THE LAST OF THE BIG TIME GAMBLERS

       I eat at the Casino two or three times a week. The food is great. The price is the best part. Breakfast is 5 bucks with 6 choices. Wednesday is 2 for one for seniors. We get 2 meals of $26.00 for the price of one $13.00. 

      Now I've told you before that we don't gamble. We just eat there. There is a senior draw on Wednesday and I've won that twice.

     Now you do get a sales pitch from the Casino to gamble so you can get a "wonderful " card. The card gives you so much off on the buffet. 

    Well a few weeks ago 20000 points ($20.00) was  put on my card . So I could go and gamble. You could not redeem the card for cash. 

    So if you're given $20.00 you might as well try your luck. Well, I have no idea how the machines work. I have no idea where to put my card. I have no idea what to press to play the game.

    So I asked somebody. I found the button to make my play. 

    Well, in less than 5 minutes my $20.00 was gone.

    As I left, my thought was that I feel really stupid for letting a machine take all my money. In this case it wasn't my money.

     Needless to say, "I'm still not a gambler." I know that they'll send me more points. I'll take them and goof off again.

     I cannot believe that people use their own money to let a machine take it away from them. 

ANNIVERSARY

      Yes folks, today is our 57th anniversary. 

      The very poor quality photos are from Nov of 1965 when the great decision was made that we would marry. We were married May 21 1966. 

      My Mom always bugged us about the date of May 22 because her birthday was May 20 so why didn't we get married on her birthday? Anyway Mom would have been 109 yesterday. 

SMOKE

        Alberta , Canada , has had, and is having a very serious wildfire season.  

       Today, there are about 130 fires burning and about 30 of them out of control. 

      We've had hot dry windy weather which makes great conditions for the fires to burn and very hard to fight the fires. The wild fires are large and very fast moving. The fires are more intense than in previous years. 

     These fires have started earlier in the season than usual. The spring fire season is usually short if we have lots of winter snow and a wet spring. Then the vegetation leafs out and is hard to burn.

      The nearest fire is about 150 km from me. Many people have had to leave towns and farms.

      The area is mixed with heavy forest, ranching, farming and undeveloped poor land. It seems like the fire likes these areas and can rip through it very quickly. 

    We were not bothered with smoke until two days ago. The fire has been burning for three weeks but the smoke has moved  across Canada to Ontario and then south. My daughter, who lives in the Chicago area reports that they have smoke from the fires and that we have made the news there. 

     It seems that the government is very slow to bring in extra equipment and crews to fight the fire.

    All we can hope for is some substantial rain. 

NOISE

        I have thought about this topic from time to time. Today I heard a half hour radio show on the topic. 

      Usually they are dealing with the detrimental effects of noise. They deal with the lack of quiet spaces.

     I started to think about noise and lack if noise in my life.  Since I spend  good portion of my life outdoors walking in natural areas I thought I could find lots of quiet space.

     Not so! I thought of all the places I go and none of them lack noise. I couldn't think of a place that is very quiet. 

    Heritage ranch is a three hundred acre parcel where some land is native and other parts have been disturbed. So there are many heavily treed areas. However, this land is beside a very busy four lane highway. It's just a very noisy area. And a very busy railroad runs along the highway.

    Then I thought, well Nova Natural area should be quiet. It's 30 km out in the country. This area is more than 300 acres with some native habitat and some recovered land. You are really out in the country. Then I thought that a huge world class petrochemical plant is beside the natural area. Also rail cars are being shunted back and forth 24 hours a day. 

   Well, where else do I go? I can't think of a quiet place without noise. 

   If I go back to the farm where I was born and raised there would be less noise but not entirely quiet. There is a busy railroad about 4 km from the farm. Farms aren't exactly quiet as there are chickens  and other animals and machinery that make noise. 

    It must be difficult to find places without noise. 

    Can you think of areas without noise? When they do a hearing test I'm in a booth that almost lacks noise. 

    

MORE REFLECTION ON EDUCATION

      A few things have to be made clearer from my last post. 

      First, some of you have the mistaken idea that I was a wonderful teacher. Well, I was a so so middle of the road teacher. I had good days and bad days. I had good years and bad years. 

      Another comment that catches my eye is that it was something wonderful to be teaching before my 19th birthday. During the war and after the war to the 1960's teachers were in short supply in the western Canadian provinces. They hired many people who did not have any training whatsoever and some had not finished high school. For my second part of grade one I had a guy who had just finished high school. So to be a 19 year old teacher, while  not a good idea ,  was better than some one without training. 

     I did like what I did and would do it over again in a heartbeat.

    At times educators have been too quick and narrow minded to challenge kids to become good citizens. The system concentrated on "learning" information which was soon forgotten and rarely ever used. I know that it was a good thing for kids to learn skills of evaluation of information and relationships. 

     I have asked the Micro Manager who is a bright woman, to divide fractions. She doesn't know how to divide fractions which was a basic operation. She never had to use it in life . I'm not sure if it was valuable as a skill for any deduction. I've asked about nouns and verbs? No answer. I think most people would be the same.

    What I do think is that more emphasis should be put on young people replacing us. Yes, high school students will be directed to some further education and training. But replacing us in society should be worked on. It's not automatic that people get together and make a successful community. We need people to grow up and have a sense of community and citizenship. 

SPRING!

       I have not complained about winter weather or a cold spring for a few weeks. 

      We had a week of above average high temperatures in the high 20's.

      As a result spring events are or have happened. Some early flowers are blooming like my blue bells. The native crocus is in bloom. Trees started to leaf out this week. 

     My furnace has quit running so the house temperature is staying above 20 C. 

     This morning I noticed that my Nanking cherries were in bloom. I don't think I've ever seen these bushes in such full bloom. 

    Grass is greening up in town but native grass is still dormant. 

    So here are my Nanking cherries and some new leaves and green grass.

      Today the sun rose at 5:46 and set at 9:17 for a total daylight of 15 hours and 30 minutes. So with long days spring develops very rapidly. 

     

THE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT

      This morning while shopping for groceries I met one of our former school district superintendents. 

     That immediately  started the way back machine. 

     When I was a child in that rickety old one room country school, there was a school inspector who visited about once a year. The inspector was feared by teacher and students because he had power and tended to be miserable. They would drill us on arithmetic and listen to us read and if we made errors they shouted at us. It was also rumored that they strapped kids. It was not a pleasant or positive situation.

     So you know that I started teaching before my 19th birthday. At teacher's college we were given more scary stories about the superintendent.

    So I merrily started teaching in September and told myself the superintendent wouldn't visit for a while. One fine September day about half an hour before school ended I heard a car come on the school yard. No worries. Parents came to pick up their kids. All of a sudden I noticed a well dressed man looking in the back door of the classroom. I had no idea who he was. He looked around and  beckoned for me to come out of the classroom. He was the superintendent. We went outside and sat on the steps. He wanted to know how things were going and he went over some administrative business to help me. I remember it as a very pleasant visit on a beautiful fall day. I remember how supportive this visit was. He visited two more times with more encouragement and assistance. 

    Fast forward a bit to the end of my career. We didn't get superintendent's reports anymore but we had many classroom visits. I was a department head and had to visit department teachers twice a year. I took duplicate notes and gave the teacher a copy before I left the classroom. The principal and vice principal visited each classroom at least once a year. Each teacher had to find a teacher in another school that they could observe for one period. This program was to keep teachers constantly upgrading and learning knew skills. The system was based on supportive and positive relationships. 

    So over my career there was a major change in educational supervision for the better. 

    I will always remember my first superintendent, Harry Smith, and how he encouraged me.

    I will always remember Dave who had a vision for the school district and ably lead us to achieve those goals.