A TEAR IN MY EYE

       Today was a holiday so CBC  radio played some old reruns.

       The one that caught my ear was Stuart Mclean reading one of his stories.

       Stuart Mclean was a well loved Canadian author and story teller. He had a long running radio show on CBC . One of the features of the show was Stuart reading one of his stories.

     The stories were based on a family Dave, Morley, Sam (son) and Stephany (daughter). Each of the family had some huge inadequate parts of character and ability. Each one of them also had some tremendous strong abilities and character. Stuart's stories wound around the abilities and weaknesses of this family. There were also people in the neighborhood that the family interacted with. There was Mary Turlington, who was a know it all. Carl Lowbeer, who was a retired engineer and was a little lonely. Kenny Wong, who made and sold meat pies and was a friend of Daves. Their was Arthur the dog. There was a whole neighborhood for this family to interact with. 

     Today's story was suitable for the season. Morley, an inept gardener all her life, was cleaning up her garden. When Sam was 8 or 9 Morley had tried to interest him in gardening. She bought him a special little Tonka back hoe trying to interest him in gardening. It didn't work. Today she was cleaning up under the peony and hit something with her trowel. She pulled and it was The little digger she had given to Sam for his gardening. 

     Mclean wrote hundreds of these stories and they are on You Tube. 

     So today  when I heard Stuart reading this story there was a nostalgic moment or two.

    Very sadly Stuart died a few years ago . I miss his readings and stories. I do have two of his books.

    Check on You Tube and listen to some of his stories.

THANKSGIVING

     Tomorrow is  Canadian Thanksgiving. Traditionally it was a time to consider the harvest of fruit and vegetables and animals. People produced their own food and they had to produce enough to last a whole year. No sneaking over to the store when you run short of things. 

     As time went on Thanksgiving became a time of general thankfulness for what we were given in that year. 

     So this year I am thankful more than ever for my life. Next week sometime I will be 84. As my Irish twin says. "The numbers are getting big."

    I am fortunate now to have very good health. Yes, I have aches and pains. I can live with them. I have no big health issues. I do not have any of the usual problems the elderly have. I don't have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or any of the usual senior issues. I am very thankful for my good health. After I finish this post I'll go out for my nightly 3 km walk. 

       I do all my own yard work because I can and I like it. I dig my vegetable garden by hand.

    I don't think I'm sliding into any of the age related conditions such as dementia. 

   A friend and I discussed yesterday our short term memory challenges . We admit it but decided that we can live with it.

   So I'm thankful for the good things I have at this age and look forward to more good things. 

    So Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian pals. 

A LITTLE CONFESSION

      I have been writing about some of the adventuresome things I've done in my life. I've had comments like "You lived and interesting life." In my last post I'm crawling, walking up Windy Point Ridge . At least that's what we called it.

     Young men usually have a short period in their life when they think they are invincible and do some crazy things. I had that invincible period in my life but it lasted longer than most.  Once I passed through the invincible stage of my life I still had some fun like backpacking and crawling around the Rocky Mountains. 

    However, I was involved in may other activities even though they were much calmer. 

   I was very active in many aspects of teaching. I went to every professional development activity I could. So I attended many conferences and  workshops. I was also on the executive of the English Language Arts conference. This meant some travelling during the year. I was involved with Alberta Teachers Association. 

    Now all these activities may have been very interesting to me but I can't make interesting blog posts from them. 

   In my 40's life could have been become much more adventurous as one on the ATA presidents did not like flying into the north. I was asked to consider taking her place for the northern activities she would be involved in. I turned it down. It meant being away from home and an extra workload preparing for substitute teachers. I've often regretted not taking that position.

    So as hard as I may try, I don't think I could make a conference interesting. 

   The biggest conference I attended was the  conference in Washington D.C. in 1992. It was in the hotel where Reagan was shot. The venue was huge so this little prairie boy's eyes were wide open. I was also given a couple of extra days to be a tourist. When I got home I had to give a report to all my  colleagues and share all the goodies I had picked up.

    So that's all you're going to get on my professional development activities. 

GRIZZLY BEAR TRAGEDY.

      Some of you may have heard of the Grizzly bear attack that killed two people in Alberta. Other people have asked about it. People know that my city is Red Deer. The site of the attack was described as the Red Deer River Valley. 

     The attack site was west of Sundre , AB which is about 50 km from me. To be more precise the attack took place in the area of the Ya Ha Tinda ranch which is used to keep the horses for Banff National park. Ya Ha Tinda is 2 hr and 20 min from where I live. 

     The head waters of the Red Deer river begin in that area where several small streams join. . The river continues east across Alberta for 724 km before joining the South Saskatchewan River .

    When you hike in the Rocky mountains grizzly bear evidence is very obvious. The bears dig up great chunks of soil looking roots to feed on. Sometimes you find several acres that have been rooted up. When we would get to these areas we would make as much noise as possible as the idea is that the bear doesn't  want to see you and will run away. I have never seen a grizzly bear in the wild even though we've gone by some very recent diggings.

    I have never hiked in this area as there are many other areas that have easier access. These photos are from the Abraham Lake area. 

You can se the road along the lake so you get an idea of altitude. 

   The two people who  were killed were very experienced hikers. They were well prepared for bears. It's very sad that they likely did all the right things but were still killed. 

     

RICKY

      Over the years I taught about 3000  students in this area. I have lost touch with about 99% of them. Two former students live across the street from me. One of my former students is a city councellor. Many of them are teachers so I keep in touch with them. One former student came back to the same school and taught with me.

     One student I was reminded about today is Ricky.

    Ricky was a tiny little guy with a face full of freckles and lots of wild unruly red hair. His lips were flapping all the time. Ricky liked controversy. He was right in it immediately  when any disagreements occurred. Ricky had a few problems when it came to debate. Quite often he was missing information on either side of the issue. At other times he misinterpreted things and at other times he was just plain wrong.

    Today I accidentally found myself on a local history face book page. Ricky was on the page. Our school had too major fires and one smaller fire. As usual Ricky did not know about one of the fires. That didn't stop him from talking about the fires. 

    So on Ricky's face book page it shows a bald man so he's lost his unruly red hair. It shows a short rather chunky man. 

    So there you have a little twerp almost 50 years from his time in gr 7. Some things change and others never change. 

   It was good to see Ricky again even if it was only on face book. 

MY GREAT NEIGHBOR

       My great next door neighbor showed why he's so good today.

       Our back entry just had a cement step with three steps. There were no surrounding rails at the side or back. Kids did fall off the back step but they bounce up with no harm done.

      So today, Tyson made a railing that fits against the wall so that we can come up the back steps with something to hang on to. The Micro Manager needs the railing to safely come up or go down the steps. There's also a hook at the top of the railing for her to hang her purse while she unlocks the door. 

So Tyson, this rail is much appreciated. 

    Tyson is also a para medic so if we do fall down the steps there's somebody to take care of us. Tyson also shovels snow if I don't get out right away. 

   Thanks Tyson. 

WHO SAID THE SECOND DAY OF FALL ISN'T NICE?

      So out on a beautiful fall evening, you can catch some great color.