December 01 2018

Episode 9

Working in the lab late one night

Sounds a little ominous. Was I up to some nefarious plan, ha, ha, ha.? Nah. It wasn't that kind of lab, it was a lab in a brewery, there were some test tubes and a few beakers, but there wasn't anything like a Tesla coil to shock life into some Dr. Frankenstein type creature. The day shift had just left for the night and I was to install a new vinyl asbestos tile floor for them. You read it right, asbestos. I installed a ton of it over the years, cut it, sanded it, even burned it off the floor at times, lucky I'm still walking the planet. Any way, that's why I was in the lab. This lab had one of those heavy metal doors, you know, the ones with that thick glass and the grid of wire mesh embedded in it. We had removed the pins and shifted it slightly to the side so we could end the floor halfway through the threshold. As I was laying tile some security numpty decided to enter the room through said door. We've all seen these security guys, they come in all sizes, the whisper thin little guy with the sinewy muscles, he's up and down you and has you on your back before you could explain you had forgot to remove the hat you had tried on before leaving the store. Then there's the ripped muscular guy who wouldn't notice you leave the store after forgetting about the hat because he's too busy looking at the reflection of his physique in the store windows. The old guy who is wheezing so hard after catching up to you, he has time to listen that you forgot you had the hat on,and, not only that, he's old enough to know it happens. This guy wasn't one of those, this guy could have been the Pilsbury dough kid's father. He was tipping the scale somewhere between OMG that's heavy and we're gonna need a bigger scale. This guy couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, he wouldn't even be able to get his hand out because the opening would be too small and he wouldn't let go of the donut. To his credit, he realized his mistake immediately. Too bad he wasn't strong enough to stop the door, too bad he hung on to it as it crashed down on top of me, adding to its massive weight. S700, that's the adhesive we used to install VAT. It was a black emulsified glue that when it dried became highly tactile. I was able to role to my back before I hit the adhesive, had to protect my nose, you know. I'm not sure how heavy the door was, but the security guard was one of those 300 plus, plus pound editions, more on the softer side too. I became well imbedded in the glue. We had to cut my t-shirt off so I could climb out of it, it was stuck to the floor, along with a good amount of my hair, I still have a bald spot, it was the only way to get off the floor. I used to have long hair too. Some of it is probably still under the tile. The safety officer started shrieking at me for working without a shirt, I had to duct tape some paper sheets to cover my body to finish the job. Deanie just shook her head when I got home, my two little girls ran to get their paints.

Loved

November 1, 2018

Episode 8

 

The Fall of '67

Another summer at Antonini & Sons. I had graduated to scaffolding work now, probably because most the guys were afraid of heights. I hadn't reached that stage...yet. We were working on one of the Regina skyscrapers, we were right up at the top, twelve stories off the ground. I was trying to get used to wearing a hard hat, they are pretty good at protecting your head from nasty bumps but having those extra few inches of head can cause a lot of odd head movements and neck jarring. Scaffolding consists of a lot of uprights and braces and decks, as you move from deck to deck you must duck your head to get through to the next section. It's those extra inches of head that caused the problem and I didn't duck quite far enough. I almost knocked myself out, which caused me to lose my footing. Down I went. Now, the anatomy of a scaffold is such that you have a number of hand grabs to catch if you should be so inclined. I missed the first few but my head hitting one of the cross bars slowed my descent enough to give me a few more opportunities, my elbow got in the way of the next one, then my knee knocked me out of position for the next, I was upside down by the next but my shoulder slowed me enough to catch a brace. I had succeeded at the task of stopping my fall, and as if I wasn't already disoriented enough, that stupid hard hat that started the event caromed of my head on its way down. When the little stars faded I realized now I had to recover enough to climb to safety. Easier said than done, my right elbow had taken too hard a blow to be of any use and the pain in my left shoulder hindered movement of my left arm. I would have to hang on for dear life until some one could rescue me. It was probably only a few minutes but it seemed like hours before somebody came. I had my chin anchored on the brace using it to help my arms hold me in place. My forearms were burning from the strain and my wrists were aching from pain. I would lose my grip soon, my mouth was chalk dust dry, I was about to give up. Where was everybody, where were the firemen with the net I could drop into. All sixteen years of my life flashed before me. I was delirious...then...all of a sudden He was behind me, could have been Jesus, probably one of his angels though, and I heard his voice, "You okay, buddy". I was afraid to move my chin from the brace but I could barely see him out of the corner of my eye, he had to be floating in thin air. I felt a gentle peace flow through my arms. Then... he spoke again, " You can let go, you're only an inch off the ground". Like I said, I was delirious. 

 

Have a great day

 

Loved

October 2 2018

Wow! October 1st just slid right past me.

Episode 7

Wakaw

We were up at the cabin at Wakaw Lake for the annual Matlock reunion. It's Deanie and I along with her brother and two sisters and their counterparts. We had enjoyed an evening of culinary delights and merriment. We retired for the evening, I sleep in the upper bunk in the kids room. They say I get it because I'm the only one who can climb the ladder to get in, but I think it has more to do with me being the only one who can sleep with the ceiling two inches from his nose.

I woke early in the morning, it might have been the spider squeezing between the ceiling and my nose that woke me. It had rained hard the night before, so I went out to smell the clean, fresh air. The stairway at the end of the deck led down to the path to the lake. It was one of those steep paths that has little foot steps dug in  to keep you from falling. I hadn't noticed the rain had caused a bit of a slide and had filled the foot steps in. It was no longer a path, it was now a mud slide, or, I should say mud slick because it was fast. How do I know it was fast? Well, because my eyes were still in that early morning sand paper on the inside of your eyelid stage I didn't have them fully open when I took that first step.  Not only that, the predawn darkness hid unknown dangers. I landed on my back in a slick coating of mud and away I went. I immediately went into concussion protocol which was tucking my chin into my chest to keep the back of my head safe. That kind of sped my descent. You know those weeds you try to pull and you can't loosen them to save your life. There weren't any of them on the way down. I was hoping for the best as I rocketed downward. The path ended at the boat dock, I would slide to a stop there. Not so. The dock had a layer of frost on it, it's like I gained speed when I hit it. I went off the end like a frisbee sailing out over the water, I think I even skipped a couple times just to get me out a few more yards. I finally slowed down about thirty yards from shore, which for a non swimmer, might as well be to the moon. I did what any aqua phobic would do, I panicked. I was flailing like mad but never moved an inch. I saw my life pass before me...over the years I had seen it a few times, so it was like a rerun. I started thinking about my funeral, the kids would show up, that would be nine, if Deanie's siblings came that would be an even dozen, that would be enough. I thought of the swim instructor's words at the university pool when my ass came to rest on the bottom of the pool after she taught me to relax. "Some bodies are more buoyant than others".  Just as I was thinking, " I'm a little reluctant to go just yet". There it was, a bright light, the light at the end of the tunnel, already? Oh. Wait, it's just the sun rising over the horizon. Ok, so if I sink to the bottom and shoot myself upward and forward I could gain a yard or two, if I could do that twenty times I should be to shore. I quit flailing and sunk, like a rock I might add, my feet hit ground, I stood up, I was only in four feet of water. Maybe it wasn't quite 30 yards. Turns out the lake is pretty shallow. I walked to shore.

High on life.

Loved

August 4 th 2018

I was hoping to post on the first, but Deanie and I were headed up to Wakaw Lake for the Labour Day weekend show. It was her siblings annual reunion. We're off the grid up there, well, not really, we just don't have wi-fi. Anyways, I thought, come Tuesday it would be all right.

Episode 6

The Big Catch

Don't ask why I was fishing. I never had any luck fishing, I would be 23 before I would catch my first fish, and 65 before catching my second. The first time my daughter Heather went out she caught five, that's not from my DNA. She was ice fishing though. I tried ice fishing once, I was too tired too fish after cutting the hole for the canoe. 

It was summer, we were all at the cabin at Regina Beach, I was fishing from the shore of the little beach. If at first you don't succeed. I was at around my hundredth try, I hadn't even had a nibble, I had caught about 20 pounds of weeds. This try again business had run its course. My little sister had come down to get me for lunch. We made our way up the trail to the road. As luck would have it, bad luck that is, my line let out enough to have the hook catch in some bushes. I only realized it after walking another 20 yards or so, I was too tired to go back so I figured if I tugged it, it  might release, good news, it released, bad news, the hook came out so fast it imbedded itself in my leg. Darn it. Now, I wasn't complaining, I simply said, calmly, I might add, "Look at that, I've got a fish hook stuck in my leg". Being a redhead, my little sister never really tanned, but her little face was especially white when she saw the hook in my leg. She panicked and took off like an Olympic sprinter, well, not exactly like an Olympic sprinter, she was screaming at the top of her lungs, Olympic sprinters are generally fairly quite. It sounded like maybe the earth had caught fire, folks started pouring out of their cabins to examine the reason for the commotion. I stopped and looked around hoping they would think I was doing the same. It didn't work, their attention focused on me, I looked for a hole to crawl into, all there was was a rabbit hole and I had been told it was best to stay out of them. I thought about hiding in the grass but it was only two inches high. Next thing I know one of my great older sisters has scooped me up and is carrying me to the cabin. Dad happened to know a doctor who had a cabin up the hill, the doctor was more than happy to look at his little boy. The doctor told me I was foolish to walk with the hook in my leg because it caused it to embed deeper in the muscle. I was about to tell the doctor where he could put the hook when I heard dad say...

 

Have a great day

 

 

Loved

August 1, 2018

PRONE

Episode 5

Hammerheads

Often times, it is customary to change the name of participants in a story to protect the innocent. In this particular incident there was certainly no innocence involved. However, to keep with the custom I will change the name of the other party in this case. 

I was playing with my cousin Matt Looper behind their house when they lived on 15 block Angus. It was a warm summer morning. We were playing in the lane and for some reason we had hammers. Obviously, we were pretending we were carpenters. We had tried working with wood and nails before but our fingers had not faired well so it was just hammers this day. We were adjusting telephone poles. We had straightened out half a dozen of them when we discovered a garage wall that had been used as target practice with what looked to be eggs. The fascinating thing was, upon closer examination, it appeared that a large group of flies were having breakfast of egg omelettes. We didn't particularly like flies, so we decided to swat ourselves a few. Of course, we didn't have any fly swatters with us but...we did have those hammers. You'll have to cut us some slack here, hammer heads are not that big, add to that, the fact that we're just little kids wielding oversized tools and, not only that, those little flies are really fast. Frustration set in quite early in our quest to get at least one fly, but our determination grew. I was focusing on one fly, he looked a bit sluggish, maybe he had over eaten, I was just about to nail him...and... someone turned off the sun. When I woke I could taste the dirt on my lips, from the tire track my face was laying in. My favourite cousin had thought he could get the fly that was struggling to free itself from my hair, back when I still had some. He gave it his best shot. Can I blame him, would I have done the same, I hope not. In his defence, he showed me the fly that was squashed on the end of his hammer, I'm pretty certain it was all my DNA. I still have a bald spot on my head where I was hit.

 

Have a great day

 

Loved

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

and...

Episode 4

About those curtains

I had made it through the first grade. There were a number of scrapes and bruises that never really bothered me, but those broken noses left an impression. It's no wonder I never liked school. It would be a long 13 years. When I donated blood, the nurse was surprised that I would watch the needle go in my arm. She said I was lucky I didn't faint at the sight of blood. She didn't know the half of it - I would have been out through 50 of my 67 years.

It was second grade. The teacher had given us a picture to color. I'm guessing it was art class. I was working hard to stay inside the lines. Then I heard a familiar sound. What was that? It was a birthday sound. I was only seven, but I had heard it 60 or 70 times. Hah! It was the sound of one of those little match boxes being slid open and a match being scrambled out. Oh boy! My senses heightened, and I waited for the familiar scritch of the match to the side of the box. Then it happened. The little flame burst forth. I could smell the sulfur. My pulse quickened. My eyes darted down to my paper when she looked up, but they didn't stay there. I watched her closely as she lit a small candle and raised what looked like a funny shaped crayon to the flame. It dripped a couple of times. Then she blew out the candle, made some movements with her hands, and set the candle aside. At the end of class, when we took our pictures up to her desk, I scanned it thoroughly. It was stunning. The crimson wax had dripped onto an envelope, and there was a depression in it with such a fancy design. Wow. I walked home in wonder. 

We used to have a junk drawer at home, and you could find, well, pretty much anything in it. I found a candle and, yeah, matches, too. It was on the window sill in the little bedroom adjacent to the bathroom where I set up my project. I was going to make an impressive picture for my mom. I had melted a few crayons before the light in the room started flickering. No big deal - lights flickered all the time back in the day. Except I hadn't turned it on. It wasn't the light that was flickering at all - it was the flames. There were a couple of little dragon caterpillars crawling up one of the curtains. I assumed they were dragons because they were on fire. Fear is a strong motivator. I mean, I wasn't so afraid of the fire - I was more afraid mom would find out I started it. I ripped the curtains from the window, rod and all, and had them in the bathroom sink in a heartbeat. Well, my heart was beating pretty fast, so maybe in a few heartbeats. Plus I kinda bent the rod going through the doorways. The water put the fire out fast, and I quickly hung them back up...after straightening the rod. Oh boy. That wasn't going to work. The curtain on the left hung lightly down with its pristinely white delicate lace pattern.  The right side, however, although it also hung down, only consisted of a couple of threads, and they were both black. I couldn't give mom the picture I made, not just because it would be evidence, but because it wasn't finished, and I kinda lost the inspiration. I got rid of the ashes and spread the other drape across the window. It was quite worrisome because it only covered half. Maybe mom wouldn't notice - she had fourteen kids you know. She noticed. I had to own up to it. After all, at the time I still felt guilty about the one I didn't start on Retallack. I told her how It started and explained how I put it out. She checked my hands, my arms, and my little face. My new nose was almost a year old now. There was so much wax on my hands they didn't get burned at all. She put her arms around me and hugged me close. Turns out she didn't care about the curtains.

June 1 2018

Episode 3

It's a hat trick

After two consecutive visits to the hospital, I was once again given the option to stay home from school. Mom was a bit reluctant to send me back right away, she would keep me home for a few days. I understand now, after being a parent myself, that you can't protect your children from every thing. I can still remember dad's voice. He'd always say, "Hey, you guys, quit horsing around." We never did though, quit "horsing around" that is. Staying home from school all day gave this little horse a bunch of energy to blow off by the time my brothers got home.

There was a little bedroom, to the left, at the top of the stairs on 1140 Garnet, it had a thin spooky closet that ran adjacent to the bathtub wall, there was a window on the north wall, with wispy curtains hanging from it, in the next episode you'll learn the truth about their disappearance. There was a dresser against the bathroom wall and a bed along the wall that separated this room from mom and dad's bedroom. I can't remember if it was Tony or Lui I was "horsing around" with, and I can't recall if the bed was a trampoline or a football field. Tony and Lui were my heroes growing up. I figured they were so smart, they had placed pillows on the floor in anticipation of a fall from the bed. The plan had worked great, the pillows had cushioned a number of falls and each time we would pat ourselves on the back for the genius of it. Then, I suppose I could say, I was bucked off the horse I was horsing around on. Should have listened to my dad, or that Mr. Burns guy, he said something about the "best laid plans of mice and men", ( there always has to be some brainiac who states something just to have some poor sucker prove the point), the "Gang aft a-gley" part is my face hitting the dresser before it hit the pillows. Maybe if he hadn't written it to a mouse. Any way, I broke my new nose, again, time to get another one. Poor mom, she held her little boy with the swollen head while we waited for the limousine.

I sat in the back on the way to the hospital, I was hoping to squeeze under the front seat so they couldn't find me, as small as I was I could only get my legs under.

The admitting staff were prepared when I was admitted. They taped my hands together when they were putting my identification bracelet on. They were full of themselves with pride, not so much when they realized they should have thought about taping my ankles. It took them 15 minutes to catch me, would have been longer, I ran out of breath...I couldn't breathe through my nose. They had me surrounded. My attempted escape had caused my eyes to swell again, I could barely see. I started torpedo punching and kicking air, I was tiring when I heard pop...pop...pop,pop. My assailants were wearing bubble wrap... very clever. After struggling to get me on the gurney, they duct taped my whole body down. I don't really blame them, they wouldn't have had enough staff to get the mask on me this time. I never did get the final count, but there were well over a hundred holes in that ceiling tile. My gurney was on the move again. From the looks on the faces of the surgery team, they were quite pleased I was immobilized. Even then, they approached me with caution, and...the lights went out. 

It had  been over a period of only six weeks that I made those three hospital visits, dad started thinking about getting me one of those cones the dogs wear, it might have been cheaper than the Dinky toys.