I was looking in the bathroom mirror as I cleaned my teeth last night, and pondering on what I saw. My 88 year old face with a weeks growth of stubble on the cheeks, a sweater that probably needs a wash, making a sharp contrast to what I remembered of my paternal grand father, George Walter Andrew, when he was approximately the same , age. He came to live with us after his wife died in 1950 when he was 85 years old. Every morning he got up and got halfway dressed, before going into the bathroom to shave with his cut throat razor and lavishly brushed on shaving cream. When he had finished shaving he woluld attempt the feat of assembling his stiff collar and its studs and applying them to his shirt and round his neck, while ultimately he achieved success, it was to a running commentary of “damn the thing!” or “blast the thing!”, and he would then tie his neck tie with further exclamation. I stopped wearing a tie and shaving at the age of 60.
In his youth he was reported to be a fairly wild character, fleeing Birmingham Warwickshire for the USA when he was in his teens to avoid some form of retribution. He did return ultimately to his home city where he went to temperance meeting to harass the speaker, who subsequently trained and married him. So the dissolute son of a coachman married the school teacher daughter of a sexton, and they lived happily together for more than fifty years. It is an interesting reflection of the times that the sexton as able to give a house in Nuneaton to the bridal couple at the end of the 19th century.
My other grandfather is quite a contrast, of his origins or parentage we know nothing. He married the respectable daughter of a respectable family in about1906, and then took her away to California, where he planned to make his fortune as a builder after the earthquake. Shortly after my mother was born he went out and vanished, together with his wife’s money, and was never heard from again!
In 1998 my daughter and her family were living in Germany, while Harold, her husband was working for the now defunked Nortel in Germany. Despite having two small children to look after, Judy found time to return to her habit. She had been a successful cross country runner at school, until sidelined by shinsplints. As I was still doing the occasional marathon she asked me if I would like to enter the Prague Marathon with her in Czechoslovakia . We all met in an apartment in Prague, and Judy and I set out for the marathon, whilst Sheila took her 5 year old grandson and 2 year old daughter to run the junior 2k.
Anyone who has followed my running career is aware of the fact that I think beer is an important component of racing, before, during, and after the event. This would be the first time that I had been at a race with Harold, but I gave him instructions to be outside our apartment with a beer when we ran past, with an estimated arrival time.il
Judy and I set out together and for the first seven or eight kilometres I kept up with her, untiI realised that 62 and 37 were not the same age and she dissappeared into the distance. I carried on regardless until I got to the location of the apartment and there was no sign of Harry with my beer: I thought I might be ahead of schedule and carried on until about one kilometre later I met Harry with the kids and a stroller, he told me he thought I was joking about the beer.
I had not been joking, but I did have some money, so as we came to the next cafe on the race route, I ran in and bought a litre of beer, and continued out the door drinking it, to the surprise of some spectators and passers by. When I reached the next water stop I had finished the beer, so I gave them my glass which was now empty. I continued to the finish, where Judy was waiting having successfully completed her first Marathon, faster than her father.
Be it Spaniel, Pug or Poodle
Dachshund or Labradoodle,
There is one thing that doggy has to do.
As you follow it around
It leaves stuff on the ground,
Leaving its disposal up to you.
You say a silent prayer
As you pick it up with care
And quickly as you can put it away
So you hand now holds a saggy
And smelly plastic baggy
In which you hope that is going to stay
I=m not being sarcastic
When I point out that plastic
Is a problem of its= own we have to face
We all know it is planned
To get this plastic banned
To protect the future human race.
We hope someone=s intention
Is to find a new invention
To deal with what the doggies leave as poop
Someone must devise a
Means of making fertiliser
Or dog owners will all be in the soup.
It really would be super
To invent a pooper scooper
That held it contents all throughout the day
In the evening you would duck it
In some water in a bucket
And use the loo to flush it all away
Nearly every Wednesday I went down town for lunch,
To join at the Crowne Plaza an interesting bunch
Most of us are pretty old, but still within our prime,
As we reminisce and analyse events from time to time.
As the only vegetarian with this eclectic group,
While they peruse the menu, I only have the soup.
Today was cold and windy the footing ice and snow
So just to cross the parking lot took caution as you go.
I made it safely to the door, and made my way inside
Then went to the buffet to check the soup supplied.
Broccoli and coconout a choice strange and effete
But I served myself a bowl, as at least it had no meat.
I took a roll, some butter too, was balanced on my plate
And headed for our private room with calm and steady gait.
But as I travelled slowly I sadly must have found
A patch of something slippery as I crashed to the ground.
The plate, the bowl, and yes the soup, were spread all round the place
As I lay upon the floor a shocked look on my face.
It took four guys to pick me up and plant me on a stool,
One of them the manager I felt an awful fool.
I took a while to calm myself before I felt I`d dare
To get off that stool they`d put me on and find my usual chair.
I sat there for a little while to contemplate my soul
And then a waitress came to me she`d brought another bowl.
I finished it, talked to my friends and said I must away
And then asked the waitress how much I had to pay.
It was the blessed limit is all that I can say
They did not charge me for the soup, but for the whole buffet
As the morning starts, we’ll hurdle,
Crossword puzzles and the wordle
Thats the limit we can plan
As sudokus do not scan
And so inspiration muzzle
Of those who solved the crossword puzzle.
Recently discovered in the Windsor Castle Archives.
A historical verse
Queen Victoria
We adore ya
Person noble
Ruling Global
Problems you fix
Imperatrix
You were right
To make me knight
For giving praise
In many ways.
Maybe now in thanks for verse
Open up your Royal purse
Actual begging letter from Longfellow?
September is past its centre, Summer ends today. How does the seasonal change affect the family? It is two weeks now since Robin was flattened by a speeding Clydesdale, and her broken ribs and thumb seem to be recovering, It seems that she has all the stamina of her sisters, as she is off to do the 10 kilometre Army Run in Ottawa today, as parents we would rather she walked the % kilometre distance, but as her sister ran Boston with a broken arm, we will just wait and see.
It is not as if our other daughters are relaxing this weekend. Susan has been taking part in some 50 kilometer trail run in Kentucky, organised by the man who sets up the legendary Barkley marathon. As far as we know she has finished, and we await all the details in due course. Judy and Harry are part of a support team for a runnner in a 100 mile race somewhere out west, and Judy was planning on runnimg the last 50 miles with the guy they are helping. We believe12 hours that they have finished too.
Of course this week end the bridge from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island is open for runners in memory of Terry Fox, but Sheila and I decided to give it a miss, this time. A bike hike of 8 kilometers is probably enough for us today.
We now know what actually happened: Judy out for 12 hours and 57 minutes
:Robin out for 84 minutes
Susan out for 12 hours 25 minutes
Tim and Sheila 45 minutes
Arriving back at the apartment after my afternoon bike ride, I discovered the door was unlocked, which suggested that by wife was in. On entering I discovered she was indeed in, and in trouble. She was sitting on the floor just in front of the door to the balcony, and seeking my help. She could not get up, She asked for a cushion to go under her and I then tried to lift her up with my hands, I became unbalanced and almost fell on top of her. By sliding her over to my reclining chair and sitting on it, I found I had enough leverage to get her back on her feet.
She explained that she had been reading in the hanging chair on the balcony, when it became unbalanced a and dumped her on the floor. The suspended chair was given to her by daughter Robin at least 10 years ago, and was not in peak operating condition, so we condemmed it to the dump, in pieces, via the dumpster in our parking lot. I took the first part to our storage temporarily, leaving my keys in the storage room door. I took the next bit straight to the dumpster, but then I could not get back in the budin without my keys, So I had to explain everything to a neighbour so that they would let me in. By the time I had consigned the whole chair to un overhe dumpster, most of the building had heard the Story.
The week is not over yet! We received a phone call at lunch time yesterday from middle daughter Robin. She had suffered some broken ribs anD a fractured thumb in an incident with a charging carthorse. While we are most sympathetic towards our child, the temptation to sing about it as a parody of a popular Christmas song is inevitable
“Our daughter got run over by a Clydesdale!
Finally the wheel of life has completed a circle, not in any way fatal, but back to the beginnig. I first used a primitive computer back in the 1950’s, and bought one for home use in the 1970’s. By then we had three daughters, all of whom became familiar with the primitive machine. As the years moved on the world of technology moved further and further away from me, but the young fluorished. So I now have children and grand children working with all the latest applications, while to me. e-mail and facebook are as far as I normally go.
II do receive some encouragement from the young, I was given a Garmin watch for my birthday last year, which I have partially mastered, but I have trouble downloading it to my computer. Judy and Harry also passed on to me the I Phone that they had replaced with an up to date version, and I purchased an instruction ghubook with lots of pages that I have not read. Yesterday, oldest daughter Judy was competing in the Ottawa Iron Man a mixture of swimming, biking and running, which requires an incredible degree of fitness. I assumed that I would be able to watch her progress over the twelve hour period somehow, and sent a “help me” request to my children and grand children. One of them told me to “download an app” on my Iphone. So I tried to do it , and amazingly enough I found myself on an IPhone Ironman site wzperience in here I could keep track of Judy’s
An hour or two later Ireceived a call from a daughter who had 30 years expeerience teaching computer stuff asking if I could tell her how Judy was doing. I felt truly empowered that it was actually assumed that I had found out how to find out.
By the way Judy came second out of 51 in the 60 t0 65 age group, an even greater achievemrnt than mine!
In 1972, for reasons best known to the Goverment of New Brunswick, I was appointed Director of Pollution Control in the Department of Environment and Fisheries. While my previous employment had been mostly as a geophysicist, back then there were not many environmentalists and others in related fields tended to find themselves coopted into this relatively new area of work. I was also known for having worked on various groundwater projects in the Province, and I was a rare bird for another reason, I spoke and understood French reasonably well, an unusual attribute for an New Brunswick anglophone in those days.
When being interviewed for the post I was asked whether in view of my previous work history in Australia, the UK and Canada, I could be expected to stay with this position. My response was that I would stay for at least two years or until the organisation had acquired a reputation for validity. At this time the Canadian Council of Resource And Environment Ministers Government of Canada was conducting a national public participation program entitled Man and Resources. Which involved a broad spectrum of involvemen t working on various aspects found to be of significance at a Montebello Conference in 1972. My own involvement as a late comer to the process culminated at a provincial conference in Fredericton at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, which was cut short by the arrival of the biggest flood in recent history closing down the downtown. Before we fled the flood we elected a delegation to go to a national conference later in the year, I was elected a member of that delegation.
Soon afterwards I received a letter from the Secretariat asking if I wanted to be part of an English, French, or bilingual group at the conference, and I replied that I would prefer to be in a bilingual group. Not long after I was informed that they were not having bilingual groups, so I had to choose one language, and I chose French. On arrival at the Four Seasons in Toronto, we were told that the first night we would having dinner with the working group we were assigned to. It tured out that there were about fifteen in the group, nearly all from Quebec with one from Belgium, and one from New Brunswick. We were meant to introduce ourselves to each other so as to be prepared to select a spokesperson for the group the following day. This person would then represent the group in central group that would work on the outcome report.
The following morning we had our first official group meeting, with an animateur to assist. The first item on the agenda was for each person to introduce the person next to him (I do not recall any women in the group). I was a little I agreed without much thought about the implications. puzzled as the third or fourth person to be introduced, when he said that he would introduce me later. From the introductions it was fairly clear that were all rom significan organisations in Quebc, with the exception of the Belgian. After the circuit, my neighbour introduced me and said that I was the obvious choice for the role of rapporteur for the group and to represent them on the central committee. I agreed without much thought about the implications.
In addition to the elected delegates there were also the various Provincial Ministers from the Council of Resource and Environment, including Bill Cockburn who was my Minister and his wife Mardi. To make more interesting for the observers, the hotel television system provided closed circuit coverage of the conference, including the various cetral group meetings. The central group met after dinner and was provided with simultaneous translation to reflect the two official language groupsn o sign in those days of the indiginous languages. Unfortunately the meeting was going on enthusiastically when the interpreters announced that they had finished for the day. Obviously the group did not want to finish so I suggested that we proceeded with amateur interpretaion from me and a couple of of others, so we went on for another 40 minutes or so.
The next morning one of the Quebec members of our group said to me that the Quebec delegates had seen what I was planning and would support me! This left me somewhat baffled at the time. That evening the central group had to elect a smaller group to prepare the report of the conference. The committee were more or less split on political lines and the committee of three was one from the right, one from the left and me as chair, so that is what Quebec meant.
So we now add yet one more daily meeting, as the three of us struggled to produce a meaningful report on what had been going on. I succeeded in convincing my two colleagues tat a short and snappy report was the best solution rather than a long diatribe. We then had to present at a noon time meeting of the whole committee. As soon as we started we were attacked on the basis of our newspaper style, and in response I pointed out that Ministers we were writing the report for were busy people and preferred that we would get to the point, rather than delivering a diatribe. We were told to go away and rewrite. Unfortunately the session of the committee was carried on the hotel television system and the New Brunswick delegation, including the Minister, Bill Cockburn and his wife Mardi were watching.
When I returned to my room I found a note on the door.”May I have your resignation in five words or less” signed Mardi Cockburn. WE became friends then and remained friends until she died 49 years later
As for the revised report, it went nowhere.
One critic labeled the effort as a “largely innocuous” forum “culminating in bureaucratic cooptation” of environmental concerns.
muffinandbagels 