Reading/Writing, 'Rithmetic

 

It has been 54 years since I first started school.  I was 6 years old and attended a one room school house on the Canadian Praries. 

On that first day my hand had to stretch to get a good grip on  my 4 small lined notebooks along with my wooden pencil box, which I had recently received as a 6th birthday gift, and new tin lunch kit  resting on my knees while riding in the car with Mother at the wheel traveling over 2 1/2 miles of mostly dirt and gravel roads to the most mysterious and exciting place I could imagine. 

 I did not know what reading was,except for the fact that my sister read Thorton Burgess stories to me occasionaly. I really didn't know what school was except for going to see a couple of Christmas concerts, along with  whist drives and box socials that  our  family had attended.

Inside there was the following:

Fourteen students. Grades 1 to 9.
Two students in Grade One. 
Twenty books in the library. 
Blackboards truly black.
Painted wooden floors. 
Cream Can with 'fresh' water.
One teacher.
Several bicycles along the side of the school.
A barn on the far side of the playground.

I can clearly remember the teacher, a 19 year old, asking everyone in the school to come up and introduce themselves to the class. My sister, who was in Grade 7, commented to Mom when we got home that she was so embarrassed because I had talked so loud and so long. 

Although it didn't happen on the very first day, I do remember going to the board and being taught how to write my own name, learning the number  1-- (THAT was a cinch), and being allowed to use the biggest thickest red lead pencil I had ever seen. 

Then I was handed this book...

                   

...and after about three weeks of school I was handed this book...

            I remember being just a little bit suspicious of that 'Dick type' guy with the water hose.

 

 

   LOOK!

 

        I had learned to read!

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teachers that taught me some things somewhere sometime along the way:


Mr.  C. Datchko-  Grades 1 and 2
Miss Doreen Haggard -Grade 3
Mrs.  C. Kenyon- Grade 4 (until Thanksgiving--she was also my Dad's teacher at one time).
Mr. Irvin Krug-  Grades 4, 5, and 6.
Mr. Bing Runquist -Grade 7
Mr. John Brown- Grade 8
Mrs. Darlene McCall- Grade 9
Mrs. Louise Heuchert- Grade 10
Mr. Baines- Grade 11
Mr. Brian Clarke- Grade 12
Mr. Clay, Mr. Dosange, Mrs. Engle , Mr. Lavigne, Mrs. Krause, Mr. Pugh.




 

Rural Visitations

We very seldom entertain.  It is a rare evening when any one person or couple  will call up to say they would like to come over for a visit or ask us over for coffee.

  In fact, I would say that neither of the two scenarios have occurred at all in the year 2012, apart from the fact that one couple did stop in while passing through and stayed overnight just last week; otherwise, the need to  attempt to make clever conversation  with non family type people, along with something just as clever and even more tasty for lunch, is a rare demand upon my social psychic and cuisine art or  Cuisinart as my mood may dictate.

 As our company skills are rarely exercised  along with a lagging and rapidly weakening social etiquette there is also a certain lag in housekeeping procedure.  I would say  the lag is  probably in the area of the three week mark. 

But I digress. The purpose of this writing is not to comment upon the distress  of my housekeeping skills. It is, instead, intended to be a commentary upon the absence of friends and acquaintances not only  in our lives, but  indeed, in our whole physical area of the world. 

 There are few , near or far,  who are able, and moreover actually willing, to spend their own hard earned free time in the required shunning of their own habitual premises, which quite likely are more organized, cleaner, and uncluttered than mine,  and enter into the vast unknown, untidy, and if done on a spur of the moment as a hastily unannounced urge to visit, a surely unclean adobe; thus taking  the chance of being either served a lunch somewhere in the range of  rare and unnameable to something rare and uneatable.

 When my four children were all living at home there would be a squeal and a sort of terrorized shout out that included the words, "There's SOMEBODY here." in response to a surprise knock on the door. They would all then line up behind me, peering around pieces of furniture and little peek-a - boo hideeholes, nervous giggling and geegawing abounding,  as I opened the door to the unsuspecting guest.  These are the same children that would ask whenever I said it was time to clean up the house, "Why? Who is coming over?"

Yes,  rare and unexpected visitors are part and parcel of living in  most rural areas. 

 It puts me in mind of the time when my Mom , who lived 5 miles from the nearest store and having no vehicle for transportation, making arrangements for a friend to stop in with her car to pick Mom and us three children up for a trip to town one summer afternoon.   We had all been washed and dressed in clean clothes, hair combed and ribboned,  Mom in her town dress and hat, sitting in eager anticipation at the kitchen table waiting and waiting  for the expected friend to drive into the yard.  Finally we heard the sound of a  car motor approaching and Mom announced that it was time to go out the door and that we should hurry so her friend wouldn't have to wait. 

 I am not quite sure  who was more surprised to see us all standing  on the step and  smiling-- Mom or the Watkin's Man, as he  drove into the yard.  I wonder if he had ever had such a welcoming group come rushing out to greet him for the rest of his salesman career.

 

Shimmering Trees

Harvest #1

What a joyous  end of August Monday.  Blue blue skies. Warm sun. The sound of the voices of numerous types of flocking birds coming through the open windows. Golden Rods blooming and crops in various stages of turning from green, to lime, to beige, to yellow and ultimately to gold. The hint of chill in the mild breeze in spite of  the warm temperature serves as a reminder to treasurer these beautiful moments in this season of transition.

This is truly my favourite time of year.  I am not sure quite why this is so. Perhaps it is because for so many years autumn meant the excitement of harvest .

Harvest. 

The time when Everyone counted on the farm. Everyone had a job.  Everyone was focused on the same goal.  Everyone was on the same team.  

 If you were part of the younger set ( 12 and under)  you were probably employed as  an official 'gopher'--go for the hammer, go for the water jug, go for the grease gun, go for the oil can,  and if your legs are long enough, go for the half ton.

Women  not only kept the house  organized, garden weeded , laundry done  and cared for children during this weather dictated season; but they also served as fuel organizers, auger haulers, parts repair retrievers;  and sometimes some became combine operators, grain haulers, and swather operators.   This was the only time in rural Canada when male and female roles seem to merge--although it was the rare male that harvested AND organized the Meal in the Field.

 The Meal in the Field was a culinary art form that goes back as far as the beginning of agriculture itself.  The Ploughman's Lunch could perhaps be considered  the first Meal in the Field.  Some  of the more energetic  Meal makers would pack hot saucepans full of new potatoes, with pork chops or hamburgers in foil, along with another pot full of fresh  vegetables gleaned from the garden.  Dishes and pots were packed in cardboard boxes and newspapers for insulation , along with condiments and fresh bread/buns.  I have even heard of ice cream in coolers to compliment the warm apple pie or rhubarb crisp.   All this would be loaded into the backseat  and trunk of the car, along with kids and dogs , and driven across and around fields (avoiding the swaths and potential oil pan damaging rocks) to the waiting stomachs of harvesters who perhaps hadn't seen the inside of a building for eight hours or more.

 There is nothing quite like the smell of barely dust and hot potatoes, along with combine grease, complimented by the sound of the burring of grasshoppers to complete the portrait of dusty truck drivers and even dustier (pre cabs and air conditioning) combine operators sitting in the  stubble with coffee thermos close at hand as they partake of perhaps their only  hot meal since dawn and perhaps their last, if the wind stays up and the straw stays dry, until dawn returns the next morning.

I am not sure if those days really still exist.  I somehow doubt it as machinery is bigger, people work off the farm so much more,  convenience foods abound; along with the likelihood that the actual owner of the field is doing the harvesting is lower now as people often opt for custom combiners to do the harvest work.

I loved those days and love the memory of them.  I guess running around barefoot in the stubble with a piece of chocolate cake in hand is not something one forgets easily.

Sent by an Angel

There has been quite a bit of stress in my life lately.  There seems that the only news is bad news, or at least news that just creates more questions and tension.  Compound this  with some health , work , family ,  and financial issues  that have all seem to have chosen for whatever the heck reason to pile up in one little six week time slot called the Summer of 2012. My life seems like one great big balloon that is on the verge of bursting, leaving fractured and ragged pieces flying across the universe, never to be repaired.

This stress has had a tendency to build until sometimes one feels that the only way out is through some sort of ESCAPE  either physically or mentally.  My legs won't run very far any more to make that a truly viable option, nor do I have a passport so flying to the other side of the world can't be considered (for the time being).

As the physical escape , therefore, seems to be out of the question , it just leaves the escape in terms of mental coping.  Not an easy task.  A learnable skill so I am told, but until this mastery of thought control occurs I have many , many , moments, minutes, hours, afternoons, evenings, nights, and days of total and ultimate hopeless and endless despair.

I was in the throes of this type of what can only be described as luscious wallowing of self torment and self pity while out at our pretty much semi isolated campsite yesterday.   Only one other person had come with a boat  during the morning and had long since left.  There hadn't even been very many cars driving along the dust gravel road about a 1/2 mile away.

 There was only myself and my husband sitting in the hot afternoon sun.  All was quiet except the tinkle of  fish hooks  and fishing gear as my husband was fixing something on his reel . This sound was  interspersed with my long sighs of worry and angst every few moments.

It wasn't a real happy time at all.

Pity parties rarely are.

After about an hour of this painful self inflected hell , I heard the sound of a vehicle drive along the road and, consequently, saw it drive into our little closed in area.

It was someone we knew!  We hadn't seen him for at least two years.  What were the chances that he would be driving around and choose to stop right at our campsite?

This lone visitor parked his vehicle and came sauntering, almost skipping over to the campsite.  Smiling,  sun hat gingerly upon his head, and a spark of mischief in his eyes, as he started to tease us about how lazy we were spending time fishing instead of working.  After being offered a beer and a chair in the shade, the conversation turned to days gone by, fishing stories, and how much things have changed.

Then this visitor proclaimed with a grin and a slap on his knee, " You know life is too short to be unhappy.  It's good that you guys are taking every weekend off to go fishing.  You just never know what is going to happen around the corner. That's what we should all do--just be happy and forget about the other stuff."

He left soon after while proclaiming the next time he dropped in he would want some fish on the fire and a cup of coffee.

I thought about him as I watched the dust from his vehicle fly up on the gravel road as he headed to his empty home about 20 miles away.  I thought about what he had said.  The stuff about being happy and that life is too short.  
I also thought about his wife who is now lying continually in a nursing home unable to move, walk, or talk clearly due to a debilitating illness which she has suffered with for the last 30 years.  Our visitor never once complained that his life has been a series of continual losses of opportunities and dreams as he cared for and watched over his wife as her disease slowly destroys her mind and body.  When he did mention her he merely said that she was still in good spirits.
Would one say he was an angel?  Perhaps no.  But I  suspect he was sent by One.

Our visitor's jaw would fall open in astonishment and surprise if ever I would tell him so.  He'd pro bably say something like, "An angel?  If I had been sent by an angel, it should have sent me a fishing rod too."

PJ's

What is so practical about Practical Jokes? From my experience some of the most efficient and effectively funny 'jokes' were most decidedly impractical, involved a lot of work, and sometimes balanced on the precarious edge of being illegal if the matter was more closely examined. 

What is it exactly that is in our psychic that allows us to think  that cheap, simple and easily done trickery imposed on other human beings is so dang enjoyable and repeat worthy? 

 For instance, why does hiding behind a door and jumping out shouting BOO create such a sense of  superior self satisfaction when one is rewarded with the  consequential look of paled  shock and dismay, especially combined with the  inevitable scream of terror emitting from the target? What is it about putting cotton balls in someone's bed  in a University Dormitory that would cause one to giggle hysterically until an almost too late mad dash to the bathroom is required--indeed demanded? 

 Sometimes a scream isn't necessarily the desired outcome. Sometimes it is simply the blank look of jaw dropping surprise that is the aimed for effect--that look a deer gets in the glare of the headlights-- stunned confusion between flight and fright.

Some Practical Jokes are benign. Harmless.  Some are more inconvenient for the perpetrator(s) than for the target.  I hesitate to use the term victim because of the lack of ulterior motive  involved and as the goal is  usually nothing other than some  infliction and observation of  another's character revealing confusion.

 True  Practical Joke's are the manifestation of a usually not necessarily well thought out  idea  concocted  to inject a little bit of surprise and novelty to an otherwise humdrum world of both the perpetrator and the target.  I would classify the putting  of a walnut or pebble in someone's shoe as  benign, as is Frenching some one's bed--startling perhaps ,  surely confusing, but little harm done.

Somewhere further up the Practical Joke ladder of  the 'not so harmless' plots are those that involve substituting flour for bath salts, flour for sugar and /or salt for sugar.   Pushing the legal boundaries might be described in the sneaking (some might say breaking and entering) into the apartment of 6 young bachelors by 2 young bachelorettes ( who lived above them like the angels they weren't) while said young bachelors were out working. These 2 young bachelorettes  having gained entrance, proceeded to  switch clothes from one bedroom to another, move dishes from one cupboard to another, and yes, even substituted flour for salt in the shaker. The sounds of wonder and dismay upon the targets'(victim's?)  arrival home  could be clearly heard  by the angel ears  which were pressed in anticipation on the cold tiled floor above.

The stuffing of pantyhose,  high heeled shoes, and not so fashionable dress with newspaper and the placing a balloon with a painted face and wig on a string, and attaching this all to a broom stick, and the consequential  dangling  of the puppet type character dubbed "Mona" out  of the third floor apartment window until the tips of her shoes  gently tap tap tapped at these above named same bachelors' bedroom window directly below , until    the   sudden flying open of the window and   grabbing of 'Mona" (wig and balloon face et al) by an  oh so masculine and muscular   hairy  arm which pulled her loveliness into the dark recesses of this second floor  unkempt lair of malodorous maleness, could have been considered hovering on the edge of harassment in some circles and courts of law.  Luckily, Mona was found a few days later outside our apartment door lying prone , absent of shoes or wig,  balloon face all askance-- totally ravished and literally in pieces.  She was never the same.

Then there are the Practical Jokes that are not so practical, not so funny, and not so smart. I am talking Practical Jokes that have almost the opposite desired effect predicted by the perpetrators because the targets in this case either by their own interpretation or action in response to the  Practical Joke, or because of the lack  of good planning or 'plottery', the targets truly do become victims.


Some examples being:

Warning:

Children and/or Would Be Adults

Do Not  Try These at Home

-- The placing of a firecracker inside of a cigarette so that when the cigarette was lit it explods in the smoker's face.

-- Placing a stuffed 'dummy' into your roommate's bed so when said roommate returns home from late night shift she  is given such a 'start' that she screams in terror and then cries and hyperventilates hysterically.

-- Sending a much cherished Silver Tea Pot  along with two Turkey feet stuffed inside through the mail --mail delivery is MUCH too slow for this to be considered sanitarily successful.

... Sending  a professional looking one page letter in the mail with the words "..if this is not corrected immediately legal advice will be sought"  which has had Page 2 written at the top.  (Potential to wreck a good roommate relationship).

-- Being guests at a 25th Anniversary  Party and taking the master bed apart, then dragging it down to the basement where it was reassembled to be discovered by the 'bride and groom' after all the guests had left.  While not really harmful to the targets , it was harmful to the perpetrators as their backs were victims of their own creative musings.

--Having two preschoolers lie down behind a parked car and then run to the house to tell the mother that you drove over them. Totally BAD!


Pshaw! Practical Jokes are pretty much practiced with pleasantries planet-wide . Plots are planned and performed to please the perpetrator. These people playfully put preposterous plans in place to perform their precious and precocious ploys  designed  to placate the prankster's profound preference and proclivity for buffoonery.

Paperwork

We of the North American civilization (using the term loosely and  not without certain a sense of irony) take pride in our achievements in science, medicine, economics, and education. It is a fact that we have indeed surpassed the previous generations of ages past in having a standard of living that is  and would be the envy of all the world  since time began.  That is why I am fascinated when I see people pay money to buy stuff that is designed to make our houses look as if they are just a literal  stone's throw  away from looking like a cave.  

It seems that we who live inside have some innate desire to pretend we are outside. We place windows in walls that we have first built to keep out the outside and then place the windows so we can observe with a certain trepidation that very same outside. These windows range from peep holes to huge wall-to-ceiling openings of every shape  imaginable.  Some windows open  wide, some never open, and  some are tinted, but the one thing that is almost a given, is that they can all be  covered. That covering is usually a cloth or some painted board type material made to look like either a furred skin  with flower and fauna patterns embossed or printed, or a wooden wall (perhaps in a forest of trees?). These coverings sometimes  even cloak over  a  another film like  or sheer material that seems to be  designed to make one think one is either peering   through  a fog or else one's cataract operation is soon due.

 These same  people, who have paid  high fees to have natural gas and the consequential ease and warmth of central heating in their homes, bring stones and wood into the house to build fireplaces because  they think it's classy and modern. I  suspect it is eerily truly only our natural urge speaking to us and has been for eons, except that eons ago one didn't have to worry about higher insurance rates as a consequence.

This fascination with controlling our 'in house' world also affected my mom.  She would bring home specially chosen wallpaper to 'do' either the living room, kitchen, or a bedroom on what seemed to be a regulated biannual schedule of painting one year, papering the next. 

The  fact that this otherwise seemingly intelligent woman would  arbitrarily decide that instead of the nice shade of yellow, or green ,or blue, or whatever previously judged to be perfect shade of paint she had chosen some months prior to her wallpaper purchase,  seems to be  a reflection on the lack  of an outlet for her creative urges  which were not able to be met in those 'pre-blog' days of the 50's and 60's. (I have never wallpapered).

 As a consequence, Mom would  put her energy, money  and effort "one more time" to cover the chosen room all over, ceiling to floor, wall to wall,  with either flowers, leaves or fairies dancing among some type of fern, wood grain, storytime characters, sports athletes,  and so many colour and size variations of paisely that any woodland scene on the wall would have been more welcome. Once , in the kitchen, a design with stones accentuated with bits of  painted ivy growing out and about was hung in imitation of some far away Welsh kitchen on the banks of the Irish Sea. Mom  even took the next step into high interior fashion when she varnished the wood grain wall paper in the living room. It didn't look too bad except for the solid brown plastic corner strip that was nailed to the wall. What was with that anyhow? As if no one would realize there is a place where the walls meet in a corner! As if it was some sign of bad architecture or something if you didn't make them stand out. The room had CORNERS in it--four of them. Did we  need to have them marked?  

Mom papered every room of the house on a regular paper/paint  rotation with eagerness and a certain finesse rivalled by any paper professional of the era.  She could mix  paste, measure and cut , move furniture, and climb step ladders with  an ease and agility not  commonly found in most young mothers of four, even in the rural areas of Canada  today.

There was only one quirky little trade mark that made Mom's attempt at self-made home decor her very own.  I am not sure if it was an indication of any type of passive aggressive tendency, accidental or on purpose, conscious or unconcious,  brought on because  she never received any  help from my Dad except perhaps (and I am not even sure of this) a simple,  "I see you did some papering" comment whenever he came in off the field. 

This little trade mark showed up  even if the edges were done with a perfect  neatness of creases in the  corners,  the ceiling border  level to the eye, and  the pattern on the wall  straight as a plumb line.   For whatever the reason, practical or psychological, and never seen in any wallpapered rooms in any of my friends' homes,  the  electrical switch and receptacle plates, as well as the light socket fixtures were never taken off during any of these room renovations. They were, instead,  papered over with just the little black light switch and plug-in holes being  neatly poked through the newly hung paper. At day's end the radio could  perhaps be plugged into a clump of red roses, or the light bulb shining from a limestone rock in the ceiling or even a piece of colorful fruit.  I  well remember  my curling iron being plugged into (as fortune would have it) the mouth of  one of the cutest little kittens frolicking over, and over, and over, in a meadowland scene. 

                 

                
  It often didn't take long for busy kiddie fingers to finish poking all around those switch plates leaving the consequential ripped wallpaper to gradually get  dirty and worn away

                              .... just to be papered another day.

Six Decades

I will soon be 60 years of age.  A milestone.  A time when one is to take time to sit back and reflect on one's life.  A time to dwell on  and celebrate past successes and failures.  A time to relax, chill out, and accept life as it comes with an air of wisdom and sagacity that comes from a life not necessarily well lived but more likely lived as easy or hard as the next 60 year old who was born on this planet in 1952 on the continent of North America, to parents of average income, intelligence and loving intent for their children.

Someone (my husband) has told me that there were more people born in the year 1952 in North America than in any year before or since.  So that makes me  and my 60th birthday a pretty common event as far as common events go in this land of plenty.

There are many things I could mention in terms of memories, wishes, regrets, and hopes, but they probably aren't really any different from any one of those oh so many other 60 year olds in this part of the world. 

Who hasn't been on this earth  60 years without making mistakes by choosing wrongly,  quitting when we should have strived onwards, borrowed when we should not have, saved when we should have spent, worked where we hated, and played less often than we should have.

  No one gets to be 60 without at least one time being so embarrassed that they turn red in the face just thinking about an incident.(Thinking about it right now aren't you?)

  No 60 year old exists who wouldn't cross the street, leave a building, or cover their face if ever they were to see at least one person that they hope they never  ever would encounter again for whatever reason--apology to be given, money to be returned, or promise that was broken.

The  mere fact  that so many of 'US' were born in  what must be considered some sort of marked year in the annuals of North American Society makes me to personally think it is  fortunate that neither of the then  Super Powers of that Era ever attempted to harness the total huge mass of energy that must have existed in terms of the teenage hormones that were  collectively raging from the mid 1960's to the  mid 1970's.
  I suspect a new form of chemical warfare era could have taken place causing whole populations to unknowingly and unwillingly  engage in unusual customs involving unprecedented change  in social mores  being  hormonally driven and  never before seen anywhere in the History of the Greater North American Lifestyle.  I am thinking, Dear  Reader, of such Flower Power fashion statements as Mini skirts, Aviator glasses, Nero shirts, Platform shoes, Afro hairdos,  Bell bottoms (as in clothing), and Bra burning ( also as in clothing); as well as social occurrences in numbers heretofore never considered or even imagined or recorded  such as:   love-ins, laugh- ins, sit-ins and drop-ins all  often done through shout-outs by drop-outs to those who  were then deemed cop-outs.



Yes, indeed, it certainly is a good thing the other side didn't get a hold of any of that Hormone Stuff or we would have all been in big trouble.  The world would now have been a very different place, lacking a certain 'je ne sais quoi' if you will.  

Hmmm....wait a minute....





Yes, I am turning 60. 

I did do a lot of things in the past 6 decades,

 and 

 I did not do a lot of things..

  I did not become a Brain Surgeon,
    I did not marry a Prince,
     I did not go on an African Safari,
      I did not read War and Peace,
       I did not go to Paris for lunch,
         I did not jump out of an airplane,
           I did not dance at the Savoy,
             I did not hold public office,
               I did not tame a lion,
                 ... and I did not star on Broadway...


                                                             ...yet. 

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda.

One doesn't get to the age I am without having some regrets in life. 

Some of these regrets are from bad choices due to bad logic, bad influences, or bad attempts to repair other bad choices  which were, ironically,   often the result of the  same causative factors previously mentioned. 

For instance, I probably would choose NOT to ride my horse bareback "hell bent for leather" as they say, over  a soft cultivated field  and onto a hardened road, as I realise now the importance of not falling face first on  fresh gravel.

Another thing I wouldn't do again is to write my Grade Two spelling words ON MY DESK thinking that the teacher would not notice me placing my face flat against the wooden arm as I attempted to make out the words .

For sure I would avoid chewing the gum that I stole from  our hired man's room in front of my mother.

If I had it to do over again I would never think that smoking pencil shavings would be in ANY way the same as smoking tobacco.

I  know I will never ever ever  again lick the end of the already plugged in  telephone adapter  due to the sting of regret  that I experienced. 

I do regret believing my sister, who is 6 years older than I, when she said that Mom wouldn't mind if I wet my pants instead of going inside to use the toilet.

It is regrettable that I  thought  drinking vodka and eating orange ice cream at the same time  would have the same effect as having a vodka and orange.

Leaving the mosquito repellent behind in the car while embarking on a three mile hike into the mosquito and horsefly laden woods was a regrettable mistake.

Kissing the press board walls in my bedroom while fantasying about some movie star while wearing Vaseline on my  chapped lips is another mistake fraught with regret and embarrassment. ( I was only ten).

I do regret thinking that I could really do a believable and uniquely clever impression of a screeching monkey while sitting at the university bar that 'time'.

My Dad sort of really  made me regret throwing  two pieces of toast on the floor in a random fit of temper tantrum.

Hitchhiking to Calgary with a member of the Grim Reaper Motorcycle Gang could have resulted in lots of regrets.

  I do not regret the following: reading my sister's diary, climbing out my bedroom window, dancing even after the music had stopped, staying up all night watching a campfire, reading under the covers, taking any class,  or ever peeking at my Christmas presents (because I never did), or giving my babies 1000's of kisses.

Sydney J. Harris: “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

Minky Business

10. Generators should not have to be running 24/7 while camping.  One may as well sit in their own living room with the windows open and the TV turned up to the Nascar Races to get the same effect.
9.  No one should be sitting on the bow of a boat at any time. That means NEVER...even when the boat is out of the water..and especially when the boat is on the water travelling full throttle..life jackets or no life jackets...and especially  especially if you are under five years old.

8. Red wine can truly effect your enjoyment of a Sunday afternoon..sometimes it enhances it..sometimes it doesn't.

7. The sound of someone playing the fiddle will be enjoyed the most by those who can't tell the difference between C and C#.
6.  Just because one doesn't actually plant a garden does not mean that nothing will be growing in it.

5. The chance that someone is going to drive behind your vehicle increases 100% whenever you choose to  move  your vehicle in reverse...no matter where you are...busy city streets, lonely country lane or empty camp ground.

4. It is interesting to note that the stance involved when sitting on a toilet is the  much the same as when one is sitting at a banquet, living room chair, or church pew.

3. Sometimes the people who like to think that they are  part of an exclusive group forget that maybe they are the ones being excluded from something even better.

2.  We should all be thankful that we do not have to walk in another's shoes...even for an hour.

1.  The 2nd Amendment in the United States..the one about the right to bear arms.. should be honoured (honored) but only on the condition that the arms referred to are those that were available when the 2nd Amendment was written--1791. Musket anyone?

0.  A Mink in the wild  isn't nearly as pretty, cuddly , or warm as it is when it is in a coat.

 We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”--Henry David Thoreau

The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

Something must be UP because as a person who absolutely , and I mean absolutely, hates washing  dishes, something very strange has just happened in our household.

I have hated that after meal routine with a vengeance. I think it began when I was  a child of about 10 and  I grew into the chore of taking my turn to do the dishes alone after supper.   Not sure why this attitude developed exactly--it might have been the amount dishes to wash, as there were often 7 or 8 for the supper meal, plus the after school snack dishes, not to mention the unspeakable lunch box leavings. It might have been that supper wasn't until 6pm in our house and the best television programs came on early in the evening.   I  developed  a type of   Cinderella Syndrome  I fear, as I could hear everyone else laughing in the living room as I remained back in the kitchen alone and sulking in a pool of self pity and pre-adolescent despair.   This type of despair can sometimes turn into adolescent despair of which much has been written but to which no solution has been found.


 It could have been that there was no such thing as wash, rinse, and rack to dry. Very little rinsing was done due to water restrictions on a dry land based farming operation-- so drying and putting away was the norm. The water was often very hot to begin with as the rule was  we could only use just the hot water tap to fill the dish basin following  the theory that water would be saved if one didn't dilute the hot water with cold.

I always found the silverware to be particularly annoying what with the forks poking into the tea towel used for drying causing various verb forms of the utensil to come to mind.  Just the general piddliness of handling such little things separately was trying.  Give me a stack of plates that one can dry with a clink clink clink like a deck of cards being shuffled and there wouldn't be a dirty dish left in fifteen minutes from start to finish one way or another.

Old dried potato pots and cold  burned on gravy at the bottom of roasters  left until the last, in by then lukewarm water, were almost impossible to get clean let alone dry, as the allotted tea towel would be so wet it would more than likely just leave streaks on whatever it was that one was 'drying'. 

Yes it is, and was, no secret that the dishes were /are not my favourite household chore.  Even my children, I suspect, realized that, and I know my husband is certain of it. 

So that is why the incident this evening is particularly unusual and perhaps not a little troubling.

This week and this week only I promised myself (as part of getting a real life program) that "I am going to have a clean kitchen".  So right after supper, I , without too much hesitation,  gathered the dishes and utensils and started to fill the sink with both hot and cold water, poured in the detergent, wiped down the stove and proceeded with the chore.  I was puzzled when I realized that there was only one dinner plate  in the sink from the meal shared with my husband.  As I KNEW that we had not eaten off the same dish (that sort of romantic eating stopped a lonnng time ago),  and  as neither of us had eaten  right out of the stew pot, I  naturally wondered what had happened to the missing plate.  I asked my husband if he had brought his plate back to the kitchen and he assured me that he had, and even pointed to the exact spot where he left it by the sink.  Doubting this I sent him back to the living room in a quest to find the other supper plate. He returned with a glass but no plate.  I proceeded, with not a little apprehension,  to look in the fridge and then in the bathroom, thinking that perhaps it had gotten put down somehow in error.  Nope--no plate to be found.

The only place left to look after checking the oven and  tea towel drawer (where it wouldn't have fit anyways--I don't even know why he even opened the drawer) was the dish cupboard.

Now, I ask the reader to keep in mind that the last place setting of four that I purchased  was on sale from Canadian Tire for $15 plus tax and it only has  4 plates,  4 bowls, 4 cups, and 4 saucers. This same reader, therefore,  can readily understand the astonished exclamation that burst from my lips when, after careful counting, and consequent recounting of  said dish set, it was discovered that there were three clean plates sitting in the cupboard.

  Creepy little shivers ran down my back as I stared down at the sink, jaw hanging open in awestruck dismay, where the fourth sole plate lay languishing as it  awaited  its turn to be cleansed and placed with its patterned companions.

It seems the  extreme stress of the toil of washing my own dish and putting it back into the cupboard immediately upon completion of my meal has wiped out all and every bit of memory of the deed.  

What does it mean?  It might mean I should invest in more paper plates.  It might mean I should invest in a dishwasher.  It might mean my husband will do dishes more often. It might mean I am truly losing my mind...



What do you think it means? 

Flying

A plane just flew over the yard and I didn't even get up to look at it.  Could I finally have become blase about what used to be cause to drop everything even if it meant leaving the television screen, dish pan, or cat to run out to see 'the plane,  the plane?

  Often those planes that fly low over rural Canada are photography planes that record the bird's eye view of farm yards. After about three weeks of the siting, a car will drive into the farmer's yard  and the salesman will hold out  an irresistible aerial portrait of the farmyard and buildings. Strange how so many people seem to be out in their yards waving at 'something' high in the air just as the plane has passed overhead.  

I am not sure where this fascination with planes came from except that my Dad did serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII and he thus acquired  an interest in planes and flying.  This interest was also evident in the fact that he attended many many Air Shows at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jae 15 Wing and took his family with him.  Dad also was responsible for our whole family to experience flying in a Cessna with our cousin as pilot.  He also encouraged us to take a ride in a helicopter at the fair one year.

I suppose it's inevitable that  this getting used to what  is in  my mind  a miracle of sorts has finally occurred. I use the term miracle because   we are not supposed to be able to fly.  Our body mass ratio is way out of line for the possibility of  what might be termed as  a personal flying experience no matter what Erica Jong might say about it. 
 I don't believe we were ever really supposed to be able to see 30000 feet straight down to anywhere to either seek out food or sanctuary.  I suspect that is why one can't even breathe real air when one is so high off the ground. Indeed we risk of messily exploding if we were ever just suddenly placed up there without the shield of pressurization. Just as assuredly we were never supposed to land from that height with any degree of safety whatsoever using any of our appendages as blocking tools.  A miracle indeed if one doesn't take into account human brilliance and ultimate human error.

My son was only about 2 years old when he stood on the front steps and watched birds flying in the air.  He pointed to the birds with wonder and awe and I explained to him that they were birds and  that they were flying.  He looked at me quizzically and said, "Boy, fly?"  I replied, in what no doubt has become an unforgivable scarring comment to be written in the annals of Unforgivable  Poor Mothers' Comments., "No.. Boys don't fly". 

 He lowered his head and covered his eyes in disappointment--and no,  he never has flown.

1983



1987

2000

Right On!

What makes being right so much better than being kind?

There is something about our society that values rightness over kindness.

I find it interesting that right rhymes with bite..like being right will bite you right in the ass .

The pleasure from acting out of love is ten fold more than the action from being right.

Being right is different than living right.

What makes being self righteously right feel so right?

What makes self righteous judging so much fun?

What makes it so  feel so right if one is a  victim?

Education does not make you right or kind.

Money does not equal intelligence or rightness.

Right also rhymes with tight as in a person's jaw when they are right.

Being right is only a hair's breath from being wrong--just depends which side of the mirror you are looking at.

The term Dead Right probably refers to relationships.


Ever wonder what it would   happen if you were wrong?

R--is it real?

I--  is it intelligent?

G--is it gentle?

H--is it healing?

T--is it true?

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Best Laid Plans...

We have spent the last several weekends camping out by a nearby lake where the fishing is good and the neighbours are few.  Our camper is a 15 foot  hard sided fold down type that sleeps four.  It was a two burner stove, furnace, fridge and sink inside with a four person dining area that converts to a double bed.  As the camper is wired for electricity from a battery, there is a ceiling fan and two ceiling lights.  Camp time night reading is done with  flashlights leaning on one's shoulder.

As we spend 98%  of the time cooking, washing, and sitting outside, the inside sink has never been used, the propane stove  was used to boil water for noodles once, and the furnace is turned on for only early spring and fall nights.  Food is kept inside for safe keeping from temperature and flies.  Dishes and pots and pans are stored outside on a little camp table. Potable water is stored in the camper and there is an electric pump that allows one to get water from the  attached outside type shower hose mechanism.    All cooking is done over the fire.  We carry to the camp two chairs,  our own wood, ax and hand saw along with a metal fire ring that originally was the metal tub from an old washing machine.  All these are packed in the back of a 1/4 Ton Chevy truck. Portable washroom facilities are placed in a privacy tent set apart from the main camping area.  Fish cleaning and garbage containment is handled through using recycled bags that are packed and carried home for disposal.

Our fishing canoe is equipped with homemade outrigger system and an electric motor.  We carry the quietest  1000 W generator on the market and regenerate the battery for only an hour every three days.  For news updates of the world we carry  a battery powered  shortwave radio which is turned on for perhaps an hour a day at the most.

  This method of camping is in stark contrast to the camper or what is referred to as ' the UNIT' in modern camping terms,  that set up in the next area to us this past weekend. This  35' fifth wheeler was pulled by an  F250 Diesel truck with a 24 foot Lund and a 90 HP Honda motor attached to the rear bumper.  The screened awning trimmed with Christmas lights that was set up within 15 minutes of the truck being turned off was bigger than our whole camper.  The screened in Gazebo type detached enclosure that was  set up within  the next half hour would have covered 80% of the rest of the our camping area.  The screened in sliding insert into the screened patio door on the side of the camper would cause any insect, bird,or rodent come to a 'screening' halt while at the same time allow hands to pass things such as food, condiments, and sunscreen out into the wilderness and back again.

The WalMart purchased fire ring  that never bore flame or heat any time during the three day stay,  the 3000W generator that ran during every night, and the woman sweeping cobwebs off the underside of the hitch a long with the periodic smell of RAID that wafted over to our site were some of the indicators that these campers were not really out to enjoy what we in the Master Camping World refer to  as the " the full camping experience."

The full camping experience involves horseflies, mosquitoes, spiders, water beetles, flies, wet salt, melted butter, burned fingers, slivers and blisters,  singed hair, wet feet, leeches,  warm beer, warm water, itchiness anywhere at anytime caused by anything,  chipped plates, wet shoes, the taste of Musk oil, scurrying mice, baler twine, tarps , and bungee cords. This activity also involves mammals from the wild , through either sight, sound, or smell,  such as moose, birds, raccoons, bears, and skunks.

I think perhaps that if our neighbours had been more in touch with this true camping experience they would have been more aware and more insightful when it came to where they put their new handy dandy  plastic string-tied full sized black garbage bags before shutting off their lights and turning on their generator.  Otherwise they might have been able to listen for  the skunk, raccoon or possibly bear, as it rifled through their garbage that was left against the outside of the 'UNIT'.  They would have  then avoided the 20 foot swath of food waste, paper, plastic and cans, and loss of privacy  that was spread around the campground.

This garbage incident  is a prime example that no matter what we do to avoid it we will be taught a lesson every time.

 These campers had come to the wilderness for their own reasons and goals,  but in spite of all the tireless work they did to try to pretend that they could still achieve their non wilderness living lifestyle , the wilderness was able to still encroach on their comfort zone.  This encroachment probably caused just as much disturbance to those visitors to the wild as that which is  caused to ants, mice, squirrels, moles or rabbits that might enter into their own homes and gardens accidentally or on purpose.

In truth, the only real difference between our type of visit to the outdoors and  that of those neighbours of screen and garbage is that we don't insulate ourselves from the very place we go to visit, therefore we aren't as surprised when 'stuff' happens or goes awry.

Evaporating Watermelons?

HOT!

It was, is, and will be HOT-- yesterday, today , and tomorrow.

It  is so hot that people will be getting pieces of black sticky heat softened asphalt  found in mall parking lots on their sandals.

It  is so hot that little kids will yell and run as they race across  hot sand.

It  is so hot that every square space at the beach will be taken   by every type of wet body -- young, old, svelte , the not so svelte and the never were nor  ever will be svelte.

It is so hot that leatherette  car seats and barelegs will stick together like a band aid to chest hair.

It is so hot that black cats may melt and watermelons evaporate.

It is so hot that birds will stop singing and mosquitos will stop stinging-- not so the horseflies.

It is so hot that not only will the beaches  be crammed but also bathing suits, as  there will be people  heading to the lakes who have never had any other type of water on their skin besides that found in a hot shower since 1968.

It is so hot that ice cream will start dripping off the cone before it's paid for.

It is so hot that knives left out on the picnic table longer than 1 minute will  burn the fingers.

It is so hot that things such as Cd's, guitars, and ornamental dash decor will warp while being in a closed parked car.

It is so hot that department stores will run out of electric fans, air conditioners, and shade umbrellas.

It is so hot that any type of chocolate bar or rosebuds or M&M  left in a back pocket, front pocket or child's fist longer than  46 seconds will turn to the consistency of brown sticky paint.


It is so hot that even the pages of the book you read while on the beach will become warm to the touch. 

Sunburns will be had, popsicles will be slurped, dogs will pant,  and the memory of  last January when the thermometer read -40c will   disappear as fast as the ice in the cooler that was designed to keep the potato salad  safe.

Hot House of Moths

It is a hot day in July.

The newscasts  report record breaking heat in the United States along with widespread power outages. I worry about those people affected, especially those without necessary air conditioning and readily available ways to keep cool.  

It is the type of day when my Mom would close all the windows in the house and draw  the curtains as well as flip the venetian blinds down in the kitchen.  No electric lights or appliances (including the television or radio) were  allowed to be turned on due to the possibility of heat generation in that era of vacuum tubes, and where air conditioning was considered to be only a rich man's crutch.

The comings and goings and consequential opening and closing of the door was hailed as an unwelcome intrusion and had to be done with a deftness haste reminiscent of the coldest days in January.

 The house , therefore, was a cool, dark, and quiet sanctuary from the seemingly unrelenting barrage of heat in a windless world.

  It is the type of day that if Mom had ever known about how good it was, she would have started some  Sunshine Iced Tea.

This is also the type of day that Mom would fill the galvanized wash tub with water from the well and let me sit in it while  proudly wearing a yellow seersucker bathing suit  in the stifling warm porch .  (I was  the one wearing the seersucker suit--not my Mom. Just wanted to clear that up.)

This is also the type of  hot day that might stir up a thunderstorm with the potential of  an out and out downpour including damaging hail or even a tornado.  I suppose that is why one of those times when I was enjoying my washtub swim my Mom told me to climb out and stand in the stairwell of the basement while the sky darkened at 5 pm.. I remember it darkened so much so that one couldn't see the garden nor the barn where dad was milking the cows.

It is this type of hot day that would  make sleeping upstairs in the wood frame press board lined farmhouse almost impossible.  Impossible not only for the still and sweltering heat that settled under the poorly insulted roof rafters, but also because of the flying , flitting, flipping, and crawling of an undetermined number( seemingly millions) of diamond backed moths that absolutely loved the press board walls for the laying of eggs.

One would hear the tick tick tick of moths on the window--the inside of the window, as well as around the yellow shaded  bulb (designed badly to dissuade insects from congregating around the light) at the top of the stairs.  One would hear the moths flip and flop around the folds of the curtain as they struggled for freedom.   

  There are some who claim that moths don't bite but having one creepy crawl around your hair,  ears, and pillow, as well as underneath the covers with its soft, furry, slinky and silky wings  would make  one start and jump out of bed just as fast as if any scorpion or flesh eating creature had suddenly attacked with jaws ajar and claws bared. 

There would be no escape from these fuzzy flying fiends except to cover one's head under the sheets that would be snugly tucked around one's body.  In the morning one would see the sickening wet clumps of eggs laid on the walls and edges of door frames. There would be no moth in sight, all having found some obscure corner such as  under mattresses, behind hanging pictures and mirrors, on top of light fixtures,  inside dresser drawers and folds of  clothing, and between pages of books. 

While the thousands of people who are currently without power in stifling heat sit and wait, I suspect few will have to sleep in the company of moths. I also suspect quite a few would envy anyone who had an opportunity to bath in  cool well water in any type of tub-- galvanized or not.  

The Miller Moth

May their power soon be restored and the sun be merciful for the sake of their elderly and infirm.