THOUGHTS ON HALLOWEEN

    Halloween here means that 20 to 25 kids show up at your door to receive candy.

    However, I started to think about Halloween. I went to Wikapedia and found more than I ever wanted to know. I was aware that Halloween was the celebration on the evening before All Saint's day. It is thought that it originated in Celtic times. The changes in Halloween over time are interesting. They go into great detail about various religions and people. Each group had their own way of celebrating.

    What I as really thinking about was how Halloween has changed over my life time.

    On the farm we didn't do Halloween at all. In school we did something which I don't remember. It was probably to color a witch or pumpkin.

    During the 60's in the Arctic we didn't observe the evening.

    When I came to Red Deer in 1969, I moved to a fairly new area of town. Most residents were young and had kids so there were many kids around. You had over 100 kids visit your house. There was also some damage done. Some things were turned over. A few eggs were thrown. Gradually the evening became only the receiving of treats. Now malls have events for kids so fewer kids than ever tour the neighborhood.

    When my kids were little in the early 70's we took them out "door knocking" They were crazy about this. I remember taking them one cold and windy night. I wanted to go home but they wanted to keep going. One of them was still a preschooler.

   
The sad little boy won best costume at the school dance with this costume.

     A very large scary ghost.

      Somebody who wanted to collect for UNICEF one year.

     When my son was about 14 one Halloween he wanted to go to his friends place about 8 Halloween evening. They were just going to fool around in the house? But he asked me if he could take my bike. He came back in about an hour. The next spring when I got my bike out it was covered with egg. He and his friends had been out riding bike and throwing eggs at each other and I only found out about it in the spring.

   So Halloween used to be a bit of a wild affair in the early 70's but has become a very tame affair.

   That's a big change for 50 years.

SUNRISE

     A couple of days ago we had a spectacular sunrise that I happened to see.

HOW MUCH AM I WORTH ?

       A while ago , I can't remember how long ago, I blogged about how much I was worth. I had found the doctor's bill for my birth in some old papers of Dad's. The doctor's bill for my birth was exactly $10.00 so I put down my value as $10.00.

  

      Well, this has been amended and updated. For my 80th birthday someone gave me a check for $80.00 so I'm worth a dollar a year!

      So here I am from one to eighty!

     If the truth be known I care nothing about money. I like to play with a few unrelated figures. 

     I would be happy to be like my Dad and slide on out of here with less than $2000.00 in his bank account after all expenses were accounted for his funeral.  We did not have to go through a will because his assets were so few. If the family agreed to take the money out of the account and close it that would be the end. No fuss! No muss!

THE CANADIAN ELECTION IS OVER

      On Sept . 12, I wrote that we were having an election on Oct. 21 and that I wasn't going to say anything about elections on this blog. I kept that promise so it's my time to say something.

      Well the election is over. Some how or other most people are unhappy and some people are downright angry. I don't understand why. We live in a very good country. We have a strong economy, lots of employment , some awesome social programs and some people are so angry that they want to separate from Canada. 

     We elect 338 parliament members. We have a first past the post system . So whoever gets the most votes wins. We have a proportional representation. 

   We have three major parties and two small parties. 

   The campaign was disgusting...too many outright lies.  The parties didn't do much to tell us what their policies would be although I didn't follow much.

    The incumbent party (Liberals) won the most seats but not enough for an outright majority so we have a minority parliament. The conservative party of Canada came second. The liberal party will have to walk a fine line and get support from other parties to govern. Sometimes minority parliaments get lots of good things done because they have to cooperate to stay in power and besides people don't want another election right away.

    People are really whiny . They all seem to want their own little goodies and the hell with anyone else.

     So political junkies are having fun talking about what may happen. 

     What should happen is that many parliament members need a good push to come to their senses and do what benefits the whole of Canada.

THE END OF THE LINE

     ....even if you're old and gray
         riding around in the breeze
         we're going to the end of the line.

       A  few chosen lines out of order from one of my very favorite songs The End of the Line by the Travelling Wilburys.

       Well, since I turned 80 today I had made up my mind that there would be changes made in my life.

        So I decided I had  to quit riding my bike. There is a high risk factor so there's no sense in tempting fate. So I like to think about riding around in the breeze. 

       I have ridden about 45000 km since 1983. I will miss it

      So today was officially my last ride. I was fortunate enough to meet some well known people on the bike path and say good bye.

        There's nothing like an 80th birthday to make one think about the realities of life.  So we're riding to the end of the line even if we're old and gray!

       Now the rear view mirror on the helmet shows up as a black spot.

     So some of my birthday loot!

     But after I got in the house from my last ride I said, "You know what? There are recumbent bikes! "  So maybe I'll get a recumbent and keep on riding.

A JOLTING SURPRISE

     A long time ago, on this blog, I wrote about becoming a cashless society. I pointed out that some places in Europe do not accept cash. There are many reasons to go cashless and it is coming.

     Now yesterday I got a big surprise when a parts place said they do not accept cash. I had ordered a part and drove across town to pick it up. Now we only take the credit card when we plan to pay with it. We use the card on all big items. This item was less than $40.00 .  

     The business was very accommodating. They let me take the part home and phone my card number in. They even gave me a receipt before I walked out of the business.

    Now this incident was a big shock for me. I hadn't heard about any businesses going cashless. It's the best plan for this business as they are a wholesaler and deal with large orders. It's much less work for them to deal with credit cards rather than have to account for cash. Computers look after your money for you.

    It got me thinking about a cashless society again. Have I been unaware of certain businesses not accepting cash? I look around in restaurants and rarely see people paying with cash.

    Do you use much cash anymore?

     Have you found businesses that don't accept cash?

BIRDS KEEP CHANGING

    In my last post the idea that bird species could be divided into several species caught some attention. So guess what? Another post on birds comes up.

    The example I used was the consideration by the International Ornithological Union (There other ornithological groups.) to  divide Canada geese into six different species. Many people are quite happy to go along with just Canada geese. For some people to divide geese into 6 groups is horrifying . However, scientific study shows that there are big differences within Canada geese. One of them is size. One group of geese is about 1/4 the size of other geese. We think of most Canada geese as having a standard color pattern. Not so.

     There are many other species of geese in the world but this is only happening to Canada geese as far as I know.

    Juncoes have been divided a few times. Sometimes species are put back as one species. There is an American crow and then a northwestern  crow which is very much smaller.

    So I am a birder ... and a bit nerdy, but a book I read a few years ago got me thinking! It's pretty hard to get me thinking.

    The book was called "To See Every Bird on Earth" written by Dan Koeppel. It's a neat book where Koeppel writes a history of his father but manages to write very much about birds. Koeppel's father was one of a few people in the world who try and see every bird in the world. They are obsessed with this mission. The go to all corners of the earth and spend no end of money.

    So Koeppel tells his father's life story and tells about birds and how the International Ornithological Union classifies and reclassifies birds.

    I found this a very interesting story and it opened my eyes to bird watching.

    So for anyone who's interested in birds  or science , this is a good read.