Feb 1, 2019

EPISODE 11

Don't you just hate it when...

You wake up in the morning, it's an exciting day. If you can make it through the day it will be 30 days without an accident, breaking your record of 29. Now, instead of feeling sheepish when saying " I've gone a whole month without an accident," because February is the only month that fits, you can add September, April, June and November. Of course, you're aware that you have to wash the windows inside and out today and the ladder incident of last year is still fresh in your mind, but, that's a whole other story. You're ready today, you bought two extension poles, one with a scrub brush and the other a squeegee. There will be no ladder today, both feet will be planted on solid ground.
You jump out of bed, grab a pair of socks and lift your foot to clothe it. You look at your foot back on the floor, sans sock. It looks back up at you, " Hey, I was just following the knee". "Don't put it on me ," the knee says," I haven't been that high in years, the chest would have to come down to meet me." " I'm all in," says the chest, " let's do this." Up comes the knee, the foot follows, chest dips to meet them, hands firmly hold the sock ready for entry. Somebody really should have said something to the ankle, he didn't do his part. Only the big toe caught the sock and the hands aren't letting go, I'm hopping on one foot across the room trying to regain my balance, it's not working, I'm heading for Deanie's chest of drawers. This is a monster of a piece of furniture, built to last, loaded with clothes and as immovable as a brick wall. To make matters worse, there's another identical right beside it. If I hit these things the outcome will not be in my favor. I veer to the right. Wham! Right into the laundry hamper, it's made of wicker. It explodes. Deanie lifts her head off the bed, night brain tells her there's a wicker quilled porcupine on the floor before she realizes it's just me, she goes back to sleep. I spend the next twenty minutes picking quills out of my side, it looks like I have chicken pox, only just on one side of my body. Tomorrow...day 1


Loved

JANUARY 1 2019

Happy New Year

Episode 10

The Christmas Season

I was hoping to ride out December on a sleigh but it was harder than I thought. First of all I wasted some time looking for reindeer, which are really hard to find by the way, then I realized it wasn't Santa's sleigh, it was just an open sleigh. I only needed one horse. We started out ok but it wasn't long before we threw a shoe. Farriers are another thing hard to find so I just grabbed another horse. This one was really distracted by the trappings of Christmas, it got caught up in the lights and then wanted a sleigh with the easy glide skis, I had to let it go. I put blinders on the third horse, that should keep his mind focused on the task. We were doing ok until we hit a patch of dry ground. I got out to walk along side the horse to make it easy but it made me feel lonely, the horse just ignored me, I can't really blame him, he didn't notice me, he had blinders on. We made a few stops along the way, the 23rd was a particularly good day. I even had a few people join me in the sleigh that evening. I abandoned the sleigh on the 24th to spend with my grandkids, and my daughter Heather kept me company until the 27th. Back on the sleigh I started making plans for the New year, I'm hoping it to be better than 18. I'll leave the sleigh in the snow and go on by foot...

Loved

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