SOME UPDATES.

       Many times your comments remind me of things I forgot or expressed poorly and you didn't get it. 

      I forgot to mention my all time biggest conference. I got to go to a teacher conference in Washington DC. That's pretty good for a little old guy from the prairies. Several of our teachers got to go to major conferences in the US. So this little old guy got on a plane in Calgary and went to Dallas. I changed planes and went to Washington. I took the subway from the airport to my hotel and got in the hotel about midnight. So this was an exciting day

    The conference was across the street in the hotel where Reagan was shot. 

    I got to hear some major speakers. I'd never been in a 3000 seat hall before. There were many smaller sessions.

    The area with displays was the size of a hockey rink. I chose many things to take back and give to colleagues. I had to make a presentation when I got back home.

    The name Red is an accident. When I first set up an email account it wouldn't take my name so I put in Red taken from Red Deer the city I live in. At the time I didn't realize once the name was in the system it spread through the internet world. Why didn't I use my middle initial or stick a number between my name like other people do?

     The Micro manager went with me and toured Washington while I was at the conference. I stayed an extra day for touring. 

     Western Canada, where I live is huge. You must travel or you have the meeting by yourself. Edmonton is 100 miles away as is Calgary. The national parks are about 150 miles away. 

ONE PART OF DAD

       My daughter and I sometimes talk about family and what  happened when she was growing up. She likes the thought that she was a free range kid. 

       These discussions got me thinking about what kind of Dad I was. 

       I was a teacher. I was surprised that I was away from home so much. 

      I was involved with the teacher's association at the local , district and provincial level . Of course, these were not all at the same time. They all involved meetings...many meetings. The district and provincial activities involved travel. I found this activity interesting and rewarding. 

    I was a member of a professional group and also on the executive for a few years. Again , lots of travel...Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and Edmonton. 

    I attended the Annual Teachers Representative Assembly (ARTA) for many years. This allowed me to take my family with me until they reached the teenage years when they didn't want to go. This was a five day event. 

   Regular teaching duties took many evenings. Parent teacher interviews took a long time . I also worked a few bingos for the school and supervised dances. I liked supervising dances as the kids had a lot of fun. . 

   I didn't realize I did so many field trips. I taught some outdoor ed. so the kids were taken on field trips for hiking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing and winter camping. We usually went to the national parks like Banff or Jasper and stayed in hostels. These were at least over night .

   I also took kids on a day trip to the Calgary Herald to see how a newspaper was put together. This went along with my news paper unit. We also wanted kids to see professional theatre so each year we took the gr eights to Edmonton or Calgary to see a play.

    

                                  Did I also tell you that I was a department head?

    Then there were always those interesting workshops that just happened to be out of town. There were speakers you just had to hear. There was money to send me to these activities. More than usual as some teachers didn't bother going to professional development activities. 

    All these activities were time consuming and stressful. I didn't realize I spent so much time away from home participating in educational activities. I enjoyed it and sometimes think I was away form home too much. 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MURAL?

           On May 31 I wrote a post about a special mural in Stringer Hall, Inuvik. 

           Steve Steve from Shadows and Light asked a question that opened a can of worms. Steve wanted to know what happened to the mural. Many things happened before the residence was destroyed. 

          Here's the brief history.

          Around 1950 the government decided that they would build a school system to educate northern kids. Their plan was to build one huge school and bring all the kids to one place. The kids would leave their local settlements and parents and live in a huge residence called Stringer Hall. It didn't take long before the people realized that this was a terrible system. The kids  lived away from family so there was no family life. The kids lost their relationship with their own community and family

            The people also realized that their kids needed and education. . 

                    Grade  three children whose classroom was an annex

                      Boys playing dog team 

                      Boys playing hopscotch in January

                            More hopscotch

            These little guys did not get home for Christmas or Easter . They stayed the whole schoolyear. 

 There were many sad stories from this system. Children were literally taken from their parents to the big school and hostels in Inuvik. Some parents did not know where their children were. 

      A campaign grew to have kids educated in their local community. Sometime in the early 70's the big school which held a thousand kids and student residences were not being used and closed. Stringer Hall which held 300 kids remained closed for a few years and when they couldn't find a use for it, it was torn down. 

     Today no matter how small a community is, there is a school. Kids are able to complete their high school with only two or three kids in the high school. You see grad photos with only two or three kids.

      I'm not sure what happened to the mural but I hope that somehow it was saved. 

SUNNY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

      I went for a walk Sunday afternoon. I was intending to take photos of the buffalo beans and Saskatoon berry blossoms. I had a few surprises. 

     The cow moose and two calves were a big surprise. 

                          Mallard ducklings

                        Early blue violet

Buffalo beans

                      Western Canada violet

                          Saskatoon berry blossoms. 

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT ?

     Sometimes there are issues that family's don't talk about. They are topics that are quietly left alone. Often they are things that were disagreeable and hurtful. 

     For example , when my brother and I were about 13-14 , we asked Dad if we could have a motor cycle. Dad said no. We went behind Dad's back and bought a motor cycle. Dad didn't make us sell the motor cycle but it was never talked about until dad was about 80. Then it was funny. 

    A little less than a km from my house is a heavily forested ravine. There are old growth spruce trees that are about 80 -90 ft. high. 

    Today I was talking to my daughter about a little platform I found high in a spruce tree. She said that's probably one of mine. I said, "What ? You were never out there." She told me that she spent much time climbing trees in the woods. She said, "I was a good tree climber." This was when she was about 10. My kids were free range kids so she easily could have done this. 

    What I remember most is a little kid who played endlessly with toys like blocks and Lego. She also read a lot. She also bounced. She would sit on a chesterfield and bounce back and forth for a few minutes. She would hum along with the bouncing. In the car she bounced hard enough that you could feel it when you were driving. 

    So it was surprising to hear that this quiet little girl climbed trees. 

MURAL

         A few weeks ago I showed some of our wedding photos as it was our anniversary. Everybody's wedding is extremely important. The surroundings and events are not forgotten.

         The venue for our wedding was different. The wedding was held in a place called Stinger Hall Chapel. Inuvik had a 1000 student school. Kids were brought in from up to 1000 miles away and kept in two hostels. Stringer hall was a residence that held about 300 kids. 

         The chapel was for all the kids in the residence.

         Inuvik was a special Arctic settlement planned and built after the Second World war. Construction was officially finished in 1957 but some of it still continued. Stringer Hall was finished long before the Hotel was built. Travelers stayed in the student hostel. A pilot stayed there on a regular basis. He was a bit of an artist so painted the large mural behind the alter  during his stops in Inuvik.

      The mural shows a picture of children coming to Christ. The big thing in this mural is that the children are aboriginal. 

       I'm not sure if the idea comes from a biblical quotation. Far Side will be able to cover that Chap and verse if there is one. 

     So I've always considered this an interesting mural as well as the story behind it. 

LAWNMOWER

       Recently I had to buy a new lawnmower. 

       The last lawnmower I bought was in 1971 so that means that it was 53 years old. The bumbling old handyman kept it going that long. I knew what to fix on this lawn mower but the part cost over $50.00 and then I would still have an old mower that I would still have to pull a cord to start it. 

       So my lawnmower info goes back to the 1970's. So what to buy. There are so many different lawnmowers for sale. Then there are electric cordless machines. With the micro Manager help we researched different machines. we also had to learn about cordless electric machines. We finally decided on an electric cordless mower. This old boy didn't want to pull cords anymore.

     Then the fun started. There are three owners manuals. One for the machine. One for the charger and one for the battery. I would get the manuals mixed up. I'd be looking in the charge manual for something about the battery. It was confusing.

    Finally, we had crossed all the T's and dotted all the i's and were ready to go outside and start the machine and test out the mower.

    So I did what I thought I as supposed to do. There was utter silence. I'm sure the look on my face would have said volumes. I checked connections. I checked instructions. Everything looked okay.

   So nothing for it to go back in the house and look in the manual. So first I went to the start section. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small word that I had missed. There's a start button. It says press and HOLD. I had missed the word hold. 

   So I went out and followed instructions again and it started. 

   I find directions for new appliance to be a challenge!

   Do I like my new mower? You bet I do.