The Squamidian Report – Sept. 16 / 06
Issue #224
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
‘The Wife’ has a tendency to lose things like her glasses or her car keys. It is a common occurrence in our household to spend the first few minutes of the time after we should have left for some where in hunting for some needed item. Her main set of car keys, the ones with all the other keys and tags attached to them went missing some time ago. We figured that at some point they would turn up, probably in some rather unexpected place.
We received a phone call from the Home Depot in West Van telling us that they had her keys. They had been there for quite a while and would she come and get them. It would have to have been quite a while as we had not been in there since early summer. So on Tuesday, the day before we flew to Ontario for Ryan and Emily’s wedding and while ‘The Wife’ was attending a course in Richmond, I hopped on the Virago and took a leisurely ride into the city to pick up the keys. Once there, all I had to do was pick her keys out from a whole lineup of other sets of keys that had been left there. Kind of makes you wonder how people drive home from wherever it was they left them in the first place.
It speaks quite highly of Home Depot that they took the effort to track her down. They had done it by using the information on her M&M tag. It took them a couple of tries as M&Ms head office had not bothered to follow up their first request for a name or phone number. So they called the actual store mentioned on the tag and finally got her info. Once they had that they were able to phone her and tell her they had her keys. Pretty good of them I thought.
*
Wedding day prep! I’ve never had a kid get married before so this is all kind of new to me. In fact, I’m putting most of this letter together while sitting on a plane using the laptop. And as per usual, the jerk in font of me has her seat leaning back so I don’t have enough room for the computer to sit on that silly little table things. And unfortunately we are above a cloud cover so I can’t look out at the scenery and keep track of where we are.
The kids flew in on Tuesday after Sue dropped them off at the airport on her way to a course in Richmond. She then drove home at the end of the day and we finished packing and drove back to the airport in the late evening. Because our flight was quite early on Wednesday morning we had booked a room at the airport hotel. Driving in on Wednesday morning would have been stressful and perhaps impossible as the highway down from Squamish is closed at night due to construction. Would not be fun to be sitting at a closed spot while the clock ticked away.
We actually broke out of the overcast while over the Great Plains. I have to call it that because we were in US airspace at the time. Had we been in Canadian airspace it would have been the prairies. Saw a couple of good grass fires down below us but what is really neat is to see the rivers from above. Not only do you see the current course but you see the old loops that have been cut off from the river for who knows how long. Amazing how rivers keep changing and altering.
By the time we were over the east end of Lake Superior it was densely overcast again and stayed that way for the rest of the flight. We did our approach for landing, getting down low enough to plainly see houses and cars. Then we were into cloud so dense we couldn’t even see the airplane’s wings. At that point we accelerated and climbed out. It took two more circles in the landing pattern before we landed. Then we had to deal with 401 traffic. Now that was scary. But it was worth it because my mom had a fresh raisin pie waiting for us.
The rest of the week was taken up with doing wedding prep stuff. The kids had everything under control but there were still lots of last minute detail to deal with. Did manage to have lunch with Greg and hang out in a Harley dealership for a while. There was some stuff to do to get the reception hall ready and of course the dreaded rehearsal had to be done. That killed the week and then is was this morning with its last minute running around and details. Can’t say much more because it hasn’t happened yet.
doug
****
As you will recall from last week, Canadian Soldier Sheri sent in an Email from a friend serving in the Middle East. It had been forwarded to us by Judy, who has forwarded a couple more similar stories. They are too long for this letter so I have posted them at the following link.
http://www.thedougsite.ca/Battle.htm
****
Hello everyone!
Well, the big week
is on! Ryan and Emily are heading for Ontario to complete what they’ve been
planning for a long time now. I wish them good luck and every happiness in the
future. We’ll all see them at the wedding. Let’s hope the weather is beautiful.
According to the internet weather report, it’s supposed to be warm and sunny on
Saturday. Sounds like it’s going to be a perfect day for the event.
*
The thoughts of
everyone in the world have been focused on the World Trade Centre bombings of
2001 that past week. Yesterday being the 5th anniversary of that
terrible day the papers and television networks were filled tributes to the
nearly 3000 casualties of that attack. I for one did a lot of thinking back on
that fateful day. Everyone in the free world was affected in one way or another
by that horrible event. I know that I was deeply hurt by the event. I lost 300
of my brother and sister Fire Fighters that day and believe me the loss was
felt by every Fire Fighter in the world. The International Association of Fire
Fighters is known world wide and is a very close knit group of professionals.
With such a devastating loss of personnel that day, the fire service throughout
the world learned many valuable lessons from the tragedy that befell NYC and
it’s emergency services. The happenings of 9/11 spawned many hours of training
sessions that each fire department at least in North America spent reviewing
the events of WTC that they might avoid repeating such tragic results of “Hi
Rise” fire fighting. Let’s hope that the training lessons pay off should any
other Fire Department have a similar tragedy in their city.
The WTC disaster
brought the citizens of both USA and Canada much closer to each other. I don’t
know if any of you noticed it but I felt a closer bond with everyone I passed
on the street for several months after the WTC disaster. People seemed to
genuinely care how you were doing when they greeted you. Carole and I were in
Atlantic City NJ almost one year after the attack and were walking down the
Board Walk when two couples stopped us as they passed. I heard “Excuse Me” and
I turned to look back over my shoulder. There standing a few feet behind us
were two couples. The one gentleman held out his hand in a gesture of greeting
and said “We’d just like to thank you personally for what you do!” It was then
that I realized they had noticed my Waterloo Fire Fighter tee shirt and stopped
us to express their gratitude for the job they assumed I do. I said that I was
very grateful for their support and it made me proud to be in the profession
when I think of my NYC fellow firefighters that had made the supreme sacrifice
on September 11, 2001.
As we walked away it
became even more apparent that the events of 9/11 had made an incredible
impression on every citizen of North America and had spawned a new respect for
emergency services professionals. I couldn’t help the tears that trickled down
my cheeks as Carole and I talked about what had just happened. The sincere
expression of gratitude these people had just given me touched my heart and
will always be one of the highlights of my career as a professional Fire
Fighter. My chest was bursting with pride and most certainly always will with
the thoughts of that day. If nothing else, the events of 9/11/2001 have
bolstered the respect of the general public for the members of the Fire
Service. They have also enhanced peoples respect for human life and the
incredible freedoms that we in a democratic society enjoy. To live in the
greatest country in the world and enjoy the friendship of another of the same
status (USA) is something that we must all give thanks for.
Our soldiers are
currently over in Afghanistan fighting not only for their lives but for the
continued freedom of all the democratic nations in the world and as Canadians,
we MUST support them in their brave efforts. They are selfless heroes and they
deserve to be treated as such. Let’s hope they win the fight they are waging
and reduce the Taliban and all terrorist organizations to mere smudges on the
pages of history of Gods Great Earth.
Here’s praying for
their safe return and their victory on our behalf.
*
Thanks for tuning in
this week and I look forward to talking to you all again next time in The
Ontarion Report.
Bye for now… GREG.
PS: Something To
Think About>
How do you tell when
you’re out of invisible ink?
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the doug
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