Tags: Food Travel A-z Challenge

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When friends of ours invited us to come to Halifax to see the Tall Ships, we had  no idea what we would be in for. We knew what a tall ship was but why would they be coming to Halifax? No matter; it would be a great opportunity to visit our friends who had been transferred Alberta to Halifax. We quickly made arrangements and off we went.

We learned that the city was taking the opportunity to do business public relations events during the visit of the tall ships, sending invitations to various business representatives. Our friends, who were active in the business community, had received several such invitations, and arranged to include us as often as possible.. We enjoyed a lobster feed, a concert by the Barra MacNeils, a visit to the Canadian Museum of Immigration on Pier 21, and to top it off, an invite to an afternoon sail on the Canadian tall ship, ending with dinner on the Danish tall ship.

At the appointed time to board the ship, my friend and I spotted an elegant, well-dressed lady walking up the gangplank. We wondered (a bit catty, I would think), who would ever think of wearing pearls on a cruise on a rustic ship.

There were few places to sit on the ship, so we did quite a bit of roaming around the deck during the sail. It was a warm afternoon, with a bit of a breeze, but that didn't affect the event, because the harbor authority didn't allow the ships to hoist the sails in the harbor.

As my friend and I walked between large coils of rope, we came face-to-face with the lady with the pearls. We exchanged pleasantries, and the lady comment on my friends' earrings. She asked if her sailboat earrings were purchased specifically for this event, and my friend explained they recently moved from the prairies of western Canada, and nautical "fashion" items were a pleasant change. We learned that the lady loved to find unique earrings to wear when she was an elementary teacher because the kids watched for any new accessory and would give her a big cheer. The pleasant conversation continued for  several minutes, sharing what district they lived in. The lady pointed to an area that we were passing and mentioned that was where they lived before moving downtown.

We eventually thanked her for the pleasant conversation and continued our stroll. A short time later, there was a loud exchange of words ahead of us; "Ask her if he can take his tunic off. It's so hot and he is going to melt away in that jacket." A short pause and then came the reply, "She said that he should get rid of the tunic while on board; the poor man must be so miserable in this heat!" Our eyes turned in the direction of the voice who made the request, and standing beside the caller stood an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in his red serge uniform. Turning in the direction of the other voice, to our surprise, he was standing beside the lady with whom we just had the pleasant conversation. Turning to a couple who were standing beside us, we asked if they recognized the lady. Yes, they knew who she was; she was the Governor General of Nova Scotia.In our opinion, she can wear her pearls on a cruise, and anywhere else she likes!

Tags: Ships A-z Challenge Travel

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I’dI I would like to introduce you to a guy I met many years ago. He was a lot older than me, but the first time I laid eyes on him, I knew I wanted to get to know him better. He was gorgeous, and to me, he looked like a giant with a great smile and sparkling grey eyes. He said his given name was Gustav but everyone called him Gus.

He and Brownie, his horse, had come to our neighborhood four years earlier, looking for work. He met his wife on a neighboring farm, but that didn't bother me. She was a nice lady, and she would stand and smile when he told me many stories, some about his first home in North Dakota, and his father’s decision to move to Canada. He said he wasn't really a cowboy; he was called a cattle driver, working in ranch country in the Cypress Hills. His best friend was his horse, and he told me that he could never part with him.

One of my favorite stories was about his family. When he was much younger, his family moved from Etzicom in Southern Alberta to Glentworth, Saskatchewan. Life was not easy for them, and they wanted to be near relatives for support. Because he was the oldest son, he was responsible to bring the family's livestock to their new home. I don't remember how many miles it was, but it took him quite a few days to get there. His proudest moment was when he could tell his father that he didn't lose one cow or one horse along the way. That was quite a feat for one guy and his horse.

The family returned to Alberta after a short stay in Saskatchewan, and again, Gus was given the responsibility to tend to the livestock. That time, the return trip was on the train, which, of course, was much easier than the many miles he had spent on Brownie’s back.

When the family was settled, he started to look for a job. Work was hard to find, and being that he was now a long distance from the ranch country that he loved, he took any work he could get on a farm. It was there that he met his wife. Mixed farming... some grain crops, a few milk cows, some chickens and ducks, apparently were his only option, but he worked hard so that he could get his own farm.

It wasn’t long before he was able to make arrangement to buy a farm near the hamlet of Grainger. It was hard work, but having a wife to stand with him made it easier. Brownie was still with him, and very much a one-person horse, so Gus would ride him as often as he could. He would tell me that the time he spent on the back of his horse was a real treat for both him and Brownie.  However, there were other horses on his farm that also needed attention… horses that helped with the work. Four big horses could pull the binder to cut the grain and tie the bundles. At harvest time, those horses were used to pull the hay wagons that were filled with straw from the threshing machine. In the winter, they would pull a stone boat through deep snow, loaded with feed for the cattle. Gus would also use that sled to drag snow off the road so that he could drive his vehicle up the hill to the main road and go to town to buy groceries, pump gasoline in his car, tend to personal business, and on Sunday, go to church. He even, when necessary, would spent hours clearing the snow from the road with a shovel.

Gus loved his family, and gained the respect of his neighbors. He was never far from me, often taking me with him for a ride on Brownie, or on his tractor, and in the winter, he and I would spend a lot of time going up and down a snowy hill on a toboggan. Why would he do that, you ask?

BECAUSE HE WAS MY DAD!

Tags: A-Z G Blog

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I’m sure you are wondering why I have selected these three ‘F’ words for my next A-Z challenge. It may surprise you.

Recently, a well-known sports figure has left this world. I have never said that I am a sports fan, but I manage to watch the final series games of hockey (our local team is the Calgary Flames), and Canadian football (our local team is the Calgary Stampeders). There is a Canadian Major Baseball team, the Bluejays, but they never play in Western Canada, so I muster some enthusiasm for the Seattle Mariners, especially when our American family take us to a game during our visit with them in Seattle.

For the first time that I can remember, I did some reading and watching the news because I recognized the name, Frank Gifford. He was an American football player and television sports commentator. After a 12-year playing career as a running back and flanker for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL), he was a play-by-play announcer and commentator for 27 years on ABC's Monday Night Football. That was his career, but I knew nothing about him as a person until I watched his wife, Kathy Lee Gifford, co-host of the TODAY show, returned to be interviewed on the show. If you haven’t heard the interview, here is the link to that interview.

Fernando Ortego is one of my favorite musicians. His music embraces country, classical, Celtic, Latin American, world, modern folk and rustic hymnody. I first heard his name when he was invited by the Billy Graham family to sing at Ruth Graham’s funeral. The song he sang was ‘Give Me Jesus’, and it was the first time I heard it. It keeps running through my mind, at the most unexpected times.

Finally, I come to the third ‘F’ word. The first time I saw a picture of a Flex, I thought it looked like a ‘box on wheels’. We contacted a dealer who had previously found a vehicle for us at the local auto auction mart, and told him that we were looking for a reliable van in good condition and at a reasonable price. He suggested that we have a look at the Ford Flex. It made us both laugh, but we agreed to have a closer look. We drove across Canada with friends in our first red Flex, and to California and neighboring states with our second Flex, white in color. We still love road trips, even though they now seem to be getting shorter.

Who know what will next appear on our calendar. We do know that flexibility is an asset!

So much for my list of 'FIRSTS'!

Tags: Music Sports Transportation Blog

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While trying to decide on a topic for my next blog in the Alphabet Challenge, several words kept creeping into my mind. Several were familiar words I heard at a very young age, in our home, in Sunday School, and from my Grandfather. I learned the words when memorizing Bible verses, hoping to win one of the prizes that were offered to the child who memorized the most verses.

There was never the option to question what we were taught in Sunday School or by members of the family, but that eventually began to change, as I heard options to my belief system in high school and nursing school. Do I continue to blindly follow what I had been taught, or is it acceptable for me to start asking questions.

Here are several of the words that came back to mind:

Everlasting - how is that possible? Doesn’t everything get worn out, turn rancid, or just become passe or useless? The definition is ‘lasting or enduring through all time; continuing for a long time or indefinitely.

Eternity - a state to which time has no application, timelessness. endless life after death; time that seems to be without an end.

These are tough words to understand, but often used as a promise in holy scriptures. We need a good dose of faith to learn and accept these concepts.

Here are two more, also found in scriptures;

Encouragement - positive words to help or to share what you have.

Entertainment - provide someone with a meal, in your home or theirs.

These are easier to handle and understand. We don't need to put on a fancy sit-down dinner. Even a cup of cold water will bring pleasure to a needy person. As for encouragement, a kind word, an impromptu hug, and unexpected phone call are so much better and helpful than criticism or an angry rebuttle.

Tags: AtoZ Encourage

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It seems that there is a much greater interest in dinosaurs during my lifetime. Young children can remember the oddest names for those prehistoric animals, and many have a bag full of toys to play dinosaur stories with their friends.

When I was growing up, there was this large dinosaur at the Calgary Zoo, and we always looked forward to having some time to climb up the tail. In the last few years, the Zoo has upgraded the Prehistoric Park and it has become a highly favored spot for family fun.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum, located in Drumheller, Alberta, is a Canadian tourist attraction and a centre of palaeontological research noted for its collection of more than 130,000 fossils. It is located about one hour and thirty minutes from Calgary, in the Badlands of eastern Alberta. It would take too long for me to tell you all about it, so I am including a link to the website so that you can see photos and learn more this famous site in our province.

ROYAL TYRRELL MUSEUM,
DRUMHELLER, ALBERTA

By the way, I almost forgot to tell you that I was born in Drumheller, long before the dinosaurs became a tourist attraction.

Tags: History Tourists Birthplace

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A couple of weeks ago, we dropped by the Annual Book Fair in our city. It’s a great place to find an elusive book that one has been look for, or spot an interesting title we have never heard of. I spotted a small book entitled “There Is A God: 1001 Heartwarming (and Hilarious Reasons to Believe”. I opened a random page and what I read brought back a lesson that I learned years ago.

Our son had just graduated from high school and he decided to move away from home. It was fine with us because we understood the need to “spread his wings”. I decided to pack up his room so that we could use it for a guest room if needed. I discovered a wooden box that my father had given to our son, calling it a “Treasure Box”. It did have a hasp on it but the lock was open, so I had to investigate. The box was full of bubble gum cards! Why would he be saving those card, when Grandpa had given him a few items that were treasures to keep in that box? I was about to toss the whole load in the trash, but then had a second thought. Those cards belonged to him, and should not throw them out before asking him about them.

When I asked him about the gum cards, he told me that he had the entire set of cards of our city’s football team that had won the 1948 Grey Cup (Canada’s National Football League), and that he was told that those cards would be of great interest to a card collector. I was THAT close to being in a pile of trouble.

Back to the book… this was the quote that I read,

“There Is A God...You have the one mother in the Western Hemisphere who didn’t throw out  her son’s baseball (football) cards.”

Tags: Trading Cards

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About five weeks ago, I posted the following photo on Facebook, with the comment, “NOT AGAIN”! My friends would know exactly what I meant.

Those are my feet … and I still have that air cast attached to me in my waking hours. It is the fifth time that I have had a fractured foot. My right foot (considered to be my bad foot because of a previous break) is now apparently my good foot. If I don’t have something to touch when I walk, my balance is terrible. As a result, I need to use a walker if I am “out and about”.

We visited several Thrift Stores, hoping to find an affordable walker, but no luck. My next option was to call a dear friend to see if she had a walker in her storage shed that I could borrow. Her friends all know that she never throws anything out, and both parents have passed away, so I thought there was a good chance that she would have one. She had two! She was happy to bring one to our home, if I would have a cup of coffee for her. She knows me well enought that there is always a cup of coffee available at my house. She told me that they had kept a number of pieces of medical equipment so that they could help someone out who would need some help. What a great idea!.

Two weeks later, we were tending to errands in town, and made a quick stop at the Thrift Store to check if any walkers had been brought in. As luck would have it, they were putting a Nexus walker on display when we entered the store. The price was $35.00. My husband checked it over and discovered that one brake didn’t work, and he showed it to the person who was putting it on display. They had missed the broken brake because their policy was to sell items in working condition. We asked if there would be any consideration in the price (my husband can fix just about anything!), and she gave it a minute’ thought and offered to sell it for 50% off the listed price. SOLD! We went to the cashier, and were informed that it was 30% off for Seniors that day. When we got home, we checked online for the price of that model, and it was $479.00 U.S. We did have to purchase a brake unit but the walker is now like new. We REALLY did get a bargain!

One more week before I have my foot x-rayed again. I will be happy to be able to put a shoe on that foot, and tuck the walker in a corner of our storage space. The instructions that I have received from my hubby … NO MORE BROKEN BONES, PLEASE!

Tags: Bargains Health Accidents

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After being invited to join the challenge to write blogs through the alphabet, here I am. It has been a very busy summer for me, and I have a bit of catching up to do, so bear with me as I crank up my brain to meet this challenge. After all, many already know that I love to use words (lots of them) to communicate with friends (old and new) on this wonderful social network site.

For the first eight years of my life, my family lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Our mailing address was listed in a “smaller than a hamlet” place about five miles from our farm. There were three grain elevators, a train station, two houses, and a general store that sold a few groceries, some hardware items, the occasional selection of work overalls and rubber boots, and the post office. The storekeeper lived in the back so was almost always available to open for a customer, no matter the time of day or night. There was one gasoline pump near the entrance, and because there was no electricity, if you wanted gasoline in your truck, you had to manually pump it. Both passenger and freight trains did run through town, to load grain from the elevators or pick up passengers. If we needed to board the passenger train, the storekeeper would put a flag up at the station to alert the engineer that there are people who wished to travel  to the city on his train.

We couldn’t really call it our hometown, for obvious reasons, but when my parents needed to do banking, purchase repair parts for machinery, expand their grocery list, or go to church, we travelled about 12 miles to the nearest town called Acme. It wasn’t a big town; one business Main Street, and several short streets lined with neat houses and picket fences. One house was Dr. Elliott’s home and medical office, and he did the best he could for patients, even though he did not have access to a hospital or support from another doctor.

A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to drive through Acme on the way to visit our close friends. We were amazed at the expansion of the town, clusters of new homes, a curling rink, community center, golf club, library, and active service clubs. Even though it is 86 km from Calgary, it is now considered to be a ‘bedroom community’ for people who work in the city. That is quite a commute, but also gives the advantage of having a quiet and friendly neighborhood to come home to.

I’m proud to still call Acme my hometown!

Tags: Memories Childhood

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