At some point during the time we lived in that farm house in Redmondville,my father either bought some chicks from the hatchery,or some of the hens in the barn hatched some.I really don't know which,because,as I said,I never went in the barn.But my father erected a sort of a pen at the end of the driveway,and I can recall feeding the peeping little yellow things some worms through the wire fence.They would strut around and make an incredible amount of noise for such small creatures.They ate worms hungrily,as well as any bugs that would venture into the pen,and I could stand for hours watching them,though the sound of them I did not like.the hens still strolled about in the driveway too,but it never occurred to me at all that these tiny creatures had even the slightest thing in common with the hens,or with the rooster,which seemed to be the boss of all the chickens.My father seemed not to like the rooster as he kept telling it he was going to cut its head off with the axe.I asked if I could watch,having not the slightest clue what this entailed.For all I know,he might well have done just that at some point,though I never witnessed it.
Along with the chicks,a couple of cows came to our place as well.I'm not sure where my father found them,but he brought them into our driveway for a time.I don't recall that he ever kept them in the barn.In fact,as far as I can recall they were kept at the Mormons farm down the road,though to say that they did not visit from time to time would be wrong.There must not have been any fence at all between our farm and theirs,as the two cows would wander right up and start munching grass on our front lawn.The little brown one ate some flowers my mother had planted inside an old tire too.That little brown cow was,I think a Jersey,a most gentle beast for a creature so much bigger than me.One time,as I recall she lay right down on her side in front of our front steps and went to sleep.My father said that it was strange for cows to do that,at least during the day,but he couldn't swear that they would never lay down at night in the pasture.But I remember her laying down that one time,because I walked over and lay down on her side,and she didn't mind in the least.I believe I went to sleep right there as her ribs rose ans fell to her breathing,and we both napped together on the front lawn.
The cows were milked too,by hand in the Mormons barn,usually by one of the boys.There were other cows there too and it took some time to milk them all even with several boys hard at work milking.when milking time came,that little brown cow would take off on a trot from wherever she was for the barn.A few times I got to watch the milking procedure.One time,at least I think it was then,and not later,one of the boys doing the milking told me something that he seemed to think was funny,but that I didn't understand at the time.
"Do you know why a cow has four of these"asked the boy,obviously referring to the teats he held in his hands.I had no idea.but they were the biggest things I'd ever seen and I was amazed at them.I though the cow was peeing,but I couldn't understand why she peed milk.At least it looked like milk,and not pee,and my father always said that the milk was the whole reason for having a cow.
"You see,said the Mormon boy.one is for milk,and one is for buttermilk,one is for cream,and one is for chocolate milk."And then he was laughing with all his might.I guess it was the first time anyone had ever told me a joke.Maybe he should have tried it on someone else though,as It was totally wasted on me.I was far too young to understand jokes.Not only that,but as much as he squeezed that cow,I never saw chocolate milk come from any of her teats.The little brat had obviously lied to me,or so I thought.Years later though,I got the joke.I wasn't certain if it was funny or not.
Friday 7 September 2012
Monday 3 September 2012
Op/Ed-New Drunk Driving Laws
As I suspected,my agreement with Sun columnist Lorne Gunther had a limited shelf life.This past week end he commented against Alberta's new drunk driving laws lowering the limit for intoxication to .05.Gunther seems to feel that the lower limit is simply trying to catch those who would stop for a single drink on the way home.Those who are really not dangerous.He also protests the immediate punishment imposed upon blowing over the limit,as not allowing for due process of law.Offenders cars are impounded on the spot and a license suspension begins immediately,without trial,or apparently the right to defend ones self.In that Mr.Gunther and I can agree.However,as for the law itself,I am in full agreement with it's seeming intent.Simply,it forces anyone who would have even one drink to consider the consequences of his actions relative to a lower tolerance.Ideally,anyone who takes a drink should not,in my opinion drive a car,no matter how little they consume.So,in total I believe it will cause those with the good intent to obey the current law to be even more likely to make good,or should I say better decisions.
Is premier Redford simply flexing her muscles to appear to be tough on crime,despite jurisdictional issues limiting her ability to do so.Most likely.Gunther cites a case of a person caught driving impaired who killed someone,lamenting that more attention should be paid to putting those sorts of individuals in jail for longer periods of time.It's difficult to disagree,but again,that is beyond Redford's reach as it requires a change to The Criminal Code Of Canada.But,whether Redford is trying to show toughness for political gain or not,any means of providing a stronger deterrent to potential drinking drivers is worth the while.Even if I do share Gunther's concern regarding due process.
Is premier Redford simply flexing her muscles to appear to be tough on crime,despite jurisdictional issues limiting her ability to do so.Most likely.Gunther cites a case of a person caught driving impaired who killed someone,lamenting that more attention should be paid to putting those sorts of individuals in jail for longer periods of time.It's difficult to disagree,but again,that is beyond Redford's reach as it requires a change to The Criminal Code Of Canada.But,whether Redford is trying to show toughness for political gain or not,any means of providing a stronger deterrent to potential drinking drivers is worth the while.Even if I do share Gunther's concern regarding due process.
Saturday 1 September 2012
Tuesday 28 August 2012
op/ed-photo radar
Perhaps I should read the Sun Media papers more often.If I did,who knows,I may just find myself in agreement with columnists more often than what I'm comfortable with.Scary thought.But all joking aside,I am in complete agreement with Lorne Gunther as to his story on the County Of Strathcona discontinuing the use of photo radar in favour of more officers on the streets.It is an entirely good thing.Even if it means lost revenue.
Lets face reality here.Photo radar is not enforcement.It does nothing to change behaviour.It is completely useless when someone engages in really dangerous behaviour like going say,one hundred over the limit,as seems to happen with some frequency.The photo radar unit just snaps a picture of the offenders plate and goes"Cha-ching"just a bit louder perhaps than if he offender had only been going ten over.In a tax based model of enforcement,the more dangerous the offense,the better the outcome.
But for as long as I can remember police have been telling us how enforcement isn't about revenue collection.They become indignant every time that we suggest that there may be something predatory about enforcing traffic laws.Really?Then why use photo radar at all.Why hide the police car behind the bushes in high traffic places.Oops,I forgot.Location,location ,location.If policing was really about gaining compliance it seems to me that you would simply park the traffic cops and their cruisers out in the open.Surely that would be a deterrent to reckless driving.So I applaud the County Of Strathcona for replacing tax collectors with real cops,who can presumably not only enforce speed limits,but enforce other laws as well.After all,when is the last time you ever heard of a photo radar unit stopping a rape in progress,or responding to an actual motor vehicle accident?Oh,right.Never!So while it's business as usual in the rest of Alberta,The County Of Strathcona has decided to quit abdicating their responsibilities andget back to some real,old fashioned policing.
Lets face reality here.Photo radar is not enforcement.It does nothing to change behaviour.It is completely useless when someone engages in really dangerous behaviour like going say,one hundred over the limit,as seems to happen with some frequency.The photo radar unit just snaps a picture of the offenders plate and goes"Cha-ching"just a bit louder perhaps than if he offender had only been going ten over.In a tax based model of enforcement,the more dangerous the offense,the better the outcome.
But for as long as I can remember police have been telling us how enforcement isn't about revenue collection.They become indignant every time that we suggest that there may be something predatory about enforcing traffic laws.Really?Then why use photo radar at all.Why hide the police car behind the bushes in high traffic places.Oops,I forgot.Location,location ,location.If policing was really about gaining compliance it seems to me that you would simply park the traffic cops and their cruisers out in the open.Surely that would be a deterrent to reckless driving.So I applaud the County Of Strathcona for replacing tax collectors with real cops,who can presumably not only enforce speed limits,but enforce other laws as well.After all,when is the last time you ever heard of a photo radar unit stopping a rape in progress,or responding to an actual motor vehicle accident?Oh,right.Never!So while it's business as usual in the rest of Alberta,The County Of Strathcona has decided to quit abdicating their responsibilities andget back to some real,old fashioned policing.
Memoir Chapter 1-Continued
While my mother taught school,my father worked a few miles up the road at a military base called Curtis Park,in the community of St.Margarets.He worked there for many years after we left Goose Bay,and even after we moved to Moncton,he would commute the eighty miles to and from work.
The military base was much like every other base I've ever been too.Clean,well organized,well painted buildings and a bunch of houses that all looked alike.You would enter through a gate house with a closed gate.There was a guard posted at the gate,but rarely,to my memory was my father ever asked to present identification before the gate was lifted.sometimes he would stop for a while and talk with the guards.It was a small community and he knew most everyone we encountered on the base.He was very good friends with one of the guards,and occasionally we would visit his place which was maybe a mile from the front gate of the base in the opposite direction from our house.
The guard was a big man,always dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark pants and a kind of a policeman's hat.But when I saw his house I would wonder where he got such clothes as they were completely at odds with the appearance of his house.His house was set just off the road and was nearly strangled with bushes and trees.It appeared long and narrow and only had a couple of rooms.There were no children there.Just a wife,who was nearly as big as her husband,and a scruffy looking dog.The guards wife was a woman I liked right away because she made me a snack of bread and Cheese Whiz,which was something I never had at home.But I ate it happily there while the dog sniffed around,no doubt hoping I would drop some of the sandwich.The guard sat drinking a beer with my father and they were doing some kind of work on his house as well.It seemed that there was something wrong with the lights as he had strung an extension cord across the entire length of the house and attached lights to it at various points.Evidently the guard fancied himself as somewhat of a comedian because while they were working on the lights,he wrapped his fist around one of the light bulbs and asked my father to plug in the cord.When the cord was plugged in,he began to holler and jump around as though the electricity was flowing through him.To me it looked as though something was very wrong.He may have gotten a small jolt from the cord or the light,but really,he was never in very much danger.There was no hair standing on end-unlike most of the military people my father knew,this man actually had some hair.There were none of the other more messy,unsightly aspects of an electrocution either.After a second or two,he let go of the bulb and began to roar with laughter.
Sometimes my father would take me right into the place where he worked.The whole reason for the base at Curtis Park was to supply power,and it had a huge diesel generating station.The station was fenced off and was the largest building on base,or,for that matter for miles around.It was topped by some large domes that looked like giant golf balls.All about were army trucks and jeeps and other heavy equipment,and I loved going there as I had a bit of fascination with all things army when I was small We would go right into the building too,to the office where my father worked.It was noisy with the sound of huge diesels and smelled of machine oil and iron There were thousands of tools,it seemed,on benches or hanging on the walls.Some of the wrenches were nearly as big as I was.There were also control panels with buttons and lights-hundreds of buttons and lights.I was always provided with the stern warning not to touch any of the buttons.The place was,to a child,awesomely big and it vibrated with power.
Usually our visits to my fathers place of work was for him to pick up his pay.We would go to the base store too,where we could make purchases,even though we lived off base.Sometimes we would go to the barber shop,or the snack bar which were both in the same building.The snack bar had a rich odor which I came to recognize as coffee.It had a wonderful sort of a machine too,that was green with a huge silver cup beneath it.The man behind the counter would scoop some ice cream into the silver cup and turn on the machine,which had a powerful buzz.After a short time he would turn of the machine and empty the cup into a tall glass.Those things were something my father called milkshakes.He never had a milkshake though.Always he would have a banana split and I would eat ice cream or sometimes just have a coke in a glass.I don't recall that my sister ever went with us on these trips to where my father worked.She was really not much more than an infant at the time,and I'm not certain that my father regarded the power plant as any place for a small girl.Tools and motors were,to his mind ,manly things,so I'm sure this was an early form of role modeling for him.To me,it was huge,amazing ,and to be honest,just a bit scary.I was a little bit afraid of all the noises coming from the power plant and of the fact that the whole building seemed to shake.The army trucks were so much bigger than any other cars I'd ever been close to,and even the thought of stopping at a guard house and talking to a policeman before you could go where you really wanted to go,was a bit intimidating.But going in the car with my father,to the base-there really was no other place to go in the backwoods of New Brunswick-was a favorite activity.
The military base was much like every other base I've ever been too.Clean,well organized,well painted buildings and a bunch of houses that all looked alike.You would enter through a gate house with a closed gate.There was a guard posted at the gate,but rarely,to my memory was my father ever asked to present identification before the gate was lifted.sometimes he would stop for a while and talk with the guards.It was a small community and he knew most everyone we encountered on the base.He was very good friends with one of the guards,and occasionally we would visit his place which was maybe a mile from the front gate of the base in the opposite direction from our house.
The guard was a big man,always dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark pants and a kind of a policeman's hat.But when I saw his house I would wonder where he got such clothes as they were completely at odds with the appearance of his house.His house was set just off the road and was nearly strangled with bushes and trees.It appeared long and narrow and only had a couple of rooms.There were no children there.Just a wife,who was nearly as big as her husband,and a scruffy looking dog.The guards wife was a woman I liked right away because she made me a snack of bread and Cheese Whiz,which was something I never had at home.But I ate it happily there while the dog sniffed around,no doubt hoping I would drop some of the sandwich.The guard sat drinking a beer with my father and they were doing some kind of work on his house as well.It seemed that there was something wrong with the lights as he had strung an extension cord across the entire length of the house and attached lights to it at various points.Evidently the guard fancied himself as somewhat of a comedian because while they were working on the lights,he wrapped his fist around one of the light bulbs and asked my father to plug in the cord.When the cord was plugged in,he began to holler and jump around as though the electricity was flowing through him.To me it looked as though something was very wrong.He may have gotten a small jolt from the cord or the light,but really,he was never in very much danger.There was no hair standing on end-unlike most of the military people my father knew,this man actually had some hair.There were none of the other more messy,unsightly aspects of an electrocution either.After a second or two,he let go of the bulb and began to roar with laughter.
Sometimes my father would take me right into the place where he worked.The whole reason for the base at Curtis Park was to supply power,and it had a huge diesel generating station.The station was fenced off and was the largest building on base,or,for that matter for miles around.It was topped by some large domes that looked like giant golf balls.All about were army trucks and jeeps and other heavy equipment,and I loved going there as I had a bit of fascination with all things army when I was small We would go right into the building too,to the office where my father worked.It was noisy with the sound of huge diesels and smelled of machine oil and iron There were thousands of tools,it seemed,on benches or hanging on the walls.Some of the wrenches were nearly as big as I was.There were also control panels with buttons and lights-hundreds of buttons and lights.I was always provided with the stern warning not to touch any of the buttons.The place was,to a child,awesomely big and it vibrated with power.
Usually our visits to my fathers place of work was for him to pick up his pay.We would go to the base store too,where we could make purchases,even though we lived off base.Sometimes we would go to the barber shop,or the snack bar which were both in the same building.The snack bar had a rich odor which I came to recognize as coffee.It had a wonderful sort of a machine too,that was green with a huge silver cup beneath it.The man behind the counter would scoop some ice cream into the silver cup and turn on the machine,which had a powerful buzz.After a short time he would turn of the machine and empty the cup into a tall glass.Those things were something my father called milkshakes.He never had a milkshake though.Always he would have a banana split and I would eat ice cream or sometimes just have a coke in a glass.I don't recall that my sister ever went with us on these trips to where my father worked.She was really not much more than an infant at the time,and I'm not certain that my father regarded the power plant as any place for a small girl.Tools and motors were,to his mind ,manly things,so I'm sure this was an early form of role modeling for him.To me,it was huge,amazing ,and to be honest,just a bit scary.I was a little bit afraid of all the noises coming from the power plant and of the fact that the whole building seemed to shake.The army trucks were so much bigger than any other cars I'd ever been close to,and even the thought of stopping at a guard house and talking to a policeman before you could go where you really wanted to go,was a bit intimidating.But going in the car with my father,to the base-there really was no other place to go in the backwoods of New Brunswick-was a favorite activity.
Nose Hill Park-Part 3
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