The Squamidian Report – Feb. 26 / 05
Also in this issue:
Back to Winter on the Farm
The Ontarion
Arsonist Article
Hi All,
Pretty hard to resist heading out for a toot in the warm sunshine on our little motorcycles so we headed out. Firstly Ryan and I putted around in the valley, stopping at the ICBC office so we could both renew our bike registrations. That way they stay street legal. Then Warren joined us and we headed up into the hills. Rode through an area where there is active logging taking place. This logging is ‘selective logging’, meaning they leave certain trees standing with the idea that those trees will supply and spread seed for regeneration. Don’t think that works all that well but it looks good on paper. Anyway, you can see some shots of the operation on my site at:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/Pictures/logging.html
Ryan and I (our bikes being street legal) also did a small run down through Brackendale and out into Paradise Valley. There is a section of the road along there that takes you through thick dense deciduous forest with tall west coast style maples that are covered with moss. There is also a type of fern that likes to grow from the top surfaces of the branches, places where a bit of soil can form. This time of year the leaves are still off these trees so there is a fair amount of light penetrating to the forest floor. When the leaves are open this is a dark, almost spooky place of perpetual twilight. The kind of place where the creatures can see you although you can at best only hear them. These maples grow leaves about the size of your computer screen so they really block the sunlight.
There is a lot of this deep dark deciduous forest in the valley bottoms where the valley is fairly wide and flat, basically flood plain. The layers of soil tend to be of light sandy materials that have been deposited over the centuries by numerous flooding events. The evergreen types of trees in the coastal areas that are so famous for their size and quality tend to grow on the slopes where there is better drainage.
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We have had some beautiful pre-dawn skies this week. The full moon sets behind the mountains to the west just before the sky begins to lighten, while the stars are all still bright. One morning the moon set directly behind the peak of Alpha as viewed from our deck and west windows. Once behind the peak, it was no longer visible but it backlit the peak giving it a rather stunning aura. The side facing us was dark yet the whole peak area seemed to glow. The snow up there refracted the light picking up the glow and spreading it down onto areas where the moonlight could no longer actually shine. Can’t show you a picture because cameras just don’t seem to capture that kind of thing very well.
Along with the clear moonlit night skies have been warm sunny days that would qualify as mid May back in old Ontarible. Several days this week Squamish has been the hot-spot for all of Canada with 18 C temps. Nights are nice and crisp with –1 or so, then the sun tops the mountain ridges and we have instant summer. Long-range forecast is for back to our normal temperatures of about 10 C this coming week.
And on the same line, Vancouver and surrounding area was to have broken it’s all time February sunshine record yesterday. Problem was, Environment Canada couldn’t record the hours of sunshine. Turns out someone stole the sun gauge, which was mounted on a pole at YVR, Vancouver’s airport. So we broke the record for hours of sunshine in February but we can’t prove it. Go figure.
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This wintery weather we are having reminds me of some of my past winters. As I’ve said before, my Dad maintained a winter road through our farm to Cedarville. All the neighbours used it as no roads were kept open after Christmas. One time a neighbour had gone to Cedarville to the chopping mill (everyone took their own grain to be chopped for feeding their own livestock). This time the mill must have been very busy for by the time his feed was ready it was late and very dark. Not all farmers had a real feel for their horses the way Dad had. This neighbour wouldn’t let his horses choose the way home in the dark but instead steered them his way. He must have had a poor sense of direction because he steered them right into the mouth of the creek. Of course that ice wasn’t very strong and they broke through and couldn’t get out. The neighbour had his son with him, who was about 14 at the time, and he sent him to our house to get my Dad.
Dad hitched up our team and sleigh and bringing along my brother Clarence went to help as fast as they could. They unhitched the other team from its sleigh and with Dad’s team pulling them were able to get them to the bank. Because Dad’s horses would do whatever he asked them to, he didn’t have to stay with them. He got down with the other team to coax them to keep trying. It was always fun to watch him, whether they were stuck in a snow bank or whatever, he would just call “heave” and the team would make one lunge and wait for more instructions. They did whatever he wanted. This night they did get the neighbours team out and then pulled them to their own barn. After being so long in the icy water those horses would never have made it home without the help of Dad’s team. Dad sent Clarence home with his team and stayed to help the neighbour save his horses. They spent the whole night rubbing the horses down and keeping them walking in the barn. The vet finally got there at 8 the next morning. They saved both horses although one was never too strong after.
After being up all night Dad got home in time to hitch up his team and deliver the mail. I believe he then went and got the neighbour’s sleigh out. I can’t remember if the sleigh also went through the ice or if the feed was still good or not. I often think now that when we thought we were driving the horses as children that the horses were only doing what they knew my dad expected of them. Animals are a lot smarter then most people give them credit for.
Till next time, Vivyan
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THE ONTARION REPORT
FEBRUARY
26, 2005
Hello everyone!
I’ve just been sitting here thinking of how things have changed around town since I was a kid. In fact, it’s incredible how the whole city has changed. I guess I’ve commented on this in previous editions but it never ceases to amaze me.
Just the other day I was driving on Margaret Avenue and started to take note of all the changes on that street alone. When we first moved to the North Ward, our house was in a new subdivision. Now, of course it’s an older section of Kitchener. I remember a midway that was located in a field just north of the corner of Margaret Ave and Guelph St. We could walk straight out of our back yard heading west and in five minutes be looking over a fence at the midway. Now there are two huge highrise apartment buildings on the site. They are located on Margaret Ave just behind what is now the Giant Tiger Store. Of course even that store has a long history. When I was 5 years old my mother worked at that store. It was a grocery store called The Grand Union. I remember my mother working there for several years. It wasn’t long into her career there before the name was changed to Steinberg’s and she worked for them for another 7-8 years. When I was in high school at KCI my mother switched employers again and went to work for Zehr’s on Bridgeport Rd in Waterloo. The old Steinberg’s store became The Dutch Boy. I believe it remained a Dutch Boy until Sobey’s bought them out about 5 years ago and then they closed that location down. It sat empty for about 2 years and then was picked up by Giant Tiger. Back in 1969 when I was apprenticing for Zehr’s stores in the refrigeration trade and was still living at home, I used to pass that store every morning on my way to work.
One morning as I rounded the corner onto Margaret Ave beside the Dutch Boy I could smell smoke. As I drove past the entrance to the parking lot of the store a fire truck came screaming down the street and pulled into the lot. I glanced back at the front of the Dutch Boy and could see a wall of flame through the front windows. The whole interior of the store was on fire. I decided to sit and watch the action as I was about a half hour early for work anyway. It was both cool and sad to see that building go up in smoke. It had been there for as long as I could remember. I guess they built it around 1954. As I watched the progression of the fire and more trucks arrive on the scene I realized I was going to be late for work. The fire was just starting to break through the roof as I pulled away. I thought about the fire all day as I traveled from store to store and could imagine it being one of our Zehr’s stores. Little did I know that within a couple of years I’d be trading places with one of those firefighters. On my way home that night I made a point of passing the fire scene. What a mess! The roof was gone and the remnants had fallen in onto what was once a thriving business. All those people out of work, what a shame! I was thankful that my mother was no longer depending on a job at that location for her livelihood. As it turned out, the company decided to rebuild the store and within 4-5 months it was back in operation.
Getting back to my trek down Margaret Ave, there’s a service station on the corner of Guelph and Margaret. It’s now called a Goco station or something like that. When I was a lad of 15 I worked at that station pumping gas. It was a Supertest Station back then and it belonged to the parents of a friend of mine. His name was Bob Canter and we had a lot of fun pumping gas and washing windshields etc. Looking at it again brought back memories of my days there. People would pull up to the pumps and ask for $2.00 worth. Of course gas was only 37cents a gallon back then. By today’s standards that’s peanuts but to a working man back in 1964 it was a significant chunk of his weekly pay cheque. The average wage was around $35 to $40 per week in those days. I even forget what I was paid back then. It seems to me that it was around $15.00 for working Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings and all day Saturday. We were open weekdays until 8pm and Fridays until 9pm. Saturday was from 7am to 6pm for the gas pumps and until 10pm for the store part. I recall spending a good portion of my pay right there at the store. Mrs Canter would run a tab for me all week and deduct the total from my pay on Saturday. In those days the popular soft drink was “Flip”. It was a lemon lime drink that sold for 5 cents a bottle. Chips were 10 cents a bag and if you were really thirsty you could buy a 16oz Double Cola for 12 cents. One of my favourite treats was a chocolate covered ice cream bar on a stick. I forget the name of this item but it was made in Kitchener by Silverwoods Dairy on Courtland Ave. MMMmmmmmm mm were they good! At 5 cents a piece they helped me gain a lot of weight over my adolescent years! LOL! Not to mention a few pimples on the chin and forehead!
One last thing that I noticed a big change in on Margaret Ave is the bridge over the railway tracks just north of Victoria St. When we were kids, it was a multi sectioned iron and wooden structure that arched high above the trains as they entered or left the Kitchener Train Station. The bridge back then was supported by a web of steal girders and guy rods that protruded from each side of the railings. We would ride our bikes to the bridge on Saturdays and climb over the railings onto the beams. Sitting on the beams we would wait for the trains to pass beneath. Of course back then, we still had great steam locomotives as well as a few of the new diesel engines. It was a lot of fun to sit in the steam that poured out of the engines as they thundered by below. One of the challenges we posed to each other was to see who could throw a stone into the smoke stack of the engine as it moved slowly along the tracks. I remember thinking that I felt like Huck Finn watching the river boats go by. We never gave a thought to the danger we faced as we balanced on these beams. It was just an adventure to us. The bridge today has been rebuilt a couple of times since those days. It now has much less of an arch to it and of course is made of concrete. The old shoe factory that once stood tight against the sidewalk and on the north east side of the bridge is gone as well. Once again, it’s too bad one doesn’t think to take pictures of the places we frequent when we’re young. It would be an added feature when reminiscing about our youth and the landscapes that no longer exist. Although, I can picture each and every one of these places and buildings clearly in my mind. It’s as if they are still there when I think about them today. It just might be a project for a rainy day to visit the Library and look for pictures of the buildings and structures I’ve been talking about and make copies of them for my own scrapbook. Hmmmmm not a bad idea!
Thanks again for tuning in and I’ll talk to you next time in The Ontarion Report.
Bye
for now….GREG.
PS: Something To Think About>
Crises and deadlocks have at least this advantage. They force us to think.
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Follow-up
to last December’s arsonist story!
I've attached the article about the trial of the arsonist. It can be found at the bottom of this newsletter. After reading it, I agree that he needs help but a short 18 months that, by the way, will actually be 9 months of incarceration is most certainly not enough! He admitted lighting the fire to get even with people who had wronged him as well as his x girlfriend, knowing that there were people sleeping inside the house. This to me is premeditated and should be treated as such. If the law says the maximum allowable sentence to a person with this guys mental history is 18 months for an arson charge, perhaps the crown attorney should be considering attempted murder charges. I for one don't want this guy free after what most certainly will not be a successful treatment plan in such a short time. He's got a medical history that is proven to be "incurable" and unless someone administers the needed medication to this guy on a daily basis, he can't be trusted to take them himself. If he is not capable of controlling his urges to commit crimes he needs to be committed to a long term facility with psychiatric care for life.
Does the term "Dangerous Offender" ring a bell?
Let's be honest about this guy. He's dangerous and his sentencing should reflect the seriousness of the crime and the prevention of his reoffending in the future. BEFORE HE KILLS SOMEONE!
Enough said........GREG.
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The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b2/
Have a good one..
the
doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues
are the sole property of the persons writing them should be respected as such.
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Teen admits
setting 3 fires
Man torched Kitchener house where five
people were sleeping
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KITCHENER (Feb 24, 2005)
Midway through his trial on three arson charges, a mentally unbalanced teenager changed his plea yesterday to guilty.
Cory Young, 19, is expected to be sentenced this morning to 18 months in a facility for offenders with a psychiatric background.
A deal was negotiated between the Crown and defence after a videotaped statement of Young admitting to the arsons was played in court. In the statement, Young said he set the blazes to get back at three people he felt had done him wrong.
The most serious fire was ignited the morning of Dec. 9 on the porch of 140 Cameron St. N. in Kitchener, a home where five family members were sleeping.
Young confessed to police that he was getting back at Tara Vanderzand, a girl he had been in love with who "screwed him over.''
She made a complaint about him to police, which launched a three-month investigation "for a charge that I didn't even do,'' Young said. He was never charged.
Tara Vanderzand wasn't living at the house at the time. But her mother, sister, brother, father and her sister's two-year-old daughter were there.
Mary Vanderzand and her daughter, Melanie Vanderzand, delivered emotional victim-impact statements late in the day after being summoned to the courthouse for the plea.
Standing in front of Justice Bruce Frazer, Melanie Vanderzand described how she felt after she grabbed her daughter and led her mother out onto a second-storey balcony because the smoke was too thick to get down the stairs and out the front door.
"We were standing on the back stoop and I remember thinking, 'How are we going to get off this?' " she said. "I was contemplating jumping -- anything to save my family.
"We had no clothes, shoes, no coats,'' she said.
Since the fire, which destroyed their home, she said her daughter, Daniela, is afraid of monsters. Every night before bed, she has to check the closets before her daughter will settle down.
Melanie Vanderzand also has trouble sleeping.
"I'm worried if I do fall into a deep sleep, what if I don't wake up the next time?'' she explained, sobbing.
"It was very scary to have our whole lives torn out from under us,'' Mary Vanderzand told the judge. "We lost everything we had in our home. But we're lucky to have our lives.''
Both Melanie and her mother said outside court that they understand the thinking behind the plea and proposal for an 18-month sentence. It was a joint recommendation by both Crown prosecutor David Russell and defence lawyer Steve Gehl.
Mary Vanderzand said Russell told her it was the maximum sentence a person in Young's state of mind would get.
However, she is concerned that, "When Cory gets out, what happens? Then we have no guarantee, no security whether we're going to be safe, whether he's going to be off his meds again.''
Young, who takes anti-psychotic medication, told police he hadn't been on his drugs for two months after a friend lost his drug card.
"I'm pretty f----d up right now 'cause I haven't had medication in two months, you know,'' he said. "I haven't slept in four days. I've just been wandering around and thinking s--t.''
He said he'd had several rejections and might have set the fires to get attention. The night started when he was evicted by the landlord at his Courtland Avenue rooming house. He went to visit a friend, then set the three fires in the same neighbourhood.
Young expressed great remorse to police.
"I know what I did was f-----g lunatic man. I feel so sorry for those families right now, man.
"I was about 50 feet away from the house when I saw the flames just burst, man. The roof went on fire and I was, OK, what do I do, man? She's got a kid in there.
". . . like I could have killed every one of those people in there, eh? I don't want to hurt people, man. I just want to be on my pills again. I need mental help.''
Young also set two other fires, one to a display booth at the Frederick Street Mall and the other to a building housing Krista's Hair Salon at 268 Frederick St.
He said he was angry at Jody Parks, who owns Salon Avanti at the mall. The display booth was right in front of her store. Young had lived with Parks and helped out at her salon. He said she kicked him out and didn't want him there. Parks testified earlier that Young decided to leave on his own.
The fire at 268 Frederick St. was set because he said a man who lived in the house "told me to get out of his office, he said he . . . didn't want to see me.'' Young used to shovel the man's driveway.
Young's lawyer had originally planned to challenge the admissibility of the statements. But the trial wasn't going to be finished for some time and Gehl didn't want Young staying at the Maplehurst detention centre much longer.
Young described a bleak background. He told police he was placed in a psychiatric hospital for over a year at age six after he tried to kill his brother. He said his mother, who is dying, is a crack dealer living in Cambridge. His father, now dead, was once charged with murder, he said.
Russell has asked for three years probation so Young can be monitored in the community. He will likely be ordered to stay away from his victims.
He will be sent to the St. Lawrence Valley Treatment and Correctional Centre in Brockville where he will get psychiatric help.
Young suffers from a complex series of disabilities, including Tourette's syndrome, attention deficit disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. He has tested at the bottom three per cent of the population in intellect. He also suffers from "the aftermath of multiple displacements,'' the result of being shunted from place to place and constantly rejected, his lawyer said.