The Squamidian Report – Feb. 2 / 19
 
Issue #871

Including:
From Russ
The Ontarion

Hi All,

A little over a year ago I had purchased another new guitar, and being a ‘guitar snob’, it was a good one, mid upper end so to speak. I have always liked the sound of 12-string guitars and had figured that should the opportunity to get a really good one come along, I would. That opportunity did and therefor so did I. It was a Taylor 562 ce, an interesting 12 fret scale instrument. Most guitars are 14 fret scale. I hadn’t bothered telling many people about it because, well, why bother. I don’t tell everyone everything. Now I’ll back up several years….. one of the reasons I try to play an instrument ever day is that after decades of abusing my hands and years of sitting in a machine holding levers, my hands seem determined to seize up and stiffen up and stop working. By playing most days, they are for the most part staying usable. Now back to the present...  I soon became aware that the wider neck and double string tension of a 12-string was not going to work out so well for my fingering hand (thats the left one for those not in the know). I’d bring out the Taylor, a nice dark cherry mahogany guitar, and within a few minutes of playing, my hand and wrist would let me know that it was time to stop. Put the thing away and leave it there. So, mostly I’d just play my Martin, the 12-string had to be left alone.

It reached the point where I’d see the 12-string in it’s case, just sitting there and that was both bothering and frustrating me. Here was a very good instrument that was not being played. In another 8 or 10 years I could have given it to one of the grand daughters if they were interested but by then it would have been neglected for years, not good for any instrument. Then, one day a few weeks ago we found ourselves in the local (North Van) Long & Mcquade music store, where I had purchased the guitar, and I ended up talking to someone about a possible trade. They will take in instruments for trade as long as its an upward trade. Interesting. I told them I would bring the Taylor in sometime to see if it was worth pursuing the idea. I already have a high end Martin and certainly didn’t need another 6-string but the idea of another high or at least high-ish end 6-string with a different voice might be worth thinking about. A week or so ago I did just that. The Taylor was worth a fair amount so I looked at and tested several pricy guitars. They would give me 80% of what I’d paid for the Taylor, that was the unfortunate hit, money wise, but there was no way of selling the Taylor privately up here and it was a total waist if it couldn’t be played.

I had set a mental limit as to what I’d be willing to spend and of all the instruments I looked at, the only one that felt and sounded right for me was a Gibson J45, the very model I often rent when visiting back home. But, it was right at the top of what I was willing to pay and I figured I’d drop the idea for a while and maybe think about it a bit. At that point the salesman asked if I’d be interested in looking at a used guitar, one that had just come in and when it was new would have listed at about the same value as the Taylor had when it was new. Cool, can’t hurt to check it out. It turned out to be a Gibson Songwriter Custom, a nice looking unit. Not as fancy as many of the higher-end Gibsons, a bit more subtle, which I prefer. I don’t want to pay for ‘fancy’. The salesman didn’t know why this unit had been traded in but I figured I did. You see, high end guitars (and most others as well) come from the factory without being set up properly. The neck relief will be out, the string height way too high and so on. I guess they figure that each owner would want it set up to fit their personal style and needs, which is true. This guitar had never been set up and would be very hard on the fingers to play for extended periods of time. The old owner would have been very frustrated with it. Ironically, when you purchase a guitar from L&M and most other music stores, it comes with a free setup. Don’t know why the old owner hadn’t had it done.

I played it a bit, liked the feel and sound, and to my surprise, said I’d take it. I brought it home and introduced it to the Martin. They seemed to hit it off ok and the Gibson seemed to know most of my material so that was good. Next day I did my own setup on the neck and string height. The strings were at about 7/32 inch at the 12th fret and spec calls for 3/32. A careful sanding down of the underside of the bridge and a check of the truss rode and she was good to go. I’ll play the strings that were on it for a while then take the guitar in for that free setup and let them fine tune anything I might have missed, as well as put on the included set of new strings.

The Gibson is not quite as high-end as the Martin, doesn’t need to be. Its still a very nice instrument. Both have great voices, the Martin being more mellow. I’m quite happy to play either and now must share my time between the two of them but at least now I can play both, my old left hand does just fine on either. I’ve got them both set up as similar as I can and they both have the same size neck and body specs so there is no mechanical difference and therefor switching back and forth is seamless. The funny thing is, when I originally set out 5 years ago to purchase a high end guitar, I was looking for a Gibson and ended up with a Martin, and that Martin continues to blows my mind every time I pick it up. Now, I have both. To someone of my age and background, owning both a Gibson and a Martin is a dream come true. And, if any one my guitar strumming friends or relatives (hard to be both) ever want to drop in and jam, well, I’ve got some pretty nice instruments they could maybe use, while here, if they are careful.

doug
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From Russ

The tender-age "hookers"

Not only me, but my brother Howard as well as a lot of the kids in our school were doing it. Actually, we were “shoplifters” but I’d never heard that word before. I was about 9 years old. I didn’t think of it as “stealing”, stealing was doing something “real bad”, like stealing a car or something. After all, we “hooked” watermelons from the farmers (they had ‘fields’ full of them and wouldn’t miss a few). We played “hooky” from school and rarely got caught, so hooking a few little toys from department stores in Kitchener was ‘not really stealing’, was it?
How well I remember my first time; after getting told by my schoolmates how easy it was....”You just pick up something you like, turn, and walk (don’t run!) quietly out of the store”.
 
I was really scared! Good thing my big brother Howard was with me. We did it!  It WAS really easy. We brought our ‘loot’ to school and “showed off”, but we were a bit disappointed, because some of the boys had been back to the stores, and hooked much better stuff than had we. Naturally, we had to go back and ‘improve our take’.
Our “ill-gotten booty” had to be hidden at home, but hidden toys are no fun, we began playing with our toys on the linoleum kitchen floor.
“Where did this stuff come from?” demanded our mother. She should have been a detective; after serious ‘interrogation’ (more like the “Third degree!) we confessed to our ‘crime’.
 
Next Chapter: After ‘cleaning us up (so we wouldn’t look like ‘street urchins) she took us to the Grand River trolley stop, which transferred to the Kitchener city streetcars, and pushed/pulled us into the ‘victim’ department store.
“I want to see the manager” she demanded. She really was forceful!
We were ushered into his office, a tiny room containing a wooden desk and a man with a black mustache.
“These are my boys, and this is the stuff they stole from your store” Dumping a bag-full of toys on his desk, she broke into tears. Then, she started crying, I’d never seen her so upset. She wasn’t crying ‘out of shame’ for what we’d done, but because she loved us, and we’d hurt her badly.
That experience went deep into my ‘being’, I’ve carried it for a lifetime.
In my later years as a cop in the Youth Bureau, I ‘processed’ many young persons who were ‘caught shoplifting’, and if it were his/her ‘first or second offense’, they were offered Voluntary Probation. This was as s system we came up with, because the Judge of the Juvenile Court had complained to the Chief of Police, that there were far too many children appearing before him. Hence, if a Juvenile were ‘caught’ a third time we would generally lay a charge of “Delinquency”. The decision was mine. Before laying the charge, we held a meeting with the parent(s) of the child wherein the ‘role’ of the Juvenile Court was explained. The court is not there to punish a child for his/her offense, but to “offer treatment” for his/her condition. Most times, the delinquent child was placed on Probation. This probation was not like adult probation where convicted persons are under the supervision of a regular, University-trained ‘specialist’, but placed under the supervision of ‘Yours truly’. The young person was required to report to the Juvenile Office once a month, where I would interview him/her to ‘chat’ about “how things are going”
Children were required, by law to attend school until age 16, so I would often ask about how classes were progressing, and if they ever “played hooky”. If a parent were attending the interview, I would have a friendly ‘chat’ and find out if his/her child were “easily manageable”, or if their behaviour needed some outside help (like the Children’s Aid Society).
An “unmanageable” child could be brought before a Juvenile Court, and upon a “finding of delinquency”  could become a “Ward of the CAS”
 
Next week (if anybody is interested) I’ll write about a “Kleptomaniac”
 
Your old Uncle Russ.
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello Everyone!
Well, we’ve had a little more snow over this past week but one heck of a lot more very cold weather! It’s been like living in the arctic and if you didn’t dress for it you were not to last very long without frostbite that’s for sure. Many people that live on the streets of KW and other cities in southern Ontario found themselves clambering for a warm place to spend the nights. Luckily many of the local churches and city owned buildings such as arenas were opened to accommodate them for the purpose of saving their lives. Still there were a few deaths attributed to the extreme cold weather! This is just one more reason that I say our city council should consider spending our $13,000,000.00 on providing housing for the street people rather than refurbishing Carl Zehr Square in front of the city hall. It’s a shame to spend such funds on city owned attractions rather than on saving the lives of our less fortunate people! Time for the council to consider the people of less fortune in our city rather than ego boosting the prowess of the city fathers! By the way, I was awakened early this morning (4am) by a city plow scraping the pavement once again! Just saying!
Oh well, maybe that’ll stop with the next few snow falls!
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I got a nice surprise today! I was out to do some other running around and decided to stop into our neighbourhood variety store to check my lotto 6/49 tickets from Wednesday evening’s draw. When I checked the “Free” ticket I had won in last Saturday’s draw I was shocked to see an unusual number show up on the ticket checker screen. I thought I had won $6980.00 however, when I took a second look, the amount was actually $69.80. I took a second deep breath to recover from my initial shock and realized that I’d only won the smaller amount! Oh well, to say the least, I am happy to have at least won quite a bit more than my usual “free ticket” or at the most the $10.00 of a couple of wins in the past many years. It’s only been a result of playing the lotto faithfully for the past 40 years in one form or another. LOL! I started with playing “Lottario” back in the late 70’s when one of the guys at work talked me into trying my luck. I won $25.00 on that first ticket and was hooked for sure after that! I’ve been playing the lotto in one form or another ever since. I’ve been faithful to the Lotto 6/49 ever since it’s inception I think without fail. It bothers me to think that a draw might pass without my having a ticket for a chance to win big! I know, you will all likely say I’m chasing a pipe dream but I say, “You can’t win unless you have a ticket!” Since I don’t have any other vices in my life, its kind of fun to have that Lotto Dream with each draw. Anyway, with this bit of a win, Its renewed my faith in taking my chances and I’ll look forward to my next big win at least for a few months to come!
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This past Christmas Adam came up with an unusual gift to give his mother. He purchased an evening class of learning “Italian cooking” for two. He presented her with the certificate to attend a cooking class this past week. Since the class was for two people, he agreed to attend the class with Carole, as they both like to cook. They spent three hours last Wednesday evening at a cooking school on Belmont Ave in Kitchener. The class was designed to teach them how to make and cook fresh pasta. They were able to make, cook and of course sit and eat their finished product at the class. I stayed home and waited with baited breath for a sample to be brought home for my testing after their evening of cooking. As it turned out, they only cooked enough at the school for their immediate consumption. So, when they returned home there was no finished food for my sampling. Carole said not to worry, as she would be sure to make some at home for me now that she had a handle on doing so. A few days had passed with much conversation between the three of us about this class and how delicious the homemade pasta was that they had produced during that classroom session. Carole and Adam both said how wonderful it was to be able to crank out quality pasta with the manual machines set up by the course teacher. So, finally I couldn’t take any more of their banter about this wonderful product and I decided to get out early this morning and purchase Carole a “pasta maker” of her own. I went to “Bed Bath and Beyond” and found that they had a whole skid of these machines for sale and home use. I purchased one and took it home for a surprise for Carole. When I got home, Carole was in the kitchen making a tea and asked where I’d been. I produced a bag from the store with the Pasta Maker inside. She was totally surprised and very happy that I’d thought to bring her one of her own. Since she’s a wonderful cook anyway, I figured she’d love this new feature for her kitchen and it would give her a whole new facet to explore in her kitchen activities. She quickly read through the book that came with the machine and decided to try making some pasta for tonight’s supper. In the class, they had learned how to make “Egg Plant Parmesan”. They also had learned how to make fresh noodles of different types. Since I love spaghetti and other noodle dishes Carole set about making her first home made fresh batch of noodles. Of course I was interested enough to stand and watch her make use of her new machine. As she did so, she explained to me just how to do each step of the process along the way. It was interesting to see how this delicious dish was made. She made it look so very simple indeed!

When she was finished, she had several piles of fresh noodles that she set aside to wait until Adam was home from work at 5:30pm. When he got home, she excitedly showed him the new kitchen appliance and of course the finished product she had set aside. We talked about the process and anxiously awaited the cooked version that was to be our supper for tonight. The parmesan took an hour to cook in the oven and Carole prepared the noodles in a pot on the stove top while waiting the last few minutes for the “Egg Plant” dish to finish cooking. Once the noodles were cooked and the eggplant dish was out of the oven we hurriedly sat down to take part in her lovely culinary creation of the day! WOW! Indeed it was the best Italian dish bar none that we’ve ever had. When compared to the Italian food we had experienced in Italy a couple of years ago it was equal to or better than any we had while touring Rome. Of course to go along with the fresh noodles, Carole had prepared her own pasta sauce from fresh ingredients. We all agreed that Carole had accomplished the “real” taste of Italy right here in her own kitchen! We are looking forward to having many more “Italian” creations come out of her renewed love for her new style of cooking in the near future for sure! MMMMmmmmmmm…………. Keep ‘em coming Carole!

With a smack of my lips, I’ll bring the week’s Ontarion to an end!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Like the saying goes, “When in Rome, Cook like Carole does!” LOL!


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Have a good one..
the doug
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