The
Squamidian Report – Aug. 28 / 10
Issue #431
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Everyone is aware of the vast areas of BC that are burning this summer. Heck, the smoke has reached all the way back to good old Ontariariario. That’s actually a good thing for us because the winds that have moved the smoke to the east have cleared it from the west coast so our air is good again. Everyone is also thinking that this is somehow a worst than usual fire year, hotter, dryer and so on. That’s not actually the case, conditions are not really any worse than any other year. These bad fires were forecast several years ago when the pine beetles ravaged and destroyed thousands of square miles of BC’s forests. Standing dead pine trees and summer drought conditions add up to an active fire season. The dead trees are like incendiary bombs. All it takes is one spark and they literally explode. While many of the ignition sparks have come from lightning, way too many sparks have come from people. Campfires and open fires of any kind have long since been banned and in the beginning of the season they were certainly the cause of some of the fires. Unfortunately, even with all the awareness and bans etc people started fires are still happening and for the most part it is the same old story, a discarded cigarette butt or an emptied ashtray. They just don’t seem to get it.
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Much to our surprise, ‘The Wife’ and I found ourselves attending a Brian Adams concert. He, and an obscure group call ‘The Beach Boys” opened the PNE last Saturday afternoon. I’m not much for going to concerts and as for outdoor concerts, I think the last time I was at one was, never. I don’t like the crowds and I don’t like the noise and I don’t like the parking problems. Grumpy old farts like me tend to be a bit negative about stuff like that. The PNE opening Adams concert was the last stop on his current tour and because Ryan is with that tour as sound tech, he found himself in a position to get a bunch of his friends and family onto the guest list. We got a call from him asking if we’d like to attend, so we accepted.
We had already been down to Vancouver on the bike on the day of setup because we delivered a pair of special microphones for the Beach Boys that were somehow sitting in Ryan’s apartment. He seems to have stuff like that. So not only did we get in free as guests but we got VIP parking right at the stadium where a security guard opened a gate and let us drive right in to the restricted area. Our guest passes and VIP sticker gave us access to the back stage area as well as to the viewing field. Ryan took us back stage and showed us all the equipment of both Adams and the Beach Boys. We stepped aside as the lead Beach Boy singer walked by. They we went out front to watch the concert.
Wow, was it ever loud. Luckily we had been advised to bring earplugs. The Beach Boys started off and never slowed down once. They were quiet compared to Adams but you could feel every note, every drumbeat. They went seamlessly from number to number only stopping a couple of times during their whole hour and a half set. And they were very good. Their drummer was incredible.
After a short break Adams and his band came on. I had thought the Beach Boys were loud. These guys loosened every filling in my teeth. I’ve never paid much attention to Adams or his music so I was not familiar with his stuff but the crowd sure was. I’m more interested in the technical aspects of the performance and that kind of thing. But we endured it and near the end Ryan spotted us and called us over to the back stage gate. We spent the last part of the concert at Ryan’s council, watching from behind the side curtain.
VIP parking didn’t help much when it came time to leave. The limousines carrying important people had right-of-way and then there were the thousands of fans and spectators spilling out onto the street and sidewalk. We simply stayed put until most the thickest part of the mob had cleared and then carefully made our exit. Made for an interesting afternoon.
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Oh, I went on another little ride. Big Blue and I took off for an over-nighter on Vancouver Island but I’m not going to bore you with that one. The riding was great, the ferry crossings were scenic, but I didn’t bother to take any pictures so I’ll let you off the hook this time.
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Oh again, anyone been watching Jupiter these last few evenings? She’s been rising in the east just after sunset and her 4 Galilean moons are very visible as tiny sharp pricks of light through any good binoculars. As a side note, Jupiter has 12 or more moons but the rest are only visible through large viewing devices. The 4 easily seen moons are called Galilean because it was Galileo who discovered them. (They have actually always been there, he was the first to see them and realize what they were).
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Man oh man, are these summer weeks flying by! I guess it’s due to the fact that we’re actually having a great summer this year. The weather here in Southern Ontario has been just amazing! We’ve had very little rain but enough to keep things green for the most part. Our days have been mostly sunny with temperatures in the low to upper 30’s Celsius. This kind of summer reminds me of the ones we had when I was a kid in the 50’s and 60’s. It always seemed to be hot and sunny back then and almost nobody had central air conditioning in their houses. There were a few exceptions of course but I do mean a few. My buddy Bob Baier whose father owned Baier Fuel Oil was one that comes to mind. His dad seemed to have everything. I guess that’s what it was like back then if your family had money. Bob and his Brother Dale had the coolest “Scalectric” race car track in their basement. It was mounted on a table made of plywood measuring about 20 feet in length and 8 feet wide. Their dad had built it for them and their track set up was 4 lanes wide and banked on the ends so the cars wouldn’t fly off as they rounded the turns. We used to play with the race cars when their mother would allow him to have someone in. That wasn’t very often but when it happened, it was a load of fun.
Being a family with moderately better means than most, they had the best of whatever kids had in those days. Their bicycles were not Canadian Tire but were Ralleigh or CCM and were purchased from a bike shop rather than a department store. When Bob turned 16 his dad bought him a brand new Jeep CJ to drive to school in. We had a lot of fun in that vehicle because it was the only one in the fleet of “Teen Owned” vehicles that wouldn’t break down every time we wanted to go somewhere. The only problem with it was that it only held four people on the seats. The others that piled in would have to sit on the bare steel floor in the cubby hole behind the rear seats and with an open back end, it was very scary at higher speeds. Bob’s family had a cottage up in Amberly on Lake Huron. That winter we put the canvas top on his Jeep and headed up to shovel snow off the roof of the cottage so it wouldn’t cave in. There had been a few days of very heavy snowfall and his dad offered to pay us $20.00 each to go up with Bob and shovel it off. Another buddy of ours by the name of Dave Bernhardt went along on that adventure and what an adventure it was. Amberly is straight west on Hwy 86 from Elmira through Listowel and you just keep on going till you hit Lake Huron. It was snowing like crazy as we drove directly into the wind and snowstorm for the entire drive. For most of the trip, we couldn’t see the road let alone oncoming traffic. It was a heck of a dangerous ride to say the least! We had started out at around nine am and by the time we reached the lake it was almost two pm.
That trip usually took about an hour and a half to two hours right to his cottage. Once we found the road along the shore through the bush that lead to his cottage we were confronted with about 4’ of snow on it. Bob figured he could easily get through the road with his fourwheel drive but he was mistaken. We could drive about 20’ and then we’d have to get out and dig a bunch of snow away from in front so we could take another run at it. I wound up sitting on the hood of the Jeep trying to sweep with the shovel and sometimes my leg like a pendulum to move the snow to the side. It took us another hour to make it 200 yards down the cottage road to his place. Once we arrived the cottage was almost completely under snow. All we could see was about 3’ of the peak of the bungalow style roof sticking out of the snow. What a mess of snow! We had taken three good shovels up with us and of course there were no such things as snow blowers back then. At least not that we had ever seen! We started digging from the road, which was about 20’ out from the front of the cottage and managed to clear enough area to get the Jeep turned around to head back out. The snow on the front lawn of the cottage was over 4 feet deep and had drifted with the wind to slope up the sides of the cottage until it was over the eves.
We cleared away as much of the snow on the front of the building as we could and then climbed a couple of pine trees close to the building to get up on the roof. We knew there was a ladder somewhere at the cottage but of course it was lying along side the cottage buried in the snow. So climb the trees we did! We had taken three large thermoses of hot chocolate along but by the time we had been digging for an hour we were so hot we were actually taking clothes off. It took us three hours of shoveling to clear the snow off the roof and of course Bob had neglected to bring the key to the cottage along so we had no way of getting into the cottage to rest after we had finished. One of the most challenging deeds we faced was trying to go to the bathroom in our heavy winter clothes behind the huge snow banks around the cottage. Luckily Bob had a roll of toilet paper in an emergency kit in the Jeep. What a laugh it was taking turns in the “Crapper” we had dug out of the snow bank! LOL! Of course the snowballs were flying over the top of the snow bank while each of us did our duty and I’m sure the laughs and cursing could be heard all the way to Kincardine! By the time we were ready to head for home it was getting dark. It of course had been snowing the whole time we were there with the exception of about an hour right at the end of the day. We lucked out and the Jeep managed to keep moving this time as we made our way to the main road. The heater in the Jeep was to say the least SHITTY at its best and provided heat only if you held your hands or feet directly at its exhaust point. There was enough heat luckily to keep the windshield clear. It was another long long ride home and we got stopped twice by the OPP asking us what we thought we were doing out in such nasty weather. Apparently they had closed Hwy 86 at 3pm and nobody was supposed to be on it. The cops were nice enough to let us continue our journey but warned us to watch for stranded vehicles. We passed at least a dozen other cars in the ditches but didn’t see anyone around or in them so we just kept on motoring! We got home by eleven pm and our parents were not too happy about it. I guess in the end, they were just glad that we made it home safely and didn’t complain too much. We had left my folks and Dave’s folks notes telling them where we had gone but I have a feeling if they’d have been home to be told in person, we never would have been allowed to go. I guess it wasn’t the best idea at the time but when you’re 16, nothing seems to be a really bad idea, especially when it means money in your pocket and back then $20.00 was a tidy sum. Besides, I’ve been able to tell this story many times over the years as one of my “Back when I was a teenager” adventures and it’s been fun!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now…GREG
PS: Something To Think About>
Do you carry an emergency kit in your vehicle winter and summer?
YOU SHOULD!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.