WINTER BLUES NOT SO BLUE

            I guess this season’s El Nino is stronger than the last El Nino which occurred in 1997-1998 making this 2015-16 edition a “Super” El-Nino. Whatever you want to call it, the results have given us above average temperatures and below average precipitation here on the Western Canadian Prairies and, depending on your preference, it may be a good thing or a bad thing.

From my perspective, after back-to-back winters with bone-freezing temperatures, this season’s milder temperatures and lack o’ snow have provided a nice break, but I don’t own a snowmobile or a snowmobile repair shop or a snow removal business or anything like that, but, you know, you can’t make everybody happy and even I have missed my snowshoeing a bit this year, but, then again, sacrifices have to be made.

            Now that Ground Hog Day is upon us and one of the mildest Saskatchewan Januarys on record has passed us by there might not be so much pressure to escape the winter blues with a hot holiday destination. Mind you, the weather hasn’t been so hot in a lot of the hot spots so maybe a Stay-cation isn’t such a bad idea this year after all.

            Back in the day, though, you didn’t really hear every second person telling you they were heading to Hawaii or Jamaica or Mexico or Cuba or the Dominican Republic for a week or ten days to escape the miserable winter. Sure, there was the odd couple or a rich family that headed somewhere tropical but most people stuck it out at home and made the best of the winter. Did you know that in 1970 Cancun Mexico only had three residents before they started building up the tourism developments on the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula? That’s right, three residents and now there are close to three quarters of million people living in Cancun. That was merely 45 years ago folks. But I digress.

            Remember the old winter festivals and carnivals that communities hosted as a distraction to the long winter? During the 1970’s and maybe even into the 1980’s there was an “if you can’t beat it join it” kind of attitude and many area communities hosted some kind of winter festival. Kipling had its Snow Ball Days and Kenossee Lake held the Moose Mush Winter Festival and there were the regional Pipe-Si-Cana Games, too.

            The old festivals had a variety of winter activities like broomball, jam-can curling, snowmobile drag races, pillow fights, (two people facing each other on a log beating the you-know-what out of each other with pillows), regular curling, hockey, and the list goes on and on. Most of the festivals ended with a big cabaret with a live band and the participants partying well into the night. It doesn’t seem like we’ve got the gumption to do that kind of thing anymore. Too many other things going on, I guess.

            So if you aren’t jumping on a plane to warmer climes you might be interested in what the old groundhogs have to say when they make their appearance on February 2^nd. I say groundhogs as there are many of the prognosticating rodents being called upon to say whether we’ll be getting an early or late spring. Punxsutawney Phil, Wiarton Willie, Shubenacadie Sam, Balzac Billie or Buckeye Chuck, to name just a few, will be called upon to make their predictions. Unfortunately, Winnipeg Willow will not be one of the participating groundhogs as she passed away only a couple of days before the big event.

            Remember now, if the groundhog doesn’t see its shadow then spring will come early and if it does see its shadow then winter will persist for another six weeks. No one has said what happens if the ground hog dies suddenly just before the 2^nd…the apocalypse is upon us perhaps? As always, time will tell.           

            “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”- Victor Hugo-(1802-1885).

THE SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE

            With the recent deaths of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Members David Bowie and Glenn Frey I reflected back on how their music careers more or less paralleled my own life. I listened to a lot of David Bowie throughout high school and not so much since, but The Eagles were a group that provided me with the largest portion of the soundtrack to my adult life.

             It’s not like we were on a first-name basis or anything but the shock of Glenn Frey’s passing at merely 67 years-old really caught me off-guard. I didn’t even know he was sick. I guess he had been battling numerous health issues for years before undergoing surgery in November. Surgery that, ultimately, he would not recover from as he passed away on January 18^th, 2016. Again, it was a shock.

After listening and following these types of stars’ careers for years and years a familiarity is built between the performer and the fan. We don’t know these people but feel as though we do as we have followed their careers and lives and allowed them to come into our living rooms and bar rooms and on our car radios as they provided the background music to the lives we were living.

Of human beings’ five senses they say that the sense of smell is the strongest memory trigger but I’m thinking that sound, or music more specifically, is a pretty strong catalyst for memory as well. Just think of any song and it will take you back to a specific time that you heard the song or you might even have multiple memories of a song that you heard at different times in your life.

So it is whenever I hear The Eagles where Glen Frey takes the lead vocals in songs like “Take It Easy”, “Lyin’ Eyes”, “Tequila Sunrise” or “New Kid in Town”. Depending on the Eagles song being played, it might take me back to the Bar, Bar at Kenossee Lake during its ‘70’s heyday, or the driver’s seat in the Eldon’s Bakery delivery van that I drove four days a week for my first fulltime job after high school. Remember when Moose Jaw’s 800 CHAB radio was the coolest station on the air waves?

 “Lyin’ Eyes” by the Eagles and “Love Hurts” by the band Nazareth played over and over and over on the limited song list on the juke box in the old, old Kipling Motor Inn. Most of all, though, it’s the 1977 Eagles’ album Hotel California which provided the background music to a summer of fun with Ronnie Balogh along with many, many friends at Frank and Helen Balogh’s cabin at Kenossee Lake. From the bits and pieces that I can actually remember it was quite a summer. Oh boy, that was some kinda fun!

I was just entering Grade 9 at Kipling High School when fate would bring Glen Frey and Don Henley together in California. There would be many other band mates in The Eagles but it was Frey and Henley’s writing talents that distinguished the group and made it one of the best-selling bands of all time. The band played together for the whole decade of the 1970’s and broke up for fourteen years before reuniting in 1994 as they continued recording and performing live shows until Frey’s death. Their last concert performance was on July 29^th, 2015.

I’ve had The Eagles playing the background music to my life for close to 45 years. Although he’s moved on we will always be able to access Frey’s musical talents triggering fond memories of days gone by and time well-shared.

“All it takes is one song to bring back a thousand memories.”- Facebook Quote.

BLUE MONDAY 2.0

            So how did your Blue Monday go? Not surprisingly, and true to form for me, I had a pretty good day. You know, I’ve always had a problem with being told what to do. If I hadn’t been told that Monday January 18^th was mathematically proven to be the most depressing day of the year, thus Blue Monday, chances are I would have been pretty gloomy, too, with it being a Monday, after all, and colder than a ……….you pick one…..out there and I’m still driving to work in the dark and it’s a Saskatchewan January and…

            But you know what? When the sun did start to come up over the horizon it revealed the most beautiful, colourful sunrise and there was fresh hoar frost on the trees adding more beauty to the scenery and even with the “Extreme Cold Warning” flashing across the Weather Network screen there was very little wind to speak of making it a decent enough day for the middle of January in Saskatchewan.

Just because I don’t really like the cold weather doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the beauty that this time of year can bring and although it wasn’t a beach along the Caribbean Sea with a blazing sun and a cold beverage within arms reach it wasn’t the coldest place on the planet either. This time.

            It’s pretty hard not to get sucked into the post-Christmas Winter Blues anyway, let alone have it reinforced in us by a mathematician who’s got way too much time on his hands to be figuring out a mathematical equation to pinpoint exactly when the majority of people are reaching their lowest point in this too-long winter. I’m thinking most of us would have gotten there without being told the exact date.

            I do not mean to diminish the true effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, (SAD), the clinical definition of Winter Blues, because it is a clinically proven mental health issue and one cannot just “attitude” depression and anxiety away, regardless of the cause. That said, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be as positive as possible whenever we can.

            Oil is under $30 a barrel, the loonie’s tanking and every news channel’s got their economic scare tactics going in full bloom. Again, I do not want to take away from the economic downturn and its life-altering side effects but do we need to talk about it ad nauseum? How about refocusing a little attention on a solution instead of whining about the problem? But that’s maybe something else that cannot be “attitude adjusted”.

            But, hey, we’re gaining a couple of minutes of sunlight every day and the worst day is already behind us, if we believe the mathematician, and despite a couple of cold spells this winter hasn’t been nearly as cold as last winter’s version. Thank you El Nino.

            The economic situation has made many people rethink their priorities, too, and “Stay-cations” are being considered over the usual “Hot Holiday” destinations. That might not be a bad thing for Canadian tourism and its spinoff economic benefits. I saw a report that said that many Canadian winter sport resorts are enjoying their best year ever. Keeping some money at home can’t be all that bad, don’t you think?

             Thankfully Blue Monday is fading from our memory and it’s time to move forward with hope and faith. The year’s still young. There’s a lot to look forward to and nowhere to go but up.

“Every day may not be good…but there’s something good in every day.”-Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911).

BLUE MONDAY!

            January is to the year what Monday is to the week. January is the first month of the New Year following a month-long, or longer, binge of fun, food and frivolity which is just a larger and longer version of a Monday following a good weekend.

            A start is a start whether it’s starting a new year or a new week. The tendencies, not for everyone mind you, but for a large majority of the people, are to start the new week or New Year fresh with some renewed vim and vigor but the best laid plans have a tendency to fall flat come alarm time on Monday morning or the flipping of the calendar page on January 1^st. Depending, of course, on how wild the weekend or the last month and its final day of the year was.

            Taking a look inside your empty wallet on a Monday morning or your chequing account on January 2nd is probably depressing enough let alone realizing that you’ve still got the remaining days of the week to get through or another eleven months before you will recover enough to blow those kinds of funds all over again.

            Even the most bubbly, optimistic, happy, happy, happy person goes, “Monday? Already?…grrrrr” How often have you heard, “Thank God It’s Monday”? Hmmm? Me too. That kind of thinking explains why they make the Monday the holiday on the long weekends instead of the Friday, don’t you think? We want Fridays. We love Fridays. Mondays…not so much.

            January is named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, coming from the Latin word for door, (janua), since January is the door to the New Year. Odd to me, though, is that January is considered new and when I think of new I think of something that makes you feel good like a new car or a new outfit or a cuddly new puppy or a new baby, or something, but a Canadian January is cold and dry and off-putting; it doesn’t really have the feeling of new to me at all. Definitely not a warm and fuzzy-type feeling, that’s for sure.

            So now you take your depressing Monday and you combine it with your depressing January and you know what you’ve got? BLUE MONDAY! That’s right, Blue Monday, which has been calculated to be the most depressing day of the year.

            Using factors such as weather conditions, debt level, time elapsed since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and assorted other pseudoscientific data, a mathematics tutor created an equation that pinpointed the most depressing day of the year as the third Monday in January. 2016’s version is the 18^th of January.

            The good news is that once that’s over with there’s nowhere to go but up. Let’s get our lowest day of the year out of the way before the first month’s done. That way we only have to put up with the depressing Mondays for the rest of the year. The non-long-weekend Mondays, that is.

            There are usually some redeeming qualities in anything, regardless of their ability to depress us or not, but I’m writing this on a January Monday a week before Blue Monday so I don’t think I’ll even bother looking. I think I’ll just hunker down and ride this one out. Wallow in your Blue Monday everyone. Get it out of the way. It’ll get better.

“Feeling a little blue in January is normal,”- Marilu Henner (1952-).

DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS

           A couple of columns ago I had mentioned that I was fast approaching the last birthday I will reach in my 50’s. As a matter of fact, I started writing this column on December the 12^th and it’s my birthday. 59 years-old. Yikes! Well, at least it’s not 60!

            I was born at five minutes past midnight; a fact that has bothered my sister Judy for…I don’t know… some 59 years, I guess. You see, she was born on December 11^th about a decade before me and I was going to be her actual birthday present. I was going to be born on her birthday and I missed it by five minutes! Well, technically, I didn’t have anything to do with it. It wasn’t my call, I don’t think. I didn’t even hear about it until I was much older.

            Being born two weeks before Christmas has no advantages whatsoever to speak of. That’s the way I see it and my sister Judy concurs. It’s pretty tough to get a really great birthday present when the parents are hard-pressed to supply enough Christmas gifts for their nine children let alone throw in a couple of birthday presents in there to boot. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the people born on the 25^th, though. That’s a tough one. But still.

            And you can forget about a birthday party altogether as there is no way you are going to gather a bunch of kids in the house when we’re only two weeks away from Christmas. What with all of the cleaning and baking and wrapping and shopping who has time to organize, conduct and clean up after a bunch of wild boys? Forget it!

            Mom’s solution was to combine my birthday party around the time when my older brother Gordon celebrates his very timely May 1^st birthday. Five months after mine. You know, have them together. Nobody’d think it’s just Gordie’s party. Why would they think that?

Out of the whole year, May 1^st has got to be one of the most ideal times for a birthday party. Everything can be held outside, nobody should get sunburnt like they can at those July birthday parties, most of ‘em probably won’t even use the bathroom in the house, there’s very little chance of them breaking anything in there, either, and their noise will mostly disappear into the air, saving on the headache medication.

But it was okay in the end anyway. Gord was only a year older than I was and his friends were my friends and my friends were his. We all hung out and did the same goofy things we always did together. We ended up having a great time, as usual, with very little household upheaval. Funny, too, though, for all my talk about presents and gift receiving I can’t remember any specific gift at all. All the fun must have blocked it out.

Well, that was my pity party. Thanks for coming. Now it’s time to get ready for the real party. Enough whining. 59 years-old and counting. And I hope for a while, yet.

 

“Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”-Satchel Paige (1906-1982).

THE 300TH

           Let the bells ring out and the banners fly…it’s hear, it’s hear! Number 300 is here, that is. That’s right folks, you are now reading the 300^th submission of the “In My Humble Opinion” weekly column. I know! Already? For a part-time-cover-the-maternity-leave-temporary-position I seem to have been at this for a long time. How long does it take to have that baby anyway? Hmmmmm? I will have been doing this column for six years as of February 7th of 2016.

            Obviously, the previous page four Columnist, Darcie Khounnoraj, decided on a different career path as she did not return to The Citizen after her maternity leave and you’ve been stuck with me ever since.

            So what have you learned, Dear Reader, after all of this time together? One thing I’m sure that you have learned is that I can procrastinate with the best of them, hence 300 submissions but not 300 original columns, as I have submitted some of the columns more than once, due, in part, to those finely honed skills of putting things off.  And, yes, I know, I know, I should be working on that and I will, I will…some…day.

            Another thing you may have noted, over our time together, is that I like sports. Many sports, in fact, and I write about them often. There might be more than a few sports-themed columns in those 300+/- page-four articles.

            If you hadn’t noticed, over these many years, I am also very fond of Daylight Savings Time. Do you remember what Daylight Savings Time is folks? We’ve never had it around here but I’ve heard of other places that do it. If you didn’t know, it’s the twice-yearly altering of the clocks that is done in every other jurisdiction of our country, save Saskatchewan, because Saskatchewanians prefer our daylight early, early, early in the day.

            Do you know what else I like? That’s right, Dear Reader, I really, really like sarcasm. Sarcasm is so very useful as a writing tool, don’t you think? Sometimes you can even get a laugh without really trying. Ahhhh, such a wonderful thing.

            There are other real joys to being a writer from Saskatchewan, besides the fact that we don’t have to confuse ourselves with all that clock altering and everything, and that is this province provides us with a convenient subject that one can never say enough about. And that is the weather. It is so varied and different and changes hourly not just seasonally or yearly giving one reams of material.

            Frankly, subjects are rarely hard to find with so much weird happening in the world all of the time. We are so inundated with information that it would appear difficult not to find something to write about. Yet, it happens.

            So, now what? 300 down 300 to go? I’m not sure about that but we’ll see. I’ve kind of gotten used to this temporary permanent position, though.

 

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”-American writer E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015).

DECEMBER IS HERE!

            2015’s version of Agribition, the 103^rd Grey Cup Game and Movember are once again filed away into the memory banks so that must mean that November is over and December is upon us already. That’s another year almost gone. How’d that happen so fast?

            December will also fly by, I’m expecting, as it is the busiest, as well as, the most wonderful time of the year. There are a number of significant events and activities crammed into these next 31 days. Christmas music concerts, local Dinner Theatre performances, school productions, staff parties, decorating, shopping, baking, hangover recuperations…yikes! I’m getting exhausted thinking about it.

            Speaking of hangover recuperating, it turns out that I will be celebrating my last birthday “in my 50’s” this month. More yikes! And more, “how’d that happen so fast?!” questioning as well. Then again, at the very least, I will be celebrating another birthday which is an event, sad to say, that many people will be unable to do.

            Besides my birthday, there’s another birth event that many of us celebrate on the 25^th of this month. You know who I’m talking about? Yes, Christmas is coming fast and if you didn’t know that there are less than three weeks of shopping left you’d better get at it. That is, of course, unless you’re one of those keeners who have all of their shopping done and hidden away somewhere. I’m so happy for you.

            Seeing as how I mentioned my birthday ahead of Jesus’ it may be of note that December’s birth flower is the narcissus. Hmmmm…that’s an interesting tidbit of information. Also sharing December birthdates are the likes of Woody Allen, Ozzy Osborne, George Armstrong Custer, Keifer Sutherland, Frank Sinatra, (same day as me), and our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, (same day as Jesus), to name but a few.

            There are many other notable event anniversaries in the month of December. It was on December 1^st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man marking the beginning of the modern American Civil Rights Movement.

            On December 2^nd, 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France by Pope Pius VII in Paris, then on December 2^nd, 1852 The Second Empire was proclaimed in France with Napoleon III as Emperor.

            On December 5^th, 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti. Of course, there was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7^th, 1941. On December 15^th, 1964 Canada adopted its new red and white flag. The list goes on and on.

            December really is the most wonderful time of the year. To me it is, anyway. I’m not saying I don’t mind the milder El Nino induced temperatures that we have been getting this last little while but I think we could use a little snow around here. At least for Christmas. Nothing stupid or anything but a few inches wouldn’t hurt the scenery would it? Pretty hard to sleigh ride in the gravel too, I’d think.

            I hope you have a great December. Enjoy the preparations and the festivities. Take the time to soak it all up. It only comes around once a year and you know how fast that goes by, don’t you?

            “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is her before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”-Dr. Seuss.