost of repairing the Gondola will be! Doug said the cost would likely be in the millions of dollars to repair the Gondola system. I hope the RCMP manages to find the criminals that performed this dastardly deed and put them away for a long time! It’s just a good thing that they didn’t cause the Gondola to fail while people were riding the system or many folks would definitely have lost their lives and then it would have been a case of murder, not just vandalism! Keep your fingers crossed that the RCMP catches and prosecutes the culprits responsible for this terrible act! *
It
has just occurred to me that this week’s Squamidian is number 900! What
a milestone to celebrate! It’s been a long haul for both Doug and Me
and I guess it “ain’t” over yet! LOL!I’ve enjoyed writing each and every column of The Ontarion and hopefully with this week’s being #900 it will encourage more folks to write in to Doug with their own personal stories in the weeks to come! I know that uncle Russ and Lorne have been writing quite regularly and it’s much appreciated by both Doug and I! It seems that once you do write a story to contribute, you sort of catch “the Bug” and it makes you want to do it again and again. I know that that’s what happened to me in the first place and you have all seen the results from my end! LOL! Please give it some thought and at least try it once and see if we can’t get more participation in the weeks and months to come! It would be much appreciated by the regular participants to have more input by the usual readers than we have had in the past. It’s definitely fun! Why not give it a try at least once! That’s about it for this week folks! Even though I had to write this week’s column twice it was still fun! Take care and thanks for tuning in again! I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report! Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>Take care of the minutes for the hours will take care of themselves! ****
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. |