Issue #957
Including:

From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

Most of our driving of late has been in the Tacoma pickup, just because why not. The poor old Camry with it’s 255,000km’s has been demoted to ‘second vehicle’. It has not been used much at all since mid winter. For a long time it’s been very loud and noisy to drive with a lot of drive train noise. Last year we had a front wheel bearing replace that I had thought would quiet it down a bit but it didn’t. The year before we had the other front replaced and it had only quieted down a bit. So, it’s been noisy to drive for quite a while. Last Friday we had picked up our friends and taken them to Lion’s Bay with us for our usual Friday morning coffee get-together. We rotate between our place and the other two places and it works out great. As usual, the drive down was loud but we were used to it. As we were leaving our Lion’s Bay friends place to head back to Squamish I mentioned that one of the remaining wheel bearing must be in need of replacement because it was getting even louder, again.

Onto the highway we headed and within about 2 clicks the noise level became very loud, the car shook and I would swear we had a flat tire. That’s not a good highway to have to pull over on given that we were in one of the narrow curvy 2-lane sections but there was no choice. I got out to see which tire was down but they were all fine. Puzzling. So I tried driving slowly and the shake was gone and the noise level was down to where it had been. I drove as easy as traffic and hills permitted and we got back ok, dropped off our friends and made it home fine. We then made an appointment at the repair shop we deal with to have it looked at and fixed. That had been a bit of a scare.

It went in on Tuesday morning. The repair shop called to say it was the front wheel bearing that they had replace just last year and because they warrant parts and labor, there would be no charge. The car was ready to be picked up that afternoon and all is now well. And, its now quieter than it has been in a long time, the way it should be. And for all of you who claim you can’t contribute a story once in a while to this letter, this story is how you do it, just babble on about something and there you go.

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The smoke has lifted! It was like someone pulled a dark smelly bag off our heads. We can see the mountains, we can see the sky and the sun. We can breath, our raspy throats are clearing up, our noses are starting to stop running. This is all to the thanks of a low pressure system sitting off shore. The air movement is now from the west instead of from the south. The cooler temperatures and rain that the weather system brings with it are very welcome. Especially the rain as it can wash the air, wash the trees, the houses, the ground and so on.

We spent most of the last two or three weeks chocked and blinded by that thick blanket of smoke from the forest fires in the States to the south of us, California, Oregon, and Washington. Most of southern BC endured some of the worst air quality on the planet. I can’t imagine how it must have been for anyone in those States. During that time period we apparently had clear sunny skies way high above the layer of smoke, but no one could tell, it couldn’t be seen. VFR air traffic couldn’t fly. Heck, birds could hardly fly and they tended to ‘sleep in’ each morning because they couldn’t tell it was morning.

I had wanted to put some music together in time for this week’s addition and that put doing this projects just before the smoke cleared out. At the time of this recording and videoing, I could barely speak so that made it rather interesting. The old voice was very compromised. But that’s how it goes, or went, as the case my be, and like they say, “the show must to on”. This week’s choice of song is one that was written by Sylvia Tyson way, way back in the 60’s, called You Were On My Mind. A rock group called the ‘Wee Five’ (I think) did a cover of it back then but my cover is laid back and pretty easy going just like everything I do. This number also reminds me of cousin Nova Scotia Sus because I can remember her singing and playing it way back then, when we were kids, while we were struggling to figure out a few basic guitar chords. As per usual, the links below take you to the video version and the audio version of the song. Again, the video version is a one-take, raw and ‘live’. No frills, on editing and so on. The audio version is where I can add harmonies, and some nice base using that little hollow body acoustic base guitar. I find the rubber strings on it give a pretty nice sound similar to what you get from those great big upright bases. So, there you go. Another exemplary effort on my part to bring weekly entertainment to our loyal readers during these strange times.

You Were On My Mind
(Video Version)

You Were On My Mind
(Audio Version)

doug

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From Russ

The scolding

Do you remember that quaint family custom of attending church each Sunday? Most of us will, but few of us carry on the “old fashion” tradition any more. Probably only the archaic ones among us still go to church, and only they do because they are now attending more funerals than weddings. We are maybe thinking, “My turn is next”.

Those who attend church have their own private reasons – so enough said. But I’ll gladly share mine; firstly to ‘blame’ are my parents; they were regular attendees and the same was expected of us kids. In my ‘wild’ years I didn’t darken a church doorway – because none of my friends did. But, when I got married it was back to “compulsory” church attendance.

Now it is a ‘habit’ that I can’t (and maybe don’t want to) break. Most of my closer friends are regular attendees and, due to the pandemic we’ve all missed the friendly greetings with hand-shakes, hugging and visiting before, during, and after the Service. It’s safe to say, we sometimes behave like “boisterous, disrespectful children”. (and the younger priest is sometimes equally liberal). But not so last Sunday!

For various reasons we are not holding Sunday Service in the church, but rather in the Parish hall – the place where we hold all the ‘parties’ – the place where we relax and enjoy each other’s company – a place with very few rules!

The Bishop allowed us Anglicans to ‘open our churches’ for the first time in 6 months on Sunday, September 13th – but with very strict rules. I won’t print them here because there are far too many and you wouldn’t believe them anyway!

These same rules applied to the hall, but we ‘bad children’ did not abide. So, last week (Sun. Sep. 20th), we got “scolded”. Other than by cops and spouses, when do we “adults” get scolded for bad behaviour?

Picture this: The priest walks out from the kitchen of the hall in ‘full vestry’ gowning – and he’s not smiling as usual. He doesn’t give us that usual friendly greeting. But, he hits us with that “pregnant pause” that demands our full attention.

“Russell” he scolds, looking straight at me sitting in the very front row (I know I’m going to ‘get it’ because I was the noisiest of all)

“I wouldn’t have recognized you – you’ve removed your beard?”

“All of it?” he asks.

“Yes”, I replied sheepishly, “Shaved it off by accident”.

“By accident? He replies, “How does one shave off one’s beard by accident?

But, he doesn’t want to know – he now directs his apparent anger at us, reiterating what the Bishop has ‘ruled’ regarding COVID 19.

We sit silently, taking our well deserved scolding. I don’t know what others were feeling, I felt like I was back in school. I was a kid being scolded by my teacher – an uncomfortable, guilty feeling. I waited in ‘class’ until everyone was gone from the ‘school ’before having the courage to leave.

We’ll be a subdued bunch of ‘kids’ next Sunday – I betcha!

Uncle Russ.(age 10)

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

There’s so much negative crap going on these days that I’m trying to think positively about as much as possible myself. We’ve been working hard to get all the outside work done around the house in preparation for the winter that’s on it’s way here! We’ve gotten most of that work finished but just have a few items to pack into their Rubbermaid tubs to be stored in the shed for the coming season. We’ve just had the stamped concrete driveway resealed two days ago and it sure did bring the colour back to the surface that almost matches the original colour. It was kind of an orangey pink and I never did really like that colour but now over the years it’s almost turned a reddish brown and it looks to be a much more acceptable colour that better matches the Yellowish brickwork on the house! That’s just one thing that was needed for a long time now! We also tore up and relayed the flagstone walkway that leads from the fence gate to the patio out back and bringing the level of that up and also making each stone level with the others around them has made it no longer an ankle twister which was the reason for redoing it in the first place. It worked and it also looks much better than before it was done this time!

The next big job that I completed last week was the shutting down of the pond in the corner of the back yard. That’s always a one day job and now it’s finished for the winter along with a heavy plastic tarp covering the wooden framework that holds the tarp up off the water that’s left in the pond for the winter. Thank goodness we no longer have fish in the pond. That never did work very well. I gave the fish to the neighbour of a friend a few blocks away from here about a dozen years ago and since they’ve been gone, the pond has been much easier to keep clean! No more fish for this guy unless they’re on my dinner plate! Speaking of which, Adam purchased a case of Trout fillets from a company in New Dundee area about three months ago and we’ve finally finished all but one package of trout dinner fillets from that case. We gave some thought to buying another box of fillets but decided not to since we are not too much in the way of fish eaters over the winter months. That is unless it’s in a Fish and Chip dinner configuration! We decided to take Costco up on their offer of 40 Bison burgers in a special offer. Adam purchased them on line last week and we had our first Bison burger dinner two days after receiving them via delivery service from Costco. They were delicious indeed! The first time I experienced a Bison burger was up at a food truck near Orillia about 10 years ago and if I recall correctly, it was also delicious. However, there aren’t too many if any places around the KW area that make and sell Bison burgers so I hadn’t had another one until Adam discovered the offer from Costco. I highly recommend that you give them a try if you’ve never had one! I’d better stop the food talk at this point, as it’s making me hungry and at this time of night that’s not good for my diet! LOL! Oh well, I can dream can’t I?

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Speaking of dreaming, I was watching a show on TV just before coming to the office to write my Ontarion that was about rebuilding cars and it made me have a daydream about the 1972 Corvette Stingray that I bought brand new back in that year! I only owned it for a short time but have missed that car ever since I sold it! I hadn’t seen it since the day the buyer drove it away from my parent’s house on Floyd St. After that, I got married and moved on and had we had a son, bought a house etc etc etc! Then I joined the Fire Department and began an interesting and challenging career in the fire service. One of the duties of being a firefighter was doing home inspections during the “good weather” months and that lead to many interesting experiences. We would take our four person crew on one of the Pumpers and select different sections of the city and each day we would park in a neighbourhood and walk from house to house and do fire safety inspections. This brought us into many clean and lovely homes and also some very run down and shabby ones as well. One day we were doing home inspections up on the top of Erb St almost at the city limits where the round about before Costco of today is now! There was a new development of town houses that needed to be inspected so that was our objective for that particular week. These town homes also had attached garages which was unusual back in the late 70’s! While inspecting one of the homes, the owner asked if we’d like to inspect his garage as well so we did and when he opened the garage door, there sat a Green 1972 Corvette Stingray!

When I owned my ’72 Corvette, there was a vandal that broke the side mirror off the driver’s door while I was in the Grand Hotel in Bridgeport enjoying an evening with the Copperpenny band who were friends of mine at the time. When I came out of the hotel, I noticed the mirror was hanging by a thread of fiberglass and there was a large hole in the door where the mirror had been mounted. While looking at the corvette in the home owner’s garage I noticed that his mirror had been remounted in the fiberglass door. I asked him if he’d had someone break the mirror off the door and he replied that it had been like that from the time he purchased it about 5 year earlier! As it turned out, he wasn’t the fellow I sold the Vette to but was the person who bought it from the guy that bought it from me back in 1972! I told him the story and he also let me look inside and at that point I found the two Headphone jacks that I had had mounted in the console by the parking brake lever. I had them installed by “Dave’s Auto Radio” on King St near Ottawa St so I could listen to music on my headphones while driving back in the day! I remember listening to Gordon Lightfoot singing his hit “Sundown” while cruising the streets of KW. The whole point of this write-up is that at that point I had found my old Corvette after several years! It brought back many good memories of owning that beautiful vehicle! Since that day, I’ve thought of that place and my ’72 Corvette every time I drive past that same town house development on Erb St W!

Owning a special vehicle such as a Corvette is hard to forget! Since then, Carole and I have owned many vehicles and have also owned another Corvette that we purchased from my cousin. That particular one was a 1974 and was also a memorable vehicle! Once Adam was born, the Corvette was too small inside to accommodate the three of us so soon after his birth, the Vette was history once again! Oh well, now that we’re older and he’s on his own, we can easily fit the two of us into the MGB and that’s our weekend toy as you know! No more Corvettes for us but the memories and dreams still exist and that’s fine with me!

That’s it for this week folks!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg

PS: Something To Think About>

Speaking of dreams, why don’t you sit down this week and write about a dream of yours and send that write up to Doug so he can include it in the Squid for next week?

Good luck all and stay healthy!

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