old guy's rants

2011-10-12T17:14:00.002-03:00

What a great day it was. Thanksgiving. Thanking each and every one of you who were there and thinking of those who were somewhere else.

I looked and saw young and old, smiling and happy. I saw cunning and openness in the faces of the little ones. trying to guess what little ones are thinking is a difficult endeavour. But I certainly saw happiness, some questioning, some wondering, some just happy.

Every day I wonder how being so far away from so many of your relatives will affect you i.e. Joan, Kate and Joe. I left willingly and went to many places before I returned to my home and revisited my family. But you were dragged off to the backwoods of Cape Breton and only on rare occasions met with any of your kin.

Perhaps it does not matter in your lives. You have your own lives to live and those close to you to comfort and support you. But perhaps it does matter and you wish for a closer connection with those far away to whom you are related.

So, if you are wishing to reconnect to those who are far away, let me know and I will try to arrange it.

Be assured that whichever you choose it will not affect the depth of the live I have for you and your offspring. Despite my infrequency of blogging, I do think of you often and wonder how I could be more in your lives. Alas, distance, for me anyway, makes my heart grow fonder. So I treasure each and every time I see you and visit and watch and share.

I saw and felt community, love, joy, happiness, sharing, a whole symphony of interaction. Thanks again for inviting me to join you in your celebration.

2010-08-18T14:43:00.002-03:00

Larcheveque was the place we went to get clams or in the case of Katieann, perriwinkles.
When we went to the beach it was Grand River beach. !!!
The rocks, the sand the uncluttered stretch of sand, the point off in the distance, the seclusion where no one but us seemed to come.
But the world changes and we change with it.
Now to go to Grand River beach you need a four wheel drive vehicle and a high clearance to get up the road.
so we go to Larcheveque where only the brave get stuck in the sand.

What a time! Grown grandchildren. cavorting , greeting, hugging, talking and sharing their lives with the old guy (in the words of my son).

Sun, Sand, Waves, Water, more sun, food, TREATS, for those quick enough or sly enough to grab them before Mothers found out.

Special treats and taste delights. Who could guess that an omelett (sp?) could be a breakfast treat at the beach.

Watching cousins interact. Watching children interact with uncles and aunts and grandparents. Watching smiles when the children enjoy the activity. Watchng looks of puzzlement when they are not sure of what will happen next. Watching concentration when the game is on. Watching excitement when a new person arrives or a new car comes down the beach.

Feeling warmth and love and caring and concern and happiness.

Wishing that each day was longer.

Wishing that it could be recorded so that each of us could look back and see the faces and the joy and the happiness and the fun.

Wondering what each of the younger people will someday become. Wondering how each of the older people will deal with the problems of the day.

Wishing for a magic wand that would wipe out troubles and explode the good feelings to make them last a lifetime.

Wondering what memories each of those who were there will carry back into the future.

What a wonderful weekend. What a beautiful group of people. What a memory to share with all those who could come and those who could only wish they had been there.

In another year lives will change. Can it ever be as it was this past weekend No but each experience will be a new memory to be savoured and cherished and held and re-examined and re-enjoyed until the next time.

More than a year

2010-05-14T17:10:00.002-03:00

They say that when you are having fun, time flies. Well if that is true then I have been having a ball.
It seems that it is more than a year since I last posted. But then, I haven't received many blogs from those whose blogs I used to read. I think only one or two for the year.

Perhaps I should say something as the weather starts to (finally) edge toward Summer. On my walk with the dog today I saw three interesting things. (Interesting to me but perhaps not to the world at large. No. 1 was a mileage marker from the old railway. It is a concrete post wider at the bottom narrowing toward the top. It is about a meter tall, square, 3/4 buried in the grass at the edge of the Confederation Trail. It is covered with moss and try as I would I could not see the markings on it because it is too deeply buryied.

Next I saw a tree bordering the field next to the trail which appears to be a person (man) sitting with another person on his knee. Thatr made me think of the man times my children sat on my knee.

Next was a fallen tree, off the trail. It was like a huge bird or dinosaur which was eating something it had captured. A knot in the trunk of the tree looks like an eye and the broken end of the tree looks like the beak of a bird or a dinosaur.

I promise that tomorrow or monday I will photograph these wonders of nature and forward them to you.

Just Suppose

2009-08-31T14:12:00.002-03:00

Perhaps I should start by asking why I suppose I know how to work onthe laptop!!!

Next I should ask what you would do if you were going to spend the next six months in an apartment in Ottawa. I have avoided asking myself that question because I don't have ready answers.

Audrey and I are working on a mystery novel about Paterson Kane, the Canadian Golfer who with his caeddy, half Newfie/half Thailander computer geek Lo Chin (LC for short)Shey aided by a friendly interpol agent Bob Sherman try to solv e a murder at the Dubai Open Golf Tournament.

Nuff for now

Just Suppose

2009-08-31T14:11:00.000-03:00

Father's Day

2009-06-11T15:45:00.002-03:00

I am told and I checked that this Sunday coming is called Father's Day.

I would like to propose that we call it Childrens' Day instead. What is a father without children. A man? a person? what.?

But what is a man with children? A giant, a hero, a mentor, a guide, a companion, a comforter, a provider, a teacher, an example, and yea, a fulfilled person who glories in and finds comfort in and shares with and enjoys his children.

So this should be children's day. The day which celebrates to contributation that children make to turning a man into a father. A man without children is a person, true. But a man with children is a person and more. He is a fulfilled person, a happy person, at times, a driven person, ah, how can I explain how much my children mean to me???

Fatherhood is not a fact of life...it is learned from children. It becomes when the children develop the man into fatherhood.

So let ME celebrate my children who have made me into the person that I have become. They have given me inspiration, , motivation, pride, and yes, HAPPINESS.

Children make a man a father. Let us celebrate our children on this day. So what if Halmark doesn't have a card for the occasion. Do it anyway. Make this day children's day. Celebrate the innocence, love, smiles, warmth of children.

Thinking of Children

2009-04-21T16:07:00.002-03:00

Back in 2005 I wrote a letter to each of you telling you how proud I was of you and all that you had and are accomplishing. Now four years later I realize how little I have actually told each of you how much I appreciate having you as my children.

If fathers are judged by the quality and accomplishments of their children then I am a very fortunate father.

Every day I wish that I could be nearby to watch and marvel at what you have become and are becoming.

Every day I wish that each of you could be close by so that I could tell you how much you mean to me.

Every day I am thankful for having you as my children. I call you my children but in reality each of you are your own person, grown to become what you are. My role has long since passed into the shadows and now you are doing "your thing", becoming the person that YOU wish to be and WILL become.

Watching, hoping, wishing that each of you will have joy and happiness in your life in the measure that you have brought to me in my life.

When I hear stories of parents whose children are problems, I realize how lucky I was to have had you who were not problems; who were joys; who filled me; who made my life meaningful.

Today, tomorrow and every day in the future I will think of you and all that you mean to me. I wish you every success in your lives. I see your wonderful accomplishments and I think how hard you have worked to reached there plateaus. I wish I could have provided a ladder so that the steps to where you are now would not have been struggles to reach but rather steps that were easy.

Saying that, I realize that whatever comes easily really ins't worth the work it took to get there and that working hard and struggling results in the understanding of the value of what has been accomplished.

So, if any of you read this, just know that I love you and think of you ofen and wish you well in your lives.

More Snow

2009-04-01T08:51:00.002-03:00

I spent much of my outdoor time last week shovelling the drive. I managed to get the truck down to the road by driving over the front lawn where the snow was not as deep as in the drive. Then I started shavelling from the road up toward the garage. I moved the truck further and further up the lane as I shovelled.

The days friday to Sunday were springlike and I was actually having fun moving chunks of snow. By Sunday afternoon the truck was almost halfway to the garage.

On monday morning Audrey and I left for a day trip to Moncton in the car. It began snowing shortly after we crossed the bridge and by the time we got to Moncton there was enough snow that the plows were on the road.

We left Moncton at noon because the storm was getting worse and we didn't want to be away for another day. After a little over three hours of white knuckle driving for our hundred and fifty km we arrived home and managed to get the car into the end of the drive but knew then that it was stuck there.

My truck was invisible under a mound of new snow. Looking up the drive the house was not visible. We trudged through thigh deep shallow spots to reach the house.

Ya gotta love winter some years.

I wonder what the prognosis is for being able to move the truck when the snow recedes in a few weeks?

Wondering - 2

2008-11-05T16:19:00.002-04:00

Union Meeting,
Reg Berringer the shop steward from the police academy was supposed to represent us at the Annual general meeting of UPSE (Union of Public Sector Employees). He couldn't go and asked me to go to represent our section. I agreed. Day two of borrrrrring meetings who shows up but Audrey Penner - who also wasn't supposed to go to the meeting and in fact told the Union Rep that he should take her name off the list. He didn't and she ended coming in Saturday (meeting started on Friday night) and sat next to me. The rest is History as the say ing goes. I won a door prize...50 $ for a local pub. I invited the beautiful woman next to me to join me in spending the windfall. She agreed and the rest is MORE HISTORY. We ducked out early, had a drink together and began what is now our married life. Wonderful. Chance? Good Luck? Fate? Karma? Who knows why things happen as they do. Who knows why? But the important thing is to enjoy the thngs that happen and find all the happiness that you can in the road you have chosen.

Just wait until I Wonder #3 comes along. I have about twenty of these events in my life.

Wondering

2008-10-29T16:56:00.002-03:00

I wonder what my life would have been (or not been as the case may be) if at a number of crucial junctures I had done something else than what I did. For example, I enrolled in law school in Washington DC with an eye to going into the FBI when I completed law school. One day I got up to DC early and decided to visit the personnel office of the FBI to see what my chances would be when I finished law school
Lo and behold, they had a big need for new agents at the time I walked into the office. I took a test, took another test, was interviewed, was re-interviewed and then interviewed by both of the prople who interviewed me earlier. End result, my application was accepted and they began doing the background checks and shortly after I got out of the Navy I got accepted into the FBI.

It was just luck that I hit the office at the right time when they needed Agents. It was just luck that I decided to go to DC in the morning instead of waiting for the evening class at the University.

Had I not gone at that time or had the need for agents not been as great or or or what would have happened afterwards. What alternative life would have been mine.

I did something with out a great deal of planning or forethought and it ended up changing the course of my life. Go figure!!!!

I can cite a number of similar incidents or occasions that changed the course of my life. I wonder then what life would have been if not for these forks in the road where I took one fork without advance planning, without pondering what might lie in the other direction.

Have you been there too??? Have we all been there and only realize it when the world turns out the way it did?

Wondering

2008-10-29T16:55:00.001-03:00

I remember -2

2008-10-27T16:06:00.001-03:00

This time I am going to remember things about my childhood...

I remember going to kindergarten at public school #77 (the local catholic school did not have a kindergarten). Shortly after I began attending some kid who was playing with the building blocks decided to hit me in the head with one...or did I hit some kid in the head with one...memories???

I remember Nativity of the BVM (that's Blessed Virgin Mary for those uninitiated) school. It was on Albany Street about as far from my house as my mailbox is at this house. Brisk walking would get me there in about 2 minutes. My usual pace was 45 seconds. Why the hurry???

We were expected to attend the 8:15 mass at the Church (same name), sit with our class and then march in line to the school. In the afternoon when we returned from lunch we lined up with our classmates out in front of the school (boys that is), girls lined up at the side door of the school and when the bell rang we proceeded in silence to our rooms. There was usually a class monitor at the head of the line who led us.

I remember Pat the janitor who worked in the basement furnace room. He stoked the furnace in the winter and cleaned after classes let out. The furnace room was also the place where we went to "clap" erasers, i.e. bang the erasers together to get the chalk dust out of them. Any of you remember "clapping erasers"? If the weather was good we did it outside at the side of the building and often made designs on the wall. Of course that was not the expected "clapping procedure" but much more fun than just banging them together.

Clapping erasers was on of the chores that went to a teachers pet. I don't know why except that it meant you didn't have to file out of the school with everyone else. You got to stay behind and help Sister clean the room. OH Goody...

I remember one time throwing the erasers against the side of the building to beat the dust out and one of them went up and landed on a low (one story) roof outside the entrance to the boiler room.

Being in grave fear of returning without the requisite number of erasers, we (Paul Tardif and I who were co-conspirators ) tried without success to scale the wall to the roof and finally snuck a ladder out of the bioiler room when Pat wasn't looking and retrieved it that way. Such adventures?

Perhaps tomorrow or the next day I will remember something else and bore you with it.

I remember

2008-10-22T20:05:00.003-03:00

Eight ten on a cold wet autuum evening. I am waiting...waiting for ...well the song says waiting for the world.

I remember...and this is why I have decided to blog again after such a long hiatus (that's fancy talk for an interruption or pause).

I remember when I first saw Joan through the window of the nursery.

I remember when I first saw Joe in a room off the delivery room with an oxygen mask on his tiny face.

I remember when I first saw Kate emerge and when I first held her in the delivery room.

I remember your mother on all these occasions. I remember her wanting a cigarette in her room after Joan was born and how I held Joan and took her out of the room while her mother had a smoke.
I remember her look when she woke and asked how Joe was.

I remember the smile when she heard Kate cry and how she held out her arms to take her back from me. How we sat together in the recovery room.

I remember how we planned for Joe to be a natural birth and how in the end the dr. insisted on an epidural and then administered it wrong so that you mother was paralized and Joe was delivered with a forcepts and then given oxygen. I remember the marks on his head.

I remember holding all of you as very tiny babies and sitting in the rocker and watching you and wishing that I could make every moment of your lives as happy as mine was sitting there watching you. I remember carrying you around the house in the snuggli...I remember taking all of you to the Mall to the carousel and into the Smithsonian Museum. I remember the look of awe as you saw the giant Mamoth in the lobby of the science building. I remember your laughter on the carousel.

I remember Joan climbing out of the crib and refusing to go to sleep. I remember coming home from work and getting down on the floor to play with all of you.

I remember Joan pulling all the books out of the bookcase until we filled the bottom shelf with her books and then she pulled up to get our books out of the upper shelves.

I remember Joe playing hide and seek...standing in the toilet and thinking I couldn't see him.

I remember playing on Saturday morning in the basement on Cheverly Ave when I would fall asleep counting for the hide and seek game and being roused by Joan. "Daddy, you're not looking"

I remember the little play house in back of the house in Cheverly and how the termites had made the floor unsafe.

I remember the slide I made in the backyard at Cheverly...from a piece of awning that blew off during a storm...

I could go on and on with the memories...happy...sad...but all a part of my life and yours.

So maybe there will be more of this some time in the near future.

Remember to enjoy every moment of your lives...whether hard or pleasant,enjoy...enjoyment a state of mind that says that I will...no matter what happens..see the brighter side and enjoy.

I remember Joe playing garbage man in his room...dumping everything on his bed so he wouldn't have to go to sleep. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs in cheverly Md. so I wouldn't have to go all the way up to put Joe back into bed after he got up for the one millionth time.

I remember Kate not wanting to sleep at night after her two am feeding and me walking around with her in the Snuggli and her looking up at me and refusing to fall asleep.

I remember going to work with baby smell on my clothes after hugging all of you goodbye in the morning.

I remember so many things that you brought to my life and I thank you for all of them...Love, Dad

how do I get to where I want to go

2008-04-09T08:17:00.002-03:00

Sounds pretty imposing for a title. BUT and now I raise my big BUTT. I received a message to view "Dust in the Wind" but I don't know how to get to it. So this

Another Winter's Day

2008-03-01T19:51:00.002-04:00

Today I wanted to take off and drive over the bridge and see the NS family. However I watched the weather channel and decided that discretion was better than driving into a storm. So I sit and watch the white stuff blow across the window. And here of course it blows and blows and blows.
My driveway is once again filledwith snow. So what, I don't have to go anywhere. Audrey is in Edmonton preparing to fly to Denver COL. US. The dog is in the garage. The cats are in the basement and I am free to do whatever I wish within the limitations of the house. So I will read, watch TV, get on the treadmill, and BLOG...
This afternoon as I was driving back from Summerside I heard a song on the radio. The young lady sang of how she talked with her grandfather and always ended the conversation with "I love you" but the g...father never responded in the same way. Nonetheless, she said that she knew her grandfather loved her too.

That made me think about how you, my children shaped my life. What would I have been if YOU had not been the center of my life for so many years. You made me into the person I am today. Now that may sound strange to you. But think about how much my life has been about you and you must then realize that you were the main focus and therefore formative part of my adult life.

Does this make any sense?

It is meant to say that I love you all and want you to know how much I treasure you. I know I don't say it often enough...and maybe not at all but I feel it and I want you to know.

Guess I better stop this before the key board gets too wet.

Who pays the carbon tax?

2008-02-28T10:18:00.002-04:00

Big news these days is the tax on carbon. The belief behind this move is that if you have to pay more for polluting the atmosphere you will choose to pollute less.

I was still a smoker when the government instituted big taxes on cigarettes. It angered me but did not stop me from smoking...something to which I was addicted. However it did create new industry... shipping untaxed cigarettes across the border and then smuggling them back bringing a new source of profit for the "entrepreneurs"

My point, "sin taxes" are generally an ineffective way to change peoples habits.

The other and more critical issue in the proposed "carbon tax" is that it will most affect those who can least afford it. Those who are poor or who are on fixed/limited incomes. Ah Ha! If you can't afford oil to heat your home, then get up and run around the room and stay warm that way. Or as my mother used to say, put on a sweater. "Another one", I always answered in a sarcastic tone...which started the usual verbal battle.

Now, if you can afford to buy a super sized, over powered, gas guzzler to drive around and impress the neighbors, you can probably afford to pay a bit more for gas. But if like most workers, you need your wheels to get to your minimum wage job at the mall and the bus doesn't run by the house, then the extra price for your gas is going to hurt. Oh Yes, buy a hybrid and then you won't have to use as much gas. You only have to double the price you pay for the vehicle so that it takes twenty years to offset the savings on the gas you didn't use???

My solution to the problem is to take all vehicles out of our cities except for mass transit. No cars big or small. Bring back the rail lines, Take the big rigs off the roads and out of the cities. Tim Hortons and Robins and the ilk will hate this suggestion. But just consider for a moment the amount of pollution generated by the drive through lines at so called "fast food" restaurants and coffee houses.

Possible, probably not. Too many dollars being made in the auto industry, the oil industry and the coffee industry. We have been too accoustomed to the easy way rather than being organized. As a child our family did not have a car. My father rode to work on the bus. We took a wagon to the supermarket to carry groceries home. We walked to the theater and school and the nearby empty lots to play.

The one thing that is possible is to ban private autos inside city limits and institute a vigorous economical mass transit system. That could significantly reduce smog problems for our big cities and ultimately reduce our carbon emissions. It could be done. It has been done...I can't remember where, someplace in Europe I think where license plates that ended in odd or even numbers could only be in the city on alternate days.

But don't tax y necessary home heating system. Don't tax my necessary auto travel. Don't tax the poor and allow the wealthy to pollute without regard.

Recalling???

2008-02-15T15:37:00.002-04:00

Friday February fifteenth...such alliterative chances should not go unprinted.

I am trying to recall my early years in school. Grade 1 was sister Matilda, OSJ...Order of Saint Joseph...I think. She of the thick yardstick which she used to enforce discipline (as if grade one pupils needed DISCIPLINE). We sat in assigned seats in rows. Girls on the left hand side of the class closest to the door, boys i the rows to the right. I was third in the first row of boys which meant I had a girl to my right. But it also meant that I was in the row directly in front of Sister M's desk and therefore under constant scrutiny and ergo (latin for therefore) often caught passing notes to or from the girls side to the boys side. A CAPITAL offense in grade one.

I don't remember what I did but I do remember receiving a number of hits with the ruler (yardstick) across the palm for minor offenses and across the knuckles for more severe offenses whatever they might have been.
SADISM - was not a work in my vocab at that time!

Grade tw0 and three were combined. A non-nun...can't remember her name but I do remember she let me do multiplacation tables without having to check by means of division because I could always get them right??? Me and Math??? something fell by the wayside in the rest of my elementary years.

Grade 4 . By this time I was an alter boy and Hooks Nocoletta aka sister was in charge of grade 4 and the alter boy contingent. Hooks because she would constantly pick at your surplice to even it out . Surplice is the white, starched over garment that the alterboys wore over their cassocks...the long black robes. Any way, Hooks was okay as far as I can remember as long as you showed up for you altar assignments.

Grade 5. Sister Joan Marie...BTW they all had Mary or some derivitive as a part of their name...Mary Matilda , Mary Nicoletta, Joan Marie, etc. She was fresh out of the Novitiate where they brainwash the young ladies who seek to make jesus their spouse for life. She was not much older than some of the retards that were three or four years behind their age group. In those days you could fail a kid who didn't pass his exams and keep him or her back for a second or third year in the grade they failed. Not so anymore...too much damage to the psyche.

So what is all this to thee and to me... Not much!!!

I could tell you the story of how Bill (lnu) set fire to the display of cotton in the front of the room by shooting a match out of an empty spool. It hit the black board over the cotton field display on a table in the front of the room and caught fire. Sister JM ran for the door...only way out...and had to go past the blazing cotton batten. She told us to stay where we were and came back in after pulling the fire alarm with an extinguisher and put the fire out. By this time her wimple was askew and I learned that nuns had hair under their uniforms. DEVASTATING.

Grade 6 was my last year at Nativity BVM (aka blessed virgin mary) the nun in charge (name conveniently forgotten) was also the school principle or is that principal?? Enough of this nonsense for now.\

Ethics

2008-02-13T13:20:00.002-04:00

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The storm predicted is here. Hard to see the road from the house.

So why ethics.?

What's ethics? Well it's morals, principles, rules of living. It is in simple terms - doing the right thing. Now what is the right thing. A jihadist thinks that the right thing is to blow oneself up in pursuit of the cause in order to achieve a high place in "heaven".
A good christian (should that be capatialized?) follows the ten commandments and the "golden rule". Do unto others, etc. But puzzlingly ( if that is a word) those who follow Mohamed (jihadists) believe that Jesus (aka the Christ - ergo Christians) was a prophet like Mohamed. So where did the "golden rule" go for those who folllow Islam?
Turn the other cheek? For how long? Again and again and again?

Or react? React for what? Earthly power and control? Christians used to believe (perhaps still do) that martyrdom was an instant, guaranteed get into heaven card. From the earliest martyrs, e.g. Stephen who was stoned (in the rocks on head style) down to and including those in the middle ages who died in Crusades in order to promote the faith, the highest order of heaven awaited them.

So where is "love one another". Love thy enemies. Do good to those who hate you.

Perhaps "Ethics" is a worldly concern and not a religious concern???

"And all we are saying, is give peace a chance"

Give love a chance. Do good to those who harm you. Forgive, forget and move on.

Is the world doomed to react with anger or is there a way to rise above the feeling that we must get even. Yes, some deranged (?) individuals did a horrible thing on 9/11. Yes loved ones were lost. So we, a supposedly christian nation react by ?"Turning the other cheek"...No...Hell no... they won't get away with that...whoever they are. So we bomb Afghanistan, we bomb Iraq. We kill. We (those who have power in the Western World) bomb and maim and hurt in the name of a political system. They wouldn't do this if they had a system like ours???? Which only hurts people economically???

Genug. Ver zulatz lacht lacht am besten.

Watching the snow

2008-02-11T10:19:00.000-04:00

Monday February 11...the snow is falling, the wind is blowing. I shovelled for about half an hour just to get a path down to the car and clean out in front of the car. School was delayed so A. stayed home until almost 8:30 before she came down to get into the car.

I thought I might get the truck out of the lane and go in to pick up the mail. However, I'm not sure the work is worth it because I really don't expect any mail. It is just an excuse to get out.

Instead I might just do some of those wonderful things I said I might do like finish the basement insulation and frame up the bath room down stairs.

But then I might just curl up with a book and doze between pages and watch the snow fall.

The trail I made for my cross country skiing is now deep in the snow and new trail breaking is in order sometime today...maybe.

Life is hard when you are retired and have all these decisions to make.

Meanwhile I cogitate about world affairs and politics and people. In the past I thought I could do something about these things. Now I realize that I can only control my life and not always that. So I have only one purpose here and that is to enjoy my life as much as I can. Try not to hurt others and try to help others when the opportunity arises. fiat

I"m Back

2008-02-10T14:37:00.000-04:00

Sunday 10, 2008
May 2007 was my last post to blogger. I wonder now if anyone still uses this mode of communication. What with facebook and it's derivitives, this is so old hat or is it that way to me because I haven't been here lately?

Anyway, I have decided to begin again to record reminescences so that you my readers (I think only my children) will have more to pass on or carry with you.

So this is a start and I will promise to try a daily up date. But first I will reread my posts and yours to see where I have been in my remin...s.

So til tomorrow.

Today is...

2007-05-08T14:42:00.000-03:00

Today is the first day in the rest of my life.... But then every day is the first day in the rest of my life at least upon awakening. However, the expression is meant to convey the idea that whatever has happened in the past, (especially bad things) today is a new beginning in which you (or I as the case may be) can begin again to do the things I want to do with a positive spin rather than the negative which may have chased me.

Now, tonight is the next class in the course "Sociology of Adult Education". Isn't that impressive. Hey, when I went to school, the kids did what they were told and the teachers did what they wanted to the kids and they called it education no matter what method...(e.g. beat them into submission), the teacher (frustrated nun) used.

Now, I should not be picking on Nuns because some of them were wonderful teachers. (I am struggling to remember which taught with skill and tact rather than the inch thick ruler) even if my memory has failed because of age.

I however am a WONDERFUL teacher because I make my students or pupils or class or whatever, WONDER what the old guy is up to when he says that or this.

I want every teaching experience to be a postive one for my "students"...the young people who are forced by circumstance to be in the class in order to get the piece of paper which says that they can do what they already know they can do because they are doing it. Such is the world of academe'.

Problem is that Sociology of Education is so broad that it can't be condensed into a "course". Rather it is "life in the classroom" no matter where that may be...from primary to post doctoral studies. So teaching it is in a sense trying to condense life in the class room into a course that has definable parameters. Sure,,, use a big amorprous word when limits would be sufficient. Nonetheless, (whateverthatmeans) tonight, or this evening, or later today, or however you wish to describe the time between 6 and 9, 16 plus people will be forced to endure what I want to throw their way because I am the teacher, instructor, professor, who is in charge because the U pays me to be there and do what I am doing. And they or it dosen't (or don't if you prefer they) have a clue what I am doing in the classroom ...only that I am "qualified" to do whatever it is that I am doing.

What I do is have fun with my friends who have paid money to be there. Kind of like a live play except I involve the audience or more correctly I let the audience construct the play.

Genug or if I were an ancient Greek I would say...take this message from marathon to Athens...Thus the Marathon???

The Buffalo Five

2007-01-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

These are my recollections of the Buffalo five and not to be associated with first hand evidence because most of this is what I heard from others.

The story as I recall was that a group of Anti Vietnam war protesters in Buffalo conducted a raid on the offices of the draft board in the post office building in Buffalo New York. Although there were a larger number involved in the planning, there were seven who took part. Six went into the building and the 7th was in the getaway car.

The draft board raid was timed to coincide with a similar raid in Camden New Jersey. However, an informant in Camden had tipped the FBI about the raids and they showed up at the P.O. building after the six had gone into the draft board offices.

As I understand it, the getaway driver saw the FBI arrive but was not able to contact those in the building to alert them (no cell phones in those days). He (Kenny Moodie, I think) instead drove to the rendesvous to report and wait for a call to pick up any who might have gotten away.

Jim Goode (a.k.a. Jaime Bueno) one of the six inside saw the agents getting on an elevator to take then up to the floor of the Draft Board Offices and escaped by going down the stairs and after looking about unsuccessfully for the getaway car, ran off into the night. He was dresed in black clothes and like the others had his face and hands blackened so as to be less visible. However his escape route took him into the heart of the Black neighborhood on William Strteet. There he tried to borrow a dime (fancy ten cents for a phone call) to use a pay phone to get a pick up.

The other five were trapped by the FBI agents in the Draft board offices, arrested, jailed and eventually put on trial. I have tried to remember the five arrested and I think they were Chuck Darst and his girlfriend , Harry Davis, Jerimiah something and one other whose name escapes me. I think Jim Martin who stayed for a while in a cabin on Barren Hill road was the other.

We moved to Buffalo in June of 1970 and I started law school in September of that year. There I joined an organization called I think, Law Students Concerned. We took the role of unbiased, impartial observers of various anti-war demonstrations and protests in order we thought to be able to dispell rumours of protestors attacking police and vice versa.

In Washington while still working for the FBI investigating the antiwar movement, I had met Mike Daugherty, a former classmate at the minor seminary. He had gone to study with the Jesuits and there met Fr. Berrigan who was one of the first members of the "Catholic Left" to be involved with Draft Board Raids. Berrigan and others took draft records and publicly burned them to protest the US use of Napham in Vietnam and to "save those young men who might be drafted to fight and be killed in Vietnam"

I met Mike again in Buffalo and we renewed our friendship and he asked Cammie and me to join the anti war movement. When the trial of the, so called, Buffalo Five was about to get underway, we agreed to let those from out of town stay at our house during the trial.

Jim Goode and some others fixed the attic up as a bunk area for those staying. I could go on and on but that is the gist of it. Jim Goode and some others came up to CB after we were there and I remember that they used wood from an old falling down shack to make bunk beds for the three children.

I'm tired...of writing this. But there is much more. Did I ever tell you that I went to Camden New Jersey to testify at the trial of the Camden 28 as a defense witness concerning the FBI's methods of getting informants and how sometimes informants become agents provacateur as in the Camden and by extension the Buffalo Five cases.

Testing testing testing

2007-01-05T08:30:00.000-04:00

According to Joan, I am now in the new blogger site where only Joan, Joe and Kate (or others on the site like Kelly for example) can access my blogs.
the purpose of this test blog is to see if A. a blog is created, B. if it can be read by all those who are on my list, i.e. Joan, Joe, and Kate. So, if you can read this, send a comment so I can know (why did the italic start??? - technology) Let me out - Now I clicked the italic setting and it takes me out of rather than into italic - go figure. And C. an excuse not to post a real ;blog.

Every Day in Every Way

2006-11-10T15:51:00.001-04:00

There was a time when I said, half jokingly, "Every Day in Every Way I'm Getting Better and Better". Now I wonder.

I wonder - have I gotten as good as I am going to get?
I wonder - What's the point in getting better and better?
I wonder - What's better - better than what?
I wonder - if my life has reached that point where I am merely marking time until the inevitable.
I am certain that I am happy, fulfilled, healthy and ready to be of use to the world.
I am certain that I am ready for any challenge that is placed in my path.
I am equally certain that I will not find any problems in my path that can't be overcome. Or is that just the reverse of what I said before???
I am uncertain that I have any particular purpose at this time
I am uncertain that simply enjoying my life as it is, is what I am meant to do and
I am uncertain that I would want any "New Purpose" for my existence.
YET, each day I wonder if there isn't more that I could do or be or become to make myself or someone else more comfortable or better or wiser or whatever.

So life has become this enigma - fulfilling - and yet empty. Jopyful, happy, full of meaning yet sad, painful and meaningless.

Where does one go to find the answers? to religion?
To friends
To new goals
To work
To hobbies
To volunteering
To writing blogs that no one will read? Or rather a very few close persons will read and worry over.
Perhaps I must look deeply inside myself for the answers. But naval gazing has never been my forte. so is a Blog simply desktop naval gazing?

This leads to inevitable, important question...is it Naval OR Navel or does it make a difference to me as a former naval officer...see I have answered my question.
AH HA much like Ta Dah! an epiphany!As always, the answer is in the question. Seek and you shall find, Knock and it shall be opened unto you says the good book...at least some people think it is a good book, I wonder

Here I am back to wondering.

I wonder if there is anything that I can do to be of any value to my children that I have not already done when they were my "children" and not self sufficient adults pursuing their own path in the world.

I wonder, and wonder and wonder and hope and hope and wish and wish and worry and care and sit here and push keys because I can't be any other place at this time. Good thing I am happy. Soon enough I will have to be happy because I will be too old or infirm or unable to carry myself to other places or drive or even walk. As if happiness is not a good thing in itself, (which most would say it is). Be content with what you arre... or keep striving to be more. Which is the way.???

Auf Deutsch man sacht GENUG or in Israeli (not not written backwards) Toda raba laka) That is for all those who have endured to this point. Many thanks for reading my musings. I welcome your comments

Another year ending

2006-11-06T10:15:00.000-04:00

Each morning seems colder. Each day drearier. It's too cold to be comfortable for a long bike ride and there's no snow to cross country ski upon. It's the in between time when I wait for what will come and wonder.

It's a month and a half since I last wrote. It was a very full time. I started teaching a Communications course in the for UPEI; travelled to Buffalo with my son to see the Bills get Stomped by the patriots (no capital letter because they're not really patriotic) and the Sabres romp over the Hurricanes; had a late birthday party with brothers, sister and their families; visited with family; reunited with four classmates from my high school daze and then did a quick trip to Halifax when I returned to the maritimes.

Lately I've been busy with getting in the lawn furniture, securing things for the winter weather, working on refinishing a couple of old pieces of furniture that we picked up recently. And generally, keeping busy but not doing anything that amounted to much. Such is the life of the retiree. Always the busy work, sometimes excitement and mostly just being and enjoying each day as it comes.

Sometimes when you let yourself think about it you wonder why. But mostly it's just a lot of fun watching the world roll by and reacting or not to the craziness that always seems to pop up around you.

Now I'll take the dog for a little run, check the mail at the box and then depending on what's there, go into town for lunch with Audrey and hit the bank on the way back or not if my check isn't in the mail. I guess that's an old story.

Anyway, here's another blog. Maybe now that the weather is making the indoors more appealing I'll write more. Or not?

Rainy Day

2006-09-20T08:29:00.000-03:00

It's raining. The title would tell you that. But, I mean it's raining. so I sit here and contemplate my navel and wonder what today will bring. I live each day with little in the way of a plan because that's the way I have always done it.

I've been contacted by classmates of my early days in high school. 2006 is the 50 year anniversary of the HS grad of the class that I started in 1992 at the "Little Sem" Or Minor Seminary if you prefer. It was a prep school for those who would later go on to the "Major Seminary" to study for the priesthood.

Because of this contact, I began trying to recall first of all the names and then events connected with the names of fifty years ago. Now in another venue I am trying to construct a memory book to send ahead and ask for others to fill in the blanks with their recollections of those early days. Perhaps if any of you who were in the classes at the minor sem in those days want to begin your own memory journal, we can compare notes and reminiscences when I get to Blfo in October.

Sorrow

2006-09-08T18:37:00.000-03:00

Nothing hurts a parent as much as the sorrow of a child.
Each cry brings heart stopping anguish.

An urge to replace hurt with comfort and warmth
And put joy, happiness and love in its place

Creates the feeling of helplessness.

The loss of a friend is a sad occasion
the loss of a trusted collegue

In a field where trust is earned grudgingly
makes the loss more poignant

And deepens the sorrow.

I feel your pain.

Trying to remember

2006-09-04T19:21:00.001-03:00

Back in the mid eighties when I was doing some commentaries for CBC radio in Sydney there was a debate going on about amalgamation of the various municipalities into one larger one (as has been done).

There were some people in the smaller municipalities that argued that amalgamtion would result in a loss of identity for the smaller places.

I opined in my commentary that people would always identify with the neighborhood where they were raised regardless of what name the municipality came to be called. I stated that I was born on 14th street on the west side of Buffalo in the state of new York in the coultry called the United States.

When I identified myself to others from the city I was from 14th street on the West side. When I left the city and went down state to school I was from Buffalo, When I joined the navy and went to Newport Rhode Island and later Virginia, I was from New York State, when I went overseas I was from the U.S. (and no I don't know your mother's third cousin who emigrated to Peoria). Throughout all this I still remember the front room of the house on 14th Street where the four older boys in the family bunked in two army surplus bunk beds (U.S.carved in the end, khaki colored functionally ugly).

Now when I meet people and they ask where I am from I always respond, "recently from Kingston PEI before that many places".

I have always believed that where you were from is unimpoprtant, it was where you are going that makes a difference. What you do for a living is essential for survival, what you do with your life is what gives meaning to that life. Now I try to find more things to do with my life that will give more meaning. I find however that when I impart the information that I am retired, I am greeted with this look which says - gee your lucky but your life is over. So I sit and remember and try to give meaning to the days gone by. Yet I know that by living each day as fully as I can I am adding new meaning to my life and the lives of those who touch me and whom I touch.

I have been very fortunate to find a companion whom I love deeply and with whom I can share these days of retirement. She challenges me on so many levels because she is intelligent, interesting, adventurous, kind, loving, and daring. Each day is now an adventure to be enjoyed. I have set new goals for myself and although no one but me knows these goals, they will when I reach them, If I reach them. And if not thenI will have enjoyed the trying.

So much for these non memories. Except to state that over the years I have lived (periods of 6 mo residence or more) in over twenty five different locations, 26 if you count my state room on board the ship). I remember each of them, why I moved there, how long I stayed, who or whom I stayed with and why I left. It is no wonder that short term memory is fallible, there's hardly enough room left for recent memories with all the past cluttering up the storage space. I need more gigabytes.

Contacts, friends, former associates

2006-08-09T14:41:00.000-03:00

I began blogging because my older daughter wanted to know more of my history (and therefore hers)She sent me some pictures and I commented on the pictures in a blog.
Since that time I have learned that not only my children but my siblings and relatives have been reading the old guy's rants.

From this I re-established a contact with a former co-worker.

When my brother Jim visited from Buffalo, NY, I learned that (in his words) a lot of the cousins have been reading the old guy's rants. If you are someone related to me who has been ;reading or someone I used to know who has seen these blogs, please send a comment so that we can spread the net and communicate more widely.

Wonderful Sunday

2006-07-09T14:22:00.000-03:00

It is beautiful,warm and sunny today. The place is beautiful. After digging out mounds of weeds the flowers are beginning to show their beauty. It was not a good time to be on the road but with all the rain we had here it is doubtful that we would have been interested in anything but staying dry and warm.

Now I am beginning to start on the new deck outside the door to Atley's room. It is only going to be 6x8 so it is not a big job. When I finish this I will put steps down to the yard and then a board walkway to the steps off the other deck. Soon we will have a place where our outdoor sitting tent can stand without danger of blowing away and we can eat out in the yard??? but that is the future. Meanwhile we enjoy hostas which are just beginning to bloom. The varigated ones come to blossom first then the plain green. The plain green are enormous again. Every year we split them and move parts to different places and by the end of the summer they are enormous again. Astilbe are starting to come, Perennial geranium are full and hearty and errupting with pretty pinkish floweres so they look like huge flowered balls. Our Asiatic lillies are now coming out also with striking orange, yellow and red/orange blossoms. We expect to see more of these as the month goes on.

We have a new ride on mower...Audrey's baby and she is enjoying the fact that she can keep ahead of the mowing. I have the push mower for work around the edges and in tight spots and it is a delight to start. It actually starts on the first pull of th cord and no long electrical extentions to worry about. But with the price of gas even this pleasure is somewhat reduced. Then there is the polution...get serious why put a damper on such fun. And it is fun watching the flowers grow, seeing which plants take and flourish and which don't. Then trying again with those that don't and encouraging those that do. Fun fun fun. I would never have guessed as a youngster watching my grandmother tend her poenies and pansys that I would some day look forward to mine.

Getting old is an adventure and a more pleasant one than growing up as a young person. Genug

Haiku: Lilacs & Lilly of the Valley

2006-06-06T18:08:00.000-03:00

Lilacs

Lilac blooms
fill the senses
purple shades
and smell recall
childhood joy.

Lillys of the Valley

Lillys of the valley
rise before me
faint aroma
happy days.

Lilacs

2006-06-05T14:23:00.000-03:00

Monday Morning in the basement of the Education Building. Audrey has office space here reserved for doctoral students and I am here on her coat tail with not much to do today as she is on her computer organizing data.

I titled this lilacs becasue there are so many lilacs in bloom. I have been stopping to smell them as I make my way across campus and on the walks I take back and forth from where ever I am.

Lilacs along with lilly of the valley are two flowers, the smell of which can take me back to my childhood. In the backyard of the house on 14th street where I first lived, lilly of the valley grew along the basement wall of the house next door. The house next door was the boundry for the side and rear entrance of our house, so I could go out the door, down the steps and there in front of me was a row of lilly of the valley. Not til I was much older did I find out that this particular flower can be poisonous if eaten by a child. I used to sit on the sidewalk and play in the dirt where the flowers grew. I often picked the blooms to smell and sometimes take into my mother.

In the backy yard of the house was a workshed where my father and grandfather stored their tools. Between the shed and the yard of the house on the other side of our house grew two big, old lilac bushes, one purple and one white. The bushes were old enough and sturdy enough that I could use them to climb and get on the roof of the shed (not allowed but a great place to climb to neveertheless) there I could reach out and collect big bunches of the lilacs, thus the memories that take me back.

Sunday Morning in Calgary

2006-06-04T14:10:00.000-03:00

We rose to another sunnny day inthe wild rose country. We hope to move from our postage stamp room to a larger one with microwave and fridge sometime later today.

Yesterday afternoon and again this morning we are at the U Cal library doing research for A's dissertation. I tote books to her little cubicle (sp??) cubbyhole, carel? she enters the endnote information on her computer and selects areas for copying. I go to the copy machine and copy and mark appropriately and file copies for further study. Now A is busy entering more info in her computer and I am free to blog. I am officially an acting research assistant so I get to go on the computer here at the U... It's so fast it scares me.

My email had your comments on my assignment to you. Only Joe didn't reply yet. Not a surprise as he manages to find other things to do and doesn't really get on line very often from what I understand. Thank you for your comments. I am happy to be seen as a positive influence in your life.

Calgary is a happening place it seems. While we were at the International Hotel in downtown I got a ring side seat on the construction of two high rise building directly behind the hotel. Four huge cranes sometimes working at the same time. worker ants swarming over the site wearing a variety of colored hard hats - bosses -white; steel workers green, blue seemed to be for gofers and red seemed to be electrical types. But who knows. IOt was fascinating to see the activity and see how the work progressed with concrete forms and wire - rebar cages for pillars being raised and lowered, concrete being hoisted from the street level to be dumped into the forms which were erected above.

First job of the day for the crane operator was to drop the porta pottys from the top level to the stree t to be pumped out. They are on a frame so he can hoist two at a time and one morning both doors swung open as he was swinging the pottys around to go over the edge and it looked like a plump couple doing a wild dance.
See what fun you miss when you love in the country.

Career Wrecker???

2006-06-02T10:04:00.000-03:00

This morning shuffling through the Globe and Mail that we receive at our hotel room door I found the following in the Careers section.

PARENTING
Daddy dearest:
Your legacy lives on
in me at work

It is a review of yet another of the popular series of self-help books which purport to provide advice for those with a problem. A number of different "father-types" (my quote) are described in the Globe article. (I'm sure there are many more in the book.) There's the superachiever (a word?), the time bomb, passive parent, absent father, compassionate mentor.

The sad part of this and I haven't read the whole article yet, (nor do I intend to)is that it focuses on the impact on a child's career path as if this were the most important part of a childs development and life. If I were a father described by the time bomb caption, "volitile and unpredictable often because of underlying depression or addictive personalities" then my child would be a success if he or she survived much less had a career.

So what is this to me and to thee. Well, It's the first time I've read something which tried to put a father into a "category" based on character traits and then predict how the traits of the father would affect the child's work life.

It also made me wonder how what I did or did not do as a father affected your "career" choices. I remember Joan always talked about being a nurse. I don't remember Joe focusing on any particular career as a youngster, and I remember Kate saying that she wanted to be a teacher. I remember trying to steer Joe into the military or police work but he chose to work in Toronto and other places setting up offices and hotel rooms. I don't remember trying to direct the "career" choic of either Joan or Kate in any way.

So, the assignment should you choose to accept it is to think back to see if you can figure how my parenting skills or lack thereof were critical to your career choice. I would be interested in knowing and if you cite instances of things I did or did not do to direct you in you career, then I will have further fodder for future fascinating features here in blog world

Thinking Back

2006-05-28T20:02:00.000-03:00

When Joan was the only baby in the house we lived in an apartment in Oxon Hill Maryland. It was a new development near the Rosecroft racetrack south of the beltway (Rt. 495). The MacLeans were the only ones we ever got to know well there. They lived up one floor on the other side of the entrance. Harry, the son, Clara, the mother and the father whose name I forget. Harry was a sci-fi nut and when we moved to Canada sent us a huge box of old paperbooks of which I read every one and became addicted to some...notably Asimov.

Anyway, we took this particular apartment because I was supposed to go to language school at a nearby naval base (Anacostia)...but they changed it and I had to drive the Baltimore washington turnpike to the National Security Agencies (NSA now notorious for intercepting phone conversations) language school. I was in a class of five learning Hebrew. But the fact that I was learning Hebrew was classified. Two recently enlisted kids who were just out of the Army boot camp, I sergeant who had been in the service for about ten years.

The rest of the class were going to go on to Arabic but I was destined to the
FBI closed intercept on the Israeli embassy. The fact that I was studying Hebrew was classified because the Israelis were our allies and we did not want them to know that we were training agents to spy on them. Our instructor "Schlomo" was an Iraqi Kurd. who had run off when the BAAthist party took power in Iraq and the Kurds who hoped for their own country were the minority and oppressed.

Garbage ancient political bickerings, now renewed as political battles Sometime it seems that the world does not learn from History... and as we know if we don't learn from history we are bound to repeat it. So it is in the middle east were we are repeating all the worst of history.

I am a long way from where I started. Maybe next time I will be able to continue on a vein that is meaningful to you.

Using the Laptop

2006-05-28T19:45:00.000-03:00

I am sitting in room 1401 of the International Hotel in Calgary Alberta trying to compose on Audrey's laptop computer. It has no mouse. It is on a table and I am sitting in an ergometrically incorrect position which is causing me a pain in tghe neck. I left in the last misspelling because I have givenb up trying to correct on this keyboard because when I do it goes bonkers on me and I get frustrated. The "DUH" factor kicks in as I try to learn a new skill, i.e. typing on the keyboard which is elevated on a table and trying to move the cursor with a pad instead of a mouse.

I begin to feel old...and old dogs don't do well on new tricks... or so they say. Now I am not a dog...and what I am trying to do is not a trick...does that mean that I can do well or is the adage applicable to adult humans as well as dogs. Am I in fact too old to learn new tricks if in fact I wish to learn a trick. Why would I want to learn tricks??? What tricks would I want to learn??? Card tricks, coin tricks or computer tricks.

If you have read this far, it is time to quit and go to the next post

Wondering about Hostage Rescue

2006-03-26T14:44:00.000-04:00

Why was there no great big hoopla when someone rescued the hostages in Iraq last week. I remember the noise and backslapping when the woman soldier was rescued some year or so back. Don't we want to take credit for the daring exploit that freed these hostages???

It makes my wondering antenna go wild. First we heard that the hostages were taken and the demand was made for the release of all Iraqi prisoners being held by the US on exchange. Then nothing for a long time etc.etc.

When the hostages are rescued/released we hear that it was not political but criminal...a band of hostage takers were holding them for ransom. But that's not what we heard when they were taken. So if these hostage takers were a skilled band of criminals as we are now supposed to believe, How come they took these people who were not wealthy by criminal standards and who (it seems) did not want to be rescued because the purpose of their being there was to protest US involvement and invasion.

I have never understood the motivation for suicide bombers. Nor do I understand these peace protesters who go to the war zone to carry out their protest. Seems like two sides of the same cloth. Kind of a peace suicide. In the 60's we kept the protest at home and eventually pushed the government to withdraw from Vietnam. Perhaps the powers that be in Vietnam would say that they forced the US to leave but that's another debate.

Back to this most recent rescue/release...I (paranoid as I am) believe that the US or some of the hired hands thereof engineered the hostage taking to shut the peaceniks up. All was according to plan with the protester activity being curtailed until the american member of the group was shot and killed. THEN surprise surprise, the US has a "suspect" who leads allied forces to the place where the hostages are. There is no report of a battle, no report of nasty hostage takers being shot and/or captured, no report of anything to do with the group that allegedly engineered the hostage taking. Duh...Release...Rescue...??? Let's not reveal our intelligence which led us to the hostages.

This whole thing smacks of an underlying scum similar to the lies that took us to Iraq in the first place. It stinks. Anyone who thinks should be asking again why the US went to Iraq in the first place. Obviously not because of 911 and equally obviously not because of weapons of mass destruction. It is time once again to take to the streets and protest the US involvement in the war in Iraq...even more so now that that more war rantings about Iran are on the table... Perhaps George is one of the four horsemen promissed in the apocalypse

Weighing the Scales

2006-03-20T08:54:00.000-04:00

I decided to weigh my chances this morning and compose a blog about scales. This all began as I was driving home from Nova Scotia the other evening. I thought about scaling a cliff. Then I wondered aloud why the same word came to mean the act of climbing a steep incline and the act of cleaning a fish. Neither of these can be measured on a scale, nor do they have any tonal quality like the scale that is the curse of every beginning music student.

I have in my union days talked of a wage scale. That makes sense if we think of paying workers with a quantity of a valuable material (e.g. gold dust for the miner) which could be weighed out.

Then I thought of small scale operations where the word scale is actually a redundancy of sorts but makes for more colourful reading.

Back to my first thoughts, it occurred to me that both the scales on the fish and the act of removing them used the same word. That made sense in the same way that taking the skin off is called skinning. But why were the small plate-like dermal structures of fish and some reptiles called scales in the first place. Which came first climbing a cliff, or cleaning a fish?

We weigh our fish with or without scales on a scale which may be large or small. I weigh my chances when I take a risk. I weigh in with my opinion as I am doing now. I try to keep my scales balanced whenever I weigh in lest I be seen as way out somewhere.

When I weigh in with my opinion, I wonder if I weigh down those who consider it. So, I can weigh out something to determine it's weight; weigh in which means to add to or contribute; weigh down which means to depress or burden; and then there's the weigh anchor which means to lift. At the airport I weigh my words carefully lest I in greeting a friend say "Oh Hi Jack" and create a swarm of air marshalls. They weigh my luggage to make sure it's not over weight. And they don't use a small scale.

Now I think it is time to get my day under weigh...which I think means under way and comes from the mistaken impression that when we weigh anchor we then get under weigh.

On a scale calibrated from one to ten, how do you weigh this blog. There are a variety of ways...by word count, by import of significance, by laughter or by the amount of tedium and ennui developed. so have fun and don't let this thing weigh too heavily on your mind. Keep your scales clean and you'll always have a good weight.

Another Winter's Day

2006-03-10T11:15:00.000-04:00

Outside the snow has changed to rain and there is slush in abundance. If I kick the ell out of the slush, it's just hush because there is no need or purpose in complaining about it. I only mention it because earlier this week I was in the yard relocating the dog's run, trying to clean up some of the winter poop left by same dog and friends who come to his place. Now the yard is covered again in a slush. Ah but my younger daughter tells me that she is cold in the 50 degree temperature in Bermuda. I guess that life is hard all over.

I am in Summerside this morning acting as chauffer for the morning road trip because the road is so bad. Later we will drive back to Charlottetown. Meanwhile I sit in the public library and amuse myself. Unfortunately the machines here are not java enabled so I can't get to my globe crosswords or sudoku puzzles but then there is always the afternoon for this exciting activity.

Because upon rereading this entry, I find it about as interesting as the poop I was raking last week, I'll bend my brain for a few seconds and end with a poetic appreciation for the weather and the wonderful things I could be doing if it were nicer outside.

When rain turns snow to slush
I tell myself to hush
The mess as you must know
Is just another form of snow.

When earlier I saw the snow
I knew my cheeks would glow
Coming back from walking the dog
Sitting down to write my blog

The snow is great to go for a run
Not too deep to have some fun
However when it turns to slush
the words I speak would make one blush

c.bob wall 2006

blog fog

2006-02-18T10:07:00.000-04:00

My daughter writes: why don't you blog?

I know she waits with eyes agog.

While I sit idly in a fog.

I do believe I've slipped a cog.

I must dispel this blinding fog,

But all I see is misty bog,

And in the bog a rotting log,

Upon the log, a croaking frog.

Perhaps to rid my mind of fog,

I should go walking with my dog.

It's cold outside so says my dog,

Why don't you stay inside and blog???

Look out, look out you silly dog,

Its fine outside, look at the frog.

He sits and croaks upon his log

He pays no mind to the misty bog.

At once my brain begins to clog

with thoughts of bog and frog and dog.

I rush to get a glass of grog,

A tested remedy for clog.

But now I sit my eyes agog,

For when it comes to good strong grog,

It never does dispel the fog,

At least for me an old grog hog.

I look again into the bog

Now plus the fog, there's strong grog clog.

Upon the log is no old frog,

It's now a little pollywog.

There's nothing left to do but jog.

So in my winter running tog,

I leash the collar of my dog,

And head outside to start my jog.

I rush out fast to start my jog,

But then I trip upon the log

And land in misty mucky bog

Quite a start for the pollywog.

What a mess, my winter tog,

Stained with moss from the fallen log,

Full of muck from the foggy bog,

As back to home I now must slog.

At home I'm in a deeper fog

Perhaps a glass of fresh eggnog

Will help to cure my broken cog.

I should have listened to my dog.

It's always better when there's fog

or any hint of a busted cog

to go on line where you can log

Into this site and send a blog...

Will help repair the broken cog

c.Bob Wall 2006

a Winter's day

2006-01-26T16:27:00.000-04:00

The snow is small... big flakes no snow...,small snow - watch out... I'm watching as I wait for Audrey to come home after a day up in summerside (how's that for a misnomer on a day like this?). I was out earlier and the roads are icy and slick and I am glad to be back in the house. I took the dog for a brief stroll but neither he nor I wanted to be out in this mess.

Ben (the younger cat) is sitting on a box that I put together for step aerobics. He seems to think that if he sits there and purrs, I will reach down and pet or do something to him... Fat chance...nothing against fat... I'm getting there myself in retirement and I don't want to imply that there is anything wrong with a few extra pounds.

Meanwhile I sit and watch the white blow across the window and hope that all is well on the road. Strange how something you would not think twice about becomes a concern when someone you love is out in it and you are sitting waiting, wondering, unable to do anything but wait and wonder and watch.

Watching, wondering, waiting, wishing, wanting it all to end and the comfort to return. Comfort, care, concern.

First Memories

2006-01-18T16:03:00.000-04:00

Joan: 5:30 pm. I rushed to the maternity ward at Washington General Hospital because when I got home there was just a note from your mother that you were on the way. I arrive and they tell me that I can't go to the labor room because your mother has already started her meds. I go anyway and talk and then leave to pace the waiting room as is the traditional role of expectant fathers. At 6:10 the Doctor comes into the waiting room with a long face and takes me aside for the bad news - you have a girl but both mother and daughter are well and healthy. I rush to see you in the baby pen and the nurse brings you over and I am happy to see you. The doctor could not have been more wrong when he said that having a daughter was in any way bad news.

Joe: After months of preparation we head to the hospital in the evening. The doctor arrives and in keeping with our desire to have a natural birth and not use a general anesthetic, he does a "caudal block" which means he injects a novacaine type drug into the spinal column. It doesn't work. It by-passes the cervical area proceeds up the spinal column and proceeds to paralize your mother's diaphram. She can't breathe and is making motions to me to do something. I am the comforting coach as directed and I mop her forhead and nod understandingly and offer positive comments until she starts grabbing for the call button for the nurse and I finally get the picture and push the button. All hell breaks loose when the nurse arrives takes the blood pressure and determines that all is not well. I am shoved out of the way told to proceed to the waiting room and your mother is rushed to delivery. Later I see you with a noticable red mark in the middle of your forehead where the forceps were used, you have an oxygen mask in place and you are breathing well and look okay. I rush by because I am not sure how your mother was. As with Joan it was the next day before I got to hold you. Ah, according to the old german proverb I was two thirds of the way to a successful life because I had fathered a son(????).

Kate: As with Joe, we did a long preparation, determined this time to have as little
medical intervention as possible. We do the natural childbirth classes again and when the time comes we are ready. It was a wonderful experience seeing you red wrinkled and screaming as you are delivered and then sponged off and then we get to hold you and shortly thereafter we go to a quiet room where there are warm blankets for mother and daughter and a place where I can hold you and rock you which is probably why you always wanted to be carried around and rocked for the first three years of your life.

Love

Dad

First Communion

2006-01-09T08:15:00.000-04:00

I believe that this was in 1946. I was in Grade three at Nativity of the BVM school. The school was of course part of the parish of the Nativity of the BVM. Now BVM is not a vehicle for the virgin such as an MGB or BMV. No it was short for Blessed Virgin Mary to be distinguished from the other Nativity in Christendom, namely the nativity of the Christ Child which we now celebrate as the birth of the special person or some such.

Note the fine tailoring of the F.C. suit. Since I was the third in the family to wear this holy garb it was tailored once again by my talented seamstress mother.

Note the bags under my eyes which even at that early age came from reading in poor light being a flashlight under the covers.

I am standing in the backyard of 428 14th Street Buffalo New York where I grew up. A fence similar to that behind me encased the yard and confined my siblings and I to the relative safety of a small but functional play area. That is until (aided by Big Brother Richard) I learned the fine art of fence climbing. Thereafter on saturday mornings when my mother slept in for a few well deserved minutes of rest after sending my father off to the bank in his freshly pressed white shirt, I would climb the fence (to the dismay of my younger brother Jack who was unable to master this feat) and scurry away for a day of running free whereever my feet took me.

Mostly I walked the length of Massachusettes avennue to Front Park which began under the Peace bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo. In this park which at that time covered a large area were ball fields, tennis courts and down the hill to the river there was a marina which on a saturday morning bustled with activity. I watched the boats, watched the water rush by on its pell mell course from the eastern end of lake Erie to the mouth of the Niagara River and thence to the glorious Falls of Niagara. The water was frightening in its speed which i tested by throwing twigs into the water and racing along the shore to see if I could go as fast as the water. I lost! Even years later I could not keep up with th speed of the water at that point.

Out in the middle of the river mouth, under the shadow of the Peace Bridge sits a large concrete device shaped like an old flat iron. I was told by someone and I can't remember who, that the device was placed there to divide the water so it would flow more evenly down the river where a number of hydro electric plants had been built.

I was in third grade in the Nativity of the BVM school. In grade two and three I had the same teacher, the only non-nun I had in the grade school system. In fact the only non-nun I ever recall. The Sisters of St. Joseph,the order of nuns who ran the school at BVM were also the ones who ran the big Sister's Hospital on Main Street in Buffalo (where later Ann Callaghan - later wife of my younger brother John
worked for many years). So teaching nuns were in short supply in 1946 and so the school - parish brought in a lay person to teach in the second and third grade which was combined that year. The need for the nuns in the hospital was due to the number of wounded vets who returned from the WWII in need of medical attention.

I hope the picture comes up. Imagine I was just a year older than Aidan and Erin and like them had a sweet enigmatic smile. Almost angelic - wouldn't you say or perhaps fallen angelic - devilish???

Late Summer '72

2005-12-12T15:45:00.000-04:00

There are three pictures on my wall here in the office (as we call it). Top of the three is Kate and Joe in the sandbox. I have only the back of Joe but Kate is looking at the camera and smiling. Joe seems to be playing with a tonka truck. The sand box in case you don't recall is framed from the boards which were used to make the trailer that we didn't take to Cape Breton and then were used as backing for the truck (the one with the elephants and the NS or bust sign) to keep things from bumping against the back door of the truck and making it hard to lift.

Picture no. 2 is me fixing Joe's bicycle...so maybe this is 1973 not 72 two as I said in the title... When did Joe get a bicycle??? Anyway, my recollection is Joe racing down the drive, hitting the water in the puddle at the bottom and flying over the handlebars, landing in the mud. That didn't stop him and he simply got up and rode again.

Picture no. 3 is Joan with her hands on the large wheel of an old carriage which was there when we arrived. Seems to me that it was on the hill down toward the outhouse. All three of the pictures I think were taken by Judy Joa when she and Ted something or other were up for a visit. Don't ask me how we hooked up with Judy Joa because I don't remember that, but she showed up. Any way we returned the favour by staying at her house in Brooklyn sometime later. Remember the burned out houses and the trip to Luchow's and the trip up the Empire state building????

Buffalo Free School

2005-11-27T10:52:00.000-04:00

It's 1971. We moved to Buffalo from Washington D.C. Joan is not old enough to go to regular school so we enrolled her in a free school (Buffalo Cause School). Don't ask who organized it but it was some church group probably connected with the united church. It was located on Deleware avenue in the upstairs of a parish hall. Deal was that the parents had to spend a certain amount of time as aides in the school in exchange for having their child there. I don't recall going very often and I have no idea who took the picture. I have the feeling that it may have been part of the backgrounding for the FBI movie. I remember being followed around by the crew to a number of places but since this is a still, I'm not sure who took it.

Joan is doing math and working on the abacus. She was also doing some art work on the opposite page. This was around the time when we had many people in the house and I was still going to law school. Notice the pants Joan is wearing. They were made by her mother. Much of Joan's clothes were hand made at that time.

So much of that period I have lost in my memory. It was very hectic: going to law school, having three small children, trying to work here and there to support them. The GI bill education benefits only paid about $350.00 a month. We applied for food stamps - a plan for low income people to get coupons that could be exchanged for food at the supermarket. It was a form of federal welfare but the trick was that the food stamps could not be used for liquor or cigarettes as would hve been possible with a straight cash payment. It was embarassing for my father because he had to certify that he was no longer supporting me in order for me to qualify for the stamps. My father and I went to a bank where he had trained the manager. The manager had to sign the application along with us. I was not embarrased because I figured that I earned it and after law school they would get it back in spades...didn't happen but that's life.

I don't remember anything else about the free school, except what I have said above.
Oh yes, around this time Cammie was having other kids from the neighborhood in for a play school in the mornings. That way Joe could also be involved while Kate was napping.

cousins 1984

2005-11-16T15:15:00.000-04:00

It's 1984. We are on a trip to the states. The picture is taken in the basement of the house where Grandma Wall lived in Hamburg. Uncle Jim bought the house I think. He kept a place in the basement that he used for an office and also had a bedroom. The rest was open space and that is where we got together for the photo. This was the trip in the same year as the Tall Ships in sydney.

Back Row: Joan, Joe, Jack & Ann's daughter Nancy (I believe), Betty and Joe's daughter Carolyn, and Katie Ann.

Front row: I think all three are Brother Tom & Karen's but I don't recognize the little boy on the left at all - most likely it's Tommy Jr.??? On the other side of Grandma Wall are Lisa, Kaitlyn & Kristin. But I'm not sure which K is which.

Brother Jim was stationed out in Fredonia on the lake at this time and we stayed with him in his rectory. We also have some pictures taken in a photo booth in the town of Jamestown where we took a day trip. It was not far from Jim's rectory. I believe that this was the trip where both Joan and Joe got to drive a bit on the way down. I think I pretended to sleep in the back between gasps. It was not a long trip as I recall because we were hurrying back for the tall ships and also because Joan did not want to be there because it was interfering with her love life. I recall daily letters being written. I also remember that we only stopped once on the way back and that was somewhere in New Brunswick...most likely near St. John.

This is one of the blank spots in my memory and I can't say why. Maybe I need to mull on it more.

Once again, I get a message after a considerable perion that there were errors during the upload and a button to return to post. I shortened the title to cousins and the title on the upload page was cousins.bmp, but it didn't come through...

Joan, can you do your magic???

Joe Bob Joan DC 1969

2005-11-11T16:34:00.000-04:00

Holding Joe and Joan on the front steps of the house in Cheverly, Maryland. It says 1969 but Joe looks more than 2 years old so it may be spring of 1970????

We bought the house in Cheverly, Maryland when it looked like I would be staying in the Washington Field Office. Joan, look at how long your hair is. See it sticking out the back? Joe has no glasses but I also don't see any bruises either.

I see that both of you are wearing mittens so it must have been spring or fall. I remember Joan and that coat and hat in the picture with the plastic Easter Eggs. I don't see the cut on Joan's forehead so it was not later than May 1970.

I tried twice to upload this image, I changed the title to jdbDC69 and it still didn't take. So I give up for now and will try again tomorrow

Joan & Dad - '67

2005-11-10T10:05:00.000-04:00

The picture which I am now trying to load is J and Dad 1967. This is again in Oxon Hill Maryland, in the 2 br apartment with a patio outside, set in the woods south of the beltway near Washington D.C. I chose to talk about this picture because as you will notice, I am wearing a red baseball cap and shirt. Now, this is the same shirt that I am wearing in the picture where I was building the log house. I may go back and try to see what it says on the front of the shirt but for now I note that at the time I was playing slow pitch softball for a team in a league in Greenbelt Maryland.

Greenbelt is (was?) a designed community about fifteen minutes from the edge of Washington D.C. The town centered on the center which, as the name implies, was a green area. There was a large park like area which included baseball fields with industry and business surrounding the center homes and park area.

I can't remember how I ended up playing on a team in the league in greenbelt, only that I did. It was once a week and your mother used to bring you to the field and watch the game while chatting with other wives/mothers. Because I was at the language school in Fort Meade Maryland at the time, I may have met someone there who also played and got invited. I'm not sure.

Joan was not very old in this picture, less than one year or perhaps just past one. Seems there is another picture about with Joan on my lap with a birthday cake with one candle in it but I'm not sure.

We were living in the apartment in Oxon Hill because I was told that I was to be assigned to language school at the Annacostia Naval Base which would have been just across the beltway toward the city. It would have been a five - ten minute drive for me to get to work. Alas, after I arrived in D.C. and found the place in Oxon Hill, they changed my language school to Fort Meade, MD., which is just outside of Baltimore. It was a 45 minute drive at 70 MPH - not kilometers, miles per hour. It was harrowing every morning and evening. The traffic was abominable on the Baltimore Washington Turnpike. One day a plane from Andrews air force base (which is along side the turnpike) crashed on takeoff. Andrews is where the president's plane usually comes and goes from. Anyway, I was lucky to be along about ten minutes after the crash and able to get off the exit before and make my way home without the long delay that tied up traffic almost six hours.

Fort Meade, Maryland is where the National Security Agency (NSA) was located at the time. They did most of the satellite monitoring and international phone tapping etc. They were mainly electronic surveillance. They also had a language school and at the time the Middle East was in turmoil because of Suez Canal problem, Israel and the Arab nations and all the things that still are problems there today except that there was no significant Palestinian force as yet. I was assigned to study Hebrew (Modern Israeli Hebrew) because that was the diplomatic language of the state of Israel. Israel did not keep the US informed of its plans with regard to the unrest in the area and so the FBI agents were directed to listen to the diplomatic traffic from the embassy and UN consulate of the Israelis. Interestingly, because Israel was technically a "friendly" nation, the fact that the FBI had people studying their language in order to eavesdrop was considered "Top Secret". I was not allowed to tell anyone where I was going to work every day or what I was doing. Nor could I name the course of study in any communication. It was foreign language studies....

All this from a baseball shirt and hat. That was, despite the secrecy, a happy time. I was doing what I thought was important. We had a comfortable place to live and a sporty red MGB parked out front of the apartment. The McLeans upstairs became friends and we shared our baby with them, especially Clara, the mother because she had only the one child, Harry, and couldn't have any more and loved playing grandma for Joan. I looked forward to coming home and playing with Joan who enjoyed nothing more than pulling all the books out of the bookcase and crawling around in them. Finally we moved all our books up and put Joan's books in the bottom shelf so she could choose which ever she wished for me to read when I got home from work.

My Mother and her siblings

2005-11-08T14:59:00.000-04:00

The date that I have on this picture is an estimate. I know that my mother was born in 1913 and I guessed that she is about 10 in the picture. Perhaps she is as old as 13 or 14...I really don't know. At any rate if my guess is correct it would be the reason why Lucille and Milly are not there. Milly was the youngest and Lucille was a bit younger than Ruth.

So assuming the date is somewhere near correct...Then what can I tell you about the people.

I just went back an again got a message that there were errors in the uploading so the picture is not there. I am going to try again.

John is on the left. Of Ma's brother's I knew John least. He was in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War (WWII). He was enlisted. He worked for a while doing something in an engineering capacity for Spencer Lens corporation in Buffalo after he got out of the navy. Then he moved to Rochester. We visited there a few times but I don't remember much about it. He was married and had two daughters, but sometime later moved to North or South Carolina. Seems that he ran his own company of some sort in Rochester but again I can't say for sure. Dick's Schoedel backgrounder may have more. I think I gave you a copy.

Carl is next on the list. I knew him a bit better because he came home to live with Grandma Schoedel after the war. He bought the big (5 in. with a magnifying glass) TV for Grandma Schoedel and I used to take the bus over to Grandma's on sunday afternoons to watch football games on the TV. She had wicker furniture in the living room and I am sure that I did more sleeping than watching football. To get to Grandma Schoedel's I took the Grant Street bus to downtown Buffalo, transfered at Shelton Square which was the downtown crossing point for the busses and got the William Street bus and then the Lovejoy street bus, so it was a double transfer.

Once again I got a message saying that there were errors during upload and asked if I want to return to my post. GRRRRR.

Carl also served in WWII in Europe somewhere I think...Dick (My brother) insists that he was in the pacific theatre. I know that Harvey was in the Pacific for most of the war. He enlisted when he was eighteen and spent at least three years in the infantry in the pacific campaign. So Grandma's three sons served the whole war and all three returned intact and uninjured.

Harvey, the little guy, was my favorite. He and I used to play ball together after he got home. I remember in 1953 he was a Dodgers fan and that was the year that the NY Giants won the pennant with a home run hit in the last of the 11th inning. We had been out playing two man and I remember dropping a fly ball to let in a run and he said that that was the reason the Dodgers lost... He gave me my first real baseball glove which was a first baseman's mitt. I often used to visit him and his wife Delores because they lived nearby after we moved to Grandma Schoedel's house. She moved into an upstairs apartment with Lucille and Eddy Petras after Grandpa Schoedel died and all the children went off on their own. Then my mother and dad bought her house and moved out of the lower flat at Grandpa Wall's house.

The little girl in the front is Ruth who married Hunk Miller. Back in those days Hunk was a nickname (sometimes derogatory) for Hungarian. He also served and returned to marry Ruth after the war. John Braid who married Milly when he got back suffered severe mental disorder after the war and died a street person in downtown Buffalo.

Hey, I'm all over the lot here and this is only the surface of what I can recall as a result of this picture but but I get finger sore typing and frustrated that my pictures won't come up.

Joe, Bob & Joan at the beach

2005-11-04T18:21:00.000-04:00

I see that you have a date on this - 1980 - but then where is Kate? she would be 11 years old and in the picture???

I think 1980 may be correct because my father died in 1979 and my mother sent $1000 to each of the kids from Dad's will. She told us to use it for something and we decided that a trip to the states with all of you would be a good idea. You did meet many of the relatives at a gathering at the house in Hamburg where my mother was living at the time. Jim had an office in the basement and Joe and Betty Pracitto (my sister and husband) and family lived down the road.

We are at a beach in Maine where there was an amusement part and rides etc. We had camped out down the road near Kennebunkport which was the summer place of pres Bush the elder. We had two tents, a blue one and an orange one. Notice the straw hat in my hand. That also appears in a picture of all of the Wall family at my grandfather's summer cottage but Joe is wearing it. I have a blown up version of that picture on the shelf here in the office.

I'm having trouble getting any firm recollection. We were on our way to the states I think in the station wagon. We camped at a number of places along the way and eventually went to Virginia to see your mother's parents in their trailer by the swamp. That same trip we stopped at a motel in Maryland and I recall seeing pictures of Joe and Joan in a swimming pool at the motel.

You will notice that Joe has obviously been in the water whereas Joan, true to form, has only wet her feet. Notice that I am also dry. Lifeguarding no doubt...

It has now been over ten minutes and the photo still hasn't finished loading so I don't know if it ever will. On this trip we spent one night with George McVey and his family and then with the (ooops_ name just jumped out of my head) Delano's - Grace and Harry and kids David and Paul and ???.

Coming back from Virginia on this trip we found a going out of business sale in Fredricksburg Va. and bought a huge suitcase to put all the things in that we bought at the sale. I tied the suitcase on top of the car in front of the luggage rack which was already full. Then it rained as we were going north to visit Hugh Duckwall and his family. Luckily they had a dryer for all the things inside the suitcase and we used a hairdryer to dry out the inside of the suitcase. Oh,!!!the important memories.

All told the trip cost about three times what my mother sent but it was a fun trip for all...I think. I just checked and the upload box says that there were errors during the upload. So, Joan, you may have to do your magic and put the picture in here. Sorry for the randomness of the thoughts.

Building the log house

2005-10-26T12:38:00.000-03:00

This must be 1975. I am not cutting pulp as you may have thought - these are the first logs on the house. I say it is 1975 because I am clean shaven. I did that when I began looking for a job. I interviewed in Halifax for a job on a community crime prevention project and "came in second". Brian Smith (now a parole officer here on PEI) came in first. He was strongly recommended by FR. Andy Hogan who was the member of the provincial legislature at the time. I of course had no political connections. I also interviewed in Truro for a legal job but never heard back. Again this has to be 1975 because I began working at UCCB (then called St. Francis Xavier University extention) in the fall of 1976. When I went off to Sydney to work, we had already begun living in the house. I would go up on a Monday morning and stay with Christie Margaret, daughter of Donnie MacLeod and his wife (name escapes me) who was the daughter of Malcolm and Esther. I would then come home for Wednesday and go back up for Thurs and Fri. And so this was the year before. Logs had been cut and were waiting and holes dug. Malcolm MacLeod used a post hole digger on the back of his tractor. The post were left over pieces of the wharf at Larchevec (sp?) that I scavinged.

If my memory is correct, that picture or the next on the role had Joe in it. I think that just his left shoulder is showing. I guess at some point he got cut out or there is another picture.

So, I was not cutting pulp at that time. Or at least not in that picture. There is another picture of me wearing a red plaid jacket where I was on my way home from the woods. But that was earlier. I cut pulp for the guy who was the county counsellor Martel I think from 1973 to 75 off and on. By this time I was painting Malcolm and Mary's house and finishing the basement for the people across the road from Malcolm and Mary.

I have just now finished uploading the picture and I hope that it will be showing up in the blog shortly.

Building the log house was a real experience. The fact that it is still standing is a miracle in its own right given how little I knew about building. However, I think it would have been even better if we had not moved to Sydney. Then, I would hve been maintaining it and keeping it from piling up the little things which have caused it to go down hill so much.

This was a fun time also becasue we all got to work on it. You and Joe and Kate were busy collecting rocks for backfilling and moss for between the logs. Friends visited to help - Jim Martin, George Mcvey and the Goode brothers, Jaime and Bobby, of course, Dan and John Ferguson and occasionally Willy although he was close to the end then.

The logs that you see in the picture were the two longest logs in the house. All the others were notched into a upright beam. Dan Ferguson helped drag the logs out of the wood with his horse. Archie MacLeod also did a lot of dragging with the tractor but that was a problem when a nail in my bridge over the swampy part of the path to the place where I had cut the logs cut the side of the tractor tire and we had to go to Part Hawksbury to get the tire repaired and then refilled with the calcium (I think) which they used to give the tries weight. Another adventure in the Grand River Saga.

Harmonica Bob

2005-10-25T16:27:00.000-03:00

Harmonica Bob... What can I say... Kate and Bert's house. Not long before we moved across the road because the table is on the far wall and that happened when we opened the wall into the little room behind the formal parlor...oh wait, it must have been earlier because when we opened the wall we made the little room into a dining area with half a wall...memory...

Anyway... It was in the old house which was Tony Walter's when he allowed us to live there for the upkeep. It is in the kitchen. Kate is in the high chair with her back to us. Joan and Joe are facing the camera. I'm guessing that your mother took the picture. My harmonica playing was a good accompaniment to the strumming of your mother and Jim Martin who played guitar. We sat around that table many days sipping 'golden glow' and singing and eating and just having a great time. I haven't played harmonica in many years. This has to be late 1972 because I don't think kate was in the high chair much longer than that.

Moving to Cape Breton was the result of trauma for both your mother and I. For her it was a down cycle in her ups and downs. For me it was the aftermath of the tragic deaths of Eddie Woodriffe and his partner that I alluded to before. The trauma was because when the call came to respond to a bank robbery (as all agents were supposed to do) I had a lot of paperwork and turned my car over to Ed who was waiting on the steps of the old post office (where our office was). He then took the call to go to the apartment of the former wife of the bank robber/escapee from Lorton Pennitentiary and it was there that the shooting took place.

According to the third agent on the scene, Ed and his partner were on either side of the door. Ed knocked and buddy inside pulled open the door to the length of the chain and shot Ed in the head. Partner came across and was shot in the chest. Door slammed and third man shot into it but it was metal. Bad guy went out the window, down a tree and across an open area before hiding in the attic of an apartment building across the way. He was apprehended later that night.

My trauma was that I was not there... so what you say? Well maybe things would have been different if I had done what I was supposed to do. Maybe I wouldn't have been suspicious when the guy opened the door. Maybe I would have had my gun out because I was more suspicious. Who knows. Bottom line a good buddy got killed, I was confined to the office for three days because I was a good buddy...then I was assigned to guard Eddie's house. The main job was to keep the media away because this was the first time that two agents had been shot in the line of duty and the first time that a "BLACK" agent had been killed. Eddie goes down in history.

I never knew until years afterward how much it affected me. The Washington Post and Washington other newspaper made formal complaints about the agents guarding the house of Ella and her kids because all they wanted was a story and we told them to get the f... out of there or we would do nasty things to their private parts. Years later I found out about post traumatic syndrome - nobody talked about it then... you guys had to endure it in the trip to CB. Thank goodness it turned out alright...Or is that a question I should pose to the three of you???

So I played the harmonica. Do you ever remember me actually playing???

Picnic at the Bronx Zoo

2005-10-23T09:42:00.000-03:00

It is the fall of 1964 or the spring of 1965. I was still in the U.S. Naval reserve on active duty at Dahlgren, Virginia and the U.S. Naval Weapons Test Laboratory... Strange place for a peacenik to be but that was in a different life.

I had come up to New York to visit your mother whom I was dating at the time. We were not yet married. She suggested a picnic and I wanted to see the Bronx Zoo because I had heard it was a good place as zoos go, so we combined the two and went to the Bronx Zoo. I spent a lot of time as a youngster at the Buffalo zoo (ergo my elephant history). I remember the giraffes at the Bronx zoo and I remember winding pathways but then I may be confusing it with the Washington Zoo which I remember as having a hilly pathway through the animal enclosures.

The green car behind me is a Pugeot. I bought it second hand in Buffalo after I totalled my 1963 plymouth valiant in an accident. My accident was in July 1964, the car was just a year old. That is why I think the picnic was early 65 because I can't see any noticable signs of the accident on my forehead.

About that weekend (or the end of it). I was headed back to the base driving the New Jersey Turnpike. When I got to New York on Friday evening, I noticed that my idiot light for the generator was coming on. That meant that the battery was not charging but since I wasn't planning a lot of driving before I got back, I thought that I could make it alright. However I waited until late to leave New York and I had to use the headlights and they of course drained the battery faster than the generator could replenish it. The car started bucking and stalling and I was forced to pull off on the turnpike near the end. I shut the car off and hoped that it would start again. A tow truck working the turnpike came by and offered to tow me back to the privious exit. That I fugured would be an arm and a leg so I turned it down, waited about half and hour and the battery recovered enough by that time to start again.

I headed down the road with the lights off to conserve battery power. My plan was to get over the Deleware Memorial bridge (memorial of what I'm not sure)and then head off to a gas station and have the battery charged full. The Deleware Memorial bridge is a long steep up and a long steep down, not much level. More like MacDonald than the other Halifax bridge but much higher in my memory. I was about half way up when the engine died. At the time it was a three lane bridge with the center lane for the brave of heart. Traffic was moving at 60-70 mph and all of a sudden I was dead in the water. I pushed on the four-way flashers and bolted from the car and went ten feet or so down so as to be away and below when some nut ran into me. I didn't want to be above because then the car would be rammed into me. Smart huh??? Cars were whizzing by, and my very weak flashers were not visible too far away, I'm sure, because some people were braking sharply when they realized that I wasn't moving at all. Then to my rescue was a bridge tow truck with emergency lights flashing which pushed me off the bridge, allowing me to stop in a toll booth and then off the highway to a nearby garage. I slept for a few hours in the gas station while the battery was charged and continued home safely. End of story.

Not much about the Zoo except the giraffes... I still had that sweater when we moved to Grand River because I remember a picture of me in it I think when my Mother and Father visited and we had a family picture outside the house???

Enough for today and hopefully by the time you read this the picture will be a part of it.

bball Bob

2005-10-14T16:33:00.000-03:00

This fall of 1968, I am on an Agents team in the FBI and we played against other teams in the government and in the FBI. Also on the team were Wayne Davis, John Glover, R.C. Clack, Ed Woodriffe, Jay Aldhizer and another fellow I can't remember the name of. Ed Woodriffe and the other guy were the ones who were shot and killed by an escaping bank robber later.

The team went undefeated in our section of the league but lost out in the playoffs with other sections. Wayne Davis and John Glover were both college basketball players and were very good. The rest of us were just out for the fun. Basketball was
not my game because I didn't play it until I was in college. I was just a little fellow until grade twelve, baseball was my game and in the winter I would spend time in the gym tossing the ball against the wall and fielding it, etc. I did fool around with the basketball but not enough to be very good.

We played our games in a gym out in south-east Washington. It was a one night a week affair for about eight weeks. I don't know who took the pictures but I got a bunch of them at one time. I suspect one of the guys borrowed a bureau camera and took pictures when he was on the bench. On Saturday mornings, (sometimes) Glover, Clack, Davis and I would get together over in a school yard near Glover's place for a two on two morning session. Gads I was young then.

If you think of anything you would like to ask as a result of my talking about any of these pictures let me know.

Rainbow Reader

2005-10-13T20:00:00.000-03:00

You probably remember this better than I do. You after all were a key mover in the Rainbow readers. What can I say...it was sometime after I had Gigglesnatch published but how long after I can't for the life of me remember. I still have the shirt tucked away in my box of special T's. Wish I could remember more but that's it.

Nova Scotia or Bust

2005-10-13T15:22:00.000-03:00

June 1972. We had a big boat trailer and built sides on it and loaded it to tow behind a station wagon going to Nova Scotia. The banner was for the side of the trailer. Alas the station wagon we borrowed just couldn't do the job of towing our trailer full of furnishings so we ran out and rented the truck...I knew right away it was the truck for me because of the elephants.

Now as to who is putting up the sign... I can't remember her name...Girlfriend of Chuck Darst, one of the Buffalo Five draft board raiders who was staying at the house along with scores of others. I'm sure your mother will know her name.

The truck was parked across the street from our house on Koons Avenue in Buffalo and we just transferred all the stuff from the trailer to the truck. It looked like a big yard sale before we got all the stuff back into the truck.

Another incidental outcome of the station wagon not working was that one of the people who had planned to ride in the station wagon ended up sitting in the back of the jeep with you, Joe and Kate. I think it was Sally???

Quite the trip - after getting through customs and finding a place for the night, the next day the jeep wouldn't start and the big truck pushed us to start it. Then the engine on the jeep blew out, filling the compartment with black smoke as I tried to navigate at 15 km an hour off the 401 near Toronto. Later, in N.B. the right side rear wheels on the truck blew out. Fortunately we came along in the rental car and were able to get people to the service station down the road for new tires, paid for by the rental truck company.

Quite the trip, we almost did bust. Do you remember any of it???

Northwest Washington

2005-10-12T23:29:00.000-03:00

The picture today is the third in your e-mail. Behind my head is the street sign N.W. R - The R is the intersection of 16th St. and R St. N.W, in Washington. I had set out that morning (FBI agent that I was) to get pictures of a subject in an internal security case. (I should add that this was the last or second last year of my "service" in the bureau. So it would have been 1969 probably but maybe 1968.)

Anyway, two young college students lived in an apartment in a building on 16th street and I had gone to the lab to get (shades of james bond - but much less lethal) a briefcase camera. 35 mm Camera mounted inside a normal briefcase with a vent in one end for the lens and a push thingy on the handle to operate the shutter. Talk about antique. Anyway, the buddy who was working with me and I can't remember his name, big tall fellow, short curly blond hair, I have seen him in another picture) took the case and went down the street. I went to the sub's apartment and rang the bell downstairs. Couldn't even buzz me in in those days had to come down and open the door. He lived on the sixth floor. Anyway after buzzing and buzzing I determined that there was no one home, so I headed back to the corner where my backup was waiting and he snapped me with the camera. Notice my FiBi clothes.

I was working the IS (internal security) squad S-6 (security squad no 6) Nos. 1-5 had to do with foreign intelligence. Eg. one was for Russians, two for other soviet bloc countries etc etc etc. S-6 did internal security which meant things like the Communist infiltration in the labour movement, the Communist party itself and its various offshoots like the Young Socialist assiance to which the young couple I was bothering belonged to.

At this time, we were living in Cheverly Maryland in the brick house with the little play house, (shed - with the termites in the floor and walls) in the backyard. This was around the time that we have pictures of you in a blue coat and bonnet type hat playing with plastic Easter eggs. Also around the time that you fell and cut your forehead where you still have the scar. Joe was already born then but I'm pretty sure that Kate wasn't so It was more likely spring-summer 69 or summer-fall 68. Probably the 68.

Charlie Ferguson was supervisor of the squad...he later hung himself in his basement wearing his wife's underpants...FBI - go figure. I was riding in a car pool with a guy who shortly after this jumped out of the fifth floor of the FBI headquarters. Go figure FIBI. Not quite the picture you get on the tube these days/

genug, I'm getting maudlin....It was an exciting time. The antiwar protests were in full swing. Marches on Washington, surrounding the Pentagon and chanting OM OM OM OM OM etc to levitate the evil spirits from it's confines. Hippies, yuppies and yippies marched, chanted, used expletives on their picket signs (which was the thing that got the PD all upset) and made love on the lawn of the Capitol building under the bushes and anywhere else they could think of. One couple was arrested for "fornicating on the steps of the Washington monument"...37th landing...like who was watching???

Go figure...Life is a series of chuckles interspersed with an insane, lunatic bout of real down to earth laughter...if only you can look at the lighter side...

Love you Hope this is not too far out to make the book

Oxon Hill

2005-10-06T21:20:00.000-03:00

The picture you have in your letter above was taken in Oxon Hill, Md, in the apartment we moved to when we first got there. It was a ground floor with a patio, two bedrooms. You are on my lap after I returned home from work. You are about 6 months I think. That is the apartment where the infamous hand face on the floor under the door picture of you came from. You don't look especially happy and perhaps that is the reason...

The Viking

2005-10-04T13:56:00.000-03:00

I am standing at the end of the hall on the third floor of Christ the King Seminary in Olean New York. I am wearing a costume that I put together for a Halloween party...one of the rare social events we ever had at the school that I can recall.
I had seen Kirk Douglas in the movie the Viking and I decided to imitate his outfit. In the movie Douglas is attacked by a big bird Eagle or hawk and his left eye is clawed leaving scars of three talons top bottom and side. So first with the aid of Dave Yochim a classmate who had been a prop man for highschool plays I split a large marble and with face putty created itover my eye with the scars highlighted by red dye.
Earlier I had gone to the salvation army thrift store and bought the moth eaten old raccoon waist length jacket. This I took aapart to make the cape ovar my shoulders. From a fur collar on an old cloth ofrom the same source I made the fur briefs. The shirt under the cape was a sweat shirt inside out to look like wool and the sleeves which I took off and reversed became the leggings. Material from the lining of the coats I twisted to be the cord which held my leggings, the ties for the cape and the strap across my chest which held the scabbard for my sword. Dave Yochim completed the outfit by hand sewing a pair of felt boots out of some green felt like material he got somewhere. The sword was pieces of scrap wood from the workshop of the school covered with tin foil which I cadged from the nuns in the Kitchen. Overall it was a great outfit and I was in the running for best costume of the night but the judges thought that I was paired with another person who showed up in a tinfoil suit of armor and who kept challenging me to a duel. Lots of fun however and since the prize was only a candy bar , no great loss. Hope you enjoyed the story. It was in my second year at CKS, and I obviously had more time than common sense. But that's what being young is about. I hope that you can bring the picture in more closely because the work on the eye with the half marble and the make up was really the greatest part of the outfit.

So short the Summer

2005-09-21T15:55:00.000-03:00

Today I donned a sweater. It is only September here in Prince Edward Island the Garden of the Gulf...few leaves have felt the need to redden with embarassment. A yellow butterfly just flitted by the window, tempting our dog to raise his head and think longingly of a chase.

It is too soon to be the season of sweaters. The season of sweat and heat should stay.

Tomorrow it will be warm...warm enough to revert to the shorts and tee shirt and tomorrow I will pluck more dasterdly weeds from the remnants of my beautiful flower garden. If I were in sunny Florida I would be fleeing yet another hurricane or wondering why I ever decided that lolling on the beach is in any way better than living all four seasons and trying to enjoy each one. We of the north are blessed because we have the best of all worlds. Beautiful (if short summers), spring which envigorates us with its renewal, fall which delights us with its colors and promise, and winter with its snow angels, skis, storm days and the chance to put feet up by the fire and relax. Soon enough we get too old to enjoy vigorous activity, and watching and enjoying the seasonal change is what makes the days fulfilling... So no sunny south for me (except the occasional trip maybe)

Live, laugh, love, learn, laze and lastly learn to love some more.

The Storm that passed

2005-09-19T08:51:00.000-03:00

Saturday night I watched a program on Global TV network and across the bottom of the screen ran the warning of 1oomm of rain, storm surges and 100kph winds. On another channel I heard that the storm had turned east, the cold north atlantic had taken the bite out of it and it was downgraded. The forcast heavy rain and some wind but nothing major. Yet the warning continued on into the night on the Global station????

Too prepared is better than not prepared but up to date info is a lot better than continuing to cry wolf when the danger has past.

Ah well, the worst is over the dog is out in the yard, the sun is peaking through and it's another monday morning with the week ahead lots to do and fun to pursue

Friday 16 September

2005-09-16T20:20:00.000-03:00

I watched the bush last night and I was gladdened by the fact that I had fled the US in favor of Canada. How much did it cost to take over Afganistan? How much did it cost to invade Iraq. not only in dollars but in lives. But in dollars... how come there wasn't a dike sufficient to keep the water out of New Orleans. How come when they saw the water come in, the entire US NAvy wasn't immediately dispatched to rescue the people who were trapped there. Because they were not "WHITE"??? Let's hope that was not even a passing thought in the minds of those who make the decisions.
Was it class? Bush said that a sign of the restoration of the gulf coast would be the rebuilding of a rich white man's home ( read manor - estate). Thank goodness we live where we do. Pray (if prayer is your thing ) that being so close to the elephant we are not smothered when it stretches, (as it will). Ask why they can afford to bomb and deploy military across the world in defense of oil but can't afford to move in and evacuate people - our people- when harm comes their way. Canada has few ships but they are on their way to help. How many US Navy ships were sent to the gulf coast? Imagine the richest nation in the world looking on helplessly while Canada, among others, sends aid!!!!!!!!!!

Do all the sailors on the Canadian ships have to have a fingerprint check and a retinal scan in order to go ashore in NO and offer help???? Too bad some of the money spent to create the false security of the border wasn't available to waste on saving human lives. Do I sound angry? No, that would be contrary to the reasoned and scholastic approach I take to all issues of human suffering

Grandpa Wall

2005-09-13T15:44:00.000-03:00

Hi Joan, since you are the only one who knows that I may have a blog in this place. I appreciate your positive comment about old dogs, but I still haven't managed to do anything other than type this and read a lot of step by step info to oblivion.

I found the disc with your photos from the slide show on my b-day a few years back but not the disc I thought that you made for me with a collection of my pictures on it that I gave you the box for?????

Anyway... Grandpa Wall first name John. smoked cigars, worked at Spencer Lens company and also at the Chevy plant in Lakawanna outside of Buffalo. Spencer Lens was in the city I think and did as the name implies grind lens for eyeglasses, telescopes, range finders, binoculars and a variety of military things. In his private life Grampa John was the bell ringer at St. Paul's (I think) Anglican church in downtown Buffalo on Shelton Square for many years. his picture was in the paper and I think I had a copy in my pile when he was honored for his many years of bell ringing.

Waiting

2005-08-31T15:14:00.000-03:00

I sit and I wait while Audrey is at the head of a table of six academics quizzing her on her paper. For her the time must seem endless as it does for me as I wait and wonder -not if she will be successful- but how much she will have to go through to prove that she is capable of doing what she is already shown she can do.
Time here seems to go so slowly. Both of us have commented on that. I believe that that is because of the jet lag. It seems much later than it is because we are still on Atlantic time and it is much later than it seems.

reading other blogs

2005-08-30T14:42:00.000-03:00

Tuesday in Calgary

2005-08-30T13:33:00.000-03:00

We're settled in to a Quality INN here passing the time in various way until the big test on Wednesday. It is colder here then I expected, I've had to don my sweatshirt for early morning walks but I refuse to go with the long pants or jeans because that would be an admission that Summer is almost over.
Saturday and Sunday in the Crow's nest pass were spectacular. We did the tourist thing including visits to Frank's slide and the interpretation centre and the mine tour site (but neither of us really wanted to go underground again - for different reasons) Highlight of the day was a visit to the world's biggest truck just over the B.C. border in a small town (can't remember the name).
The mountains arre beautiful, and looking down into the valleys equally so.

Will writing

2005-08-24T14:07:00.000-03:00

I've been writing my will because that way, the little I've got or will have when I will to will it to whomever I will, will go to them and not to the government...maybe. However I feel certain that no one will benefit greatly from my demise unless historical personal effects of a nobody somehow attain great personal meaning.

old guy's rants

2005-08-21T20:53:00.000-03:00

How will I even know if anyone ever reads these things or should I care??? Today is sunday and there is no sun here but I am happy and content. I woke early this morning and read "The Ethical Canary".
Ethics in this day and age seem like the fairy tales of my youth. If it is good for me I do it, seems to be the predominant ethical approach to life.
Is my glass half full or is it near empty.

Sudden Retirement

2005-08-16T19:37:00.000-03:00

Wanting to work for more years, I was "retired" I did not prepare and so now I am trying to make the days pass. I did some volunteer work and some paid substitute teaching but more ofter than not I wonder each morning what I will do with my day.