Sunday, April 30, 2023

Jaaka Jaaka Huckabuck

     Once again we are in downsizing mode. My kids have kindly requested to take a few things but very few.

    So I have some goodies set aside for them to pick up this summer. They need some information about said objects. Right? Well, whether they want information or not they are going to get it.

    That sent us back to our beloved North. And of course we got side tracked. Who made this? Who was she or he? And in no time we were a way off the agenda. 

   So since we were looking for names of people we got off on names. We find that after 54 years we have forgotten an awful lot. We wrote down first names but neglected to use surnames. We also neglected to use disc numbers. 

    So one story. The teacher read the story of the Huckabuck family to the kids. One little boy was called Jaaka Jaaka ( pronounced Yaka) . That's right!  His surname and given name were the same. When the kids came out of school that afternoon all you could hear was Jaaka Jaaka Huckabuck. They had taken this from Pony Pony Huckabuck. And from that time on that's what he was called. 

    Another name variation happened to our Hudson Bay Post manager. His name was Sidney Goodyear. He was a 19 year old kid in northern isolation. Most 19 year olds still live with Mom. Sydney was a most  capable manager and to top that he was Mr. Personality. The kids in the settlement loved him. What did they call him? Sidney Very Goodyear!

     Okay back to downsizing. 

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

HARRY BELAFONTE

      I was very sorry to hear about Harry Belafonte's passing yesterday. I went to my old LPs and I couldn't find the Harry Belafonte LP. Then I remembered that the Belafonte music I was thinking about  was on some reel to reel tapes that I disposed of. So now I will have to comfort myself by going to You Tube and listen to some songs. 

    Belafonte was most popular when I started listening to my own music.  I listened to much of his great music. 

     Belafonte was a great artist and human being. He helped to keep some of the wheels on the bus. We need many more Harry Belafontes. 

      

Sunday, April 23, 2023

FOUR STRONG WINDS

     Four strong winds that blow lonely. 

     Spring on the Canadian prairies is about wind. Constant steady wind that continues for days on end. I will always remember spring winds. There were many experiences in the wind.

    As little farm boys in the forties we were very free range kids. We didn't have TV so there was no sense staying in the house. We had very few toys. 

    So what did we do? We made kites and flew them. We had seen pictures of kites so made our own. After a few experiments we had  kites that would fly. We used heavy brown paper to make the kite and chopped off about 500 feet of dad's binder twine. We went out in a wide open space( it was all open space) and let our kites go. As little boys not very much held our attention for very long. Soon we would tie our kites to a fence post and leave. Remember that strong steady wind. Your kite flew by itself all day. 

     With the high winds it was very peaceful to get out of the wind. We would find  patch of badger brush and crawl in out of the wind. Badger brush is a shrub that grows from 40 cm (18 in ) to 100 cm(3 ft) tall. It was thick and was a good shelter from the wind. We pretended we were coyotes and looked out for people with guns. 

   So as usual our short span attention moved us on. So you spread out your arms and coat and felt the force of the wind push you along.

    Today was one of those spring days when the wind blew all day so I was reminded of the fun we had as kids being outdoors. 

    Oh ya? the kites. The wind usually went down in the evening and so did your kite. 

Friday, April 21, 2023

NUMBERS

      Yesterday morning's local paper had an item about the school I taught in here. They had received an award for a special program they had participated in.

     This item started numbers running through my head. I taught in the school for 28 years. It was a very good school as the district was supportive of education and most kids came to school with the right attitude. Over the years we had 400 to 550 students. Sometimes we were a very good school and other times not. It depended on stars to align like administration, students, teachers and program. 

    I had no intention of staying in one school that long. I applied for transfers but didn't get anything nearly as good as what I had. So 28 years rolled by before I knew it.

    The next number was 26. That's the number of years I've been retired. My retirement time is almost as long as the time I taught in the school.

    The next number is37. That's the number of years I taught. 

    So the numbers have rolled along very quickly.

    I enjoyed my teaching time. Who would have a sad  time in retirement. If things go a little faster, my retirement will be as long as my teaching time. 

                                The beginning
                        First  class 1958
Towards the end

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

THE MICRO MANAGER GAMBLES!

      The headline is right. The Micro Manager gambled at the Casino today.

     Now I've never said that the micro Manager is not a gambler but those who've followed me for a while know that she is probably the last person to ever gamble. 

     So what happened?

     Well in this province there is a card called Winner's Edge. The government controls gaming and issues the Winner's Edge card which is something like a loyalty card. You can build up points on your card and redeem your points for meals, draws and gambling.

    The other day The Micro Manager got a card in the mail that they had put $20.00 on her card. So there's only one way to get your twenty bucks. You have to gamble. The worst that can happen is that you lose the twenty bucks. 

    The Micro Manager has absolutely no idea how any gambling machine works so one of the staff helped her. Of course it didn't take very many minutes and the $20.00 was gone except for a nickel and that was too little to continue. She took the coupon and got her nickel. That's it for her gambling experience.  I wish I'd taken my camera to show you all the fun the Micro Manager had. 

     While I was out for my walk today , I found a nickel on the road so between the two of us we made 10 cents today!

   It was fun while it lasted. 

Monday, April 17, 2023

SPAM

       Six months ago I did not know that you could check for comments that were spam. I had no idea what spam comments would be. 

      So for blogger if you go to comments , you will find a small triangle to the center left above comments. Click on that and you will find a list of spam. 

      Now the spam comes in many different colors, sizes and shapes. 

     For some reason other bloggers comments are sometimes judged to be spam. These you can identify and click on publish and the comment will be published. 

   Much of the spam is made up of my comments and replies to other blogger comments. 

    Then there are just plane unwelcome comments as some jerk who thinks that all old people should be put to death as they are a menace to the planet.

    I had not looked at older spams until this week. It seems that some comments made by new readers are identified as spam. This bothers me as I don't want to be considered rude as if I'm not publishing a comment. It also seems that some of my followers are quite often identified as spam. For example the blogs by Bill and Jenn are quite often flagged as spam. So for a long time their comments were not published on my blog. 

    So I would suggest that bloggers check the spam file often and keep it up to date. Comments are a very important part of blogging and we want all comments to be published. 

Saturday, April 15, 2023

IT DEPENDS HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

      The last post with the plumber leaving his money on the table was  a  funny situation  in my mind. Okay, I'm not bragging about my humor. 

     However, some readers saw some great problems with the situation as I told it. I never thought that some people would see some very serious problems arise out of that situation.

     Maybe I should have said that the plumber gave me an invoice that said "Paid in full". Maybe I should have said that there was a GST number on the invoice. These were issues that I did not have concerns about in the post. It was humorous that the hard working guy left his money on the table. His fees were high, but he could have billed us for more.

    One thing was different was that all transactions were by phone. He printed the invoice and sent it to me by email as he was standing there. If I had a phone, I would have had the invoice paid in full in my hand as he was taking his money. 

     Then I started to think that there are situations where people are at risk in any situation where an unfair advantage can be taken. I never thought that some people could take advantage of this situation by having an opportunity to lie. It's sad that some people have to live with and deal with scumbags that would take advantage of you and cheat you. 

    Here, there are acceptable methods of doing business. Most of us follow the rules. It works well for all concerned.