REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE - part three - DORCHESTER & LONDON

Breakfast on Monday with Neale and Kathy and Amy and Christopher was at Cora’s Restaurant in London. I have never seen a menu with as many selections of fruit filled dishes together with crepes and meats. Delicious and enjoyable.  From there we toured Neale’s and Kathy’s Cross Stitch store called Thread & Eye which they have operated for twelve years.  As we proceeded to Amy & Chris’ home we noticed I had a front passenger side tire issue in the rental vehicle – a nail causing a slow air leak.  Finding an Avis outlet we learned that the company would give us a car exchange and we would be charged for the tire repair or even a new tire which might range from $45-$250 depending on how it was reported. We decided instead to take it to a local repair shop and they did the fix in 5 minutes for $15.

Christine and I were pleased to drive along Queens Ave to see the building that once was the main facility of the Bible College in which we were enrolled in undergraduate years.  The Ladies dorm and the Men’s’ dorm were on adjacent corners. It was quite nostalgic. This was where I met Christine when we were in our early twenties and I loved her almost from first sight. We would become engaged and married before she graduated and I graduated.  

On Monday afternoon we drove to Kathy’s family farm, the Smale farm where her brother Bob works. There Christine and I were introduced to the values and potential of a plantation of a tree specie which could become a cash crop in a relatively short time. The tree is called Royal Empress.

LCBM now named Queen's Village is a Seniors Retirement home now

After another good night’s rest, on Tuesday morning we drove into London to visit with Dave and Sharon Gast, college students with us fifty years ago. Our school was known as London College of Bible and Missions. We cannot fathom the passage of time. Since this was a Bible College, singing was a significant ingredient of social and worship life. The four of us sang in a mixed quartet and did so long after graduation. When I was pastoring a church and Dave was directing music in another church we occasionally provided nightly music concert s at summer Conferences. After a lovely news catchup visit with them, they led us to a restaurant where several other good friends from college days were present. What a joyous and revelatory experience to meet people whose names have not changed but whose faces and stature have. Each time I experience a reunion of this nature, I am reminded that regardless of my youthful state of mind, my physical appearance to others is a bit of a shock, and that is life as it happens to us all.  On this occasion, Christine and I were thrilled to enjoy the company of Eleanor (Ellie) and George McCullough, Dave and Sharon Gast, Barry and Helen Buder, Tempe and Mary Jean Templehoff (visiting from South Africa), Ralph and Jan Thornton. 

REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE – part 2 - DORCHESTER & EMPRESS TREE, Continued

Breakfast on Monday with Neale and Kathy and Amy and Christopher was at Cora’s Restaurant in London. I have never seen a menu with as many selections of fruit filled dishes together with crepes and meats. Delicious and enjoyable.  From there we toured Neale’s and Kathy’s Needlecraft store called Thread & Eye which they have operated for twelve years.  As we proceeded to Amy & Chris’ home we noticed I had a front passenger side tire issue in the rental vehicle – a nail causing a slow air leak.  Finding an Avis outlet we learned that the company would give us a car exchange and we would be charged for the tire repair or even a new tire which might range from $45-$250 depending on how it was reported. We decided instead to take it to a local repair shop and they did the fix in 5 minutes for $15.

Christine and I were pleased to drive along Queens Ave to see the facility that once was the main building of the Bible College in which we were enrolled in undergraduate years.  The Ladies dorm and the Men’s’ dorm were on adjacent corners. It was quite nostalgic. This was where I met Christine when we were in our early twenties and I loved her almost from first sight. We would become engaged and married before she and I graduated.

Mature Empress Tree

On Monday afternoon we drove to Kathy’s family farm, the Smale farm where her brother Bob works. There Christine and I were introduced to the values and potential of a plantation of a tree specie which could become a cash crop in a relatively short time. The tree is called THE EMPRESS TREE. Websites are easily found which speak about the Royal Empress or Royal Paulownia, otherwise Paulownia Tomentosa. The specimens we saw are distinguished from the Tomentosa as a safer, purer, non-invasive variety. This tree is a deciduous tree that can grow as much as ten feet per year, making it the world's fastest growing hardwood tree. It can be two feet in diameter. It can be full grown in seven years, logged and from the same root will grow another tree, and it can continue to reproduce like this several times.

Paulownia tomentosa is a showy, Chinese ornamental that has been naturalized throughout much of the Eastern U.S. and is grown as far north as Montreal. With its enormous heart-shapped leaves it produces dense shade and will tolerate almost any soil. It's height is usually about 40' at maturity. It was introduced from East Asia in the early 1800s and planted widely as an ornamental specimen tree and has been grown in scattered plantations for speculative big-value wood exports to Japan. That is what the Smales are believing as they plant hundreds of these trees in this year and perhaps thousands over the next few years. The Smales' website is known as Empress Trees for Canada. The wood is very light, yet hard, and nicely grained and without knots, and features so many other qualities that provide an optimistic possibility it can be harvested commercially and effectively is a short period of time. It will be interesting to watch this development.

- REUNION TOUR - STAGE THREE - part 1 - DORCHESTER ONTARIO & VISITING NEALE

Dorchester Mill Pond, watercolour by Hilda Markson
Gray

My youngest brother is Neale, eleven years my junior. What were my parents doing spacing their children apart so far, five years between my brother Murray and I and then this substantial gap to the youngest? Neale was twelve years of age when Christine and I were married in 1967 – Canada’s Centennial Year. On Sunday afternoon I drove from Port Stanley to Dorchester where Neale and Kathy have lived for over thirty years. They live in a home located nod a across from farm fields which after all these years now contain a Shoppers Drug store on a far corner and will soon have a senior’s assisted care facility directly in front of them. The immediate country view will be gone but the drive to and from work will still wind through fields of corn and other grains.

Dorchester is rural and agricultural yet it serves London as a bedroom community for people who prefer to live away from the urban urgency and willing to make the 20 minute commute. Nonetheless, Dorchester has its own distinctive identity. I walked many of its streets this morning in the warm Ontario AM sunshine at 6:45 and I loved it. Brick is the exterior building material for most homes and I love the look and the durability as compared to the wooden exteriors of most of the BC homes with which I am now most familiar. Husky’s gas station sold me a Globe and Mail as I walked and Tim Horton’s sold me a coffee and a sausage and biscuit which I did not share or reveal to Christine or Neale and Kathy when I returned to their home. But they got me again with prying questions I could not deny. The three slept in until 8:30 AM and we are about to go out for breakfast. Neale’s and Kathy’s daughter Amy and husband Chris Hollywood will join us.

Last night at Neale’s we hung out for a while, enjoyed a great dinner of ribs and potatoes a la crock pot and then went for a walk to the Mill Pond to look for turtles and frogs. How invigorating to walk past bulrushes, to see families of wood ducks, a soaring crane coming in for a fluid splashdown. And then sleep in the darkest of nights, without city lights.

REUNION TOUR - PORT STANLEY - Stage Two

Port Stanley is a wonderful port town on Lake Erie and is in fact the largest north shore inland federal harbor.

It has an historic King George VI lift bridge which opens to allow leisure craft to come into Kettle Creek.

King George VI Lift Bridge

Christine’s brother Rob and our sister in law Glo are hosting us in their cottage, a quaint home on Hetty St.

We arrived yesterday and promptly walked the town, went to the beaches, looked into stores, and at ice cream at Brodericks, one of those best ever ice cream parlours.

Brodericks Ice Cream Parlour

We enjoyed a supper of blue cheese layer lamb chops prepared by Glo, which was an astounding flavour savoured outside in the garden.

We ate ice cream at Brodericks, one of those best ever ice cream parlours.

A fishing industry operates from here and today after swimming, we stopped at the Fishery to purchase some Perch for a meal of butter fried perch and home made fries.

Port Stanley Harbour with fishing boats

We walked for breakfast at the Buccaneer down at the beach this morning. Everything is in walking distance. Glo finished a career as a Presbyterian pastor and Rob is a professor of Manufacturing Sciences at Fanshaw College.

Port Stanley was occupied by the Neutral Indians until 1653, when they were expelled by the Iroquois. In the 1700s many explorers and travelers would portage across Long Point and voyage along the shore of Lake Erie to the Kettle Creek. This route gave access to a short portage to the Thames River and further inland exploring. A ferry service between Port Stanley and Buffalo was established in 1832, and by 1833 Port Stanley had become well known as one of the finest harbours on Lake Erie. In the early 1900s, Port Stanley was the main tourist attraction on the lake.

The cottage in which we stay is Rob's and Glo's home now, the one in which they intend to remain. And why not, since during the years that they have owned the place, Rob has come to know by name just about everyone in town and they return an hello using his name. The cottage sits on a small sliver of land fashioned after a old English garden with an eclectic assortment of plants that create solitude and privacy. Birds and butterflies frequent the foliage and colours. It's only a few hundred yards to the water of Kettle Creek where yachts are moored. Christine's mom and dad lived in Rob's and Glo's cottage during the closing years of their lives and enjoyed the amenities and friendships of this town. So we have visited here many times throughout the years and it is good for us to have come back again.

REUNION TOUR - Stage One - part 2 continued

We went to Montebello Park in St. Catharines. There, almost 45 years ago Christine and I posed for wedding photos, and today we posed again, happy, heavier, humid. The temperature today is close to 30 C. as it was on our wedding day.  The large pavilion evoked memories for me. It has a large area of hardwood flooring that has sometimes been used for concerts, dances and roller skating. On 

September 7^th my brother Murray will celebrate his 65^th birthday. When he was born in the General Hospital I was five years of age and with my mom and Murray in hospital, my father did a thoughtful thing. He purchased me a pair of roller skates, the kind that are strapped to shoes. He took me to Montebello Park ‘s pavilion and there almost alone, I learned to skate. It was a special treat by a proud father for his little boy who might have found that attention rather flattering when so much joy was being expressed for the arrival of this new brother.

Then following our walk through the park we went to Niagara on the Lake where at the famed, oldest golf course in Canada, we enjoyed a lunch. I had a massive corned beef on rye sandwich and a Kunzleman brew. The town is one the favourite places in all the world to Christine and me. The golf course and the restaurant sit on Canadian soil directly across the channel from Fort Niagara where in 1812, 100 years ago this year, Americans and British soldiers blasted away at each other.  

REUNION TOUR - Stage One

The Reunion Tour has begun.
So many key life markers to celebrate this year: My 70th in September, my brother Murray's 65th, Christine's brother Robert's 65th, and numerous other birthdays and anniversaries within our family. Not least among the dates to be honoured will be Christine's and my wedding day which happened on August 12th, 1967, making 45 years ago. We were married in St. Catharines Ontario and it is here to which we came yesterday. We flew on a perfect sunny day.

From Pearson International airport in a rental vehicle, a VW Jetta, we approached St. Catharines, the fruit belt district with which my childhood and youth is connected. In this city almost 45 years ago, Christine and I were married by Pastor James Vold, in Calvary Church. Our photographs were taken in the rose garden of Montebello Park. Today, Murray and Diane and Christine and I will walk through the restored rose garden before heading to Niagara on the Lake for a fine dinner.

Nostalgia oozes from the memories and the sites. We are already loving it and will have a wonderful trip around the province as we visit family and friends and the locations where we served in churches through the years.

DUCT TAPE, SNEAKERS, SLURPIES & TELUS

DUCT TAPE & NEW SNEAKERS - I use my sneakers daily. Really. I hit the gym by 6 AM each day and I walk a lot, run a little, cycle a bit, sometimes row and I burn as many calories as I have the energy and endurance to do.  But all that activity has rubbed cavities in the vertical padding of the heels so to avoid blisters I have duct taped my heels. Yesterday I decided to stop squandering duct tape and buy a new pair of shoes instead. At Sportcheck I hit a sale, buy one pair and get a second pair at half price.  

RYAN NEEDED SHOES – Ryan is my ten-year old grandson. This week I noticed his skater shoes were worn out. Holes in the soles and water in his socks. So I decided that he would be the beneficiary of my second pair of shoes at half price, so he and I went shopping. He wanted high tops and he chose a pair of Nikes that he loves. We had fun together.

SLURPIES AND RICHES – Kale is seven years of age and I pick him up from school twice each week. Invariably he asks me whether we can stop for a slurpy, slushy or whatever they may be called. Stupid sugared-icy drinks are $1.40 or more. So I tell Kale not to ask me every time we see each other. He says he has only asked twice so he already knows how to yank my chain. I pull into a store parking lot and he asks, “what are you going to get, a slurpy?” I say, “it costs too much and I don’t have any money.” Kale tells me “All grandparents have lots of money.” So I explain that his father has money because he works, but I don’t work any more so I don’t receive any money. He does a mock crying act. Then I go in and get a four flavoured slurpy for him.  He is thrilled and so am I.

EXERCISING DAILY, BURNING CALORIES – I do my best to lose weight, so my gym work aims to burn as many calories as possible. So far since mid January I am down 34 pounds but I have plateaued for five weeks. It has frustrated me but my body seems to have said it is comfortable.  In the early weeks, drinking my eight glasses of water was a secret to my eight loss. So recently I have resumed that diligent H2O intake and in two days I have lost 2.5 lbs. 

ELECTRONIC FRUSTRATION – since our move to our new carriage home two months ago we have endured sporadic dropped Wi-Fi signals with our laptops and I hate the interruptions so much and the hassle of calling TELUS and sitting for hours with technicians located somewhere in the world. I was directed to someone called June, a young Philippino who works for a TELUS subsidiary in Manila. So he speaks with me by phone and I give him permission to control my computers and watch the icon open files and change instructions and fix my dysfunction.  He has been very effective and finally directed an authorized service provider to visit me and replace my TELUS modem.

Last night Christine and I walked from our home into Langley to the Willowbrook Mall and got a couple of Starbucks coffees and set outside on a mild evening and watched people as they came and went. After a pleasant walk home, we watched Nic Wallenda of the famous Flying Wallenda family, walk a steel cable spanned across the Niagara Falls. It was dramatic, carefully planned with adequate safety and television coverage. It was a grand production that benefitted him certainly, but both the American and Canadian cities bearing the Niagara Falls name. It was a surprise to hear his faith expressed via a mike hookup as he walked through the mist and the winds stirred by the roaring waters. He talked to God the Father the entire trip across from the USA to Canada.

THE BIRTH DATE OF MY MOM - JUNE 4

Monday is the day on which my mother would have celebrated her birthday. She is no longer with us. She left this world in November 2007. Were she here, she would be 93 years of age.

Dementia and the physical incapacities of aging made her last years difficult for her and those who loved her. You will all understand when I say that when she passed away, it was met by her family with sadness, gratitude that she could be gone, and relief. None of those emotions were wrong or are wrong. My father had found the last year or more so hard that he needed my brother's presence just to make the visits to his beloved wife that he wanted to make. Dad concealed the depth of his own loss as privately as he had always lived with personal matters. He seemed adjusted to life alone. He was four years older than his wife, Tina. Yet at last, the emptiness was enough. He too could no longer sustain life and six months after Tina died, Ed too said goodbye, privately and alone. Dad was gone at 93 years of age and were he alive he would be 97.

I've got so many million years I just can't count them. Those were the words of a spiritual that was among Dad's and Mom's favourites. Sung by Stuart Hamblen, the words became familiar around our home. "When I close my eyes in sleep, say amen but don't you weep. I've got so many million years I just can't count them."

OUR ANTI-SMOKING SOLUTION - CAKE

I have mentioned our new residence and one reality of community living. Our neighbours’ habits are much closer to us now than when we lived on a quiet street in a detached home on a quarter acre lot. Curiously it seems to us now, on that entire street only one couple were smokers. They smoked on their porches rather than inside their own homes. We now live in a complex in which we are astonished by the high proportion of people who smoke who reside in our complex. I have commented before about repugnant second-hand smoke blowing around our corner unit. We are making the best of a foul circumstance.

During one of our more creative interactions, Christine volunteered an inspired plan to solve our clean air deficit.  Christine and I researched and located a Cola tasting liquid herbal remedy for the craving for nicotine and since Christine bakes delectable cakes, she has added the remedy into her cake ingredients. It evokes an appealing aroma and delectable flavour. The additive affects the body chemistry as it goes directly to the brain and the body rejects the taste of tobacco. We have been delivering these cakes to all of our smoking neighbours and the smoke has been significantly reduced. Our former smoking neighbours adore the cakes and ask for more, offering to pay. They have no idea why they now find smoking distasteful.

Of course they don't look like this

Although it began as an experiment, we consider it to have been so successful that we have applied for a patent on the baking formula as well as negotiated a contractual agreement with the supplier of the remedial herbal liquid. We have obtained a bank loan to finance the manufacture of packaged cake and cookie mixes we are calling Bon Gateau. These will be marketed as culinary therapy to quit smoking. With the spike in our income we are going to sell this place, purchase a condo along Marine Drive in White Rock, a waterfront home in Tahiti and an apartment in rural France.

MY NEW PLACE HAS GONE UP IN SMOKE

“How do you like your new place?”

That is the question most certainly.

Science Photo Library

You had no idea that you should ask, “How do you like the smoke?”

Joe lives across the grass courtyard with Sandra. Joe smokes. Sandra does not. In all kinds of weather I see him outside in a patio chair in his covered patio, cigarette between fingers.  The cover is provided by the deck of the unit above him where Charlotte and Wes live. Charlotte smokes too – outside her home on her deck. Beneath us to the right is a unit owned by Linda. She is a smoker but she moved last week to be with her boyfriend. She is renting her unit to her female friend Karen. She moved in over the weekend. Oh did I tell you – she smokes too. I was reading outside just now when the plumes of smoke began to waft my way – distracting. So here I am complaining. Not finished yet.

We have lived here for two months and the unit beneath us has been empty until three weeks ago when a nice lady and her teenage son purchased and moved in. We were hoping she would not be a smoker. I shouldn’t by a Lotto ticket any time soon. She smokes. But her son does not. And she smokes both inside and outside her home.

So the answer to the first question is, “I like my new place.” It has a deck both front and back. So far, if the smoke is rising on one side, I can retreat to the other. I have a lot more to say about second-hand smoke and community living and strata councils and what they can and should do. But first I have to take some time out to call my real estate agent to list this carriage home.