Lining Up

I know it’s stereotyping but Canadians are polite. They are way more polite than most folks anywhere. Saying that, they also have a different sense of personal space than I do, and I’ve never gotten used to it. There is a problem with waiting in lines.

I come from an ethnic family that would have been a little over the top for most Canadians. We were too close. I lived for twelve years in and around Detroit and got used to a mid eastern bunch who shared the bank debit booth with you, even if you didn’t invite them. People from ethnic groups, as well, I guess, people from the eastern US move forward in lines way more than Canadians ever would think of. Canadians would not handle the pressure of a normal line in McDonalds if it was one in the eastern US.

I was in line at the post office on Thursday morning. It was at about 8:30 a.m. and I was second in line.

The man in front of me was wearing a long raincoat in a sort of dark gray color, belted, with dark double knit slacks and sensible shoes in black. He had short, gray hair and wore a woven wool cap with a bill, a sort of sporty (by 1955 standards) cap. He looked earnest.

I was assuming at first that he was older, but as I looked a bit harder, I realized he might have been younger than me.

My main concern was the distance, by eye, between him and the pole that said “wait here”. There was about eight feet! Two people came in behind me eventually and they were just pushed to the front door. He would not move until the man at the counter asked him to move forward.

All three of us moved forward. I moved to the pole and the others followed me. Now there was room for other patrons. This also happens at the bank all the time. People hold back in line, and even if they’re waiting for a debit machine, they wait far back so as not to appear nosy looking at someone else’s bank business.

What would they see?

This get worse in McDonalds or Wendy’s when they lay back and crowd up so as not to crowd your burger orders!!

Give it up! Get with the program! You're driving me nuts!

Lancer

In 1985 my office moved to provide us with company cars, leased in the company name with the one proviso that they be American cars. I chose to break the lease on my BMW 318i in order to take advantage of this generous offer. It was expensive to break a lease, but it seemed worth while. We had dollar limits of course, but I knew I’d find something perfectly suited for me out there. As a 43 year old newly single child, I needed something appropriate to replace the BMW and I found that in the new Dodge Lancer ES, a turbo charged, 5 speed wonder that was so fast it scared me when I first drove it.

The Dodge Lancer was another K-car spinoff introduced in 1985 as a more direct competitor to Europe and Japan's sport sedans, which were becoming popular in the mid-1980s. The Lancer was available only as a 5-door hatchback and was known internally at Chrysler as an "H" body. Chrysler would also introduce a version called the LeBaron GTS, differing mainly in grilles, taillights and other various trim. Base engine was a Throttle-Body Injected 93 hp 2.2L (135 cid) I4 engine, with the Multi-Port Fuel Injected 146 hp 2.2L (135 cid) Turbo optional on the ES model. Either engine was available with a 5-speed manual or a 3-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission. There were base Lancers or higher-lever Lancer ES, and all models were very well equipped and had full instrumentation (and of course digital dashes were optional)..

After 1987 there would be no direct successor to the Dodge Lancer.

We used to trade off cars among the executives when we made car company calls so that we tried to be driving a Ford when we went to Ford and a GM car when we went to GM, in case anyone noticed.

One night my youngest son borrowed the Dodge and ran it into a high curb at a very fast speed which he admitted to be 60 mph, so it must have been much more.

The car was never the same after that. The transmission was destroyed, and even after a total transmission exchange, it never worked correctly. I’ve had to drive in reverse down a four story parking lot late at night because the tow truck couldn’t go into the lot. I had to go several miles in first gear to get it out of an airport parking lot (the same problem about a tow truck getting into a car lot) in order to get it to a safe place.

I was never happier than the day I was able to return the car and the company never again offered to lease cars for anyone. Mine was not the only expensive accident in the group.

But it was really fast!

Grapefruit Juice and Burning Elements

Some things taste great, and I realized that we sometimes taste them before they enter our mouths! It’s the mouth watering pizza, or chocolate cake fresh from the oven or hot popcorn at the movies, and we can almost taste them without tasting them.

In the early 60’s, we were living with my in-laws, waiting for me to finish school so we could move into our own place. In the mean time, we had a good place to live with a subterranean (basement) living room for ourselves. This was a temporary situation, and there were some wonderful aspects, at least in hind sight.

I came down stairs early one morning and looked into the fridge, on kind of a fact finding mission, just seeing what there was to offer. (I still do this). They had a pitcher of water in the fridge, and I surreptitiously took a swig! This is not what you do in a house full of people who have to share, but I was an only child anyway, and until this writing, who would ever know? I took the pitcher and put it to my lips so the wonderful cool water would rush down my parched throat.

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

The pitcher contained unsweetened grapefruit juice! This may not be such a bad thing, it was just when you expect the cooling taste of water you don’t want the sour taste of grapefruit juice!

On another note, they had a electric stove. I had grown up with a gas stove and had basically never used such a contraption, not that I used it much anyway as my mother-in-law mostly cooked and sometimes my wife. However, not knowing or understanding this modern device, I was cleaning up after breakfast one day (I know this may have been a rare event) and as I was over the stove, I brushed off the burner with my hand.

Little did I know that a hot burner stays hot for a long time, and it took months for the burner pattern to disappear from my palm!

A Very Strange Guy...

A very strange guy with bad teeth, a bad eye (I think) dressed in workmen’s kind of garb came up to me at lunch today as we both waited for sandwiches.

The place was full of high school kids eating lunch and there was a bit of a wait to get your food. He knowingly sidled up to me and said, “I remember when I went to school we didn’t get to go out to eat ever!” I smiled (unfortunately) and nodded, just to try and not avoid him but to not get into this one.
My mother”, he said, “would never let me out of the house without a proper sandwich for lunch”, “there were no cafeterias or restaurants for me!”

“Well”, I said, “my kids go to a high school where you can’t go out to eat without a car so they ate in the cafeteria”. This is true and gave him enough to assume I was on his side, although I didn’t really care.

He then went into the fact that the schools had finally taken the junk off of the menu and the kids won’t be able to get it anymore. I agreed, but said that it would make more kids eat out.

He had a quizzical look, but acknowledged my thought, and thank God my lunch came.

The Death of Chivalry

Photo taken from: http://www.zazzle.com/chivalry_is_dead_and_women_killed_it_tshirt-235460979138027114

I wrote “Jim Striby was my Friend” on March 17, and it was a nostalgic look at a old friend now gone. While I have many stories about Jim in my head, this was such a short and amusing incident I thought I’d pass it on.

We were at a meeting in the early 70’s, at the home of Tom and Ann Scott in Baltimore. Tom was, at the time, the head of the Maryland Institute’s Extension Program and we were discussing something related to school business.

Ann came home and came into the room.

Ann Scott was one of the founders of the Buffalo chapter of the National Organization for Women (1969), ALS was elected to NOW's national board at its first national convention, held in Chicago in 1970.

In 1971 she became vice-president for legislation and was responsible for much of the lobbying aimed at ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Beginning in 1972 she devoted herself to NOW and to Common Cause, serving on both boards of directors, and to the American Association for Higher Education, where she was associate director. She passed away in Baltimore, Md., in 1975.

Jim, out of perhaps six men in the room at the time, stood up. This was a chivalrous act for sure, and what one was taught to do when a woman enters a room.

“If looks could kill” comes to mind right now, as Ann looked at Jim, Jim looked at Ann, and the standing up died half way through its action!

To be fair to Ann, she did more than just look at him, she gave him the "hand". This is distinctly different from the "finger", it's the gesture one makes to the dog to sit. It works for people to!

No man stood for the VP of NOW in the early 70’s, at least not in her house!

Late Night Urinal

Image found at: http://bealing.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/dan-dan-the-lavatory-man/

I have been really busy and it’s been hard to get the time and the thoughts together to do a story. I have many to go, and have itching to do some of them. However, I had to laugh last night.

I was standing at the urinal in the downtown Toronto Bus Terminal at 11:00 p.m. giggling. There was a guy in a stall and a guy standing next to me and I know this was not appropriate public men’s room behavior, but I couldn’t help it.

I had just gone through a late night, downtown bus terminal with a small crowd of people waiting, I think, for the all night bus to Montreal. There were mostly kids there with a few, less than healthy looking adults and here I was one of the crowd.

I was an almost 68 year old guy in need of a haircut, in torn jeans and an old rain jacket, using a public bus station toilet late at night. I thought, the only fashion accessory I needed was a pint of whiskey in a paper bag! All I could do was laugh!

Stacey and Clinton, where are you now? (For the uninitiated, this is a popular culture reference to “What Not To Wear”)

Five minutes later my daughter’s bus arrived and we went home...

Minnie Mouse's Dirty Little Secret

I was at a dinner party in 1975 in Kansas City. My family and I lived there for a year while I worked at the Kansas City Art Institute, through grant funds, working on a special project.

Moving there with a ten month window of opportunity, we looked to make some friends fast, and we were able to meet and greet some great friends. It was a wonderful place to live and I really enjoyed my stay and subsequent visits.

The dinner party consisted of several couples and a newly single woman. I have no idea who she was, although I know who some of the couples were. I had never met this woman and have never seen her since. I have no idea what her name was.

She did look, I’m afraid, much like Minnie Mouse. This really means she was small, dark and cute, but she had that look that still reminds me of Walt’s best. As well, we were in Kansas City, where Walt had gone to art school.

This was the time of the sexual revolution, and Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying” was riding high! There was some talk at the table about oral sex, for which at least one couple made serious problematic eye contact while other s giggled in delight. But for Minnie Mouse, there was another big problem.

Minnie (as I shall call her) had a hidden secret which she had never revealed to anyone, and with some wine and a sexually charged community, it seemed she was willing to tell.

It seems that she never washed her hands when she went to the bathroom!

She would finish, wipe herself and run the water in the sink in case anyone was listening, but she never really washed her hands!

I didn’t shake her hand goodnight as we left!

Ghost Hunting...Happy Birthday

My 50th birthday (January 16) party was spent at the Hawthorne Hotel, in their Lyceum Restaurant, in Salem, Massachusetts. The Lyceum Restaurant was built on the location formerly occupied by the home of Bridgette Bishop, one of the most famous "witches" to be hanged during the Salem witch trials.

It was a shared birthday party with my Mother (February 8) and my son Brian (January 23) , and together we were having a 158th birthday party on February 2, 1992

We had balloons and great fun. The guests included my wife and my two other sons, Cliff and Josh.

We entered the hotel into a cloud of smoke. It looked like a TB ward in there, as a well known Russian hypnotist was selling his smoke ending class, and the participants were all sitting in the lobby waiting to go in and having their “last cigarette”. Through the cloud of smoke we went, which had dissipated by the time we left.

My new baby was home with a sitter for the first time.

The reason I bring this up was not because it was brought back to me through wondrous nostalgia, but because on “Ghost Hunters”, on TLC, they were all in the Lyceum Restaurant and the Hawthorne Hotel looking for ghosts!

For the most part, this investigation was uneventful except there was an odd incident where the restaurant's computers (where the waiters place the orders and print the bill from) seemed to have their monitors go on and off for no apparent reason other than as a response to Lisa & Grant asking spirits to make themselves known. This event culminated in one of the receipt printers spitting out a receipt that said "1:26 Good Morning" (1:26 am was the time).

The restaurant's owner was asked about the monitors going on and off and about the unsolicited "good morning" receipt and she claimed none of that activity was normal for her computer system . There were many other non technical ghost items never quite proven or disproven.

This brought back the ghost of a memory, and I thought I’d share it with you.
.

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Blazer...

Graduation Speech - Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design - May 10, 1997

Good afternoon graduates, stage personnel, faculty, parents, families and trustees. It is a thrill for me to be here with you today! It brings back a flood of memories of so many wondrous graduations I have attended in so many different places. Yet, as each has been, this is a very special day for all of you. This is the day when you go forward prepared for a life in the visual arts. More sure of yourself then when you started this journey, four or more years ago, perhaps a little less scared then you were when you started, and waiting for the new life to begin…

And so I started the graduation speech on a beautiful, warm day in May of 1997. I had come to Milwaukee from Calgary to do the speech at the request of my friend Terry Coffman, the President of MIAD. It was a lovely weekend I spent with Terry and his wife and the students of MIAD and their families, except for one slight flaw.

When I arrived at the auditorium, the stage personnel and the students were sent to a waiting room, and we had the opportunity to change into caps and gowns, as one would do for a graduation.

It being a warm day, I was offered a hanger to hang up my coat while I could do the ceremony in a robe. As a guy who suffers from sweating a lot anyway, this was a great opportunity. I hung my blue blazer next to lots of other, mostly blue blazers.

After the event, we all went into the room again, and it was a bit of chaos, but we were able to change and leave. My size 50L double breasted blue blazer was missing and in its place was a single breasted 42R! Where had my coat gone? Who would have swapped their coat for mine? Mine was a better coat than the one they left, but surely, if you wore in a 42R you would notice a 50L on the way out!

After looking around to no avail we left, and decided it would turn up eventually, and had a nice, rest of the visit.

A week or two passed, and nothing happened. I was concerned as were the folks in Milwaukee. After another week or so, they decided to let me purchase another coat and they would pay for it. While this was a generous offer, I just wanted my coat back and said I’d wait a while and see what happened.

Their Development Officer called and she told me she would write to all the male graduates and explain the situation and see if it did any good. In about two weeks, the young man who had my jacket, read his mail and decided to look. He had seldom if ever worn a blazer, and after his graduation he threw it in the car and later threw it in the bottom of a closet, where it had been for weeks.

The folks at Milwaukee were kind enough to have a cleaner clean, press, box and send my coat back to Calgary where it once again had a place of honor in my closet.

The Lidice Event

There were 82 children murdered at Lidice, in the Czech Republic, in June of 1942. This photo is the monument to these children at Lidice, and the impetus for the long standing show of children's art each year in the museum.

Earlier this year we participated in an annual international exhibition of children’s art at the Lidice Museum in the Czech Republic. 21,000 entries came in from 55 countries, and 1,200 were chosen for the exhibition.

There have been few (if ever) Canadian entries in this exhibition.

We sent the work of 10 students to this exhibit. We focused on two of a list of themes suggested by the museum. The theme chosen for use by the kids was, “ I Wonder what there is on other Planets?”

Two boys (ages 10 and 11) and one girl (age 5) were chosen by judges at the museum to receive an award.

The children came from a DVSA class for the Riverwalk Montessori School and from a DVSA Saturday class.

This award was presented on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. by the Ambassador to Canada from the Czech Republic, Karel Zebrakovsky, at the Dundas Valley School of Art.

The Ambassador. Mr. Zebrakovsky was accompanied by his wife Mrs. Marketa Zebrakovska and Mr. Zdenek Ulc, from the Embassy staff.

They arrived at 3 pm, and we had a presentation ceremony, where each child was presented a certificate of Honorable Mention and some souvenirs from Lidice. The two boys had practiced with a coach and were able to give greetings in the Czech language. The Ambassador was very impressed by their efforts. He then gave greetings to five year old, and said she probably didn’t know his language, and her parents said that she speaks fluent Russian. So he greeted her in Russian and she responded. It was amazing!

Members of our Board attended as well as the children, their parents, teachers and honored guests. We gave the visitors a signed copy of the DVSA history and a mug from our pottery, and we toured the school.

It was a meaningful event, and will never be forgotten by the participants.

The dance that never was...

It was Friday, November 22, 1963 and I was working with a group of teens preparing for the Thanksgiving Dance at Waterloo Junior High School in Howard County, Maryland. The group consisted of a number of kids working on the decorations. I can no longer recall what the decorations were, because they never were used.

Earlier in the day, the Vice Principal had come around, with tears in his eyes, to let us know that the president had been shot in Dallas, and it was not hopeful. I was, like all others, stunned!

The Vice Principal asked us all to keep doing normal activities because they didn’t want to tell the kids as the day would have been a write off and none of us knew what we would do. So, it was business as usual until five minutes before the end of the day, when the Principal would come on the loud speaker and tell the school what had happened, would cancel all activities for the weekend and send the kids home.

So, in the last period, I was making decorations with my kids and holding back tears myself. At five minutes before the end of the day, the Principal came on the loud speaker and told the students what had happened.

When he came on, I left the room, trying to hold myself together. The kids did many things; some laughed, some cried, some cheered and some did nothing. No one understood what had happened, nor even believed it. I don’t think it sank in until everyone got home and got to a TV and saw what had happened.

It didn’t really sink in. I had the news for hours before the end of the day, but it didn’t really sink in.

It was the dance that never was, and it was the dance I had to be positive about until five minutes before school ended.

I went home and hugged my wife and my little boy and stayed in front on the TV for the next few days.

It's a tree job!

I got the call at 3:30 p.m. yesterday,”Our tree is gone! “
“What do you mean, our tree is gone?” "The Linden tree has been destroyed!”

Now this scenario can be played out in many ways, but I thought I’d go for calm. “Explain it to me, please”.

It seems the city fathers, in their wisdom, sent in a crew to trim the trees on our street. They were a bit overzealous in their work ethic, and kind of over pruned by my estimate. On the other hand, they did about $500 worth of tree trimming on my property for free!

My neighbor said she asked them what they were doing and they told her the garbage truck people were complaining about the overhanging branches.

Now, I discover, the city listens to the garbage truck guys. I knew they must have listened to someone, surely it’s not me.

Locked in the John

A few years ago I sauntered into the washroom (a bathroom for my US readers) at the office, happily singing a little tune. We have a single washroom on the first floor, which is a handicapped accessible washroom and we have a regular ladies room on the floor. By the process of elimination (sorry about the pun) , the single usually becomes the men’s room.

After a period of time (the euphemism) I went to leave. The door refused to budge. It seems the lock, which was buried within the handle, had ceased to work.

I worked at the handle for a while, and looked around for tools, but alas, no such tools exist in the washroom. I fell upon my only hope, I had to bang on the door and scream!

It was a quiet time at the school, and students were not around. The staff was all over and I knew someone would hear me. However, the seriousness of my plight was not considered by the staff, as I became the object of ridicule!

OK, I know it’s funny. The boss is locked in the toilet! But, truly, we couldn’t figure a way out.

WWKD (as in another post or two, it was What Would Klaus Do?)

We called him and he worked his way over to us. The staff was working on a lunch for me, sandwiches on thin bread slid under the door one piece at a time!

With a bit of pulling and shoving and cutting, I was saved! Thank God this didn’t happen at the end of a day, or when no one was around.

I would still be there! Who knew I was claustrophobic? I had never been locked in a little room for an extended period of time before. I had light, water and a place to sit.

If only the sandwich thing had worked!

The Hunter Gatherer Spirit

I know most people believe that shopping is a feminine trait, or at least something that only women love to do. Yet, it has been a hobby or pastime of mine since I was first required to gather things on my own.

This was, in ancient times, the duty of the male (probably) who needed to go out and kill a tiger or something for dinner. The woman of the cave would process the kill and make food and clothing out of it while the man continued hunting.

Now I know you’ll think I’m just being a smart ass by bringing all this up, but I get concerned because I love to shop and I cherish my shopping memories in the same way as some people remembered the big hunt.

I usually don’t admit all this stuff for fear of being branded effeminate, but I have been known to go out and peruse the clearances for fun, just to see what’s there.

When I was first married and a father, I had responsibilities. This was probably the first time in my life that I felt responsible for other people. I wanted to get the best stuff I could. Being at first a married student, and then a teacher with an additional part-time job, I realized quite soon that there were better ways to buy what you needed than to purchase the first item that came along. (thus the axiom,” shmucks buy retail”.)

Some things in this world are fair-traded, sold for the same price no mater where you buy it. In the early 60’s there were more. Today, I can only think of Apple and Lulu Lemon products.

There have always been discounts, off-retail places; back doors only open on Saturdays at clothing factories etc. There is often a better way to shop.

An example I use, and not everyone would agree with me, was the tie. When I wore them every day, for most of my working life, I usually ended up at T.J.Maxx (Winner’s in Canada). I had acquired several hundred ties over the years, always (or mostly) bought on clearance, or final clearance, within a $1-$3 range. Not everyone wanted that many ties, and I gave away many as gifts. For one friend, on his fiftieth birthday, I gave him 50 ties!

Some people are happy with several “good” ties, just not me. I never bought bad ties, and in fact I’ve purchased many high quality name brand ties in my $1-$3 range, it’s just a matter of timing.

My boys never quite got the same disease I did, but my oldest son, once he had to buy his own for a few years, developed a great sense of buyer radar. My other sons have never gotten there, and all of them have made fun of some of my purchases.

I do admit to buying things I’ve never worn, and things that never fit, but the deal was just too good for me to pass up. Also, the boys did get a bit too many bargains for themselves from me.

I still own a Ralph Lauren toggle-buttoned duffle coat, a true “boola, boola rah rah” Ivy League winter coat, that sold at that time for $400, that I got for $35. I have only worn it three of four times maybe, but I still have it because it was such a good deal!

I can remember buying my wife a light blue, all wool, long, pleated skirt at a Sear’s Warehouse in Kansas City for $4, that she never wore, but I just couldn’t see returning.

There were an unusual amount of hand me downs for kids, although some of it was nice, I am never fond of used clothes. There were a large number of boy cousins, and one had a father in the clothing business. But these do not make a bargain.

My daughters are great shoppers and I admire their shopping sense. They also look for bargains but they still easily succumb to the need for something and it gets acquired at a full retail price. I do get disturbed but try and hold my tongue. The phrase I hate the most, from my wife and my daughters is, “It’s only …….” Whatever number comes next is usually too high for me!

Yesterday, I was thinking about this as I was out “looking”. This is a pre-buying time, where I can look over what is available and what will become available. Because I wear very large sizes, I am in a better position to look over goods.

People who wear very small or very large sizes have a better chance at clearances, because the “normal” stuff is gone by that time.

At Winner’s yesterday, I found a nice shoe. I have no need for shoes, as they are lying around on shelves in my closet and in the garage etc., and many seldom, if ever, get worn. Unfortunately, that’s a problem I have developed, much to the relief of Value Village, as I am always taking bags of clothing and shoes to charity drops. Winner’s has four pairs of the same leather boots in size 14M, a size I can wear. They are reasonably priced, but I have no need for them. However, there are only so many people who can wear such a ridiculous size, so I will wait. I may miss buying them, of course, as its Christmas and Bigfoot’s Mom may be shopping, but if I don’t, I may wait until they get to clearance and wait a while as they go down in price. Within a month I’ll know if I will buy them or not.

You see, it’s not the item itself that matters so much, it’s the sport of getting it. It is the hunter gatherer spirit that lives on through the generations.

The Warehouse Caper

Sometime in the 50’s, my father, the head of the warehouse operation for his company, received a call from a guy offering to sell him information about missing merchandise. The guy requested $200 and he would give him the goods so they could catch the crooks.

OK, at this point you say, “Is this a detective novel? Is there a beautiful blonde? Are there gumshoes involved?” The answer is no, but the story is true and was told to me at the time buy my father.

Not being able to commit the money himself (in the 50’s $200 was a lot more than it is today), he told the guy he’d call him back as soon as he was able to get the cash. Believe it or not, this guy was willing and gave him his actual phone number! He was not an experienced crook!

My father called the police and a detective came over and they schemed. My father called the guy back, by this time, having the number; the police knew who he was.

My father arranged the meet and described himself to the perp His description was that of the detective and the guy went to his doom! OK, maybe not doom, but he was forced to give up the information without compensation, except maybe a suspended sentence.

Some one in the place was throwing merchandise out the window to an accomplice on the street with a covered cart. My father hired an undercover cop to work in the factory warehouse for a week and they found the culprit.

How’s this for a great detective novel plot?

At least I remembered the story!

The $180 Portrait of my Car

What can I say, it’s self explanatory. I decided to have a portrait taken of my car, in color!

I don’t remember doing it, or ordering it, but I must have done it as you can see here.

It was a lovely day and they took several photos of me rolling through a red light!

What the hell is a red light camera? How come I knew nothing about this?

Is my mind playing tricks again? I don’t remember anyone saying this was a bad corner! Yet, here I was sailing through.

On top of that, the dead car of yesterdays post, died as I went through that same corner Wednesday night! (I wonder if those cameras work in the nighttime). My immediate thought was they have a secret electrical beam that shoots through my car after they nail me the first time, and disables it every time I go through! But, who’s paranoid?

It’s a memorable photo that will last me for years!

Out for the evening...

image is taken from : www.topspeed.com/cars/ford-explorer/ke342.html

On August 16, I wrote about big band jazz, and our venturing forth to a concert at Mohawk College to see the Darcy Hepner Jazz Orchestra and Sophia Perlman, singer, with some of our friends.

As of this fall, the band has been appearing at the Corktown Pub in Hamilton on Wednesday nights. So, after lots of phone calls and emails, we made arrangements to go last night. We had reservations and went for dinner and the music.

My wife made arrangement for me to drive most of the people, and it was a rainy evening, although not as bad as the photo!

As we drove over, about two thirds of the way, my car decided to die! The dash went out, followed by everything else, but it seemed to have about a third of the regular power and kept on moving. I nursed it up a hill and out of harms way and traffic and pulled up into a parking space on a quiet street.

I was very unhappy!

We called the Pub, moved our reservation forward an hour, called CAA (AAA for US readers), and called a cab for everyone but me. The cab came in five minutes and took them all to the pub and the tow truck came in fifteen minutes, flat bedded me to our regular neighborhood garage, and drove me home.

I got into my wife’s car, drove to the pub, ordered dinner and a beer (theirs hadn’t come yet and the first set was just getting started. As well, Sophia Perlman, their sometimes singer, appeared to sing with them last night and it was grand!

Dinner was great, and all is well except my car, which was waiting for a diagnoses or parts.

It turned out to be the alternator, as I figured, and my car has been repaired and returned.

All in all, except for the chest pains I got while waiting for the tow truck, it was a great evening.

My life is a drama or at least an adventure.

Lost in Calgary

In the early years we lived in Calgary we had gone out to dinner one evening with my in-laws. They were frequent visitors and we often went around the town looking for new places to go.

It was very cold, and we found the restaurant but there was no nearby parking. We drove around for a while in a new area of town for us, until we found a parking spot.

We walked the freezing blocks to the restaurant and had a lovely dinner. We drank and ate and had an enjoyable time.

My father in law happily came with me as we strolled back to the car.

I had never been in this neighborhood before that evening. My father in law has no sense of direction and I guess, neither do I. It was below way zero and basically we had no idea where we were going.

At some point I fell and banged my knee on the ice covered street. My father in law had on a sport coat and a raincoat and I was worried he would freeze before we found the car.

All in all it was an unforgettable night.

We found the car in about an hour and drove to the restaurant where we found my wife and my mother in law having negotiated a ride home with the restaurant owner.

Needless to say, they assumed we were dead or we were idiots.

They were correct!

The "Free Phone"

It started out with embezzlement, and comes around to larceny, or maybe just the “free phone”.

In the 70’s our institution’s President discovered some embezzlement going on. Perhaps it was only regular theft, but the other sounds so much more elegant. Also, as I have no knowledge beyond hearsay, it may have been a continuing problem indicating embezzlement.

Anyway, the idea was that the President was required to sign checks. He was presented these checks by the V.P. for Finance, a good guy. The checks were developed by his staff.

As the President was signing checks, he noticed a very large check to Sears. He bothered to look at the backup, usually attached, and go through the Sears bills attached. One of the items, a very expensive one, was a new lawn tractor. As an urban institution with no lawn, his curiosity was peaked. It seems an employee of the finance department needed a home lawn tractor.

This brief incident in my life taught me a great lesson, before signing a check always look at the backup. For sure, you may never be able to look at every one, but when you have no idea what it is or who the company is or what those charges are for, look! It never hurts to ask the question.

OK, so how does this get us to the free phone?

In Alberta we had lots of bills and lots of checks, but with many years experience, I looked pretty hard. With tons of employees, there were always large phone bills and I never bothered to look through them. It’s just phone, a part of doing business. Then, someone in the business office mentioned long international calls, like a very long call to Germany.

“Who called?” I asked, but no one knew. I looked at the bill and it then came out that there were often long world-wide calls on our bills. Calls made way beyond a normal admissions office call. Who made them? Whose phone was used?
I began to look at the bills.

It seems that there have been years of mysterious calls. Recently, long calls to the Bahamas. There were many of them over several months. I looked at the dates as the phones could not be traced to individuals. Most of these long Bahamas calls were made on the weekend when the office is usually closed!

I checked with the guards and no one unusual was in and no one had entered our offices. I checked with the student government office and they had only the usual suspects come in. It made no sense!

In desperation, and in order to obtain an answer, I sent out a memo asking for help. I promised if the culprit came forward we would not charge them with anything, but that we needed to end years of phone abuse, and solve an old problem just come to light! Who was in the building, on the phone and below our radar!

A week later a sheepish student with a boyfriend in the Bahamas appeared and admitted her guilt. It seems the student government lived in an office that used to be an administration office, and when the change over occurred, somewhere lost in time, a phone was left behind, unknown to us or the phone company. It was considered the”free phone” by the student government, because they were never charged for using it, and we never noticed the bill!

So, in the end, after years of abuse, the “free phone” was removed and thousands of dollars of unknown “free calls’ never happened again.

The "Heavy Duty" Clutch

In 1972 I bought a Dodge Van. This was a time before such a purchase was a popular item, before the mini-van was invented; it was a full size van.

I had decided to buy this vehicle preparing for a cross country camping trip. We had started camping as a family, and while I had a VW bus, I needed something sturdier and larger to get a family of five around the country.

I have had (and continue to have) a problem buying new cars. For some unknown reason, I can never get waited on in a car showroom. I have gone in jeans, and in suits, it still doesn’t matter, no one will ask me anything. Forget high pressure, I can’t get blood pressure!

In ’72 however, two things were going for me. The salesman who helped me was older, and this is always a good sign. Car salesmen seem to get better if they stay. An experienced salesman will actually ask customers if he can help. Secondly, I was driving my father in laws newly acquired Cadillac, and I realized someone would see me enter driving this vehicle which made it seem like this kid in jeans may actually have some money.

They had no vans in stock to speak of, at least not the stripped down model I was looking for, and so I decided to order it from the factory. I ordered a maroon regular length Sportsman van (the longer one was nice but I guess there was no reason to splurge), I included power steering and brakes, a radio and the large outside mirrors on both sides (an extra at that time) and in his list he read to me he had a “heavy duty” clutch. For $25, I figured why not? It had one additional bench seat and therefore it sat five with a big, empty back space for camping stuff and everything else one could think of hauling.

The Sportsman van was better for us than the Tradesman van, as it came with such extras as insulation in the doors and panels on the doors as well, windows all around and a rubber mat throughout the car instead of bare, painted metal. Such luxury!

It lasted a long time, and I kept it until 1980 when I purchased a 1980 Dodge van in Detroit, and it was orange! They brought it in from Windsor, ON. It was a V8, had air conditioning etc., and it had lots of luxuries, but unfortunately I purchased it right at the time of the gas crisis, and it was not the car to have! It became a short lived vehicle for us, as gas rose from $.39 a gallon to $.69 a gallon and I thought the world had ended!

The title of this epic is the “Heavy Duty” Clutch, and I don’t want to forget that. If you are offered anything in life where you have the choice of heavy duty or regular, of course you’ll get the heavy duty. It was only a $25 extra, and when you’re dealing with a truck with standard shift, you have to figure the clutch will get lots of wear. So, there was no choice.

Some years later, in 1978, the clutch went! It simply broke and had to be replaced. The garage gave me an estimate on costs, and when it was over, the actual cost came in at more than double! Why, they didn’t realize that it had the “heavy duty” clutch!

This clutch had seven springs instead of the usual four or five. In addition, I swear my left leg is now ½” shorter than my right because of six years of driving the “heavy duty” clutch!