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Issue #978
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From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

I know the burning question for most of us these days is, ‘are we alone in the universe’ and most of us, well, at least me, certainly hope that we are NOT. In fact, it’s almost impossible for us (Earth based life) to be the only life to ever come into existence. There are simply too many planets in our galaxy that could sustain life of some sort. And, given that there are more galaxies out there than we can even estimate, well, life probably pops in and out of existence all over the universe on an ongoing basis. We have a tendency to see ‘life’ through our very narrow vision and based on evolutionary conditions on this planet. We tend to think that conditions on this planet, (the one we live on) are somehow miraculously perfect for us and then think that it must be almost impossible for such favorable conditions to exist elsewhere. The fact is, its the other way around, we are perfect for conditions here. We evolved within these earthly conditions, so we fit very well. It’s that simple.

So with that settled, lets get back to the question of other life out there, somewhere. It would be impossible for there not to be life, both simple life and advanced life that has become technical in it’s ability to manipulate it’s environment, and anything in between. But now comes the problem….our chances of EVER MEETING other advanced life forms are virtually impossible. Why? Time and distance. Given current laws of physics we can’t and never will be able to travel to other solar systems, at least not in any meaningful way. We can never go visit some other life-form and they can never visit us due to the shear distances involved in even traveling to our closest star neighbors, and the amount of time any kind of travel would take. Add to that the fact that we as a life-form have only existed for a blink of an eye on the universes time table. We could very well, come into existence, evolve into a technical society, and blink back out of existence without anything else ever knowing, or without corresponding to the time frame of some other life form. By the time our radio waves reach some other planet, we could have been gone for hundreds or thousands, or millions of years. The same hold true for alien races, many may have come and gone and many are yet to begin. They can never become aware of us and we never aware of them.

Then there is the fact that any race evolving around a 1^st generation star could never become technical, in fact, it couldn’t evolve at all. 1^st gen stars are the type that formed first, made of hydrogen and helium, there was no material for planets to form from. 2^nd and 3^rd gen stars are needed for the formation planets and for the heavy elements needed by a life-form to create a technical society. The time frame for life is therefore shorter than the age of the universe. Then there is the fact that an intelligent alien could very well evolve but not become a technical creature for many different reasons. Should one evolve in a liquid such as water, fire would not be available to them. Without fire or some other usable energy source, there can be no technical advancement. Try picturing a dolphin making glass or steel or rubber. It’s circumstances won’t let it. The point is, we are alone in our little corner of space and time and as much as I’d love to greet some space traveling alien, the chances are about zero. That’s a bummer. I’d love for some space alien to drop by, offer me a ride in it’s space craft, and head out exploring. Oh Well. But, way deep down inside, I will never really truly give up hope, even after laying out why it could never happen.

As for someone out there ‘detecting’ us, well, they would have to be space fairing and already on their way here because we have only become a technical race in the last century. It’s only been 10 thousand years since we even invented crude villages and up until the steam age we were just an industrious ape. Not until we stumbled across radio and therefore started sending out radio waves could we even be detected. Given how short of a time ago that was on a universal scale, the timing is just a pin prick on the side of a mountain. And lastly, if we were detected, it wouldn’t take the detecting alien long to realize we as a species and not very smart, we are clever but not smart. They would probably simply keep on going and bypass us completely.

And speaking of ‘time’, would you believe I’ve been posting these little music videos for 30 weeks now? Yup, this is the 30^th installment of diversion by entertainment. The song I’ve chosen is one that I have not done in several years. It was one of my mother’s favorite songs and once she passed I couldn’t seem to want to play it anymore. This week would have marked one of her birthdays and I decided to give it a try, for old time’s sake. Called ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’, it was an old Carter Family song, a bit morbid but musical. I actually decided to do this song about 4 hours before publishing time, its a bit rushed, and it is what it is.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

doug

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From Russ

Aunt Aggie.

I have before me an announcement in the KW Record dated Wednesday, November 24, 1971.

K-W’s oldest woman resident dies at 102

“Mrs. Agnes Stauffer, quite likely K-W’s oldest woman resident, died today at 102.

A resident of Sunnyside Home since 1963, Mrs. Stauffer was the eldest of that home.

The youngest of nine children, Mrs. Stauffer often mused at her childhood label as the family weakling. She lived to survive her entire immediate family, as well as a husband and daughter.

Mrs. Stauffer was born Agnes Sarah Brubacher, July 27, 1869 at Shantz Station on the Guelph highway, a daughter of the late Mr. And Mrs. Elias Brubacher”.

(She was known as Aunt Aggie by all of us Brubachers, I think she was our Dad’s aunt).

She was known for her sense of humour, was an avid reader, and kept up-to-date on current events. Just don’t talk politics with her!

“Government officials remarked in amazement at her three-minute speech delivered at her centennial birthday party, July, 1970.

Mrs. Stauffer held forth for a full three minutes on her philosophy of living and the political system.”

The life expectancy of women one hundred years ago was just 54.6 years. Men even shorter – 53.6 years. How about this statistic – when Agnes was born life expectancy was 39.4 years!

Yeah! Aunt Aggie.

Your ‘young’ Uncle Russ.

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Though the weather outside is frightful, my electric heater is soooo delightful! And I’m happy to be here with you, not out there turning blue! Well, that’s enough inspirational poetry for today I guess! So, I’ll get on with the more serious stuff again.

Have you noticed how many serious fires there have been lately in the news? I sure have but maybe it’s just in my nature to notice these things given my past experience with them. I hope that every one that sees these happenings on the news becomes more aware of the dangers of fire during the winter months! I know that the homeless people of our cities have to do anything they can to keep warm on these deathly cold nights but they too must be more aware of the dangers of heating wooden and paper living quarters. Apparently there were some 260+ fires in homeless camps in the Toronto area last year and 120 some so far this year. The latest one costing the gentleman’s life that was living in the impromptu shack in a park. It was said, that the homeless people of our cities are afraid to go to city run shelters for the warmth because they are afraid of catching Covid-19! I guess they have a point when you think about it! The people that live in normal housing are avoiding going to their local hospitals for the same reason, even if they are feeling quite ill.

What a shame that one country on earth can infect the rest of the world and damned near cause some of them to bankrupt themselves while trying to beat this dreaded virus! I sure hope that the countries claiming to have a pretty good handle on beating or at least controlling this virus will continue to do so until finally putting an end to it all within the next year. I heard on today’s news that Joe Biden has predicted the USA will have it licked by Christmas of this year! I hope he’s not overly optimistic! Now all we need here in Canada is for Trudeau to get off his ass and do the same for The Great White North!

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Just thinking back once again about my past work history among other things. With all my talk about the cold winter weather, it reminded me of one of the very cold jobs I had as a teenager! Back when I was 16 years old, I managed to secure a job working out on Victoria St at a place called Jiffi Pak Ice! There was a gentleman by the name of Ed Trendell who was the owner of that company and a friend of mine asked if I needed a job because Ed needed an employee to bag and deliver Ice cubes all over the region. I went for an interview with ED and he hired me on the spot. All I needed was a driver’s license and a way to get to work each day. I had just purchased a 1962 Mini 850. It was my second car and was another piece of junk that was not very reliable but I managed to keep it running for a year anyway. When it finally crapped out, Ed Bought me a 1959 Volvo that was in better shape than the Mini. What a relief to own a vehicle that would start every time I turned the key. Oh well, I’m getting off the subject here so back on track I go! The ice company was on the north side of Victoria St In a building that is now a bicycle shop. ED owned the whole building and we worked in the main part of that building where he had 15 Ice Cube making machines. There were two other companies in that same building as well. One was a company called Joe’s Boat Tops and Tarpaulins and the other one was a construction company called Traugot Construction. The owner Art Traugot was the brother of a country music star by the name of Wally Traugot. Wally played the fiddle and was on a TV show called Country Hoedown with a bunch of other Canadian Country Music celebs. Traugot Construction was the main builder of all of the Zehr’s Stores in the Region as well as in Fergus, Stratford and Guelph. Art did very well for himself due to his connection with Zehr’s! Back to my point! My job was to stand and scoop bag after bag full of ice cubes and drop them onto a conveyer belt behind me that led into a walk in freezer at the rear of the building. Once I had a pile of new bags of ice in the freezer, I would put on my heavy winter coat and enter the freezer and stack the bags of ice onto rolling Carts. When the cubers were finally emptied and the racks in the freezer full, It would be time to deliver the ice cubes to more than 50 stores, gas stations and mini markets around Kitchener, Waterloo, Preston, Galt, Hespeler, Guelph, Fergus, Elora and Stratford. Ed had quite a good setup. About half of the places I delivered to had freezers called Bunkers outside their front doors and the other half of the deliveries were to automatic coin operated machines that I also had to load by hand and as well, I had to empty the coin boxes into money bags to be taken back to the office. The stores with bunker style machines paid me cash for which I wrote out receipts for the number of bags their bunker took to fill that day.

When I think back on those days now, it’s a wonder nobody ever tried to rob me at one of my stops. I literally carried hundreds and hundreds of dollars and sometimes a couple of thousand in those bags back to the office in the step van Ed owned. With his business an all cash one, he had a real good thing going for sure. In fact, his overhead wasn’t much at all other than the taxes on his building and the cost of running the equipment. He had his own water supply out behind the shop in the form of an artesian well so he had no water bill! What a nice set up he had indeed. The only drawback to this job was the cold weather deliveries in the winter time. I also had to do this job in the pitch black of night winter and summer! I enjoyed this job very much and did it for almost 5 years until I finished High School. At that time Ed asked what I was going to do for a living after graduation. I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing and at that point Ed asked if I would consider taking an apprenticeship in some trade. He offered to set me up with an apprenticeship in the Refrigeration Trade through his friend and owner of Zehr’s Markets, Lester Zehr. As it turned out, Lester was also a friend of my mother and father so the connection was made and I transferred from Jiffi Pak Ice to working for Zehr’s and as they say, the rest is history.

I think that’s enough of my work history for this week folks! As you can imagine, it’s been a wild ride over this past 72 years and there is certainly more to tell if I haven’t worn out my welcome yet in these pages! LOL!

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>
Make sure to dress warm when you go out these days and WEAR YOUR MASK!

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Take Care And Be Safe
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