Posted on September 8, 2014 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Anna MacDonald formerly of Colindale Road

 

 

I go to mass every Saturday at my mother’s apartment building. We pray, we sing and we always have a chuckle or two before or after mass. It is a wonderful group of people and do they have stories to tell! Just before mass last Saturday, one of the residents, Anna ( pictured above ) showed me this Syperek painting of the Colindale Road. If you read my story, “Happy Trails,” you might remember the picture that went with the story. Anna grew up on the Colindale Road and assured me that there were many side roads along that roadway that were even more breathtaking. It seems like we’re always in such a hurry to get places that we don’t have time to enjoy the journey. Take this drive someday. You won’t be disappointed.

Don’t you just love a face full of spider webs? Yes, it’s that time of the year when spiders are particularly industrious. I walked out the side door of our house ( the entrance to our former home office ) on the weekend and was immediately encased in fibrous cobweb material. This is not the grossest thing to happen to a person but there’s something about it that has a mild disgust level. I don’t think I could write an entire story about this topic. Can you describe the experience?

Shinerama. Apologies to those of you who have never lived in a university town but this fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis is a rite of passage for freshmen students every September. When we were children, our mother often referred to us as “screaming banshees.” No surprise that the origin of the word came from the Irish ( she was an “O’Flaherty ). According to legend, a banshee was a female spirit whose wailing warned of impending death in a house.

There is fundraising and then there is Shinerama. Hordes of newly minted university students don their “house” t-shirts and converge on every sidewalk and street corner in the community, exhorting people to give money for this worthwhile charity. And they scream…like banshees. They are in your face, they are loud and they are determined. Walking down Main Street is like running the gauntlet. I looked up this phrase and here’s what it said: “ Often, to run the gauntlet implies a sort of initiation or hazing, or to endure a prolonged test.” Yup. It’s an endurance test. I know people who won’t venture out of their house the first Saturday in September.

Many people find the whole Shinerama thing a bit much and voice their displeasure. People with Cystic Fibrosis don’t nor do I. You see, for many of these young people, this is their very first taste of fundraising. And, even though they think that they are going to grow up to become lawyers, teachers and nurses, they will come to learn that these are hobbies. No. They will become fundraisers. Fundraising makes the world go round especially if you have children.

So, I say, let’s celebrate Shinerama and thank these young people, even if they get on your nerves. They mean well and we are going to need them to do the heavy lifting after we sell our last 50/50 ticket.

Coming up tomorrow is the story “Credit Card Crazy.” Have you ever tried to cancel your credit card by phone? Sounds simple. NOT. This is my account of attempting to cancel a card with a 30 cent credit. It will make you laugh… or cry.

Have a great week.

Posted on September 6, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Getting my just desserts

 

 

“They call me mellow yellow …”

Mellow Yellow – Donovan

 

I met Otto Bernstein in the spring of 1977.  My dear friend, the late Pat Campbell, introduced me to this most amazing man.  Pat was a piano player and on many occasions she would travel out to Bluesky to accompany Otto, who was a better than average cello player.  I always had the impression that he was a Renaissance man.

As much as I enjoyed the music they made together that day, I was there on a very different mission.  Otto spent a good deal of the year in a southern climate and I was interested in renting his log house.

From what I could determine, he was way ahead of his time.  He had fashioned all kinds of gadgets on the property, including an indoor cistern and a dumb waiter.  He had wired the property so that the yard would light up at nightfall.  He even had a garage that would open by remote control.  Remember, this was 1977.  His house was a veritable antique shop and he had dozens, possibly hundreds of knick-knacks and paintings in the living room.  I was a bit leery about being responsible for all this.

I had every right to feel a bit nervous.

I had come from the East coast to teach school, and I was joined by five other guys who graduated with their teaching degrees from the same institution.  We were all in our twenties, single, with a bit of polishing required around the rough edges.  The boys enjoyed a good party and every so often things went a bit off the rails.

After one particularly raucous affair, we had left the apartment belonging to one of the guys a tad upside down.  Literally.  I remember with great clarity when he declared that someday he would exact his revenge, singling me out as the instigator.

Many months later I left town to attend a professional development conference in Banff.  Banff is a long drive from Bluesky, around 10 hours.  After two full days of endless meetings I hit the road for home on Sunday afternoon.  Somewhere between Edmonton and Grande Prairie, it hit me like a thunderbolt. Something bad awaited me upon my return to Otto’s log house.  I just knew that the boys had taken advantage of my extended absence.

I arrived home after dark and pulled into the yard.  The outdoor lights went on.  I pressed the remote control to open the garage door.  I wasn’t able to drive in because my bedroom was neatly arranged where the car would normally be parked.

I cautiously approached the cabin, and just as I was about to open the door, something told me to look up.  Perched precariously over the entryway was a bucket of water which promptly fell when I gently turned the knob.

The kitchen is the first room past the front porch.  I flicked on the lights and the ambiance didn’t look quite right.  And, little wonder.  The floor of the kitchen was completely encased in two inches of yellow Jell-O.  And so was every glass, every bowl, every pot and pan.  I removed my socks and made my way through the slimy mess and entered the living room.

It was empty.  Nothing.  Every piece of furniture, every piece of art and ornamentation had been removed.

Scattered on the floor of the kitchen were the discarded wrappers of photos from a Polaroid camera.  I realized that the intruders had the good sense and decency (!) to take pictures before and after the crime.

It was 2:00 a.m. when I had finally scrapped away the Jell-o from the kitchen floor and re-assembled the bedroom indoors.  Finding all of the knick-knacks would come later.

I arrived in the staff room bright and early on Monday morning. The co-conspirators were sipping their coffee waiting to see my reaction.  I pretended that nothing had happened.  I didn’t utter a word about the chaos that they had wreaked on my living quarters.

Slowly but surely I recovered most of the antiques, ornaments and paintings.  Some of them I found in the tall pine trees surrounding the house.  But I couldn’t be 100% certain that everything had been recovered.  I needed to see the pictures that they had taken.  Finally, on Friday afternoon, at the end of the school day, I confronted them.  I swore at them; they laughed and they gave me the pictures.  On the weekend I put everything back in its rightful place.

Every so often, I will see a dish of Jell-O sitting in a display cooler in a restaurant.  One of these days, I think I will try a bowl for old time’s sake.

Any colour but yellow.

 

 

 

 

Posted on September 4, 2014 under Thursday Tidbits with 2 comments

Bidding summer farewell

 

 

Well, it’s back to school and for most of us, the return to some form of normalcy. I truly think that we should lobby the  government to have September 1^st. as the first day of the year instead of January 1^st. Everybody is back into a regular rhythm. Kids are in school, the days are getting shorter and the Blue Jays are in a tailspin once again. Yup. Everything is normal.

I was very gratified with the response to “Happy Trails.” The Cabot Trail is special. I have some friends from Antigonish who were travelling in Alaska last year. They bumped into a couple from the U.S. who were on a two year voyage around the globe. They were into their 13^th. month and my friends asked them what was the most beautiful place they had been.  My friends hadn’t told these folks where they were from. They paused and said, “the Cabot Trail.” If you haven’t been there in a while, treat yourself, even if it’s only a day trip, and do “the Trail.” And don’t forget the butterscotch pie at The Clucking Hen restaurant!

So, we were having a family gathering on the long weekend. After gorging on sweets for most of the summer, I vowed publically that I was going to limit my dessert intake drastically starting September 1^st. Well one thing led to another and the topic of dieting came up. I had mentioned that my cholesterol was down for the first time in years at my last annual checkup in August. Of course, like a fool, my reaction was to go out and binge on greasy food and desserts knowing I had a full year before my next checkup. Why do we humans react this way? Why can`t we take this kind of news and redouble our efforts to do even better? Because we are weaklings and I am at the head of the list.

Just about everyone I know has at one time or another, tried to lose weight. We started talking about weigh ins and the lengths that people go to in the days and hours leading up to this nerve wracking event. One person confessed that she actually spit saliva into a cup on the drive into the weigh in. She boasted that she was still able to wear the earrings she wore as a teenager. Not sure if that is some badge of honour. I mean, have you ever seen an obese earlobe? As dangerous as this may sound, I am going to tackle the phenomenon of dieting. Soon. After I lose a pound or two!

Lots more stories to come including my trilogy about life working in a sawmill. The first two parts have been written. It’s amazing that a person’s brain can draw up images of the past including smells. I started my fleeting mill career working on a green chain. This was incredibly dirty and noisy work. You had to wear a leather apron and leather gloves ( a lovely ensemble! ) handling lumber that had just passed through a chemical bath. The smell oozed into your pores and you could taste it at the end of a shift. The good news is that there was a pub a mere 5 minute walk from the mill. I found ways to make that awful taste go away.

Coming up on Saturday is the story “They Call Me Yellow Jell-o.” Some friends “trashed” a cabin I was renting while teaching in Northern Alberta. You must read this one. It is 100% true. Many of the principals in the story have passed away so I feel no threat of reprisals.

Have a great week.

P.S. ( True Story ) A woman who was dieting , baked a pan of brownies. She and her husband shared one row of squares. The next morning , after he had left for work, she ate the remainder of the brownies in one sitting. Panicked, she hastily made another pan, let it cool and ate the first row. Her husband never knew the difference.