The Squamidian Report – Oct. 16 / 04

For the ‘ON LINE’ version of this newsletter, go to:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/2004/oct16.htm

Also in this issue:

A Bygone Era

The Ontarion

Hi All,

While some of you were enjoying a nice sunny Thanksgiving, we out here on the coast were re-affirming how it is we have rain forests. It basically rained non-stop for a week, including the whole weekend. No one really minds, it seems sort of normal and natural. And of course weather always makes the scenery that much more interesting. Because of the rain there are no backcountry biking adventures to talk about. That’s OK, we need the rest.

Our Thanksgiving was nice and quiet. We had Warren and Janice down for a superb turkey dinner, compliments to Sue. For a banker she sure can cook. And because we hadn’t warn ourselves out wrestling our dirt bikes over rough mountain terrain we had enough energy left to spend the evening strumming on our guitars. Haven’t done a lot of that this summer. Never seemed to be any time left over.

Now this is cool, this Thanksgiving marks the third Octoberfest in a row that I haven’t had to put up with. There is no such thing as Octoberfest out here and that’s just fine with me. Always seemed to me that in the beginning when it was just a little beer festival, you could partake or ignore it. Either way, no problem. But as the years went by and it grew into the international sensation that it is, it tried way too hard to pretend to be politically correct. That just made it kind of sickening, masquerading as a cultural festival. A good time to leave town for a week.

And speaking of bikes, the insurance on my street bike, the 750 Virago, expired this week. If I didn’t have the street legal dirt bike to puddle around with I might have renewed the 750’s insurance. However, no sense in having both insured during the cooler wet time of year to come so it is now comfortably tucked away in the corner of the garage. Storing the 750 for the winter was always a sad ritual back in Ontario where it would be put away for about 6 months, hidden under a tarp. That always seemed to represent resignation to the deep freeze of winter, the retreat to the comfort of the living room couch. Out here, if we have a sunny day anytime during the winter there is no reason not to take a motorcycle out for a toot. Whole different world. The little 250 should work out just fine.

Sue was auditing in White Rock this week. That is just a little bit too far to commute, being south of the Tawassen ferry terminals. Mind you, she did come home on Wednesday evening to check up on me. Unfortunately that meant she had a long foggy drive back on Thursday morning.

And I guess lastly, there has not yet been the numerically amazing run of salmon in the river this year like there was this time last year. Last year they were so thick that they were squeezing themselves right out of the water. However the few I’ve seen so far have been very large fish although I don’t know what species of salmon they are. One day this week when Yogi was walking along in the river a salmon as long as he is was swimming right beside him with it’s back and tail above the water. Once they have spawned the fish tend to deteriorate pretty quickly, so this one was quite rough looking, but it was sure big. Yogi ignored it.

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A Bygone Era

My Grandfather Hockridge was born in 1858. He had a brother 3 years younger than him. Their mother had died. They lived in the Sutton area and their father decided to take up a piece of land near Cedarville. When my Grandfather was 8 years old and his brother 5 their father walked cross country, because there were no real roads, with his 2 sons and settled on land that became the farm my children knew as Uncle Earl’s. The land was mostly bush and swamp and had to be cleared. The South Saugeen River that flowed nearby was at that time quite large. In fact there were 3 mills on the banks of the river and boats came up from Mount Forest to service the mills. There was also a sawmill on the creek that ran into the river. It was still working when I was a child although the creek and the river had gotten much smaller by then. In 1885 there was a huge fire that burnt out everything and it was never rebuilt. Some of the stone walls of the mills and foundations from the bigger homes were still standing when I was a child although we had been warned never to play near them as they weren’t very stable any more. The river was still pretty scary when I was growing up, especially when it would break up in the spring. The bang of the ice breaking and the roar and clash as it pushed its way downstream is a sound I’ll never forget.

Not long before my sister Verlet died, her and I walked from Cedarville back through the fields to the river. There was no sign of the road my Dad used to keep open, not even a pathway. Time does march on. By the way, my Grandfather died in February 1942. He was 84 years old. There was lots of snow then and the hearse was a sleigh drawn by a team. At one large snow bank the hearse started to tip over but the men all ran along on the lower side holding it up until it got solid again. That was a very unwelcoming country so I decided to get out of there and went back to Toronto with my uncle. I moved from there to Kitchener in May of that year and I’ve lived here ever since.

Vivyan

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THE ONTARION REPORT

OCTOBER 16, 2004

Hello everyone! Right off the bat I must apologize for not making our trip to Long Point Beach yet. We decided we had other, more pressing matters to attend to. We are hopefully going to take the run to LPB over the next week and I’ll be able to tell you all about it in the following edition of The Ontarion. Sorry for making you wait!

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For the most part this week, we’ve been doing all the stuff that most people do to ready their home for the coming winter season. I’ve hopefully cut the lawn for the last time this year and am trying to talk myself into pulling the snow blower out to change the oil before the snow flies. I guess I still have some time for that but I’d rather be doing such tasks in moderate weather than in the freezing cold. I’ll tell you how things change in a hurry this time of year. I walked out into the kitchen last night to get a cup of tea and noticed a sheet of paper placed neatly on the kitchen table. After pouring my tea, I glanced at the paper only to find that it contained a list, a Christmas List! Carole is always waaaaaay ahead of me in this department and this year is apparently no exception.

She not only has a well thought out list prepared in advance but usually most of her shopping done a good month or so before the event too! I on the other hand tend to not get serious about such stuff until about a week or two before Christmas. I always figure there’s no sense in rushing things. You never know, the item you’re considering buying someone for Christmas may just be lower in price closer to the end of December. Good reasoning but not so good logic! We all know that prices don’t drop on most items until shortly after Christmas. Hence, the “Boxing Day” sales! It seems that the older I get, the less I want or need so it gets increasingly more difficult to suggest anything for a loved one to buy me. I usually say “Get me a case of beer and a lottery ticket”! However, I haven’t been drinking much since my visit to the Cardiac surgeon 6 years ago so even the case of beer isn’t such a great suggestion any more. I’ll probably wind up doing what I usually do, just let Carole decide what I need. She hasn’t let me down any other year, why would she start this year? Maybe what I’ll do is just leave the Princess Auto catalogue out on the table and have a few items circled for good measure. Although I do like to receive a gift or two just to round out the occasion, I much prefer to see the look of happiness on the faces of others when they open their gifts. This is one of the main reasons I’d love to win that darned lotto prize sometime. I think it would be such fun to be able to surprise people with unexpected gifts at any time of the year. You know, do things like leave a $100.00 dollar bill on the restaurant table for a tip for some hard working waitress or just reach out and pay for the groceries of the family of 6 that’s standing in line with you at the super market. This being an average or below average income earner has its drawbacks doesn’t it? LOL! Oh well, we can all dream as I’ve said before. Most of us are very fortunate to have what we do have both financially and in quality of life. I’m sure being incredibly wealthy has its shitty side too but it would be nice to try those shoes on for a while, wouldn’t it? It’s funny, most people spend their whole life wishing for more than they have and if they would only take the time to sit down and really assess what they DO have, they’d be amazed. One only has to have a personal brush with disaster, whether it is health wise or the loss of one’s job or the death of a loved one to realize how fortunate they are to have their health and an “average” standard of living. When I look around at the people right here in Canada that have less than I, I do indeed consider myself lucky to be in the position I’m in. Being an average guy with an average income isn’t so bad after all!

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Carole and I were out running some errands last week and decided to try the new “Steeped Tea” at Tim Horton’s. We’ve heard all the ads about it and being tea lovers, we figured we’d have a professional cupa for a change. With great anticipation we decided to forego the drive though and take a seat inside one of Tim’s lovely comfortable (sarcasm intended) establishments. I remember the days of standing in line and having the Timmy’s employee ask if I wanted my tea “bag in or bag out” and not knowing what the hell they meant. If I asked for the “bag in”, did that mean that they left the bag in the cup until I decided to take it out at which time the tea would be much too strong to enjoy? Yes, that’s what it meant! But on the other hand, if I asked for my tea “bag out” did that mean that they would leave it out and just give me the hot water in the cup and let me put the “bag in” to brew the tea to a satisfying length of time and taste for my own liking or did it mean that the employee would remove the bag after it had steeped in the hot water just the right length of time by “Squeezing” the hell out of it before removing it so that all the “tannic” acid was left in the cup to embitter the taste and spoil it anyway? It seemed that I just couldn’t win when I bought a cup of tea at Timmy’s the old way. I used to try to get them to remove the tea bag by lifting it out without squeezing it but invariably, the highly trained and attentive help that is part of Timmy’s professional team wouldn’t pay enough attention to the customer to hear such a request and the tea was ruined anyway.

Oh well, maybe this new system, designed by a “gourmet tea specialist” and passed on to all employees would make all the difference in the world and produce a quality cup of tea for a change. I was politely asked if I wanted the new “Steeped” tea or the old bag style. I responded with a smile “Steeped tea please” and waited for the attendant to return with my request. I paid for the tea and happily made my way over to the table where Carole was sitting. I sat down and smiled saying, “Now, this should be quite an improvement”! We both took our first sip of the “Steeped tea” and came close to spraying it out into each other’s face. YUCK!!!!! Was it horrible! As it turns out, their “gourmet tea specialist’s” idea of steeped tea is to dump the loose tea into the hot water and leave it there for as long as it takes to empty the pot over the next several customers. We found this new method to be no more enjoyable than the original way with the bag. In fact, it is much stronger and even more bitter than that produced by the bag method. The one saving grace is that they at least strain the tealeaves out of the tea before it hits the cup. I would have expected a “gourmet tea specialist” to know that the actual tea “leaves or bag style” must be removed from the solution anywhere from 4 to 6 minutes after being introduced to the hot water. This leaves a delightful tasting, not bitter, not overpoweringly strong cup of tea. Once the tea has been steeped and the leaves removed from the pot, the remaining concoction may be left on a simmering element for a maximum of 30 minutes. Now, I know that my parents and their parents were famous for leaving the pot on the burner for up to several hours and the tea was still drinkable but, at least they had the sense to remove the leaves after the tea was properly steeped. In an establishment such as Horton’s, a pot of tea shouldn’t last more than 20 minutes on any given day. This should eliminate the “aging” problem that makes tea unacceptable to the taste anyway. In all fairness to Horton’s, I really don’t know their method of brewing this new tea but you can bet your sweet bippy I’ll be asking the next time I’m feeling like a “gourmet” cup from their establishment. In fact, I’ve just talked myself into checking this situation out as soon as I’m finished with this article. I will let you all know what I find out about Timmy’s method in the next Ontarion. Surely they’ll be willing to listen to reason when it comes to satisfying their customer’s won’t they? We’ll soon find out! Be sure to read next week’s Ontarion for the answer to this perplexing problem!

Until then, I thank you all for tuning in once again!

By for now…GREG.

PS: Something to Think About>

It’s not wise to head into the future looking backwards!

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FOLLOW UP TO THIS WEEKS ONTARION

Well, I decided not to wait until next issue to let you know the results of my Tim Horton’s “Steeped Tea” investigation.

As it turns out, I spent about ten minutes with the store manager of the Ottawa St/Fischer-Hallman Tim Horton’s after writing my Ontarion today. He was kind enough to explain the brewing process for their new “Steeped Tea”. The tea is pre packaged in tin foil baggies that are torn open and spread into the identical “drip” type filter that they use for coffee. The 200 degree F water is then allowed to run through the tealeaves in the filter landing in a glass carafe below. This carafe is allowed to sit under the filter until the water has stopped dripping. It’s then taken and placed on a warming plate on the top of the “Tea” machine to be kept warm until served to the customers. I mentioned that it’s my experience that this type of brewing process seems to leave the tea with a bitter taste as if the loose tea were actually allowed to float freely in the hot water to make the tea and left to sit there while waiting to be served. He assured me that none of the tealeaves ever make their way into the pot but this particular blend of tea is exceptionally strong on purpose. I said that in my opinion it’s too strong and the strength of it actually is more of a bitter taste. He agreed and said that he has had many people comment to him and his staff that the tea is too strong. So, after all is said and done, I must admit that my thoughts of their brewing process were incorrect as to the method but at least my opinion was somewhat corroborated by other patrons of Timmy’s. I asked if he would mind a suggestion and he said “Certainly not” so I asked if he would mind asking the company to reduce the amount of tealeaves in each pre-packaged container in order to make the tea a milder tasting brew than is now the case. He assured me that he would pass my suggestion on to their regional manager at the next opportunity. My request is probably going to fall on deaf ears but one never knows. If enough people make the same observation and suggestion they may just work to improve the taste of this new product. I sincerely hope they do. Next time you’re in the mood for a cup of tea, drop in to your local Tim Horton’s and sample the Steeped Tea and see if you agree with me or not. If you do feel as I do, don’t be afraid to voice your concern to the management at that location. It just may help! Thanks again for putting up with my ramblings.

See you all again next time.

GREG.

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Have a good one..

the doug