Issue #931

Including:

From Wayne

From Carol

From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

Firstly, I’d like to welcome Cindy to our news letter. She has been a follower for many years when dad would read it to both mom and her. Then, when mom passed on, dad continued to read it to her as their Sunday ritual. Now, with dad gone, along with loosing that part of her life, she found herself feeling left out from the letter and missing it. She is now on the mailing list via her son Doug’s computer and email address. Welcome.

It’s kind of strange how doing next to nothing seems to be so hard. I’m basically a pretty lazy person but at times I can almost feel a bit of boredom peeking from just around the corner. But, like I always say sometimes, “if you got time to kill, bore it to death”. The biggest challenge is simply not knowing….. anything, like when will it end, how will it play out, how will the economy deal with it and so on. Of course we all know what ‘IT’ is. And ‘IT’ could get real bad if we don’t all do our part. A silly blurb on social media laid it out quite well when it said something like “our parents or grandparents were asked to go to war, which they did. WE are being asked to stay home”. We can do this.

So here’s an idea, use this forum to share the good things, the unusual things, the silly things that we encounter during this enforced stay-cation. Who knows what interesting stories may end up on these digital pages. I’ll start with this….our local grocery stores have reserved their first hour of operation each day for seniors. That way the older portion of the population can get their needed supplies while the shelves are full and without the competition of younger, faster, stronger people. The grocery store doors are manned to control who can and can’t enter. It occurred to us that hey, that’s us, we are part of that senior population and therefor qualify to shop during the quiet first hour. No problem, we are up wandering around. I felt a bit strange heading in to get some groceries, with the parking lot almost empty and only a few old codgers toddling around, but in we went. The woman manning the door (herself obviously a senior) let us in without hesitation. I asked why she didn’t ask to see our ID. She looked at me with a smirk then broke out in laughter, saying something to the effect of “have you looked in a mirror lately?” I guess I can’t pass myself off as a non-senior, too much grey and too many wrinkles. We got our groceries, unhindered by crowded isles. Thats a good thing because this social distancing thing can be hard navigating tight or narrow areas.

See how easy that was, silly, irrelevant and totally forgettable. You can do it too. Have some fun with your current situation and share it with the group.

doug

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From Wayne

Lorne has been gone about two to three weeks (depending on when you read this) and so some lighter anecdotes that include my oldest brother might be appropriate. I hope it is not too soon.

We were almost ten years apart and that makes a lot of difference when one is 5 years old and the other is 15. Even at 10 years old one is conscious of the great age difference.

Nevertheless, at about age 11, that would make it 1945, Lorne took me along to the Hockridge farm for his wedding the following day. Leaving Arthur by the gravel road, Lorne asked me if I wanted to drive. Sure, that would be great. We had a makeshift garden tractor at home that had a Hupmobile engine and chassis, a Godfredson radiator and an unidentified truck transmission and rear axle. I would drive it all around our 15 acre farm and even sometimes on the Township roads so I knew how to drive.

The drive from Arthur was pretty close to a straight line up to Cedarville so away I went. At Conn, a small crossroads village, Lorne asked quietly if I had seen the stop sign that I had just passed at highway speed. No, I hadn't. Then, he thought that he had better drive the rest of the way.

Russell and I mostly played together but if Russell and Howard were playing cops and robbers, I was generally included but I had to be the robber. We were kids but I don't remember Lorne ever being a kid. As a child, by the time I remember him at all, he had "put away childish things".

I was, however, included with their drinking and Lorne would often be present, offering no incriminating remarks. He laughed aloud with Howard when, after a scorching hot day applying black heated tar to barn roofs as our day jobs, we (including me at 14 years of age) would go to Nicholson's tavern for a couple of cold ones. One time the waiter asked my age as he set my beer down in front of me. I confessed that I was 14 so I was told bluntly that that (beer) would be my last one. Well Lorne and Howard could easily figure a way to get around that little problem They simply moved to a window table and put my beer on the window sill. I was outside having a great time.

At sixteen, I worked all summer at a tennis court on Benton street, a job that our uncle Willard arranged for me. The fruit of my labours which began at 5:00am each morning and lasted until noon each day yielded a handsome total of $150 for the whole summer, the exact amount that Jim Gamble wanted for a cute little Model A Ford. I bought it. I can't remember why Lorne needed to borrow it but he did for at least a couple of months and then after that Pop borrowed it almost permanently. By that time, the engine acquired a cracked block and so water had to added continuously as well as the need to change the oil which had turned to a muddy emulsion. I guess that draining the water with the alcohol coolant from the block every night and bringing it too keep it from freezing was to much for them because each was soon sporting a nice used car and I was left with the leaky Ford.

If the Squamidian readers were not a mixed audience, I could recall a few more interesting vignettes, but I will leave it there.

Wayne

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From Carol

While going through Dad’s drawers to separate his church papers and barbershop papers I found a small notepad that was only half filled but I found the reading of it very interesting. No, it wasn’t something one of my parents had written but it is Emma Brubacher’s diary. She started writing on January 1, 1925. Mostly she did single sentences for each day until she got to her difficult labour and afterbirth time for her baby boy, Lorne. Her writing stopped after that. Her daughter, Ethel died that spring.

She started writing in the notepad 20 years later, January 1, 1945. They now had 4 more children and were living on the farm. The weather was stormy and very cold for days. Mom & Dad were stuck in Cedarville, Howard & Russel had to stay in Kitchener or they would not have been able to work. Grandpa had to walk into Centerville for his night work, Wayne and Evelyn couldn’t make it to school. Finally on January 7th the plow came through and sunshine on the 9th. May 7-8 she wrote “War over in Europe, quite a gay time all over. Kitchener police had no control over the merry makers.” She talked about my parents wedding on June 11th.

Her next heading is January 30, 1955. She listed her grandchildren with comments about each. I like what she said about Gary “Gary is a self made man of 3-1/2. He likes to see what makes things go.” He hasn’t really changed in the last 65 years has he? Grandma was aware that her children would read her words after she was gone and she had these words for them: “I want you to know that through all our hardships & setbacks God has always been beside us & we know that on the other side better things are waiting for us. Do not loose sight of God. If you do not believe in a here after you will not be able to bear what might be your cross to bear. We are lost if we go on alone. Also since my mother has passed to the other side she seems very near some times. I can feel her presence. I hope when I am gone on my way that I will be very near to you all.”

Reading this surprised me as I don’t remember Grandma ever talking about God. I certainly empathize with Emma feeling the presence of her Mom because I have the same feelings about mine. I guess it is never too late to understand better the life of family members who have left us. Russel and Wayne if have not seen this notepad of your mother’s I will be happy to get it to you.

Carol

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From Russ

I PREDICT:

>Another “Baby Boom” beginning in late November, through December, and into 2021.

>A sharp increase in “Domestic disputes” during the current “Lock-down”.

>An expected rise in “Post traumatic stress disorder” among ‘First Responders’, medical personnel, supermarket staff, and housewives.

>The ‘drinking crowd’ will do more drinking during the current COVID – 19 Pandemic.

>The ‘drinking crowd’ will continue to do more drinking LONG AFTER the coronavirus is defeated.

>The ‘drinking crowd’ will get drunk, and stay drunk because they’ve lost a fortune in the Stock Market “crash”.

>The unemployed drinking crowd will have a “drinking problem”. The problem being they won’t have money to purchase booze. And that’s a BIG problem!

>The drinking crowd will have something to celebrate when the pandemic is over. (Won’t we all!)

>All forms of taxation will increase in order to “Pay the Piper”.

>A soon-to-be-called Federal Election will defeat the Liberals.

>The NDP will form the next Government of Canada.

>The Canadian economy will remain in Recession/Depression for the next six years.

>As usual, the Banks will flourish as more and more ‘foreclosures’ take place.

>The Nations, except for “First Nations” will be ‘bankrupt’.

“Buddy, can you spare a dime”

PS

If any/all of these predictions fail to materialize it won’t bother me much as I’ll be lying next to my wife in Point Clark Cemetery. (LOL)

Russ

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Here’s hoping you’re all keeping well and being safe in your homes!

What a trying time this is! Who would ever have thought anything like this would take place. We most certainly didn’t think back in our younger days that this would happen. The Chinese people are starting to let their guard down now in Wu Hahn I sure hope they aren’t jumping the gun on this because if they are doing it too early they could and will likely cause another round of the same problem! Also Trump the jerk south of us is saying he wants everyone back to work by Easter. He’s such a moron that I’m afraid he’s going to make things worse by stirring up the hick and hillbilly assholes that think everything he’s saying is the God’s honest truth and that he knows best for the rest of the country! They tend to believe everything he’s saying when in fact, he’s only protecting his own financial interests when you analyse what he is preaching! What an idiot he is!

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Oh boy, just to get my mind off this covid crap I’m going to try to look back many years and see if it helps!

When I was in bed last night I had a dream that was as clear as day. I dreamt of my years as an apprentice in refrigeration at Zehr’s Stores. It brought back thoughts of a time when Art Cole ran his service station at the corner of Weber St and Ottawa St on the same corner as the head office of Zehr’s above their 120 Ottawa St store. We used to meet there every morning to start our days of service calls in the various stores. Art Cole used to do the service work on the vans and trucks for the refrigeration mechanics. I got to know Art from that part of the job. He asked me one time to accompany him up to his cottage on Conestoga Lake to take a look at his beer fridge. It had been getting warmer every week he was at the cottage. It was obviously losing it’s refrigerant charge so I agreed to go with him one weekend and recharge his fridge! We went up early on a Saturday morning and spent the day there. I took along my tools and gauges so I could assess and refill the amount of refrigerant it needed. Of course after we finished that task, we had to test out the temperature of the product it was being used to cool down. That meant drinking several if not more of the beers within! Thankfully Art liked the same brand of beer I did so the day worked out well. The product was Molson’s Export Ale. My chosen brand for the next 40 years of my drinking life! That came to an end back in 1998 when I had my first heart surgery in London when the surgeon told me that I could only have one or two on a weekend! I said at that time if I’m that restricted on my intake of alcohol I’ll just do without it altogether and I haven’t had more than a half dozen over the following 22 years. I think my health has been better for that exclusion for sure!

Art and I made it home that day but encountered a major accident on the way. On the way home via highway 86 as we approached the Conestoga river bridge the vehicle about 100 yards ahead of us suddenly swerved back and forth across the road and blasted through the railing of the bridge and down the embankment onto the river’s edge. Luckily it stopped at that point or the driver would have been in deep water and deep trouble. Even more so than just from the accident! We of course had no cell phones in those days so while I climbed down to the vehicle to see if the driver was ok, Art ran to the Wallenstein feed mill that was just up the road a way. I found that the driver was cut up a bit on his face but was conscious and talking when I reached him. He looked at me and said “What the Hell just happened?” I said “I was just about to ask you the same thing!” He replied that he didn’t know what happened and that he suddenly blacked out and when I reached his car he woke up! At that point I could smell the booze on him from 3 feet away from his side window. I said just stay in the car because my friend had gone for help. It wasn’t long before the police and fire department’s arrived on the bridge above. Art and I had to stick around to give our statements to the OPP and then we were back on the road to home. I remember commenting to Art that if we hadn’t stayed at the cottage long enough to sober up from the earlier day’s beer sampling that we might have been the ones down at the river’s edge! I think that traumatic event stuck with both Art and me for a long time after. We used to have a few beers at his garage many times before quitting work and going home but after that event, we stopped doing that for a few months! Eventually we got back into enjoying a few on occasion but even that wore off shortly and it stopped altogether.

When I woke up this morning and was thinking how clear that dream was it brought back a flood of other memories of my days at Zehr’s Stores.

One more memorable occasion from those days is of course my meeting my lovely wife as she was a Zehr’s employee as well and we struck up a friendship and eventually a relationship and as they say, the rest is history! One lasting 47 years so far!

That’s about it for this week!

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

Keep washing those hands and STAY HOME!

PPS: The surgeon in London agreed with me that Export was indeed the best beer on the market at the time and told me that it was beer of choice as well. I told him to have a couple for me that very weekend since I would no longer be partaking in that sport from that moment on!

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