THERE GOES THE OLD CHRISTMAS SPIRIT AGAIN!

            There it was…gone. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is nothing but fading memories now. To quote the famous, (maybe he is-maybe he isn’t related), Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard, who stated that, “Next to the circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out quicker than the Christmas Spirit.” A little cynical, I know, and I wish he was wrong, but for the most part he’s got it right.
             I know that Christmastime can be a strain for many folks and some just don’t get it, or don’t want to, but for the many, many Christmas Season lovers it’s a magical time of the year that we wish could go on for a little while longer and I also wish we could bottle up some of the Christmas “Cheer” portion of the season to be released throughout the year as needed.
Of course, I’m talking about the “Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Others” portion of the Christmas “Spirit”. Then again, “if wishes and buts were candies and nuts it would be Christmas every day”, or something like that, and, if it were Christmas every day then it wouldn’t be extra special now would it?
             Now, it is time for us to put the decorations away and take down the tree for its eleven-month storage term and then we will turn our attention to the New Year and all the possibilities that it will bring.
             What have you got in mind for 2017? Have you started to crochet that massive Canadian flag as a celebration of Canada’s 150th Birthday? No? You were thinking of something else, maybe? A stuffed Canada goose or beaver for the mantle, perhaps? No and no? Suit yourself then. I’m not exactly sure how I’d like to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday but there are ample opportunities available and only one’s imagination should be holding one back.
             Canada’s 150th Birthday Party Budget is set at 210 million dollars or, if you are using official government mathematics that number should be doubled, but, whatever the budget, Canadian communities from coast to coast will be participating in many varied festivities so it shouldn’t be hard to find an event that will suit your celebratory tastes. For details on what is happening where, visit the Canada 150 Website to find art, music, sport and cultural events happening throughout Canada in 2017.
             Other notable events in 2017 include the opening of the new Mosaic Stadium in Regina this summer. Regular ‘Rider faithful will be very happy with the new digs, I am sure.
             On August 21st, Canadians will have an opportunity to see a rare solar eclipse. Weather permitting, the entire country will have the opportunity to view an eclipse as the moon passes in front of the sun, casting a shadow on the Earth’s surface.
              It cannot be January of 2017 without mentioning the inauguration of USA President Elect Donald Trump. Still hard to believe, you know? But as they say, “it is what it is”. My hope for 2017 is that we here in the Great White North remain the quiet neighbour and content ourselves with glimpses over the fence at the zany neighbour’s antics while avoiding being collateral damage.
              I am looking forward to 2017. Every year is a challenge on good ol’ Planet Earth and this year will be no different. I’ll take every day I get. One foot in front of the other and on we go forward into a new year.
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

ANOTHER NEW YEAR IS HERE

           Once again we are closing out one year and ringing in the new one; bye-bye 2016, hello 2017! It is a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Anyone can go to any channel on their television set to see the past year’s news highlights from the Zika virus outbreak to USA President-Elect Donald Trump’s election victory and everything in between, (you, Dear Reader, will have to assess which you find scarier the Donald or Zika).
            2016 was a year of change in my world. This past year saw me finish out my ten-year term in my 50’s as I turned 60 a couple of weeks ago. They say that 60 is the new 40 but I don’t know who “they” are and “they” are probably not 60 and I say that “60 is the new 40” is a load of hooey. But that’s just me. I’ve been 40 before and I’m pretty sure it’s not this. At 40 I could go all night without several trips to the loo, I didn’t require “progressive” lens in my glasses, (“progressive” being a subjective term, mind you), hearing aids were something my parents wore and most of the time I knew exactly why I went out to the garage!
            There was also a big change on the career front for me as my ten-year term with Seed Hawk Inc. finished in the latter stages of 2016. I was a young-ish man of 49 when I started working at Seed Hawk in 2006. It was a great ten years and seeing as how change is the only constant it was time for a change. Other than a decade long employment term at Quality Millwork and Building Supplies in the 1980’s and 90’s Seed Hawk had been my longest employer.
             In other family news our oldest daughter announced that her and her hubby would be expecting child number three near the end of March this year. Yay! One of the most tremendous results of the aging process is the addition of Grandchildren to one’s life! There’s something else that’ll make you realize that 40 isn’t the new 60 as you try to get up off the floor after playing with the Grandkids. Youch.
             As we greet the New Year it is also the traditional time of the year for personal improvement resolutions. You know the routine…live healthier, have less Road Rage, lose weight, pay down debt, be nicer…that kind of thing. Did you know that the most popular New Year’s resolution is for people to “Enjoy life to the fullest”? What were you doing up until now? “I’m doing okay with enjoying my life around the 64% level but maybe I could take it up a notch or two…maybe even go all out and try to enjoy life to the fullest but should I leave a bit in the tank? The fullest might be hard to reach…hmmmm…”
              As for me, I have not pledged any new resolutions for this New Year but I am looking forward to some new adventures, challenges and changes. Good luck with your personal resolutions and I hope you all have a wonderful 2017!

 “The past is your lesson. The present is your gift. The future is your motivation.”-Unknown.

60?....60?!!

             On the 12^th of December I will officially be finished with my 50’s decade. That’s right; I am turning 60 years old on that day. A good friend of mine told me on the occasion of my 50^th birthday that the good news about turning 50 is that I hadn’t died in my 40’s. Ditto for turning 60, I guess.

            Another good quote that I have heard about the aging process has been attributed to many different sources but when I heard the quote for the first time it was from the famous baseball pitcher, Leroy “Satchel” Paige who, at the young age of 59 years pitched four innings for Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Athletics in 1965, said, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” I like how you think Satch!

            The date on your birth certificate is only one factor in determining age. Yes, one’s age number is the recorded time you have been on Earth since your birth but many other elements come in to play when determining age; the most important of which would be genetics.

            I only have to look at the differences in ageing between my Dad and my Mom to see the hard evidence of that. Dad had a long history of heart ailments and passed away at the relatively young age of 72. To me, Dad looked closer to 90 years old than to 70 when he passed. Mom, on the other hand, always looked a decade younger than her age, just like her mom, and she still referred to her age-peers as “old fogies” right up until her death at 91 years old. I’m hoping that the majority of my genetics come from my mother’s side for obvious reasons. Time will tell.

            I wasn’t the only one born in 1956 so I’ll give you a list of some notable people who share their birth year with me. Actors Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Andy Garcia and Maureen McCormick, (Marcia, Marcia, Marcia from the Brady Bunch for those of you who weren’t a teenage boy in 1970). Sports stars Joe Montana, Larry Bird, Martina Navratilova, Sugar Ray Leonard and Bjorn Borg were also born in’56, just to name a few.

            1956 was also the year of the Hungarian Revolution which was a revolt against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. These events greatly affected a number of people of Hungarian heritage in Canada, many of which were living in the Bekevar-Kipling area.

            Other notable events from 1956 were: Elvis Presley’s first pop single “Heartbreak Hotel” was released, Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight boxing champion retired undefeated at 49-0, IBM releases the first computer with a hard drive, the board game Yahtzee first came out, Certs, the first breath mint candies hit the market and stats showed that 80% of American homes had refrigerators by 1956. 80%?...wow.

            The average price of a home was $22,000.00; the average income was $4,400/year; a new car would set you back about $2,000.00; gas sold for .22 cents a gallon; bread was .18 cents a loaf and a postage stamp cost .03 cents; coffee was .69 cents a pound, chuck roast was .33 cents a pound and a six pack of beer cost $1.20. Hmmmm.

            My philosophy is to enjoy every day one is given in life and my age crises came and went a long time ago. The most important day is the one you are living. 60 is 60 and like Satchel says, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter. I am grateful for another day, another week, another month, another year or another decade, and, God willing, there will be other significant birthdays to celebrate for me down the road.

“Live your life and forget your age.”-Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993).

             

WHAT I REMEMBER ABOUT THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

            With the recent passing of the 53^rd anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and then the announcement that Fidel Castro, Cuba’s leader from 1959-2011, had died at the age of 90 on November 25^th, I was reminded of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the planet was on the brink of World War III.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day, (October 16-28), confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with the consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war. Eleventh hour tense negotiations between USA President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev averted an all out war.

Our family was living in Lethbridge, AB and I was only five-years-old in October of 1962 but I can still recall the television coverage, the tension in the household, and the air-raid siren tests that only added to already heightened national and international tension. Keep in mind that this scary standoff was taking place merely seventeen years after World War II had ended and the horrific memories of the devastation of that conflict along with the atrocious after effects of the nuclear bombings of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still fresh in people’s minds.  

Some historians have sited this as John F. Kennedy’s finest hour in his all too short stint as the President of the United States. His patience and hesitance in escalating the crisis through aggression went against most of his advisors advice, including his brother Robert, then the US Attorney General. By not invading Cuba or further antagonizing the Soviet Union, thermonuclear war was averted. It must also be noted that Khrushchev did as much to defuse the situation as Kennedy.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the earlier global events that would define a decade simply known as “The Sixties”. The decade of the 1960’s was one of the most influential, controversial, fascinating, and, scary decades in the history of the world and the Cuban Missile Crisis was only at the beginning.

The Civil Rights Movement, prominent assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Counterculture Revolution, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Feminism, the Black Panthers, the Cold War, the “Race to the Moon”, the “British Music Invasion and later psychedelic rock all melded together making the decade of the sixties explosive and memorable for anyone who grew up during those tumultuous times.

Fast forward to today and the world’s stability is once again under duress. The actual availability and need for an online “Global Conflict Tracker” to keep one apprised of all of the global conflicts currently happening is a sad statement of the worldly state of affairs unto itself.

There were people in both Kennedy and Khrushchev’s camps that were absolutely convinced that they were going to witness the end of the world as we knew it. In reality, we are barely five decades removed from that precipice and the world’s stability is still under continuous threat.

This gloom n doom nostalgic walk through the past was brought to you by an old Baby Boomer who is worried that if we don’t pay attention and learn from our history we are bound to repeat it. Let’s hope it won’t be too difficult to find cooler heads among our world leaders should similar events occur today.

“History repeats itself. First as tragedy, second as farce.”- Karl Marx (1818-1883).

THE ONE CONSTANT IS CHANGE

             Change can be sudden or change can be subtle but as Greek Philosopher Heraclitus stated a few hundred centuries ago, the main characteristic of change is that it is constant. Change is constantly happening.

             Another characteristic of change is that you don’t really know when it’s going to happen. That, of course, depends on the type of change. Take a change in the weather, for example, you know that it is constantly changing but there has yet to be a system developed that can correctly determine when the change in the weather will occur and by how many degrees. Oh sure, they’re ballparking it all the time but nobody has really perfected the art of the deadly accurate weather forecast and when they tell you that they have…well, they’re just stringing you along.

            Some changes you can deal with offhandedly and some will knock you on your arse in a heartbeat. Say you get the dreaded diagnoses of some incurable disease and that sudden change in your health will affect dozens of lives in a matter of seconds. And, sad to say, all too many of us have shared stories in that regard.

             Humans’ physical appearance changes every day but the change is kind of gradual until one day you are shaving and you look into the mirror and you wonder when the old man in your reflection took your place!

            In a recent conversation I had with our youngest daughter she reminded me of something that I had said to her that one day when I was a good parent. She had gone through some personal trauma and I had said to her, “life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.” Hmmmm. Good advice, if I do say so myself. That quote is attributed to Lou Holtz, an American football coach.

            I also recently read a saying that says that your past doesn’t exist and neither does your future. The only moment that you experience is here and now. So be here now. Accept the changes and roll with the punches.

            So, things change. I have probably shared this information with you so bear with me while I share it again but in twelve years of public school I had attended five different schools in two provinces. That’s a lot of change. I went from having “a” (uh) classmate in Grade 6 in Marquis Public School to being bussed into Moose Jaw in Grade 7 with about sixty of us Baby-Boomers in our grade sharing two large classrooms in Lindale School. That was a bit of an adjustment, I’ll tell you that. From a one-room country school to an overcrowded city zoo.

            Apparently, I’ve had a few varied career choices over the years as well. I changed things up often, I guess. I was a farm hand, drove a bakery van, went to brick laying school, never laid a brick again, construction labourer, store clerk, worked in a glass factory making stubby beer bottles, among other kinds of bottles and jars, drove a Pettibone trackmobile moving rail cars around a railcar repair depot, purchasing agent, estimator and lumber sales manager, rec director and a maintenance man. I wonder what I’ll be when I grow up.

           

            “I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”- Jimmy Dean (1928-2010).

IT'S A BIG WEEKEND!

            I am ever so thankful that I have Remembrance Day and the Dale Blackstock Memorial Hockey Tournament to write about this week so I don’t even have to mention the absolute craziness that is the 2016 American Presidential Election. By the time you read this column the freak show will finally be over and it’s about bloody time.

I don’t know about you but I have saturated my limit of Clinton vs. Trump. I have tried really, really hard not to get sucked into their vortex of hate but it’s impossible. Just like the proverbial train wreck you cannot look away.

            Americans make it sound like it’s a difficult choice but I’m thinking if Trump gets in I’m going to have to convert my concrete cistern into a bomb shelter. Just sayin’.

The very reason that megalomaniac’s like Trump are even allowed to incite hatred and spout their bigotry and ignorance freely is because of the sacrifices of those who served and died to provide his freedom.

Americans honour their fallen on Memorial Day; the last Monday of May. This Friday, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month Canadians will gather in “remembrance for the men and women who have served, and continue to serve our country during times of war, conflict and peace". One cannot overstate how important this date is to our country. As the years roll past I hope this date’s importance never fades. Lest we forget.

Speaking of years rolling past I am having a hard time believing that this will be the 30^th Dale Blackstock Memorial Hockey tournament. Thirty of them! Wow! I was a member of the Kipling Royals Senior Hockey Club’s executive when we first sponsored this tournament in November of 1987. We were trying to raise $1000.00 for the team’s contribution to the new dressing rooms. We made that and a lot, lot more!

Dale had been a Kipling Royal and a real good friend to many of us on that Executive Board and when Dale succumbed to cancer at the much too young age of 30 we wanted to honour his memory by naming the tournament after him and the rest… as they say…is history.

Over the years many hands were involved in the operation of this tournament and the Blackstock family, led by Linus, put in countless hours to make the event as successful as it has been. It has become a homecoming of sorts for many of the participants and the fond memories of tournaments past are shared and added to annually.

There comes a time, however, when things change. Linus recently mentioned that the tournament has lived as long as Dale had and he thinks it’s time for the family to take a step back from their organizational role. After all, their parents, Melvin and Della are gone now and the spreading family is making the commitment to the event harder with each passing year.

The trophy will always have Dale’s name on it and the family would be more than pleased if the tournament continued on while raising much needed capital for the facility. It just won’t be them leading the charge anymore. My hope is that the Rink Management Committee will continue the tradition.

There are an awful lot of memories, (as well as some lost moments), from those thirty tournaments. Boy, was there a lot of fun provided over the years. I would like to thank Diane, Linus and the entire Blackstock family for their time, effort and commitment to what turned out to be an historical event for the Kipling Arena and the Town of Kipling. Thank you, thank you.

“From Humble Beginnings Come Great Things.”

I NEED SUN!

 

            I try my best to not push time forward. You know what I mean? Like doing the “can hardly waits” as in “I can hardly wait for the baby to crawl, or I can hardly wait until Christmas is here or for school to be out or for the winter vacation to be here”; that kind of thing.

As a general rule time flies by too fast anyway and the baby will be crawling before you know it and in no time at all you’re going “how did he/she grow up so darn fast??” However, this time around I cannot help myself from thinking that I can hardly wait until this gloomy October is done! Man, what a miserable month that was, wasn’t it? And, like some people I know around here, I don’t even have eight or nine hundred acres of crop still in the field. Yuck! Talk about gloom ‘n doom.

According to the statistical weather data we received precipitation on 16 of the 31 days in October and I think the other 15 days were all mostly cloudy. Or so it seemed. I was looking into the statistical data to see how many sunshine hours we normally would get in October and my source claims that we average around 171 hours in the month or, percentage wise, it’s 51% of the daylight time. Not 2016’s version, though. Oh no, it was more like 171 minutes, I’d say.

I have heard more than a few people mention how miserable and cranky everyone seems to be lately and I am convinced that it is mostly due to the overall lack of sunshine in the past few weeks. It really is. I’m thinking that humans really need sunshine to operate properly. Or “happily” at any rate.

In fact, I did a little research on the subject and I found that there are several reasons why the lack of sunshine can be detrimental to a human’s well being, both mentally and physically.

If you’re not careful, a lack of sunlight can actually lead to a form of clinical depression. The less sunlight we see in the winter months, the more likely we are to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Symptoms of SAD can be extreme: mood swings, anxiety, sleep problems, or even suicidal thoughts. I’m thinking that some people are just experiencing an earlier version of SAD because of the recent lack o’ sunshine.

90% of humans’ Vitamin D comes from direct sunlight but everyone knows that unprotected overexposure to the sun’s rays may increase the chances of developing skin cancer. Then again, on the flip side of that is that a Vitamin D deficiency may be just as dangerous to humans. Vitamin D deficiencies may lead to the development of prostate and breast cancer, memory loss, and an increased risk for developing dementia and schizophrenia.

Also, for your information, and I’m not making a personal statement here or anything,  just reporting the facts, people, and the facts say that women are 200% more likely to develop SAD than men. Hmmmm….I’m not saying who’s crankier than who but…you know…statistics and all that.

I realize that you’d have to miss a bit more than the “normal” amount of sunshine in one month to create any ill effects on your system, but still, this past forty days or so have been pretty darn depressing and it’s starting to show. I’m hoping that in the next month we can make up for the sunlight we lost in October or this coming winter is going to be really, really SAD.

“A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.”- Joseph Addison (1672-1719).