A recent trip to Winnipeg for a wedding has introduced me and my wife to how the world of travel has changed. Life is now theoretically more simple, but I suspect it is really more complicated.
The first part was easy. We were going to take an aeroplane early in the morning, and before I could organize a taxicab, my next-door neighbor said if you have to be at the airport at 5:30 in the morning let me drive you there to save you the cost of a cab. He also said he would wake us up at 4 o’clock in case that was necessary. So in due course, our next-door neighbor drove us to the airport before dawn where we were taken up and given status as uneasy travelers in the sense that I can’t walk very far. We flew to Montreal where we were met as we left the aircraft by someone who wheeled us in a wheelchair to where the next gate was where we were to catch our flight to Winnipeg. In due course the plane arrived and took us to Winnipeg and another wheelchair took us down to the baggage department where we found a daughter waiting for us.
The daughter and her husband and her children who were in town for the same wedding as we were had rented cars for their stay and we were driven to our hotel. So far nothing particularly new about what was going on. There were complications in that there were several of us staying in the same hotel going to the same wedding which was quite a long way away ranging in age from 21 to 88. We had several cars but people with different ambitions.
The wedding took place as was intended and we ended up dancing to YMCA which is something which my arthritic knees were not really ready for. By the time that was over, my wife and I, needed to go back to the hotel. And one of the daughters said I will order you a Uber, I had never used a Uber in the past, but in a very short order a car drove up and we got into it having been told that we had been paid for in advance and the driver of the Uber who looked like a recent immigrant seemed to have no difficulty in making the very complex drive through Winnipeg to our hotel, took about 30 minutes.
My impression of traveling across Winnipeg was I would hate to have to do it because it’s all so complicated. But the Uber driver had one of those, had his cell phone which showed green lines if we were going in the right direction or something, and he knew how to get there even if we didn’t. So we arrived safely at the hotel. The next day we decided to go to the new museum of immigration or whatever it is. It is a very large building and I knew I could not handle it walking. But when I bought my entry ticket they pointed me in the direction of the cloakroom where they said I could acquire means to assist my travel and they indeed gave me my own electric wheelchair. In how the system worked and all I had to do was press a button and I was away. Not very fast but much better than walking with my knees. It was a long building and we went round ramps rather than using the elevators. When we reached the fifth level we stopped for a cup of coffee in theory but in my case it was meant to be dried tomato soup. When I wanted to move on wheelchair refused to react to the pressing of any button and could not be pushed. After some research we called downstairs and a person reappeared with a new battery which they used to replace the flat one that was in my wheelchair and our travels continued. We then returned to our hotel to prepare for the next phase. .
For our departure from Winnipeg, We did not need an Uber as one of our daughters was still there to take us to the airport. She dropped us off at departures and went to return the car to the rental agency. Sheila and I checked in at the counter and said we would meet Robin on the other side of security. We then got assistance to security and a man who stayed with us until we came out the other side. We were then offered a wheelchair again, except there were two wheelchairs, one for each of us. And when we got on them, it was pointed out that we didn’t have to do anything. It would take us to our gate or they would take us to our gate. So we mounted our wheelchairs and off we went, giving them no instructions except to keep going. When they reached our gate they stopped and we got off and found seats as we had an hour or two to wait for the actual plane. We looked round and saw that our wheelchairs with nobody on them or pushing them had turned around and were returning to where we had picked them up of their own volition, as if they were Uber driverless taxicabs, whatever they were, they were impressive and worked. Everything was now organized except Robin hadn’t arrived. And we had to wait another hour before she did. Apparently because of the state of decay of me and the assistance of the people that porter, we had been whizzed through the security system in a couple of minutes. Robin, who came back after returning the car, spent over an hour in the lineup waiting to go through security. Finally we were on board the plane and en route to Ottawa, where we took an Uber to Judy’s house, where Robin picked up her car with twenty-five red cushions or polychromatic cushions and drove us to her house in Carleton Place.
What are the Rules?
What they may ask you when they telephone you and ask questions? The other day I spent half an hour trying to convince someone that I really didn’t have a cell phone that required me to buy an extra so many megs an hour or whatever it was because I didn’t need one and because for somebody my age it was not a good idea to start a new technology like that. Yesterday, at supper time of course, the phone rang again and a voice at the other end said they wanted to ask me a few questions I said go ahead; first question they asked me was how old are you I had no objection telling them I was 88 years old. The next question was what are the first 3 digits of my postal code. I said I’m not telling you that and they said why not. Its none of your business. I said; tell me please who you are asking on behalf of ? Who are you doing this survey for and they replied they’re not allowed to do that! I cannot believe there really are rules that say when you make a survey of people you can’t tell them who’s making it; so I told them you tell the person who is making this survey day that if he tells me who he is I will share my post code is or at least the first 3 digits of it. They said we can’t do that and I said in which case why don’t you simply tell the person who requires the survey to take a long walk off a short pier.
What are the rules anyway?.
It is now nearly 75 years since I left home to go away to a boarding school. One those places called public schools, which are anything but. The structure of the school was straightforward, you ate, slept, and studied in a boarding house and attended classes in the main buildings. On your way to classes in the morning, you would have to pass inspection by a group of Senior Inferiors. Boys, there were no girls in the school, in those days,probably in their third or fourth year, who had not achieved the status of prefects. They would check that our hair was brushed, our black leather shoes polished and our black jackets unflawed by dust or detritus. Any flaw would result on being sent back inside to fix it. It was meant to inculcate a lifetime sense of tidiness and elegance. such as can be observed in my normal appearance these days.
At present we live in a four storey apartment building which is largely occupied by retired people although there are some younger ones on the ground floor. When you leave the building by the main door you have to run through a sort of gauntlet compiled of various people with nothing to do or waiting for drivers to take them somewhere. It would be very bad manners to ignore them so one is obliged to exchange comments with them so it really is running the gauntlet like the one with the senior inferiors back at school. Fortunately the observers here have no authority to send me back to my apartment to change.
As I look back on approaching the 66th anniversary of my marriage, I wonder at how many things have stayed ore or less the same, this is particularly true when it comes to diet. I have avoided red meat from birth, largely for technical reasons, while my wife Sheila has slowly changed to a less carniverous taste. Every now and then one or the other of us has deviated sharply from their standard practise, and surprised their partner. Shortly after we were married we were on a field trip with an international group of graduate students, from:India, Pakistan. Turkey, Iraq, and Nigeria, and a couple of Brits. Sheila who was not working on her thesis at the time was dragooned into the role of chief cook for this multinational bunch. and we were paticularly struck by the Nigerian’s taste for marmalade on his breakfast bacon.
I do not know the real reason for this, but in recent years, my wife whose normal lunch consistts of Han and spinach, has started adding jam or marmalade to her cold midday ham. One of our dietary differences is that I am much more of a cheese fan than my wife. On Saturday the farmers market has one stall with a magnificent selection of cheese. Whenever I feel brave enough on Saturday morning, I go to the market for cheese for me, and date squares for my wife. This morning while waiting to pay I noticed something strange among the vast variety of cheeses. It was “sticky toffee cheddar”. When I said that it seemed weird, they offered us both a sample, which much to my surprise seemed edible, and my wife told me to buy some; as a dutiful husband I did so.
At lunch time today my wife enjoyed a ham, marmalade and sticky toffee cheddar sandwich. Who says life is boring?
As it was Saturday, my wife and I decided to go to one of the local Tim Hortons for our morning coffee today. As usual on the weekend, or at most other times s well, we were dressed casually. Far from elegant, but by no means scruffy. When we entered the store the was no lineup, just one middle aged man in a suit placing an order for his breakfast, it was about 10AM. When the employee put his bill up for him to pay, he said to the cashier “Put the bill for the couple behind me on my bill”, which despite our protestations, she did. Fortunately we only had one coffee, one hot water and two cookies so it was probably only about $6.00. My natural reaction was to pass the donation on to the next in line, but there was no one behind us. WE will have to remember that we owe someone coffee on our next visit, but I had not realised before that we could pass as homeless so easily. Maybe there is a lesson in this some where!
When I changed my tires from Summer to Winter last fall, my service people told me that one tire would need to be replaced. I was not surprised as it had shOwn a tendency to go flat. I had arranged last week to take the car in on Tuesday, to get the tires changed and some other minor work carried out. Today, Saturday we were headed back from a shopping trip when I hit a pothole and heard a bang. I carried on hopefully, but soon realised that I had a flat, and headed to the nearest air station, just before I reached it, further sinister noises indicated that the tire and the rim had become separated.
Now I have a real problem, I am one of the few people of my age (88) in New Brunswick who does not carry a cell phone at all times. I do have a primive one, but I only use it to tell children when they can pick me up at the airport. There is a Camadian Tire Gas pump attached to the air pump.but it is really only a convenience store. The man behind the counter is reluctant to let me use his phone to call CAA as he says they take forevsr to answer. In the end I persuade him to try, and they answer immediately, and hearing that I have no spare tire. or so I believe, they say a tow truck should be with me in 90 minutes. or 45 minutes if I am lucky.
They say that only one person can ride in the tow truck and my wife who is just a young thing, a year younger than me, thinks she can make it the 2 kilometres home on foot. Almost as soon as she leaves, the CAA tow truck arrives driven by one of those cheerfull chaps who they always seem to have. He rapidly proves me wrong and located the spare tire that I do indeed have. He demonstrates the skill of an experienced tire changer, and in a few minutes has me gratefully on the road again. I head for home and succeed in picking up my wife after she has only walked one of the two kilometers.
Now we will have to wait what new crises develop at the dealer on Tuesday:will our Maitime good fortunr continue?
As a very mature Senior Citizen, I encounter many situations that I never expected or encountered in my younger years, but I am required to deal with today. Sometimes many of them arrive at once, to whit; over the past ten days I have had to deal with a scanning failure,a camera failure, a car failure, and a microwave failure,
Starting with the first one, the scanning failure: my oldest daughter, while in Thailand recently, visited the memorials to those who had died building the railroad as reported in the book and movie “The bridge over the River Kwai”. It so happens that my god father, who was also her sisters godfather, was one of the survivors for a while of the P.O.W.s working on the railroad. Research by one of her sisters surprisingly told us more about him and his experiences. His journal of his time in the camp is apparently in the Imperial War Museum in London. I remember him as a friendly occasional visitor, who Introduced me to musical theatre, and the technique of getting back stage!
Geoff was an artistic draughtsman, and a talented one who could make anyone look glamorous. His letters were elegantly decorated in many colours. and the one he sent to me at Malvern almost gave thoe housemaster a heart attack, until I explained. The family wanted to know more about him, so I earched my “files?” for anything relevant and found two of the the three photographs I thought I had of him. And then tried to send them by email. About 25 years ago I purchased a large and expensive scanner that dissappeared years ago, My next scanner was designed to work with a computer no longer in my possession, and I bought a printer that would also scan, that has since died. My new printer is meant to scan, but I cannot convince it to do so. Never mind you say, you can photograph the pictures with your cell phone and send them that way. Unfortunately while I have an old I phone donated by a daughter, I have not mastered it to the point that I can get it to email its photos.. I I do,of course, have a digital camera with a card that loads into one of extension cords that have to be used to connect with my computer: so I decide to use it. Unfortunately the camera refuses to turn on. Undaunted I carry on and discover that one of the four double AAs required to operate the camera is dead, so I have to replace it.
That dealt with the camera and scanning failures, now for the car: On a very cold morning the car refused to start, so I called the CAA, thinking I would et my moneysworth for my subsciption. In a relatively short time their truck came round and their guy got the car started quite easily. The following day I encounered exactly the same problem, and he came back, and asked me to demonstrate the problem, once again the car would not start. He then pointed out that I was meant to press the brake and not the accelarator when I pressed the starter. Another problem solved!ed inrsolving my problem
And now the microwave. I just stopped working, nothing worked, nothing lit up. Based on experience I headed for circuit breaker board where I fould no indication of a failure on the part of the marked circuit. I then phoned the maintenance support team for the development who said they would deal with it. When noone showed I called again and was told that there was a leakage problen using the staff at the moment and it would be another day before I would get a visit. While I had a perfectly good electric stove so I could cook while I waited. Later in the day I was talking to some other tenants, and one of them described a similar problem, and pointed out that the interruptor on the plug was very stiff, and was hard to press. As I had not even ben aware that it existed I went to the kitchen and succeeded in solving the problem myself. Strangely I received an email asking me to fill in a questionnaire on how they had resolved the problem I had reported to them.
Life is so simple these days
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
muffinandbagels 