The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fears that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb,
Robert Service
The Spell of the Yukon
On a Christmas day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold!through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close , then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see.
It wasn't much fun , but the only one to whimper was Sam Magee.
Robert Service
The Cremation of Sam Magee
We are in a severe cold spell so I thought I would use some poetry to provide some color. The high today was minus 26 C ( minus 12 F) . Tonight's low will be minus 36 (minus 37 F). To make things worse there has been some wind. I'm warm when I'm outside except for my face. I had a lab appointment at 8:30 this morning and in the two block walk it was cold on the face .
Now Canada claims Robert Service as our poet. Robert Service was born in England and came to North America and lived from Mexico the Vancouver Island. Service began working in a bank on Vancouver Island and went from Whitehorse to Dawson City. They had to make their own entertainment and Service wrote a poem each week and recited it at their weekly concerts. These poems were a great hit.
About 1912 Service left Canada, went to France and lived there for much of the rest of his life. He wrote much poetry. He also spent some time in Hollywood during the second World war and entertained troops.
What I like about Service is that Canadians claim him as their poet but he lived in Canada for less than ten years. Many Canadians think that Service lived his whole life in the little log cabin in Dawson City. This cabin is a tourist attraction that is very popular.
So no matter if one of our favorite poets didn't live here, it's still cold. Check out Robert Service. He wrote some neat poems.
I have been trying to sell my skates and skis on Kijiji. People reply to my adds. I give them my phone number to contact me. Most of the time they don't contact me.
We also get very many telemarketer calls. We have call identification so if we don't recognize who's calling we don't answer. If there's a message being left and we know who it is we can quickly pick up the receiver and answer. If it's somebody who really wants us , they can phone back.
So the other day we got a call and I did not recognize the caller. A few days later I suddenly thought that the caller could be someone replying to my add so the Micro Manager called the number.
The person who answered was confused because she hadn't called and didn't want any of my stuff. She had been away in Mexico. Some how the Micro manager started chatting with this lady. The Micro manager had given our name.
The lady suddenly asked if I was the teacher who taught at Eastview. Well yes. She said he was my teacher in 1972!
So I got on the line and had a very delightful conversation with a student from 1972. She'd lead an interesting life. At about age 30 she had gone to University and got her teaching degree. She'd taught music in the system when I was still teaching but we didn't make contact.
So sometimes if enough dumb mistakes are made we end up with an interesting discovery. However, I don't recommend using this method.
Many people do not get to return to a childhood home because people move very often. The home that I lived in from 8 to 17 is still standing but will be destroyed this spring. The old home has meaning to me and brings back many memories.
I've lived in my house since 1970. My kids were brought up in the house. We bring back memories when we talk about what happened when the kids still lived here. My son left at age 17 and came back a few times and lived while he was at school. Since that time he has rarely been back.
A couple of months ago he came back for a day. It was interesting to watch him go through the house. I caught a few unfocused photos of him as he checked out his old room. Now how many of you can go back to your old room?
So this was his five minute tour.
This was an age when he had his room the way he wanted it.
Looking out the window to the once familiar back yard.
Thinking about what was in that corner when he was a kid!
The room looked big when he was little but now he fills it.
My son was small as he was growing. He always said he'd sue God if he didn't grow as tall as Dad. His growth was funny. He grew an inch when he was 21. He's now 6' 1" and as he says getting shorter,
I enjoyed his visit and lunch even though his visit was short.
I don't have very many photos on my blog. Lack of photos concerns me but many of my topics don't lend themselves to photos.
Today will be different as this is a photo post.
I spent the afternoon going over photos and found one set of photos that I liked and decided to post them. The photos are from 2015 but they show some nice winter days after a big snow fall.
aspirin My sister would have been 78 today. Instead she has remained 11 years old. Birthdays come and go but she stopped at 11.
In Feb of 1953 our family met a tragedy. My sister died of illness which was not diagnosed and not treatable at the time.
Our family was saddened and the loss was felt by each one of us to this day.
My Mom came to terms with the loss but my Dad never came to terms with the loss.
All of us were influenced one way or another. Mom and Dad found it difficult to be parents. So teenage boys were on their own and some of the behavior was unacceptable.
So instead of being 78 on Jan.1, my sister is still eleven years old. At the time my sister was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. Today I think it's called Kawasaki's disease and is treatable with aspirin.aspirin
The years seem to go faster and faster. If I look back things have been great. I look forward to the future and 2020.
I have one special story for New Year's Eve and I've written about it before. So look for it 1964: A New Year's Eve to Remember:
Happy New Year. All the best in 2020.
Now I'd be the first to admit that my computer skills are some what limited. But every once in a while the Micro Manager fancies a pizza. She's a little discriminating about pizza so it has to come from one place...Papa John's!
Now for Papa John's pizza you have to order on line. We haven't tried to order on line for about three years. We looked at the menu and chose a pizza. I was crying that I couldn't figure out how to order on Papa John's system.
So the micro Manager got on the phone and phoned Papa John's. She got a very nice lady who walked us through the complete ordering of our pizza . No problem.
Now if I had to do it all over again I couldn't. The first problem I get into is that Papa John's is an American company and they ask for zip code and not postal code. Right there I'm finished. This lady had me click on a couple of things and my postal code was accepted. Simple if you know how but there is nothing to point the customer in the direction of postal codes.The on line order is long and convoluted . You have to bounce all over the page. She would say ,"Do you see----? " It would take me a while to find what she was asking for. All the things she asked me to find were spread all over the page...sometimes bottom, sometimes left, sometimes top!
You have to anticipate what you are going to be asked. I couldn't anticipate what they wanted on their order form. There has to be a logical sequence in what you do. There's no logical sequence.
What I learned that it's pretty slick to order pizza on line if you know how, but I still don't know how.
Now am I the only one who would go hungry because I can't order on line?
