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Issue #1071
Including:

From BC Sue

From Russ

From Nova Scotia Sus

The Ontarion

Hey There,

This day and age of zero customer service is frustrating to say the least. We needed to replace our TV remote control unit. That should be relatively simple. But, no, its not. Firstly, you can’t just pick up the phone and call your cable company, the ones who supplied and installed the PVR box and accompanying controller. Well, you can but be prepared to sit on hold for the rest of your life. And of course there is no ‘brick and mortar’ store to walk into where, in a perfect world, you would speak to someone at a service counter and they in turn would hand you the item you needed. The only option was to go on line and work through countless pages of information and instructions, most of which are of no use at all (and most likely designed to make you simply give up and go away,) and then once fully informed and prepared, open a ‘chat’ session with someone who is somewhere out there in the world. Then, type your questions and situation into said ‘chat’ box and wait for a reply. Eventually a reply pops up and from there you go back and forth, typing and reading, until possibly a solution to your problem might be found.

As it was, having them (Shaw Cable) agree to send out a new TV remote control unit was was the easiest part of the ‘chat’ session. What became a problem was the fact that they had part of our house address wrong (they call it the ‘service address’) and getting that fixed proved to be frustrating. It has been wrong for the last 20 years and every time I’ve ever tried to deal with them I’ve tried to get it corrected but you know how bureaucracy works…. Not going to happen. Anyway, after proving that I am indeed ‘me’ and live where I say I live and not where they think I live, a new remote unit might possibly be mailed out to us. We shall see.

*

Winter has hit the BC coastal area quite hard and quite quickly. The local ski hills have been open for a while now but the lower elevations had stayed mostly bare and dry, until this week. On Tuesday afternoon a big snowstorm moved in and immediately paralyzed the whole Vancouver area including the Fraser Valley and Howe Sound areas. By Wednesday morning, as the snow tapered off, we had received over a foot of nice white snow. Commuters trying to get home in and throughout the area had real problems. For starters, while winter rated tires are mandatory in our area, they are not required in the GVA and the result is massive issues on the highways and in the cities. There were reports of drivers being stranded on one of the bridges over the Fraser River for 9 or 10 hours due to spin-outs and crashes. Most commuters trying to return to Squamish simply stayed in the city as this highway became impassable.

We stayed home, snug as a bug in a rug and watched the snow come down. By late evening on Tuesday our neighbor decided to shovel our driveway for us as I’m still a bit of an invalid. He wasn’t making much progress as by then the snow was almost a foot deep so I asked if he’d like to use my snow blower. I showed him how to start it and explained how best to use it on our steep driveway and away he went. However, he didn’t really catch on and made a big mess but at least he tried. Next morning, with another half foot of new snow on top of the mess, Sue headed out with a shovel and began to clean things up. The neighbors all know I’m still laid up with my hip and one came over with his blower and cleaned up along the road and another grabbed a shovel and helped finish the driveway. All the while I was standing in the garage, leaning on my crutches and feeling helpless to help. I did manage to throw the road salt out onto the driveway and that gave me something useful to do.

I know that the rest of the country tends to laugh at the massive fuster-cluck that a given snowfall tends to impose on the GVA. And yes, the west coast drivers are simply incapable of driving in snow or slippery conditions. But there is more to it than that. For one thing, while a city like Montreal has a winter snow budget of nearly $108 million dollars, Vancouver’s budget is about $4 million and the surrounding cities have even smaller budgets for snow removal, and when it snows on the west coast, well, it SNOWS on the west coast. Then there is the fact that while the cities control and service the streets and highways within them, the province controls the bridges and those bridges are vital to anyone trying to get around within the Lower Mainland. Add to that the fact that Vancouver and area are very hilly (the mountains come right down to the sea) and have some very steep streets, steeper than anything you might see in most other areas of the country. So, given government jurisdictions and city budgets and bad drivers who refuse to install winter tires, well, you end up with a mess. Oh, one other factor…. The snow out here is different from the snow most of you are used to. It comes down hard and heavy and immediately turns to ice when stepped on or driven on so the streets become skating rings as soon as the first vehicle drives on them. And thats all I have to say about that.

doug

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From BC Sue

Our Feathered Friends

A female crow that we call “Beaky”, regularly visits us multiple times daily. Her lower beak is longer than the upper beak. In recent months, she has brought her mate and occasionally her latest offspring.

They enjoy having their bread slices cubed which they dip in the water bowl provided. They also get cubed wieners slices and leftover meat offerings.

Overnight Squamish was blanketed with 14 inches of new snow. Beaky brought her mate only, today. He has learned the routine, however with the deep snow he is learning that if he looks in our dining room window, he can get our attention.

I wasn’t fast enough to get food out today, so he has upped his game by perching on the snow thrower handle, next to the window and tapping firmly on the glass.

Apparently, I can be trained!

Sorry Rosemary, we have not been able to get any good pictures of these crows. They seem to get nervous and disappear as soon as we point a camera at them.

Sue

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From Russ

Old time remedies Vs. pop-a-pill

Remember when you were a kid and you never took a pill? Take a look in your medicine chest now and start counting. I take 15 pills every day! That's 5,475 a year - can't be good for my stomach! Seems every time I go to my doctor and for whatever ailment, he writes another prescription (for which he gets paid) Many of us suffer from being 'over-subscribed' (or for being given the wrong medicine!) Don't get me wrong, we've come a long way from the 'good-old-days' and we are probably healthier than our grandparents, simple because we live longer.

I've been having a lot of fun looking back to those old days and the remedies we used to ease a sore throat; prevent nausea; cure constipation; relieve respiratory congestion; ease the pain of burns; remove warts; clean our teeth, bodies, and clothes, etc. For the next couple of weeks we'll take you back to a bunch of those 'Old Time Home Remedies' (some of which are still very much in use today - maybe even by you?) I'll put an asterisk * by the ones I was subjected to as a child, or still use today.

As I write, there is an acute shortage of medicine for our poor, little ones and, as a result they are suffering from respiratory congestion, pain, and fear - Mom can do nothing to help her poor children - she suffers along with them. "Mom can do nothing ?" My Mom would make a *mustard plaster poultice and slap it onto my little, bare, heaving chest. Of course all you 'seasoned' Moms know how to make a mustard compress, so I'll direct my instructions to only the young Mothers.

Start with a dry mustard (Keen's is a good one), and stir warm water (or olive oil) into about 2 tablespoons (or more - the more mustard, the stronger the heat!) until you have a smooth paste. Spread the paste evenly upon a small sheet of warm, wet, cheesecloth making a soft, moist mass. Cover the compress with more warm, wet, cheesecloth placing it over the breast-bone of the wee one. Now, place a warm, dry towel over the child's chest and wait for the screams.

Note: your kids will always scream - even if they feel no pain, but the heat may become too intense, so stick your hand under the poultice frequently - if it feels hot to your hands, it's too hot for the child's chest, so it's time to remove the compress. In my case, 10 minutes was long enough - I screamed when my Mom forgot to put the cheesecloth over my bare, little, chest. The mustard plaster, which creates it's own heat, was directly upon my bare, little, helpless, self! Result - I couldn't eat a hot-dog for years!

Caution: Don't use a mustard plaster poultice on children under 5 years. They will hate your guts!

*Bread & milk poultice A home remedy for boils, and abscesses was the purpose for applying a bread & milk poultice (compress) which would bring the painful infection to a "head", so it could be 'lanced', or left to heal on its own. As the name implies, bread is soaked in warm milk until it is mush (it doesn't have to be sliced bread, but slices are easier to use in this case) The soft, moist mass is heated to body temperature, and smeared onto the infected area and covered with warm cloths to retain the heat. Mom must have used old milk as the compress turned sour and stunk a bunch! Maybe that's why I never pour milk onto hot, oatmeal porridge - I use a little butter/margarine instead of milk.

One time I remember, the bread & milk poultice didn't do the trick, so Mom had to take me to Doctor Morisson, whose office was on Queen Street, South in Kitchener. Pop was likely 'on-the-road' with his oil business, so we had to take the trolley from Centreville to the Kitchener Streetcar Terminal across from the Car Barns on King Street, East where we boarded a streetcar which took us to the far, south-end of Queen Street. The trolley took us from Centreville to Queen Street, South - then we walked a long way north to the office of Dr. Morisson. Walking stooped-over, as the pain from my abscess prevented me from walking upright, Mom was "ashamed" to be seen walking with me.

"Ach!" she complained, "walk straight - you look some kind of a cripple!"

*Plantain poultice. Plantain was a 'weed' that grew all over our property and, sure enough, Mom found a use for it - she made a poultice from this useless weed by first washing some large, green, leaves she plucked from a plant, and after drying most of the water, she pricked the leaves with a dinner fork, until they were limp and juicy. This she placed directly upon any infection that we complained hurt, or made us scratch too much.

Urine (ones own), for ear aches. We had a neighbor in Centreville who kept his wife pregnant at all times, she in turn produced babies annually. At the time referred to in this Report (1940's), they had 10 children - mostly boys, who for some reason suffered from frequent ear aches. The parents were short and it's not surprising the kids were also stunted. The children all looked alike, and when they were running around, it was impossible to count them. So there may have been more than 10 kids in the Thuler family. I'm not sure of the spelling of their name, but I am sure of their remedy for ear aches. I was privileged to watch a session live!

Here's how: they peed in a cup and, using a red, rubber seringe, drew some of their own, warm, urine, cocked their respective little heads sideways, squirted the urine into an ear. Holding this position until the pee lost most of it's warmth, they would switch ears repeating the process. It smells bad, and it works!

Next week, I'll share a few more true stories about Old Time Remedies.

Russ (age 93.5 happy years)

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From Nova Scotia Sus

The unavoidable has now happened to us. Covid has finally caught up with us. Not sure how. We have been quite good at avoiding people. Mostly working outside in the fresh air and with my hairstyling business my clients would not come if they were sick. So I couldn't be safer. It is a mystery how it caught up with us. We have had all our shots and boosters. So now we are staying low, watching lots of old movies and sleeping lots. So not much to write about.

Sus

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The Ontarion

Hello everyone!

With the past three years of putting up with Covid 19 restrictions, we’ve been staying home and pretty much in the house most of the time! We’ve been venturing out pretty much only for doctor’s appointments and to pick up the groceries we’ve needed and that’s about all! It’s been akin to being in a jail cell! However, the other day Carole and I had some business to take care of in Waterloo which meant we had to drive from our end of Kitchener to the other end of Waterloo at the time. Having not been out to that extend for the past three years we were amazed at how much the twin cities have changed.

Back when uncle Russ was walking the beat in downtown Kitchener as a police officer and I was an 11 year old boy working for Morris Custom Tailors downtown we knew what the downtown looked like and pretty much the location of every business on the main street of town. King St was a very familiar place to both of us indeed. Even when I was a teenager, the King St strip of Kitchener hadn’t changed much. I remember that the tallest Sky Scraper was the new Canada Trust building on the corner of King St and Water St. It was 12 stories tall I think and still is. However, when Carole and I were on our way home from the drive to Waterloo, I decided to drive the full length of King St from North Waterloo down into the east end of Kitchener just to see how much things had changed over the past few years. I figured we’d drive all the way down through Kitchener to Ottawa St and then take Ottawa St home to Forest Heights area to get home!

To say the least, we were both shocked to see the difference in the city scape of downtown Kitchener!

There are at least a dozen or more new buildings scattered around the downtown that tower to at least 20 stories in height! It was as if we’d taken a wrong turn and wound up in midtown Toronto! To be truthful, I can’t honestly say how many huge sky scrapers are now dotting the streets of Kitchener and Waterloo! In Waterloo alone there must be 20 new monster buildings surrounding the two universities that have been a mainstay of Waterloo since I’ve been retired from Waterloo Fire Dept! I can imagine that most of them were built to accommodate the huge number of students that attend these two schools. However, there are also many that contain condos for those who are attracted to living in the uptown core of Waterloo. I’m sure that this is the same in main street area of Kitchener as well. It’s becoming a mini Toronto with all of these new sky scrapers being built! King St, Victoria St, Charles St as well as Duke and Weber St are filled with these giant buildings and I’m sure that if anybody such as Karl and Karin were to take a trip home to Kitchener they’d be in total shock to see there beloved old KW in the state that it’s become over the past 5 years of more! The main street that Uncle Russ and I knew back in the 50’s and 60’s is no longer! I’ve come to think that I should have taken the time to photograph all of the former buildings that dotted with familiarity the main downtown of Kitchener when I was a young boy and teenager back in those days!

I remember how beautiful the old City Hall was at Christmas time in the days of my youth. I also remember how much controversy there was amongst the citizens of Kitchener when the original city hall was demolished without any consultation between the city council and the population of Kitchener to be replaced by the “Modern” city hall in the middle of King St! The existing “new” City hall as ugly as it is has become accepted over the years but we older citizens of Kitchener still remember the beauty of the original city hall that was a perfectly good structure that many of us felt no need to replace!

I guess that time marches on and things change, even in a city as pretty as Kitchener was back in the 50’s and 60’s! It’s difficult to even recognize the King St core of our fair city now that all the big construction has taken over! I suppose that when the population grows in size, so must the accommodations that house the greater number of inhabitants that move into our cities! I guess we the people that lived in KW back in the 50’s and 60’s still have our memories of those days and how things looked before all the progressive changes to the core of the city!

I’m sure things will continue to change and grow even more than they already have! I just hope that our city councillors have the good graces not to destroy more of our heritage structures without giving it more thought than they already have!

That’s about all 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

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