HALLOWEEN MEMORIES

 

           Here we are closing in on another All Hallows Eve and we might not even need a snowplow to go door to door this year. Sorry about that. I hope I haven’t jinxed it. Time will tell, I suppose.

            I’m fast approaching my sixth decade on the planet so I’ve accumulated a fair number of Halloween memories over the years. There have been years when you’d swear you were trick or treating in Antarctica and then there was that one year…

            Thinking back, I believe there were probably eight or nine years when you are at the age to trick or treat. That’s it! Nine years, if that. Somewhere around six to fourteen years-old, unless you were one of the short ones, and then you could probably stretch it out for another year or two. I gave it up at fourteen, I think, as I found it easier to snitch the treats from my little sister’s bag or the stash in the pantry.

            My first time Trick or Treating was in Lethbridge when I was about six-years-old and we went door to door calling “Halloween Apples” instead of “Trick or Treat”. That was back in a time when you could trust, and welcomed, fruit and home made food treats from the homes. The apples were usually pretty beaten up by the time we dragged them home but Mom could always whip up some Apple Brown Betty with them.

            I wasn’t much of a trickster, though. A little window soaping or egging or something like that, nothing too serious. I just wasn’t that comfortable with the destruction of public property for fun. Just didn’t work for me. Others, mind you, couldn’t get enough of it.

            Back in my high school days, in the early 70’s, Kipling’s Volunteer Fire Department members used to assist in policing the streets on Halloween in an effort to curb the vandalism. Thankfully, you just don’t see the kinds of things that kids used to do in the name of Halloween anymore. Stuff was moved everywhere. Farm implements, lumber, vehicles, hay bales, there was some outhouse tipping going on, of course, maybe a few farm critters were freed for the evening…that kind of thing. There was usually a lot of clean up that’s for sure. I don’t know how long the Fire Department kept up the practice but the real bad stuff soon fizzled out in the late 70’s or early 80’s I think.

            Then there was my best bad choice of Halloween costume. I wasn’t dressing up for Trick or Treating I was dressing up for my first school Halloween Dance. I was in Grade 7, my first year at Lindale School in Moose Jaw and it was the first school dance of the year, and my life, and it was going to be a Halloween dress-up dance.

            Now, here’s where things get foggy. Someone or two or three thought it would be a great idea to dress me up as a girl for the dance. I know!  I have five older sisters and three of them were still living at home at the time and I think it was their grand idea. Well, I know it was. I don’t think the decision was ever in my control.

Oh, but did they have fun on me with their hair pieces and bobby pins and brassieres and nylons and mini skirt and heels and make-up and all. I guess I made a pretty cute girl for a twelve-year-old boy! Not a great choice if you were going to try to catch the eye of Rosemarie Drackett at the school dance or explain to the chaperone why you were in the Boys Washroom! I think I was a ghost every year after that.

Here’s to creating your own Halloween memories. Have a Happy Halloween Everyone!

 

“We used to go around tipping outhouses over, or turning corn shocks on Halloween. Anything to be mean”.-Loretta Lynn (1932-).

TECHNOLOGY AND PATIENCE!

            Do you want to hear something ironic? The theme that I had running through my head for this week’s column was patience and technology, and, wouldn’t you know it, my technology just exhausted my patience. Weird how that works sometimes, eh?

            You see, I was all geared up to get writing this column so I could get back to the TV for the baseball playoffs and such so I fired up the old desktop and it took longer for the darn beast to come alive than it usually takes me to write the whole column!

Did you hear a foot tapping incessantly? That was me. “Oh my goodness…this is taking foorrreeevvverrrrrr! Why isn’t instantaneous instantaneous? Hmmm? What is taking sooooooo long?”

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We’ve done it to ourselves, haven’t we? The technological advances have spoiled us into thinking that everything is going to be done immediately. We don’t have patience for anything anymore because we want what we want and we want it NOW!

            I have come to the conclusion that the single most valuable human attribute one must have to eliminate the most stress in one’s life is patience. My source defines the word “patience” as: “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Is that even possible? I don’t think so. At least for me it isn’t.

            I have found that nothing will get the dander up and try the patience more than technology and the reason for that is because we are too impatient to teach our selves the right way to do things because we don’t have the time, or something, so we go ahead and try to learn on the fly, because, you know, it cant’ be that hard now can it, so we learn as we go and we have to do most of it all over again and so we get angry because it was supposed to be so simple and usually the only thing simple is the operator and on and on and on it goes. It’s just a vicious circle.

            Funny, or odd as it were, how the word “suffering” is used in the definition of patience. “Suffering” was exactly what I was doing while I was programming a new piece of technology that was supposed to be a “1-2-3 ENJOY” type of setup. HA! The “1-2-3” setup was four hours long! And it’s still not done! That would test the most patient person’s patience, don’t you think?

            Oh yes, by the way, just for your information…if you come across someone who is showing the signs of total impatient meltdown, like a husband or father or someone like that… whatever you do…don’t tell them to calm down. Tsk, tsk, tsk…fuel on the fire people…fuel on the fire. You might want to just back away or maybe leave the house for a little while. Just saying.

             Technology has improved our way of life in so many ways, in its very exasperating way, making it is a necessary evil and I just hope that I can find enough patience to learn how to use it.

            “Patience is not the ability to wait but how you act while you’re waiting.”- Joyce Meyer (1943-).

THAT'LL STRESS YOU OUT!

          During this past Thanksgiving weekend many of our family members gathered at our house for the annual celebration. We had a great time feasting and visiting and the event went by all too quickly as usual. We did manage to cover a lot of our favourite activities as we shared an abundance of the holiday’s standard treats.

Led by our seven-year-old Grandson, Treyton, who reminded us to share what we were all thankful for by saying he was really thankful for the baby his mom was carrying who would become a little brother or sister to him and his sister Ava. That little gem got the ball rolling as everyone else also shared something they had to be thankful for.

            During the weekend the conversation naturally came around to news items and current events. Hurricane Matthew, Dumbass Trump, the sudden stop to the fall harvest, Brad and Angelina splitting, all sorts of bad news out there dragging us down it is not difficult to find something to be thankful for.

            Our daughter told us that she had stopped listening to the news because it was too distressing. She said it just agitated her so much that she had to stop. Being a working mother of two and having one on the way she has enough balls in the air at any given time that she cannot possibly take on any more stress because the world is going crazy like the news and social media lead us to believe it is.

            Our daughter was on to something, though. I did some reading on the subject of tuning out and during my research I found an article describing the effects of negative or pessimistic headlines and there was some very interesting information in there. In fact, one study showed that, “viewing tragedy in the media has proven to be capable of creating PostTraumaticStressDisorder.”

            Here’s an excerpt from an article I found on the subject: “After the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, the University of California, Irvine published a study that assessed the level of stress symptoms affecting people who watched it on television, social media, in print and on the radio. They found that ‘Acute stress symptoms increased with each additional hour of bombing-related media exposure.’ As a result, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Center for PTSD concluded there is a link between watching the news of traumatic events and stress symptoms.”

            So she’s right-cut out the news coverage and you’ll lessen your stress level. I prefer to stay somewhat engaged but not overwhelmed but that’s a fine line, too, especially on the internet where one article leads you to another article which leads you to another article.

            Thankfully we are merely observers of many of the scarier events going on in the world around us and we remain somewhat insulated and isolated from a lot of the world’s woes back here in our little neck of the woods. Humans are hard-wired to be empathetic, though, so no matter how isolated we feel we cannot help ourselves from being affected by other people’s strife. It’s humanity.

            If you’re looking to lower the stress in your life, (and, really, who isn’t?), then simply lower or remove the negative current events you expose yourself to and it would be a good start.

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”-William James (1842-1910).

 

LET'S WAIT A BIT ON THE WINTER WEATHER PREDICTIONS...SHALL WE.

            It was only a short two weeks ago when Deb and I flew into Calgary on our way out to Emily’s graduation ceremony from the Centre for Arts and Technology in Kelowna, BC. As the plane circled over the Stampede City I commented on how many trees had already turned colour compared to the mostly green trees we had flown away from in Kipling and area. By the time we arrived back in Regina, just over a week later, we couldn’t believe how quickly the leaves changed colour here in the short time that we were gone. Just like clockwork…autumn began on September 22^nd… then, bing-bang-boom…fall is here! It went from summer to instant autumn in a matter of minutes. Or so it seems.

            We’re barely into fall and the Winter Weather Prognosticators are out there already spreading their long-term predictions as to the severity of the 2016-17 winter season. Apparently our prairie winters are measured in severity. Hmmm. Seems there was no doubt that the winter weather was going to be severe it’s just a matter of degree determination then, I guess. Severe is the best that we can hope for? That’s where we start? Severe then everything after that is more severe to severest? Yikes!

            Winter is winter and I will admit that I’m not its biggest fan but sometimes when I’m out there snowshoeing around the golf course in the middle of winter and it’s about

-10C with no wind and the sun shining brighter than bright I would not call that kind of Canadian winter weather “severe”. Just sayin’.

            Anyway, the good Old Farmer’s Almanac says we’re in for a doozy of a winter this time around. Here’s what they say, “Winter will be colder than normal, with the coldest periods in early and mid-December and early and mid-January, from late January into early February, and in mid-and late February.” Re-read that please. That’s straight from their pages! Really? So, I guess what they’re trying to say is it’s going to be freakin’ cold from the beginning of December until the end of February or as we locals refer to it…WIN TER!

On the other hand, Environment Canada, like all government agencies, makes things trickier. They throw different language at us like, “probabilistic” and “deterministic” and phrases like “climatology of temperature and precipitation” and “verification of previous forecasts” so only meteorologists, or the like, can understand what the deuce they’re talking about.

Go onto the Environment Canada website and try to look up “long-term forecasts” and you go from link to link to link with some degree of success but you end up looking at so much gobbledygook with charts and graphs and whatnot you don’t have a clue what they’re going on about. That’s because I don’t think they do, either. It’ll all a ruse to distract you so you forget why you went to site in the first place. My best guess from the stuff that I looked at was that it might be warmer than normal until the end of November and then it’s a crapshoot after that. Something along those lines, anyway, have a look for yourself to see if you can make any sense out of it all.

But isn’t it a little bit early to be worrying about winter? Hm? In the end, it doesn’t really matter what they say might happen, does it? We’ll get what we get and we should do like all good Canadians do and that’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst and remember…there is no bad weather…only bad clothing.

“I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest.” Alan Cox (1968-).

WORDS TO LIVE BY.

            When our firstborn child, Meghan, graduated high school her graduating class asked Deb and I to present the Parent’s Address to the grads. We worded our speech around the classic Robert Fulghum poem “All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten”. This past weekend our youngest child, Emily, graduated from Kelowna’s Centre for Arts and Technology’s Event & Promotions Management Program and one of her instructors gave an address to the graduates which delivered a similar theme and tone.

            I won’t recite the complete Fulghum poem but the gist of the message can be described in the opening lines “All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandpile at primary school.”

            In the poem the writer states the things that he learned such as- “share everything, play fair, don’t hit people, put things back where you found them, clean up your own mess, say you’re sorry if you hurt someone, don’t take things that aren’t yours and wash your hands before you eat” are rules every person should strive to live by. In the poem Fulghum writes that “Everything you need to know about life is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation and ecology and politics and equality and sane living.” In other words, the world would be a far better and more peaceful place if everyone were to adhere to these basic human principles throughout their entire lifetime.

            The instructor’s address from Emily’s grad exercises quoted more wise words from another wise man but this time it was a fictional character not the writer whose words were quoted when the words of the great wizard from J.R.R. Tolkein’s novels “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”, Gandalf the Grey, stated, “I found it is the small, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay.”

            The instructor followed Gandalf’s wise words with more of his own by telling the graduates that it is his “deepest belief that all of us were put on this earth to do something greater than simply take care of ourselves.” And he feels that, “there is a lot of evidence that things get pretty bleak when we disregard others.” Listen to any 24 hour news station and we can see how our mixed up world got so mixed up. Greed and intolerance and envy and selfishness have pushed mankind to the scary place we find ourselves in today.

            With so many on the planet pushing their own agendas we find ourselves in a world threatened by Radical Fundamentalism, an exploding world population, Global Warming, continuous economic uncertainty, a nuclear North Korea and Donald bloody Trump. What can ordinary folk like us to do at times like these?

            It may seem completely unrealistic and naive but the only way out of this mess is through each and every human act of kindness. One good deed at a time and pay it forward. Or as Emily’s instructor stated, “Smile. Say thanks. Compliment someone. Donate blood. Teach something. Be gentle with your words. Save water. Shop local. Recycle. Buy someone else’s coffee. Vote. Laugh at yourself. Be grateful. Be gracious. Offer a hug. Turn off the lights. Give stuff away. Practice patience. Listen fully. Share fully. And choose to be peaceful.” In other words, or to quote another famous human, Ghandi, who said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Everyone can have an impact on their world and every small deed will affect change. The world will only truly change when we do.

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” –John Lennon (1940-1980). 

REMEMBERING "THE BIGGEST HOUSE WARMING IN SASKATCHEWAN, EVER!"

            As summer winds down and we enter the Labour Day Long Weekend I am reminded of that wild summer of a decade ago when the world was invited to Saskatchewan’s Biggest House Warming Party to celebrate the final stage in Kyle MacDonald’s fourteen trades from one red paperclip on his desk at home to a house in Kipling. Can you believe ten whole years have passed since that eventful summer? Ten years? Neither can I.

            That particular weekend was going to be a big weekend for our family anyway as Deb and I would be celebrating our Silver Anniversary on September 5^th and my Mom was celebrating her 85^th birthday on August 30^th so we had our own party planned for that Labour Day Long Weekend long before Kyle had traded a role in an upcoming Corbin Bersen movie for the house at 503 Main St. in Kipling.

By the time the whole “One Red Paperclip” phenomenon had gathered its full momentum, as well as the attention of the entire world, we were torn between switching our party to another weekend or stay the course and go with our initial plans and celebrate our 25^th Wedding Anniversary and Mom’s birthday with everyone else coming to Kipling for the Housewarming Party. We stuck to our plans and as it turned out it was the best decision we could have made.

            Our invited guests arrived with the hundreds and hundreds of others who were coming to town for the weekend and the excitement in the air was palpable. It was an electric atmosphere to say the least. Magical was a word that was often repeated in the days to follow.

            On Saturday we hosted Mom’s 85^th Birthday Tea in the Legion followed by our 25^th Anniversary celebration and then many of us moved over to the bursting at the seams Rec Centre for the final auditions for a role in Corbin Bersen’s upcoming movie, Donna on Demand.

Turns out our boy Nolan aced his audition and blew the audience away, if I may be so bold to say, and, although the announcement wasn’t made until the following day, we were pretty convinced he would be the winner. And he was. And a number of our family members witnessed his performance making it all the more special. Those few “Saskatchewan’s Biggest House Warming Party, Ever” days were so surreal.

            The next morning, fuzzy as we were, Deb and I rode up in the SaskTel Hot Air Balloon and got a bird’s eye view of the entire town at the height of the madness. After the events of the previous night we barely needed assistance to float around.

What an amazing site…the town crawling with people, events happening everywhere, music coming from all directions amid conversation and lots and lots of laughter. Apparently, Kipling knows how to throw a big ol’ party.

That was a once-in-a-lifetime event, that’s for sure. You won’t replicate that. Ten years past and there are still people stopping by the Paperclip Cottage and getting their photos taken with the Big Red Paperclip at Bell Park. It’s been quite a ride.

Now Deb and I will be quietly celebrating our 35^th Anniversary as nobody has bothered throwing a massive town-wide party this time around. But that’s okay, too, we’re a decade older and almost a little wiser. We’ll still celebrate our anniversary and summer’s last gasp knowing we could still party like it was 2006 but safe in the knowledge that we really don’t have to.  Happy Labour Day!

“Nobody looks back on their lives and remembers the nights they got plenty of sleep,”-Author Unknown.

"IF YOU TELL THE TRUTH YOU DON'T HAVE TO REMEMBER ANYTHING!"

            I have always been a fan of Olympic sports and I have great admiration for the dedication, perseverance and the sacrifice that Olympic caliber athletes have to make in order to get to that level of competition. I have watched a fair amount of television coverage of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games over the last two weeks and there were some amazing athletic performances from so many athletes. Particularly our Canadian athletes as Canada tied its best ever medal haul. Thank you Canadian Olympians.

            Unfortunately, the athletes’ performances seem like secondary news to the media covering the games what with all of the standard Olympic sized scandals happening on a daily basis. Right off the bat there was a big scandal as a top ranking Irish IOC member was arrested in a ticket scalping scheme and if the Olympics are on there HAS to be a doping scandal or twelve and Rio was no exception.

Again, it isn’t an Olympic games if a judge or two hasn’t thrown his integrity away for a few bucks or blatantly cheated for his/her own country. I am not being cynical here as the evidence of cheating is overwhelming when it comes to international sports competition. It always happens.

            There will forever be a debate over the excesses of The Games. Zillion dollar facilities being put up while nearby residents are living in squalor. Athletes raking in millions upon millions of dollars in incentives and endorsements because they can run fast or jump high while the construction workers building the stadiums and fields are working for peanuts. I am sure these injustices have been debated at every Olympic Games for decades.  

Then there were the American swimmers who were partying hardy and made up a story of being held up by gunpoint only to have the whole story blow up in their faces once the truth came out. And the truth always comes out which reminds me of one of my favourite Mark Twain quotes, “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” Hmmm….remember that.

It also reminds me of something my Dad drilled into me while I was growing up and that is that lying about the deed is usually worse than the deed itself. Own up to your stupidity, take it like a man and admit you were wrong. Lying will only exacerbate the situation and prolong the misery.

            I don’t have enough room for all of the details but the story goes something like this: there were four American swimmers who were out partying and went to a convenience store to use the bathroom and upon finding the bathroom door locked they proceeded to kick it down. The convenient store attendant called Security and the swimmers were confronted about their actions. One of the swimmers claimed that they were held up at gunpoint with a gun being held to his forehead. He has since apologized for his “exaggerated” version of the story and he is paying a dear price for his “immature behaviour”, or lying as it were, as he has lost all of his major endorsements and is looking at further discipline from the United States Olympic Committee. Truth or consequences, man. 

            I still have great admiration for the hundreds of athletes who cleanly participated in The Games to the best of their abilities while sacrificing so much. My feeling is that the few that bring the integrity level down should not be given the biggest spotlight but that’s not how our world works, is it?   

“A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”-Mark Twain.