The Squamidian Report – Jan. 6 / 18
Issue #815
Including:
From Russ
North Nova News
The Ontarion
Hi All,
At 'publishing' time for last weeks issue I mentioned that it was still
snowing. We had received about a foot and a half over the previous
couple of days and it was continuing to fall. Well, I got up on
Saturday morning and peaked out the window and saw that it had snowed
all night, the plow had come through again, and it had now stopped
snowing. After breakfast I pulled on my boots and coat and gloves and
went down into the garage to get ready to clear the driveway, again. I
hit the button to open the garage door and stood there watching as it
went up. As it went up the view of the driveway opened in front of me
and all could say was “HOLLY CRAP”! I was looking at knee deep snow,
all over everything, on top of the foot and a half we had just received
on the two previous days. And, the plow that had come through during
the night had pushed up a wall across the front of the driveway that
well over waist high. I had a busy morning ahead of me.
Normally I blow all the snow over to the side yard side of the driveway
but there was way too much to fit along that side, between the edge of
the driveway and the hedge. That meant I'd have to split the double
wide drive and blow half of it onto the lawn. No problem except for the
fact that my little truck was somewhere down at the front of the
property on our parking spot between the front retaining wall and the
street curb. I'd need to blow a lot of the snow onto the spot where the
truck was. (The truck was out there because Lauren's car was warm and
dry and comfy in my side of the garage). So first thing was to blow the
south side of the drive onto the side yard and then punch a hole
through the windrow along the street. That took a while. Then I had to
clear around the truck so I could get it out (the street plow had
buried the driver's side pretty good). Once I could get to the truck
and get it out I parked it on the now cleared side of the drive and
then cleared the other side of the driveway and then blew the massive
windrow of snow along the street onto our parking spot where the truck
had been. I was able to blow it back far enough that I can still
squeeze the truck in. Then, after a bottle of water and a snack I
tackled several of the neighbors drives, especially the entrances that
were simply too much for anyone to do with a shovel.
By the time I was done, I was 'done'. Soaked with sweat and tired. Its
hard work man handling a blower, not as hard as shoveling but hard none
the less. That poor old Toro is showing its age. I had it in to a
repair place last summer to have the drive belts replaced and at the
time I wanted them to replace the auger bearings and the transmission
seals. The didn't do that part, saying the bearings were fine and a bit
of leaking at the seals was not a problem. The seals are now shot as
are those bearings. I guess it will have to go in again once there is a
nice long clear spell in our forecast. But, given the age of the blower
and the amount of snow it has blown over the years, it sure doesn't owe
us anything.
Mercifully, the snow ended and the town has had a chance to clean up a
bit but like I've said before, this town does the worst job of clearing
its streets of any town anywhere. And the residents make it all the
worse by parking anywhere and everywhere, knowing full well that any
parking bylaws have never, every been enforced. Its a free-for-all,
park where you want for as long as you want, even if it blocks the
road. No one (except me) seems to care.
doug
****
From Russ
POST CHRISTMAS/NEW YEARS, by a live-alone widower from Point Clark, Lake Huron.
Today I felt ambitious (for a change) so I put away the Christmas cards
(after reading them over again, and I like it when they include a brief
hand-written note) but I’m afraid the ‘card thing’ is going the way of
phone booths, church attendance, and love letters. Sad.
Starting last September, some Charities I support, began including
several Christmas cards as an inducement to what they hope will result
in a generous donation (kind of playing on ones conscience). I have a
‘bundle’ of new cards left over from 2017 and 2016.....what to do with
them? I know said Charities will inundate me with more cards beginning
as early as September 2018. Being tempted to put said ‘bundle’
out for recycle, I hesitated when remembering;
“Printed greeting cards are NOT to be placed in recycle”
Auth. Huron-Kinloss Township.
Why? It seems that during the recycle process, the ink on the cards
Causes a ‘stink’......a hazardous one ! Hence, the 2017 bundle was
lovingly placed into the closet along side the left-overs from 2016,
2015, 2014, etc.
“Why don’t you simply dump them into the garbage?” you ask.
Answer #1. My guilty conscience won’t let me...maybe it’s
a sacrilege.
Answer #2. I must stick a $2 tag onto each bag, or the nice
guys on the garbage truck won’t pick them up.
( I guess I’ll leave the problem to the ones who ‘clean up’ after I’m gone)
And, speaking of problems, taking down the indoor tree was no
problem......it is a ‘creation’ of a Christmas tree, hand-made entirely
of brass buttons and gold-coloured costume jewellery, mounted in the
shape of a Christmas tree, on black velvet within an antique gold
picture frame (14 in. by 18 in.), and lighted with 20 miniature, clear
LED bulbs.
All credit to my dear daughter-in-law, Marie Pittman, of Calgary, Alta.
She is very creative/talented In Art & Crafts.
Brrrrrr........my outdoor Christmas decorations consisted of a double
set of multi-coloured miniature LED’s looped over the handrails of the
front porch, and the lighted “MIRACLE TREE” at the rear of the property
(described in my story appearing in the Dec. 23/17 Squamidian)
Both front and rear lights were on timers, so I braved the -17C wind
chill to unplug the timers.....the 3 extension cords running to the
“miracle tree” will have to be content to remain under 2 plus feet of
snow. I’ll attempt to retrieve them on April 1st, unless Mother Nature
plays an April Fool’s Joke and presents us with a mess of freezing
rain! Don’t be surprised if I don’t pull out the buried cords until May
21st when I celebrate my 89th Birthday (LOL) and, four months after
that, I’ll probably find some Charities mailing their 2018 Christmas
cards!
Left-overs
Today is January 3rd, and being an “old guy”, some friends were soooo
kind as to give me food/treats at Christmas time. Don’t get me wrong, I
appreciate it, but sometimes it gets a little much! In addition
to home-made chocolate chip cookies, shortbread cookies, a full-length
chocolate Santa, a box of Rochers chocolates, and some candy canes,
I’ve been a partaker of four Christmas Dinners! As follows;
St. Luke’s Annual Christmas Dinner (featuring roast turkey)
Friendship Club Annual Christmas Dinner (roast turkey)
A private Christmas dinner (roast turkey)
Another private New Years dinner (featuring, what else?...turkey) and
from 3 & 4 above, the kind friends sent me home with enough
left-over turkey dinners for three meals each.....that’s a total of
NINE TURKEY DINNERS!
Thanks be to God, but if I never see another turkey dinner until Thanksgiving, it will be too soon!
A belated Happy New Year to all you Squamidians from your ‘extra-large, pear-shaped’ Uncle Russ.
****
North Nova News
Well it looks like winter is finally upon us here in Nova Scotia.
Today its snowing like crazy and the wind is supposed to pick up
later. So visibility will be a big problem. The storm is
predicted to last overnight with 15 to 25 cm. We are prepared for
a power outage as we are so used to getting with these high winds and
heavy snow. There is always another tree that falls on a power
line somewhere. The strange thing is when that happens it takes
out a huge area. I guess our system is not that
great. We have a portable generator that keeps our fridge,
freezer and some lights on.
And of course the TV. For heat we have the cozy wood stove that
is going most of the winter with all the firewood put away in the
woodshed. We have an extra pile out in the yard covered with a
huge tarp just in case we run out later on. I have water in jars
and large pots set aside since the pump from the well won't work in a
power outage. That's country living!!! The pond is frozen
solid so no water there. Someday we will get a bigger generator
and have it wired into our electrical box so all we have to do is flick
a switch. That's the plan. Also some solar panels are in the
plan.
I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying semi retirement. Working a
couple or few days a week or taking as much time off as I want is
fantastic. This past year I had 5 full weeks off and that's never
happened before. My clients are pretty much grateful I'm still
working and will work around my schedule for a change! Working
now is more like visiting with all my friends and the plus for them is
they get their hair done. Also its nice to get a paycheck still
that bumps up my pensions. So here's to old age and
retirement....its the best!!!
Happy New Year to you all!
Sus
*****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
As I sit here at my keyboard there are three things that come to mind
to talk about this week, politics, religion and the weather and I’m not
sure I want to discuss any of these! However, the weather seems to be
the one thing on most peoples minds these days and not just here in
Ontario. This cold snap has blanketed ¾ of the North American continent
and doesn’t look like it’ll let up any time soon. Oh well, other than
the severe low temperatures it reminds me of the snowy winters we had
all through the 50’s to the 80’s and then we started to have the odd
milder winter. Seems to me that things are reversing and old man winter
is back with a vengeance! My only regret is that I’m in no shape to use
my favourite winter toy, my TORO! Oh well, I’m sure we’ll have more
winters like this in the next ten years or so and I’ll still be using
the TORO when they come along so no biggie for this year anyway!
Thank goodness I’ve got my trusty Christmas present of a few years ago
sitting beside me here in the office. It’s a “Duraflame” electric
radiant heater and it’s like sitting in the lovely summer sunshine! Of
course we have a furnace in the house but it seems that this office
needs a supplemental heat source and this works just fine. I set it up
beside my office chair at about the 3’ mark of distance from my cold
backside and at the moment I’m just reveling in the warmth. Of course
it only heats the cheek that it’s facing! LOL! After a few minutes or
so the small room warms up quite nicely and I forget it’s winter
outside! Seems to me that I read somewhere that there are only 75 more
days until SPRING! I can’t wait! This winter will go down in the books
as one of the coldest in the past 50 years and I have no doubt it’ll
set low temp records all through the season. I know it has already done
so and we’re just getting started. Oh well, at least the kids can’t
complain that there’s not enough snow for their sledding and
tobogganing not to mention their outdoor rink activities. There was a
feature on tonight’s news about the skating rinks around the cities of
Kitchener and Waterloo and I was surprised at the number of Ice Skaters
that were bi_ _ ching about the cold! It came to mind that these people
can’t have it both ways, either they want ice to skate on and they
dress warm to do so or they get the heck inside and sit by the fire!
You would think they’d be dressed for such a recreational activity so
they wouldn’t have to complain about being cold while on the rinks!
Thinking back to when I last had on a pair of skates it was a while ago
for sure. Way back then I was in the beginnings of my Fire Dept career
I was coaxed into joining the jocks for a friendly game of hockey one
Saturday morning at a rink up on Parkside Dr, indoor rink of course! I
managed to borrow a pair of hockey skates from another member on my
crew and headed up to the rink. I was the only guy not wearing any
formal hockey gear. Of course this was a “no hitting” friendly skate
just to whack the puck around for fun! Guess what, the “Jocks” of
course could not just play for fun, they were out for blood as if they
were playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I managed to avoid being
boarded several times but I knew it was coming sooner or later. The
guys could see that I wasn’t a hockey player of any skill and let me
have a break away or two, all in good sportsmanship. Finally one of the
biggest players on the rink decided he’d had enough of this sissy stuff
and when my head was turned away, managed to body-slam me at center
ice! It felt like I had hit a brick wall as this particular guy weighed
in at better than 225 lbs. He knocked the wind out of me in a
chest-to-chest collision and I dropped like a stone! He merely huffed
as he bounced me to the ice and skated away as if he’d hit a flea in
mid flight. WOW! Was I rocked to the bone to say the least? I regained
my senses and managed to get back up to my feet. I skated off the ice
with a brave look on my face as if to say, “That’ll teach him not to
tangle with me!” I sat out for the remaining 20 minutes of ice time and
laughed about the incident with the guys in the locker room after we
had finished. The big lug that nailed me actually came over and
apologized for the “Hit” after a few of the guys gave him hell for
picking on the new guy! LOL! I just accepted his apology politely and
said, “Apology accepted! It didn’t hurt anyway Gary, are you OK?” Then
the whole room burst out in laughter. That part of the day “the
collision” hurt enough but to add insult to injury on the way home, I
got pulled over by a cop at the intersection of Westmount and Union St
for speeding in my ’65 Buick Riviera. The copper that stopped me smiled
as he handed me a ticket for 10 mph over the limit and said “Nice car!
Try to slow it down next time!” I wanted to introduce him to the brick
wall I had just smacked into at the hockey rink and then see if he’d
still be smiling! Oh well, all in all it was a fun day and a new
experience for me after not playing hockey since grade 6 and besides
the ticket in those days was only worth $1.00 per mile over the limit
so it hurt less paying the fine than coming in contact with Gary Smiley
at center ice!
That’s pretty much it 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>
When I was a kid, I actually liked (watching) Hockey and used to spend
Saturday evenings with my Grandpa Hoy cheering for the Leafs of course!
I want to dedicate this week’s column to the late Johnny Bauer. He was
my favourite player and to think he faced guys like Gary (the brick
wall) every game and he did it without a mask! What a brave man he was!
PPS: Also, a hoist of the puck to Gary Smiley (the brick wall) God rest
his soul! Maybe Gary and Johnny will meet up on the “Big Rink” in the
sky!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
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