The Pet Pest

Most kids have a pet at one time in their life, be it a dog or a cat or some crawly type creature. I think what I had was rather unusual. I had a pet crow. Now this is something that you wouldn't normally have, but when you lived on the prairies, nothing is really normal when you think about it in today's terms. We had gone to a church convention on the other side of the province. While some of us kids were exploring the regions of the farm that we were camping at, we stumbled across a nest that had a baby crow in it. It appeared at least to us, that the mother had abandoned this baby crow and it needed our attention. With some cajoling and promising, we convinced Dad to let us take it home. So off we went. Stopping every so often so that we could clean up the bird poop and feed it small pieces of raw meat, and use an eye dropper to give it water.



The crow with the really unique name of Caw Caw, lived in the garage. It ate raw meat and learned how to drink water out of a bowl. This crow grew to be quite big but had no idea how to really fit in with nature. It flew away but always came back. It would ride on my shoulder as I rode my bike. When I rode down to the Post Office to get the mail, it would fly to the top of the building and when I came out, it would fly back to my shoulder. This was pretty cool. You always hoped though, that it went to the bathroom prior to the ride.



After awhile, it seemed its incessant cawing became a real thorn in the side to our elderly next door neighbor. He threw rocks at it and Caw Caw actually knew the hatred that the old man had towards it. It mastered the art of dive bombing this old man and he was furious. It did not help that the old man's son was also the mayor of the Village. Yes, you guessed it. Caw Caw needed to be taken to the wild and live off of road kill.



One afternoon we packed Caw Caw up and took him way out into the country. He/she spread its wings and made a freedom fly and we got in the truck and drove away fast so it could not come near the vehicle.



For many months after, every time I heard a crow caw I wondered if it was Caw Caw. I even called them to see if they would land. But that day never came. Even to this day, every time I hear a crow caw, I think of Caw Caw and wondered what ever to that spoiled bird that thought it was human.

More Work Please

The world has certainly changed as we know it. Now before you go off saying it is an old man looking far back, consider some of the things that have to be noticeable to all that have their eyes open.

Living back on the Canadian prairie, there were no McDonald's for a kid to work at. There were no pizza shops or sign holding jobs to obtain. There were no paper routes, or store shelves to stock. There were just mundane things for a kid to do.

The mundane things were things such as neighbors that needed their grass cut, their snow shovelled, and their gardens rototilled. Even on the edge of town, there was a farmer who needed his pig pens shovelled out. There was work, lots of it. It was hard work and it payed poorly - but it was work. I did all of the above. I cut grass with our old push mower. I suppose I was around 12 years of age or so. Down the street I would go pushing the mower with a gas can tied on the side looking for business. Most summers were hot and that was the time to make some money, because no allowances were ever given. Some days I would drive the rototiller down the road, well not drive I had to walk behind it because someone needed their gardens tilled to keep the weeds down amongst the rows. When that work ran out, it was over to the farmer's pig pens. For any kids complaining about standing behind the counter and asking if you want fries with that, I challenge you to a hot afternoon, cooped up with large dirty pigs and shovelling some of the most disgusting debris you will ever see, Hot, heavy and smelly - but it was a way to make money.

And what do we have today? Where I live, the illegals cut every one's grass. The paper routes are done by adults in cars, who throw papers over the roof to land somewhere in the vicinity of the intended yard. There are no gardens to speak of. The odd plant here and there, but nothing of significance and certainly nothing to sustain people in times of need.

The point is, we have nothing any more for the kids in that 12 - 16 age group. They have video games and computers and such but they have nothing out there, that teaches them how to make a dollar and how to learn the aspects of building a foundation of job functions for the future.

I could go on politically about what could change but that is not what this column is about. Those early jobs that I was able to do, helped me understand that if you want to survive, you had to work. That concept has not failed me yet, and I hope that the future generations will also have something that will teach them the value of job integrity and that it will be their foundation to a more secure future.

School's Out

Now that school is out in our neck of the woods, my thoughts turned to how different it is today for kids going to school then when I went. I am convinced in looking at Grade 5 homework this past year, that it has started to be taught earlier or I am getting old and dumb. If this keeps up, I am going to be completely lost in another year.

I really don't want this to sound like "when I went to school", however when I went to school it was like this:

1. We had Physical Education every day. No fat kids walking around.
2. We actually had recess which meant that you hauled your butt outside and got some exercise. Cold weather or hot weather.
3. We did not have a fancy gymnasium, we had the Saskatchewan outdoors and it big and it was cold.
4. We did not have a cafeteria. We had something called brown bag lunches with tuna and Ritz crackers.
5. We did not have breakfast programs. We ate breakfast at home.
6. We did not have field trips. If we were to discover something, we discovered it on our own playing outside.
7. We did not have buses. We actually walked to school like the rest of the Village kids.
8. We did not have in school suspensions. We were disciplined by the Principal with a canvas strap.
9. We actually cleaned our own blackboards, chalk brushes, and emptied garbage pails and pencil sharpeners.
10. We knew if we were in trouble with the teacher, that we would also be in trouble with our parents.
11. We never brought a huge bag of supplies to school each year, our taxes paid for the necessities.
12. We never had parents cars lined up to pick us up, we walked home the same way we walked to school.
13. We never had a lot of homework, we actually went to school long enough in the day to finish what was needed.
14. We never had a band. We had a flutophone that we played "Three Blind Mice" on.
15. We never had a club to go to. That was what tree houses were for.
16. We never got participaction ribbons at the annual field day. We got either first, second, or third. Otherwise you went home empty handed.
17. We did not worry about being progressive. We recited the Lord's prayer, sang O'Canada in the morning, and sang God Save the Queen before we went home.
18. We never had a hallway pass. There were no hallways.
19. We never had some group school desk thing. The desks were in a line in a row.
20. We never had nap time, even in Kindergarten. We were there to learn and have some fun. Sleeping was what you did at home.

So the question is, were we better then in those days, then kids are today? Probably not, but I do know one thing. We never knew what we were missing, even if we were missing something. We grew to be strong and I think tough, and it was a good thing because we had no idea what the world was going to deliver our way. I have to go now, I hear the "bell".

The Price of Junk

I have no problem admitting that I am a complete junk food addict. A day is not complete without candy of some sort. As I get older, I find that I am not even as fussy as I used to be. I will eat almost anything as long as it is technically called junk food. What an oxymoron when you think of it. Junk and food really do not belong in the same sentence.

We had lots of access to junk food when we were growing up. In my previous post you found out how much I like licorice. Of course that was only the beginning. I loved chocolate bars and chips and pop, so there was never any problem getting our hands on that stuff. The local Co-op grocery store did a pretty good job keeping everything in stock.

Hard to believe, but a quarter would buy you a good size bag of chips, a chocolate bar and a bottle of pop. Now I know a quarter was a lot in those days, but to be honest, that was a nice shot of junk food. We always knew to dig in the couch cushions for any spare change that might of fell out of Dad's pants when he took a nap.

Here in 2010, it takes a good 5 dollar bill to really get the sugar and salt buzz that I need. Health wise, I have had to slow down. But every time I put a chip in my mouth, I never forget where my roots came from. The candy selection at the Co-op store in Waseca.

Shoestring High

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have an addiction with shoe string licorice laces. As far back as I can remember I have. Although I had my favorite, which was green spearmint, I also never turned away black, red and purple. Unfortunately living in the States, there is no access to this delightful and delectable treat so I have to be satisified in bringing back rather large amounts of it when I return to Canada every year. I have been known to bring back several bags and most people do not get why I would do such a thing, but it is mainly a treat that I enjoyed when I was growing up.



Living in Waseca, it was not like you could actually go to the neighborhood store and buy what you want. There was only to 2 places in the Village that you could actually buy junk food and that was the Coop grocery store and other place was the Poolroom. No idea what the business was really called but a family of French immigrants owned it Their name was Gagnon. The Poolroom was a business that had several pool tables in it, a barbers chair and a nice selection of candy. It helped that it was only across the train tracks from the school, making it really handy to tend to the desire of licorice. When it was lunch hour, we were able to go wherever we wanted and most times it was to the Poolroom to get more licorice.



When I first started buying it, you could get 2 long laces for a penny. The shoestring laces hung over a bar in a cabinet and they just pulled them off, counted them up and put them in a nice brown paper bag, just like the alcohol ! So 50 cents gave you 100 hundred laces that you could Overdose on. Today, if you can find them, it will cost you over 2 bucks for perhaps 20. Not sure how many are in a bag but not nearly enough. What a high !! So good and so bad for you.



I have to admit, I was hooked on them and have been ever since. Maybe it is a good job that I cannot get them anymore except once a year. I mean, after all - one does not want to go down in history as dieing from a licorice overdose. Or do they?

The World on Two Wheels

I have always loved bicycles. It was something that to me, always seemed like my own little bit of freedom. I could get on and ride and ride. It would take me to places known and unknown.

I remember when I got my first new bike. I believe my Grandparents bought it for me. A very shiny red 2-wheeler that rode like a dream. It was smooth riding and had no mechanical problems !! One has to remember that the Village I lived in had no pavement whatsoever. The only pavement was the busy provincial highway that skirted the very outside limits of the Village and we were under very strict instructions not to venture on to it for any reason. Something smooth and level apparently was not a good enough reason to get on it. Oh how I wanted to get on there and experience a ride without running into ruts and gravel furrows !! I cannot say with a straight face that I actually obeyed the rules, as I did take a few spins on the shoulder and yes it was everything I thought it would be !! Smooth and level, I could really crank up my speed and let the wind roar !! It was indeed a rush for a little kid.

As far as bikes go, there is often the odd flat tire and I was really not old enough or smart enough to change out a tube. The tires then came with a tube inside of them and instead of having to change out the tire, you just bought a new tube and inserted it into the tire. Sounds pretty easy, but at the age of 10 or so it was not that easy.

My Grandfather during this time had prostrate cancer. He was not doing well, in fact he was dying. Dying faster then any of us wanted. I remember having a flat tire that I really needed to have fixed so I could go riding with my friends. My Grandfather said he would fix it. I was thrilled. Here was my dying Grandfather, in his pajamas and robe, probably not more then 100 pounds, sitting in his favorite green vinyl recliner rocker in the living room. He took that tire and took it off right there in his living room and put in a new tube and put it back on the rim. I guess I never seen the significance of it at the time, but I sure see it now. A dying man, wanting to instill some pleasure in his Grandchild. An unconditional love and a selfless act. He was in no condition to be doing that, but he wanted to. And he did.

So biking to me is not only a freedom, and a time to get away and think about the things of life, but a time to reflect back on the things that stand the test of time. A time to remember and be thankful for those who came into my life early and gave me something to build upon. One spoke at a time.

Real Milk from a Real Man

Coming from the dairy industry, I think I know what milk is all about and what it should consist of. The industry of course, has made countless changes like any other industry in the world today, but basically, the cow still produces the same milk. The same butterfat, the same protein, and the same lactose. Granted there are a few growth hormones thrown in for good measure, but then there are a few extras in everything we consume today.

But really, where has the industry gone wrong? We went from glass to cardboard and then to plastic. What would you rather drink out of? And what will be next?

When I was a kid back on the prairies, the milk man stopped and actually delivered personally, milk in glass bottles. There was the full fat milk which really was milk and not this blue looking skim slop they serve today. And the chocolate milk was incredible. It was rich and dark and it tasted so good. Today it is runny, plastic looking and tasting and has so many extras in it that if I told you them all - you would head right for the commode !!

Down here in the south, the milk does not last. It does not matter what you do, it goes bad before the date that they stamp on it. And really, what does it matter because even if it borders on the good - chances are it will taste like cheap liquid plastic.

Such progress we have made !!!!

Fast Food in a Slow World

Everywhere you go today, there are fast food joints everywhere. You can have just about any kind of cholesterol coating, artery clogging junk you could ever wish for. When I was a kid it was not quite so obvious. I never experienced McDonald's until I was 19 and that was in Edmonton.

In the small town I lived in, there was a little gas station cafe that never made that much but they did create really awesome homemade chocolate shakes, that came in the metal stirring jugs that they were whipped in. Thick and cold and full of full fat ice cream, they were absolutely incredible. They did not come with straws but came with long spoons for the great experience of savoring the thick liquid going down a kid's dry parched throat.

Once in a while and I do mean once in awhile ,we would go to Lloydminster which was a city of about 10,000 that straddled the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. There you could find two favorites, A&W and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not KFC but Kentucky Fried Chicken. The A&W actually had it so the car hops came out to your vehicle, took your order and then delivered it. Oh it was good. So good that I still love A&W today. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately there are no A&W's down here in the far South. The closet would be Sonic Drive In's which are pretty good. Dad used to buy us something to eat and then would order a gallon of authentic root beer to go. It was a brown glass 1 gallon jug filled with the real root beer that made A&W famous. When you came back, you brought the gallon jug for the deposit and we would get another one. Of course it never lasted !!

That was pretty much the extent of fast food. Everything else was homemade. Real food not fast food.

The Day The Outhouse Died

When we moved from the farm to Waseca, we still had no services or conveniences for a few years. There was no running water and no indoor plumbing, so of course we still had to make the journey out to the little building in the back yard. Every back yard had these little creations, basically a small shack over a deep hole. I never liked the little shacks. They were not very hospitable to us, and they were an awful place to go to in the cold of the winter and the heat of the summer.

I am not saying I was a daredevil kid, but I did have my times of stupidity I am sure. Although not exactly impulsive, I wondered about a lot of things. One of the things I wondered about was what would happen if I were to throw a lit match down the open hole of the outhouse. Now under most circumstances, it should just fizzle out and that would be it. And that is exactly what happened to the first 100 lit matches that I threw down that hole !! I had one of those large eddy box of matches that holds at least a couple of hundred wooden matches. One after another I threw them down there, watching them burn out.

I was not prepared for match 101 but I dropped that lit match, it caught on some toilet tissue, sucked in some quality methane gas, and the entire hole exploded into flames. I believe I was in shock, excited that the experiment worked but wondering where it would end. The fire was so intense that it eventually engulfed the whole outhouse, letting everyone know that I was dissatisfied with it.

I ran to the house, and somehow we got some pails of water poured on it to prevent the fire from burring the whole house, garage and yard. I was the least popular person around the house. I don't remember being drawn and quartered but I had in effect shut down the family bathroom. A great start to Waseca living. Maybe why I am such a bathroom connoisseur today !!

Grandma's Great Goodies

Now that the holiday season is over, and people start to resort back to a relatively normal way of eating, I was thinking about all the incredible food that my Grandma was famous for. My Grandma came over on the boat from England in 1905. She was 5 years of age. As she grew up, she obviously set out to become one of the best cooks around. She could and did, cook and create and bake anything you could think of.

Back in Waseca, when the Village was getting the water and sewer lines put in, there were several hungry construction workers who came to my Grandmas for a daily hot meal. And a meal it was. A sheet of plywood over two saw horses was put up in the living room of the house that they lived in , and she cooked all kinds of great creations. I was also lucky enough to partakes of these great meals every day. While other kids were stuck eating stale tuna sandwiches at school, I was feasting on every delicacy known to man.

One of my favorites for the main course was the Shepherds Pie. This was no ordinary Shepherds pie. This was pie that was loaded with all kinds of things that I have tried to duplicate several times but have never ever come close. There was no recipe for this, it just came out of her head. My mouth is watering right now as I am typing this description.

Desserts were really her specialty however. And they were numerous, incredible baked apple dumplings, lemon cheese tarts, cakes, bread puddings, raisin puddings, custard pies and cinnamon buns. There was a real favorite though that I liked. It was called "an old maid". Here was what it entailed. Pie crust that lined a muffin tin, raspberry jam as filling, which was topped by a moist white cake mix of some sort. She made dozens of those tarts and put them in the freezer out in the porch.

It did not take too long for me to realize that with a little planning, I could snab a couple of those frozen old maids once in awhile and help satisfy my incredibly pathetic sweet tooth that has been my nemesis since my early years. Who was able to stop at a couple? Not me. I ate those suckers like they were candies. I even became addicted to them in the frozen state.

I have not had one of those for over 40 years. They made such an impression on me that I can still visualize tasting one. They were insanely good, a fat man's poison, a skinny man's dream.

My sister gave me the recipe to the Lemon cheese. I have made some and it was great. All the great ingredients such as sugar and butter makes it a cholesterol nightmare but what a high you get from it.

They say that memories can make you as a person. The food sure has. The longing for all of the above has started again. Now, where were those carrot sticks again?

Better Then a Toboggan Hill

I had mentioned in earlier posts about the lack of hills that we could toboggan on. My Dad had the perfect solution to it all. He would pull us around with the car !! We had a 1969 Ford Country Sedan Station wagon. It was long car, 121 inch wheelbase to be exact. I was always good with numbers ! The winters in Saskatchewan of course were nothing less then brutal so we always drove in the winter with studded tires. Underneath there was a luggage compartment, and he would stack that full of wood so that there was a lot of weight on the back tires. Man, could that car go through snow. He would tie a long rope on to the toboggan and he would pull us through all kinds of snow at a fairly high rate of speed !! He drove down snow covered roads and even onto the frozen lake surface and boy did he put the hammer down. The snow would be coming up from the backs of those tires in a flurry, pelting our faces with wet icy snow. The faster he went the worse it got. Eventually he would be going so fast that you could not see a thing but just hung on for dear life. We would go through drifts, over drifts and under drifts. It was a wild ride. I suspect that he disciplined us through the type of ride we got. There were a lot of wet tired children after those excursions.

As I got a little older, I was looking for more challenges. My grandfather had an old pair of skis, and your foot slipped into some leather loops. These skis were not state of the art. In fact, they probably came over on the ark but I thought they would work good behind the car. I convinced my Dad to take me down a snow covered back road in the country. Now that was a ride. He wound that car up and he pulled me down the road. I tried to stay straight and keep those skis from crossing over each other. For a time I did, but there was no way to tell him to slow it down. He wound it up faster and eventually I blew a ski and rolled and crashed into the ditch. I was bruised, broken, and scraped but I felt like I just got the gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

How many kids can say their Dad did that for them? There is no question that it was different culture then but it was a culture that made me realize that fun was what we thought and made up. Anyone care for a ride?

Hockey Night in Canada

There is not too much hockey down here in the south. There is one team, the Mississippi Riverkings from the Central Hockey League. Other then that, the only other professional team around here is the Nashville Predators of the NHL After that, the only other ice around here generally comes in a bag. This brought my thoughts back to the prairies where hockey was not only a sport, but really a religion. As football is fanatical in the States, hockey is a rite of passage in Canada.

The town that I lived in was small, so small that there wasn't even a restaurant or a bar, but it did have a skating rink. No - not a covered ice surface. An outdoor rink. Why would it be easy in the 60's? The ice was flooded at the beginning of the winter when the temperatures dictated that it would not melt away. My Dad was usually the one who set up the community ice rink with long hoses that pumped water from the town's dugout. A dugout was a large hole in the ground that accumulated water. Water that was used to flood the rink. Old boards surrounded the rink to keep the pucks in. More important is the fact that it snowed a lot and snow covered the ice in large amounts, so kids could not play until the ice was scraped. We had our hockey sticks and our skates but we always dragged a snow shoved behind us when we went because you never knew if the ice was going to be clean or not. It was easy to learn how to skate because you had a snow shovel to keep your balance. You learned how to skate and angle your shovel so that you could clear the ice like a snowplow.

There was a building beside it that was used to put on skates. It was simply called "the shack". A very old building that we shared with mice and an old oil stove. The chances that the shack had heat going when you went there was about as good as winning the weekly lottery. Typically it needed to be lit, or cleaned or something but most times we put our cold feet into cold skates and headed to the ice. No one liked it I suppose, but we really did not know anything different. Even Gretzky had it better then we did, his Dad had a backyard rink for him when he started.

We scraped and skated for hours as we shot pucks. balls and whatever else we had at the time. Many a time we over shot the boards and had to go looking in huge piles of snow from the ice to find the elusive puck. Sometimes we were lucky and sometimes not. When Spring came we were the first there to find all the wayward pucks from the winter so that we had a fresh stash for the next year.

Without trying to sound old, we made our own fun. We had lots of exercise and used what we had to create a world of culture that we believed in, even at that early age.

Winter Fun

Living in a area now that practically never has snow, I started to reminisce about what we did with snow in the early days. In those days we got snow and lots of it and it stayed around for a long time, and when you had long and cold winters, you had to learn to play in them.

You either played outside or you stayed inside and became one of the most bored kids in the town. Therefore, hockey and sledding or toboganning became one of the main highlights. Being on the prairie, it was hard to find hills big enough that would constitute what one would call a toboggan hill. You had to go to the river to find them. So some Saturdays we were taken to the river. Those really were some big hills !! High above the river bottom were these majestic hills, free of trees and dangerous obstacles, beckoning for us to climb them and set the toboggan on a straight downward course. The toboggans were about 6 feet long, long enough for 2 kids to get on, but we really preferred to go alone. The thing about being a kid is there is usually no fear, just anticipation of speed through the snow.

I climbed the mountain, lots of deep snow made it hard going and I suppose I could of just went half way and had a pretty good run, but I wanted the top. It was Mount Everest to me and I wanted the whole experience. I finally made it to the top and looked down and realized that it was quite a hill and the people and cars at the bottom really did not look that big. I got on, holding the rope and stretching my feet out so I was balanced properly. I put both feet on and pushed forward, but nothing happened. I jerked my body to get it going but I was stuck in the snow on the very top of this hill. Using newly acquired swear woods that I was learning in bits and pieces, I picked up the toboggan and moved it over several feet to find a better course. I got on and knew then that this sucker was ready to fly. As soon as both feet were on the wood, it took off. I came down that hill in a rush. I was going so fast that I really could not see and all I could do was hang on for dear life. Wow - this was a speed paradise. All of a sudden I went airborne. I could feel nothing underneath. I was flying!! Toboggans are not meant to fly, they are meant to go down hard surfaces !! The balance was gone, and I could feel myself falling over in the air. CRASH.....

That hurt bad. My tailbone felt like someone smashed it with a hammer and my face was filled with cold icy snow. I lost my mitts somewhere and wet snow was melting and running down my back. I was cold and I was hurting. Did I go home? No - not a chance. I knew now what it would take to really ride the wooden slab. I was going to master it, and I started the long cold walk back up the hill. Good exercise and good fun - a culture that will never be forgot.