Issue #933
Including:

From Russ
From Kyra
From Nova Scotia Sus
From Carol
The Ontarion

Hi All,

I know I’ve suggested that readers send in things that are light hearted, silly, or whatever. Well, that doesn’t seem to be happening as much as I’d hoped, oh well. Anyway, I’ve got a some of gripes to get off my chest so here goes…..

Firstly, remember how last week I complained about how it just wouldn’t warm up here, well, just after that someone turned a switch and we’ve now been having incredibly nice late spring weather, clear with warm days and cool nights. That’s obviously not what I’m gripping about but it’t causal to this first gripe. Everyone is being told to stay home, do not travel, do not congregate in groups etc. Well, BC has closed all the municipal and provincial parks to keep people from doing just that. So, all the morons from the city come up this way and head back the forestry access road in order to camp illegally, all over the place. The back roads are clogged with vehicles, there are camp fires all over the place and bush parties all over. The authorities are trying to stop it but to no avail. Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton have all put adds in the papers saying “do not come here, we don’t have the resources to handle you” but they just keep on coming. What is wrong with people?

Emergencies, on any scale, tend to bring out the best and worst in people. This one is no different because people are no different. Case in point for the ‘worst in people’….the medical staff at the Vancouver hospitals are finding themselves working long hours, often going many hours longer than expected. Hospital parking is ‘paid parking’. One must pay to park be they a doctor, nurse, admin staff or patient. This has always bugged me because hospitals tend to be quite necessary. On the other hand, casinos etc are also provincial institutions and yet parking is free at them. Go figure, park for free if you want to gamble but pay through the nose if you need or give medical services. Kind of shows you where government priorities are. Anyway, it came out in the news that nurses and other hospital staff who have found themselves working longer than expected were finding parking tickets on their cars, some tickets charging $80 or more. Ludicrous, unfair, appalling.

So, under pressure from an outraged public, the provincial government decided to temporarily drop partaking fees at the hospitals. Great, only it backfired due to the unimaginable number of total low-lifes and jerks out there who dumped their vehicles in the now free parking spots around the hospitals instead of parking where they normally would. Nurses, doctors, and patients suddenly couldn’t find anywhere to park at all. The only way to solve the problem was to reinstate the parking fees and let each ticket be argued on it’s own basis. There are a lot of people in this world that are a total waste of oxygen.

Then there is the postal system, at least as we see it here in Squamish. It’s obviously a vital industry and needs to be open and available. To that end, and in order to protect themselves at our local outlets, and to protect the public, they reduced the hours to 2.5hr per day. The whole community needs the postal services, we are being encouraged to order stuff on line rather that go into stores, many of which are now closed. And yet, the whole community must now funnel through a 2.5hr window, lining up out on the sidewalk, sometimes running out of time in said lineup, in order to pick up, drop off or otherwise deal with Canada Post. This is so blatantly counter productive that it could only come from the mind of a bureaucrat. Ludicrous. Good grief I hope this is over soon, before people like me start blowing fuses.

And now for another relaxing musical interlude…….

For this week I’ve dug up an old Oak Ridge Boys song from way back in the ‘70’s. The lyrics of this one work very well with our current situation, and, its a nice song. So, my cover of it is what you get. I think this one turned out technically and musically better than last week’s but that’s all subjective. Just follow the link to listen to ‘I Guess It Never Hurts To Hurt Sometime’.

I Guess It Never Hurts To Hurt Sometime

doug

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From Russ

Easter - It's not the same.

Easter Sunday we all went to church and sang those old familiar hymns:

Christ the Lord is risen today. Alleluia!

Up from the grave He arose, a mighty triumph or’ His foes....

And, after the Service we’d go home and the fun began – the annual Easter basket hunt!

Pop would hide a basket for each of us kids the night before. It was always warm as I remember, and finding our treasure was never easy, we’d work up quite a sweat and a big appetite trying to find our own baskets. The yard was a big one, and there were many hiding places, Pop was skilled at this task. It seemed to take hours to find all the hidden baskets, but we usually did.

One Easter, brother Howard couldn’t find his basket and ‘we’ finally had to give up. OK, Pop – where is it? He retraced his steps, we were hot-on-his-heels, he went round-and-round the yard, but couldn’t find that last basket. The hunt was ‘officially’ called off!

Every family raised chickens back then, so eggs were cheap and easy to come by – ours was no exception. We took our baskets which contained, what else? Eggs – about a half dozen each, into the kitchen and proceeded to peel and gobble-down most all of our brightly-coloured eggs which Mom had laboriously dyed long into the night before. Thanks, Mom. But, I can still feel my stomach ache like I had swallowed door-knobs!

It’s not the same. Today, fewer and fewer people go to church and nobody would even think of hiding eggs out-doors.

The ‘kicker’ to this story is: in July of the year Pop hid the eggs someone of us found Howard’s Easter basket. PHEEOOH!!

Uncle Russ.

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From Kyra

Hi Im kyra, my puppy can climb up and down the stairs now. At first she learned to climb up them by following us. Then she learned to go down them all by herself. Now she can run all over in gramma’s house.

Kyra

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From Nova Scotia Sus

I laughed out loud when I read about Doug hitting himself in the head with his sleeping arm in the middle of the night. I also have experienced a similar occurrence.

Many years ago I visited my brother Dennis who lived in Lions Bay B.C. We had been out hiking and I couldn't get over the size of the slugs everywhere. Well that night I woke up to something beside me that felt cold, clammy and long. Freaking out I reached for the lamp to see what it was. Much to my relief it was my arm that had no feeling and dead to the world at least until I rubbed it back to life. I guess those slugs were on my mind a little too much.

We are doing fine staying home and staying healthy. Its almost hard to know what day it is because I'm not keeping track. We have done some home renovations with what supplies we have. The chickens are getting lots of attention and loving it. Our new cat is finally getting outside and exploring our property. We cut and split lots of wood for next winter and the list goes on and on. The good thing is we are getting a good workout. Also I started baking my own bread and have improved immensely.

I hope everyone is doing good and staying healthy. If we all do our part we can get rid of this dreaded flue and get back to our normal lives. I know my clients cant wait to get their hair done..... there will be lots of shaggy grey hairs to attend too.

Take care,

Sus

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From Carol

This will be a very strange Easter. Today (Good Friday) I watched a service on the internet as we cannot meet as a church. A large group of us have been gathering at the Homestead every Good Friday afternoon to colour Easter eggs, have a wood party and hold the “ceremony of the wood pile”. This is where we take turns, youngest to oldest, throwing our containers of egg dye on the wood pile. This started the first Easter the parents had a wood stove. The young ones (now in their 40s) hated to pour the dye down the sink after the eggs were all coloured. Dad came up with the idea of throwing the dye on the wood pile instead. A tradition was born. Some of the faces have changed over the years but usually there are more then 20 gathered. Obviously this year we cannot congregate. This has not shut down the tradition. Ali & her girls threw their dye on a wood pile in their own back yard in Blenheim. Gale baptized her own wood pile. Al, Nick & I coloured a few eggs at the Homestead today just so we could throw the dye on the wood pile. Jessica & James brought their own cups of colour over, after we left and threw it on. Everyone has posted pictures on Facebook. So all of you can do the same in your own homes. Beth, Vivvy & Jamie will be adding their colour to the pile and posting, I hope.

The other tradition in the family that stems from when Dad was little is hiding Easter baskets. With the family grown it has just been bunnies that have been hidden for years. New people to the family usually had their bunny hidden in the most difficult places; such as placed in a plastic bag and buried in the garden or down the chimney or so far up in a tree it couldn’t be seen. When Nick was young he wanted to help hide so we gave him James’ and told him not to tell where he put it. Nick being Nick he refused to say even when the bunny just couldn’t be found. It turned up 3 years later. Al & I have hidden a number of chocolate bunnies outside at the Homestead for people to find. We didn’t put names on them because we can’t all be there together and we have no idea who will show up to look, so it is a first come first find bases. Jessica, James & Jenna have theirs. Anyone of you are invited to search but on Monday or Tuesday we will be digging out those still left, if any.

Easter Sunday will also be very different for those of us who never miss church. Again we will find a service on the internet, just not the same as greeting everyone. I still plan on cooking a turkey and savory rolls but will be leaving Beth’s share for them, not sharing the meal. On Tuesday we celebrated Duncan’s birthday on Zoom so maybe we can share Easter dinner with everyone the same way. Covid 19 or not, it is still Easter and we need that message of hope and resurrection more then ever this year. If we have all taken the lessons of this virus to heart there should be fewer colds and flu going around in the future. I mean continuing to hand wash and gargle the moment we get home, not going out if we suspect we may have contacted a sickness and, Doug will like this one, not shaking hands nor hugging when we greet people. Have a blessed Easter, wherever you are and stay safe.

Carol

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Hope you’re all well and staying safely inside!

With all the quarantines and controls that are on us right now it’s difficult to keep busy with meaningful things in our lives! I’m sure we can all find stuff to occupy our time inside! We’ve been busy out in the yard a lot of the time. I’ve uncovered the pond out back and to my surprise the water in it is clear and pretty clean. I have had to net out a few leaves and a little settlement that usually settles to the bottom over the winter. It’s good to finally have the cover off so the back yard doesn’t seem quite so winterized! I have a 2x4 wooden structure that I lay over the face of the pond each year and I then cover that with a green 10x 10 foot tarp and it’s stapled to the 2x4’s to keep the winter snow etc out! Moles that often burrow their way through tunnels they eat across the grass beneath the snow in winter haven’t done any damage this winter so that’s a bonus for sure! The only thing we’ve seen this spring are a couple of Rats that were eating the seeds that were dropped from the bird feeder that I have attached to a bracket on the flag pole beside the pond. The birds love the seeds all winter and in the spring we like to see the different breeds of birds that come to the feeder. The problem is that the birds drop as many of the seeds as they eat and that attracts the odd rat from the hydro right of way out behind our place. The fact that our neighbours beside us don’t clean up their back yard full of dead leaves in the fall seems to attract the rats over the winter and then they find their way over to the dropped seeds in the spring. It’s not a big deal though, since the rats ( all two of them) only stay around until the seeds are all eaten up then they disappear! We only saw them out there a few times over the past couple of weeks and they are now gone! With the cover off the pond, they don’t have any shelter and have headed back to the field out back I guess. Who knows, maybe the couple next door trapped them and ate them along with their curry dinners!

One of the advantages of being cooped up inside is that we can now get down to watching many of the videos we have collected over the past 20 some years. We have a collection of all of the James Bond videos and have been watching them this past week or so. It’s good to see them again and watch how the stars in the role of James have evolved! I’ve been a James Bond fan ever since the Sean Connery days and he’s still my favourite actor in that role! The newest replacement for him Daniel Craig doesn’t seem to have the same amount of “Cool” that Sean had in his days as James! There have been quite a few actors take that role over the years! Let’s see if I can name them all? Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton although not in that order! I’m sure I got them all but if I missed any, please write in and let me know which one or ones! I don’t think there were more than the seven I’ve named but I could be wrong! I suppose I could look up the list on the net but that would be cheating! It’s fun to look back on these films and with our collection of everything from VHS to video discs over the years we will be able to keep entertained for as many months as this Covid Virus lasts! Some of our discs or tapes contain the whole series of films in only one of two discs. That means we have weeks and weeks of movies to watch so we won’t starve for entertainment, that’s for sure. I can think of many that I want to rewatch! For instance, the Indiana Jones series alone will take a week or so to watch. There are also the many TV series that we have on tape or disc that will take many an evening to go through. I am also looking forward to watching The Godfather series as well as the Sopranos series too! There are many gangster movies that I liked over the years and they are all available either in our collection or on Netflix on TV. Carole likes to watch the romantic movies on their specific channel and I like to watch the various car building shows that are on as well. I’ll do that when Carole is busy with other stuff and I’ll even watch some of her romantic shows when I’m not otherwise occupied! I pretty much watch anything but the one type of movie I’m not fussed on watching is Sci Fi! I never have been much of a Sci Fi or Horror movie buff! For some reason since my heart surgery I haven’t liked to watch scary movies. The ones that are Devil related and real spooky tend to get on my nerves for some reason. Guess maybe I’m just getting old and my nerves can’t take all the scary stuff!

We’ve been getting outside as I said earlier and I actually managed to mow the lawn yesterday for the first time this year! I also changed the oil in the Toro snow blower yesterday and now it’s being stored for the summer. The next project will be to change the oil in the lawn mower before I give it too much use! It will see lots of action this coming summer I’m sure!

I’m actually looking forward to mowing the lawn a few times a week for the exercise and also for the fresh air it affords me when I get outside!

Watching movies is good for the evenings but it’s nice to get outside during the daytime. Especially when we’re cooped up most of the days that aren’t raining or too cold while the Covid 19 is still running rampant!

That’s about all I have 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

PS: Something To Think About>

Please keep all your friends and family in your prayers. Also include all the front line health workers and First Responders in your thoughts and prayers as well!