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Issue #1021
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From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

The latest news regarding the re-opening of the BC highways that were destroyed in the mid November floods is that one of them will be made passable by sometime next week. The ‘main’ one. Now, ‘made passable’ carries some big limitations. The many bridges that were washed out are being replaced by temporary bailey bridges that will be single lane wide. The many areas where the highway itself was washed away will be re-opened as single lane passage. All the highways will continue to be construction sites for a very long time to come. However, with the main one, the Coquihalla, being open but restricted to commercial traffic, it will take a lot of pressure off #3 which has been the restricted commercial route since the floods. It was also damaged but not near as badly as the other highways. Highway #1 will follow at some point but sections of it were originally notched into the side of the Fraser Canyon and some of those canyon walls are simply not there anymore. Once the ‘Coq’ is open to commercial trucking, #3 will be made available to personal travel as well as the Duffy section of #99 which has been restricted to essential travel for smaller vehicles. So, as these highways re-open, some will permit commercial and some will permit personal traffic to pass. However, they will all be subject to single lane sections and on-going construction for years to come. The Duffy has always been a narrow two-lane highway and increased traffic on it will be ugly.

Another problem is that with almost no personal travel into and out of the Lower Mainland, Whistler has become an even more popular destination for people living in Vancouver and the surrounding areas. That has been a real headache for us as this highway has become a nightmare, even more of a nightmare than usual. It was always too busy and too crowded with adrenaline junkies racing up to Whistler but now with it being opened to general traffic as the only route into the mid and upper Interior of the province, it will be even worse. Highway #3 gives access to the southern section of the province, to places like Penticton and Osoyoos and further east. The Coq was the main route for anyone heading cross country or to places like Kamloops or Revelstoke or Calgary. It’s also the route for people in the Lower Mainland who are headed for the Interior ski hills. Or was, they will all be trying to race over the Duffy which is a gateway to both the center and northern Interior. It and the rest of the north end of #99, from Vancouver on up, will not be a nice place to be, especially on the weekends. We’ll be sticking close to home for quite a while.

By the way, these are the highways that the tow truck show called ‘Highway Through Hell’ are filmed on. So if you’ve ever watched any episodes of that show, you have an idea of what these highways are like.

Our gas rationing has also come to an end. It was pretty stupid to begin with. The only real effect it had was to trigger a rush at the pumps and cause idiots to hoard gas. No one really needed much gas because there was no where to go. So thats how things are around here these day. In all honesty, life for people like us wasn’t really effected by any of this all that much, but there are still thousands of people out of their homes and farms out the Fraser Valley. They will continue to be effected for a long time to come.

And from a ‘winter’ perspective, it is typically wet down in the valley and anywhere near the ocean. Up here it does in fact look like winter. We’ve cleared our driveway several time so far, nothing major but it all looks nice. We’er expected to get a real dump of snow this weekend. The old Toro blower still starts on the first pull. Thats a good thing. The mountain sides up around the gondola are buried in deep white snow, the trees up there are draped in the stuff, just like a Christmas card. And, early Christmas gift for us was that the food & beverage manager that had given us and so many other so much grief and had caused so many good employees to quit, has finally been fired and they are working on putting the place back the way it was. So thats a really good thing. He had done a disturbing amount of damage to the gondola and to its reputation but now he’s gone and that is a very good thing. Better late than never, but a very good thing.

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This is the last of the videos I’ve got put together. The song is an old Dylan number called ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’. Hopefully I’ll be able to put a few more videos together at some point in the near future but first I’ll have to find some songs to do. In the mean time, when this musical section of this letter is missing and hopefully missed, just remember that old saying, “silence is golden”.

Knocking On Heaven’s Door

doug

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From Russ

Suspect? or person-of-interest?

It's been four years since Barry and his wife, Honey were found dead in their multi-million dollar home in 'snooty-ville', Toronto. By now everybody knows about the 'grizzly ' murders of the Shermans. Described as "Pillars of their community" - "loved by all" - billionaires, who gave millions to charity - WHO would do such a terrible thing to them? Enter Metro Toronto Police Detectives who, after a brief investigation, described their death as "Murder/suicide" - which did not sit well with their family! They refused to accept the police version of their beloved parent's death. "What a disgraceful thing to release to the public!!" They hired their own Private Investigators. Not satisfied with their results, they hired a second PI company - still not satisfied. Metro PD involved every police body in Canada and the US, bringing in 'specialists from the OPP, Regional, and even the FBI. None even came close to solving this notorious crime.

I won't go into the gory details - sufficient to say: although security cameras were everywhere in their home and in their neighbourhood, none (we are told by police), captured video with sufficient clarity to identify possible suspects. Nevertheless, police interviewed hundreds of people, followed-up thousands of 'tips' and 'leads' Also, the Sherman family had offered a multi-million dollar award for "information leading to the arrest of the killer(s)". Lots of pressure on investigators to quickly solve this horrific crime!

It was a "hay-day" for media - this was an extremely rare kind of a crime; a husband and wife strangled with leather belts tied to the metal rails of their indoor, basement swimming pool. The bodies were in a 'sitting position', placed side-by-side, with legs crossed. Now, the story becomes 'spooky'! In another room in the basement, seated upon a cabinet investigators found two life-size statues, a man and woman - legs crossed! Weird or what?!

Did I ever tell you, that one of the points of evidence police don't have to prove is motive, yet motive is the first thing investigators will want to find out is - who had reason to commit the crime? Here's where the plot thickens - turns out, Barry Sherman had made many enemies along the way. He didn't become owner of a major drug manufacturing consortium by being a "nice guy'. Have you ever heard of the generic drug maker; APOTEX ? Nor had I until they interviewed a "disgruntled" cousin of Barry's; a former 'drug addict and prisoner' on National TV. Seems Barry bought his father's drug manufacturing business, cutting-out certain family members who were entitled to share in the business. Barry got rich, Kerry Winter (the cousin) got so angry he said he could kill Barry! He said he turned to drugs to escape the anguish and hatred he couldn't bear. Kerry's story was so bizarre, he was asked to take a lie-detector test on National TV. Following the test (which he failed) he was further interviewed during which he made the following statements:

"Barry became so unusually kind to me - wanted me to have a second life - he said he'd set-me-up-in business - would fiance the whole thing, including my rehab and training costs - at one time I found myself 8 million dollars in debt to him - now, he had me under his thumb - I hated it. When Barry had me where he wanted me he asked me to, in his own words - "I want you to whack my wife". You want me to kill Honey? I couldn't believe what he was asking...."no, have someone do it for you – you know people". "I believe Barry had his wife killed" - said Kerry tearfully.

The other day Metro Detectives held a Press conference (likely to "save face" due to their alleged misdiagnosis in the earliest part of their investigation - stating publicly the deaths were by murder/suicide) The young detective (with whom I identified) did a fair job, even under the intense questioning by the press (worse than being in the loneliest place on earth - the witness box). He asked for the public's help in identifying a person walking in the neighborhood before and after the time the crimes were committed.

"If you are the person in this video, let us know immediately so we can eliminate you as a suspect", asked the cop.

The press then pounced on the baby-faced detective! "Are you calling this unknown person in this video a suspect?

To which the cop responded in the affirmative. "You are not naming him as a person of interest? asked the press "you are so sure he has something do do with the killings that you're calling him a suspect?". This time the cop was a little less 'cocky' - but again replied in the affirmative. "Yes - he is our suspect" said the cop (looking about for someone to help get him off the 'hot seat').

Finally, it can be easily deducted the police are stymied - they are grasping for help - neither their plea nor the hefty award has brought some light to this notorious crime.

Question: Is it possible a person can be identified by his peculiar gait? The person we see walking kicks his right leg farther out in front than his left as he walks. Can the police rightfully call this person a suspect in the Sherman murders?

I will try to cast some light on this question next week.

Russ.

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Well, this past week was once again an adventure at St Mary’s Hospital! I think they are getting used to my showing my face in their emergency ward! Last Friday Carole asked me to take a drive to a couple of stores to pick up a batch of groceries for her. I went out to the Jeep and opened the hatch back in order to make sure my grocery bags were in the back of the car. Then I reached up in order to close the hatch and pulled it down with a strong yank as usual. Only, this time I hadn’t stepped back far enough to be clear of the hatch door. I yanked it down with force and the corner of the hatch caught me square in the head just above my right eye by about an inch or so! I felt a horrible crunching sound and knew immediately that I had badly injured my head once again. The blood began gushing out of the wound like the fountain of youth as I ran into the house and into the bathroom on the main floor. I called several times for Carole to come help me and she finally heard me from her place up on the office. She and Adam both rushed to the lower bathroom to find me standing over the sink, with my face covered in blood! It’s amazing how profusely a head wound bleeds!

As it turned out I had a gash in my head about the size of a toonie and almost deep enough to bare the skull at that point! Adam grabbed a wad of paper towels and sat me down on a kitchen chair. He held my head with great pressure to try to stop the bleeding. He managed to stop it as long as the pressure was steady! Carole got ready and drove me up to St Mary’s Emergency. As I entered the Emergency room I stumbled a little so the “greeter” sat me in a wheel chair so I wouldn’t fall to the floor. I sat with my wad of towels on my head for about a half hour until they could take me in to register me. Then the nurse wheeled me into the back room where I was attended by a doctor after another half hour! By then I was almost feeling like I was about to pass out. He got me up onto a bed and looked at the wound. He said “Man! You really gashed your noggen!” His next question was of course “What happened to give your this injury?” I told him that I did a dumb thing by hitting myself in the head with the hatchback door of the car! After he stopped laughing he said he would have to stitch it up for me. He then said that it was in a location that didn’t allow him to freeze the scalp before stitching it up. I told him I’d seen many movies where the tough guy would stitch up his own wounds with no freezing so if they could stand the pain, so could I and he was just to go for it without any freezing! He replied that I sounded very brave and we both chuckled at that!

So, he proceeded to stitch the hole in my head and when all was said and done, I had 7 stitches in my head to add to the collection of other surgical scars from previous surgeries I’d had over the past two years! Of course he asked what else I had had done to my scalp. I told him about the three other cancer surgeries I had endured in the past as well as the fall I had had that needed stitches in the recent past and he said “It sounds like you’ve been through a rough time indeed!” He told me that I ‘d have to leave the bandages on for at least 5 days and then come back into Emergency to have the stitches removed. With my head throbbing for the next 5 days I had to have Carole rebandage the wound a couple of times since the nurse that did the first bandaging in the hospital did a poor job of it and it slid up and off my head shortly after I got home that night. Carole did a better job than the nurse and it stayed bandaged until Wednesday when I had to go back to St Mary’s to have the stitches removed. SO, yesterday I had the nurse at St Mary’s remove the stitches and put another temporary patch on the wound! I have to leave that patch on for three more days before removing it completely. I’ll be interested to see if this wound leaves a Frankenstein style scar. None of the other surgical work left a scar so I hope this one doesn’t either!

*

My head wasn’t the only casualty of this past week, our fence suffered an injury from the strong winds of earlier in the week! The 90km/hr winds blew down an 8 foot section on the back stretch of fence in the back yard. Adam was able to stand the section up in the wind storm and temporarily screw the fence back together. It’s strong enough to stand up for the rest of the winter I’m sure so we’ll have to fix it properly in the spring. We may just replace the whole fence at that time if we can afford it that is! I’m sure it won’t be too expensive. The fence was on the property when we moved in 23 years ago and I’m not even sure how old it was at that time! It was likely at least 15 years old when we bought the house! We’ve had several sections of the fence blow down over the years so it’s been patched up a few times and is due for replacement anyway!

*

I mentioned two weeks ago that our Garberator had given up the ghost after ten years of heavy and steady use. Well, Adam ordered a new one from Costco for us and when it came in via delivery, it was the wrong one for our needs. So, Adam returned it to Costco and we shopped for another one on line. He ordered one from Amazon after we were unable to find the right model at Home Depot where we had purchased the original one. The first one was a “Waste King” make and Home Depot no longer sells that make. So Adam did another search for that make on line and found an exact replacement that he ordered. It finally came in and was delivered by Amazon to the front door. Once we opened it up, we found that it was the right make but the wrong model! What a schmazzle this has been. So, once again Adam contacted Amazon and was assured that they would send a replacement of the correct make and model one more time! This one arrived within three days of his order and it is now the correct make and model! Now all he has to do is send the first one back to Amazon and tomorrow we’ll install the new one in the sink again! This “correct” one should fit right in place of the original one and we’ll be happily disposing of our left over’s once again! Boy, it’s amazing how badly you miss something like this device when you’ve had the use of it for so long and suddenly lose it! I’m sure this one will give us at least another 10 years of good use! They say that bad happenings come in threes so I hope we’ve seen the end of our bad luck stretch for a long time to come!

From here on in, I’m hoping for a nice quiet time up to and long after Christmas!

That’s about all 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 A bout.>

Don’t forget to move out from under your hatchback door before pulling it closed!

Also: Get your third covid “Booster” shot as soon as you possibly can! This new variant is really a bad one and the more people that have their booster the quicker we’ll beat this virus!

Stay healthy and safe everyone!

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Take Care And Be Safe
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.