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Issue #1041
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From Russ

The Ontarion

Hey There,

I did something this week that I’ve never done before in my whole life….. I washed a guitar. Everyone has wiped down a guitar to remove daily dirt, finger prints, and so on, but I actually washed a guitar. You might remember my old Ovation 6-string, the one I use to play all the time out at the Homestead many years ago at family get-togethers when we lived on Hidden Valley. It had been given to my by ‘The Wife’ as a birthday gift when I was a lot younger than I am now. That guitar has been involved in my hours of music but became semi-retired when I purchased my Martin back in 2014. It became even more retired when I purchased my Gibson a few years later. For the last several years she (the guitar, not the wife) has sat on display in my computer corner collecting dust. Every once in a while she would get a bit of use when I need her help to work out a harmony line during a recording session but thats been about it and the dust of those many years has not just piled up but has sort of stuck in a layer that wouldn’t brush off.

I decided to clean her up and give her a set of new strings but that layer of dust needed to be removed and a dusting rag couldn’t even touch the stuff. So, out came a bowl of warm soapy water and I gave her a bath. That worked very well. I dried her up as quickly as possible and gave her a good shine. She now looks just like new again, and the new strings have given her a fresh voice. While I change strings a couple of time a year on the other guitars, I hadn’t changes strings in the Ovation in probably close to 10 years. They were a bit on the dead side. So, the guitar looks good as she again sits on her stand in the corner of my office/computer/recording area. Hopefully I’ll get around to playing her once in a while, she’d probably like that.

*

On a somewhat different note, I’ve always like to watch the Weather Network on the TV. Just a bit of viewing once in a while to mainly check the long range forecast. It’s never accurate, heck, even the Weather Network’s short range forecast can be a joke but at least it’s something. Then, about a week ago, their local feed disappeared and was replaced by a very confusing display that showed multiple locations in separate windows or boxes, all overlapping and too small to actually see clearly. None of these locations was here, Squamish. Their broadcast had become a total waist of time.

To that end I Emailed the Weather Network to ask why they changed the format and dropped our local feed. I am not interested in the forecast for other locations that are a hundred miles from here. Mountain weather doesn’t work that way, it changes from valley to valley. They replied the next day saying that they didn’t change the format, but our cable suppler, Shaw Cable, did as a cost cutting procedure and that there was nothing the Weather Network could do about it. They suggested contacting Shaw but knew I didn’t stand a chance of getting through to them and of course they were right. Have you ever tried to contact someone at a big corporation in an attempt to have them undo some change they made, especially a change that works in their interest? Well, you can’t. You can’t even find a real person and they won’t respond to any attempts to get your concern across to them. So, the Weather Network is no longer of any use to me, and I assume to others as well, and it’s not even their fault. Thats kind of sad.

doug

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From Russ

Mother’s Day

Grafton, West Virginia, 1907 - Anna Jarvis held the first Mother's Day service of worship at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church to honour her own mother. In 1912 Anna trademarked the phrase,

Second Sunday in May, Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, Founder, and thus created the Mother's Day International Association, and now mothers all over the world are honoured - maybe by a different name or date. For example Mr. Putin's Russia celebrates an equivalent holiday on the last Sunday of November, while poor, little Ukraine celebrates on the same date as us here in Canada.

How fortunate you are if you still have your mother to love! How often do you show your love? How often do you simply tell her - hug her - kiss her - laugh with her - cry with her???

Give this some thought. You may have more than one father - but ONLY ONE MOTHER!

Mother's Day is the most important day of the year. You may forget her Birthday, wedding anniversary, even Christmas or Easter, etc., but NEVER - NEVER - NEVER forget Mother's Day! Usual gifts must include flowers. What are her favorites? Although the 'carnation' was the original flower given mothers on their special day, it's wise to also know which flowers she like best. With my wee wifee it was yellow Roses - but, who can afford commercial flowers these days? Maybe Doug and Greg - certainly not the rest of us!! (LOL)

My eldest son used to give his wife a dozen long-stemmed, red Roses on Mother's Day but, if you can't afford carnations or roses, pick some daffodils which are in full bloom now. When my #2 son was only a 'sprout', he picked one blooming dandelion for his mother. She was so 'taken' by this kind gesture she cried tears of joy!

Finally, if your mother has 'gone to Heaven' visit her grave and place a small, hand-written sign at the foot of the headstone - IN HONOUR OF THE BEST MOTHER WHO EVER LIVED - MY MOTHER.

By Uncle Russ.

PS Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful ladies.

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

I had a reminder of my youth the other day when I read the obituary of one of my fellow members of the Preston Scout House Drum and Bugle Corps! I joined the band in Preston when I was 15 years old and spent the next three years with the band. I played a baritone bugle in the band for that time period and I guess you could say it was my three years of fame! I was what they called a “First Baritone”. There were 6 first baritone horns and 6 each of the second baritones, the tenors, the bass horns, 6 soprano horns in the horn line! At times we had several more of each depending on how many new members we accumulated over the years! My brother Brent was in the band a couple of years more than I was and he played the Glockenspiel for the first couple of years and then switched to playing a tenor drum in the drum line for the last four years he was in the band. My two cousins Jim Esbaugh and his brother Tom Esbaugh were both in the band as well and Jim was the “Drum Major” during our parade sessions as well as in the field shows we put on at various competitions across the Eastern USA and eastern Canada! We travelled to many different cities and put on shows in different competitions both in what was called the Junior drum corps competitions and also as the main attraction in many senior competitions! We won almost every event we entered over the three years I was in the corps! The band was very famous in the 50’s 60’s and early 70’s! The band disbanded in the mid 70’s and was reorganized in the early 90’s to become a nostalgic remake of the original band! I’m sure if you have any interest in this band at all you could google the Preston Scout House Drum and Bugle Corps and read all about it on line!

We travelled to many major cities in the USA and Canada. One of the places we played in parades and field shows was in Shawinigan Falls Quebec (The original home of one of Canada’s most famous Prime Ministers). We also played in Toronto, Quebec City and Montreal. Not to mention Windsor, London, Waterloo, Kitchener, Preston at least twice a year in their arena and their Santa Clause parades! In the USA, we played in Bridgeport Connecticut and New York City as well as in Chicago, Stillwater Minnesota and Dayton Ohio along with several cities in Michigan! It’s hard to remember all the places we put on shows because after so many shows, they all tend to blend together!

Back in the early 90’s they held a drum corps reunion for Scout House and several of the senior drum corps from the United States in Preston at their new arena of the time. We attended the main dinner for that event in Preston and then we boarded buses and Traveled to New York City for another event at which we attended more dinners and toured NYC for a few days with the members of the American bands of the past! It was a fun event! When we got home to Canada there was a gathering at the Scout House band Practice Hall of the past in Preston. It was a real hoot to go through the Scout hall and see the place where we learned to play our instruments and practice marching in the days of my youth! A week after that my cousin called me and said he had something to give me that would be a keepsake from the past. When I went to his apartment to see what it was, he handed me my old B flat Baritone horn from the band in the 60’s. He had found it in the attic of the Scout House building when they were clearing it out for the reunion! And the horn case still had my name on it! So he saved it for me as a memento of my past association with the band! What a nice surprise that was and I still have the horn to this very day!

Talk about looking back in time! Every time I see it, it brings back a flood of great times I had traveling and playing with the Preston Scout House band! If any of you know anything about the Scout House Band, you’ll know that the uniforms of the band members was quite unique for it’s time. We had to wear the shortest black shorts you’ve ever seen and along with them we wore dark red short sleeved shirts with Knee high red socks and black loafer shoes! We also wore Stetson hats with a white band around the crown and a red and white ostrich plume of feathers on the right side of the hat! Along with the short shorts, we had to have our legs shaved clean so that there were no woolly bears strutting their stuff among us! LOL! I guess that my legs got used to being hairless because, to this very day I have the bare minimum of hair on my legs! LOL!

I have a picture of myself in uniform somewhere in our collection of photographs and If I can dig it out, I’ll post it with one of the Ontarions in the near future just to show you all the splendour of our Scout House uniforms! We were proud of our looks as well as our talent and fame back in the day!

And I can’t remember how many hundreds of autographs I signed after all those shows in the three years I was in the band but it has to be in the hundreds of signatures over the years! I also have a 33 1/3 rpm record album made by a recording studio of the time at one of our shows in Toronto and I’ll dig it out one of these days and play it just for fun to help bring back more of those great memories once again!

Maybe Adam can transfer it to a CD for me and I can send a copy to Doug to be distributed with one of my Ontarion Reports some time!

That’s about all for this week folks1

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

Something To Think About>

One of the special times of your youth!

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Have A Good One
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