ROCKIN' WITH SIR PAUL

     Right off the bat I will have to say that I have been a huge Beatles fan ever since The Fab Four first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 to the screams of my older sisters and the bewilderment of my parents. Why would you scream at a TV screen? And for a rock band no less? Dad could understand screaming at the TV if the Canadiens scored or the Yankees won, again, but for four guys from Liverpool? Singing? C’mon. But he watched. Screams and all. Mom had lived through the Sinatramania period so she had a better understanding of what my sisters were going through.
     Like millions of other children growing up in the 60’s I was swept up in Beatlemania, too. For me it continues to this day. I have vivid recollections of the moments in my life that I associate with their greatest hits. From their first album “Please, Please Me”, in 1963, to their last album, “Let It Be” in 1970 I was hooked. Their songs were the soundtrack to so many people’s lives in the wild decade that was the 1960’s; including mine. We grew up with them. Sure, there we other bands and Elvis, of course, but to me it was always The Beatles.
    So you can imagine my excitement when our dear children presented Deb and me with the tickets to see one of the original Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney, live and in concert at Mosaic Stadium on August 14th. In Regina, Saskatchewan, if you can imagine? Like a zillion other people I had wanted to see these guys, even one of these guys, perform live but I had never made it happen.
    Deb and I pulled into the Victoria Square Mall parking lot around 5:30 pm on the 14th to catch one of the shuttle buses to the stadium. We thought we’d have a bit of time to grab a bite to eat and browse around the mall before catching the bus to the eight-o’clock show but to our amazement the line-up of people for the buses was from the old Zeller’s entrance door, on the east end of the mall, all the way back around to the other side of the Safeway store and this close to the Tim Horton’s on the west side of the mall parking lot. Yikes! We made the best of it though. There’s a certain camaraderie in like-minded people. We found some common ground with a few of the folks waiting in line with us, sharing our Beatles memories and, of course, as most Saskatchewan people do, we all know somebody who knows somebody, you know? and before long the wait was over and we were on our way.
     We got off the bus on Albert St. to another long line-up to get to the stadium gates but this time some friends of ours let us butt in line cutting the wait time in half. I told you that Saskatchewan people always know someone who knows someone. However, nothing was going to discourage us from enjoying this show. Not the line-ups and the line-ups and the line-ups or the people whining about the line-ups and the line-ups and the line-ups…. Or the fact that it started almost an hour late because there was a snafu in getting 44,000 people into Mosaic Stadium, or the inflated food and beverage prices, or the middle-aged-rhinestone-clad-bleached-blonde-reeking of cheap perfume and beer sitting right behind me all noisy and talking all night long and everything…It didn’t matter. We were there to enjoy an evening with Sir Paul. And we did.
     I am not going to tell you that we’ve seen hundreds of live shows but we’ve seen enough. Big name acts and also-rans, great shows and not-so-great shows. I admitted to you right away that I was a huge Beatles fan so my expectations were almost low but Sir Paul blew everyone away! Of course, there’ll be that tiny minority who wouldn’t be impressed by anything but they are so few in number I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. But, “ to each their own”, eh?
     Now, do me a favour. Close your eyes and think of a seventy-one-year-old-man. What do you see? I thought so. On August 14th, 2013 we watched a seventy-one-year-old Beatle rock the house down better than a man half his age or younger. Sir Paul McCartney performed for three hours straight and he and his band, with a cameo accompaniment from the City of Regina Pipe Band, played 39 songs all together and it was the most amazing live show I’ve ever seen.
  “Being in the audience actually looks like quite a lot of fun.”-Paul McCartney (1942-).

DRIVE SAFE, PEOPLE!

            I’ve logged a lot of kilometers across this province of ours during the past three months and there are a few things that stand out to me regarding the experiences that I’ve had driving at this time of the year on Saskatchewan highways and byways.

            Not only is it summer-time but it’s also tourist season and, most importantly of all, it’s ROAD CONSTRUCTION season! Between the lateness of our spring/winter and the constant downpours of rain the road construction industry has been under even more stress to get the amount of work done that has been contracted to them in the limited time that this far too-short season allows.

            Saskatchewan has the largest municipal grid road network in Canada totaling 165,000 kilometers. In combination with the province’s highway network, the province boasts over 190,000 km of rural roads-the most roads per capita of any jurisdiction in the world. That’s an awful lot of road to look after so no wonder it has taken forever to get those last fifteen miles between Kipling and #9 highway finished! The same could be said for sections of Hwy #42, #47, #123, #35, # 155 and the list goes on and on.

            The bad news is that there are so many roads to do upkeep on and the good news is that there are so many roads to do upkeep on, if you know what I mean. I’d like to be able to take the fastest route possible on the best road conditions possible between destinations and that’s a pretty tall order, but we’re getting there. The amount of highway construction being done on the highways, grid roads and municipal streets in this province is another indication of Saskatchewan’s robust economy, (cue politicians to line up to take credit here).

            I can’t seem to locate any accurate statistics so I cannot say with any certainty that the number of inept drivers is higher in Saskatchewan than anywhere else but it sure seemed like it on some of the days, well…most…of the days that I’ve been on the road. In fact, Saskatchewan set a new record for the number of highway fatalities in 2012 and distracted driving surpassed drunk driving as the number one cause of death on Saskatchewan’s roads.

            Last year SGI recorded 173 fatalities up to December 17^th, 2012 with 57 of those fatal collisions attributed to distracted driving and 54 to drinking and driving leaving 62 deaths to what? Selfish driving? Dangerous driving? Carelessness? Lack of skills? A little bit of all of the above perhaps? We really need to pay more attention to what we’re doing out there folks!

            Sidebar here: I was recently cruising down Saskatchewan Drive when I was distracted by an electronic billboard whose message was a read-out stating that distracted driving was now the #1 cause of road accidents and I damn near rear-ended the car in front of me while I was reading the sign telling me not to be distracted while driving! Sheesh! Take those stupid things down already before someone really gets hurt. It’s probably too late now anyway.

            So, mister smarty-pants, what gives you the right to preach to us about driving, you’re thinking? Here’s the thing-I got my driver’s license in 1974 and my first car in 1976. In that time I’ve had two speeding tickets, (both bogus calls by the way), but okay, they’re on my record and I have never had a claim in to SGI for any vehicle that I have owned in 37 years. (Touch wood that I haven’t jinxed myself now!). Nothing! Not a fender bender, not so much as a scratch in a  parking lot. Have I done stupid things while I’ve been behind the wheel? Yes I have. More than I’d like to admit to and I am thankful for the road angel that’s been looking after me all these years but most of my luck has been because I was trained as a defensive driver and I still apply those techniques while I’m driving and I will take some of the credit for going nearly 40 years accident free.

            On August 29th it will have been one year since the senseless death of Ashley Dawn Richards, the 18-year-old pregnant flag attendant who was killed by a speeding passing motorist while she was working in a road construction zone near Midale. In my recent time on the road I must have been passed a dozen times by drivers too selfish for their own time to obey the rules of the road in these construction zones. One small misstep and dozens of lives will be affected by one driver’s bad decision, so, please, people, let’s be careful, be aware of your surroundings and pay attention out there.

            “It takes 8,460 bolts to assemble an automobile, and one nut to scatter it all over the road.” ~ Author Unknown.

CREATING MEMORIES

We just finished the 2^nd Annual Hubbard Family Pike Lake Camping Trip and it was great. Again! The weather could have been better but it wasn’t terrible; having only a few hours of rain to interrupt the festivities.

            Pike Lake Provincial Park is located 32km southwest of Saskatoon on the shore of Pike Lake, an oxbow created by the South Saskatchewan River. It’s a great place to go to if you ever get the chance.

            Last year, after we were done our week of camping there, Deb and I headed back home to Kipling heading east on the Yellowhead Highway and then wound our way down through some Saskatchewan countryside that we hadn’t seen much of. This year we came back down the other side of the river through Outlook, Lucky Lake and made our way across Lake Diefenbaker on the Riverhurst Ferry. It was also great.

            The Riverhurst Ferry is how Highway 42 crosses Lake Diefenbaker. Highway 42 also goes by, or close to, a couple of body parts towns like Elbow and Eyebrow and meets up with Highway No. 2 at Tuxford. We chose this route for two reasons. 1.)-to cross the lake on the ferry and, 2.) to follow 42 Highway through some old stomping grounds of mine as the highway goes through Brownlee, Keeler and Marquis. I had lived in Marquis from 1965 to 1970 while Dad was the United Church Minister for the Marquis, Keeler and Tuxford Pastoral Charges and I had also spent some time in the Brownlee area as I worked on my then brother-in-law’s farm at Lake Valley in the ‘70’s.

            Debbie, our youngest daughter Emily and I made the drive and I showed them many spots that I hadn’t seen in years and years. I was reminded of old hockey games in the Brownlee rink that’s still standing and we were this close to Tugaske, which isn’t on the highway but very close, where Barty Backzuk and I spent a memorable few hours in a drinking hole there in the summer of ‘77.

            We pulled in to Marquis and then the old stories really started flying. Here’s the Manse house where we lived and the one-room schoolhouse I attended in grades four through six and the church where Dad did so many services and here’s where my brother Gordie fell on that broken bottle and ripped up his knee that Halloween so many years ago. Here’s Dora and Con McCann’s store where we had to meet the bus to get to school in Moose Jaw. Here’s Brad Duzan’s old house where we played a couple of thousand ping-pong games and snuck smokes out of his Mom’s purse and here’s where we built a state-of-the-art snow fort and here’s where I took that tomato juice can off the noggin playing kick the can in our back yard. Oh, the memories!

            The drive from Marquis in to Moose Jaw threw me back to the old school bus riding days and I was surprised that there are still so many of the landmarks along the bus route that I had used way back when to figure out how much longer we had to go to get to school or home. I was reminded of how the panic would set in when we passed the anhydrous station on #2 Highway and I knew that we were this close to school and I hadn’t gauged the time properly to get my procrastinated homework done in time! Some things never change.

            I’ve seen mountains and I’ve seen oceans and I’ve even seen a tropical paradise but there is a particular beauty that only the prairies hold and maybe it’s just us old farmhands who can appreciate the Saskatchewan flatlands but that drive through the green and yellow and blue fields was priceless. And then throw in a dip into the old nostalgia pool and now we’re making memories with memories. What a ride.

            “There’s a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.”-David Guterson (1956-).

NEW POSTS

Hello there Dear Reader. I haven't had a post on this site since May 27th and there are a number of reasons for this. If I have to explain myself to you, which I feel I do, hence this posting.
Anyway, there are a few times throughout the year that circumstances take me away from my word processor and springtime in Saskatchewan is one of those times. Especially after we had just endured the full-on nasty winter that started sometime back in October, and it was still snowing on us on May 1st, so when the weather finally allows us to get into the yards and gardens and golf courses there aren't a lot of indoor minutes left.
I work full-time at my job at Seed Hawk Inc. and I work full-time on this 1919 house and yard to keep it up leaving very little writing time. I know...whine, whine, whine.
On top of that on the 21st of June my dear ninety-one-year-old Mom passed away after a full life lived. She lives about a six hour car ride away so we took a couple of trips out to where she lives to say our goodbyes. It was a tough month. You'll find a couple of postings below about my Mom and Dad.
Now we're off for a week of R&R at Pike Lake near Saskatoon. We found this place last year and we're going back because we liked it so much.
I'm not sure if I will take the time to post on this site while I'm gone but I will try. We here in Saskatchewan have so little warm-weather time to take advantage of that I am going to spend as much time outdoors as I possibly can before we're forced back inside in the all to near future.
I'll be back.

BERRY PICKING...FUN?

A recent high temperature day had me thinking back to the hot summers of my youth while we were living in the United Church Manse in Marquis, Saskatchewan. I was nine-and-a-half years old and July was my month.


One day, Mrs. Parker, an old friend of Mom’s from Alberta, came to visit and I came in to the kitchen early that morning looking for some breakfast and Mom and Mrs. Parker were chit-chatting away over coffee. Talking about Saskatoon pie or something…I wasn’t’ really listening.

Mom says, “We’re going to do something really fun today!”

“Oh, great!” Says I. “What’re we doing? Going to the beach? Going to the Wild Animal Park in Moose Jaw? Are we going somewhere where I can swim?”

“No…better…we’re going BERRY PICKING!”

“MAH!!! No, no, no…not berry picking! Mommmmm. That’s not fun! I can’t go berry picking I had a lot planned for today…Clifford and Kevin Bittner have their go-cart running and they promised I could drive it today and I think Mr. Thul boo-stoned the dugout and we were going to go swimming ‘cause it’s so hot and then we were going to get a bunch a guys for 500 and then…”

“You are not allowed to drive a go-cart…you’re 9!”

“Nine-and-a-half!”

“Don’t get smart with me, Young Man! You are too young to drive that thing and you can’t go swimming in the dugout, either, I don’t care how much BLUE stoning Mr. Thul does if there are no adults around…Oh, nevermind… none of that matters because we are going berry picking. Today! So, eat your breakfast.”

So then we pile into Mrs. Parker’s BLACK non air conditioned Chevrolet Impala in the 37C (98F) heat. It was a beautiful car but it was a sweat box that day. Mrs. Parker was driving; Mom was in the front, too, and my sister Shelly was in the middle of the backseat between me and my year-and-a-half older brother, Gordie, who was sitting behind Mom. I got behind Mrs. Parker where she kept a hairy eye on me in her rear-view mirror for the whole drive. She gave me the willies. I don’t know if I ever heard her first name. It was always just Mrs. Parker.

I’m going, “Do they HAVE Saskatoon berries in the North West Territories??? How far are we going anyways? I’m melting here.”

Gordie says, “Shut up.”

My guess is that we would have passed about four thousand berry bushes between Marquis and our eventual destination…Buena Vista Beach on Long Lake. A two-hour drive but we had to find THE spot, you know. Which didn’t look much different than the thousands of “spots” I’d seen along the way. But what do I know? There were berries galore.

I’m pickin’ and eatin’ and pickin’ and eatin’ and throwing a few in the pail and pickin’ and eatin’ and then I get a little cuff behind the ear and wouldn’t you know it…there’s ol’ Mrs. Parker grabbing my ear and telling me to, “Stop eating them all! You’re supposed to put them in the pail.”

“I’m not eating them.” I lied through my purple teeth.

I slipped her grip and ran the other way. I made sure I was far, far away from her for the rest of that tortuous berry picking day.

It was an amazing haul, though, I must say. I almost made my self sick eating so many berries so I ended up putting more in the pails than in my gut anyway because I don’t think I could have eaten one more berry that day.

We did have some amazing Saskatoon pie the next day and there was an odd sense of satisfaction in knowing that I had helped pick those berries. Ol’ Mrs. Parker even tickled me a bit; seeming to have forgotten my earlier transgressions and me hers. I went to bed tired and full and anxious for the next day’s summer adventure to begin.

“On the motionless branches of some trees, berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fables orchards where the fruits were jewels.”- Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

WORK THAT GARDEN!

My Dad loved his garden. Mom loved it, too, but it was always Dad’s garden and he did most of the work in there. He did the tilling, the hoeing, the planting, the watering and a lot of the weeding. Mom would weed as well and did a lot of the harvesting before it ended up on someone’s plate as part of one of her delicious meals or in the “cold room” in a mason jar or somewhere in the freezer. Our family could hardly wait for the garden to be ready to supply the ingredients for Mom’s Hungarian green pea soup and her garden fresh creamed bean soup. Delicious!


Of course Dad’s children/slaves were expected to do their share as well. In the fall, during my youth, it would not be unusual to come home from school to find a small load of manure in a pile on his garden with a couple of forks sticking out of it. No one had to tell my brother Gord or me who the forks were intended for. Football, the Hub Café or hanging with friends be damned--get that caca spread! And do it right! Don’t be throwing it around willy-nilly and then run off to the playground. Oh no. There was always a method to be followed and you can never, ever rush the process.

The garden was Dad’s refuge. It was his escape from the stresses of life. To me, not having the green thumb and all, it was a cause for stress. You see, I never really took to the work involved in gardening. It just looked too much like…well…WORK to me and I had a great aversion to work. Garden/yard work, I should say, you know, physical, slave-labour-type work. Hoeing and shoveling and bending and picking and mosquito slapping and…oh my goodness there was nothing appealing to it at all. I preferred having my sweat manufactured on a playing field not on a vegetable growing field, if you know what I mean? I could work. I didn’t even mind work, so much, I just picked a different outlet for my labour. When allowed, that is.

After the forced-labour gardening days of my youth/adolescence there were a few care-free years when I was gone from home and living here and there and nowhere near a garden. Ahhh, the good ol’ free-man days. Then…I married a farm girl. A garden-loving farm girl, no less. And now it’s Déjà vu all over again.

“You want to help me in the garden tonight?”

“Ah, you know, I wouldn’t mind but I got this sore toe.”

I do what I can to get out of it but you can only hide so many places and so many times before it catches up to you. You see, my wife has a very valid point…I love the finished product so one has to produce to get the produce, you know? If I want those peas and carrots for that soup then you got to grow them now don’t you? If you want the lettuce to taste like lettuce…then you got to grow it now don’t you? So now I’m back to helping in the garden…like it or not.

Oh, I suppose we could market garden it or revert back to the old garden raiding days but I’m a lot more honest now than I was at fourteen and I can’t run like I used to, either, and, besides, it tastes better when you earn it. Or so I’m told.

All joking aside, that first steaming ladle of the Zoldborsoleves, csipetke tesztaval (green pea soup with pinched noodles) out of the pot with the garden fresh peas and onions and carrots…mmmmm, makes it all worth it.

“Gardens aren’t made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful’ and sitting in the shade.”-Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).

I LOVE JULY!

Regular readers of this column would be able to tell you that I am a heat lover. I love it! Weatherwise that is. I also love July. It is my favourite month of the year. To me, July is about three of my most favourite things: barbeques, baseball and beer. Not necessarily in that order, mind you, and best if all three are combined together.


July was named by the Roman Senate in honor of the Roman general, Julius Caesar, it being the month of his birth. Prior to that, it was called Quintilis. Really? Thank goodness for Julius Caesar. “Quintilis” just doesn’t have the same ring to it now does it?

Apparently the Romans were also responsible for the naming of the “Dog Days” of summer. They referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog). Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky. According to my sources the Romans used to sacrifice a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather. I don’t think anyone’s doing that anymore, though, or at least I hope they’re not!

Canada Day is celebrated here on July 1st and the Excited States of America celebrates their Independence Day in July, too. I have attended celebrations in both countries, and, as with many things, I think we do it better in Canada. Compared to the July 4th celebrations that I have attended.

I am unsure as to why so many countries have found independence in July. Somalia, Belarus, the United States, the Philippines, Algeria, Venezuela, Argentina, South Sudan, Bahamas, Columbia, Belgium, Maldives, Peru and Vanuatu all celebrate Independence Days in July. Maybe the original rulers were too hot to fight. “Nah, you can have it! I just want to sit here in the shade with my iced tea, thanks.”

Based on memories from my youth the greatest attraction to July was its absolute freedom. As children we didn’t have a worry in the world. School was out and the summer was fresh. No homework or early morning bus rides. Clothes were even easy. Just a pair of shorts worked pretty much every day. I didn’t live on a farm so there were no stones to pick or bales to toss onto racks or chickens to water and feed. Either my brother or I had to cut the grass the odd time and that was the extent of responsibility for those few fleeting years. I still get a sense of those bygone days when the sun is at that particular July angle and the smell of swimming pool chlorine is in the air. Ahhhhhh!

July is National Hot Dog month and National Ice Cream month and one doesn’t have to think too hard to know why. July is also picnics at the lake and watermellon and fishing and sunburns and mosquito bites. It’s campfires and sleeping under the stars and hide ‘n seek and swimming lessons. It’s visits from family and summer camp. Long car rides to vacation spots and air conditioning. July is summer.

I hope you have a great July, Dear Reader. Savour it. You could love it, too.

“Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.” Ada Louise Huxtable (1921-2013).