I Started Using My Nine Lives Early in Life

     I was raised on a farm along with brothers and a sister. Our playground was the farm yard and the adjoining fields. We were on the go all day playing here and there. There was machinery in the yard that was an invitation for kids to play on and have accidents. Much of the machinery was abandoned and not used. There were numerous outbuildings which provided play activities. Sometimes the chickens were chased. Sometimes the rooster chased us. Every tree in the yard was climbed at some time or other by little kids. Many forts and tree houses were constructed. In the summer gardens were visited and raided.. You get the picture. Life in a farmyard provided many opportunities for playing.

    Now one thing that was abandoned on the yard was an old model T Truck. It was the ancient kind with a canvas top. The frame of the cab was wood and the canvas was attached to the wood. There was a windshield but no side windows. Of course, from time to time we played in this old truck. The relic promoted lots of imagination and play.

    When we were around four or five we were having fun one day. I was inside the truck standing on the seat lifting my sister. My head was sticking up in the canvas making a bump. Many times we took tools from the shop for our play activities. My brother had a heavy hammer from the shop. When he saw the bump in the canvas , he decided to smooth it out. Wham! He hit me square in the head. Of course I howled and the blood pored from a gash on the top of my head. So off I went to the house howling my head off. I think he soon did his howling as he probably go a spanking.

    I was left with a scar and a bald spot. This incident became one of the family stories that was told over and over again with a fair amount of laughter. It was a complete comedy of innocent errors.

    So at age four or five I received a heavy shot to the head which became one of the many nine lives I've lost.

    I'm sure many of you have had incidents from your childhood which innocently turned wrong .

I Should Watch What I SAY

     I would never say anything to purposely offend someone. If I found out that I offended someone by one of my comments I would quickly apologize. I have found it's much easier to live this way and to live in myself.

     Now I don't like pumpernickel bread. I find it dry, course and crummy to the point of being very messy when you cut it. I whine about pumpernickel bread every time we have it. However , someone in my house happens to like pumpernickel bread so I will eat it all the while grumbling about it.

   
    Now this week we had a loaf of pumpernickel bread and of course I whined. This loaf was worse than most. It was really messy and crummy. Many crumbs fell out of the bag and they seem to get on the floor.

    Now a month ago I fell down the stairs. I wasn't hurt but four loaves of bread were squashed and some soup tins very badly crushed. So while I was complaining I was coldly reminded that I fell on this loaf of bread and that I should be thankful as it broke my fall. I shouldn't complain about the crumbs as it was my fault.

    From now on I better watch what I say!

Prime Minister Harper Throws Beads and Trinkets to First Nations

    I heard a news report this week that really irritated me. Prime Minister Harper proposed giving first Nations People who had been in residential schools $3000.00 for further education.

   In Canada we had an educations system for First Nations people that was based on residential schools. Kids were taken from their families and parents against their will. In the residential school the kids were not allowed to speak their own language and were cut off from all social connections with their own people. The students were treated horribly with many beatings and sexual assaults. This produced several generations of people who were without cultural and social experiences. They went back home as severely damaged people and that continued through their lives and that of their children.

    So three thousand dollars thrown at people who have suffered greatly is shameful. Most residential school students are now older. They are no longer in search of further education. What would you get for three thousand dollars when it comes to further education?

   So the three thousand dollars  being offered is equivalent to beads and trinkets. These were tricks to get people to sign treaties. This is what was offered to get first Nations People to sign away their land. Traders also used the same cheap tactics. The government hopes to shut people up rather than help them.

    So I am angered that such a pathetic program is offered to be assistance for people who have suffered so much.

I Part Company With a Long Time Friend

     Until yesterday I owned a 1978 Chev Impala. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I owned a 38 year old car. But yesterday I parted with my old friend.

I hid the rust!

    Why did I keep a car for 38 years?  It was not by design. It just happened.

    I had a utility trailer that I used to haul items too large to go in the car. The old car had the hitch and just stuck around for the little job of pulling the trailer.

    Now my old "green machine" had more noble things to  do in the past than just haul an old run down utility  trailer. It was a family car. We went for family trips and holidays. We had a holiday trailer that was used for travel.(made one trip to California) Does anybody remember holiday trailers? They were before truck campers, motor homes and 5th wheels. You pulled them with a station wagon! There were many good times with the green machine. I once picked up my son and three friends from a movie. I thought it was strange that four thirteen year olds all wanted to sit in the back and leave me alone in the front. I might have known. All of a sudden WWF broke out on the back seat. I thought the car was going to be out of control before the wrestling bout ended. I thought the car interior would be trashed. Kids learned to drive in the old car. Just think of how many tons of groceries this old chevy carried over the years.

    However, there comes a time when things have to move on. Yesterday some kid came and bought his first car. I hope it runs well for the short time he will use it.

     

I've Been Thinking

     Now with a tile like this I'm sure many have come backs which will have come to their minds. Many bloggers make a special post in the New year and comment on their satisfaction with their blog and point to where they would like to go in the future. I'm just getting around to thinking about my blog's future. Okay , then , on with the post.

     When I started my blog in 2008 , I had thought about what I would like to blog about. I listed eight general topics. Now I thought I would see how I was doing. Have I stuck to the topics? I'm afraid that i have strayed from my topics and posted about many other things. Why did I start thinking about my blog? Many of the posts lately seem to be about myself. I was not intending to write so much about myself. I wanted to write about things other than myself. I have covered all the topics but some of them quite rarely .  So I will tape my list of topics beside the computer and see if I can do a little better with my original intentions. So here is my first post.

  What does one say when one starts a blog ? Obviously something must be on my mind . I'm interested in the environment , music,reading, Xcountry skiing , cycling , issues of health and education ... So from time to time I will leave comments on these topics and other related issues . I hope that you find something of value ...informative, interesting or something which you wish to comment on.

     I look forward to coming up with topics and putting them together for others to think about .

    Yes, that was the very first post on Hiawatha House on Aug. 27 , 2008. I made three more posts in 2008

    I must admit that when I started the blog , I had no idea of what a blog really was. I didn't look at other blogs. My learning curve was fairly flat for the first couple of years. Although I worked very hard, it's been fun. The fun part was discovering readers and other blogs.

Some Days You Just Shouldn't Get Out of Bed

    Last night my wife was making dinner and was reheating a pot of gravy on the stove. She heard a loud grinding noise and thought the gravy had overheated. She grabbed the pot and took it off the stove and the noise stopped. She was happy that she had rescued the gravy.

    This morning when I came out to start breakfast, I put my porridge in the micro wave. There was a loud grinding noise! I was standing beside the micro wave so turned it off quickly. Ah ha! It wasn't the gravy! So I thought I'd try the micro wave again. It stopped at 18 secs. I tried it again. 18 secs. So first thing in the morning I find that my micro wave has died. It didn't owe me anything as I had it for 14 years.

    We had an old micro wave downstairs that we had been trying to sell on garage sales. So after breakfast my wife cleaned up the old micro wave. We took the fried micro wave off the shelf and cleaned out a pretty dusty shelf.

You see what I mean by a microwave from another age

    I was nominated to bring up the old clunker of a micro wave. If you are old enough you can remember the microwaves from the 90's were big and heavy. So up the microwave comes to the top step when I tripped and lost my balance and bashed into the door.. No great harm done except for scratch on the door.

   So a few more minutes and we wrestled the old clunker onto the shelf. We review how to use it and away we go! We're in business! 

   Now if I hadn't got up this morning I wouldn't have discovered a broken microwave and ruined half my day setting up my old microwave.

    Anybody else have those kind of days?

Third of Nine Lives Used Up

         I  guess if you live an adventurous life you will meet with some risks. This experience really shocked and sobered me.

         In Northern Quebec I lived on a beautiful bay that was 24 miles deep. There were extremely high tides as it was just off Hudson Strait.

         The Inuit hunted seals and somebody came in everyday with a few seals. In the summer they were able to go out with  a boat and shoot a seal in the water. The seal sticks its head above water to watch you. The seal head is about the size of a saucer so you have to be highly skilled to have success.The nineteen year old Hudson Bay manager wanted to go hunting seals and he talked me into going with him. We had seen Inuit shoot seals and it looked like a good challenge. We borrowed a canoe, motor and rifle. Mistake number one. We didn't know what shape this equipment was in.

         Now mistake number two was to go out by ourselves. We had no experience hunting seals. Any Inuit would have been honored to take us out. I was a prairie boy and had no ocean experience so I depended on this Newfy kid to know what we were doing on the water. I was 25 and he probably thought I had some maturity that would keep us out of trouble.

       Mistake number three was to go out to the strait when the tide was coming in. The tide came in with a current of 10 - 12 mile per hour current. This meant that it would take much longer to get out to the strait as we were going against the current.

       Mistake number four was to go out to the Strait to find seals. There were lots of seals in the bay. We didn't have to go out to the open water.

      We got out to the strait and started looking for seals. There was a four foot swell but that was not a problem. We roared around and saw the odd seal. We shot at the seals but didn't hurt any of them. With the four foot swell your boat was rising and falling four feet. Also the seal was moving up and down on the swell. So you can imagine that it's a very hard shot to get a seal.

     We then saw an area that had lots of seals so we roared over thinking that we would be in luck with this many seals. Remember the four foot swells. All of a sudden, among the seals we suddenly saw huge black things emerge from the water. My buddy screamed rocks and yelled to reverse and get out of there. If we'd gone in among the rocks and crashed down on a rock the canoe would have been kindling. We were a mile from shore. In the icy Arctic water we would have lasted only a few minutes. Fortunately, we had not gone far enough to be in the rocks. So mistake number five was to not watch for rocks even though we were a mile off shore.

    We quickly decided we had enough seal hunting and started for home. We were a couple of sober serious boys for that ride home. Mistake number six was to go home when the tide was going out of the bay so it was a long ride home because we were against the current..

    I really was shaken by this experience as there was no room for error. This one experience I will never forget.