There is no need for me to talk about the out of control, raging forest fires that are incinerating the middle of BC. The media is covering that and every news cast on TV or radio keeps everyone updated. Mind you, half the stories they run are 4 day old re-runs. The fires are spreading continually, working their way north up the central part of the province. The closest ones to here would be a good 3 hours ride to the east. Out here on and near the coast it is dry but not the tinder dry that is so dangerous. In many cases its the same areas that were fighting flooding a few short weeks ago that are now going up in flames.

An interesting side effect is the lack of motor homes that would normally be clogging our highways. They tended to be driven by tourists from Alberta and further afield but because there is simply no where to go in the Interior, there is only the coastal areas available and to get to the coast they must driver through the Interior. There are only 2 routes still open, the Trans Canada and Highway 3. Both could be closed at any time. There is no camping for the tourists or anyone else for that matter because there are no campgrounds left, and those that are have been closed because in many cases there is only one way in and out and should that route become blocked by fire or fire fighting efforts, well, you'd have some very unhappy campers.

Out on and by the coast you'd never know the fires were burning because with the exception of a day or two, the prevailing winds have been pumping marine air onto the coast. Our days have stayed bright and clear.

But get this, we are certainly under every fire ban that can be levied and we should be. Its dry here. So you'd think that the mindless morons out there might just maybe get the message. Apparently not. Some idiot out the valley threw his cigarette butt out his car window, like we see so many of them doing all the time. Only this time there happened to be a cop behind him. The cop certainly saw the burning butt and pulled the guy over. How does a fine of $570 sound? Personally I don't think it sounds like enough. He should have had his cigarettes and his car impounded right on the spot as well. Its like with people driving while on their phones, they just don't seem to think laws and rules apply to them.

And now for something totally different.... granddaughter Kyra likes to play a game she calls 'hook'. She came up with it way back when she was only about 3 and it evolved from watching cartoons about a tow truck that would 'hook' onto things and pull them out, and a helicopter that had a 'hook' hanging down that it would lift things with. That particular helicopter was piloted by a puppy. (It was after all a cartoon). Anyway, we'd often play this game in the back yard where one person would stand somewhere and pretend to be stuck. They would make an imaginary emergency call to the person that would come and tow them out, the procedure being the tow-er would reach out and 'hook' the tow-ee. The other day she was mucking around in the house and found a bungee cord with a nice big hook on the end. She thought about it for a few minutes and then handed it to Granny, telling her “here Granny, you can be an OLD HOOKER". I just about fell off my chair from laughing so hard.

Hello everyone!

Who’d a thunk that a skill I learned in high school would serve me well for the rest of my life? I guess we never know how well we’ll use what we learn until it suddenly dawn’s on us and sometimes that happens later in life! After high school I was offered an apprenticeship in refrigeration and while working at that trade I never had a chance to use my typing skills. It wasn’t until I had jumped from the trade to joining the Fire Service that I found a need to brush up on my typing skills once again. In fact I was on the department for a number of years before I actually needed to reintroduce myself to the keyboard. I had earned a promotion  to the rank of Lieutenant and was put in charge of a station and at that point I realized that typing would be a large part of my future and it was a skill I’d learned many years before and never gave a second though to. Suddenly I was writing report after report as an officer and found that being able to type them out was a real advantage. The real change came when the Deputy Chief (a nerd himself) decided to introduce computerization to the department. He figured that we should finally catch up with the rest of the world. So, computers were put in each office and all of the typewriters were sold off to anyone that wanted a boat anchor for their home or cottage! LOL! I had a distinct advantage over most of the other officers at that point as I was able to pick up my high school typing skill in pretty short order. The Deputy had purchased a typing proficiency program to teach all officers to type over the first few weeks of having the new fangled machines on their desks. I’m trying to think what the name of the program was! I think it was named after the inventor’s secretary. No matter, it was a program that started one off slowly and increased in speed over time. It wasn’t long before I was back up to a respectable speed in wpm (words per minute) and life in the office was much easier. That was way back in the late 80’s early 90’s.

There was talk back then that we’d eventually be getting computers in each fire truck so information could be sent directly to us while responding to emergency calls. Well, I progressed to the rank of Captain after a few years and still no computers on the trucks. Of course the age of miniaturization was still in its infancy and even the first cell phones were still the size of clay bricks! SO, consequently we had to settle for waiting at the front door of the apparatus floor for a printout to appear on the “typewriter” sized printer so the officer could tear off the printout before boarding the Rig to head to whatever call had just come in! That was an improvement over the box of 4”x8” recipe cards we carried on the trucks with sections of the city street map on them. When we were just new on the job, two or three years, Larry Koch and I got tired of looking at the map on the wall in each fire hall to find the street named in the verbal emergency that had just come over the P/A so we’d know where we were going before boarding the truck. After a lot of discussion on the matter, we went to the Deputy and told him we would volunteer to make up the “recipe” file cards in small boxes with every street in the city listed alphabetically if he would agree to mount a box in each truck. We thought this would make it more efficient for the officer and driver to be able to refer to a “Street” card as we responded to our calls! He agreed to fund the project and I’m proud to say it worked and we used that system for the rest of my career. The card file system is still in use on the Fire Trucks in Waterloo although they have improved the quality of the cards since my leaving the job. I was reading the RECORD paper the other day and came across an article about the new communication system that Kitchener Fire is spending a million and a half dollars on this coming year. Since the mid 90’s KFD has been the dispatch centre for all the fire departments in the region including Waterloo and all of the volunteer departments.

The article mentioned that their new com system would allow the Fire and Police to communicate with each other via radio as well as allow each firefighter to talk to one another and their dispatch centre while wearing SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) at an emergency location. Previously, all messages from Fire to Police and vise versa had to be radioed to dispatch and phoned from there to the other’s dispatch. It was a time consuming slow process. This new system will speed that up immensely and make for a much safer situation for all involved. The Paramedics will still be operating on their own “Provincial” radio com-system. Included in this article in the RECORD was a short paragraph stating that with the advent of this new com-system all fire trucks in the region will now be equipped with computer terminals right on the dash of each vehicle. WOW! It only took them 27 years after the project was first mentioned by Waterloo’s Deputy Chief Ed Novak to actually have it come to fruition! I guess now they can toss out the “Recipe Card System” that Larry Koch and I came up with back in the mid-70s! LOL! My oh my, talk about progress, and here I never thought I’d live to see the day! I remember how nerve wracking it was to have to go through all the steps of making sure you knew the location of the emergency and the route you were taking to get there before pulling out of the Fire Hall in the pumper so this “New” system and truck mounted computers will finally make the efficiency of Emergency Response easier on the drivers and officers! Too bad it took so darned long! Oh well, if it saves one life it’ll be worth the investment and the wait!

It’ll be 15 years on August 31st that I’m retired from the Fire Service and 52 years since I first laid my fingers on the keyboard of a typewriter in a classroom at KCI and guess what, I still make use of this fun skill almost every day!

I’d like to say thanks to Mr Gowing and the other typing teachers that put an effort in to passing this skill on to me in the early years of my education. It certainly ranks as one of the most useful things ever pounded into my pea pickin’ little brain and I am indeed grateful! I can’t say the same for the hours of useless algebra that Miss Schmidt tried her darndest to sink into my noodle back in KCI! That’s the one thing that I have never given a second thought to since leaving KCI and guess what, I don’t miss it! LOL!

Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me this week!
I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!



PS: Something To Think About>
What is the one subject that you learned in school at any level that you have made the most use of?
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