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Not so unusual except that he used Skype. It was costing him (he called our land line rather than my computer) fractions of a cent/minute — cheaper than calling (regular) long distance in Canada. About the only problem was that the connection seemed to be half duplex; that is, if one of us tried to interrupt then the other person couldn’t talk for a brief period. I’ll have to dig out the headset and try giving him a call.

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I used to think barking dogs in a backyard meant a negligent owner. Now that I have a dog I know that things might be different. Our dog wants to go outside every so often just to run up and down the yard and bark at everything or nothing. He’s happy breathing and wagging his tail after this show of exuberance. It’s a dog thing I guess. Or maybe a soft-coated wheaten terrier thing.

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My younger son won a Science and Technology award for “the best newspaper or magazine article which demystifies technology”. Son and proud mother are pictured.

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A person tried to merge into our car when our son was driving one evening. No-one was hurt and the car was drivable That person claimed it was my son’s fault and, I guess, this guy was near home because the father and a friend joined in to confront my son. He got in the car, locked the door and called the police on his cellphone for advice. There was a witness and my insurance company says the other party admitted being at fault so we don’t pay the deductible. Those few scratches across front and back fenders and two doors amount to almost $4k of repairs.

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One of my youngest cousins got married on the weekend. I did try and take some pictures after the ceremony but the selector button pointed at P instead of AUTO. I fixed this and took some pictures at the reception:

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My Dad passed away this Tuesday in Vancouver of pancreatic cancer. I had the fortune to have been invited as special surprise guest to my brother’s 50^th birthday party by my sister-in-law Rosemarie. So we had the party and then my brother Tom and I visited my Dad during what turned out to be his last few days. I’m glad we chatted and I gave him a hug. Now I’m the only Jim Service in the immediate family — kind of sad that there won’t need to be a Jr. appended anymore.

He is survived by five children: myself, Tom, Jane, Bob and Chris, their spouses: Julie, Rosemarie, Dan, Chrissy and Sharon; one wife and 3 ex’s: Helen, Helen, Jean and DJ; and thirteen grandchildren: Ian, Stuart, Alexis, Nicolia, Rhea, Kyle, Ryan, Nicole, Crawford, Holly, Alex, Sarah, Emma. There are also some step-children and step-grandchildren; however, I either don’t know or can’t remember all their names.

We were working in the same company, Ontario Hydro, for fourteeen years though he didn’t actually do anything to have me initially hired there. The closest we ever got was when I was on rotation as a Trainee Engineer in the same division. Otherwise, we worked at two different locations. So, we were both, nominally, electrical engineers. I tended to use and program computers and he managed to avoid ever having a computer prior to his retirement in 1991.

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After several weeks, Finnegan’s owners know how to give treats and, in return, the dog does “sit”, “down”, “stay”, “come” and “heel” among other things. Finnegan learned by himself that when this owner gets the small bowls from the cupboard and the scoop from the drawer means that ice cream will be served and he’ll get in some licks. He also knows that if my son or I are peeing in the toilet then, very shortly, there will be fresh cold water after the flush.

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Mom needed a receptacle on her balcony. I drilled through the wall with a 16 inch bit in my hammer drill. Problem: wall is 18 in. thick, brick veneer and two layers of concrete with an empty (?) middle part. As best I could I projected a spot inside for a mating hole and drilled. Then tried two more. I couldn’t see daylight. I figured there must be some opaque insulation in between those two layers of concrete. After much poking I managed to get a stiff wire from the inside to the outside and pulled a 3 conductor wire and telephone cord (with modular jack) through the holes. The major problem was the hollow middle wasn’t as wide as the concrete parts so, in the end, it was sheer luck that I managed to bend that wire enough to find the outside whole from one of the inside ones.

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My father makes the ¾ century mark today.

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She was born to my sister-in-law and half (only in a family relationship way, certainly not height) brother last Friday. Now the generation span from my oldest son to my youngest niece spans over a quarter century!

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My brother teaches “middle school” near Chiang Mai in Thailand. I thought his recent travelogue was quite interesting.

We’re on the last leg of the trip, the ferry ride from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi. We’ve run into a bit of a squall so if my writing is worse than usual it’s the waves and wind to blame. St far the trip has been uneventful. I can’t say I enjoy checking in 49 people at an airline counter, but they were very efficient and at least the kids didn’t have to stand in line. We should be arriving in about ½ hour and then we’ll have a 15 minute walk to our bungalows (five only). Just about everyone changed into shorts when we got to the ferry dock. The long pants had been nice on the train though as they always have the aircon cranked up high. Most of the grade 10’s actually tried to sleep on the train which was more than could be said for the grade 8’s who shared one of our cars (Thankfully not mine). Once we check in we’ll take the kids down to the beach for a run around and a swim. I don’t think that they’ll give us a lot of trouble tonight as they’ll be so tired.

Happy Valentine’s Day

I had to get up last night at 1:15 a.m. to knock on the bungalow door of some young tourists because they were singing ABBA songs at the top of their voices. My students were great. I lodged a complaint with the resort owner this morning and she wondered whether it was one of my students? DUH! Would I complain to her if it was one of my students? This morning fortified with two strong cups of coffee and a banana pancake I’m off on a two hour hike (climb) with a group of 12 students. We’ll also be abseiling (climbing down a cliff using ropes, then snorkeling. Got to go now and brush my teeth.

20 Feb – Well my good intentions went out the window. Time was not always available and then this book got wet due to spray from the waves. So I’m safe and sound back in Chiang Mai. The trip was a success and there were no major problems. Lots of sunburns, a few coral scrapes, slivers, but overall great fun. I’ll now try to back up and go day-by-day starting back on Tuesday.

Tues

We set out in 4 different groups on a hike. The groups were staggered at 1 ½ hour intervals which meant we had to entertain group 3 & 4 for the morning. Luke (the staff member who was in Phi Phi during the tsunami, where he lost his brother) took the late starters on a tour of the village showing the students where the water came up to, and generally answering their questions in a very matter of fact manner. I missed out on that talk but got informal ones as the week progressed.

I was with group #2 so we started hiking at 9:30. Phi Phi is karst topography like HaLong Bay(in Vietnam) so the hike involved a lot of steep climbing. We had a number of great view points en route and experienced a part of Phi Phi that few tourists would visit. Abseiling was down a vertical crevasse about 20 metres—about half way down the rock face your feet are on [a] receded [surface] and one had to lower oneself down about 3 M then turn around and put one’s feet on the wall that had been behind at the beginning. I had done abseiling many years ago so know the basics. The students found it thrilling. I just felt that it was a long wait for a short trip. Scrambling down from the base of the sheer cliff to the beach we realized how high we had gone earlier in the morning. Most of the kids had dirty butts by the time they reached the beach because they slid most of the way down.

At the beach we met up with the first group and our lunch. Lunch was very welcome as was the water. Although we all carried water on the hike it was used up long before arrival at the beach.

After lunch we snorkeled off the beach. This was the best snorkeling I had ever done up to that point. There were lots of fish, coral, sea anemones with clown fish, lobsters, sea urchins, sea horses. It was great! We fed the fish pineapple and I was able to get over some of my fear. The tunnel vision, the fish nibbles all made for concentrated relaxation exercises. I found it very difficult to dive down and swim underwater because I would immediately experience shortness of breath. I snorkeled until I got leg cramps, took a break, drank some water, ate some more then snorkeled again. By about 4:30 we climbed into a long tailed boat to go back to our bungalows. Phi Phi Don is shaped something like a dumbbell. The handle in the middle is sand with coconut trees and lots of development. The tsunami went right across the sand bar (from both sides). We took the long tailed boats from Monkey beach, (yes, we saw monkeys) to the shallower bay. This bay used to be all sand but the tsunami brought in lots of coral chunks. We got there at low tide and the boat had to drop us about 100M from the water’s edge. Luckily I had my flip flops in my backpack so I was able to walk fairly easily over the broken coral. Most of the students had to slowly pick their way in. I actually ended up piggy backing some students to make it easier on them.

Wednesday

In the morning we walked over to the Phi Phi Island public school to do some community service. They had a ground floor classroom (2 storey L shaped building) filled with what looked like the remains of two or 3 wooden outbuildings that had been destroyed by the tsunami. The school is hoping to add M1 & M2 (grade 7 & 8) next year but are not allowed to build (only resort owners have enough money to pay the bribes to get around the no building banns imposed in the wake of Dec.26 2004) It took all of us about 1 ½ hours to empty the room and for many of the kids it was their first experience with any form of manual labour. All the kids pitched in and genuinely felt positive about their efforts. After lunch we grabbed our overnight bags and jumped on an old wooden boat. Before we left, actually before boat started, Andrew, our guide on Phi Phi, tried to explain rules of the boat. #1 Don’t jump off the boat if it’s moving, #2 the toilet is a sea toilet which empties into the ocean so don’t go if the boat has stopped. Then the engine turned on and it was impossible to hear. We took the boat up past Phi Phi Don, past a pod of dolphins up the Mosquito Island where we did some open water snorkeling on a reef that was about 3 M below the surface. Again great sights! We also had fun jumping off the top deck into the water. From there the boat took us to Bumboa(sp?) Island where we were to camp for the night. The boat was too big to get over the reef so students had to be ferried in a long tail boat. Or they could swim to shore. I chose the swim and was rewarded by seeing a couple of stingrays. The swim in was fine until the reef where it took us a few minutes to find our way through. (Again we’d arrived at low tide.) The island is part of a National Park as are all part of the Phi Phi chain but this one had a park office which rented the tents and foam mats. We had asked all the students to bring a sheet or sleeping bag but there weren’t really necessary. Come night time we just crawled in and went to sleep. There was a beautiful breeze which swept the mosquitoes away and made for a pleasant sleeping temperature. The island campground boasted two showers and two toilets which meant that you lined up for a shower or didn’t bother. I was smart and grabbed a shower right after arriving while the students were still playing house in the tents. Meals were simple but hearty: rice, fish curry, chicken curry and fruit. The Adventure Club, the group that arranged things for the trip treated us well and even put on a performance (Fire Dancing) on the beach.

Thursday

Woke to the sound of waves and the sea breeze in the trees. We did a couple of group challenges after breakfast, one where the students had to use two wooden poles to carry all team members back and forth over a small field. The kids had a great time and attracted the attention of all the tourists who had arrived with morning high tides. Around 11 a.m. we climbed into the big boat. High tide meant that it could come right up to the beach. Destination Phi Phi Ley (small Phi Phi Island. This island had some beautiful coves with sheer rock walls and tiny white sand beaches littered with trash from all the groups that come through. Such a waste. Snorkeling this day meant swimming along side a rock wall which extended after a small shelf deep into the water. The shelf and below were covered in both hard and soft coral. By this time I was a relaxed snorkeler and we much more able to hold my breath and dive down to inspect things. The first group saw 5 sharks (alas I was in the third group) But we did see a banded sea krait(snake) about a metre long, flattened tail which acts as a paddle, and highly venomous. Although as lethal as a cobra it’s mouth is so small it would have to bite you on the web between your fingers to actually be able to latch on. I now see why people spend so much money on dive trips. It’s a whole other beautiful world down there. We had swum along with the current and the boat had moved to pick up but still I had to swim against the current. With flippers not a problem. As I neared the boat I heard a few students and teachers yelling my name in warning…jellyfish? Shark? No someone had broken rule #2. That’s the sea toilet rule. In other words there were a couple of logs floating off the stern of the boat. I was a lucky survivor, a couple of minutes later someone swam right into one. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

For our last evening we tried to get the kids in one restaurant but it didn’t work out which was just as well because the service was slow and the food mediocre at best. The kids had time to do a little last minute souvenir shopping then bed.

Friday

Our ferry was to leave at nine so it was a scramble from the moment we got up to get 44 students checked out and fed. The teachers had to get take-away breakfast because we were short on time. The ferry left a little late which was a problem because we had a 12:50 flight and had to be at the airport by 12:000 at the latest to check in. I had a few worried phone calls on the ferry. When we docked in Phuket I had kids jump off the ferry and onto the first van and we sped off to the airport on the opposite side of the island (Phuket is Thailand’s largest island) We made it with time to spare. Then it was a short flight to Bangkok, a 4 hour wait, then our overnight train home. I’ve never been on a train in Thailand that arrived on time. This trip it was on time both ways.

Well this concludes my travelogue.

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Last night it finally felt like Christmas after spending a quiet evening and this morning with my aunt and uncle (the U.C. minister). Considering he has been in the hospital for a couple of months and that December 2005 might have been his last time in the land of the living: quiet is good. I had the pleasure of walking their dog (a 10 year old golden retriever and former seeing-eye dog) and my own last night. I had the displeasure this morning of picking out a dozen or so kind of burr I hadn’t seen before. It was pine cone shaped, about 2 to 3 cm long with sharp points. My dog got them in bushes next to the sand at the beach in Port Hope.

This might be the first Christmas Eve in 30 years I may be in bed before Christmas. We aren’t going to a Christmas Eve service, we aren’t participating in one, I don’t have to assemble a bike, sled or hockey net. Quiet is good.

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• We wondered why dog “boots” are sold. Now we know! At around the freezing point the little snowballs accumulate. They are as difficult and tedious to remove as burrs; however, unlike burrs, we can just let the snow melt. After this picture I put him in the kitchen and closed it off until the snow melted and I could dry him off and mop up the floor. He gets snowballs on his face, too, as Finnegan likes to poke his head into every snowy footprint or just sniff in the snow as he walks along.
• Thanks to Christmas family letters I have learned that one of my cousins has separated from his wife, another had a baby girl on the same birthday as my brother, Aug. 28, 2005, and yet another has bought her first house next door to her Mom’s. That way she doesn’t need to buy any tools, lawnmower, rake, BBQ, shovel, etc.
• Last night our choir, The Bell’Arte Singers joined with the children of the York Region Children’s Choir to present a Christmas concert. Grace Church on the Hill was packed.

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And I’m not talking ukulele-tuning!

The groomer found a few fleas on Monday. We got $100 worth of dog flea treatment and residual spray for the rugs and furniture from the vet. I have now vacuumed and sprayed the first and second floors. I’ll do the basement tomorrow. And our nine-month old puppy has had his first cutaneous dose. Apparently now he is a flea-killing machine.

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I was going to write a lot today about Thankgiving but the cold tearing my eyes is making monitor viewing a bit of pain. In brief, my wife and I served 20 of her family yesterday. Today I have been through more than a box of kleenex already. I believe I should sleep for a couple of days…

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Today I did something my father never did for me: I helped my son prepare two second story wood windows at his house in Guelph for painting. We removed the loose and flaking paint and I caulked around the outside and applied a coat of primer to each. It appeared to me that the windows had never been painted since they were installed when the house was new, perhaps a decade or more ago. There were no traces of paint on the plastic slide part of the inner window. Perhaps you can get away with this on the south side of the house—the wood drys out too fast to rot. But they did look terrible with the peeling paint and greyish frames.

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Literally! We have had two vendors in to give us estimates, a third tomorrow. Looks like it’s going to cost us 7 to 9 grand if we decide to get the L/R bay, kitchen and three family room windows replaced.

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We celebrated my Mom’s 75^th birthday about a month after the actual event at her request. My brother Robert is back from Thailand with his family for the summer break and my niece is visiting from Victoria. Though I took lots of pictures I present just the “family portrait” ones for now. I hope to get the others up soon.

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My older son dropped in with his darling girlfriend. Our dogs had a great time playing in the backyard. Later I actually had supper and conversation with my younger son. That, to me, is good father’s day. I remember my first father’s day. Back in 1981 I had to leave early Sunday morning for a field trip. I got a “Number 1 Dad” T-shirt and, since I was working at a thermal generating station, I could wear it that day.

Since my father left when I was 13, I don’t have memories of a Father’s Day with my dad. I haven’t heard from him in several months though I did send him a card recently for his 74^th birthday.

I spent part of the day planting the second of two serviceberry bushes my older son brought yesterday evening. I took advantage of the long evening twilight and planted the first last night.

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Finnegan was getting rather ripe. I figured the only way to get him bathed was to put on my bathing suit and take him in the shower with me. This worked OK though Finnegan did a lot of slipping and sliding: two feet with skin beats four furry paws in the traction department this time. Lots of fine clayey dirt in his hair and feet went down the drain.

He didn’t like the hair dryer. In fact I had to take a second shower after he emptied his bladder and then some on me during that episode. I think I’ll have to get him used to the noise by just turning on the hair dryer every so often while I’m in the kitchen doing other things. After all, he just ignores the noisy coffee grinder.

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I couldn’t resist the Broadwayesque pun. Happy Birthday to my brother who teaches in the Chiang Mai area in Thailand. Hugs and kisses to him and all his family.

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Today, we put down a deposit for a male Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier puppy. We visited the breeder and saw a litter of puppies and young “Mikey,” a three-month old returned because a family was “allergic.” We met several of the dogs: all very friendly—I have lots of kisses on my face. At this point we are waiting to hear if we get a puppy in a few weeks or the three-month old almost immediately. Now will have to get the gear: crate, leash, toys, food, dish, etc and choose a name. For the moment, I like Fugue.

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The event was quiet — just like me. We spent the evening at my older son’s place in Guelph among the 3 cats, 2 dogs, budgie and various aquatic wild life. My older son’s partner cooked a great meal (thanks, Brianne) and my wife baked my favourite cake (angel food with a delicious, sweet and gooey corn syrup / egg white icing from Edna Staebler’s Food that really schmecks). My younger son put in an appearance though he had to leave early in order to make another phone call / interview for one of his college journalism courses.

Now that I have reached the half-century mark it really doesn’t seem as old as I thought it was going to be when I was a young lad back in the 20^th century.

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A very happy birthday to my older son.

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My sister turns one year better today. Only five years to go until the half-century mark. Hey, wait a minute, I’ve only got 20 days to reach that milestone—gimme that walker!

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I went downtown and picked up my baby bro' at our Mom’s and drove him to the airport this evening. He has to back teaching in Thailand on Monday. My sister-in-law, nephew and niece will follow next week. Anyway, I had to drive the car in to work. Ugh! It was snowing and very slow going. I went for a run at lunch time: the first time I’ve had rain freezing on my jacket and glasses. Fortunately the snow and rain stopped in the afternoon and, I guess, everyone went home early. I made it to my Mom’s in “non rush hour time” and out to the airport, again, in “non rush hour time”. I left work at about 4:15, grabbed a quick bite to eat and was home before 7 p.m. My brother said it wasn’t necessary to come in the terminal with him: he said he’ll be pretty antsy until he has checks his two large suitcases, gets his boarding pass and goes through the security check. I wasn’t going to argue since short term parking at the airport seems to be at least a tooney every 15 minutes.

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My youngest brother, sister-in-law, 5-year-old nephew, and 5-month-old niece stayed at our house for a couple of days in a round of family visiting that’s lasted for almost three weeks for them. My nephew is so cute: he led us in Christmas carol sing-a-longs for two evenings. We all accompanied on my wife’s selection of Orff instruments. And my niece, she’s a darling, starting to smile and vocalize and just adorable. My nephew thinks Canada is a great destination: He got presents at every stop. He’ll surely be disappointed next Christmas when the family spends it in Thailand where my brother teaches.

Though it only be just after 9 p.m. I’m ready for bed: a) because we gave our bedroom and queen-size bed as the room could fit an extra single bed and sleep a family of four with their own bathroom, b) we slept in the double bed in my study but mostly c) because I had to get up an hour and a half earlier than usual to go back to work after two weeks of vacation and holidays.

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In typical “by the shores of Lake Ontario” fashion, there’s a crust of freezing rain forming on the 20 cm of so of snow that fell during the night. It was tough slog to shovel this morning due to the weight of the snow and ice. Though I worn a rain jacket over a sweater, I was soaked to the skin.

Yes, I could write a family newsletter; however, images are so much better. Last night’s pics of the family get-together at my sister's place are available courtesy of my older son and his digital camera. Special guests: my brother and his family back from Thailand. Missing: my young nephew Crawford, with his timezone still in the Pacific Ocean somewhere, went to bed, younger son went to gf's family Christmas on account of they (her family not my son) are leaving for Mexico today (weather permitting ).

Brianne, Dan, Jane, Jim, Holly, Mom
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Brianne, Jane Laughing
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Chrissy, Danny
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Chrissy, Ryan, Nikki, Brianne, Julie, Jane
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Christmas Tree, Julie
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Dan, Mom, Julie
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Dan, Mom
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Dan Laughing
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Grandma Dorothy
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Holly, Ian, Julie, Ryan
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Holly, Robert, Jane
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Holly, Robert
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Holly, Robert-profile
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HollyAnd Alligator
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Jane, Mom
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Jim, Julie, Ryan, Nikki
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Mom, RedWrapped Present
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Mom
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Nikki, Ryan
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Robert, Chrissy
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Robert
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Kyle, Brianne
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My BIL complained of a weak arm when the superintendent at the condo found him in the elevator in the mid-afternoon. She called 911 and the ambulance took him to a hospital in Mississauga. Unfortunately he was coming down the elevator to go and pick up his wife from her physio. appointment. In his agitated state (he’s very hard of hearing and difficult to understand), he either didn’t know or didn’t remember the address of the clinic; just the street name in Milton. I phoned around to several places and the Milton hospital to see if I could locate such a place. Eventually, as I travelled home from work, my sister-in-law and my son located her. My wife picked her sister-in-law up and brought her back to the apartment.

By this time my BIL was feeling better and the neurologist said he was fine though he wanted a meeting with my wife, her brother’s POA. Presumably they would discuss what drugs he may be taking, etc. It looks like it will be a long night for my wife as she’ll have to drive him home again as well. More good news is that her school will cover her work tomorrow if necessary.

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December the third is a significant family date: my wife’s birthday. Usually we are too busy rehearsing or concertizing; but not this night this year. So I treated my wife, my two sons and our daughter (ICL) to supper at the local Canyon Creek Steak and Chop House.

Until February the fifth of next year my wife is now the same numerical age as I am.

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My cousin emailed me this image of his daughter and his brother’s (uh, that would be another cousin) daughter. So cute at this age!

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The family (perhaps 60 or so?) plus one friend of my great aunt Edna’s cousin came to a memorial service in Aurora, Ontario. My cousin’s daughter asked her grandma (another of my aunts), “Where’s the box?” Several weeks ago she had been at her grandpa’s funeral where there was an open casket. My aunt tried to explain about cremation and that Edna’s ashes were in that small box on the altar and her spirit was in Heaven. My cousin’s daughter still couldn’t believe the body wasn’t around somewhere.

My reverend uncle led the memorial service and my aunt played the hymns on the keyboard she brought as the funeral home had no piano or organ. After the service, the Services and other relative went to a lunch reception at a local golf and country club. Quite pleasant. My wife and I agreed that our final services should be like that. The older people had a place to sit and eat their sandwiches and drink coffee and the others could circulate and visit.

What I learned about my great aunt was that she lived in Windsor for many years before moving to Oakville when Ford, where my uncle Ed used to work, moved their head office. This is probably why the “Windsor” and “Chatham” Services got up very early in the morning to attend the memorial service: she was as much “their” aunt as “ours.” Edna taught one of my uncles to dance when he was a teen. It helped him get over his shyness in Grade 11. When Edna moved to a nursing home north of Toronto another of my cousins got to know Edna and learn about the family’s history. BTW, I have 12 cousins on my father’s side of the family who now have 9 kids, then there’s my 3 brother and sister and our 12 children.

Later my wife and I visited her parents, played cards and went out for supper. Then we came home and cleaned the old fridge we are giving to my older son as the fridge in their house they just moved into “is crap.”

You know there are other things in life besides family; however, those other things are less important.

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Uncle Bill called me tonight to say Great Aunt Edna died today (Sept. 3, 2004) at about 3 p.m in the nursing home. She had had a couple of bad strokes just recently. Even when we visited her a couple of years ago she declared to us then, that she was “ready to go.” At last she got her wish and the Lord has taken her into His arms.

I’ll always remember Edna as the kind of warm-hearted, great aunt and classy lady you read about in novels: except that she was a real person! How she ever survived being married to Uncle Ed all those years — I’ll never know.

Her grand nephew.

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Well, it poured rain all day which made for a pretty stressful drive from Toronto to Guelph (pick up something from older son) to Cambridge (lunch with another Aunt and Uncle) to Chatham (party). This explains why I was (literally) cross-eyed last night since I didn’t have that much to drink at the party. By the time we got to Chatham, the rain had stopped though it continued to be damp, windy and chilly. We had the food and then the speeches from my four cousins. Brett also sang a couple of songs and joined in a duet with his wife. My aunt and uncle were obviously touched by their sons' devotion. Normally my youngest cousin of that Service family is quite aimable; however, he was the organizer: trying to get food and facilities ready for 50 or so guests. His brothers nicknamed him “Uncle Krusty” for his efforts.

My thoughts wandered during the speech to contemplating my own parents. They separated when I was 13 so I would never have been in my cousins' places. Nor would I ever considering calling on my own father for advice. As another aunt said, sometimes we use the role of one or another parent as a counter-example; i.e., we will definitely not raise our kids this way. This aunt’s father used to beat them with his belt. When her kids (other cousins) were growing up and they did something “bad,” my aunt would go into her bedroom and close the door until her intense anger and desire to beat the child had passed. Gradually over the years these anger episodes subsided. I guess I was lucky: my dad just wasn’t there for us.

Perhaps it was yesterday’s lousy weather, today it is clearing and this introspective mood passed. We stayed at an “inn” near London last night and had a “bacon and egg” breakfast before driving home today. And I don’t have to cook tonight as my wife’s “Orff” class is having a BBQ.

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Finally, after 3½ months, our driveway has asphalt. We hired another company as the first company, the one that removed the old asphalt and put down a layer of crushed rock, wasn’t returning our phone calls. They did have $500 from us, though, so I figure we have kept up our end of the contract.

I signed the contract with Burl-Oak Paving on Tuesday and 9 guys (“all from the same village in Newfoundland”) came out to do the work today (Saturday). It took them about 2 hours with about ½ hour spent waiting for the asphalt truck. Now, in 4 or 5 days, I’ll be able to drive straight into the garage with no “bumps in the road.”

My next youngest brother, living in Victoria, had his birthday today. I woke him up at 09:00 his time to wish him a “Happy.” Apparently they stayed up Friday night to finish watching a movie they’d rented. I wasn’t too sympathetic as I had been up since 07:00 this morning not knowing when exactly the paving guys would be coming.

Today’s run was a scorcher: it was so humid that my “sta-dri” shirt was soaked by the end of the hour. My time was a couple of minutes slower, too — probably because I had to wipe the sweat off my brow periodically and drink some water.

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I finished off the film on my old camera with a few pictures of the garden. I took that old (analog?) camera on the recent canoe trip and ended up using it since the “official” photographer’s camera got wet on the second last day. Anyway, the pictures on that old roll dated from Dec. 1999 to Jan 2000 including my son turning 19, my sister turning 40 and Christmas at my brother’s before he went to teach in Thailand.

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My cousins held a 60th birthday party for their dad, my uncle with a Hawaiian Luau theme. Lots of food and lots of fun, especially seeing some of my own siblings and my now, Guelph-native son. His dog had a great time vacuuming up food and drink. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and cool so that only the kids went swimming in the pool.

My sister is happy to have been laid-off off her job: the commute is long, most of the work isn’t very interesting and all her good work friends have already been laid off. She’ll be a very discerning job hunter this fall.

My son is discovering the joys of owning a house. Sometimes it’s the little things that bug you — like crappy faucets.

My commentary on the party is that pretty near all of my aunt’s side of the family showed up: even her seldom seen golf-pro son-in-law and her rural sister. My uncle’s side of the family was represented by myself, his oldest nephew, my sister and my youngest brother and our families. None of his brothers or their families deigned to show themselves. I should probably be checking with my cousins first before I sound off. Perhaps they weren’t sent an invitation. My Dad in Vancouver seemed to have known about the party, though. He could have called his brother on his actual birthday last Thursday rather than during the party-time.

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We spent yesterday afternoon and evening moving my son off to Guelph to their first house. No major problems just a hiccup when my U-Haul crapped out on my son’s truck reservation. He managed to find another larger truck but it took all morning to do it = less last minute packing time. It rained once but, fortunately, it was a short shower and we had mostly loaded the truck by then.

Once, in Guelph I went to Can. Tire bought new locks for the place. The only real problems in moving in is that the Queen size box spring, the large filing cabinet and a sofa all needed some persuading. Dings in the walls are easy to fix!

Well I’m off to canoe and camp for a few days…

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I bettered my usual run of between 11 and 12 km (note to self: get that bicycle odometer soon) by about 2 min — perhaps because the air was breezy and about 22°C.

Today’s supper guests were my youngest brother and sister-in-law and their two children, Sarah and Alexander. Sarah the two+(?) year-old was scared of the dog because of a previous encounter with a Jack Russell terrier but Alexander, almost one, ignored her. Their family got a car just recently so it was nice to have them visit us for a change.

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While my son and girlfriend enjoy a week away at a luxo-cottage near Wasaga we are looking after their golden retriever. At a year-and-a-half she’s still a puppy. She doesn’t jump all over you as much to greet you as she used to though. There’s some maturing going on.

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I received this email today. My cousin, a wonderful woman, is about half a year younger than me. I have had my share of slipping and tumbling down steps but never with consequences as serious as this. I wish her a speedy recovery. I’ll take her advice and be careful.

“I was looking forward to continuing my running training at the cottage. But on July 12th my plans changed after I took a tumble down some stairs (more a ladder than stairs really…). At first I couldn’t move my legs and was terrified. Feeling came back to my legs, however back pain remained.

“I went to Bancroft Hospital by ambulance; the x-rays were inconclusive. Then I was transported by ambulance to Belleville Hospital; the CT scan showed a middle column injury involving the inferior quadrant of the T12 vertebra (fractured vertebra at my bellybutton level). Fortunately the fracture was stable and did not encroach on the spinal canal :). Treatment required that I stay horizontal until the swelling went down. Then a tilt table was used to bring me to vertical without bending or twisting my spine. Once I could stand on my own two feet, I was casted.

“I am home now, sporting a body cast from armpits to hips. I can sit, walk, and use the toilet independently! I will see a neurosurgeon soon to determine what’s next, probably 6 weeks in the cast or a brace, followed by physiotherapy. Hopefully I’ll be ready to go back to school [to teach] in September. I’ll keep you posted.

“I hope you’re enjoying your summer. Please Be Careful.”

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Daniel, in his car, was cruising slowly on the road alongside Ethan, his 8 year-old son, riding on an electric scooter on the sidewalk. At a cross street, a guy in an SUV was anxious to get around Daniel and creamed his son on the scooter. Now Ethan is at Sick Kids' in a drug-induced coma with broken bones, surface abrasions and cranial swelling. Daniel and his estranged wife are staying at the hospital 24-7, taking turns being in Ethan’s room.

Bob, along with his brother, was going to be constructing a deck for their mother on the Canada Day long weekend. He was feverish, had indigestion and just felt “sluggish” for the next couple of days. Telehealth advised visiting the emergency room of the local hospital to check out possible virus or heart problems. The hospital said it was probably a virus until the heart enzyme results showed a high level. Now Bob is getting some reading done while he is “under observation” at the hospital and awaits an angiogram appointment.

My thoughts are with these two guys from my “work family” at this time.

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My niece clear over on the Pacific coast in Victoria graduated from high school. Here’s my sister-in-law, Rosemarie, Alexis, and my brother Tom.

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I was awakened shortly after 6 this morning by a phone call from my brother Bob (a.k.a. Robert). He was calling from the hospital in Chang Mai, Thailand where Chrissy had just given birth about an hour before to their daughter, Holly. She’s already a big girl at 10 lb 1 oz (4.56 kg). Holly’s four (?) year old brother’s reaction when called by his Dad: the news was “exciting.” Holly is my mother’s tenth grandchild and fifth granddaughter.

—Her proud Uncle Jim

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The news is out. My son and girlfriend will be moving into a house of their own in Guelph at the end of July. He can hardly wait to have high-speed Internet access. Dad * helped out with his credit rating.

* Namely me. Knock me over with a feather if my dad ever did anything significant for us! Well and truly we have moved into a new stage of parenting which my parents never experienced with me. Not bitter — just an observation.

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Unfortunately we didn’t get to his memorial service. Two express lanes and one collector lane were blocked ahead of us; the traffic was moving at a walking pace. By the time it was 7 p.m. we were still stuck in traffic and at least 20 minutes away from our destination at the posted speed limits. We took the next exit and returned home.

Of course Art doesn’t care about our worldly concerns anymore. I believe he was my father-in-law’s cousin.

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My son and his girlfriend put an offer in on a house in Guelph yesterday. Being the accomodating Dad I am, I am taking the day off to do a “house inspection.” My qualifications? I grew up in a pre-World War I house. I have owned several houses dating from an early 1900s model with knob-and-tube wiring and balloon framing to 1980+ models. I have repaired roofs, windows, walls, appliances, furnaces, faucets, framed and installed windows and doors, shingled a roof, installed and plumbed an entire bathroom, painted myriads of rooms, cut down tall trees (hmmm, this one doesn’t seem to fit), etc. Anyway, if my son and I discover some problems he can always call in a “real” house inspector before the offer expires.

Let’s all give a warm welcome to my older son’s imminent entry to the Sorry-I-can’t-afford-it-because-I’m-paying-off-the-mortgage group.

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The greeting card companies and the florists got together to declare the second Sunday in May as “Mother’s Day.” I don’t think my mom needs a “special” day. Maybe it’s selfish, but I would like to think that when one of us (four) calls her to say hello that is one of her “Mother’s Days.” I’m not sure what I would call the day if my brother phones her asking for a loan or I remind her that I haven’t done her tax return yet. These are probably not as exciting “Mother’s Days.” She’s our Mom and we love her. What more of Mother’s Day can there be than that!

The weather God(s) have worked everything out this year so that our magnolia tree is in full bloom on Mother’s Day this year — just the like the year I bought it for my wife perhaps fifteen years ago this day when the boys were small. It’s grown and they’ve grown.

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My son moved back home this evening. I unloaded my wife’s car of his residence belongings which included a large cardboard box that was oozing 'poo. Shampoo, Head and Shoulders™ I believe! A least it smells better than poo but in some ways it was just as messy. I had to unload the box since I could see the printer-scanner we bought him was in there. Fortunately only the plastic bottom got a little 'pooey. I had to shampoo and rinse one end of the USB cable, though. We are glad to see him back at home—perhaps a little older and wiser in the ways of the world and women.

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We celebrated Easter supper with my wife’s family chez my closest (as in distance) sister-in-law’s place on Saturday evening this year. We all ate too much: none of us were coming from other family dinner parties. I just had to have a bit of everything including ham, turkey, two kinds of petahai (perogies), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pecans, carrots, brussel spouts, salad, gravy and at least five different desserts. As usual I found out what the other brothers-in-law were up to over a few beers and glasses of wine.

Because of the re-scheduled Easter dinner, my wife and I can attend a wine-tasting party tonight with some of her french school colleagues. I presume the lingua franca will be Français so I will probably be rather (more?) quiet than usual until the wine loosens my tongue.

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In Thailand it is already April 2^nd and my “baby” brother is now “well into” his 40’s. This will be an eventful year for him as my sister-in-law is expecting their second child about June 17. (Usually I wouldn’t remember such an abstract date; however, it’s inscribed in my wedding ring. ) The other part of this adventure will be the novelty of giving birth in Thailand. This may not be as bad as it sounds given the experience of one couple I know whose twins were born in the midst of the Toronto SARS crisis last year. What does this have to do with Bob’s birthday? Nothing whatsoever, but this, after all, is a rambling blog.

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My son and daughter-in-law have gone off to a party out of town so we are looking after Cricket, their golden retriever. She has just turned one year old. This time we got a manual: The Bible of Cricket telling dog sitters how to care for her. I wish I had this sort of manual for people’s kids when I used to babysit them when I was a teenager.

Cricket just came up to visit me. She says hello!

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Parts of this seem to be from a reading at Audrey Hepburn’s funeral and other bits are found on lots of places on the Internet. This struck a sentimental chord in me when I got in an email. Naturally, I dedicate this to the most beautiful woman of all to me, my wife.

A little boy asked his mother, “Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m a woman,” she told him.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

His Mom just hugged him and said, “And you never will.”

Later the little boy asked his father, “Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?”

“All women cry for no reason,” was all his dad could say. The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, “God, why do women cry so easily?”

God said, “When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

“I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

“I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

“I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

“I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

“And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed.”

“You see my son,” said God, “the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

“The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart — the place where love resides.”

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He had counted on borrowing the van. Hah! The factors “why not” are too numerous to list here but include potential inclement weather on the drive back, his usual lack of sleep combined with one of the most boring highway drives in North America, no free parking, parking outside a university dorm next to an unsavoury part of town, zero maintenance and upkeep contribution, etc. Thus, we drove him and his girlfriend there Sunday evening and then my wife and I stayed at a hotel on the way back. After a good night’s rest, we drove the rest of way to Mississauga this morning. Added bonus: gas had dipped below 70¢.

I sat at the computer this afternoon and did some work while my wife went off on some errands. One particularly sad one was to attend the funeral visitation of the son-in-law of my in-laws' neighbour. He died of complications from a heart attack. Dead at 42 — about the same age as my “baby” brother!

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My younger son is now a published author. His opinion piece appeared in the University of Windsor student-run paper The Lance.

Today’s stats: #3 / 344 ↑ / 107 ↑ / 3.0% ↑ / 4.43 / 10.5 / 80 / 49 ↑.

Good thing I used the treadmill this morning as I almost fell flat on my back while walking to the corner to get the newspaper later on. Yesterday’s partial thaw and freezing rain have made the sidewalks and paths “somewhat” icy.

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Instead of going to work I took the subway to visit my Mom. She’ll be off next week to visit my brother and his family in Thailand and to “hang out” in Chiang Mai for a couple of months. She’s both excited about going and excited that my sister-in-law’s expecting their second in June — my mom’s 10th grandchild.

I did some “work” such as helping to clean the ceiling vents, hanging a few wall hangings and fixing the leaky toilet but mostly we visited, drank coffee and talked about “family stuff.” No big news here but, being the oldest, my memory (sometimes) can stretch back to some of the “great” relatives such as Great Grandma “Puss,” for example.

I also managed to get a picture of my maternal grandparents for the “relatives” collection on the china cabinet.

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Contest — My younger son left a message that he had “amazing” news. We thought: magazine article published? perfect term test? got into the program he wanted? No. He won US $500 in a phone-in contest on the Howard Stern radio show. Oh well, at least it can pay off some of his student line of credit.

Imminent Divorce — This isn’t in my family but is happening to a colleague at work. I asked him how his wife was and he told me he had enough and he was going to divorce her. I’m “happy” for him: this guy has been treated like a doormat for many years. Can you spell B.I.T.C.H? In his career at work he must have wasted several months of vacation time helping her with her schemes. Her recent café endeavour failed though my colleague was called up from work many times to fix things while it lasted. It seems he found out that there was more than just business going on between her and the business partner.

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My wife graduated with her diploma in early childhood music education today at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Now she has the initials: A.R.C.T., D.E.C.M.A after her name. There were zillions of piano students receiving their ARCT in performance or teaching. Someone asked why there were so many oriental students? Well, how many oriental students do we see at the hockey rinks across the land? It’s just a different set of priorities depending on the culture.

The graduation had the usual speeches from a bank CEO and the-famous-orchestra-conductor and lines of grads getting hooded and pieces of rolled up paper. Bob Rae, as chairman of the Royal Conservatory, shook everybody’s hand. The woman who received the gold medal in organ performance ARCT told Mr. Rae that he was responsible: when Mr. Rae was the 21st Premier of Ontario she lost her public health job because of his government cutbacks. Apparently Bob was speechless. The woman felt great after that.

Today’s musical instrument is the erhu. Even though it was a virtuoso performance by George Gao at the graduation ceremony, it still sounds to me like a whiny violin and resembles a long stick and a tin can.

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My sister turns a year older (better?) today.

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My nephew asked a bunch of the family over (Dad was paying) to Memories of Japan for a Teppanyaki-cooked meal to celebrate his 21st birthday. Great food. Good sushi. While we waited for the rest of the party to arrive, two of Metro’s finest picked up some takeout then a couple of ETF guys picked up some takeout. Proof positive that not all who “serve and protect” are coffee and donut eaters.

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After a month of waiting where a professor apparently couldn’t even be bothered to write a commentary my younger son was turned down for the first-year Creative Writing course at Windsor U. A comment by another professor in that department, “Damn good thing she didn’t accept you, she’s a terrible teacher.” Or words to that effect. He was supposed to have found out Dec. 15. Meanwhile, his English composition teacher can’t praise him highly enough. Now he’s finding that all the good courses are full and he can’t register on the Internet until he lines up for hours at the Registrar and changes his major from business to English. What’s a young lad to do these days? Will Dad have to phone some Dean and complain?

The son of a colleague of mine can’t find a tech. job in IT for his first work term. Only 50% of the class has been placed. It would be a disappointment to be forced to take a “McJob” for the next four months. What’s this young lad going to do?

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Our younger son continues to be like the moody daughter we never had. Today we drove him and his girlfriend, plus a trunk full of luggage, back to residence, a 750 km round trip. No hugs and kisses for his mom nor a “thanks Dad.” Just an attitude: “Haven’t you left yet?” I assume what’s bothering him is that he has to try and change his faculty, choose a new set of courses and adjust to a new roommate since the first term’s roommate is leaving today. We don’t know because he didn’t share those or any other of his problems with us. He kept very much to himself and his friends over the holiday period. Perhaps his brother, cousin or girlfriend can find out what’s bugging him and let us know.

The good news of the day was that the “WINTER STORM WARNING” issued for southern Ontario only happened to us for about an hour on the 401 between Windsor and Chatham. It was dry the rest of the way. Now at about 10:00 p.m. it seems the snow has started. We also found a nice restaurant near St. Thomas while looking for the Swiss Chalet “signed” on the highway.

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I’m about 500 ml short of blood today. Maybe that’s why I’m tired or maybe it’s the late hour of the day. As always, there’s a few more diseases on the have-you-ever-had list including Chagas’ disease, babesiosis and leishmaniasis. And SARS was an extra checkbox this time, too. The nurse asked me 19 AIDS/HIV/risky sex questions, which I answered in the negative.

We had my younger son and his girlfriend over for supper. I had promised a barbecue earlier this week but my son went to his cousin’s this morning and didn’t get back until 4:30 p.m. We had assumed the supper engagement had been forgotten. So, we picked up Swiss Chalet instead of our intention to have the other half of that baked beans recipe.

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Using the left over ham bone from the ham my cousin served at her party on Boxing Day, my wife made a great batch of “made from scratch” baked beans. She called in my in-laws and we had a feast tonight. Now I find myself tilting every so often, but, hey, there’s no else around to bother at the moment. And, apparently, beans are good for the heart, and, as for the flatulence, it doesn’t bother me. You just avoid those types of food before you go out among a crowd of people such as singing in a choir concert, for example.

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Almost everybody showed up at my in-law’s Christmas dinner last night: about 22 I think, spanning four generations. The food was great once again. This year my mother-in-law was more than ably assisted by my wife and her sisters. Yes, one of “the kids” could host it as we do at Easter, mid-summer or Thanksgiving but it just wouldn’t be the same at Christmas-time. It’s a good thing that I have received more running clothes: all those extra sweets and full meal calories need to be worked off over the next week or so while I’m on holidays.

This afternoon and evening it’s off to my cousin’s for another family party. She lives about 15 minutes away — no 401 traffic jams to suffer through. Though I do like a white Christmas, I have enjoyed (and been thankful for) the great driving conditions in the past couple of days. Tomorrow the forecast is for 8°C.

Today’s image features a turkey, naturally. I have had several servings this week, already. Though it’s hard to see in this thumbnail image the carving knife is backwards!

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Earlier this week, say Sunday, I thought today would be a quiet one. We’ve now been invited out to my aunt and uncle’s in Port Hope for supper. Then the four of us will sing at my uncle’s church for the family Christmas Eve service. I proposed “Away in a Manger,” with music by Victor Mio, a member of the Bell’Arte Singers. It’s kind of short notice and my wife and I haven’t performed this piece with the choir since Christmas, 1999. I also suggested “In the Bleak Midwinter” or “All Poor Ones and Humble.” At the later Christmas Eve communion service my aunt has asked me to sing “O Holy Night.” I’m happy to oblige: I’ve sang this at almost every Christmas time for the past, oh, going on 30 years. In fact, I bought my own copy just a couple of years ago though I don’t remember singing it last Christmas and there’s no marks in the music.

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In celebration of my wife turning one year better yesterday, I took her, my older son and his lovely partner out to Milestone’s. We had great meals and my wife got a complimentary slice of cheesecake and no annoying birthday antics from the staff.

Today is my last “free” evening until Sunday.The one after that is next Wednesday and after that it’s the following Sunday. All the other evenings are taken up with choir rehearsals and three concerts. Blog entries may be less frequent for a while.

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Our youngest (!) turns 19 today. We had ribs and a cake last night then his brother, cousin and girlfriends took him out to somewhare at midnight for his first (ahem, legal) drink. His room door is still closed — I guess he’s sleeping it off.

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I drove my son to the train station this evening. We chatted on the way. (I think we now are on the same planet again.) He was telling me about the girl he met on train on the way home last week. Now they have chatted via MSN and plan to meet again at his school. I cautionned him, reminding him about his grandpa. His marriage to Helen I lasted but a couple of years. My dad met this women on a plane flight.

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First the turkey was stuffed and now I’m stuffed, and sleepy. We fed fourteen down from our usual 25 or so. However, judging by the leftovers, I think there was enough food if 25 had showed up. Our special guest this year was our next door neighbour. Every so often we get together for an interesting chat during the evening over a bottle or two of red wine. Outside, between the two houses, we usually discuss gardening or home maintenance over the fence.

And thanks for someone special, my Mom. God bless her.

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We moved our younger son to a University of Windsor residence on Sunday. Despite the double cohort, the UofW people had things pretty well organized. His roommate was out at football practice but son says he’s OK. I can hardly wait 'til he gets Internet access at the end of the week (did I mention double cohort?). At least his phone was working so we talked a little while today.

Another nephew was born on the 29th, name of Alexander William Andrew. This will be quite a mouthful for my sister-in-law to say when she' angry at him. I have two middle names, too, but three less syllables to emphasize.

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Our younger son has gone off to B.C. to visit a friend for a couple of weeks. Now our “nest”is empty, so to speak. The son will be back for a day or so and then we drive him off to residence for the Fall term. Can we handle this? I surely think so. All the dishes and glassware will be accounted for in the kitchen. Leftovers will be in the fridge or the kitchen garbage can — not mouldering in a waste basket somewhere or sitting underneath a bed.

We wonder whether our son and his residence roommate will be The Odd Couple, our son being Oscar of course. However, what if the roommate is an Oscar-type, too? Will our son like to live next to someone else’s mess? Both my wife and I grew up sharing rooms with our siblings: we know what it’s like; but, our son, the lucky guy, has had his own room for all of his life. He’ll have some adapting to do I imagine.

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Christmas in July was the theme for my older son and girlfriend’s party yesterday. Unfortunately it rained early in the afternoon so my wife and I picked up a dining shelter tent similar to the one pictured here. It worked! Almost as soon as we finished setting it up, the rain stopped for the rest of the day. This shelter was much easier to assemble than the one we had several years ago. Shock-corded poles and a simple design made set up a breeze. That old shelter required much assembly, lacked “awnings,” and it blew down very easily — in other words, a real pain.

I had a good time. It was interesting to see the “mating game” being played out between some of the young adults there. Something I remember playing when I was their age. My son’s girlfriend prepared red and green jello shooters for the occasion. Some of the young people were complaining about how “strong” they were. Yes, that alcohol taste was there; but, I could get up out my lawn chair and walk normally after two of them — Even after several cups of beer from the keg. As always, our “grand puppy”Cricket, the golden retriever, was the star of the evening. How can anyone get real serious with that playful inquisitive presence always about?

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My father-in-law turns 80 today. Pretty remarkable since he was turned down for duty in World War II because of asthma and just a few years ago he survived colon cancer. Perhaps he’s not as spry as he used to be but his sense of humour is still A-OK. He’s reached the “age of reason”— he can mistakes, forget things and people will say “Didn’t you know? He’s eighty.”Congratulations John!

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Surprised!

I was surprised (not surprising) and my wife was surprised (this is surprising!) on Saturday at the family gathering when the others presented a cake and gifts on the occasion of our 25^th anniversary last month. It was a great party, my brother and his family are back from Thailand for a month and my sister and part of her family were there, too. I haven’t seen Frank, the golf pro, since Boxing Day. I wonder if he still exists — my cousin claims to get calls from him. My Dad and Helen II were also there, their last stop before heading back to Vancouver. I wonder how he felt being at least fifteen or twenty years older than anyone else including his wife number four. The pool, having only just been filled, was a rather brisk 15°C.

80^th Birthday Golf Day

My wife’s family gathered on Sunday to celebrate my father-in-law’s 80^th birthday coming up shortly. We separated into foursomes and played “best ball.”At first my father-in-law had trouble with the concept but after some explanation from my wife he finally caught on. I only lost one ball in the water and maybe three in the rough. My brother-in-law thought I was “engineering”my shots. It’s just a bit of physics and hand-eye co-ordination. In my case the former works far better than the latter. When I drove the ball straight I was usually best ball; however, this only happened on one or maybe two of the nine holes. The other times I was looking for those shots way beyond the green or hooked way out into the rough. It was fun!

After lunch at the golf course restaurant we went back to my sister-in-law’s place to swim in the 28°C pool and to have birthday cake and beer. (At least that’s what I did.)

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In return for spending the night at my aunt and uncle’s place on the way home from a “picnic”party, I helped my uncle “trim”his new pool deck. He’s using pavers and we must have cut and installed over 400 of the critters. First time my hands ever “craved”hand cream. On the way home I dropped into my cousin’s place to help her install a new dishwasher. Unfortunately the old 3/8”copper tubing was too short so I told her how to use stainless steel-braided hose to complete the job. Tonight I found some instructions to send her.

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My younger son lowered his average by showing mediocre to poor results on some of his exams as compared to his term work. However, it looks like his overall average is still over 70 on six Grade 13 credits. This was the criteria for full acceptance. So, I think he’ll be headed off to the University of Windsor in the fall. He needs to get out in the world and get “shoved around”by his peers a bit — a process called “maturing”or “becoming an adult.''

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It was a hot, hazy, humid day last June 17, 1978 when I got married and lived happily ever after. To this older and wiser (!) gentleman (?!) it doesn’t seem so long ago. Except I have two sons: the older has been out on his own living with his girlfriend for a couple of years and the younger one will start university in the fall if he can just maintain his marks during this week of exams. I guess there’s some history there. I don’t remember minute details of that day just images: a fine wedding with an uncle as a minster, a music director friend at the organ, a tenor soloist friend to sing for us, many friends and relatives in the congregation and, of course, my ravishingly beautiful bride whom I hadn’t seen for a whole day.

I remember the wedding photographer being a jerk with lame, off-colour wisecracks but the pictures turned out fine. It was great reception though I think the groom’s speech may have been a bit incoherent. As it was an open bar everyone was anxious to see that I had a drink. My father-in-law had hired a small band with great music and my only regret is that the night just wasn’t long enough for me to dance with every woman at the reception. I hope they understood but I did need to dance with my bride, too. I remember we were too exhausted to do anything except collapse into unconsciousness on the bed on our wedding night. My wife was finishing up school so we delayed our honeymoon out in the Rockies until later in the summer.

Yes, I’m still living happily ever after.

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A bunch of us are going over to my in-laws to help eat my nephew’s “Christmas”turkey this evening. Apparently some companies still present turkeys to their employees. What’s a single guy going to do with a big turkey? I know it’s the thought that counts but I think a grocery store voucher might be more appropriate these days. What if an employee is a vegetarian or from a culture where turkeys are sacred? Anyway I’m sure we’ll enjoy.

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Through the magic of forwarded e-mail I found out my brother, the teacher in Thailand, and his family will be coming back here just for the summer (he extended his contract for one more year). At my wife’s suggestion, I have invited them to stay at our place if they want for all or part of their stay. We could make the “study”an extra bedroom or there’s always the basement room though I really do have to fix that futon mechanism (It was probably damaged at some kids' party — not mentionning any names.). We’ll see what they say.

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My brother seems to have more time on his hands than I do. But his joke within a joke for this April Fool’s Day, 2003 is kind of cute. I changed the names just because.

Dear Friends and Family: April 2nd, 2003

In the way of wishing you all well, and giving you a smile to boot, let me tell you about the fun we had yesterday, April Fools Day 2003.

I did my usual, expected, and much appreciated, morning rigging of the house for the girls. Things falling out of cupboards, toilet paper strung over the living room, things out of place, and so on. But the best joke of the day had innocuous beginnings a couple of days earlier. On our happenings of the month calendar, posted on a kitchen cupboard, I noted that Aunt Barb (Olivia’s sister and a much loved guest) was due to arrive for a visit from Toronto on April 1st.

My girls were not about to believe that. But Nadine took up the challenge and suggested to Olivia that she call Barb and have Barb call me to confirm her arrival. So, when I got home from work on Tuesday, April 1st, there was a message from Barb on the answering machine saying she was arriving and could she be picked up at the airport that evening.

Only for the briefest moment did I have a wisp of doubt about the bogus nature of this message. After all, it was I who had started the joke. Still, Rebecca was privy to this development and I decided, in consultation with Olivia, to play along. In Rebecca’s presence I told Olivia about my plan to head out to the airport that evening at 8:20 to pick up Barb. Rebecca was, just barely, biting. She looked incredulous. Is Dad really falling for this?

Nadine was still at work at the BC legislature (as a page) and was going on to her friend Ally’s place from there. I had earlier in the day told Nadine that I would pick her up at 8:30. Leaving at 8:20 was perfect for picking up Nadine, and off I went at that appointed time, supposedly for the airport.

Olivia reports that my absence was a highly charged time, especially for Alexandra. She felt terribly guilty about my having to drive all the way out to the airport for nothing. Maybe they had gone too far with this gag. Olivia reminded Alexandra about pranks I had pulled on them in the past, and ‘doesn’t he deserve some revenge?’

When I arrived at Ally’s place, and after waiting a suitable amount of time for my pretended trip to the airport, I phoned home to complain to Olivia that there was no sign of Barb anywhere at the airport. Olivia put a delighted Rebecca on the phone and she whooped “April Fools!”at me over the phone. By this time Alexandra, drawn into the gag but never having fully believed any of it, was on the other phone. To both Rebecca and Alexandra I complained bitterly about having driven all the way to the airport for nothing and, ‘boy, you really got me this time.’

Olivia, witnessing from the home end, said this was a priceless moment. Simultaneously Rebecca and Alexandra’s jaws dropped. They had actually pulled off a major joke on their wily Dad!

Clearly, Nadine, whose friend’s house I was at for the airport call, was on my side of the joke now. As we drove home Nadine suggested I drop her near the house but not where the car would be seen. She would explain that she had got tired of waiting for me to pick her up and that her friend’s Mom had dropped her off. This would corroborate that I had indeed gone to the airport.

After a short delay to allow for Nadine’s entrance, I pulled in in the car. I walked into the kitchen where the family was assembled, anticipating the final revealing of just who had fooled who. Rebecca said something about my airport trip and how they had really fooled me. I said that it remained to be seen who the real fool was.

Then the final twist came out. You see, I am not too familiar with cell phones. After I had truly hooked Rebecca and Alexandra into believing that I had gone to the airport (Alexandra had said, in amazement, “Are you really at the airport'') I disconnected the phone. But I pushed the wrong button. While R and A were standing with dropped jaws, and after I thought I had hung up the phone, Nadine’s friend Ally yelped in the background about how convincing I had been and “you sure fooled them.” Alexandra described how they had heard Ally’s yelp and had had their own chortle at me after the phone was finally hung up. Alas, the last laugh was on me.

Love, Todd, Olivia, Alexandra, Nadine, and Rebecca.

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Cold

It was -5°C this morning. There was a brief snow flurry blizzard just before noon. By the time I went outside at 12:30 p.m. the sun was out again with snowy shadows here and there. I went to the store and post office to by a birthday card for my brother in Thailand. I don’t know whether he reads this but you can him a card is on it’s way. I wonder how long it will take to get there? Anyway, I heard on the radio that a cool spring is good: it keeps the fruit trees from blooming too soon. They’ll bloom later when killing frosts are less likely. It could mean a bumper fruit crop this summer perhaps.

Permanent Part Time

My wife got good news. She was offered a permanent part-time position at the private school where she teaches music from PK to Grade 2. The only real condition is that she had to do something extra-curricular like a choir or music club or something. She gladly accepted.

Not a Handyman tonight

My brother-in-law, he of the flooding apartment fame, had his dryer conk out. I suspect the spraying water from the burst hose problem got into the dryer stacked above it. Anyway my wife ordered a new washer/dryer stack from Sears and it was delivered today. Of course, they didn’t connect it so I thought I would have to do this tonight. Fortunately, my brother-in-law and his wife were going out. Good thing as I had library books to return and garbage to put out. The connections will probably be Wednesday’s evening job.

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My older son and his girlfriend came for a visit and brought their 12 week old Golden Retriever pup, Cricket. Is she ever cute. As I lay on the floor she licked my fuzzy head and bearded chin. Cute! My son said everybody at work commented on her big paws and how she would grow into a big dog. We took her for a walk around the block and met a man with his dog who made the exact same comment. Dog owners all think alike I guess. Did I say our son’s puppy is cute?

Originally they weren’t going to stay for supper but we convinced them that the meal-time didn’t have to be a sit-down-at-the-table affair. We could all watch the puppy and make sure she didn’t sneak off to pee somewhere. She was good dog: no messes today.

Though the temperature was below 0°C this morning I ran my usual weekend spring-summer-fall route — the slush is gone, most of the mud has dried up and the boulevard grass is dry enough to run on once again. My feet and legs appreciated that extra bit of “give''. I didn’t end up fertilizing the lawn as I didn’t have any fertilizer. I thought I did; however, all those pails are full of screened compost waiting to be spread on the gardens and lawns once things start growing again.

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It’s a co-incidence, of course, but I learned yesterday a sister-in-law is expecting her second come August — a new life. And today an email arrived at work about the sudden death of a person at work. Probably someone I would have recognized if I saw him but the name wasn’t familiar. A fellow cubicle farm dweller said he had just talked with the guy last Friday. Rumour is that it was some type of aneurysm. My sympathy goes to his family. And my congratulations go to my brother’s family whom I also hear are going to be moving into (larger?) digs soon.

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• It started off when, ah, I took a later train this morning even though I got up at the regular time.
• My sister dropped by my office. She's back at Kinectrics doing some contract work for a few days. Not only is she meeting her old friends here but the commute is half an hour less. Anyone could use an extra bit of shut-eye or hanging around with the kids, time.
• The temperature peaked at 17°C during lunch time. Too bad I hadn't brought a pair of shorts with me. I did walk to the local Canadian and bought one of those 12V air compressors on sale for $10: the last time I went to the local gas station the air pump was broken.
• My younger son got his first conditional university acceptance from Lakehead in Thunder Bay — about as far away from home as he could get, yet still be in Ontario. Apparently he was so elated he hugged and kissed his mom — very unusual for this boy. He has until June 16 to accept and it's conditional on keeping his average above 70.
• My wife found out from her colleague, whom she job-shares with, that the principal of the school expects to keep the same arrangement for the next school year.
• Well, not every thing was good this St. Patricks Day:
  - All foreigners including UN staff and arms inspectors are scrambling to leave Iraq.
  - President Bush gives Saddam and his family 48 hours to leave or “face the consequences”.
  - I rolled up the rim but didn't win.

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On Sunday we visited my older son and his girlfriend to see their golden retriever pup, Cricket. Very cute! Right now she's not much bigger than the two cats but that will change. Just like a baby, she slept most of the time while we visited — this too will change. During her sleep she dreamed, wiggling and yipping a bit. We were wondering just what a little puppy dreams about: her world has been the kennel, my son's second story apartment and she's only just been outside to do her business a few times since my son and daughter-in-law got her. My son is looking forward to the disappearence of the snow so he can take Cricket for walks on the trails near Sixteen Mile Creek which flows through the middle of the farm property.

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You may recall that I replaced the washing machine hoses in my brother-in-law and his wife's condo apartment. They complained about their bed — probably over 20 years old, and their TV or at least their closed-caption accessory device. What are these deaf people going to spend their money on anyway. So, today we met them at Costco because the store had a $100 off coupon offer for a matching Queen size bed and box spring set this week. And they also looked at TVs finally deciding on a 27" Sharp model and they also purchased a DVD player. Of course, being deaf, they don't need that expensive amplifier and 5 speaker theatre surround sound system. Their neighbours should be grateful. It was also quite a feat wheeling a queen side bed through the main aisles on a busy Saturday afternoon.

I had brought the old Grand Caravan (doesn't smell good inside now that my son sneaks a smoke or two there now and then.) However, though the van can fit 4x8 sheets of plywood it can't fit a 60" width Queen size mattress, even on the diagonal, so I had to tie them to the top of the van with ropes. Two ropes I fed through the side windows and tied inside and the third I tied from the frame under the front bumper to the the frame under the rear bumper. Then I drove at 60km/h tops, from Costco near Dundas and 403 to my brother-in-law's place in Milton. I think the only casualty was the plastic moulding aroung the side windows: it might have cracked under the strain of taut ropes or because it is so cold out. The drive with Queen-size mattress and box springs' set on top was the first part of the adventure.

I was the first to arrive even at my snail's pace. Once my brother-in-law arrived we took the old mattress set and stacked it in the garbage/recycling room by the door. I rember doing a similar thing at my son's old apartment with a old couch. Then I got the van and backed it up to the receiving doors. Well, apparently this was against the condo by-laws where furniture may only be moved in between 12 and 1 on alternate Saturdays (I exaggerate slightly of course!). The super (on his day off) had been roused by some busy body on the board I guess. He said, well I guess you can leave the new mattress set in this locked area near receiving and exchange mattresses on Monday. Oh, I said, I guess we'll have to take the old one back up to his apartment. Oops. Condo owners are supposed to get rid of their own discarded furniture. Otherwise, the super does it at their expense! "Just following the condo board's rules", he said. Well, Derrick and Carol showed they were reasonable people: I put the old mattress and box spring in my van and we took the new ones (on the QT) up to my brother-in-law's apartment. My wife had suggested I unload the van from the underground parking but I was afraid the van, stacked with mattress and box spring, wouldn't make it through the garage door. The second part of the adventure was over.

I set up the new bed and my wife and I put on the sheets. She had stopped by an M&M Meat Shop so we had lasagna, cataloni and garlic bread. Then we moved the 27" TV, this time from the underground parking, up to the apartment. Fortunately, the only hard part was lifting the sucker out of the box: pretty routine connecting the cable and DVD box. I just made sure the sound was down low and that closed captioning was enabled. Now the two of them are happy and will probably sleep well tonight on the new mattress.

Damm, upon leaving the apartment the van's "Check Engine" light is on. I drove to the gas station. Filled up. Paid $40! (First time I have every paid that much but at 80.9¢/l it's no wonder.) The "Check Engine" light didn't come on again — perhaps there's a loose connection to a sensor somewhere. End of adventure and time for a beer I'd say.

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My cousin Kirsten the forester and her husband Greg, also a forester, have started their own forest. A baby sprout by the name of Daniel David was born on Feb. 7 at 9:10 p.m. weighing in at 7lb, 1oz. and 19" long. The extended Service family keeps on growing. I know the spirit of Kirsten's father whom I knew as uncle Dave, dying suddenly 3 years ago, will surround mother and child with one of his famous hugs. Aunt Shawna is already fiercely proud of her first nephew and I bet Grandma Darleen and step-Grandma Brenda are too. My only disappointment is the child is two days late (Well not really, but it would have been cool to have had my cousin's kid be born on my birthday)!

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It was a cold, snowy January back then, just like it is this year. I read in the paper today that January 4, 1981 was the coldest day in Toronto on record at -31°C. My wife woke me in the early hours of the morning to go for a walk. Being a nurse at the time, she wanted to be darn sure these contractions weren't of the false labour variety. They weren't. Shortly thereafter we headed off to North York General Hospital and a few hours later, around 11 a.m., I believe we were a family of three. My older son Ian arrived in the world. Now he's all grown up with a business or two of his own. He lives with his significant other, our "daughter" Brianne, in a semi-rural setting with two cats, a bird and some fish. And, to round out this menagerie, they've put their dibs in for a newly-born Golden Retriever pup.

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The "super" came into my brother-in-law's condo early this morning to shut off the laundry hose faucets. One hose had burst and flooded his apartment, the hall, and some apartments below. As he and his wife are deaf, they didn't hear it happen and it was a neighbour two floors below who alerted the superintendent about the problem. Apparently this is the third occurence in this building. There have been notices in the residents' newletter to change your washing machine hoses. Why do I know about it? My wife has power-of-attorney over her brother and sister-in-law's financial affairs because they are deaf and mildly mentally challenged. She was called out this morning and she expected to have to clean up. As I said the condo has has experience — an emergency crew had already cut up and disposed of their carpets and had put several large industrial drying fans about. My wife and I went tonight: me to install "burst-proof" stainless steel braid hoses and carry boxes and she to pack up the china and glassware in the china cabinet so the carpet layers can move the furniture. And here I thought it would be quiet evening. Normally I would have been section leading at the Tuesday night community choir practice; however, the director wasn't sure I would be needed this term nor whether the choir could afford it for the time being. Still, I did have enough time to verbalize here.

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My Mom has been typing out the journals she kept as a young mother over 40 years ago. I won't publish those — you had to have been there or married into the family to appreciate the family history. This excerpt is apparently my first letter writen to my Aunt Mary.

Dear aunt Mary we hope you have a very nice time and the rest of you this winter. I am in Grade 2 and I am reading very, very good and the book I am reading is called We Are Neighbours. We have Gym every Tuesday and Thursday and We have library every Friday and We larn Arithmetic and I made your house at the bottom of the letter. From Jimmie Service

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Attendance:

• one uncle (of the four surviving brothers)
• 11 of us cousins ranging in age from 23 to almost 48
• 5 cousins' kids ranging in age from 2 to 22
• 10 spouses / partners — the people who make these reunions fun to be at
• Absent: about 30 (including at least 8 who don't live in Ontario)

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We had the traditional Christmas turkey dinner, cabbage rolls, pethai(?) (Ukranian perogies) and butter tarts at my in-laws place. Not as many were there so all 12 of us could sit around the table. Some years we've had two tables plus a extra card table for the kids in another room. Our white Christmas made for a slow drive there but it did make the arrival of Christmas that much more special this year. I have only time for a quick note as we're off to my Aunt Brenda's to have a Boxing Day gathering of my father's side of the family and have a potlach supper. Today we will also "shower" my cousin who's expecting her first in February.

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The family newsletter sent around with Christmas cards seems to be making somewhat of a comeback. Well, at least in my extended family anyway. Of course I have procrastinated and haven't sent out Christmas cards. So, (not instead but as an alternative mind you) I have posted my version of our family's Christmas newsletter here.

My Younger Son

He has the dubious distinction of being part of the last ever OAC / Grade 13 classes in Ontario, member of the dreaded double co-hort. He is planning to apply to universities and colleges but there will be stiff competition, of course. The other problem, seldom mentionned, is that these students musn't fail or can't repeat a subject to boost their marks because their OAC courses are obsolete. Anyway, my son is doing much better (dare I be proud to mention top of the class in one subject) in his courses once he dropped one of his math subjects — he loves working with numbers but the word problems in the other one were his bane. He continues to work at the local grocery store, getting lots of hours around Christmas time. As we kept the ten year old Caravan, my son needs the money to help out with the car insurance and pay his own gas so he can drive it to high school. He also bought his own computer (from his brother, natch) and pays the extra cost for his own cable IP address. (Dad's firewall prevented some of his multi-player, Internet games from working properly.)

My Older Son and "Daughter"

Our son has been living with his girlfriend and not only does he love her but we do, too. She's our "daughter", now. In fact, she has an infectious laugh just like my wife's. At the moment they rent the second floor of a former farm house at a horse stable in "rural" Oakville right by Sixteen Mile Creek. I say "rural" as big box stores and access to highway 407 are perhaps less than a couple of kilometres away. The setting is perfect for their two cats, bird and some fish. They don't have a dog (yet!) but several of their neighbours dogs know them well. My son has his own business and a dedicated client keeping him busy; though, he is always looking for more opportunities in hosting, web site management or computer sales. Our daughter maintains her horse back riding hobby by working at the farm (not the one where they rent) and working as a "receptionist". I add the quotes because at that company she seems to be the only computer literate person so she's doing much more that just being a "pretty face on the phone".

My Wife

Can you spell B⋅U⋅S⋅Y? She's working on her diploma in Early Childhood Music Education a program jointly sponsored by Ryerson University and the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) at Toronto. This term she takes two courses and continues those in 2003. The RCM is also developing a music course for infants and my wife is one of only about a handful of students selected to participate in the development and research for this brand new course. Though it is not a credit there is certainly quite a demand for this type of program. Anyway, there's another half day a week for this academic year. Following a contract with a local private school this past spring, she has been hired for a part-time position this fall. She teaches music, song, movement, and rhythm to classes from pre-Kindergarten to Grade Two. She continues to teach voice, piano and music theory privately a couple of evenings a week. The other evenings are filled with course work and lesson planning. Hardly any time to quilt, craft, read a book (for pleasure!) or even sleep anymore. Busy as she is I think my wife has finally found her vocation, she's busy at something she loves: teaching or learning about teaching music to kids. They love her, too. I have never seen so many Christmas gifts from students. Some of the little ones are wont to cry at the disappointment in finding out she's not going to be in their classroom that day. I was fortunate to be on vacation and catch my wife and her students "December Concert" last week.

Yours Truly

I passed the 25 year mark with an Ontario Hydro successor company: six weeks of vacation is a pretty neat benefit. I am definitely not as busy as my wife but I manage to keep myself occupied. I am the bass section leader for a community choir which basically means I get a little bit of money for doing something I love: choral singing. Our community choir joined the Mississauga Opera (MO) to put on a grand production of Verdi's Aïda this past spring. We didn't have the elephants but we did have a stallion pulling a chariot across the stage. Great fun, though if you page back through my blog in May you'll find the music director of the MO was a tyrant, to put it mildly. It put me off joining that opera company.

The Gloat Section

Usually at this point in the newsletter people declare all the places they have been and the great things they bought over the course of the year. Sorry to disppoint. After travelling to the U.K. in 2000 and Italy in 2001 touring with choirs, we rested. Our summer vacation was a quiet one looking after a country home nestled in 100 acres of farmland in Oxford County. My wife bought a year old vehicle as we weren't sure the ten year-old Caravan would be reliable enough to get her to school or downtown for her courses. We continue to share our love of singing in the semi-professional choir the Bell'Arte Singers. We are also the music librarians for this choir. Next year we'll be able to gloat again as we've plunked down our deposit to sing with the Cathedral Singers of Ontario. Their 2003 tour includes a week of evensong at Canterbury Cathedral and a concert at Notre Dame in Paris. It just so happens to be our 25^th wedding anniversary next year, too.

The Pithy Quote Section

My web site is full of stuff and there might even be an inspirational quote or two though I doubt it. I did find a nativity scene by Bernardino Luini.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate at this time of year and a healthy, happy 2003 and beyond.

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At My Sister's Place

Christmas is a time for visiting family. Yesterday we picked up my mother and went to my sister's "new" house for brunch with our families. Unfortunately my younger son and my older son's girlfriend were working. However, my niece and two nephews helped boost that Christmas excitement quotient stoked by Mom's (my sister) insistence we wait to open presents until after the main course. It's a cruel world, eh!

They say the "devil is in the details". Too bad there's a few devilish details to finish off at my sister's place. Plasterers came this week to repair / redo / fix the ceiling. They came without drop cloths, kept leaving the door open and left early. Now, I haven't done much drywall taping and cornering but I think I could do a better job than these yo-yos who are supposed to be "professionals". Good thing my sister and brother-in-law still have that 10% hold back until "completed to their satisfaction".

The 60^th Wedding Anniversary Party

My wife and her sister arranged a party for my in-laws on the occasion of their sixtieth wedding anniversary today. Yes, it is quite an accomplishment my two wonderful in-laws. The extended family already includes four great-grandchildren.

Of note:

• My in-laws were picked up by a stretch limousine. My sister-in-law wanted the party location at the Bluffer's Restaurant to be a surprise so she didn't tell her father. He assumed it was to be at another restaurant where the family had celebrated my mother-in-law's eightieth birthday. He got quite upset and argued with the driver that he was going the wrong way.
• My sister-in-law worked hard and wrote everywhere. My in-laws have congratulatory greetings from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, The Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, His Melness the Lastman, Mayor of Toronto and others whom I have forgotten. I attribute this memory lapse to to the wine passed out amongst us before we sat down to eat lunch.
• We remember sister Corinne who passed away a little over a year ago from cancer. Christmas is a hard time with memories like these but we can't let happier events go uncelebrated: especially at Christmas.
• I met my wife's cousin from Espanola for perhaps the second time in 25 years. They had lost a son through a terrible tragedy when, as a passerby, he tried to intervene in a fight outside a bar. We remember Ryan. Still, these sad events sometimes have a way of bringing families together. This cousin reminds me of his father, my mother-in-law's older brother, one of those persons whose face is always "crinkling" with a smile and a kind word. Unfortunately it's getting too hard for him to make the trip down from Timmins.
• A comment from the restaurant manager to my father-in-law, "60 years ... with the same woman!"
• My father-in-law's parting words to some of his guests, "See you at the seventy-fifth!"
• Good food, good friends, great family — always a pleasure to have been married into this family, oh yeah, and good wine, too!

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Every year at this time my wife becomes the same age as me until next February. I asked her parents and my older son and his girlfriend to join us for supper on Sunday evening. I put on a good meal of roast pork with onions and carrots, roasted potatoes, green beans, tossed salad and sponge cake with butterscotch icing for dessert. The sponge cake only lasted until late that evening. My father-in-law kept glancing at his watch during supper and finally my wife asked what for. He just had to watch "60 Minutes" — such dedication to TV. We chuckled about it and hope we don't become like that when we approach our 80th year.

In other less happy family news, one of my aunt's on my father's side of the family is undergoing back surgery to remove a swelling tumour surrounding her spinal column. Apparently it will be a six to ten hour operation. My thoughts and prayers go with her, my uncle and to my cousins and their families.

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I thought I would share this picture that came attached to an email from a family member recently. Of course, I know who these people are.

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Yesterday I took off work a bit early and visited my Mom prior to Bell'Arte Singers' practice in downtown Toronto. I managed to get her sound card working again but primarily it was good to be there longer and enjoy some good conversation. About a year ago they happened to discover a tumour or growth around her spine when they looked at a routine chest x-ray. She still feels no symptoms but has just recently had a second MRI. Now she and her doctors can find out what, if anything, this tumour is doing. I hope that it's doing nothing or growing very slowly. The tumour or growth is in a very awkward spot to operate and Mom, now in her 70s isn't interested in heroic measures. Fortunately the surgeon is of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school. Apparently she'll know when the growth gets in the way but for now we'll hope and pray that it just stays the same or shrinks even.

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Yesterday's high was 1°C and, indeed, it was -5°C when I walked to the train station yesterday morning. Looking at the forecast I decided to take today off. It's already 8°C and the high is predicted to be 15° — a perfect day to finish vacuu-mulching the rest of the leaves. Tonight's big event is my younger son's Grade 12 graduation. It hardly seems that long, well 18 years a week Saturday, since when I held him in my arms just after he was born. It's also been a year since the passing of wife's oldest sister, Corinne. It has been a hard week for my wife's family trying to get through their daily tasks and remembering. It's part of the magic of the human condition though: as the sorrow arising from the event of the death "heals", we tend to fondly remember more about our sister / daughter / friend's life.

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Today we'll be having my in-laws, our family, and, perhaps, a couple of friends, over for a turkey feast. The bird's about 9.6 kg so we should be stuffing it and putting it in the oven soon. I recall the first time we had everyone over (usually about 20 or so), we got up early Sunday morning and started cooking the large bird before heading off to church. It was cooked by the time we got home around 1 p.m. and there was still 4 hours to go until supper time! Well, it will be fun to have family and friends around for a couple hours though, being the hosts, my wife and I don't end up having much time to talk to anyone. And, before you know it, the meal is done and everyone leaves again &mdash something like a church choir party.

There's lots of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend including family, friends, good health, etc. An inspirational witticism eludes me at the moment so I will conclude by hoping that you, also, have many things to be thankful for.

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Whew! I have some time to sit in front of the computer and write something! My large program for work has gone alpha so now it's on to testing. Tomorrow it will be back to Perl in order to process some 50 to 80 Mbytes of the client's text files into a suitable database form for my program.

In other news my sister bought a "new to them" car, a VW Jetta. She's says the 5-speed transmission is FUN (her capitals) to drive. I guess I have been public transitting for so long I don't imagine I would ever find it "fun" to drive. How would I have any time for recreational reading or my daily walk and run, to and from the train station?

Last night an old friend dropped by on the pretext of asking us our opinion on the business he'll be starting on his retirement from being a church minister. Well he brought a young lady, his "boss", and it turns out they are representing Primerica. They certainly raised a red flag for me when she asked to see my life insurance policy. Then she talked at length about a mutual fund and about a home equity loan. I did a little research on the Internet and found this company is in the business of (surprise!) selling life insurance, mutual funds and home equity loans. And, of course, there are fees involved. She also talked a lot but being part of the CitiGroup of companies with "trillions" in assets. This brief look on the Internet also revealed investor class-action lawsuits against some of the companies and on-going investigation by U.S. regulators. Unfortunately for them, I already have life insurance and a home-secured line of credit which is much better than a home equity loan, IMHO. Oh yes, they also asked us for 15 referrals. Could you imagine a roofer guy coming to my door, showing me shingles, asking me for 15 referrals? All this before he did my roof or supplied me with a list of other satisfied customers. I hope our old friend doesn't call back as a sales person.

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My brother sent us an email describing our father's wedding. Dad seems to wonder why we aren't blessing his (fourth!) marriage. Ask him sometime about not attending his own daughter's ceremony but instead going to a his neice by second marriage. Those rose-coloured "love" glasses never seem to allow him the clarity of thought to realize that: having a torrid affair and leaving your first marriage, ignoring the children of your first marriage for years on end, walking out on your second marriage, having a fancy third marriage on the west coast to a rather cold woman with minimal "friendliness" skills and then, surprise, the marriage doesn't last very long. And now marrying once again. Yawn. Ho hum. I hope he's happy but don't expect cries of jubilation from here. He's getting old enough now, that I wonder who will show up at his funeral. I will be there if I possibly can, of course, but will I have much company?

Email withdrawn at Tom's request.

It seems my brother didn't want to reveal his "news and views" about our father's wedding to his fourth wife to the world — just to his siblings. Pity. Perhaps it was the not too flattering description of my father's new wife or maybe his reactions about our father's new step-family. Apparently they had a good time at the wedding reception and that's the main thing. Any time is a good time for a party!

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My nephew, Ryan O'Donohue, sent me a charming poem via his Mom, my sister. The "Basement Dwellers" refers to the fact the the O'Donohues have been living in the basement of their house while a second floor is added and the first floor is renovated — since about mid-July. I saved his Word document as html and copied the html here.

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The Bell'arte Singers had their first rehearsal for the 2002 - 2003 season. This year we'll be presenting the Mozart Requiem and the Te Deums by Mozart and Haydn along with the Bach-Elgar choir in October. We will perform the Requiem again with the Oshawa-Durham Symphony in January. Our own season includes a Chrismas concert and Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms at the beginning of March, 2003. I was glad to see our director also pulled out O Ignis Spiritus by Imant Raminish. We performed this a couple of years ago but it's a tricky piece so I am sure I can learn to perform even better than the last time. My "September voice" is out of practice and dry on account of the anti-ragweed-histamine pills I have to take at this time of year. I look forward to the first frosts which get rid of this particular problem.

The rehearsal venue is not far from my sister's place. Her roof has been raised, the second floor put in, the first floor gutted to the walls. Now there are stairs to the second floor and partition walls have been put on the first floor. My nephews and niece showed off their rooms complete with their very own closets! It will only a few short (long for them :-) weeks I imagine until they can move out of the basement.

Last stop was a visit to my wife's parents. My mother-in-law is feeling much better after her fall causing a dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and broken ankle in June. She's starting to bowl again and do the household chores much to the relief of my father-in-law. He was with his Shriners group during the day helping to serve hot dogs (about 900 he thought!) at a kids' soccer tournament. I BBQ the supper (no hotdogs!) and then we played cribbage for a few rounds before going home more that 12 hours after we left.

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I've set this email as a priority tonight so that it gets done. It has been busy,busy, busy here which is pretty standard for Prem Center. We're now into our third week of school, hard to believe that Cdn school aren't back in session yet. Last week was probably our hardest yet. Crawford had one of the worst viruses yet experienced by his parents. It started with a fever a week ago Saturday. With Advil he slept through the night. On the Sunday he got worse so we took him to the hospital, when they took his temperature (39+) they immediately started to sponge him down, even before the doctor saw him. The Dr. said it was a virus with no secondary infection so he didn't want to prescribe an anti-biotic (a rarity in Thailand, but welcome by us after his last reaction to an anti-biotic). By Sunday evening Crawford had a cough as well as the fever that continued to spike up through the advil. Not a lot of sleep that night as we had to periodically sponge him down to help fight the fever. The neck night it was the seal bark cough that kept us all awake, however the fever had broken. Crawford ended yup missing the whole week of school, His Birthday passed on Tuesday without any fanfare. No Day in the life pictures as we didn't really want to be remembering this. On Friday we had scheduled a party with nine children invited as well as their parents. We decided to go ahead with the party although Crawford was really only operating at 50 to 60%. Sunday we did take pictures and open some gifts and today he was back at school.

Also last week Chrissy was in week two of a Thai language course that she's taking two hours a day five days a week and I had a curriculum evening and a couple of after school meetings. Thank goodness for Ah.

Chrissy and I did manage to go out for dinner for our anniversary on Sat. night (again thanks to Ah) at a restaurant called the Antique House, near the river and the night market.

I imagine that we'll still be a few days relaxing again, but boy is it good not to have a whining, clinging, sick little boy around. We've got the smiley, game playing one again.

Most of the resident kids have now had the same sickness, and quite a few of the new staff. Chrissy and I have gotten away with mild cases of the runs and a few headaches.

Robert

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Hello to you all,

Hope you are all well. It hardly seems possible that September is here already. The summer has gone so quickly. It has been a predominantly hot and dry summer here, where 'hot' means into the 80's and dry means brown 'grass' everywhere. Today, although the sun is out now, we have had some uncharacteristically heavy rain showers to greet the first day back at school. Fortunately, the rain did not start until after Samra and I had finished our morning walk.

This is primarily to advise you that we did not send wedding invitations to family and friends who are a long way away. At the same time though, we assure any and all of those people that if they happen to be in the neighbourhood of Vancouver on September 28th, they are very welcome to attend the wedding and the reception afterward. Also, we are asking that everyone, whether near or far away, to please consider sending a donation to the charity of their choice in lieu of a wedding gift.

I talked to Tom last evening. He is still looking for a full time job, and has just about decided that they must leave Victoria for him to find something. His spirits are still pretty good. We are looking forward to seeing them all here on the 28th weekend.

Love,

Dad / Grandpa

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My brother, a scant a year and a half younger than I am, pushes over the mid-40s mark today. I realize we have lived apart now for a quarter century, each busy with our own lives and families: he in Victoria and me in Mississauga. At least email has come and long distance phone rates have gone way down since he moved out west. We can, if we choose, keep in touch more frequently.

One other thing I am most grateful for, because my brother is so close in age, is that I never lacked a playmate. Long road trips, staying at lodges and cottages, visiting relatives, and so on — there was always Tom to play with. I really can't imagine growing up without a friend and brother "right there". I suppose we fought and argued but I don't remember any major incidents so I guess we got along most of the time. Perhaps Tom has different memories. Anyway, I would like to wish him a Happy Birthday this August 28, 2002.

Much love, from your slightly older brother Jim

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My sister is always doing something interesting: this time she's buying a second storey for her modest East York bungalow. She loves the area, my two nephews and niece live close by a great school, and the house is located, more or less, conveniently for their jobs. The family will live in the basement while the roof is removed and the second storey is added. Then they move up to that brand-new second storey while the rest of the house is renovated. I'm looking forward to that house-warming party.

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I don't know if the "fish are jumpin'", though. My frequency of posting "real" stuff rather than jokes 'n' quotes has gone down because it's just too nice outside to sit at the screen and think.

Cancer in the family again.

One of my aunts has had biopsy confirmation of a cancerous tumour in tissue surrounding the spinal column about the level of her kidneys. Apparently it is quite painful and she's going for daily treatments in London. Let's hope and pray for a positive outcome.

My wife completes Orff Level I

She is back in the land of the living again after an intensive two week course in the Carl Orff beginner music teaching method — Level I. Apparently she did so well that one of her teachers recommended that she apply for a scholarship for the Level II course next summer. Anyway she is now half way through her course work for her Early Childhood Music Education Diploma.

My older son is moving

My son and "daughter" will be moving to an apartment next to horse stables in rural Oakville next month. Unfortunately, the landlord in the big apartment building is sticking to the 60 days notice clause in their lease so they'll have to pay rent in August. September will be covered by "the last month's rent ". Hopefully, their current apartment will be rented earlier than this and they'll get some money back. My son has already talked to the new landlord and explored the possibility of getting a wireless Internet presence there.

Busy weekend

Today it's a pool party at one of my sister-in-law's. Tomorrow it's off to my cousin's cottage near Apsley. They have had the place for many years but this is the first invitation I have received. Unfortunately we'll only be there for the day but I hear there would only be bunk beds if we stayed over night.

 

Posted by jservice at 11:37 AM

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Tom returns home after a teaching in New Aiyansh since last September. His daughters are growing up and he is rediscovering family social interaction once again. His experience reminds me of when I was away for 8 weeks at age 17 during the summer. I had changed and my family's view of me had changed, too. Life marches on even if we aren't there to see it.

My edits are in square [brackets].

Dear Friends: July 5

I am back in Victoria. This time last week I was driving south, approaching Quesnell, BC. At 10:30 PM it was not fully dark. I had already driven for over seven hours that day and I was thinking about pulling up for the night. I had a vague plan to stop at a provincial campground after gassing up in Quesnell. There had been light rain off and on ever since I passed Prince George and turned southward.

Then, at 10:40, a few kilometers short of Q, I noticed a campground sign. I followed the sign off to the right and groped through gloomy, narrow road-trails that led me past a fully booked camping area, past a day use area, and into a tenting site at the end of the road. I plunged the pick-up into the first site that was open.

Reclaiming all my inventiveness, I concocted a kind of tent/lean-to out of a good sized tarp. Then I piled all the bedding I could muster to cushion me from the gravel. In half an hour I had fashioned an abode that kept me dry through a half night of steady rain. And in the early morning I stuck camp to the cackling of loons on a lake that turned out to be only a stones throw away.

*

July 8

I had to stop the story about my trip home as I got caught up in the whirl of family activities. Our computer here sits in the vortex of family traffic. When, after she sought to solicit my opinion about the appearance of our new frig, I told [my wife] that I ought to have a sign on me saying "I'm not here", the said [my wife] stalked off and slammed a door in her departure. There was a comment about my rudeness in there too. This is not the sort of thing I had to concern myself with back in Aiyansh. There I sat alone in my silent classroom with not a soul around to expect a piece of my attention.

Not that I want to glorify that place. It was a lonely place. It was, however, a place where I could collect and marshal my thoughts and have the reasonable expectation of having uninterrupted time to put them into some kind of order on the page. Here I have [daughter #3] in the background. Lovely [daughter #3]. [daughter #3] who will not likely make her way into bed without a parent to actively encourage her to do so. And, since one of her parents has stalked off in a huff, it would seem that that parent must be me. And so, after this sentence I will pause and say, "[daughter #3], are you getting ready for bed?"

Turns out she was in bed. Talking away to herself. "I've been in bed for the last fifteen minutes." Okay, so that's taken care of.

You may be wondering, has Tom found a job yet? I was afraid you might ask that. No, although I am hot onto a couple of good prospects. I am happy that the stress inherent in a job search, and the inevitable financial meltdown that comes with unemployment, has not diminished my pleasure with being home. I love being with all my girls. I can't help looking at them and marveling at their beauty. [daughter #2], in particular, has transformed herself from the gangly awkward look she once had into being a sleek beauty. She is now almost exactly [my wife]'s height.

Another difference about being here is that here my mind is more divided. There are so many things to be on top of as a parent. In Aiyansh I was only nominally a parent. In reality, [my wife] had to carry the whole responsibility for seeing that the family machine kept moving forward. I see it as important that I take a stand with myself about sitting down and making it known, particularly to myself, that "I am writing right now and I am not thinking about anything else." A mind divided cannot be the mind of a writer. Discipline is the word.

This may of minimal interest to you, but is vital to me. So, indulge me while I develop this idea. It has been my weakness in my life to date to allow my mind to be divided. Like the man in the fable who tries to please everyone, the man who allows his mind to be swept away in a flurry of immediate responsibilities is not going to get anywhere or accomplish anything. Sure, I am overstating the case if I say that this story is my story. I have accomplished many things. But I have not taken my writing as far as I might have. I am hanging on to it be a thin thread though. For now these letters are the strongest strand in that thread.

These letters I write are like Tinkerbell. She may die unless enough of you applaud. I need to hear you! Tell me that what you gain from reading my writing merits my effort to keep it alive, even here in the hub of family life in the kitchen of [my house]. I appreciate your encouragement of the past. Keep it coming! Tinkerbell is struggling for air now that Tom is living back in the vortex of family life. Tom needs to know that his writing can survive and, with continuing life support, may one day stand firmly on its feet and, just maybe, lead Tom on to greater fortune.

Now I have to figure out how to reopen my e-mail account here so I can send this.

Love, Tom.

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Julie managed to convince her parents to take the drive across the city to have supper with us last night. My father-in-law is becoming less inclined to battle city traffic as he gets older — and I don't blame him. Doreen asked us not to go to any trouble so we just had burgers on the BBQ and a ceasar salad with farm-fresh strawberries for dessert. My younger son prefers chicken burgers and, as my in-laws had never had these, they wanted to try them too. I have a feeling my father-in-law will probably go out and buy some now. As regular readers will know I helped my in-laws move out of their vacation home last week. John told us about problems getting his money at the closing.

At the end of June, John and Doreen visisted the paralegal in Bobcaygeon handling the sale of their vacation home. He provided his bank account information so that she, the paralegal, could transfer the funds on closing. There is no Bank of Nova Scotia in Bobcaygeon but the paralegal said she goes to Lindsay and Peterborough "all the time" so it would be no problem to transfer the funds on closing day. Well, you can imagine what happened. John knows enough about the Internet to access his account and found no big sum of money in his account after the closing took place around noon. He phoned the paralegal and she said she was "too busy" or some other lame excuse. John didn't sleep well that Canada Day long weekend. On the first business day, July 2, John and Doreen drove up early in morning and parked at the paralegal's house. "A real dump" was the description of her house. She was still in the shower apparently when she was supposed to be open for business. Anyway my in-laws finally got a certified cheque after their weekend of aggravation. Life in a small town proceeds at a very relaxed pace, which is fine, except when you have large sum of money in limbo.

Julie gave her dad a gift on the ocassion of his 79th coming up in a few days. He commented that birthdays crop up quite frequently as his age. We all know what he means.

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It's summertime so I expect the frequency of postings to hubbo.com will decrease.

On the way to my in-laws vacation home on Wednesday afternoon we dropped in on my 92 year old great aunt Edna. She's my paternal grandfather's sister: the second last in that generation. She seems to have multiple problems including heart attack, small strokes, falling often, breathing problems — she's on O₂ right now. She looks far older then when I last saw her at my uncle's funeral a couple of years ago. It's very sad, she told us she was ready to go now. Her life now is a semi-private room from bed to chair and back again.

You may recall that my son and I packed a truck full of furniture from this vacation home a couple of weekends ago. My wife and I helped to pack up the "the little stuff" left over, only about three full-size vanloads full! Who would have guessed there was so much stuff in all the cupboards and closets of the place — the detritus of 15 years I guess.

I have a driving arm sunburn as our 10 year old van has non-functional air conditioning and it was pretty nice day yesterday. Now I am off outside to plant peonies, irises and early blooming daylillies I brought from the (now former) Howards place in Bobcaygeon. I don't keep things usually but I do have a collection of perennials from various places. Some of my daylillies are descendents of those planted by grandfather over 30 years ago, for example.

ttfn

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Our daughter, Brianne, (actually she's our older son's girlfriend to whom we've become very attached) explained those horse show classes to me and why Percy, her horse, was being so ornery.

Well, here's the difference between the flat classes - the first was pleasure hack. Percy was supposed to look like fun to ride. Although he normally is fun to ride, he wasn't looking it much yesterday! He was supposed to be relaxed and nice during that class. The second class was show hack, which means he has to look 'showy' and more energetic. He was extremely energetic all day, although who knows why, since for the past couple months we've been riding in the heat and he's had no energy at all, and he usually jumps much better i think a large part of that ws an equipment problem... more on that later... anyway, i think he's also a good looking horse which explains why he placed in the show hack. the 'hand gallop' (really just an opened up canter) was good for him and i know he looks good doing it. could have been a large factor in that. equitation was the third, where the judge was judging me, but it would have gone a whole lot better if a) percy wasn't getting all strung out b) all the bugs weren't bothering him so much (that's why he was doing that head bobbing thing!) and c) if we'd practiced backing up a lot more in our spare time. i don't think i've ever tried that before! also, i was getting tired and kind of sloppy, due to the fact that it was so darn hot, i hadn't eaten anything all day, percy was pulling down his head especially at the canter, and the judge kept the classes going waaaaay too long! so, plans have been cancelled to go to next weeks show at a farm called old orchard because it takes way too much work, but i am still planning on going to the one in august.

the equipment problem - usually percy wears a piece of equipment called a running martingale. this attaches to his girth and runs up between his front legs to his chest, where it splits into two pieces with rings at the ends. the reins on the bridle go through the loops (one loop for each rein). this is supposed to keep him from putting his head too far up or down when i am riding properly (with contact on the reins). he can put his head as far down as he wants with this as long as the reins are continuing in a straight line, in other words, they are relaxed. these types of martingales are not allowed in the hunter ring. i do not know the reason. they are also not permitted in the flat classes. however, hunter classes do allow 'standing martingales' which also attach to the girth, but only have one strap that attaches to the noseband on the bridle. this really restricts movement of the horses head - and the one we had on percy wasn't his since he usually doesn't use one, and it was about two inches too small for him. i think this is why he was jumping so strangely and why he refused, since he loves to jump and has never refused a jump in the time i've been riding him. i would rather have had him able to put his head anywhere than ride with the martingale, but my coach wanted to use it. we'll know for next time, though! : )

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Dear Friends and Family:

This is likely the last edition of my news from Aiyansh. Next week at this time I will be approaching Vancouver after a two day drive from up here. I may continue to write similar letters from Victoria. This depends in part upon your interest. If I hear from many who enjoy reading my weekly column, who want to still read my thoughts, then I’ll carry on with it.

These letters were meant as a bridges between me and the world of friends and family who I had left behind in the urban world. This is, after all, an exotic place. It is so unlike the heavily human-inhabited environs where most of us have lived our lives.

One reader wrote that the predominant feeling he got from my letters was a sense of my loneliness and isolation. This is an unsettling observation. I would like to think that I have experienced many other feelings here too. I asked a wise woman who moved up here a few months ago, as a nurse, whether she was enjoying herself. She has spent a lot of time in nature, exploring the area. She has a gentle dog with wolf blood whose eyes are a eerie turquoise colour. Vernal replied seriously to my flippant question. She told me that she cannot say she has enjoyed herself here, but she has felt content.

I have felt enjoyment here only in brief moments, and I don’t think I have felt content even for a moment. Vernal is here with her husband Eric. Vernal is, first of all, an artist. She disciplines herself to spend as much time each day working on her art as she does in her nursing employment. Vernal and Eric have their home base in Northern Minnesota. She learned about this two year nursing contract on the internet. They have a small farm in Minnesota, goats mainly. But Eric is retired. A fit man, Eric is often gone for weeks at a time on wilderness adventures. In short, Vernal’s situation is very different from mine.

But is this discrepancy in contentment between she and I a matter of our situations? Or is it an internal matter? The truth is, of course, that there is no clear line that can be drawn between own’s feelings and one’s situation. Each continually creates and sustains the conditions for the other. Vernal disciplines herself to do her creative work, and this in turn creates feelings of accomplishment and contentment. I enjoy writing these letters and the time that I spend writing them is good time for me. Putting my experience into words feeds me. When I write to you the churning of my thoughts calms and my experience resolves into some kind of meaning. Perhaps there are people who hit upon the source of their contentment and build fulfilled lives by mining that source. And then there are those who seem unable to find the source of their contentment and who must therefore make their way in whatever way they can, feeling neither content nor fulfilled. I have been of the latter group. And I hope to change this.

Being here hasn’t changed this. A change of situation, even one as pronounced as this, doesn’t by itself change the person. A beautiful vista does not bring sight to the blind man. My most disturbing revelation this year has been that, so far, teaching doesn’t feed me. I have willed it to and wanted it to, but mainly I don’t enjoy it. Perhaps it is teaching here in a difficult situation that has made teaching unpleasant for me. I am not ready to scrap the business yet, I have invested too much into it. I’ll carry on. But I’ll keep an eye open for that source of fulfillment. Writing may indeed be it. But writing what? And for whom? I am obliged to pay my share of the family bills so my source of fulfillment seems to need some sort of connection to the making of money.

Alas, I have taken a turn in today’s writing into the twisted paths of my inner thoughts. No volcanoes or dogs or Sasquatch or Potlatch to be found so far in these words. This, perhaps, is natural enough. After all, I am leaving here. These woods and people with all their stories and events will carry on without me. I am grieving leaving here. As lonely as it has been at times, my life here has provided me many personal freedoms. My time, apart from teaching, has been my time. When I chose to go walking in the woods there seldom was a competing obligation to prevent me from doing so. And the woods were right there. 10 minutes from my front door I was on a path where in a whole year I only once passed a human being. My path looks down into a ravine upon a snow fed creek that rushes with clear, clean water. There are moose and bear droppings along my path. I meet foxes and other small animals routinely on my walks.

I had secretly hoped that I would find myself here but it seems that I did not. Now I will go home and continue the search. While I was here I missed my wife and daughters keenly. Now I will be with them again. I will see my friends again. I will rejoin my men’s group.

It isn’t what you have or haven’t got around you that builds the power of contentment in life. This contentment is internally generated. Still, I will shed tears to look out my window and not see those snow covered peaks which are here my daily friends. I will not experience that soft blanket of silence which nestles me to sleep here, but which is stolen by the city’s constant drone. I don’t wish to portray myself in melodramatic terms. These feelings are real for me. Leaving here means I am launching on a new adventure. Much of what I have learned here I am as yet unaware of. I bring back gifts hidden in my psyche. I return as an emissary of the great untrammeled wilds. I have had here a moment’s reprieve from anthropocentrism, the terrible disease of our race. Who knows what I may do with the clearer knowledge that our two-legged tribe is far less significant that we imagine it to be?

Anyway, I have drifted around enough for one day, I’ll be in touch,

Love, Tom.

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Dear Friends and Family:

Are you still out there reading these things?

Wow, It sure is hot here! The temperature has been climbing all week under brilliant blue skies. The last couple of days we have been into the plus thirties Celsius. No complaints. The kids have been bringing water bottles to school. Most of the water ends up all over them and the school as a result of the water fights.

On Tuesday I took my grade eights to the volcano; the source of the sprawling, 6 meters deep, lava beds that cover the floor of the Nass Valley. For all the lava that spewed from there some 270 years ago the actual crater was a humble thing. About 30 meters deep and the same in diameter, its sides are dressed in a layer of tenacious lichen. I had pictured a tall, conical mountain whose cavernous center would plunge into unseeable depths. Wisps of smoke would emerge from a bubbling cauldron of lava lurking deep in the Earth’s bowels, poised to spurt out and once again asphyxiate, burn and bury a horrified population.

No. This is an extinct volcano. On the way to the main cone we stopped to peer into a small “spatter cone”. This meter diameter aperture was created when an underground lava stream was blocked off and punched a hole upwards. 5 meters down this cone there was snow that we were told never melts. So much for boiling cauldrons of subterranean fire.

And the big cone is not on a mountain top either. The volcano formed its own inconspicuous hillock of basalt splatter fragments nestled in a valley below the snowy peaks all around it. Comments by my enthusiastic students afterwards usually were along this line:

We walked all that way just to see a hole in the ground.

But they had fun. I was there and saw them enjoying each others company. Personally I was awe struck by the beauty of the hour long trail that we followed to get to the volcano. First we walked along a trail cut into a hill through a mature forest. The sun speckled through the foliage overhead giving a light like that of a cathedral with stain glass windows. The sub soil in the forest was all the black basalt blown rock flecks that had settled from the spewing volcanic blast furnace. This rock is light because it is like a Styrofoam rock, all air bubbles.

Exiting the tall forest we came to a tiny lake which resembled a bathtub on the verge of overflowing. To circle the end of the lake we had to cross foot bridges over a network of creeks which were industriously emptying the overflowing tub. Like the lake, these creeks were at absolute capacity. They were chock full of water and descending rapidly downhill. They raged! A huge quantity of water competed furiously with itself to crash headlong through these narrow channels (at most 3 meters across). The noise and power of the water was thrilling and breathtaking. As we walked on sections of the path which came within an arms length of the creek banks, the roiling current spurted out and splashed at our feet, hinting that at any moment it would snatch us to our doom in this rush to hell. And all this dizzying aquatic madness took place in a sun-speckled woods that possessed the charm and beauty of an elf’s paradise. This was Tolkien’s Rivendell!

Then we left the woods and entered the desert of the immediate volcanic area. Here the sun’s power beat down upon bleak hills. These hills are merely lichen decked mounds of those black volcanic rock fragments. We were fortunate that day to have a cool breeze and an air temperature in the 20 degree range. Today’s 30+ heat would have cooked us but good on our march up the side of the volcano. As it was there were few complains about heat or dehydration.

Our guide told us Nisga’a legends about the volcano while we ate our lunch and peered down at that disappointing, overgrown crater. The word is that some teenagers persisted in tormenting the “humpies” (a kind of salmon with humps on their back) that teemed shoulder to shoulder in the river that year. Despite stern warnings to desist they did things like stick burning torches in their humps. The gods got fed up and BOOM!

When people in one village saw smoke rising in the distance they sent scouts up the hill to see what was happening. The scouts came back with an incredible story of a fire monster reaching its evil fingers across the valley and eating everything in its path. Most of the villagers dismissed this story, who ever heard of a fire monster? (The last volcano in the valley was 10,000 years previously, and there was no oral history of that) But a few decided to run first and scoff later, they headed for the hills. The fumes from the volcano were full of toxic substances and it is said that as soon as the smoke touched them people were turned to stone. Those few who survived did so by getting above the level of these toxic gases and burying themselves to their necks.

The gods of the Nisga’a did pitched battle with the fire monster and, after many set-backs at the hands of this awesome foe, they finally stopped him in his tracks. It was a great bird, laying her beak across the valley, that brought the lava to a halt. Our guide noted that if the lava had stopped of itself the end of its last finger would describe a semi-circle. Instead, the lava stopped along a straight line across the valley. The line made by the bird’s beak.

Afterwards it took months or years for the lava beds to cool. The survivors took dogs with them as they tried to find ways cool enough to cross to where their villages had been buried in lava. If a dog got scorched they didn’t go that way.

Well, by this time lunch was et and our young natives were getting restless. So we retraced our steps along that magical trail. All in all it was a successful day.

May your health grow better daily!

Love, Tom.

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Hello all you great readers out there in other parts of the real world:

I was listening to “Basic Black” on the CBC this morning, Saturday, June 8, and an excellent song was played. A patriotic stalwart of the Canadian music industry, The Arrogant Worms, have a song called “We are the Beaver.” If you get a chance to hear it I think you’ll agree that it makes one want to stand up and proclaim allegiance to our eager B nation. Some lyrics that particularly stood my patriotic hairs on end went, more or less, like this:

All those other birds and animals just TAKE from the land,
But our beaver always GIVES a dam.

And isn’t it just so, eh? That hits the proverbial nail on the head in terms of what I, as a Canadian, believe about my nation. And if you don’t agree with me!? Well then, well, OKAY!, that’s fine.

Yeah, yesterday I went in to the big town, Terrace, for the evening. My groceries were running low for one thing. But I was also responding to an unprecedented opportunity that had been offered me. I was asked by Barb, our school counselor, to sit on a panel of judges at a karioke (sp? my spell checker let me down on this one) contest. Barb’s husband is a principal at a school in way-up-there Northern BC. It is expensive and time-consuming to fly out so he doesn’t get down to see Barb very often. But, when in his home town of Terrace, Barb’s man is known as the king of karioke.

Anyway, their home base for this is the legion hall in Terrace. And this was where the contest was to take place. I had never spent time in a legion hall and this, in itself, was an educational experience. When I first arrived with Robert (our principal, my traveling companion, and a fellow judge) I immediately noticed long tables full of women and men of advanced age and, in many cases, infirm body. My attention then became ensnared by a fellow traversing the room with a cup of coffee. This fellow, clearly of the advanced age corp, had no apparent concern about keeping his coffee still. He wasn’t even looking at it. No, he marched and meandered the length of the well populated hall with his coffee sloshing and swirling. The carpet skirting the bar, from what I saw, absorbed more of this man’s coffee on his passage over it than he would when he completed his swaggering trip to his table.

We ate the steak dinner fare offered at a reasonable price and settled in to the comfort of an atmosphere which was like that of a pub though considerable less formal and more familiar than a pub. More like a club. It was a place where everyone knew everyone and business people, paunchy retirees, and lushes felt equally at home.

Finally, after some technical difficulties with cables, the karioke contest began. This was the finals! No screeching crooners amongst these dozen. They had made the cut and all of them could hold a note. As judges at the judges table we were equipped with reams of score sheets, one for each contestant, and familiarized with our task. Each singer would sing in turn through FOUR complete rounds. That’s 48 songs! Yes, we were told, settle in for a long and entertaining evening.

And so the singing began. Selections ranged from Annie Lennox to the Beatles to Country to some contemporary rock. The singers ranged too. Han, had there been a category for sincerity, would have won it hands down. With eager smile, white dress-shirt tucked into his belly button height black pants, and wispy body, Han sang his selections straight from the heart. I soon become a fast fan of Han the man.

But there were other singers who could belt out a tune without looking at the words on the TV screen. I liked Richard. Richard had the studied presence of a classic crooner as he served out goldies like Sinatra’s “I Did it My Way.” He had changes of clothes to match each of his selections. Richard, very black and round and personable on stage, used a variety of lip manipulations to add texture to his vocal presentation. I found the lip stuff a little distracting. Still, what he lacked in silky smoothness, he made up for in power and feeling. He scored high and, at evening’s end, as a result of his placing by the judges, I dubbed him Richard the III. On my score sheet he tied for first.

Andrew, the man who Richard tied with on my score sheet, walked away with the $1000 first prize. (Yes, you read right, there was a sweet pot!) Andrew seemed to be something of a dark horse. The people I sat near didn’t know him. Andrew, however, was well known to a cluster of noisy female fans in the back of the hall who swooned and cheered his Tom Jonesian gestures in their direction. I would not have been surprised to see panties flung on stage. Andrew sang country songs and it was, primarily, a country crowd. Clearly he knew his material and delivered it with unwavering skill and gusto. He deserved his prize. Now I imagine him on the road driving a Winabago full of his adoring country dames heading for the next small town karioke contest.

Between songs our friendly MC (president of the legion, head of the social committee, and drinker of a bottomless supply of beer) thanked Rosie’s Delivery Service, Hank’s Auto Parts, and all the other generous sponsors of this event. And I consistently failed to win any raffles or door prizes that I entered. And, at 1:30 am, the event wrapped up and Robert and I began our 1½ hour drive back to Aiyansh. We talked to stay awake, debriefing our judging experience. And we marveled at a northern night that never got completely dark. On the empty Nisga’s Highway we gazed at stars and at the outlines of the mountains against the deep blue night sky. As we approached Aiyansh the eastern horizon was beginning to brighten into shades of yellows and gold.

Be happy and well.

Love, Tom.

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Dear Friends and Family:

The school year is wrapping up and I will soon be heading home. I won't be back here next year. This is mainly because I don't want to be away from my family any more. I greedily listen to the good news from Alexis, Nicolia, and Rhea about their activities and accomplishments and I want to be there to celebrate with them.

I am currently involved in a search for summer - and beyond - employment. Victoria is not an easy place to find work - especially as a teacher - but I am determined to get settled back there somehow. I welcome any brainstorms any of you may have in that vein. I am following all leads. I am thinking in particular about my "transferrable" skills, about what other kinds of work that someone with my “skill set” can make a positive contribution to. I find it difficult to gain a perspective on my own strengths and, also, to come up with a matching set of possible occupations. No big deal, but pass them on if you do have any suggestions these may help me spread a wider search net.

Being near the end of the year I am easing up on my students some of the time. My Grade 9 Career and Personal Planning class comes to me on Friday for the last period of the day only every other week. This has not been a period for which they or I have much academic ambition. I therefore relented when, yesterday, one of the students offered to bring in a DVD player and a teen movie. Unfortunately, the movie he brought would not play. Even before we began setting up the movie other students had asked me if we could go outside. Why not?

So my eight students and I of slipped out the school's back door and gathered for a game of capture-the-flag in the woods. All eight of them were totally into this and obviously enjoyed crashing and creeping through the woods in pursuit of flags, each other, or escape. I just wandered around in the wood lot cheering on whoever seemed to be the underdog. Too often at this age (14-15), and particularly in this native teen population, the teenagers are too “cool” to act like kids and just have fun. Too many are already drinking heavily on weekends and hanging around in peer groups that scorn unselfconscious play.

I found it odd when I came here that many of the teens look upon nature as a boring place where only goody-white people like me would deliberately spend any time. Surrounded in their villages by vast woods all their lives, nature is no novelty to these kids. It is just there, a place which is occasionally good for picking pine mushrooms but is otherwise a tangled, messy place where bears lurk behind every hillock. The woods is a business place with some use value, but not a recreational or intrinsically valuable place.

So, in this context too, I was glad to see these 8 teenagers crashing through the woods and obviously enjoying themselves. All 8 (remarkably, because there are many who are not) of these teens are in good shape and keen to run. I was impressed with their agility, especially how they would run full tilt through a thicket without dashing their brains out on a low limb or tripping up on tangles of fallen branches. Maybe I am reading too much in to what I saw, but I fancied I saw a “native” ability there, in spite of their oft expressed disdain for being in “nature”.

I cheer all you who are overcoming adversity in your lives and carrying on. I sympathize with those of you who often feel that the demands of your life are too great and that you will not succeed in overcoming them. Carry on! It is a difficult life but a good one, all the better for those who have the faith to keep walking forward until the mists of despair lift. Your noble efforts will bring you to a better place.

Love, Tom.

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I have been house sitting this past few days up here in Aiyansh. A couple I recently met asked me to care for their house, dog, and cat while they went on a business trip to Prince George. I don’t know the cats name. But the dog is named Mollie.

I have never lived with a dog. Dogs are different than cats, an animal I am much more familiar with. Dogs, if Mollie is a good example, are way simpler in their behavior. Mollie, apparently, waits with slavish devotion for me to suggest what our next activity will be. Clearly she hopes it will be walking, or tennis ball throwing, or wrestling around, or eating, or some kind of treat. She looks at me with her head cocked to one side with doleful eyes and silently hopes.

Mollie is a large size dog, and just a little portly. But, despite her heft, she lacks nothing in enthusiasm for her favorite things. For instance, she loves BIG sticks. Sticks 2-3 inches thick and 6-8 feet long are just right. Throwing these sticks for Mollie brings to mind the Scottish caber toss. Great fun for me is throwing these logs into thickets and watching Mollie attack the job of getting them out. For, you see, she grabs the stick roughly in the middle and then has a trial getting through the thicket with a yard of stick flanking out on either side.

Not fun is when I have gone ahead, enjoying a moment respite from Mollie’s deep breathing enthusiasm, and Mollie comes barreling up behind me with spar in mouth and buckles my knees with her mouthpiece. “Now, where is the next thicket?”

Also left in my charge is a DVD player and a sizeable stack of good movies. It took me a while to figure out which of the three remotes, each with more buttons than a typewriter, operated which machine. In fact, I am still not sure which does which. Still, I can make the movies run and that’s all I ask.

I notice that married couples without kids, each on their own career path, have way more stuff than married couples with kids. The universal gym in the basement, all the latest in electronic entertainments, impressive cd and dvd collections, fancy sewing machines and all those tools they advertize on Canadian Tire commercials. And the food! Talk about well stocked fridge and cupboards. “Help yourself,” they said. And I am, but I’ve hardly made a dent in my grazing of cashew nuts, fine cheeses, fancy jams, and so on.

I don’t feel guilty about helping myself. They aren’t paying me to look after the animals. And Mollie’s pitiful look as I leave for school in the morning does exact a psychological toll upon me. In the morning, as per instructions, I do throw her the tennis ball a few times off the back porch. After a couple of throws Mollie will stop to do her business and I can feel good that I am leaving an emptied dog in the house. But the cost in tennis balls! Mollie goes careening off to retrieve the yet to be launched ball and I, being a novice with the no-hands-on-the-slobbery-tennis-ball-flinger, may send the ball in an entirely different direction to Mollie’s flight. Mollie arrives to no tennis ball and all my shouting and finger pointing seldom avail to direct Mollie to the mis-thrown object. She circles and sniffs hopelessly about in arcs that seldom even encompass the lost ball. Generally I then have to wade out into the muck which is the “backyard” to retrieve the ball myself. Often, as I do so, I find other balls which have been lost in similar incidents.

I took my grade 8's outside for the later half of their Friday class today. With the good weather they are keen to be out playing. And why not? I hold this treat over them and make them work all the more productively in the first half of the period. We went out behind the school and played a kind of cumulative tag in the woods there. When you get caught you join those who are “it” in pursuit of those not yet caught. I volunteered to start as “it” in one game. And boy those kids are fast! Anthony, who I had in my grasp, charged into a pile of fallen saplings. As I reached for him I tripped and landed on top of him. He scraped his elbow but soon joined me in the hunt. Another class of grade 8's, passing at the time, greatly enjoyed my fall. Is there any greater joy in life than the ungainly downfall of an authority figure? In a couple of weeks I have organized a field trip for the grade eights to the site of the volcano which, 270 years ago, buried the Nass Valley in lava. I’ll tell you more about this in subsequent letters.

Love Y’all, Tom.

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It appears that our internet server is down so, although I write this on the 18th, who knows when I will be able to send it.

I drove in to Terrace yesterday, where we do our shopping. Occasionally I get to make the drive myself because I drive in my friend Lyle’s family. They have a mini van, but Wilfred no longer drives because his sight has almost gone. Amy, Wilfred’s wife, doesn’t drive. Nor do Corlee of Rollie, their daughter and son. Both the latter are in their twenties. Corlee has resisted all family urgings to get her driving license. It would be helpful for her to have this since she would have this vehicle at her disposal and since she has two young children. Seems like this is a maturity thing, Corlee appears to lack confidence in herself. Her children are fatherless and she lives with them at home with Amy and Wlifred.

Rollie (I’m not sure of the spelling of his name) is a simple minded young man. He is lucky to have a janitorial job in this community where the unemployment rate is roughly 85%. Rollie, who also lives at home, takes great delight in spending his salary on toys and gadgets. Yesterday he bought a cell phone. With this phone he will be able to call home from his janitorial job - a 10 minute walk away. I suppose he can also call his friends. He spent the drive back chatting to anyone who would listen about his new cell phone.

In all there were 7 of us in the van, a full load. I like driving them into town, it gives me that father feeling that is I so miss up here. I get to take care of this motley family of three generations. Last time I took the whole crew in was the first time I had sat with them in a restaurant. Six small Indians and a big white guy. We drew a few looks, but I felt good about them obviously wanting me to be there eating with them. Yesterday was the second time playing out that scene. This time it is was at a Chinese restaurant. Corlee’s little guy, at two years old, was definitely out of sorts. He wanted to climb all over the booth and proceeded to wail like a skewered casualty when obliged to sit still. Corlee took him in the bathroom where, behind two closed doors, the entire restaurant continued to hear his heartfelt protests about the unfairness of life to two year olds.

I am accustomed now to the pace of these family town visits. For instance, they invariably finish with a fill up at a native-run gas station just outside of Terrace. With a status card, gas is discounted there. Although our reason for going there is to fill up with gas, and although the family has spent the day in various stores stocking up on food, we nevertheless spend about half an hour at the gas station because Corlee and Rollie feel impelled to fill a shopping bag full of junk food from the gas-station convenience store. So that sense of we’re-just-going-to-fill-up-and-go-home is an illusion best let go of. We don’t head home until we are on the road again. Even then there are usually grumbles from someone about some essential errand not done that will - sigh - have to be done on the next trip.

We were back on the road by about 9:15 pm. The broken cloud cover of the day had finally yielded to clear skies. The light stays around noticeably longer at this northern latitude. Full dark didn’t come until we were pulling back in to Aiyansh at around 10:45. The roads for the hour and a half trip back were clear and pretty much devoid of traffic. This road, after you get 15 minutes out of Terrace, leads only to the Nass Valley community. So, except at certain peak times, like Friday afternoon, when everyone from here is traveling to or from Terrace, there is seldom more than the occasional other vehicle on the road.

As we came back into Aiyansh it was dusk. And I was driving through frequent patches of low lying mist. I had to be on the alert to track to the unlined road through the failing light and fog patches. Also I had in mind the story of a couple of people who ran into moose along this road last week. (No serious human injuries). As I drove I pondered that although tales of hitting moose are fairly common, I had heard no stories of bear accidents. It is one of my pet peeves right now that I have seen as many moose as I have seen Sasquatch. None. But I have seen lots of bears along the highway.

Anyway, about 10 minutes out from Aiyansh, what should run out in front of our careening minivan but a big black bear? It was suddenly there, a black hulk darting out from a black roadside. I really could have done nothing to avoid it if it had made the dash a fraction of a second later. As it was it streaked across in front of me and my slight swerve to avoid it made no difference, it was gone and the family, and the bear, were safe and homeward bound. And that is all my news for now.

Love, Tom.

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My wife's Aunt Laura passed away early this morning at the age of 87. She had been in a nursing home for the past 16 years due to the stroke she had suffered. My mother-in-law sounded devastated when she called: First it was her eldest daughter, Corinne, who succumbed to cancer last November and now her older sister has passed away.

Laura Gauthier always had a cheerful disposition and loved to flirt with the men she met. We'll miss her.

The visitation at the Giffen-Mack Funeral Home in Scarborough is from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday. The funeral, at the same location, takes place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

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Quite a busy weekend at the Service household. Our "home" choir the Bell'Arte Singers taped three works for attachment to a Canada Council grant application. Our director said the taping would take one and a hours "tops" but, of course it was probably closer to the two and half the rest of us were expecting. The BAS recorded:

• Srul Irving Glick's setting of the twenty-third psalm part of his "In Memoriam Lenny" suite
• "Requiem of Ice and Snow" composed by our own Benjamin Bolden part of an opera he is composing
• "Libera Me" composed by another BAS member, Victor Mio, in memory a BAS tenor, Phil King, who succumbed to brain cancer a couple of years ago.

Recording is quite different than singing at a concert. In both cases we have to sing our best; however, little details that an audience might forgive (or forget :-) such as loud page turns, a cough, pitch problems, ragged entries, etc are quite audible on tape. At least with digital recording you can re-sing the "bad" verse or do a couple of takes and interweave the good bits with too much pain. I remember taping a seven verse song with a choir twenty years ago with the old analog methods. Each time a mistake happened even if it was verse 7 the choir had to start all over again.

After the taping we picked up my brother from my Dad's second marriage, his wife and my adorable 5 month old niece and brought them to our place for a barbecue supper. We had a very pleasant evening. After we dropped them off we stopped off at my in-laws and put some flowers on the porch. It was closing in on midnight so we didn't knock on the door.

It rained all day. Boo!. I slept in 'til 9:30a. Yay! I am usually an early riser but the dull weather fooled my body. Anyway my older son and girlfriend (our daughter, but that's a story for another day) invited us to their friends' (another young couple who have just bought a house) place to have a Mother's Day party. We had already met their friends mothers at their open house in April. The kids cooked a fine meal of burgers, corn-on-the-cob and Caesar salad. Our "daughter" baked a delicious 3-layer, inch thick iced strawberry cake. Yum!

I can hardly wait until Father's Day!

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On an evening when dark thoughts fill my brain it is hard to know what to write. These dark thoughts will pass and a brighter day will dawn, so I do not want to dwell on them.

To shelter myself from this storm I have been taking refuge in a tomb of a book, THE COUNT OF MONTE CHRISTO. This book gives quite a ride for your read. On the eve of his marriage the young Edmund is whisked away on false charges and thrown in the dungeons of the French version of Alcatraz. After 14 years in this hell, and after befriending the elder inmate in the next block (whose escape tunnel mistakenly took him to the adjoining cell), our hero makes a remarkable escape. From simple fisherman, then inmate, Edmund transforms himself (via the tutoring and buried treasure of his deceased prison patron) into the fabulously wealthy and enigmatic Count of Monte Christo. Noone (well almost noone) knows that Monte Christo is the forgotten Edmund.

Talk about a reversal of fortune!

What is remarkable about this book is the character of the Count. With his keen powers of intellect, overbearing personality, multiple intrigues and disguises, and unlimited resources, he sets out to utterly destroy and vanquish the lives of the four men who conspired to falsely accuse him. Vengeance!!! And, I must guiltily confess, vengeance is a delicious driving force for this tale’s plot. Yah! Let’s get ‘em!

But, of course, things are not so simple as that. It turns out that these culprits, three of whom have gone on to great fortune themselves, have wives and children. The Monte Christo one man wrecking team encounters compassionate complications.

Moreover, it becomes clear that the forces driving our good Count are a prison of a different form. Rather than being trapped within stone and steel, this man is trapped within his rage. Hence the book is driven at its deepest level by the healing process which the Count experiences. The mighty wave of his rage crashing in upon the polite society of upper crust Paris is met by an overwhelming return wave of compassion breaking back upon the Count. It turns out that revenge is not the sweet cure which he craved. The count, ultimately, and unknown to himself, longs to find a loved place in the world again, free of both outer and inner bondage.

Dumas is as perceptive as he is conceited in his unabashed praise of privilege. Only the wealthy, it seems, can attain full fledged humanity. The common lot minor characters throughout this novel are moral dwarves, mindless servants, or sloppy miscreants. Even to be truly evil, it seems, one must have a flock of servants and maids at one’s beck and call. Being an eighteenth century novelist, I suppose, one must forgive Dumas this conceit. Even Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE is peopled only by the upper echelon of Russian society, and Tolstoy is said to have been a socialist.

Yes, this letter was a change of pace. No news of the Nass tonight. Tonight everything here reminds me of my dog. Take care all.

Love, Tom.

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[At long last I have an email via my Mom from my brother Robert (a.k.a Bob to the family) who's teaching for a couple of years near Chiang Mai, Thailand. It appears his hotmail account has been acting up (sound familiar?). Anyway, there's great news that they will be back in Toronto for a while this summer. It'll be much cooler (relatively speaking, of course) for them here. BTW, "Ah" is the name of their Thai nanny.]

Hi Mom

I'm switching from Hotmail to premmail because Hotmail is more trouble than it's worth I can't even get into it tonight and copy my address book so I can't cc this message to Jim,Tom and Jane. If you don't mind feel free to forward it. Also because of Hotmail this is my second time writing this message; a royal pain in the butt.

We managed through the wonders of the internet to line-up an apartment for the month of July. It's a three bedroom on the second and third floor of a 1882 Parkdale house. The owner is off to England for two months and wanted to sublet. As luck would have it she just needed to get someone for July. We found the apartment through the UofT faculty newsletter classifieds. Chrissy at first found an old issue then I managed to find the most recent one. We sent out 4 emails to those that i) were in our price range, ii) in an area we liked, and iii) had email addresses. We heard back from all 4 and 3 of them were possibilities. [Name] is the woman we're subletting from and I'm going to give her your name and tel. number because she wanted a Toronto contact/reference. We still haven't got flights arranged, but we're going to let the school handle it as they say they can do it cheaper and it is their money. I'll let you know when plans firm up.

The shitty news now. Crawford is well on his way to becoming potty trained. Three poos in a row have gone in the potty. He's also going pee more often than not in the potty. He hasn't peed on the couch or floor in about a week. Yesterday, when he and Chrissy got back from a walk he immediately ran to the potty and peed. Unfortunately he hadn't taken his shorts off yet, but such are the hazards when learning a new skill. Today when Ah and Crawford were visiting with Sue and Roger's nanny Crawford said he had to go pee. Ah held him over the toilet and he went. As you know we were just a little discouraged while you were here, but things are now progressing wonderfully.

It's probably hotter now than when you and Phil were here. We've had some rain over the past week which has started to green things up but it has also added to the humidity. The rain is welcome though and most days it arrives or tries to right at the end of the school day.

That's it for now,

Love Rovart [Robert]

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Here I am, back in New Aiyansh. I have spent the last couple of days in Prince Rupert, where the teaching staff of District #92 gathered for workshops, meetings, and general retreat. I enjoyed some good times. And now, as I said, I am back. And the force of my longing for Rosemarie and my girls is strongly with me again. This feeling never really leaves me, my mind is just more or less distracted from it by whatever else is going on. This palpable feeling of “missing” is not a bad thing. As a strong feeling it has done much to form my character. I have, for instance, become far clearer about who I am and what I like. Still, this feeling is overwhelming at times. I have tried scores of things to be rid of it, and for a time these things help. But when one craves the wholeness of being with loved ones, all the half measures imaginable cannot satisfy that craving. What my heart desires is not here.

The bears are back! Driving up to Aiyansh from Terrace today we saw three black bears along the way, one just on the edge of town foraging in a roadside ditch. It was the second bear’s situation which is remarkable. Doug gets full marks for spotting this one. As he drove in along the unpaved, Lava Lake section of the Nisga’a Highway he noticed a large black blotch in the treetops off to the left of the road. On slowing down to take a look this black blotch turned out to be a black bear. About 30 meters up in a 35 meter high alder tree this full grown bear was perched, reaching out front paws to pull in twigs and craning out its neck to sweep these twigs through its mouth - presumably stripping off the leaf buds. I cannot imagine myself, weighing less than that bear, climbing up that high in a fairly small and springy tree, let alone doing gymnastics up there to strip the top twigs of its budding greenery. We expected at first to see the bear come crashing down at any moment. But the bear’s obvious skill and comfort with this apparently ill-advised method of food gathering was an education. We could see the relation of these black beasts to pandas in their bamboo forests and, also, the bears mammalian relation to the four leg using monkeys. Tottering in the wrist thick upper limbs of an alder tree, it turns out, is a propitious place for a hungry big black bear to be.

I took a healthy step out of character last night and hung out in the bar of the hotel we were staying at in Prince Rupert. There were about twenty of our party there, with only a handful of us being non-native. I sat with, among others, Charity and Lillian. We were playing popular song bingo on cards that bar staff handed around. Those whose songs were played such that they filled up their lines, or three lines, or whole card, first, won a t-shirt. But mainly we sucked back beers, and worst, and engaged in the ridiculous, rollicking, and irrelevant conversation unique to bars. Lillian and Charity, fast friends and boisterous bar buddies, animated the evening with their good humour. Both are elementary teachers, mid to late twenties, married, mothers of four, solidly built, and of Nisga’a blood. I’ve liked Charity, who works in my school, from the first day I met her and she began her merciless teasing campaign. Oakily-Doakily she christened me. Many of the veteran teachers here remember Charity as a live-wire student. One of those students who gives teachers gray hairs by constantly talking during lessons but who, on the other hand, is a dynamo of initiation and participation in school activities.

Late in the evening (1:30 am?) Charity turned from her party spirit and began to speak her well lubricated but nevertheless lucid mind to me. She told me how the disparaging talk about student performance in the staff room hurts her, because it is about “her” people, often about students who are related to her. I try to steer clear of such talk, and was glad to have this support for my effort. Charity talked of having her first child when she was 16, and her second when 18. Now she is living common law with a fellow who brought two children of his own into the relationship. Charity mothers four children. Still, after high school she went on with her studies, taking courses offered through the University of Northern BC extension service here in N.A. She eventually earned her BA. The years of her education were hard she said, “we lived like pigs we were so poor.” Charity tried with her BA to find work in the Nass Valley, but could get nothing. Finally, she did one more year of school to become a teacher. “I didn’t want to be a teacher. There was lots of things I wanted to do. But what choice did I have?”

Charity is a good teacher, her students adore her. But she gets flack. It is a strange thing how a small community will ride the back of one of their own. I am held in awe because I am white and tall and a complete outsider. Charity says she hears lots of behind the scenes complaining about me and the other non-native teachers, but all I get is a kind of shy politeness and respect from parents. Charity and the other Nisga’a teaching staff, on the other hand, hear about their shortcomings in no uncertain terms. It is a kind of reverse racism. A lingering sense of cultural inferiority, founded on years of colonial pounding, inclines parents to idolize, distrust, and fear non-native teachers, and denigrate, distrust, and vilify native teachers. All this is just one side of the coin of course. While these attitudes do exist, so also do their positive opposites. And, ultimately, the poles will converge and education here will evolve into the “normal”, fractious, and profoundly flawed enterprise that it is everywhere else.

I wish you all well. If you can spare a prayer, cast an encouraging one our way as Rosemarie and I try to solve the dilemma about how to reestablish our family in one, prosperous place.

Love, Tom.

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Well, the big news all week in Aiyansh has been BC premier Gordon Campbell’s visit. He spent two hours here this afternoon, at the invitation of Joe Gosnell, the leader of the Nisga’a national government. No-one that I have talked to has been happy about the prospect. For one thing this is not Liberal country. In the whole Nass polling area the Liberals drew seven votes in the last election. For another, Joe is not a popular leader among many here. I have heard many express frustration about how little has been accomplished under Mr. Gosnell’s leadership with respect, for instance, to fostering a local economy. More, they say, has been spent on bureaucracy, nepotism, and show, than on the substantial moves towards economic independence that many had hoped for here. Inviting Campbell here is, many feel, under the category of show. “What are we going to show him?”, my colleague Colleen wondered.

Speculation is that Campbell is trying to score points as a friend of native people at time when his rigged referendum on the native treaty process, obviously designed to scuttle this process, is languishing due to voter apathy and/or enmity. Campbell voted against the Nisga’a treaty two years ago. Native and non-native alike, we didn’t know what to do about this visit. Village leaders enjoined us not to make public protests and thereby cast a poor light on Nisga’a hospitality. The consensus emerged over the week that the best thing to do was stay away. There were, in the end, a handful of polite protesters, but the main response to the Campbell visit to this “remote village in the Rockies”, as reported on CBC, was no response at all. A skeleton troop of dancers, a meal in the Nisga’a parliament, a quick tour, and off he went - nothing resembling a gathering of the onlookers, let alone admireres.

Ray Guno is a quiet man with a thankless job. He teaches the alternative program here. These dozen boys are each extremely challenging and entirely beyond management in the regular school. He has them in a separate building where he tries nobly to steer them toward learning anything at all. Ray is an intelligent man with deep and heart felt convictions. When it was time a few years back to have the community vote on whether to ratify the Nisga’a Land Claims treaty, he believed that the Nisga’a negotiating team had not asked for what they the people of the valley deserved. They had, in his view, sold out. The vote was held in the large community hall and it was done by a show of hands, or, rather, by standing. Ray was only one of three who stood to oppose the treaty. He feels that there was a widespread sense that the negotiators should go back and demand more, but in a public vote the majority feared standing up publically to oppose the settlement recommended by their leadership. A private ballot, Ray feels, might well have gone the other way.

Ray posted a letter around the village expressing his views about the Campbell visit. Some quotes: “Mr. Campbell has tried once already to strip you of your rights when he and Mr. Plant launched a lawsuit against the Nisga’a Nation two years ago. Having failed that, he is now trying to use the hated referendum to limit the rights of other aboriginal people. He will stop at nothing to accomplish his mission.” And “during their civil rights protests in the 1960's, Black people did not invite the Klu Klux Klan to a Sunday brunch.”

Need I say more?

Love, Tom.

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April 20, 2002 Sasquatch Sightings:

Dear Friends and Family:

As you can see, I am keeping an accurate log of these extraordinary sightings. So far, from my Sasquatch lookout, I have seen, more or less, none. This remarkable record so far gives me great hope for future sightings. At this point my numbers have nowhere to go but up.

Now you may not know that the Sasquatch, a notoriously shaggy biped, goes way back in the stories of the tribes of BC's north west coast. And, this past week, a reputable fellow in New Aiyansh saw one up by the flat, up against the forest, behind the old soccer field. No kidding! C'mon, now I know I gave you a line about that grizzly and the kids and all that, but this is not April 1st now and I wouldn't pull your leg on something as serious as this. This guy actually saw a bona fide Sasquatch just up the hill from here.

My subsequent suggestion that the Nass Valley be renamed Sasqatchewan has, however, fallen on deaf ears.

Now, the thing is this. Remember when I told you in the Fall about my stone moving exercise? I'll refresh your memory. Now that the Spring has finally arrived and the snow has almost all vanished I have resumed my twice weekly transfer of a pile of hefty rocks from one place to another. This is my unprecedented way of maintaining my upper body fitness. I was moving my rocks this morning in fact, and also I was up there last Wednesday evening (I love that we now have usable daylight up to about 9 pm).

Now, the thing is this (I'm now going to get to the "thing" which I earlier referred to) (wait, here it comes now), the place where the Sasquatch was sighted is precisely the place where I go to shift around my boulders. No kidding! Now you should all know that I am not an especially hairy guy. Besides, given that people driving by could see me carrying my stones, I always do keep my clothes on throughout the process (I would, in fact, keep my clothes on in any case). Also, my hair, what I have of it, is neither dark, nor long, nor shaggy. Which all goes to establish that the Sasquatch sighter could not possibly have seen me man-handling stones and concluded that I was a Sasquatch. It wasn't that dark yet at that time that Wednesday evening and, as strong as the stone moving business has made me, I cannot claim to have the hulking build of your typical Sasquatch.

And so, I am keeping an eye out for the Sasquatch. The one this guy saw had red eyes so I should be able to recognize him. (The red eyes are further proof that it wasn't I, I have blue eyes).

Last night three of my teaching buddies and I joined a bonfire-party down along the rocky shore of the Nass River. We showed up well after all the food had been eaten and, in fact, just as everyone was preparing to leave. The party was in honour of Nancy, our now former village pharmacist, who is leaving this weekend with her boyfriend to settle in Alberta. So we said goodbye to Nancy, and to all the other people there who were going home, and hung around the dying embers of the fire for another half hour. We told jokes and marveled at the northern lights that were trilling and fanning across the clear night sky.

Tonight I am going to another feast. For the first time ever this feast will be a combination settlement and funeral feast. The settlement part is for Alvin Mckay, the main negotiator of the Nisga'a Treaty. There will be much pomp and ceremony to mark the final farewells to this important elder. I won't have the camera unfortunately. If I did I would take pictures of elaborate headdresses and flowing black and white button blankets. I am looking forward to it.

I pray that you are all well,

Tom.

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Dear Friends, Family, and Other Readers:

My mother and uncle are, at this moment, abroad. They are visiting my brother Robert and his family in Thailand. First reports back from my mother tell of wonderful things. To compress, she tells of delighted elephants decked in rainbow colored silks prancing through night-time markets sampling unrecognized fruits bearing Sanskrit labels. And, if you think such sights are beyond belief, then you’ll likely also doubt tall tales of grizzly bears padding through New Aiyansh in the close company of delighted children. People will write anything, especially on April 1st. They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but when you’re second you’ve got to try harder.

I did go to a settlement feast last week. For those of you who have not been doing your Nisga’a homework, a settlement feast is given well after a death (usually a year, but this was over two years) to settle the affairs of the deceased. For instance, during the afternoon prior to the feast, the gravestone is taken in a procession from the family home, in a cart, to the graveyard to be put in place. This feast is a time to remember and celebrate, for the last time formally, the deceased. Also, this is a time when the Nisga’a name of the deceased is passed on to the person next in line in the family. And this person’s name is also passed on, and so on. I have attached a few pictures from the feast to give you an image of the people and proceedings.

Feasts are also crucial events which provide community leaders an opportunity to speak about matters close to the heart of the community. One speaker, who rose towards the end of the evening, set a holy tone to the whole evening, He spoke with obvious emotion of misdeeds that he had committed as a young teen and for which he felt a duty to make atonement. He made the valuable gift of a 5 gallon bucket of oolichan grease to both his cousin and aunt, who he felt he had wronged. This man, in his mid thirties, a father himself of two teenagers, went on to tell of the alcoholism that had gripped him up until a few years ago, and of how this disease had come so close to destroying his marriage to his beloved wife, and squandering his business besides.

Many speakers followed this man to thank him for his example of honesty. My impression was that for the most part these latter speakers were basking in the sense of glory that followed in the wake of the original speaker, hoping perhaps to attach some of this glory to their own credit. Which was fine and excusable, nobody really minded, and it did tend to keep that precious feeling of redemption alive through the rest of the evening. I went up and thanked the man myself at the end. I have taught both his boys and I felt glad for them that their father has such courage. Both his boys struggle in their own way with the rigors of school expectations.

Unlike the last two Fridays, it is not snowing today. The ditches along the roads, in fact, are alive with rushing torrents of muddy water. Bare patches on the slopes are creeping in and disputing ground with the large expanses of snow which still dominate the flats. My evening walks have been blessed with the unusual sounds of birds other that the squawking crows and ravens I have become accustomed to. In short, Spring looks like it is on the way. People here are partial to a slow arrival of Spring because sudden temperature rises with the snow still heavy in the area could mean flooded roads and the temporary severing of our transportation ties to the outside world. I figure I could hold out for a few weeks if need be, bring on the thaw!

Don’t forget to check out the settlement feast pics.

Love, Tom.

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My Mom and my uncle Phil have gone to Thailand to visit my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. My brother is over there teaching at an international school for two years (at least for now).

09 April 02

Hi all of you family. If there's anyone else on our family list who might be interested please feel free to forward.

Yes, I'm fine now. Survived jet lag brought on by 30 hours in transit on 5 flights: Toronto > Anchorage > Hong Kong > Bangkok > Chiang Mai. Of course, there was the time in the limo getting to Pearson, waits in all the airports and a last ride, with Bob to Chiang Mai. One of the reasons for jet lag I deduced is that one doesn't have a proper lying-down-in-bed sleep for several days so there is no demarcation of days or nights. It didn't help that we, Phil and I, started the trip with 17 hours of dark night.

Anyway we're here and overwhelmed by our welcome by R, C & Cr and the terrific accommodation. We're in a ground floor two bedroom apt, en suite bathrooms for us both, kitchen and living/dining room and a patio.

It's cool enough in the morning to sit on the patio, 20 C, and we also go swimming in the Prem pool at 6 a.m. Phil and I chose to eat our breakfasts in the apt and join the others around 0830 instead of eating with them tho' they invited us to be with them for that meal, too.

Crawford is talking very clearly now, understandable in English, but not in Thai which he is learning from Au his nanny

11 April 02

I'll try to finish this this evening so you can all be assured that I'm well and happy.

Every day brings a different adventure. Monday we drove to a temple (Wat) near Chiang Mai. It's a working monestary, since the 14th century and a real beauty. I was still jet lagged so was gasping after the 300 step climb!!! However, it was worth it and Phil, Bob and I rang the row of big brass bells. I chose the set at waist height while the men rang the low ones. one swings the clapper hard enough to strike the bell.

Tuesday was the umbrella workshop and watching them being made from raw bamboo to beautiful finished and painted artistic creations. There were some as big as a satellite dish, or so they seemed

We also visited the salesrooms for Celedon pottery, v. expensive, so a few small pieces coming home with me. And that night we went to the night market a truly difference shopping trip. Everything seemed irresistable and inexpensive, tho I have trouble converting Cdn $ to baht 28baht/$1 and just have to trust the sales people to take the right amount from my hand.

I also swooned over bolts of silk in all imaginable and unimaginable weights and colours.

Wed. We went to the elephant place. Watched a funny fabulous show put on by the baby and adult elephants. They really hammed it up with dancing,playing mouth organs, moving logs, snatching their trainers' hats. It didn't seem exploitive at all. Both humans and elephants seemed to love each other and showing off their tricks. The grand finale was the elephant ride. I was wearing birkenstocks on my feet and had to take them off and put them in my bag so they wouldn't fall off. It was very bumpy in the howdahs, seats like those on ferris wheels, hanging on for dear life when the elephant went down steep hills and aching joints and bruised bums today after that experience.

11 April 02

Today was the day market in Chiang Mai. Lovely chance to see the veg's and fruits and not to be able to figure out what was what. All labels and signs in Thai, which is very beautiful but much like trying to make sense and reading a piece of embroidery. It's based on Sanskrit.

Bleary-eyed and tired so am going to sign off. Tomorrow we're going to a water buffalo training farm. I don't think we're going to see tricks but watch all the machinery they can pull.

Love to all. Mom, DJ, Dorothy

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Dear Friends and Family:

Today is April 5th and the snow has been falling steadily all day here. It is getting to be a bit of a joke. You may think of where I am as Northern BC and you’d be right. But this is supposed to be a “coastal” climate we have here. Residents cannot recall a winter that dragged itself on so relentlessly right into April. We have had another 15 cm of snow today and, reluctantly, I must undertake the 4th “last shovel of the season” of my driveway. It is wet snow, which will make it heavy shoveling.

But I’m not moping around really. A couple of weeks ago I borrowed a pair of the plastic snowshoes that the school PE department has. I figured I might use them to get into the woods once or twice while the snow melts away. Today was the fourth time I have used them. I used them last Sunday after it snowed all day Friday and Saturday. At one point that day, once I was well into the woods, I shed them. They are, after all, clunky and heavy. It seemed that on the path I was on, under the shelter of the trees, the snow wasn’t that deep. And it wasn’t. But anywhere where there was openings between trees, and there was plenty of those further along the path, I was sinking and floundering in heavy snow which was up to my knees. This was exhausting. Fortunately my gortex pants over rubber boots made a good seal, or I’d have been soaked.

So today I kept the snowshoes on the whole time. Being able to walk on top of the snow drifts, even in clunky plastic snowshoes, turned out to be much easier. You know, there is a lot to be said for plastic snowshoes. (And don’t you just know that I’m about to say it too.) You see, your regular wooden shoes, stung with strips of animal hide, are problematic in wet snow. The strips, no matter how carefully you have lacquered them, will begin to absorb the wetness. And, once they become saturated, “Oh no! I ‘ve stepped through the strings!” That very thing happened last week to a snowshoer I know. Those torn hide straps were not pretty to look at, and will necessitate an expensive rebuilding of that shoe. Besides, if you step half on a log with wooden shoes (which is easy to mistakenly do if that log is covered by snow) your weight may easily snap the wood frame. Then your shoe is toast! But the plastic shoe, on the other hand, paddles gaily over sloppy snow and enjoys springing and straddling on all manner of hidden woodsy obstacles. So keep this in mind, you may have cause to thank me for this information one day.

Despite the slow start the word is that the oolichan harvest has been a successful one. Everyone has more of the smelly little fish than they know what to do with and people are spending long hours with cold fingers stringing them out to dry. Time was, some locals say, when the community elders would dictate when the oolichan catch began, and when it would finish. It was considered bad form to be greedy and the elders called a halt when everyone seemed to have what they needed. Those days are passed now and I’ve heard many people expressing concern about the growing size of the take. The thing is that there is a big market for oolichan and oolichan grease along the coast here. And a few of the big oolichan rivers are too polluted to be fished now. So the Nass River product fetches a good price. They say that kids are hawking buckets of oolichan for $20 in Terrace.

The grease making process has been retarded by the continuing cold weather. The first stage of the grease making calls for the huge bins of oolichan corpses to ferment for about 9 days in warm weather while their oil separates and rises to the top of the bin. But, 4 weeks after the season opened, the fermenting process hasn’t had a chance to begin. Still, Spring must come some day soon and the production will really get rolling. Because of cold weather and an ice covered river, my family wasn’t able to get down and witness the catch over the March Break. I’ve heard lots of tales. One custom is that oolichan fishermen are not to wash their clothes during the fishing season. It is said that this may offend the oolichan. And at the end of the season everyone burns their fishing clothes. This would be an example of custom supporting expedience. The smell of the oolichan fishery is legendary.

I have gone on long enough for this week. I hope all who read this are elevated by it and that, in any case, you are enjoying good, or at least improving, health.

A special greeting to my newly 40 brother Robert, and to my Mom who is visiting with he and his family, Chrissy and Crawford, in Thailand.

Love, Tom.

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Dear Friends and Family:

With Spring finally here I am learning new things all the time about this community. I told you before that there is a large bear population in this area. Well, they have all been hibernating of course, making my walks in the woods just that much more relaxing. Bears can never be taken for granted. But this morning a surprising thing happened.

I looked out my window and there, walking down the road and into town, was a grizzly bear. The first one I have seen! I was glad to be inside to watch this spectacle! And then, from the other direction, I see a small crowd of children running up the road toward the bear! My heart jumped into my throat as I desperately tried to think what I might do to distract the bears attention away from the children. But before I could come up with an idea the children were all around the bear, each grabbing a fistful of its hair and joining it for its walk through town.

Shaken, I went out to investigate this incredible event. A young teen, straggling behind the procession, explained to me that for a number of years this “friendly” bear has made this walk through Aiyansh at around this time of year, apparently on his way to the river to check out the spring salmon stock. Every year children have come closer to it as it does its walk through town until, for the past three years, it seems that the bear has become quite comfortable with the ritual him/herself and has gently ignored the children’s accompaniment. Go figure eh? Anyway, it sure amazed me and I wanted to write this special News Aiyansh edition to tell you about it. What a beautiful, muscular, and graceful creature this bear is. Its rich brown fur, matted from long hibernation, must have felt warm and inviting to the hands of the children.

I wish I'd had a camera to take a picture! Darn.

Tom.

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March 30, 2002

Dear Family and Friends:

It is a long, long weekend here, as it is where you are. Easter Weekend.
Past
weekends like this have been wonderful things. Time to be with family and
let
down a little. But this year the weekend just seems long. After having my
family
here last week I now am really missing them, and July seems a long way off.
Perhaps it doesn’t help that winter just won’t let go. All day yesterday and
now
today too it has been snowing. Both days, especially today, it is wet snow.
After shoveling 6 inches off the driveway yesterday the snow/sleet has had a
hard
time accumulating, all its combined efforts have succeeded only in depositing
an
inch of clear slush.
Still, when I look out the window, it looks a lot like a heavy snowfall.
Bring on
the April showers and wash us into Spring!

I am finishing off the work in my Native Studies course. One of the things
on my
agenda this weekend is to write an essay. (I have a lot on my agenda,
motivation
is the problem.) I ran into the problem with this research essay of living
in a
remote community and not knowing how or if I could get my hands on any
literature
on my topic. Our Instructor didn’t have any helpful suggestions on this
problem.
I have resorted to conducting interviews. One fellow I talked to yesterday,
our
main alcohol and drug counselor in the valley, told me how to go about it.
But
now I don’t have time to order stuff over university library web sites and
have it
mailed here. So my paper will not be a highly academic piece. It will
feature
the views of my interviewees mixed with my own opinions.

My topic is “Alcoholism in the Nass Valley.” It is a complex problem. I
have
learned that alcoholism here is essentially not a different problem than it
is
anywhere else. And alcoholism in this native community is far less of a
problem
than it is in most other aboriginal communities. Here it is definitely a
minority
of families which are beset by addiction problems.
At any rate, I won’t go in to it here, but I may attach a copy of my essay to
a
later letter for those of you who are interested in the subject.

As I write I hear Dave Cunningham in the background hacking away at his
latest
carving with an adze. Dave is our art teacher and he is very enthusiastic
about
researching and producing native carvings. He makes beautiful stuff. Along
with
a local carver, Warren, Dave emphasizes Nisga’a carving and art in his
classes.
It sometimes seems odd to me to see these intricate carvings that Dave has
made,
carvings which replicate items that once had spiritual and ceremonial value
in
Nisga’a communities. What is odd is that a white man has made them, and I
wonder
to myself, “what are they for?” But this is Dave’s passion and I am
beginning to
see an answer to my question. Many of the objects which Dave makes have not
been
made in many, many years. He takes the designs from old pictures of
artifacts.
And now there is a growing interest among both students and adults in this
community in the work that Dave is producing. Dave is rekindling artistic
interests that have been long dormant. Dave, white man that he is, is
serving as
a catalyst in reviving cultural knowledge and activities that the residential
school dark ages had almost extinguished from Nisga’a consciousness.

I am putting this is grandiose terms, the movement is still a small one, but
it
is not insignificant. Boredom is a big problem in this community. Knowledge
of
what was once done to make life meaningful and rich here has been devastated,
quite deliberately in some cases, by the colonial power. For instance, in
residential schools, where Nisga’a children from age five lived 10 months a
year
away from their parents, speaking the Nisga’a language was corporally
punishable.
The explicit mandate of residential schools was to eradicate native culture
and
turn their students into “Canadians.” A whole generation was subjected to
this
treatment. And now a long and painful cultural and psychological rebirthing
process is underway. Dave is playing a role in that process. That is one
thing
that his carvings are for.
Happy Easter all of you, may you all enjoy rebirth this Spring.

Love,
Tom.

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I present my younger brother's birthday email to my baby brother. The only comment I might offer is that I'm a bit more that 1½ years older than Tom and I am constantly amazed at how different are our memories of events.

Celebrating Robert:

It is strange to think now that Robert is 5 ½ years younger than I, because,
as
children, we played together often. I guess this must have been mainly in my
teen
years. I remember, for instance, playing hockey in the basement of 154
Hammersmith. It was more a cellar than a basement; concrete floors and
walls. We
would take turns being “out” and being in goal. I would be Ken Dryden, I
don’t
recall who Robert (Bob at that time) was. Mom was not happy about this game.
Our
scuffing hockey sticks would raise concrete dust that settled onto the
hung-to-dry
bed sheets. There was no rec room. It was remarkable that we could play
anything
at all in that tiny space, with 6 feet of head room.

And then there was our dirt backyard, where Dad had set up a badminton net.
Robert and I played quite a bit of badminton, and I acquired a life long love
of
the game. I think I always won, which was gratifying for me - even if our
age
difference made this neither surprising nor fair. “Pretty good for my age”,
as I
seem to recall, was Robert’s common refrain. We had fun, and that was the
main
object always.

Robert was our singer. He sang to himself as he moved about the house. I
enjoyed that, he sang well.

Robert, unlike me, led a full teenage life. His involvement in Drama at
Malvern
High School seemed to transform him from the quiet kid into an out-there
presence
in the school. Robert won for at least two years in a row the best costume
prize
at the Halloween dance. He acted in plays. His picture, dressed to kill as
prom
queen, hung for years in Malvern’s front hall. Robert had a girl friend,
Kelly. I
wished that I had enjoyed high school like Robert apparently did.

Every summer, from childhood through his teen years, Robert was involved in
a day
camp. He graduated from participant to camp co-director over those years.
His
last year he shared camp directing with a woman named Chrissy. He liked
Chrissy!
But Chrissy had a boyfriend and, as the summer waned, Robert could not bring
himself to declare his feelings. I remember him sharing this struggle as the
family sat on the porch of 31 Maclean. He finally got the courage to say it.
And,
as I recall, Chrissy declined and then, a day later, she dumped the other
guy.
The rest is history and Vietnam, and Crawford, and Thailand, and so on.

It is a sad thing how in our lives we siblings drift apart. I often feel
that
there could be more there, more of our shared history to ponder together and
perhaps enlighten. Much of that history was gloomy. I miss my childhood
buddy
and I’m sad to know now that, despite appearances, he hasn’t always been a
happy
guy. In the tangled and lonely jungles of our childhood I see that Robert
deserved more love and attention than he received. It isn’t enough to say
that we
all needed more of that. That doesn’t change the fact that he was little
when our
world fell apart. In our all out scramble for emotional survival the
adorable,
apparently happy-go-lucky Robert was not given enough of a chance to cry and
feel
that he was still loved.

Like Rosemarie, also the youngest in her family, Robert has asked for equal
standing in the family. At 40 he is wiser, in his own ways, than his older
siblings. I have wanted to give Robert his due, and sometimes I think my
efforts
only appear to be patronizing.

I celebrate you Robert on your 40th Birthday, it is with tears that I tell
you I
love, cherish, and respect you. I hope this half of your life will be your
best.

Brother Tom.

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March 8, 2002 Happy IWD!

Dear Friends and Family:

I have been just walking in the woods. I loved it. After last week I was
glad
to be back there again. Last week I took the same familiar route. But last
week
the snow was rotting and soggy and sinking me with each step anywhere from 6
inches to a foot deep. Determined to do my route, I was sick of slogging by
half
way along. By the end I was stumbling with exhaustion and my socks were
soaked
from the snow my boots had swallowed. I despaired that it might be weeks
before
enough of the snow had melted from the woods to allow me to make my way into
them
again.

But this week we had a deep freeze. The snow this afternoon was petrified
all
the way through where last week it had yielded. The going was nevertheless
uneven
as each step crunched through the top crust one way or another - sometimes
turning
my foot. And it was noisy; crunch, crunch, crunch ... But there I was, in
my
woods. I could gingerly step across boggy areas which at any other time are
impassable, now covered in 2 - 3 feet of dense and frozen snow.

This deep freeze has spanned most of BC this week. People here say this is
unprecedented for early March, when the spring thaw is usually in full swing.
The
oolichan (fish) started coming in earlier this week. One crew of men managed
to
fill a couple of boats full of them on Tuesday. But after that the Nass
River
froze up solid and the swarming millions of fish have been shielded from
eager
fishermen by a new layer of ice whose strength is too uncertain to risk going
out
upon. So the community is just waiting for this unusual cold snap to break,
and
with it the ice.

Much of the oolichan will be eaten fresh. More still will be frozen for
later
consumption. And even more will be set aside in the soon to be spring warmth
to
ferment (rot basically) for a week or so. Obviously nothing is going to
ferment
at -10 degrees so the whole oolichan process is on hold right now - except
for
the
fish, who continue to swell in with the tide to their spawning grounds. I
suppose
the catch will be down this year since the weather will shorten the time of
the
catch. From beginning to end the oolichan are in the river in their millions
for
only about two weeks. First the females come up. They make the best oil
because,
with their egg sacks, they are bigger and fattier. Then the males come up to
fertilize the eggs. Then, in the third and last phase of the oolichan catch,
the
fish are swept back down the river by the tide. The best oolichan are caught
in
the first week. And, this year, most of the first week has been a bust.

Oolichan oil is made in a complex process of fermenting, straining, and
boiling.
I don’t know much about it but will know more in a couple of weeks after
Rosemarie
and the girls and I make our tour of Fishery Bay; action central for the
Nisga’a
oolichan harvest. I gather so far that during the fermenting stage the
rotting
oolichan, in large holding bins, yield their oil - which rises to the top of
the
bins. This is then skimmed off and rendered into the much prized final
product,
oolichan grease.

The Greenville guys in one of my classes thought I was foolish to want to
take
my
family to Fishery Bay. “That place stinks!” Their opinion of me was
confirmed
when I told them that the hot springs were also a stop on our tour, another
stinky
place which none of them had ever been to. They smell its sulfureous odor
twice
a
day when they pass nearby it on the school bus.

Sea lion hunting joins in with the oolichan harvest at this time of year.
The
sea lions come into the mouth of the Nass after the seals who are after the
oolichan. Often the orca are not far behind, they too are after the sea
lions.
A
full grown sea lion is a long as two couches and is as big around. Hauling
one
aboard after a kill can be a six person job. Their meat is smoked and then
frozen. I like the taste and texture. Very fatty, but a healthy kind of fat
I’m
told. Succulent would be a good word for it. I’m just hoping we may see
some
sea
lions on our short boat run down to Fishery Bay.

I have attached a picture
of me from last Saturday when a few of us groped
our
way through the woods in the dark to the hot springs, Doug toting the web
cam.
I’ll also have attached a picture
of one of the Aiyansh mountain views that
have
dazzled us all the cold but sunny week long.

Love, Tom.

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My brother Tom's first teaching position is in the town of New Aiyansh, part of the Nisga'a nation in northern British Columbia, Canada. You can find it on a map by looking east of the tip of the Alaskan panhandle.

As I write, my dear friend Lars, a man whose physical,
intellectual, and spiritual vitality has been a source of
strength for all who know and love him, is in Vancouver
General Hospital battling a rare disease of the bone marrow.
It has been frightening to see his precipitous decline since
the Fall. There is hope that a bone marrow transplant will
return him to health. Please spare a kind thought for my
friend and his family as you read this.

On a happier note, two people close to my heart are glorying
in new love these days. Yippee!

And I am in New Aiyansh, far from you, far from my family,
and far from the madding crowd. Sun and warm weather were
in the air this first day of March, rapidly melting away the
greyish roadside snow mounds. I and many others here harbor
a hope that Spring is making a non-stop bee-line for the
Nass Valley. We have had enough of shoveling out our
driveways. And my wood pile is doing a distressing
disappearing act. I want to walk into the woods again!

Alcohol has been much on my mind these past few days. In my
Career and Personal Planning (CAPP) class we have been
talking about its evils. But I have felt that there has
been a dry, rote quality to these lessons about liver
failure and fetal alcohol syndrome. Today I wrestled my
crew out for a walk up the road, away from the school.
There, we stopped and I exhorted them to become, in whatever
they do, great native leaders. "But I want to be a nurse,"
Diedre said, with a protesting smile. "Yes," I said, "but
you can be a nurse who is a great native leader." I told
them I am not talking about making speeches and leading
hundreds of people through the streets. I am talking about
being examples of strength and integrity.

This message may have fallen on mostly, or all, deaf ears.
Who can tell? I told them that succumbing to peer pressure
and becoming a slave of alcohol is the opposite of becoming
great in this way. Then, yielding to the great temptation
at hand, we lapsed into a snowball fight. Fortunately
Charles, at least, took my side.

Alcohol is a pervasive reality for a large percentage of my
students, some of whom, at 14, are already alcoholics.
Bootleggers do a booming weekend trade in Greenville. A
couple of my students told me that it is common for teens to
spend 50 to 100 dollars each weekend on booze. The hard
stuff is what they go for, vodka for instance. "Where do
they get the money?" I asked. "Steal it from their parents"
is what they said. Yeah, well this isn't exactly a reliable
source of information, but there were rings of sincerity to
what they said.

I am proud that I seem to be winning the battle to subdue my
grade eight Social Studies class. They are falling into
line and beginning to learn something each day as I gain in
the twin pillars of strength of presentation and good
humour.

But it is Friday evening now. I have already been in to
Terrace and back for my biweekly shopping trip. This trip
is an hour and a half plus each way and, though scenic, is
wearing. I am tired and will sign off saying, talk to you
again next week! I am checking my email more often and
don't think twice about writing.