The Squamidian Report – Oct. 22 / 16
Issue #752
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Did I mention its still raining? Couldn't have because I just started
writing this. But it is. Summer was a month late getting here and fall
came barging in a month early. That made for a pretty short summer. Did
I mention that last weekend we were expected to receive about a foot of
rain but we got off easy with only about 9 inches. But that was last
weekend and we've gone way past the silly one foot mark by now.
Oh, get this, our gas prices on and near the coast are the highest of
anywhere in North America. You might ask what does that have to do with
rain, well, here's the connection and also just how ridiculous it is.
BC's gas prices are way higher than anywhere in the country and in the
Lower Mainland they are another 15 cents per liter higher than that.
There is carbon tax throughout the province and then Translink tax is
added on in the GVA. It even gets added on up here and we don't have
Translink, the GVA transit system. Very frustrating. Anyway, every time
our gas prices jump, there always seems to be some lame excuse like a
refinery down for maintenance somewhere down in Texas, or the coffee
maker in the board room of some oil companies offices is broken, that
sort of thing. This time prices jumped because of the threat of last
weekends storm. It wasn't an overly big storm, just lots of rain,
nothing new at all by west coast standards but now apparently a bit of
rain gives the oil companies a reason to raise gas prices. By the way,
the same storms hit south of the border, perhaps a bit harder than they
hit here, and their prices are still at record low levels. Boggles the
mind.
Something quite common besides rain around here right now are the
bears. They are still trying to find as much to eat as possible before
heading up into the hills to hibernate. Shortly after dark on pretty
well every evening the local dogs will start to make a fuss and that
usually means a bear or two is out and about in the neighborhood. They
will check any garbage cans that have been left out, and check any
fruit trees that still have fruit, and walk right up the middle of the
street as if it were their own, which is was before we came along and
built the streets in their back yard. Most bears go on with their
business and end up wandering off into the wilderness for the winter.
Some however become a problem. Its not their fault, its the fault of
the dumb people. Two things can cause a bear to be labeled a 'problem'
bear. The first one is when a bear has been given a taste of food that
was left out, as in garbage or on a tree, and keeps coming back for
more. They often end up getting into car ports or cars, or trying to
open someone's doors. The second one is when a bear becomes used to
people and looses its fear of them. Those ones become aggressive and
will charge. And they are much bigger, faster and stronger than we are.
In both cases those bears are unfortunately put down, in the interest
of safety. To be more specific, our safety, not the bears safety.
Something not quite right about that.
We've got one of those problem bears hanging around our street and
neighborhood right now. There is a trap set for it down on Glacier Cr
but its managed to avoid entering the thing, which would trigger the
door to close after which the bear would be possibly relocated but more
than likely put down. This one has already been tagged so it has a
'record'. Anyway, Thursday was garbage day and the bear had been making
its rounds. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your point of view, it
got to our street just after the garbage truck had emptied the bins. I
could hear banging and clattering out on the street, and I could hear
Willow scratching loudly at the back door. She had been out on the deck
where the roof overhangs making a comfy napping area for her. I let her
in and she didn't waist a moment, she scooted right up the stairs, into
our bedroom and up onto the bed where she curled up in as small at ball
as she could. (She's not aloud on the bed by the way). I figured I knew
what had spooked her, the same thing making the noise outside so I went
out to bring our now empty garbage bin in. I looked down the street and
every bin was tipped over right up to our neighbor's which was in the
process of being tipped over. The bear was working its methodical way
along. Ours would have been next. It looked at me, I at it, and it
crossed the street and knocked over the bin if front of that house,
checked inside it and then stood there eyeing ours. I figured it was a
good time to bring both the bin and myself in and thats what I did. The
bear wandered off up over that neighbors lawn and headed for the rugged
forest that is right behind the houses on that side of the street.
Unfortunately, it will be back.
With 'the wife' away I've had a chance to work on some music ideas and
one actually panned out. Perhaps it was the weather that helped develop
the idea as I was lamenting the fact that the endless rain was well,
endless. So, heres that entree onto my list of original music. By the
way, all that original music of mine seems to be very well received up
at the gondola lodge where I've been playing fairly regularly. I just
wish there were a few more of 'me' so I could put harmony and backup
instrumentation into my live music the way I have it in my recorded
numbers.
If It Only Rained At Night
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Isn’t it funny when at times the weirdest
things enter your pea pickin’ little brain? I just had one of those
flashbacks the other day when Carole and I were out doing some
non-essential shopping. We were out and about and she wanted to just
wander through a few stores she likes the content in, such stores as
Home Sense, Winners and Bowring’s. The kinds of stores that appeal to
most women and that husbands usually get dragged through on a whim! As
we walked around Home Sense I think it was, there were some interesting
items that even I didn’t mind seeing. For instance, there was an item
that Carole picked up that brought back a flood of my public school
memories from the 50’s and early 60’s. It was a foot long wooden box
approximately one and a half inches square. It had a sliding door on
top that when pulled from its grooves was a 12” ruler. I had forgotten
such things existed but the usefulness of such an item from my early
school days suddenly flashed to mind when Carole showed it to me in the
store. The box itself this time was made of wood but as I recall from
public school days most of the ones back in Prueter School in the north
ward of Kitchener were plastic. Funny how 55 or more years ago we’d
have made use of plastic for such items rather than wood! The boxes
were used to hold pencils, pens, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, as well
as in some cases coloured pencil crayons. Later on in school years most
of these devices were replaced by flexible zippered bags or pouches
that held many more writing essentials than their wooden ancestors.
When studying geometry the pouches needed to be larger so as to hold a
compass and a protractor as well. When I started high school at KCI my
father was working at Burns Meats as head of security and his boss gave
him a slightly used but quite expensive pure leather black briefcase to
give to me to carry my many books to and from school as well as to each
class during the daytime. It was very handy but looked a tad nurdy for
a “new kid” in school to be lugging around. I did however get used to
it and wasn’t the only kid in class that carried such an item. I
remember how relieved I was when I realized another young boy whom I
had come to know at our church was in my class and he also carried the
same big black briefcase! We spent most of our first year walking from
class to class together and as it turned out the large briefcases could
be used for other purposes than just carrying books! One day as we were
scurrying from one class to another we encountered a couple of “tough
guys” in the Tech Wing of the school who suddenly blocked our path and
began to scoff at our “sissy” bags. Roger (my buddy’s name) and I
looked at each other and must have been reading each other’s mind, we
glared into the eyes of the bullies and in one coordinated motion swung
our heavy black briefcases hitting both of these guys right in the
Canadian Rockies! OUCH! They yelled and we ran to class leaving the two
of them buckled in pain on the hallway floor! We saw them again in the
halls of the school but they never uttered a word in our direction
after that day, at least, not one that we heard! I guess most bullies
could use a whack in the groin to teach them a lesson! My dad laughed
when I got home and told him that I had found another use for my “black
beauty”! He said he’d been asked by his boss if the briefcase worked
out ok for me and he could hardly wait to get to work the next day to
relay my story to him!
I know we all have hundreds of stories from
our school days that we can relate to others but that one seems to have
stuck in my mind more prominently over the years. The briefcase became
tattered over the first two years of high school so having seen better
days I retired it after grade 9! YES, you read correctly, I spent two
years in grade 9 and THAT was one of the hardest lessons I ever had to
learn during my school years! One of the best lessons learned by me
was, it pays dividends to spend more days in the classroom than in
“Ontario Billiards” with my buddy Joe Doczi! I don’t know what ever
happened to Joe but the bugger managed to pass grade nine the first
year and I was left behind. I guess he kept up with his homework while
my mind was on playing hooky and trying not to get caught by the VP, Mr
Ross Dunford!
I will say though, that costly lesson was worth it in the end. From that year on I was almost a model student, I said “almost”!
For the most part, I enjoyed my 5 years at KCI
even though it should have only been 4! Once I switched from the Arts
and Science course to the 4 year Commercial course I seemed to take to
take to the business subjects better than the Sciences. I never was
much for learning different languages such as French. After all, when
your “French” teacher’s name is Brian MacPherson it’s hard to take the
subject seriously! LOL! The only language that ever caught my fancy
other than English was profanity and I managed that one quite well. I
remember shortly after I learned the “F” word the lady down the street
who was also the mother of two of my best friends, sitting me down in
her kitchen and lecturing me on the use of such foul and disgusting
language. I was only a youngster at the time but it wasn’t until my
teen years that I once again began to make use of that word, among
others, and for evermore have looked over my shoulder to make sure that
Florence Foster wasn’t within ear shot when I did! LOL!
That’s enough for this week folks! Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look
forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Words that soak into your ears are whispered … not yelled!
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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.
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