A MEMORY

      Mr. Pudding from Yorkshire pudding was at a quiz night when # 12 was. What does the term weenie mean in North America.

     He didn't get it but it reminded me of a story revolving around a weenie roast. In my day the weenie roast was common and happened many times quite by accident.

    So in my days in Inuvik the Mackenzie river was he center of many things. It was spring...the beginning of June. The ice hadn't gone out on the Mackenzie river. But there was a rumor that is was going out this night. We had never seen the ice go out so about ten of us decided we would go down and wait for the ice to go out. And why not take a package of wieners and some buns and have a weenie roast while we waited. It was a mixed group of friends. The midnight sun was bright . We found some firewood...there was lots of it and built a fire and waited. 

    About 2:00 AM we decided the ice wasn't going out and  slowly went home. We all had to be at work in the morning. 

   Now the Mackenzie River divides into many channels but there is a main channel. Being white men who knew everything we had been taken in by some aboriginals who assured us the river would break up. The break up on the channel we were at would be great but not spectacular. 

    The main channel of the river is where the excitement takes place. There are enormous blocks of ice flying around and and enormous flow of water. 

    Any river that flows from south to north has a gigantic spring break up. It's warmer in the south and there's much melting. In the north the ice is still solid but the huge flow of water breaks up on the river. The ice is about 4 or 5 feet think. 

    So this is a weenie roast I'll remember and I never got to see the river break break up. 

CLOTHES DRYER QUITS.

     Today my clothes dryer did some funny things which made it so that it didn't work. The timer would go from 29 to one and quit. One time it went from 41 to 34. Skipped 34 to 9. skipped 3 and 4 and went to 0. Needless to say we didn't get many clothes dried. 

     We got this dryer in March of 23 so I hope there's still some warranty on it. With all the computer boards on everything these days you really don't know what the problem is. 

     Now on the farm my mother had the same clothes dryer for 35 years. It did not have a warranty. It broke a few times but was working again in a few minutes. All you had to do was tie the wire together again. Mother's clothes dryer was outside made of wires set around a pulley at each end. Mother took her clothes basket out side and pinned the clothes to the wire. As she needed more space to hang clothes she used the pulley to move the clothes already on the line. 

    It didn't take long and the clothes were dry and fresh smelling.

    Winter weather made this clothes drier very painful to use. Working with wet hands in freezing weather was painful. The clothes would dry a bit and then she'd bring them in as they were frozen stiff. She's hang them in the house until they were dry. 

    So I'm wondering if I should put a couple of posts in the yard, buy a couple of pulleys and some wire and dry my clothes outside? 

AWESOME WEATHER HERE

     Today was just a super day for mid November. 

     We had heavy snowfall on Oct. 23. I thought ,"This is it. We have snow all winter."

      Surprise, Surprise. We've had mild weather since about Oct. 25. Today most of our snow is gone. 

     We've had a super day with a high of plus 10 C (50 F). 

     The average high for the month of November is 0 C (32 F) so at 10 C we're well above the average high.

    It was chinooking today so it was windy and warm. I did not get a photo of the chinook arch.

    The forecast for the next seven days is great with highs above freezing all the time.

    In spite of such pleasant weather , I put up my Christmas lights today. So to make my kids happy, I did not climb the ladder (very high) as I put the lights low down on the house.

    And I walked at 8 PM and it was most pleasant. 

THE WELL IS A BIT DRY

      I have been struggling to post this last week. 

      I have some excuses though!

      The Micro Manager has a torn rotator cuff that she's left far too long to get some treatment. Those lucky people who have experienced torn rotator cuff know that it is painful and just plane miserable. The Micro Manager is experiencing a lot of pain so I've had to do more of the work.

     I'm also trying to launch two other projects to keep me busy during the winter but if I don't get at them winter will be over. I've started a family history. I want other members of the family to contribute. That's going to be a challenge. 

    I also want to pull posts out of Hiawatha house and put them into a separate blog which will work into a biography. So If anybody knows a fast, dirty and simple way to pull posts out of a blog and place them in another blog let me know. 

    So I've set out some challenges and work for me.

    If you're going to blog , you have to be able to think about subjects to write about. I haven't been doing that . 

RODEO

       Thursday evening I went to a rodeo.

       How did I get to a rodeo? A company that I am a customer of, always treats their clients to a roast beef dinner. So there we are once a year at a fine dinner and with tokens in our pockets for drinks. They also gave us rodeo tickets so that's how I got to the rodeo.

        We have the Canadian Finals Rodeo here so it shows off the best talent on the rodeo circuit. Only the top ten in each category get to enter and compete in this rodeo. These performers have competed for the last year at rodeos and these were the best. 

      At this time of year rodeos are in arenas. 

     Now I don't go to rodeos anymore. I used to go once in a while but they were to summer events. I prefer the summer outdoor rodeo. I also like the chuck wagon races and you can't have those in an arena.

     Now I got to the rodeo a little late. The lights in the stands were dim. I couldn't find my seat. You just couldn't see the signage. Oh yes, you needed an magnifying glass to read the info on the ticket stub. Finally I ran into an usher.  I had seats in the wheelchair section and she had to get us chairs. 

     Okay, my second gripe is that they have the sound system turned up to about a 1000 decibels. With hearing aids, I hear very little. Just noise!

     After all that I had fun although I didn't stay for the whole show . 

I'M SO OLD THAT...

       I'm so old that they didn't lock things when I was a kid. 

     A couple of things I mentioned in my last post reminded me of what it was like when I was a kid in the 40's and 50's. When I mentioned pushing cars around at Halloween I suddenly remembered some things about cars and houses.

      When I was a kid in the 40's to 60's , we did not lock anything. In fact we left the keys in the car ignition. That's the kind of world we lived in. The really old cars did not have keys. They had a toggle switch with off and on. Some people modified things so that they didn't need a key to start the car. They were more worried about losing keys than cars to theft. 

    So we could have driven the cars around instead of pushing them. All we did was put the car gears in neutral and three or four kids could move the car. One kid had to steer. 

    Houses were not locked on farms or in the villages and small towns. When Mom and Dad went away one time, they decided to lock the house. The problem was they couldn't find the key so the house was left unlocked. 

    When I first came to this city in 1969, I did not lock my house door or my car. Shortly after that I started locking both but was not that rigorous about it. I learned that I was in the city and it was different. Somehow time had moved on so that most cars and houses were locked. 

CHILDHOOD HALLOWEEN

      Origins  of Halloween are interesting. But I'm going to bore you with my childhood Halloween experience.

       For the most part there was nothing.

       My childhood was in the 40's and 50's. We lived in a rural area where everything was limited. Halloween treats were just not heard of. Even in the village kids did not go from house to house for treats. Most people didn't have the spare cash to buy candy. Going house to house for treats was not heard of. Farms were too far apart to go from house to house and transportation was limited. 

      In school we had a Halloween party in the afternoon. Some kids had costumes. The teacher used it for an art class. We bobbed for apples. That was it. 

     The main idea at that time was tricks and some of the tricks were not funny and damage was done. The idea was to scare people so various mysterious noises were made. The first kids who came to our house sneaked on to the yard. They had a small home made device that made a loud noise on the window. We were alarmed as we didn't expect anything. 

     In the village a common trick was to tip over the out houses and move things around from place to place. Since cars were not locked they were easily pushed from place to place. Someone could find their car at somebody else's house. In my first year of high school the police man came and got the boys to go around and tip  the outhouses back up. I was a little upset as I hadn't been with the gang to upset out houses. 

    So Halloween when I was a kid was much different than it is today. My first trick or treating was when I took my own kids out trick or treating. I remember one night that  was bitterly cold. They were young enough that I had to go with them. I was cold and wanted to go home. Not my two little pumpkins. They wanted to keep going and they did.

    Much has changed about Halloween in my life time.