Fall Sights and Sounds in Saskatchewan

It's Fall in Saskatchewan and what we fondly call "Indian Summer".  The weather is glorious with warm temperatures in the daytime from a brilliantly shining sun, even though it's started to dip to below freezing at night.  I have picked the cucumbers and tomatoes and will bring the onions in soon.  Farmers have the harvesting of their grain crops well underway and probably most are done in southern areas.  In Saskatchewan, some of the crops I can think of are wheat, rye, barley (the head has a beard), flax (look for the blue field), oats, canola (yellow field), canary seed, peas (they dessicate these and then they look awful), lentils,  grasses for hay crops, and alfalfa.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a farmer, just a farmer's daughter.  :-)


Even living in the city, we know harvest is on because of the look of the dusty, hazy air.  At night, there's no mistaking a harvest moon.   Somehow the combine dust particles do something to change the look of the sky and you just know what time of year it is.  The air is becoming crisp and soon it will be Hallowe'en.











My back yard looked to be in a real mess this weekend, so Saturday morning was the day to get to work.  I have a huge maple tree that although lovely, tends to shed small dried branches whenever there's a wind.  It's been pretty windy lately, so the lawn had to be raked before mowing.   The outer edge of my backyard has shrubs, flowering plants and grasses.  I have an assortment of cedars, hostas, rose bushes, chives, strawberries, raspberries, lilly of the valley, peonies etc.  In my tiny garden in the corner, I planted a very limited taster's garden only of cucumbers, green and yellow beans and swiss chard.  One lonely swiss chard plant has thrived against all odds, I guess because  I deliberately left it untouched all summer. It has the deepest green leaves and the brightest red stock and stands up as straight as anything I have ever seen...especially for a swiss chard.  It looks more like a rhubarb than anything, but it isn't (at least I don't think it is.....) It began as a bedding plant, started by some local greenhouse and I haven't had the heart to disturb it and neither have any of the other little creatures who live around there, including the woodpecker.  He's been hanging around two of my trees and he makes an awful racket.  He's white with black markings and has a red cap on a distinctly Woody Woodpecker shaped head.

My deck is not as exciting and is beginning to rot in spots.  Looks like the odd board will soon need to be replaced...maybe next year.  I swept off all the leaves and branches and gave it a good hosing down.  I put things away like lawn chairs and small tables, readying the place for the inevitable snowfall.  I have a shed of sorts under the deck where I store a few things, but now I kind of hesitate to go under there....so left everything sitting outside, or maybe it'll wind up in the garage.

The reason?  Mrs. Mega Spider.

 

See the back of the chair in the reflection of the kitchen window?  See the size of the spider?  She  escaped from me and went down into my under-deck shed about a week ago and I was not impressed.  I swept away her food trap, the big web on the window and even used the little bit of RAID I had left, but I doubt it fazed her.  (I've since gone to the store and bought the really nasty stuff in the black can this time RAID MAX). She had built another big web on a pair of my outside shoes which I'd kicked off and left there one muddy day....(imagine stepping on her?) and another on a basement window.  She's a master at spinning webs, so I think I'm probably fighting a losing battle.  I expect she's a mother and has had a nice, big family this summer with a multitude of babies who will grow even bigger than her.. like most kids do...      I'm asking that her and her offspring please stay out of my house if the universe has anything to say about it.  Incidentally, I found two smaller spiders in the basement sink the other day and immediately drowned them both.  You know the story about the water spout.

As I worked outside, I could hear flock upon flock of Canda Geese flying overhead.  As you know, at this time of year, they're flying south for the winter.  Many Canadians do the same thing.  I wish I was one of them!  The geese somehow know exactly the right time to leave for a warmer climate and I wonder how.  My folks used to make a break for warmer climes on occasion, only to get caught in a snowstorm by about Salt Lake City, Utah.   I guess if you're outside 24 hours a day, you'd soon get out of a place that freezes your beak and the webs between your toes too!  The photo below is of a small grouping, but generally, there are thousands flying together and much higher in the sky.  They talk all the way there and back because if you're outside, you can hear them honking from very far off when they leave in the Fall and again when they return in the Spring.  I know some people like that.   I went to Arizona one winter and found that the Americans don't call these same birds Canada Geese at all, they call them "honkers".  They think we're crazy because we think they're OUR geese.  They do have a point.  I never realized the Americans think they're THEIR geese just as much as we do!



I watched families of geese up close at the lake for a few summers and found that the male doesn't leave the female once the baby goslings are born.  One or the other of the adult geese takes turn standing guard at all times.  They are exceptionaly family oriented and appear more monogamous than some humans I know.

Once on my way to Edmonton, I saw a family of geese standing on the side of the highway.  One of the adults had been hit and killed.  The other adult and the babies stood alongside the lifeless body, stock still, waiting and waiting.  The cars whizzed by, but none of them moved and it was such a tragic and sad little sight.

Geese are not like ducks, where the male is long gone and the female is left with the troupe of seven to ten or more ducklings to care for on her own. They are so cute and can those little gaffers ever swim fast. I followed eensey weensey ducklings in a kayak once and they would only be a day or two old! They kept ahead of me as I paddled along for quite some time, until their mama shooed them off to the shoreline.

 If you don't think there's anything beautiful about Saskatchewan in the Fall, you need to get off the beaten path and find out for yourself!

This is canola being swathed with a self-propelled swather vs. a pull-type.  It looks like a bumper crop!

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Our forests are many and gorgeous

 Go for a ride on a combine...Go with a wife and mother and take meals to the field....Or ride with the mother who's driving the combine, the swather or taking the grain back to the bin in the big truck.

  

Ride a ferry across the Saskatchewan River...

 

You can't beat Saskatchewan all year round, but especially in the Fall, it's great!

 

Kids and Summer Jobs

Summer jobs for young folks I think can be a good idea.  It gives them an opportunity to develop a sense of accomplishment and to interact with other adults besides their parents and teachers.  A job lets them make a little money, gain some skills and self confidence, and generally keeps them out of the mischief that a long, hot summer can bring.

In 1968, I was fourteen years old and left the farm temporarily to stay with my aunt and uncle in Yorkton for most of July and August.  They had bought a corner store with a residence attached to the back.  It had been owned by a Chinese man by the name of Skinny and that's what the townspeople called it... "Skinny's".  My aunt and uncle had four kids, two elementary school-aged ones and two little ones.  I was hired to give my aunt a break from the store, help out with the kids and the household, and really just give me a chance to get off the farm.  It was time to get out into the world and to make a little bit of spending money.  I had saved enough money by the end of that first summer to buy myself a beautiful camel-coloured, maxi length winter coat, with a fur-lined hood.  I was very proud of myself.  As a matter of fact, I returned to that job every summer until I was sixteen.

I loved bagging the groceries and incidentally, it was all brown paper bags or cardboard boxes in those days, tied up with a string around the flaps at the top. We weren't to the stage of asking about "paper or plastic" and the question fell by the wayside too, if you haven't noticed.   It's not very often you see paper bags these days.  There was no such thing as the scanning of bar codes.  Self check-outs were unheard of and would probably only mean you were shoplifting if you even thought to mention it.  A chip on a credit card meant nothing either, other than you probably had run it through the chick chick machine a few too many times.  There were bar codes on some of the grocery items like canned goods, but most people didn't know what they were there for.  I'm serious.  Prices were written or stamped on little sticky price tags and they sometimes fell off.  There was no overhead loudspeaker to say, "price check on aisle 12".  If there was no price on an item, the clerk in a corner store would have to run down the aisle, find the item, and then run back to the till to finish ringing through the order.  You really had to trust people and not everyone was trustworthy even back in the golden age of the sixties.

If memory serves me, the cash register was like one you'd see in an antique shop...old and metal, but highly functional and exceptionally sturdy.  You could throw it off a cliff and probably not find a dent.  It seems like they made most stuff like that to start with...I'm thinking of safes and cash boxes.  Not the plastic stuff that came after.  The drawer rang when it opened.  One thing that survived all these years was giving the customer their cash register tape.  Back then, older customers tended to pour over the numbers in case you, as a teenager, had made an error.   They didn't care if their actions embarrassed you or that your face was red as a beet and you felt like a real tool.   Money was not something to be loose with.  A fool and his money are easily parted and all that stuff.  I am happy to say that although sometimes they found discrepancies, it wasn't very often.  Running that cash register was where I learned to place all the dollar bill denominations in the same direction in the drawer.  I also learned how to count money back.  I learned what to do if somebody gave me more than the exact amount asked for.  Like....a different amount in an attempt to get back even change.  For instance, if it was $7.50 and they gave me a $10 bill and two quarters, I soon learned that I owed them three dollars in some combination of one or two dollar bills. Back in those days, we did not have looneys or toonies.  We had one dollar bills that I think were green and two dollar bills that I think were a kind of salmon colour.  Those have gone by the wayside now too.   My transactions did not always balance by the end of the day, but my aunt and uncle never once scolded me or made me feel like I had done anything wrong.

Behind the counter was a small workspace, more like a narrow galley, so there wasn't room for a whole lot of workers.  The customer would stand on the grocery side of the counter in front of you and you would stand behind  the counter with the cash register at your back.  I seem to recall there being something like a rear view mirror so you could still see the person while you turned your back to make change.  There were no debit cards or pay pal, so cheques and cash worked even then.  Some people had a charge account, which is pretty much unheard of today, so if they wanted to charge it, the information, (especially the total and their name) had to be recorded in an accounts receivable book.  By the way, if we're talking about things that have prevailed over the years and things that have changed. .. Corner stores in and of themselves are almost non-existent any more.  They really were gems in any neighbourhood...

Somewhere behind the counter sat a big, shiny, sharp, ice cold, metal meat slicer.  It would glint in the sun every day through the window and seemed to invite people to come in and ask to have sliced any one of several varieties of cold meat.  Did I say it was sharp?  You could lop off a finger like nothing if you weren't careful.  In fact, I was exceptionally leery of that thing but am happy to report I still have all my digits intact to this day...touch wood.   I would slice the meat, weigh it on the scale and wrap it up in brown kraft paper and tie it with string.  Thickness of the slice was according to personal preference.  Some wanted it shaved, others wanted it thicker for sandwiches.  I don't remember smoked turkey being the hit it became this past few decades, but I do remember pastrami, mac 'n cheese loaf, bbq meat loaf, roast beef, chicken, turkey, rings of ham and garlic sausage, and almost anything a palate could desire and a tummy could digest.   The meat was on display in a big cooler which made up part of the counter.  Other favorites were the poppyseed roll, along with fresh bread and buns, all imported from the Canora Bakery (a few miles down the highway to the Northeast).

I usually indulged in a treat about mid-afternoon every single day...free, I might add.  (Back home, I might have had this treat once or twice a month...).  I enjoyed either a bottle of NuGrape or an Orange Crush pop.  You could get orange Fanta, but I didn't like it as much.  Mountain Dew was my other favorite.  I'm pretty sure Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke were around, but I wouldn't have touched either with a ten foot pole.  I didn't like anything that caused bubbles to fizz up inside my nose.  The pop was in glass bottles with caps you had to use a bottle opener on.  Seriously, there were bottle openers affixed to walls at the weirdest spots and actually used.  There were open coolers of cold water in restaurants that held all the pop when I was a kid.  There were no cans with tabs and no plastic bottles with screw off caps.  I don't even remember there being pop machines, but maybe there were.  We weren't really into recycling per se, but you certainly could go picking bottles in the ditches, (still can) wash them in an outdoor tub, and take them some place for a refund of money.  You couldn't expect to get rich, but you did get a few cents for every bottle.  You used to see grown men on bicycles with sacks on their backs collecting bottles. Not so much any more, but they're still around.  Some were wealthy and either misers or had nothing else to do. I also loved different kinds of chocolate bars and potato chips.  It's amazing I didn't gain weight, but I guess my metabolism was fast enough so everything evened out.  When we first moved to Hudson Bay as a kid, we stopped at a grocery store downtown and dad bought everyone in the car a chocolate bar.  I probably already told you this...I know, it's a bad sign when you start repeating yourself, but some things you can't remove from your memory.  He always bought himself a Cuban Lunch, but this time when he opened it....the things was full of little, white worms.  You can imagine the scene that followed....  Cuban Lunches I seldom chose.

Back to the corner store in Yorkton....In those days vanilla, hair spray, perfume and lysol disinfectant were favorites among certain folks.  They were cheap and gave a pretty good kick I guess.  The ones who abused these products got to coming into the store quite often.  They inevitably would wander in and sheepishly ask for "wanella".  I can remember pretending I couldn't understand what they were saying.  I'd make them say it several times over.  No mistaking it....they couldn't say their vee's.  Yes, I can be a real jack ass at times.  Ironically, I got so I never knew whether the strong-smelling Sweet Pea perfume or Gillette shaving cream, would be used for the person's body or drank down their gullet.  It didn't take me long to figure it out though, believe me.  Apparently, they mixed the shaving cream in with their beer, if they had enough money for both.   I never could figure out the whole drinking lysol thing, and it became common to hear of this person or that who had died from an overdose.  I'd say one swallow would do it.  Today, you almost never hear of anybody dying from drinking lysol, lye, or battery acid.  Usually, if the person was super inebriated, my uncle would magically appear and I would be off the hook.  Sometimes if it was a big transaction, I was happier to be nowhere around anyhow.  I guess it was just as easy to sell a case of vanilla as it was to sell one bottle.  The cases usually went to someone sober in a last ditch attempt, I guessed,  to prevent even worse destruction by their friends and relatives.  It sounds bad, but was really a very noble thing to do.  Almost as if doling it out in smaller quantities more often was medicinal and would help the person not get so wasted at any one sitting.    It was either that or they were planning on going on a pretty good party.....Might as well come in when sober and be clear-headed for the transaction.  By the hushed voices in the back aisle, I guess it equated to bootlegging.

I had many customers who came in and asked for "Old Port Cigarellos - tipped please".  That request was said to me over and over until I began to think there must be something special about these mini cigars.  After all, they were long and thin and looked pretty elegant when being smoked.  My favorite customer was a cool biker who was tall, dark and handsome.  He came in often and I had a big crush on him, but he didn't give me a second glance.  I was smoking cigarettes myself in those days, so decided to try one of these wine-tipped cigarellos.  It wasn't half bad, but boy did I feel sick afterwards.  I gave up that habit toute de suite!  Do you realize that a package of cigarettes in those days was about 50 cents.  A carton was about $3.50.  Not sure what they are worth today, but I thank God that I quite smoking in about 1985 (27 years as a non-smoker!).  I remember when a package of cigarettes was 25 cents, my dad made a proclamation that if they ever actually hit 50 cents, he would absolutely and definitely QUIT smoking.  That price came and went and he only stopped smoking for a few months during the days of his open heart surgery.   He used to say he quit smoking every day...

Sometimes, things were slow in the store and to break the monotony, I stocked shelves, cleaned, swept and dusted.  Back in the house, I ironed, cooked, looked after kids and generally enjoyed myself.  My Mom had taught me well.  There was no room for a dishwasher, so all dishes were done by hand in the kitchen sink.  My aunt was floored that anybody would even remotely like ironing, but I loved it and still do. I remember my Mom and Grandma letting me iron pillow cases and tea towels for years.   I was told the men's white shirts were probably not for me because you know, I might miss a sleeve or something.....The looking after of kids might mean I had to take them to J.C. Beach, but that was certainly no hardship for me.  I loved to swim and suntan and play in the water myself.  A girl I met in the neighbourhood came with us to the beach one time and offered to watch our stuff on the towel.  I had inherited my grandmother's wedding ring (on my dad's side) and amazingly enough, it went missing during her watch....Hmmm....she strongly denied having any idea where it went...Hmmm...As I got older, if I was lucky my aunt would let me drive her green and white Rambler around town or to do an errand for her.  (That girl asked me to watch her dog while they went on holidays and I wouldn't).  She was a real brat it turned out.  Sometimes my aunt  and I would go play Bingo or go to the A&W drive-inn for a frosted mug of root beer and a teen burger.  Life was grand on those gorgeous summer evenings.  As I got older, sometimes my guy friends from HBay would show up and we'd go driving or to the show.  I was always glad to see them, but one night came home to find all the doors locked, so had to crawl in through a window!

At the time, Yorkton was a largely Ukrainian community, so I learned a few words in that language.  It wasn't too much of a stretch because Hudson Bay, was also comprised of many Ukrainian friends, neighbours, and school-mates.  In fact, my uncle coached me on what to say if people came into the store and started speaking to me in their native tongue.  All I had to do was say this one phrase that sounded like "yen es ni you"...It was supposed to mean "I don't understand".  He was a big b.s.'er, so I was suspicious that the phrase might mean something else and said as much, vowing never to use it.  As well, the kids at school back in HBay had taught me to say "shot the robbish and che kai che kai whoa" all with a Ukrainian accent.  :-)  Or so I thought.  I had no idea what that really meant either.  So one day this lady who was in the store was mad as a hatter about something and was complaining loudly  to me in Ukrainian.  I could only imagine it was something to do with a bad dose of  what?  sour cream?  Ex Lax?  Finally in desperation, I said the "yen es ni you" phrase out loud to her.  She just kept talking and looking at me like I was a real idiot.  I said it again, and then tried the other phrase...with the "whoa" at the end,  it was like putting a torch to dynamite.  Whatever I said, set her off like a rocket.  She was throwing her arms all over the place, jumping up and down, and shaking her finger at me.  Finally, she gave up, turned on her heel and walked out.  I have no idea why she got so upset, but after that, I never attempted to speak Ukrainian to a Ukrainian again.  On reflection, and given my record with not balancing at day's end, maybe I had gypped her of money at one time?  It was hard to know and I doubt if I ever will.

One summer, my uncle had spent time sewing a big, heavy-canvas tent.  They were planning a much deserved holiday/fishing trip.  For some reason, he thought he could attach the tent, fully erect to the back of their vehicle and drive down the highway.   My aunt knew this would never work, but let him have his fun.  After all, he was getting a chance to play. When it came time for them to leave, my other uncle was driving over from Melville, about a half hour away.  He would be bringing my cousin to stay with me for a few days.  She is four years younger than me, but even so, we were always good friends while growing up.  The two of us were going to be fully responsible for the store for a few days.  My aunt and uncle and the kids had left on their trip and it would be an hour or so until my cousin and her dad arrived.  I was doing fine with customers coming and going, but it was getting close to 6:00 p.m. and there was a lull. 

I was hoping the handsome biker would show up, but instead, all of a sudden the regular delivery man was there instead. Every week, all summer he had brought boxes of supplies from the wholesaler and unloaded them from his big truck through the side door.  Every time, any of the family, including me would help him cart the boxes down the stairs to the store room.  He was an unattractive, middle-aged man with a brush cut and bad teeth and skin.  He showed up out of the blue that night and totally unnecessarily from what I could tell.  I had always been pleasant to him, so I thought maybe he felt sorry for me being all alone in the store.  Then again, maybe he needed cigarettes. 

What he did though, was come through the front door and walk right around behind the counter where I was.  There wasn't another living soul around within hearing distance.  Where was the Ukrainian lady?  Where was the biker?  Where was the old guy who smelled like sour honey and where was the drunks looking for vanilla and lysol when I needed them?  The delivery man grabbed my arm and I really felt  threatened, in fact, I was instantly afraid for my life. He was so close, I could smell his breath and it wasn't good, but it didn't even smell of liquor.  He was just plain crazy.  The only thing I could think was that he was about to do something awful to me.  He had me backed right up against the furthest corner by the meat slicer and I have to say I felt real terror.  He knew darned well I was there by myself because he had been by at noon, unloading boxes, all the while watching the family packing up to leave.  Of course my aunt and uncle had been explaining that they were going away and that I would be in charge of the store...little did they know what this bugger was all about!  Your basic pervert.  To my great relief, at that moment, in walked Uncle Warner and my cousin, Susan through the side door.  I never saw anybody take off as fast as that delivery man. What a jerk!   I could have kissed them both and remember being scared to have my uncle leave again.  In the commotion of it all, at some point Uncle Lionel and Auntie Dianne returned.  For some reason, the tent creation had blown right off the vehicle and into the ditch...go figure??  They were quite a long ways down the road too!  There were repairs that had to be made to the tent as it turned out.  It was funny, but no one dared laugh.  I complained about the delivery guy and nobody seemed to take it too seriously.  Strangely enough, I never saw him delivering there again.  Maybe he quit, but then again, maybe he got fired.

And that my friends is how kids get indoctrinated into the cold, cruel world.  Like flying an airplane, there's hours and hours of sheer boredom, interspersed with moments of exhilaration countered by seconds of stark terror!

Auntie Dianne's Bear Story

Should I write about bears before I go to sleep?  Oh what the heck, why not you say?  Well, if ever I have a nightmare, it's usually about bears.  Awhile ago, I practiced a sort of self-taught therapy where you face your fears in your dreams.  I somehow overpowered a bear in my dream and thereafter I was okay for the longest time.  I have to remember that I am strong and powerful and after all, it's only a dream, right?

Okay, here is one of my bear stories, as written by my dearly departed Auntie Dianne.  Here's what she wrote as part of my 'celebrating 50 years' birthday tribute, put on by my family, but especially my party organizer extraordinaire daughter.  If you knew my Auntie Dianne, you will recognize her by the way she speaks, so here is her story.

     "Dear Carmen,   Here is a little story about your Mom that you may not have heard! 

     Long ago when Jean was a little girl she lived on a farm in Hudson Bay.  This area  was  considered  to be almost a frontier, wild and untamed.  Jean at this time was approximately  eight years old.

     One Friday night after work I drove to Hudson Bay to pick up Jean's Uncle Jerry and take him      back to Melfort.  Upon arriving at the Busby Farm and going into the house, it was very plain to see there was great excitement happening.  The table was set, the food was on the table and everyone's plate was piled high with food.  However, the only people sitting at the table were Jean, her Mom and her Grandma Busby.  A bear had been spotted and the hunters had lit out on its trail.  The hunters' of course being Jean's Dad Glen, Uncle Jerry, her Little Brother Doug and the hired man Bobby.

     Now having been raised on a farm and not being smart enough to be afraid Jean and I decided that we should join the hunt.  So we jumped in Uncle Jerry's new car and away we went out into the   middle of a field and parked the car in solid sand.  We very quietly got out of the car and started to    walk over to where the men were hunting.  I remember that Uncle Jerry was hiding behind a     disker, but I truly have no idea where the rest of the men were hiding.  We could see the wounded      bear up a tree and this was very exciting.  Just as Jean and I started to get close to where all the      action was happening Jerry yelled "the damn bear has come down out of the tree, and he is headed     this way.  Run Girls Run the bear is coming after you."  At this point I grabbed Jean by the hand      and we started to run back to the car.  Our adrenaline was pumping so hard that I was dragging      Jean behind me because I was older and had to save her from the bear.  Then I tripped in the      tangled grass, fell flat on my face and Jean still holding my hand kept right on running over top of      me, stepped on my head pushing my face down into the stinking grass.  Now you must realize that    I had a death grip on Jean because I had to save her from the bear!  As Jean helped me up we took      off running and finally reached the car with those words still ringing in our ears, as Glen yelled      "my God the bear is going to catch you Run Girls Run!"  We jumped into the car rolled up the      windows, locked the doors ...there was no way that bear was going to crawl in the window or open the door and get Jean.  I quickly started Jerry's car, threw it into reverse and floored it, promptly  burying the back wheels right up to the axles, all the while continuing to floor the car.  I bet we      were doing a hundred miles an hour and man was I driving.  However, we never moved.  The men
had to come and pull us out of the sand.  How Embarrassing!

     Needless to say as the years have passed, the story has been told, embellished and told again.  It is  wonderful to have such a hilarious memory of Jean and to be able to share it with her on her 50th    birthday!  Love, Auntie Dianne"


That's my Auntie Dianne alright.  It's true.  I really did step on her head as I ran over top of her to get away from the bear.  Can you imagine?  We were in an old farm yard on the south side of the Ridge Road.  There was this old abandoned hip-roofed barn sitting there without a speck of paint left on it and I think the big door was gone.  Whoever owned the place had those white, stacked honey bee boxes up against the bush.  A real attaction for a bear.  The bear in the tree, as it turned out was a baby.  Have you ever heard a bear cry?  It wails loudly and sounds almost exactly like a human baby.  I'll never forget that sound.  I can still hear him.  That poor little guy just cried and cried and cried.  I wonder where his mother was, but not far away I would suspect. 

Uncle Jerry really was hiding behind the disker and clutching his 22 rifle for all he was worth.  His eyes were like saucers, he was white as a ghost  and was shaking like a leaf.  He could barely talk. (He too passed away at a young age..59 to be exact.)  I can still see the look of disbelief on his face when he saw us two girls show up!  As you can imagine, he couldn't get us out of there fast enough.  Somehow though, I have a sneaking suspicion that my Dad was having a good laugh because I'm pretty sure if the bear was up in the tree and wounded, he sure wasn't going to chase after us.  Auntie Dianne says the bear had come down from the tree.   Maybe....but, I know my dad.  I know when he's laughing and teasing.  I knew darn well there was no bear coming, just by the sound of my Dad's voice... but just the look on Uncle Jerry's face was the part that scared me more than anything.  He really was scared, no doubt about it....but then again, so were we and I could run really fast given half a chance.  I remember her falling, me running over top of her and then realizing I couldn't just leave her there for the bear to get.  I remember helping her up and seeing that disgusted look on her face and then both of us laughing like crazy.

I do remember hardly being able to get into the car fast enough.  I remember her shaking fingers trying to get the key into the ignition and then once connected, her gunning the motor, sand flying everywhere, but still not moving an inch.  We were stuck and there was no moving, even if the bear did decide to come our way....which he didn't I might add.   I remember the men finding their way over to us shortly after and laughing like crazy about how dumb we must have looked.  I listened to Auntie Dianne tell them what happened and me feeling kind of bad, but not really.  Everybody was in such a frenzy about the bear that we became the biggest joke going.  I think it was to take the heat off of any of them and their fear.  After all, none of them were too expert at hunting bears.  Funny how we got sent home right away too...we were shooed off as fast as they could get us out of there, so that at least I for one never really knew what happened to the little bear in the tree.  I can only use my imagination and feel bad for the wee little fellow at what his future would hold.  After all, I was only a kid.

Like Auntie Dianne said, in the early sixties, to outsiders, Hudson Bay was still a pretty wild and woolly place.  I can remember visiting a family on the Ridge Road that had baby bears and fawns (baby deer) penned up in the living room.  My grandma, Auntie Hazel, Auntie Dianne, Mom and us kids and cousins stopped in to see these animals.  I guess it was kind of a big deal....a bit of an attraction, after all, how often do you find that today? Like never. 

Another time, our neighbour was trying to invite us for a meal of bear meat, but my Mom adamantly refused.  Thank goodness.  They say it is sweet, I hope I never have to find out.  Things were different back in those days.  I doubt I will ever have another opportunity to try bear meat again.  Somehow, I don't really feel that bad about it!
 

Bits and Pieces

     I just checked and saw that this week somebody from Serbia was reading my blog.  Once again I'm blown away by this and amazed at how small the world is getting.  Ain't technology wonderful?  To me, it wasn't that long ago that computers made their first debut.  In the grand scheme of things, three or four decades is a mere drop in the bucket.   I can remember a time when nobody had ever heard of such a thing.  In fact, I don't think we owned a computer until the late 1970's or early 1980's.  Just think, all the generations before us survived without wireless and 4G networks somehow.

     I was thoroughly entertained and impressed last night by watching a cross Canada travel show hosted by Scotsman Billy Connelly..Not sure if that's the right spelling, but I enjoyed his show.  He's hitting the high spots from coast to coast and started at Halifax - Pier 21 and  the Titanic burial grounds for instance.  He stopped at Cape Breton and visited a place where a man makes life-sized scarecrows.  There were at least 40 and many of famous people.   Billy noted all along how the cod are almost non-existent these days due to over-fishing, as you likely know.  He also talked about early explorers like John Cabot and Christopher Columbus who reported the cod as so plentiful, that a net wasn't even required.  All they had to do was to dip a basket overboard and it would instantly be full of fish. 

     Connelly went to the northern most point of Newfoundland and found people there who no longer fish for a living but who have turned to tourism.  They're claim to fame is the Viking.  They have what looks like a bomb shelter in the wall of a hill that is really a restaurant of sorts.  They dress up like Vikings and provide a truly unique experience to their visitors.  I believe it was some sort of bed and breakfast.  He stopped at Gander, NFLD, where their hospitality precedes them.  During 911, they had 39 jumbo jets re-routed and land there all at the same time.  The whole community lent a hand to feed and host the hundreds of stranded travellers for several days.

     David Suzuki is also a man I admire.  He has a show on T.V. that now includes his grown daughter.  She is every bit as passionate about the environment as her father and their travels around the world make for exceptional adventure.  A few years ago (quite a few), one of my university classes was about critical issues in Canadian society.  The prof was someone I never met, but most impressive.  Brian Puk.  (I've since read the odd letter to the editor he writes in the local newspaper).  The course was by distance and we had all these readings to do.  The ones that had the most impact on me were excerpts from Dr. David Suzuki.  He talked about things I'd never heard of.  Things like 'ghost nets' in the oceans that are simply nets cut away from boats and left to drift aimlessly in the water.  What they do is catch sea creatures, like dolphins, who can't get away and eventually die, trapped for eternity like that.  He talked about Victoria's dirty little secret - how the city of Victoria dumps their raw sewage directly into the Pacific Ocean.  (I think at one time so did Saskatoon and Edmonton, right into the good old Saskatchewan River).  I hope things have changed on that front!  It was the first time I'd heard how mother's breast milk was more contaminated in the Arctic that anywhere else, even Mexico City, which was really bad at one time.  He reported finding seals that have blisters all over their noses from the contaminants that find their way to the poles.

     It's never too late to learn...in fact being a life-long learner is what we all have to be so we don't stagnate.  I love history and loved writing papers about what I learned.  The whole voyages of discovery were fascinating to me.  I found out that the reason travel occurred to India in the first place was for the spices...not to mention the gold.  There were only ice boxes back then, and spices were used to cover up the taste of rancid meat.  I'm so glad somebody invented the fridge.  Way to go inventors!  Where was Dragon's Den back then?  Actually, these explorers were trying to get to China, but they couldn't go over land because of encountering what they called the 'dreaded infidels'.  That's why they travelled by ship down the coast of Europe and beyond.

     You have to marvel at all the discoveries, brilliance, futuristic thinking and planning that occurred over the centuries.  Even though they found things out the hard way, I think they may have been just as tough, if not tougher and more enterprizingm than any of us today. Back in the days of the plague, sanitation was not exactly a high priority.  In fact, in those days, people didn't seem to make the connection between filth and ill health.  They didn't know that it was the flea on the rat that was the carrier of the plague.  They didn't realize until it was too late that their sewage and drinking water should not be mixed, i.e. seep into each other.  Hospitals were horrific with the saying that you were better off recovering under a hedge than lying three to a bed in a louse-filled, hot and dirty room.  Public health was at an all time low.

     After the onslaught of the Bubonic Plague, it didn't take long for them to start putting two and two together.  They were sick and tired of living in the black darkness. The fever ships moored in the harbors during the Irish Famine were a real attempt to segregate the sick from the healthy. That Irish Famine was the catalyst for many of our Irish ancestors, who had no choice, but to leave their native land and sail to North America, or starve.  Florence Nightingale advocated for so many things, but the biggest impact in my mind was her cry for "fresh air" and clean drinking water.  She realized as far back as the days of the Crimean War that fresh air was necessary for good health and survival and not something to take for granted or avoid.  You can imagine what it was like riding on a ship across the ocean, many ill, with little food or water.  It's interesting that many of these early immigrants landed at Pier 21 in Halifax.  :-)

     You can't beat the stories of the early explorers who made their way across the ocean.  One had visited the 'natives' on the North American shores several times.  On his last visit, he sat helplessly in his ship a safe distance away and watched in horror while the initial boat loads of crew who had gone ashore first were killed and eaten by cannibals. This same group of natives had welcomed them with open arms on earlier visits.  In between times, however, other explorers had raped and pillaged their villages, and that served to change their whole point of view about these strange travellers who had entered their midst.  Another explorer and his crew travelled North and met with what are today called the Inuit.  In those days, as you know, they were called Eskimos.  (If you're writing a paper, you will get marks taken off if you don't use 'Inuit'...also you must say humankind instead of mankind....just a few little tips..)  The explorers were treated royally to begin with, but eventually, the bad habits and behavior of the visitors were thought to have contributed to their never being heard from again...probably turned out onto an ice flo to fend for themselves.

     I found out that Hitler, as a youth, was a runner of messages in World Ward 1.  He would physically run up and down the trenches, behind the front lines amongst soldiers dead and alive holding guns and bayonettes.  He delivered word and directives to the officers and men. Perhaps this ultimately dangerous work contributed to his hatred for others and love of power as the years wore on.

     I also discovered that the high towers in the ancient castles of Europe were built like that more than just for aesthetics.  If you've never noticed, the tall tower has a window that allowed boiling water or oil to be poured down upon the heads of marauding invaders.         Brutal, yet effective.  Not just for Rapunzel to let down her long hair..

     The stories of royalty are equally intriguing. Of course, royal bloodlines predominated as a prerequisite to sitting on the throne (irregardless of whether the person was mentally sound or even of age).  Murders by various means such as poisoning and beheadings were common.  Adultery and being locked in dungeons and wasting away from starvation in chains, occurred more often than not. Methods of torture and execution were barbaric.  People would have all their limbs tied and then be  stretched until they were torn apart.  I think they called it the "rack".

     If you're looking for some astounding reading, or if you want to understand why they say history repeats itself, just pick up a history book and start reading.  Pre or post rennaisance...it doesn't matter, but keeping track of what was happening with art and sculpture after the rennaisance alone is enough to give you a full-time career if you take the time and choose to be interested.  Did you know that at one point, all the art and sculptures were of men?  To begin with, when women were eventually included, their bodies were designed and crafted just like a man's, complete with muscled arms, legs, chest etc.  I expect the reason was because really, who would be allowed to be the model in those ultra conservative time periods?  As you know, things did change and there are spectacular paintings and statues all over the world that tell a different tale from every age and culture.

    So many great authors, artists and painters emerged, such as  Leonardo da Vinci whose works are well known, because his paintings have become part of our world's heritage.  He too was an inventor, inventing things like scissors and flying machines.  His work in the Cistene Chapel occurred on his back over several years.  His Mona Lisa smile has intrigued multitudes all these centuries.  Anyone who has seen the  daVinci Code will have had their memories refreshed about him and his work.  Today we have rap and grafitti...Some day in the future, they may be mavelling at how brilliant these works are.  We just scratch our heads.

     In fact, architectural designs over the centuries and across continents are fascinating and worth studying.   If you can afford to travel, paying attention to the uniqueness of our world is a large part of understanding how humankind has evolved in every corner.  By paying attention to history and our neighbours in our own country, we learn to understand more fully where we are going in life.  Like John Edwards showed me today, we are the You in You-niverse!