The
Squamidian Report – May 8 / 10
Issue # 415
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
I had never been in the drop zone of a helicopter before and I must say it is rather exciting and noisy and windy. It’s like being in the center of a vertical hurricane. The tall trees were whipping around and loose branches were flying all over the place and the fresh snow was being blasted off the trees and rocks. (Yes, we are still getting snow in the mountains). The project I am working on at Cougar Mountain requires 30-ft milled timbers for the framework of the snow-shed roofs. The only way get such timbers up to the construction location is by helicopter. It took half a dozen or so trips for the copter to deliver all the bundles of timber and each time he hovered overhead it felt like the whole mountain was shaking. Pretty cool, actually.
It has occurred to me how very far ahead of the times we were as kids and also how very badly we missed the boat. Ironically, we were so hillbilly backward and unaware of the world when we were kids that to claim we were ahead of the times verges on the ludicrous. I am of course still referring to the Zip-Line installation on Cougar Mountain in Whistler that I talked about to last week. We had invented that very sport. We had not perfected it or injected any engineering or safety protocols but we did create and make use of the idea of zipping down an incline while hanging from a pulley that was running along a rope that was stretched between two anchor points of dissimilar elevation.
Way back then the area around the Homestead was farm and bush country, had been known as Steamsteadle a hundred years earlier but by then was just county road 23 a mile north of Centerville. The Homestead was (and still is) in a bit of a valley, with an arm of Chicopee Hill bordering the east side of the property. Sad to say but that section of hill isn’t even there anymore, it was removed in the name of progress to permit the housing development that now engulfs the area. But back then it was a fairly high and very steep piece of hillside as anyone who tried to toboggan down it found out. At the base of the hill was a trail (Sigmillars’s Road as we called it) and then between the trail and our ‘open lot’ was a small seasonal creek that was overgrown by swamp willows. The ‘open lot’ was a small field with a few large trees and a couple of apple trees. If you kept going in the direction I am describing you would walk through the garden (and that would have gotten you in big trouble with Lorne) and end up by the greenhouse. So turn around and go back to the hill.
My brothers and I pooled our meager paper route earnings and purchased a 2-hundred ft coil of ½ inch rope from Doon Twines. A long gone friend of the parents worked there at the time and was able to get it for us at cost. The coil of rope was our pride and joy. The possibilities were endless. How could it possibly get any better? You are a 12-yr old boy and you have a brand new TWO HUNDRED FT length of hemp rope. It even smelled wonderful, kind of like new burlap. (Modern synthetic ropes had not yet been invented). You could pull stuff with it, you could tie stuff up with it, you could swing from tree branches with it, and, you could glide from tree to tree with it. All you needed was to have one end tied to a tree that was higher than the other end and of course a pulley. We had pulleys; we used to make our own block and tackles using pulleys and salvaged binder twine. Interesting hobby for kids but that was how it was.
Now to the Zip-Line, we tied one end of the rope fairly high up on a large wild cherry tree that grew right at the top of the hill. We tied the other end to one of the apple trees on the ‘open lot’. We used one of our homemade block and tackles to pull the rope as tight as we could get it. We had the rope threaded through our biggest and best pulley and from the pulley we hung a section of rope that included a loop just below the pulley for hanging on to. We would pull the pulley up to the top using the end of the dangling rope and pass it to the person waiting in the cherry tree. That person would then grab the loop and launch off down the inclined line, attaining fairly impressive speeds. We learned very early in our Zipping adventures that we needed a catcher at the bottom. If the rider was simply holding on with their hands and facing forward they could let go and drop to the ground just before colliding with the apple tree. If the rider was hanging upside down with their knees though the loop there was no way of avoiding smacking into the tree so a catcher had to be in place to intercept the rider. That worked very well as long as the catcher was paying attention.
We also discovered that if we had just the right tension on the rope, not too tight and not too loose, we could get some pretty good bouncing action. So, shortly after launch we would touch down part way down the hill and kick off again. This would send us flying way up higher than we would normally have been and in an arching projectory we would clear the swamp willows and do a second landing just inside the field. Another leap would put us near the base of the line by the apple tree. Ruined a lot of shoes doing that, and if you hit butt first instead of feet first you would take the seat out of your pants. Like I said, it just didn’t get any better than that for a bunch young boys way back then. Same aged kids now-a-days would be playing video games or texting or some such thing. Just too bad we were too dumb to turn our big outdoor invention into a modern mountain Zip ride attraction.
Maybe some day I’ll tell you about the time we tried to invent a giant version of a bow and arrow that we intended to use to launch an aerial bombardment on the neighbours we didn’t like who lived about a quarter mile up the road.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
It’s a beautiful day and it’s almost pond opening time for us here at the Payne residence. Just when you think everything is up to date and replaced and new around your house, something else pops up that needs doing. You might remember that last year we replaced the edge of the front lawn along the driveway with precast curbstones. Well, they looked so nice that Carole decided the other day that they’d look just as nice along the opposite side of the drive as well. I couldn’t disagree with her since what was there was a line of river rocks about a foot wide and eight inches deep. It seemed like a nice way of trimming the neighbour’s 8” high lawn five years back when we first put the rocks there but as the winters passed and the rocks sank a little and the weeds grew up through them they became less and less attractive. SO, on Wednesday I dug out all or most of the rocks and piled them at the side of the house where we have no grass and other rocks as a walkway between the houses. They look better there than they looked along the drive. Now I have a stock of spare rocks to use if I find another spot that I can use them in. Until then, they can just sit there looking pretty! I went to the “Stone Place” Landscape Company and picked up another run of seven lengths of precast curbing to finish the neighbour side of the drive. They only had what I call a “left” hand side tapered piece that slopes towards the city sidewalk at the bottom end of the driveway and I need a “Right” hand piece. They told me that they would call me the next day when the new shipment of “Right” hand pieces came in and I could drop back to pick one up. Well, I’m still waiting for their call but I have a hunch it won’t be today. What will probably happen is, they will call me on Friday when it’s raining here and there will be no use trying to install the curb in the rain. So I’ll probably wind up waiting for the next sunny day, which is supposed to be Monday May 10th. Guess there’s no harm in putting off the installation for a few days but it’s always nice to finish things in a timely manner and I don’t like postponing projects once they are under way. Not much I can do in this case. I do have the left hand piece and could install it but then I’d just have to pull it up once I get the right one and things always go awry when you do them the wrong way the first time so I think I’ll just wait for the right piece!
Getting back to the pond, I usually open it on or about the 24th of May so this year should be no different. I’ve been tempted to open it as much as a month ago but I figured it would be too cold to sit out and enjoy it if I did that. So, I left it closed and whadoyaknow, the weather has been nice and warm out back. Guess you can’t win ‘em all! Anyway, having to wait a little longer will only make the opening more enjoyable once it’s done. Carole’s gardens have bloomed and are blooming wonderfully this year as always but quite a bit earlier than usual. Thus, my allergies have been kicking up earlier as well and that’s no fun. Just because they started earlier doesn’t mean they’ll be over with earlier! It just means that I’ll be suffering with the itchy runny eyes for an extra month this year! Sheesh, I never even had allergies until I turned 56 years of age. I guess I can blame it all on Carole’s gardening prowess. If we had a nicely paved yard, I might not have watery itchy eyes at all! But then again.... who knows? Guess it’s just convenient to have someone to blame it all on! Sorry ‘bout that Carole! Guess the blame actually belongs on the shoulders of Mother Nature!
Speaking of luck, did you see the news piece about the young guy out in Alberta that won the Lotto MAX $41 + million dollars last week? Seems he just got laid off from his job a day or so before and decided to buy a Lotto MAX ticket to cheer himself up a little. Well, he cheered himself up alright! Now he’s got to learn how to say NO to the hundreds of friends and relatives he never knew he had! LOL! I’m sure he’ll be kept busy deciding who to help out and who not to in the next few months. Doug and I have been in a group that I manage buying lotto tickets every week for about 10 years now and the most we’ve won had been $85.00 I think and that was very early in the group’s formation. Since then we’ve won $20.00 or so every week and some weeks we’ve picked up several free tickets but to this date, no large amounts to speak of! I’ve had this recurring dream for years now where I’m standing in the Lotto offices in Toronto holding one of those HUGE cheques they give the winners to show the TV cameras. I’m always surrounded by my fellow group members and it’s a very large amount printed on the cheque. There has to be some meaning to this dream if it hasn’t changed in the past 20 years. It’s got to mean that I like dreaming about winning money or that some day me and my group WILL WIN a huge amount of money in a Lotto. I sure am hoping it’s the latter! LOL!
With McGuinty raising taxes and adding new taxes every time we turn around it sure would be nice to get a lotto boost like that young fellow out west. Think it’s time for an election here in Ontario! One where the Liberals take a 10-year break from leadership so they can watch the Conservatives show ‘em how to properly run a province!
There! That ought to stir up a little buzz!
That’s about 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>
Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.