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Issue #1080
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Russ

Nova Scotia Sus

The Ontarion

Hey There,

You will never guess what I did this past Monday afternoon, so, I’ll tell you. I played an actual live gig. Yup. It was the first one in quite a while. It was pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but that didn’t’ matter, I do it because I can and because they wanted me to do it. I played at the local retirement home to an audience of the rather senior residents of that establishment. Seems to me the last time I played a gig was there as well so I guess I’ve become a ‘regular’ although that last time was half a year ago. Back then it had been very hot out and even though they had A/C it was very hot inside as well. The inmates kept falling asleep on me. The ones that managed to stay awake enjoyed the music. This time it was quite cold out but the room was very comfortable. The inmates all stayed awake and appeared to have a great time. They sang along to any of my numbers that they knew, or thought they knew. They nodded their heads and taped their feet. It was a good time and I managed to pull it off nicely.

I was lucky this time in that I had Sue came along to help me with my equipment. Last time she was baby sitting and therefor not available. While I’m walking normally again I do have some issues with lifting etc and still must be careful. My speakers are heavy, well, to me they are heavy. To some young strong guy they’d feel lite and easy to lift and carry. I still have to be careful when lifting things so together we lifted them onto the speaker stands. I have a handy two-wheel cart for moving them from my vehicle to wherever it is they need to go. Setup takes about half an hour and because Sue was there, she was able to tell me if I needed to make changes to the sound mix, which I didn’t need to do which was good because I hate when musicians are too loud and I don’t like being like that.

The inmates shuffled in a bit early so I started to play a bit early. It’s always a challenge to come up with a play list that suits everyone so best you can do is suit as many as possible as often as possible. Because of the age of the residents I picked the older songs that I knew and they all went over very well. Like I said, they were toe taping and singing along. I did that old Gene Autry song ‘Riding Down The Canyon’ and that sparked a conversation as to what Gene Autry’s horse’s name was. Before fisticuffs broke out (just kidding) they settled on the horse’s name being ‘Bullet’. At one point there was some conversation going on at the back of the room and someone turned around and told them to ‘shush’. I’ve never had that happen before. When it came time to wind it down I needed to pick an easy song as my voice was getting a bit raspy (I’m out of practice at this kind of thing) and I figured some old folk song would do just fine. So, I decided on ‘The Wreck of The Old 97’ and explained to them that I would substitute some local place names for the names that are in the song. Instead of ‘Monroe Virginia’ I’d use the Lillooet rail yards and so on as the train headed down the line to where ‘he’ must get her in to ‘North Van’ on time. Many of these older locals had family who worked on the BC rail line before it was given to CP rail for next to nothing. As I sang the song I could see some of them perk up whenever a ‘local’ place was mentioned. They really liked it. A song that I figured I would use as almost ‘filler’ turned out to be one of their favorites. Go figure. Then a funny thing happened. As we were trying to pack up and chat with some of them at the same time, a little old lady using a walker toddled off and then returned a few minutes later with an old faded poster that advertised the old BC rail line. Her father had worked on that line and his name was on the poster. She was very excited. That was kind of nice. Another person showed me a picture of her granddaughter who was taking music lessons, and so on. They certainly seemed to have enjoyed the afternoon and the old songs I had done. I enjoyed it too.

As for that song, the ‘Wreck of the Old 97’, I had done it as a video that I had posted here about a year and a half ago, using those local place names. If you want to refresh your memory this link will take you to it again. Like I just said, it was a year and a half ago and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then so don’t judge it too harshly.

Wreck of the old 97

Next week, if you are very very lucky, I’ll have my audio version of ‘Irene Goodnight’ ready for your listening pleasure. I’m currently doing the finishing touches such as working with the multiple harmony parts and some mandolin and bass tracks. So, consider yourself forewarned.

doug

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From Russ

"ERSATZ"

"ERSATZ"! I thought my dad was swearing in German when he used this word - never bothered to look-up the meaning until last week. It has it's origin in Germany (Late 19th Century) and means 'replacement'.

Here are some different types of ersatz "products": Synthetic rubber (produced from petroleum); benzene for heating oil (coal gas); tea (composed of ground raspberry leaves or catnip), and coffee substitute (using toasted acorn or garden beans instead of coffee beans). Any product could be labeled 'ersatz' if it is artificial, substitute, imitation, synthetic, fake or false. Do you believe this quote from my dad? (I did) "During WW11 people in "occupied countries" seized by Hitler suffered hunger and starvation - they were forced to eat anything to stay alive. Many things they ate were ersatz ex. bread contained fine, wood sawdust as a 'filler' for wheat flour".

Ersatz, we will find is a very versatile word, for example there are "ersatz emotions' which are not real or genuine, ex. dreamed-up or fictitious, so putting this this closer to home and heart, my dad used the ersatz word when describing a "Bull-shooter" or "phony".

And finally I ask you, are there such things as ersatz currencies? Yup ten of them, from Bitcoin to Berkshares, to sweat (deodorants), to laundry detergent. Judging from the new raft of 'alternative currencies' - from digital coins to point systems that reward customers of a certain brand, there may be someday governments will no longer be in charge of money.

PS Was Wiarton Willie's prediction ERSATZ?

Russ.

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From Nova Scotia Sus

What a winter! Now we are snowing like crazy...visibility next to nil and clients are canceling their appointments. Looks like I have the day off. The prediction for tonight is extremely cold temps with high winds. Possible minus 25 to minus 35 degree temps. We never get that. We will be hugging the woodstove tonight!

Thanks Doug for the CD you sent. I'm enjoying it so much. I just picked up my mail yesterday. I get my mail in Scotsburn usually once a week. Since I work from home and don't get out much there is always plenty to do here, I'm always late picking up my mail.

Our area has been hit by mail theives recently and no one has been caught. Not only stealing from rural mailboxes they broke into 3 post offices. They even stole the sign that fits on the mail carriers cars. Now you don't know who is a real carrier.

We are not used to such things happening in our area.

Sus

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The Ontarion

Hello everyone!

Since Uncle Russ has been urging me to write about my experiences on the fire dept I thought I’d indulge him by writing a few of my exploits in this weeks Ontarion.

Here goes… There were so many happenings over the course of my 30 years on the job that it’s hard too pick just a few but I’ll give it a try. There are so many that stand out in my mind but I’ll start with one of the most prominent calls we responded to!

It was a sunny summer afternoon and we received an alarm stating that there had been an MVC (Motor Vehicle Collision) at the corner of King St and Northfield Dr. At that time, there was no commercial development around that intersection so it was virtually out in the country on the edge of Waterloo. Upon our arrival we found three vehicles that had collided, two cars with injured passengers in each but the injuries didn’t seem to be too serious. There were cuts and bruises from flying glass and the impact of the collision. The third vehicle was an older pickup truck that had slid off the road after the vehicle collision and into a hydro pole on the corner. It was nosed down into a ravine and was wedged sideways up against the pole. There was a lone driver in the truck and when my pump driver had a chance he checked on that driver. Suddenly he hollered to me that he needed help. I asked him what the situation was and then joined him at the drivers side of the truck. Tim, my driver had said he noticed that the driver’s femoral artery was severed by the broken older style “Horn Ring” on the trucks steering wheel and was spraying a steady stream of blood like a small water hose so, Tim reached in and literally grabbed the artery that was exposed by the gaping wound! He managed to get hold of the wet and slippery torn artery and I said hold on to it and I’ll get a surgical clamp out of the first aid box. I ran and grabbed the medical kit and took one of the scissor type clamps out of our kit and jammed it open into the drivers leg below the point that Tim was holding and squeezed the clamp shut tight! It stopped the profuse bleeding and just in time for the ambulance attendant to arrive with his expertise! The amount of blood on the driver and all over the dash of the truck was amazing and the ambulance attendant (They were not called Paramedics at that time) said another few minutes and the driver would have bled to death! So Tim and I felt pretty good about that event and will never forget that incident.

***

It was in the mid 80’s that we began to learn and use CPR. Before that, it was called “artificial respiration” and was very seldom used except for when we had a drowning victim! We thought we’d not have many occasions to use this new technique but as it turned out, it happened more often than we expected in the coming years. When we responded to calls reported as “trouble breathing” and there were many more than you’d think, we realized that this CPR thing was a true life saver. I remember my first call where I had to use the new training we had just learned. We received an alarm stating that a woman was not breathing. She was in an apartment on the 6th floor of a building on Lincoln Rd. When we entered her apartment, we found a woman lying on her living room floor and she was what we called VSA or Vital Signs Absent. Her room mate had witnessed her collapse so she was a good candidate for CPR. The only problem was, she weighed in at over 500 lbs and we had been to her aid several times before to help move her into or out of her bed or couch over the past few months. This time she was in need of medical attention. At the time, I was not yet a captain and had to do the physical work at any scene. So, I started to do the assessment on her and begin CPR. She was about 3 feet thick at the chest and luckily she was lying on her back. I began the compressions on her chest while another crew member handled the ventilations with an ambiabag. We worked on her for almost 10 minutes before the ambulance arrived with the paramedics bringing in a gurney and better medical equipment to take over her treatment. As luck would have it, just as the medic took over my efforts she began to breathe on her own! WHEW! It was amazing considering it was so difficult to do the compressions on someone so heavy! At that point, we had to load her onto the back board so we could lift her onto the gurney for transport to hospital. With her extreme weight it took two paramedics and four of us fire fighters to role her onto the backboard and lift her onto the gurney and when we got her on the gurney it collapsed down to it’s “folded” level as it would not support her weight on the extended height. It was indeed difficult for the 6 of us to manage to get her into the ambulance. However, it was also satisfying that we were able to bring her back from what would have been certain death through the use of our newly learned CPR technique! That was our first save and my partner in that effort shortly afterwards became the new Deputy Chief! As you can imagine, that particular save was a topic of conversation for some time to come.

***

I have one more that I’m particularly proud of but rarely talk about but I will tell you about it before I finish up this week’s column. It was on a night shift at about two o’clock in the morning and the call came in stating that a baby girl was choking and not breathing. Her mother had heard a noise and went into her bedroom to check on her wellbeing and found her choking on vomit. We arrived and the baby that happened too be a twin was still not conscious from choking on her vomit. I took the baby from the mother’s arms and turned her face down in my left arm and began to give her compressions in the form of what we called back thumps simply put! She spit out most of the vomit and suddenly took a deep breath and thank goodness began to breathe on her own! That was save number 2 for me and to put it mildly, made my day for many weeks to come and more. Nothing felt better than that particular event!

***

Of course we had many more calls in between such traumatic events that were mostly fire calls but I’ll save telling you about any of those for another time in The Ontarion Report!

I’ll sign off for now and look forward to talking to you all again in next week’s Report!

Bye for now…. Greg.

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Take Care
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