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The Squamidian Report – Sept. 7/19
Issue #902
Including: From Lorne From Russ The Ontarion Hi All, How can this be? Not only are we now into September but we are a full week into September. Didn’t summer just get started? One of the things that got so ingrained into people when they were kids (that sort of implies that kids aren’t yet people) is the ‘going back to school’ thing at the beginning of September. It takes years after getting out of school and on with life before that feeling subsides a bit. Who of us doesn’t remember going back to school at the end of summer. As much as I’d like to forget any and all of that part of my life those memories are still there, dredged up yearly by everything from back to school adds to safety promotions to the slight changes in the weather. I spent many summers up on the farm, helping out as best I could. Much against my wishes I’d be delivered back to my parent’s place just in time to get ready for the dreaded drudgery of sitting in a class room. It probably took several hours of scrubbing to scrape the farm smell off but I really didn’t mind smelling like a farm. Mom would have somehow come up with new back to school cloths for all of us. Do you remember being oh say about 8 or 10 or 12 and pulling a new T-shirt over your head but your head was always bigger than the head hole in the T-shirt. Getting it off was worse, felt like someone was pulling your head off. Then there was that first day, waiting out on the playground for your name to be called by whatever teacher was going to be stuck with you for that year. I hated that, and often found myself along with one or two others standing alone at the end, our names had been missed or left off the lists, perhaps by a wishful school staff, who knows. Then there was the horrible stuff we had to endure like learning things that didn’t interest us (me) at all. Or the really stupid music that was imposed upon us. It was in about grade 4 or so that we were forced to learn a stupid song called ‘Sunny September’ and it was such a horrid thing that it still insists on taking up room in the file cabinets of my brain. No matter how hard I try, I can’t shake it out and forget it. The first verses went something like this…. “Sunny September has come again Come again, Come again Sunny September has come again Bringing the fair Autumn weather Friends we know and new friends too You smile at them and they smile at you Sunny September has come again Bringing the fair Autumn weather” That memory just about makes me wretch! The atrocities that we as kids were put though! I think those of us who were in public school back in the ‘50s deserve an apology from the ministry of education, heck, the governments all apologies to everyone eles. A waisted attempt at education for me at least, I learned more by teaching it to myself than I ever did sitting in a class room where I was constantly being belittle by the teachers for not being interested in the drivel they were exposing us to. I can remember pointing out to the teacher during a social studies class in about grade 5 (a mix of history and geography if memory serves) that South America and Africa, as well as Australia and Antarctica, looked like that could have fit together at some point in time and asked if that could have been the case. That teacher berated me in front of the class for being such a stupid moron for thinking such a thing. A short 10 years later plate tectonics was a proven and accepted science. At the time of my so called stupid question it had already been proven by US Navy scientists as a result of their mapping of the ocean floors but that was not public knowledge yet. So, after all these years I still get that ‘back to school’ feeling and I don’t like it, just wish it would go away. Oh well, at my age the occasional rant can’t hurt all that much. *
Almost
forgot, I got a call from the editor / reporter of our local weekly
newspaper last weekend. I’d talked to her before over the years and had
been mentioned in a few articles regarding the gondola. She wanted to
chat about how the gondola situation was effecting people like us, and
to put an article in the paper. Which she did, and if you’re
interested, it can be seen on-line at this link.https://www.squamishchief.com/news/local-news/he-s-ridden-the-gondola-1-317-times-hear-how-this-squamish-man-feels-about-the-wait-to-ride-again-1.23933601 And just so you know, the gondola has opened the Base Camp and retail outlet to the public again. Thats a good thing. Once the site had been released as a crime scene the public could come back onto that part of the establishment. The tower areas and upper lodge areas are still out of bounds and will stay that way for quite a while. Anyway, last Saturday the cafe etc was opened and everyone went, it was like a cross between a street party and a family reunion. There were a lot of teary eyes as staff and ‘customers’ mingled and mixed. It was a good thing, and important to do as soon as they could. I’ve been there every morning since for a coffee and a visit. That helps with dealing with the lose. doug
**** From Lorne the kids inheritance to pay for all that wood trimming. Now the latest. Wed. afternoon while practicing with my small group, I slowly became aware that weakness was overtaking me so I sat down, recovered somewhat, stood again but soon had to sit. Slowly I was going into a faint. The others noticed and called 911. The ambulance, fire truck and police cars were there instantly or so it seemed to me. Later I was told they timed the time it took from the call was 12 minutes. Arriving at the hospital, the usual waiting in the hall on a stretcher bed was about 2 hours then into emergency. After many tests the conclusion was that my heat beat was erratic and blood pressure very low. Possible that the medication is no longer appropriate. Doctor's appointment at 2 pm to-day, Thurs. and a return to the hospital Sat. morning for a 24 hour monitor hook-up. Oh, I almost forgot, they sent me home about 9 pm last night. Nothing else much happening so that's it for  **** From Russ Dogs I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like them (and don’t want to). I know from personal experience how deeply attached we become to our pets, and when the time comes that they have reached the end of their short lifespan, the ‘parting’ is always painful. The latest departure we mourn is for Harley; a “Bichon-Poodle” mix who gave his ‘parents’ (and all who knew him) fourteen and one-half years of pleasure. During the last couple of years his pancreas was giving him pain, but medication helped him live on with less painful attacks. Then, the big “C” developed in a front leg, and although operated upon to remove the cancer, the ugly disease returned, and by this time Harley was probably too weak and wouldn’t survive another operation. My son, Greg and his beautiful wife, Bettie had to make a heartbreaking decision; is it time? How much longer can Harley survive? Is it cruel of us to keep on trying to keep him alive? Finally, the ‘stronger’ of the two, (Bettie) gave the approval, and on September 3rd while holding him in their arms, Harley went peacefully into “eternal sleep”. “We’ll never get another pet!!” They vowed with tearful sincerity. *
On
a less sad note; the word “dogs” have referred to one’s feet (probably
initiated by WW1 or WW2 foot soldiers who were submitted to miles and
cruel miles of marching/walking until their feet “dogs” screamed with
pain!) And more recently, yours truly, when first beginning my job as a
cop, also had to walk many miles on the ‘beat’ with the result that my
“dogs” actually left me in such pain I collapsed on the street –
luckily it was during midnight shift, and nobody saw me crawl to a
nearby doorway to silently scream in pain.Because diabetes attacks the feet I’m a patient of a Registered Chiropodist and during a regular appointment the other day, she discovered an ulcer on my right heel; I have had ulcers on my dogs before, but never on a heel. Any open sore on the feet of a diabetic is bad news – they don’t heal without special medical attention, and the location of this ulcer is “out-of-reach” for this old man. “Who is your family doctor?” she asked, and I told her. “Excuse me a moment” said Jennifer (we’re on a ‘first name” basis as I’ve been her patient for 10 years) as she hurried out of the room. When she returned (and it was only a moment) she had contacted the doctor’s office and arranged for a nurse to come to my home and continue to dress the sore until healed! “It will be two days before you see the nurse practitioner; meanwhile here’s a prescription for the two meds I’m ordering”. On the bit, that girl! I guess when “You’re in the loop” you can get things done fast. Oh-oh, just got off the phone with LHIN (the organization which provides the nurses) and “due to Doug Ford’s cuts”, the whole province is experiencing a nursing shortage, and it will be at least 48 hours before a nurse even calls me to schedule an appointment. Now, we’re back to ‘square one’! (Speaking of ‘dogs’ – it’s a ‘bitch’!) Stay tuned.
Your ‘foot-weary’ Uncle Russ. **** THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! This is one of those weeks that Doug spoke about where I’m struggling to find something to write about! There of course is lots in the news this past week like the hurricane that struck the Bahamas but of course you already know all about that and the outcome of the disaster. So I think I’ll just talk about what’s been on my mind many times over this past year and that is the many mass shooting happenings in the States. The two different happenings in Texas were just a shame if you ask me and unfortunately they likely won’t be the last ones either. With the liberal gun laws in the States I’m sure we’ll be hearing of more of the same in the future. It seems that when one can openly carry a handgun the use of such items is much easier to happen than settling problems with discussions when one gets a little ticked off over almost nothing! There was a situation in Texas as well shortly after the last mass shooting where three guys went into a Popeye’s Chicken outlet and when the person serving them told the one fellow that they were out of chicken sandwiches he pulled a gun and threatened to kill the server if she didn’t make him one immediately. She called the manager to settle the problem and when he confirmed that they were all out of chicken sandwiches he was threatened with harm as well. The three guys finally settled down and left the store without killing anyone but they could very well have followed through with their threats! Thank goodness they calmed down and left without murdering anyone. The States really has to do something about the overzealous cowboy attitude of their gun toting redneck citizens! I also don’t think that their president is helping the situation with his nutcase comments either. He’s encouraging people to keep on settling things through violence just by supporting their “Right to bare arms!” I know that “right” is written as part of the US Constitution and would take an act of Congress to change but someone has to do something to stop the violence! I for one will think twice about taking even a day trip to Niagara Falls NY like we’ve done many times over the years just to enjoy a little time away. I think you’ll remember when I wrote in one of my columns a few months ago about a 12 year old boy we saw waving a gun around in front of a McDonald’s restaurant in Niagara Falls NY on one of our day trips to that area. He’s just lucky he didn’t use the gun to do harm before the police showed up to stop his foolish behavior and take the weapon away from him. It was indeed a frightening situation for us to witness! Thank God we don’t have such liberal laws in Canada. We’ve got enough problems with handguns here in Canada when you read about all the shootings in Toronto involving Gang situations. We’ve even had a total of 15 violent shootings right here in Waterloo Region so far this year and it scares the heck out of me to think that at any time it can happen again in our own town. I heard Brian Larkin our police chief on the radio the other day talking about just such happenings in the region and he alluded to the fact that people from the Toronto area have perpetrated most of the shootings in Waterloo Region! It seems that these troublemakers figure it’s much easier to jump in their car and get out of KW before they get arrested for committing a gun crime than it would be to do so in Toronto. It’s like we’re a small town so it’s easier and I guess they may be right! What a scary situation it is to think of being shot by some nutcase while enjoying a walk through one of our malls or even just walking along in downtown Kitchener or Waterloo one sunny afternoon! I hope things don’t ever come to that here in KW but after all, we are becoming a much larger city these days. Let’s just hope that our police force manages to get a handle on the situation of illegal handguns and are able to control things before KW becomes another “Dodge City” of the old American west! That’s about all I have to say for this week folks! 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>Maybe we should consider putting up a wall around the region! But NO, that would be too Trumpish! ****
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. |