YOU KNOW YOU'RE OLD WHEN....

     Now you could spend all day filling in the blank on this one. There are endless expressions that can classify us as old.

    Well the Micro Manager and I did the classic boo boo yesterday. I hope no one on the street was watching.

    We had a celebration of life we wanted to attend. Don died before Christmas and this week the announcement was in the paper that the event would take place on Saturday.

    The church is only three blocks from my house so I told the Micro Manager to get started as she walks very slow. When I turned the corner I could see that the church parking lot was empty. I knew something was wrong. I met the Micro Manager returning from the church. What's gone on? Have we missed the celebration of Don's life. 

     The first thing we did when we got in the house was to check the paper. Sure enough the celebration was to take place Sat, Jan 19 . We were on Sat. Jan. 12!

     Now how could both of us get together and make this mistake? I guess we're getting old!

    I followed Don from 1963 but never met him until the 1980's. Don left Inuvik in June of 1963. I arrived in Inuvik in Sept of 1963. I often heard about Don as he was well respected and liked. I arrived in Red Deer, Alberta in 1969 and was surprised to find my northern friend Michael and I teaching at the same school. Michael and Don were the very best of friends so I heard that Don was in the area. I did not actually meet Don until the 1980's. From that time on we participated in many of the same organizations. He was a quiet gentle man who gave us many great examples of how we should live our live.

WHERE DO I GO NEXT?

   On many blogs I follow people have a post on New Year's resolutions. Today Beatrice at the Frog and Penquinn had a thoughtful piece on New Year's resolutions. And then she made 4 resolutions. Beatrice.

    I had been thinking about New Years Resolutions. Since it's now Jan. 8 I wasn't thinking very fast. Now I have been guilty of making resolutions in the past. None of them ever worked. But that brings me to a larger issue.

   What kind of person am I ? I have a good handle on this issue. I know that I'm disorganized. I know that I'm a random chaotic type. This has bothered me from time to time in my life. Every year when I met with my principal I would set a goal to become better organized. I would walk out of his office thinking he would help me. He thought I would do something on my own. So nothing ever got done.

    The disorganization is in my genes. My Mother was a world class clutterer.

   Now yesterday I listened to a program on organization. It really interested me. Marie Condo is world famous for organization and has written a book on it. Many people take Marie Condo's ideas and help people get their lives and houses organized. Discussion went around the value of being organized. This method relies on getting rid of stuff ...lots of stuff so that you are left with something more manageable.

    And then , what about those who are hopelessly disorganized. They actually found some value for the poor fellow like me who never has his desk cleaned off or the email inbox cleaned up. Did I feel good! They claim we know where to find stuff...not true.  What really happens is that we don't want to let things go. We are compelled to keep things and not put things away. we are afraid we'll lose them. The Micro Manager is supper organized. I hope I die before her as I'd never find anything in all her super organization.

    So whether you're a New Year's resolution maker or not , I hope you have a great 2019.

program

ICE SCULPTURE

    For being the land of ice and snow, we have very few ice sculptures. As far as I know we have a garden center that has ice sculptures each Christmas. The come up with  theme and then find businesses that are willing to do a sculpture related to the theme.

    This year for us the theme was very simple...Canada winter games. I'm disappointed that only half the display was actual sculpturing. 

    Now I got out too late to see these sculptures as we've had some days above freezing so some of the finishing and details are not clear anymore. 

    But for what they are worth, here they are.

   

     Now the last two photos are for Linda at Linda's Letters. She often shows magnificent plant nurseries. Here's one of our local nurseries. It gets sad in the winter.

SOME FACEBOOK FRIENDS ARE A NUISANCE

    I have a small face book account of a little over 100 friends.  When I opened my face book account I thought it was an excellent place to keep up with relatives.

    When you're on face book other people find you. So now I not only have family but former students, colleagues and other people I know.

    I found that the family contact more or less dried up. Many other people are lurkers. I don't know if they follow me at all.

   I do use face book to publicize my blog. I do click on things I like. For example a former student was our city archivist and he posts all kinds of photos. I have another friend who is a photographer. David takes many good photos and I tell him I like them.  I wish people happy birthday, but I rarely post anything.

    All of this is very harmless.

    However, there are a couple of friends who find themselves deep into right wing politics so there are times I get many despicable messages. They get these messages from some site and then pass them on over their face book page. They haven't checked these messages for any validity at all. I don't like getting racist messages. I don't like messages that criticize politicians in a personal way. Debate the issues but leave the mudslinging out of it. It's difficult enough for a politician to serve as well as get abuse. I get messages on the economy that have no basis whatsoever. Whoever wrote the message did not do any research whatsoever. They listened to somebody spout off. They will not look at government statistics as they have the mistaken idea that these statistics come directly from the political party. These statistics are generated by the people who do the actual work of running the country.

   For two of my friends , I think I'm going to have to find out how to unfriend somebody.

    What do you do when you get unwanted face book messages?

   

LIARS SHOULD BE HEAVILY PENALIZED

    Yesterday I saw a twitter quote that advocated liars be given special penalties and if you were a politician the penalty  should be more.  This caught my eye and I said , "Yes."

    At this time our politicians have no qualms about saying anything even if it's untrue. The can embellish the lie. They can twist the lie. They can repeat the lie. 
Why should politicians be able to lie to us with impunity?

    I was a teacher. Would I be allowed to tell lies. How about your doctor or dentist telling lies. What about a nurse telling lies. For these people it's a matter of your life and death. Used car salesmen who tell lies can get into serious trouble. 

    Why do we let politicians of all stripes lie to us?

    Recently my Face Book page has been filled with revolting untruths and threats of harm to other politicians. In this age of easy graphics there are all kinds of disgusting pictures.

    It seems that we have nothing we can use  to put a stop to the liars. 

    One thing that would help is if we did not vote for liars. First of all, we would need a very reliable party that didn't deal in lies. 

    The Internet and Face book have made it easy to lie and be invisible. There are too many false identities which politicians can use to spread their lies.

    I think that we are at a time where serious penalties have to be applied to lying politicians. 

    What kinds of penalties do you think would work and what should those penalties be?

ON REMEMBERING MY FIRST CHRISTMAS

    Well, okay, I admit that I remember nothing of my first Christmas and for that matter not my second , third or fourth Christmas. However, I think I can piece a few things together that would give the conditions of my first Christmas.

    How did I get on this topic. When I got up on Christmas morning I said , "This is my 79th Christmas." Then I suddenly thought, "What was my first Christmas like?" The more I thought about the idea, the more I wanted to talk about it.

    I was born in late October so I was only 2 months old at Christmas. I was the first child in the family. I've written before about the house being small, uninsulated and cold. The first thing my parents did when they got up in the morning was to light the fires and put a kettle on. They didn't go back to bed. They just got dressed and started the daily routine.

    Having a new baby meant some changes in habit. We didn't have a Christmas tree. My paternal Grandma and aunt would have given me presents but that's it. The presents would have been baby clothes.

    That noon my parents would have taken their horses and sleigh and gone to a neighbors for a big Christmas dinner which was at noon. They stayed all afternoon until an evening meal which was left overs from the big noon meal. They stayed all evening until around midnight when they had a cold lunch coffee or tea. They spent time visiting and playing games. .

   The trip home was about one mile but it would have been cold. The fires in the house had gone out long ago so the place was cold. Fires were lit. It must have been pretty cold when that new baby had diapers changed.

    Things were simple but rough. People survived well and were happy.

   Here I am sometime before my first Christmas.

MORE NATIVITY SCENES

     I have a few more nativity scenes for you.

This one is very small 

This was a very traditional ceramic piece.

   This one is kind of goofy but they tried.

I like the simplicity in this one.

Another very traditional piece.

Another traditional piece

This was the Micro Manager's favorite piece.

    Now as always there's a piece I would steal. That means I like it very much. There was an Eskimo print on the wall. It was so awesome I didn't want to take a photo as I couldn't do it any justice. In looking over my photos I saw the print in the back ground so here it is.

    The print is on the left.