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Issue #1137
Including:

Russ

Nova Scotia Sus

The Ontarion

Doug

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From Russ

Health!

We are glad Carol is finally nearing the end of a long, painful series of operations.

Congratulations to Jean - a cancer survivor.

Karin, from "down under" has recovered nicely from her recent operation.

On March 5th I got an email from our good friend, Greg that he is alive and back home from a life-threatening kidney failure. He must still have hemodialysis 3 times a week. We hope and pray it works so he will be off dialysis soon and be "good as new again"!

If you have recently undergone surgery, or had some other serious health issues, we would like to here from you in the Squamidian. After all, this is a "Family Newsletter", and we are all members of the Squamidian Family.

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You may recall when my wife died 14 years ago, I 'joined' the church, and was eyed by 5 widows who looked upon me as "fair game". I knew they were only after my body, so, one-by-one I fought them off until there were only 2 remaining - one became a close friend (Theresa), who was NOT after my body, and the other 'gave-up'.

Theresa sat in the pew in front of me, and I helped her on/off with her coat each Sunday. Theresa was independent, had her own cottage near Point Clark lighthouse, had her own car, and did her own thing. Over the years, I became 'her own thing'. I joined a club (Friendship Club) she belonged to, attempted to play "Floor shuffle board", at which she excelled (I was a flop); we often went to Goderich after church and had lunch at Wendy's, or McDonald's.

Over the years, we both lost our driver's licences, so I drove her to church in my Club Cadet (no licence required). We often went to a local restaurant via the same vehicle - sometimes, she made me a simple breakfast at her cottage. A mutual fondness began to developed (could this become serious?)

She lived alone, as do I. One night she got up to pee, and fell headlong into a wooden dresser, breaking her cheek-bone, and badly crushing her eye. She lost vision, and could no longer live alone. Her daughter gained "power of Attorney over her health and wealth". Soon, Theresa found herself living in a 'long-term-care home' in Wingham, some 50 Km from Point Clark. The facility was less than desirable. We (daughter-in-law, Bettie) visited Theresa a few times, and it seemed each time we went in ,the smell of urine was more overwhelming. The home was not ideal by ant means! But, it was likely the cheapest her daughter could find. She never visited - she never phoned - out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Theresa was very lonely - only I kept in touch.

On Friday, March the first, after suffering from respiratory problems (she could hardly speak), she passed away. We had been keeping in touch by telephone, and my first clue something was wrong was when her number was "no longer in service". My only regret was that I'd made her a Valentine card, and included a nice message from a Sermon by our priest - it still lies on my kitchen table. Theresa was cremated - there will be no funeral - I never got a chance to say goodbye.

Russ.

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From Nova Scotia Sus

It's maple syrup time again here in Nova Scotia. Last Sunday we tapped 34 trees. The going was a little tough so snow shoes were required. Since the snow is so deep the taps are much higher than past years. It is so neat to see all the old holes drilled at different levels. Everyday since Sunday we have collected sap and have enough now for two boil downs. It will be a long day. We have a long shallow pan over a long wood fire.

We are hoping for a good day Sunday to boil. I enjoyed reading about Jamie's maple sap production and look forward to hearing more. We have future plans to have a sugar shack in operation. The shack exists but still needs more work. Maybe next year.

Sus

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The Ontarion

Hello everyone!

It’s been a long couple of months since I had the heart attack and the staff at the hospital now knows me by name! LOL! Now the staff at grand river hospital is getting to know me as well! Since the doctor that cares for my weak kidneys has put me on dialysis three times a week I’m spending Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings hooked to a hemodialysis machine and sitting in one of the dialysis department’s easy chairs,

each treatment takes 4 hours and that happening three times a week sure eats up my week!

Also Adam has been driving m3 up for these times! So, he has to come get me when I’m done dialysis so his days are restricted because of that! What A way to look forward to one’s future! I’m hoping that after several weeks of treatments my kidneys will kick back into improved working order and I won’t need any more of these time consuming treatments! The doctor told me this has happened many times before and there’s a good chance it will happen to me! I sure hope he’s right since it’s a huge life style change for the whole family and it’s not fair to inflict it on Carole and Adam too! Oh well, it’s better than the alternative I guess!

I’m hoping things get easier and I will be able to drive myself to these appointments! That will save them from spending their time at my expense! I totally appreciate their care of me but wish they didn’t have to do everything this is putting them through!

I’ll be glad when we get some answers to everything! I’m sure it’ll take a while but fingers crossed it’ll happen sooner rather than later! It feels good to be back in the Ontarion mode so I’ll write every chance I get and enjoy it while I can!

Take care everyone and keep on reading each week!

So long for now and be safe!

Bye for this week everyone and I’ll look forward to writing again next week!

Best to you all…. Greg.

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From Me

How’s it going…..

So here we are again, another needlessly stupid and stupidly needless time change weekend. It’s just soooo dumb. It is a proven fact that the time changes are detrimental to people’s health as well as to their productivity. As well, the days after a time change see an increase in traffic crashes and other issues. None of this is necessary.

About half a dozen years ago the BC government gave in to pressure from the general public and held a vote to see if ‘we’ really wanted to do away with the semi annual nonsense. I think they thought we, the public, would not even bother to respond and that would put an end to our complaining. Well, the voter turnout was overwhelming and the answer was a very loud and firm yes, get rid of it and stop it once and for all. Problem was, the politicians in charge hadn’t wanted to do anything about it, they had just wanted to get ‘us’ off ‘their’ backs. So, the premier then stated very firmly that they couldn't end the time change because business would suffer, and those businesses certainly didn’t want to put it to an end. The ‘business’ leaders immediately put up a big stink saying that the government hadn’t even consulted them about it, and that they wanted it ended even more than the general public did. So, then the premier came back on the new saying that they couldn't stop the change until the US states to the south of us did because we have to stay in step with them. Again, the whole provincial population rolled it’s collective eyes and shook their heads. It became obvious that our wonderful, thoughtful provincial government had never had any intention of ending the time change and had tried to pull the wool over our obviously stupid heads. Face it, all politicians see the public as simply stupid sheep, our only useful purpose being to vote them in.

So, here we are, years later and still enduring the stupidly. The Yukon territory north of BC stopped the changes when BC did it’s vote. They are doing just fine. Saskatchewan never did do it and they are doing just fine. It’s time we all revolted, up-rose and took the matter into our own hands. And for what it’s worth, I’d stay with Daylight Savings Time as the year round system. Not because it would ‘save’ any daylight but because there would be more light at the end of the day when people want to do stuff. It doesn’t matter if its still dark when you get up in the morning, it is now, at least for me. Perhaps we should all congregate in front of our parliament buildings and burn our clocks. I’m in.

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Well now, I’ve got my recording software on my computer back up and running. It took a while because its the latest version of Logic Pro running on my new Mac Mini and that meant there were lots of differences and small configuration issues and other such things that drove me nuts for a while. (Thank goodness for tech support Ryan). Even my audio interface is now different (the old one was too old to run on the new O/S) so I had to get up to speed on that as well. And no, new hardware and software does not make me sound any better, if anything it makes me sound worse because the new recording system can and does catch every little bit of sound be it good or bad and in my case thats mostly bad.

I had been looking forward to trying it all out and once the system was good to go, and all my little goof-ups were fixed up, I started to lay down some tracks for a song called ‘Sonny’s Dreams’, sort of an east coast tune I think. (I had posted a bare bones video version a few weeks ago). When I started to lay down the audio tracks I found out I needed a bit more help from the ‘Ryan’s tech support’ and he easily figured out what settings were still wrong. So, that’s where the good old ‘delete’ button comes in so nice. After a few rough starts everything was set ok and working the way it should and I could and did start over, and managed to do the instrument tracks and about 7 vocal tracks. That part is so fun and enjoyable.

So, here is my audio version of Sunny’s Dreams, featuring me and 6 more of me as the choir, as well as 3 of me playing guitars and bass. Hope you enjoy it. If you do, there will be more, if you don’t, there will still be more but you won’t know about them because I won’t tell you.

The audio version
Sonny’s Dreams

Doug

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Have a Good One
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The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.