Ghost #3

    The third ghost on the series is Francis Galbraith who established our local paper in 1906.

    Here he is reading his hot off the press paper and having a cup of coffee. 

   To me the artist caught the editor deep in thought while reading an article in his paper.

Yes, I got it right!

We're in the Middle of a Northern Migration (not birds)

       Now most of my followers know that I have a keen interest in birds so northern and southern migrations are very interesting for me.

      But this northern migration is different! It's "snow birds" that are heading north. Snow birds are those people who leave us to spend the winter in southern states or Mexico.

      In Canada and some northern states retirees who have some money like to spend their winters in the south. These people don't like winter weather and they like it warm so that they can continue with summer activities. So south they go in the fall and golf, hike, swim or any number of summer recreational activities.

     I had always thought that only Canadians went south for the winter. When I went to Arizona I was surprised to find out that most snow birds were Americans.

    When I was a child, on the farm, some of our neighbors went south. They would bring things that would freeze to store in our house. They also brought their live stock to our place for us to look after. So that was in the ancient time of snowbirds.

    Right now snow birds  are moving back north. Some begin the northern trip in mid march and others stay another month until mid April. For some their six month time limit and insurance times out. Others have to get home to meet some income tax deadlines.

    So, many snow birds are leaving the south and arriving back home. My brother left  Arizona on Mon. morning and got home yesterday. My sister-in-law is leaving Arizona April 14.

    So at this time of year there is much excitement as people start returning home.

    Would I be a snow bird? I don't think so. I like good old winter things to do.

Ghost #2

                In a previous post , I described how I found 10 pieces of sculpture and that I would  show  what we have in Red Deer As far as sculpture is concerned.

               This sculpture shows a railway worker pleading with a little dog that has his foot on the worker's two dollar bill. The sculpture refers to the struggle the workers had to look after their money. Credit Unions were formed in the 1930's and 40's to look after worker's money. The local credit union funded the making of this sculpture and of course it sits in front of the Credit Union.

Carefully trying to retrieve his money

What is this guy trying to do?

A stand off!

What in the World is an Alimentary Canal?

     Well, the alimentary canal is the system in your body that takes the food in and eliminates what isn't absorbed. So from mouth to butt and everything in between is the alimentary canal.

     So why am I telling you about this? I'm certainly not an expert. I heard a very interesting interview on the radio this morning with Mary Roach who has written Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.

     The interview began with the topic of hot dog eating contests and how such enormous amounts can be consumed without damage. Answer? The whole system can stretch enormously. 

   Roach got interested in the system when she was a little kid and didn't wan to eat her vegetables. She told her mother that the Inuit didn't eat veggies because they couldn't grow any. They researched the topic. Inuit survive because they eat all the organ meat which is rich in vitamins. Roach didn't tell us that Inuit eat the stomach contents . Many animal the harvest eat vegetation so in this way the Inuit do get veggies. One caution. Don't eat polar bear liver as it's so high in vitamin B content that it's poisonous.

    The forty minute interview continues with all kinds of off the wall info about the alimentary canal.

     At one time people believed that stomach noises were caused by frogs. They thought that the water they consumed contained eggs that hatched in their body.

    Study of the alimentary canal has gone on for ages. Only recently have they been able to see inside the canal and understand what goes on. At one time bags with food were consumed so that the contents had to be eliminated. They then tried to find out what happened to the food. 

    They found out that contents could be removed and digestion continued as the amazing number of chemicals kept on with their work. 

   So it was a very humorous and informative interview... so much so that I had to do a blog post on it.
     

Ghost # 1

     I've found a few new blogs to follow lately. Some of these blogs have been showing some very fine statues in their cities. I like art, I like sculpture that decorates the  city landscape.

    Now I envied these people with the great sculpture in their cities. I thought my small city didn't have much.   I knew we had a series of statues called a ghost project. I have seen all of them but never taken a good look at them. I decided to photograph the ten ghost statues. This series was made to represent various figures which have been important in the history of our city.

    People in the community get an idea for a sculpture and they fund raise and get the piece produced. The city then finds a good place to locate the statue and also looks after it.

    Then I got the idea that they would make blog posts. So here I go. I will be including a ghost statue every once in a while. When I researched the ghosts I found much more art. Some of it I had forgotten about and some I had no idea that we had it. 

    The first statue that was produced was of the man who started our city. So Leonard Gaetz sits at the corner of Gaetz Avenue and Ross Street which is the center of the city.

Pitching a new idea to promote the city.

Thoughtful

Think about it

I Was Zinged the Other Day

     A few days ago I met my 89 year old friend coming into the grocery store for his weekly supply of groceries. I meet him and his wife every couple of months doing their grocery shopping. Our wives love to chat like there's no tomorrow. In two minutes Howard and I have talked about all we know and we're ready to continue and pick up our groceries. So fifteen minutes, twenty minutes and their conversation seems to be not close to an end. Howard has a sense of humor so he says , "Watch this. I'll get them moving." and he snaps his fingers. Nothing happens. We are the only ones who get the joke.

    So the other day when Howard came into the store , he saw my wife had her back turned to them and Howard knew his wife didn't see my wife so he was going to hustle things right along before they saw each other. As Howard's wife was being guided away she said, over her shoulder to me, "Patience is a virtue, seldom found in women and never found in men."  It knocked my socks off! It was a very apropos quote for the moment.

    A day or two later Quoteflections had quotes on patience. I copied them out and sent them to Howard's wife as I know she loves quotes.

   So I was zinged a few days ago and had to honestly think about patience.

Personal Letter Writing.

     I am a regular listener to Vinyl Cafe which is a CBC radio program which I get every Sunday at noon. It consists of music and stories. They travel and do shows on the road. Usually they have a theme for the program and today's theme was letters. So all the music and stories were about letters. The story was about the host writing letters and then getting interested in stamp collecting. It's surprising all the music you can find about letters.

     This got me thinking about my personal letter writing. First of all, personal letter writing, where a letter is written by hand and sent through the mail is almost extinct. I started to think about the last time I wrote a personal letter and I couldn't remember the last time I wrote a letter.

   I do remember when I did write letters on a regular basis . I also received letters regularly. As a child I wrote letters to my friends and Grandma. My letter writing hey day was when I first left home. I usually wrote home once a week. I used a fountain pen and unlined writing paper...the kind you put lines under so you could write in a straight line. I think the postage was four cents. We don't even have a penny anymore! I would put dear Mom and Dad on the greeting but in my head I was writing to Mom. I thought of Mom because she was the one who always wrote back to me. 

    So I wrote letters home for nine years after I left home. Why did I stop? I got married and somebody else took over the letter writing. 

    Letter writing today has become quite rare. Long distance phoning has become much more comparable in price to sending a letter in the postal system. Phoning is much more immediate. Email is also super fast and efficient. Now texting has become almost continuous.

    Now I would say that I am an elder in the blogging world. I think I'm older at 73 than all my followers as well as the people I follow. So most of my readers will probably be pretty hazy about personal letter writing! Writing was an excellent form of communication at the time but modern technology has given us easier and faster more direct contact.

    Just out of curiosity, does anybody out there write personal letters?