December 31, 2004
As 2004 comes to a close I leave you with a quote from a novel that I am currently reading called The Green Flash written by an english writer names Winston Graham. One of his characters says"Age has no privleges. Youth no virtue. It is what one does that matters."
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
This is what it looks like today after a night of rain and "drying winds" all day today. Oh to have some Aussie sun now!
This is what it looked like yesterday, although this picture was taken a few days before.
ITS 2005 IN AUSTRALIA! HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!
It should be winter here, but today it is 8-10 degrees C. I set a record by getting all the outdoor Christmas Decorations taken down and put away before Dec. 31, 2004 ends here. Yesterday we had 30-40 cm. of snow and today we have almost none. The fields are bare except for along the fence lines. As the song says "What a difference a day makes."
December 30, 2004
Dec. 30, 2004. 01:00 AMEating Down Under is Oz-some
ANNA HOBBSSPECIAL TO THE STARSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—It was midnight when I climbed aboard a jet in Los Angeles bound for Sydney. I had been travelling all day. I wanted nothing more than to stick the squishy little plugs in my ears, pull down my eyeshade and sleep my way across the Pacific.
"No, thank you," I said politely to the Qantas flight attendant as he passed out the large business-class menu with a mouth-watering photo of roasted tomatoes on the cover. "I am going to sleep."
"Just have a look, mate," he suggested, in an unmistakably Down Under accent. "I think you will like it. You can sleep later."
Was it written all over my face that this was a "foodie" on a mission?
My mission was to discover first-hand why there is so much hype about Modern Australian cuisine — "Mod Oz" they call it — and why their big, bold wines with cheeky labels such as Two Hands On, Yellow Tail and Old Bastard are making such a splash around the world.
I had no expectations this would happen before I set foot in Sydney.
But life is full of surprises.
Here was a menu created by award-winning chef Neil Perry, who enjoys the kind of celebrity status in Sydney that Susur Lee or Jamie Kennedy do in Toronto.
Forget sleep — this was an opportunity not to be missed. My choice of braised veal was followed by a green leaf salad with capsicum and feta, apple cake with crème Anglaise and a valrhona chocolate treat. It turned out to be the freshest, most flavourful in-flight meal I've ever tasted. The accompanying Shiraz bounded forward from the glass with berry and spice aromas. It was a harbinger of things to come.
Visitors who turn up in this cultural conglomerate — some 130 nationalities live in Australia today — will discover a land of many influences and as many tastes.
Neil Perry's restaurant, Rockpool, in Sydney's historic Rocks district was voted one of the 10 top restaurants in the world. Best known for exotic fresh seafood, "Ocean to Plate," Perry wows the hungry at this sleek eatery. But he is just one of many chefs whose cooking blends foods and flavours from indigenous, Asian and a variety of European cuisines.
"Everyone likes to call his or her cooking Mod Oz," Perry told me, "although the exact definition is open for discussion."
First stop on my tour of the southern part of the country was Canberra, the country's demure capital that boasts over 300 restaurants. Some 25 wineries are located within 40 minutes of the city. Chairman & Yip Restaurant has taken the city by storm with its bold, experimental menu. Tea-smoked kingfish drizzled with cinnamon-infused soy goes to the next level. The signature beef and scallop hot pot combines tender meat and fat scallops in a sauce that gets a wallop of heat from black pepper and exotic spices.
Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne's vibrant, food Mecca is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions, offering visitors a true flavour of the country's multiculturalism. It's not the thousand vendors under one sprawling roof that overwhelms, but the smorgasbord of international foods — everything from crocodile and kangaroo at the Aussie deli, to lotus root and gai larn at the Asian vegetable stand. European influence is evident in fresh Italian pasta, Polish kielbasa, French cheeses and baby goat at the Greek butcher. And every coffee bean under the sun, ground to your specification.
At the Grange Restaurant in the Adelaide Hilton, Chef Cheong Liew started blending European techniques and Asian ingredients long before anyone coined the term "fusion." U.S. Food and Wine magazine named him one of the 10 hottest chefs alive. Influenced by his Malaysian/Chinese heritage and 30 years living in Australia, he incorporates French, Malaysian, Japanese, Greek and Chinese flavours into many of the dishes.
His signature dish is evocatively named "Four Dances of the Sea." A marvellous creation constructed from 50 separate ingredients, comprising four small islands of seafood on a bare white plate.
To start — slivers of snook with avocado soused with cherry vinegar reflects the Japanese influence. Sesame-flavoured, paper-thin cuttlefish sashimi served on squid ink noodles follows. Next in line is octopus with eggplant, aoli and tomato comfit that combines provençal, Mediterranean and Asian elements. The final morsel marries a Japanese concept with Southeast Asian flavour — curried prawn sushi on a bed of sticky rice cooked in coconut milk.
An hour's drive north of Adelaide brings you to the country's most famous wine regions, the Barossa Valley where Shiraz is king.
Maggie Beer, an in-the-know food guru, is one of the most famous names in Australian food and her Barossa Valley restaurant Farm Shop, one of the best places to go for lunch. Known for her simple approach to regional cooking, Maggie embraces local produce and regional favourites such as Walnut Bread and Pheasant Farm Paté.
Her take on Mod Oz pretty well sums up the country's ethnic melting pot.
"It's different all over the country," she said. "And it's best when we stir the area's cultural mix into fresh, local, ingredients."
It's a stew pot and it's way beyond delicious.
Anna Hobbs is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose trip was subsidized by Qantas and the Australian Tourist Commission.
Dec. 30, 2004. 01:00 AM
Cruise lines offer Wave of good deals
KATHRYN FOLLIOTTSPECIAL TO THE STARThe cruise industry's busiest booking period — called Wave, appropriately enough — kicks off the new year and runs right through until the end of February. During this time cruise lines like to keep the phones ringing by offering lots of promotions and added value bonuses.
Holland America Line, for instance, has brought back its View & Veranda deal offering upgrades valued between $100 and $2,966 U.S. With View & Veranda, you can book an ocean view outside stateroom for the price of an inside stateroom, or a deluxe veranda stateroom for the price of an outside stateroom, and so on and so on. Go to http://www.hollandamerica.com/
*click on the pic. to see the review and pics of this great camera.
We bought a new digital camera just before Christmas. It has a very fast auto focus and takes great pictures. We had an Olympus C-750 which we found to have a verrrrryyyy slow auto focus but it has a x10 optical zoom compare to x4 oz with the Sony DSC-V3. We gave the Olympus to Trent and Dorothy .
December 29, 2004
The Night Ewen Saved The High School: The Great FireFlames roared from the windows, the roof and the doors. The crowd stood on the street in awe of the spectacle of the high school , that most of them had attend, being devoured by fire.
Ewen watched along with the rest of the community, with an awareness that what was taking place was his doing, and that the community service he had performed could not be recognized for what it was at this moment. Ewen new that this was the only hope to keep the high school, a central and vital community asset, from being closed down by a few short-sighted and vicious members of the school board and the school administration. The battle lines had been drawn about three years before when the "city-centered" board of education decided to conduct a study of small rural high schools with the intent of closing them down. They were much more expensive to run than big city school and therefore must go. Ewen’s school was to be the first to go and he was not pleased ,as was not most of the community. Ewen immediately found himself the leader of the drive to "save our school".
He soon found that no number of protesting voters, and no amount of logic, pleading or political pressure seemed to do any good. The school board administration had made a decision, and as with all bureaucracies , there was no way to change its course. Bus loads of rate payers, all school supporters, were met with steely glares and hastily formulated meeting rules to ban placards. Limited the number of chairs, and their agenda item being placed at the end of a very lengthy agenda were only a few of the tactics used to try to discourage them . They also had to contend with the board administration first talking about such controversial items as sex education and the protection of gay rights in the schools. As a result the press reported at length on these issues and completely ignore the issue of the closing of small schools. Every move that Ewen and his group made was countered by a more effective move by those who held the strings of power. Slowly but surely the local school was being undermined by the administration. Repair and maintenance were not being done, the number of teachers was arbitrarily being cut, the superintendents were publicly uttering such comments as "I certainly wouldn’t send a child of mine to that school!"
The issue was of much broader concern to the community than just the loss of the only high school within 40 kilometres, it was an issue of economics and status for the community. If the school closing was successful then stores would close, property values would plummet and the tax base would shrink. The students from the community and the surrounding territory would be spending their parents money in the city, they would be riding a bus for two hours per day. Many of these students live on farms and are counted on to do work before and after school. Part- time jobs that earn spending money and money for post secondary education would be out the window. The community use of the schools facilities would be gone. The closure of the school would literally "bring the World to an end".
What to do? Ewen started searching through documents and agreements that were formulated when the school was built. He was hoping to find something, anything, with which to fight the battle with some hope of success.
The school insurance policy was among the papers and a frustrated Ewen was about to discard this document when his eye was caught by the bolded heading "Replacement Policy".
The policy indicated that in the event that the school was destroyed by fire it must be rebuilt in order for the insurance company to pay. If it was not rebuilt within a reasonable amount of time(not to exceed two years) the policy was null and void.
A glimmer of an idea was forming in Ewen’s mind as he read the policy through, including all the fine print. Was this policy still in force? Had the School Board changed insurance companies and policies? Ewen had to find out, and he had to find out in such a manner so as not to raise suspicions, if in fact his ideas proved doable. He decided that the only way to get the information he wanted was to disguise it as something other than a request to view the current insurance policy of the board for the local school. He therefore requested all the financial information that the board possessed about the school. He receive mountains of paper and copies of documents. He started searching and after two tedious days found what he was looking for, ‘the policy’. It turned out that the existing policy was the cheapest available. Apparently to change the replacement policy would have cost considerably more money, and at the time the board had not anticipated their current drive to close the school. Ewen was mildly ecstatic. It meant that his drastic idea was in fact a possibility. After much soul-searching , and after reviewing all that had transpired ,several times, his course of action was set. It was trial by fire. The school had to be burned down to save it. If the school burned down the board would have to replace it or walk away from a large sum of money. If they had a new school they would be the laughing stock of Ontario if they closed it down. It was the only way!
Once he had decided that he was going to incinerate the school, Ewen had to focus his attention on how to achieve his goal without it having the appearance of arson. An inventive soul , with a farm back ground, Ewen figured that spontaneous combustion was the best way to accomplish his end. He needed a fool-proof method to create some spontaneous fire.
The custodial staff ended their work day at 10:00 pm. The school was not lock, nor were the alarms set until then. Ewen had decided that the place to create his spontaneous fire was in one of the shops that had welding equipment. The level of maintenance of equipment was very low, and had also been an on-going issue in discussion about the closing of the school. It would not be difficult to blame a fire on poorly maintained welding equipment so Ewen had his target. He had to time his entry so that the custodian that cleaned the shops had finished his work in them, but had not locked them. He sat on a pile of tires in the parking lot and watched for the lights to be dimmed in the shop. He then waited about five minutes for the custodian to move to another part of the school and walked boldly in the back door and into the shop. He then went to the welding booths and gently turned on the gas on two of the torches so that there was a slow escape of gas into the shop. He then quickly exited the shop and , unseen by anyone, left the school and walked home. He knew that the shop would eventually fill up with gas and that one of more of the ventilation motors would automatically start. Causing a spark that would start a blaze that would quickly spread to the whole school. With any luck the blaze would be so advanced by the time that the volunteer fire department got organized and on the scene they could do nothing but keep the fire from spreading to neighbouring property.
The blaze that Ewen was witnessing, as he stood with fellow community members, was testament to the success of his mission. No one could every prove that the fire was anything but an accident. Would it be enough to keep the high school open?
Unable to allow his true feelings to show, Ewen had to approach the aftermath of the fire as a major blow to the efforts to save the school from being closed. The fire had ,in fact, accomplished the goal of the school board without any effort on their part. In fact a rumour quickly spread through the community to the effect that the board had some how engineered this fire to circumvent all the efforts of Ewen and others to keep the school open. There were more questions than answers as to what impact this fire would have on the whole issue. The superintendent of the Board whose mission it was to close the school, issued a statement to the press which stated that the Board would not rebuild the school , and the property would be offered for sale once the remains of the fire were cleaned up. End of discussion.
Ewen new the situation was not quite so cut and dried. How was this situation to be brought to light? He could wait until the insurance company revealed the clause about rebuilding, or he could find some way to have someone other than himself bring this gem to public attention. He decided to wait for two weeks to give that insurance company time to investigate the fire and to review the policy. If the rebuilding clause did not get revealed in that time he would have to speed things up. He had two weeks to come up with a plan.
Ewen was a business man, a real estate broker , in town, and while his business afforded him time to be involved in community affairs, his wife was starting to complain about his fixation on this issue, and about the time that he was spending dealing with it. To say that Ewen was a man with a mission did not begin to describe the degree to which he had become obsessed with fighting to keep the high school open. He had already committed arson. How far was he prepared to go in his quest?
The two weeks that Ewen had allotted for the revelation of the insurance situation seemed like an eternity. Ewen mulled over ideas about how he might get the information revealed if it was not forthcoming. Perhaps an anonymous letter to the local press suggesting that a close look at the insurance policy would be rewarding. He considered having a member of his committee review the information that included the insurance policy. He even considered having one of his colleagues ask about what would be done with the funds from the insurance claim.
As it turned out Ewen did not have to do anything but wait. On Wednesday of his allotted second week the situation became public knowledge at the weekly meeting of the Board of Education. "There would be no pay day unless the School was rebuilt in a timely manner." It was obvious that this constituted a major disaster for the powers that be. While they had been developing plans to permanently house the students from the school in other schools, they had never considered the possibility of rebuilding. Now they were faced with temporarily accommodating three hundred and eighty five students on a temporary basis for an indeterminate period. The sky was falling on their well laid plans to close the school. Now they needed a short range plan and a long-term strategy to try to save face and accomplish their long established goal.
What to do. Suggestions from the board members were few and in many cases unrealistic. To house these students in one or more schools that were supposedly under capacity would require music rooms and computer labs and other such facilities be changed back into regular class rooms. This was not likely to happen. To run a second shift a one of the nearest high schools would require that the transportation budget for bussing be over-spent by a huge amount. The suggestion that a local factory that was currently empty be leased and set up as the f
first -ever open concept high school was met by protest from teachers, students and parents. The only acceptable compromise was to construct temporary quarters by bringing in all the available portables within the board’s jurisdiction. It was decided that a minimum of forty portable would be require for students plus an additional ten for a variety of special used such as office space, library and exercise facilities. Once spring arrived the physical education classes could be held outside.
Closed door emergency discussions had taken place during the previous week. The bad news had been received and sat on for a week. Consideration was given to just fore-going the insurance money and getting a head start on rehousing the students elsewhere. The school would then be closed and never reopened. The possibility of any of the current board members surviving the next election if they chose to walk away from approximately two and one half million dollars of insurance money did not seem very high, thus they had to entertain the idea that the school would be rebuilt. They received a negative reply from the insurance company when it was suggested that they would like to build the new school elsewhere. They were trapped. The school had to be rebuilt.
I love Havana in the winter.
Hey, NO SNOW!
Kaitlyn looked at her watch for the hundredth time. It was 2:00 AM. The next time she looked it was 2:30 AM and nothing had happened. By 3:00 AM she was beginning to get a feeling that her ghost would not show. As the sky was starting to lighten with the coming of dawn she went into the store to check with Murray incase she some how missed the event, or that is was something that only appeared to him. No cigar. Nothing! Alex’s ghost and the phantom car driver did not appear this Christmas eve.
Kaitlyn made her way back to London. She would have to report to Professor Esslink that her mission had been for naught. If there actually was a ghost, it had not appeared for her.
Kaitlyn did not see a report in the newspaper two days later about a strange death on a winding road north of Glencoe on Christmas eve. It appeared that an unidentified woman had been killed in a single car crash. What was strange about the death was that the woman, according to the coroner, had actually died from having aspirated a cigarette into her lungs. He was not sure whether this had occurred before the crash, and thus caused the crash, or she had ingested the cigarette as a result of the crash. He said that he suspected the former was the most likely explanation. In any case the car hit a very large tree at a high speed, burst into flames, and badly burned the body of the woman.
Would Alex Fraser now rest in peace?
December 27, 2004
A GLENCOE TALE: THE GHOST OF CHRISTMASIt was Christmas eve in the year 2010, a snowy year by Glencoe standards, and Kaitlyn was spending her first Christmas eve in Glencoe. While she was in Glencoe by choice, she was not really finding it very comfortable or enjoyable as she was camped out in front of the Becker store, in her car, waiting for the ghost of Alex Fraser to appear.
Kaitlyn had been chasing ghosts since she graduated from The University of Western Ontario in 2004. It was in a course in ‘The Para-Normal’ at Western that she first heard the tale about the ‘ghost of Glencoe’, and now she was determine to see for herself whether or not it had any validity.
Alex Fraser was a night clerk at the Becker Store on Main Street in Glencoe. The store was the only one in town that stayed open all night. It was on Christmas eve of 1984 that Alex was working alone in the store when, some time around 2:30 AM, a person came into the store, walked up to Alex, shot him with a .22 caliber rifle, emptied the till, took all the Players cigarettes from the shelf, and disappeared. To this day the murderer has not been apprehended so an open file still exists on the case.
The next year after the murder, on Christmas eve 1985, the owner-manager of the store, Murray Kellar decided that he would work the night shift because he could not, in good conscience, ask anyone else to take the shift since the murder of the previous year had never been solved, and obviously the murderer was still at large.
Murray did not have many customers on Christmas eve, and by 2:30AM the streets of Glencoe were deathly still. Murray was watching some Christmas movie on TV and at first did not notice the car that had pulled up in the parking lot outside the front door of the store. As awareness dawned on Murray that a car was there, and that some one was in the car, just sitting , he tried to make out the details of the person, but was unable to get a clear enough view to determine anything about the occupant . Just as he was turning back to his movie Murray became conscious of a bluish light above the car. As he watched he was astounded to see a transparent, ghost-like embodiment of Alex Fraser appear. Alex began pounding on the roof of the car, although the only sound that Murray could hear was a raspy repetition of “MURDERER!” “MURDERER!”
Murray looked away, then quickly looked back to try to convince himself that what he had just witnessed was real. The car, its occupant and the ghost of Alex Fraser were still there. Murray reached for the phone and decided that he should call the police. By the time he got through to the O.P.P. dispatcher, located in who knows where, he was wondering if he was doing the right thing. Both Alex and the car had disappeared when his attention was focused on the phone.
The police eventually showed up and questioned Murray. Murray began to wonder if anything that he was telling them actually happened. The only physical evidence that the police could find was a Players cigarette butt, still smoldering, with lipstick on it.
It should be noted here that Alex Fraser was twenty at the time of his murder. He was a university student who was working over the holidays, for his old boss, to make some money to pay for his Christmas shopping. Alex had been engaged to a local girl, Sara McLean, before he went away to university, but the temptations of university life were to much, and the engagement ended, badly on the part of his former fiancé, who had been waiting for Alex to finish university and get a job so that they could get married and live happily ever after. Initial threats of suicide turned into long-term depression. She had been questioned by the police during their investigation of Alex’s murder, but not really as a suspect, but rather as some one who might have some clue as to why Alex was murdered over what would, on the surface, seem to be a few packages of cigarettes. No information of value was given and no conclusions could be drawn as to who the murderer was, or why he might have been murdered.
Bored, delusional, too much imagination, a “nut case” were things that crossed the investigating officer’s mind. The lack of witnesses or significant physical evidence resulted in report, by the officer, of an unexplained disturbance. That was the end of the incident, that was until 1986 when Murray was again working the night shift on Christmas eve, and witnessed a similar occurrence which, for obvious reasons, he did not report to the local police.
Murray was beginning to wonder if he was experiencing some form of Christmas eve insanity when it happened each Christmas eve there after.
After this happened again in 2003 he decided to approach a professor he had read about, who was supposed to be an expert in para-normal occurrences, who had a particular interest in ghosts. Professor Herman Esslink listened to his story and promised to investigate it further. The good professor read the police report on the incident and learned very little from his effort. He raised the issue in one of his classes that he taught and tried to recruit a volunteer to go to Glencoe on Christmas eve and investigate the story. It was not until 2010 that he found a volunteer, Kaitlyn, a former student and recently employed assistant. It was thus that Kaitlyn found herself in Glencoe on Christmas eve, sitting in her car in front of the Becker Store.
( to be continued )
December 25, 2004
FROM ALL OF US!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
December 24, 2004
...some dude in a red suit and hairy white beard.
Oh Christmas Tree...T'was the night before christmas, we were all in church,hoping St. Nicholas wouldn't abort, when out of the snow on the north facing roof, there appeared ....
December 23, 2004
The family that drywalls together .....The good old days of renovating houses.....
Where are the others? Di. and T?
Parliament Hill. Who?
Zach is surveying the country landscape. " We don't get storms like this in Toronto."
"I wonder if my dad will get stranded on the train?"
Almost made it to the road! We,ve got snow in Glencoe.
December 17, 2004
Nothing much beats life in a small town.............The Trip Up-Town
No grid lock! No road rage! No wasted time! Its life in small - town Ontario. The proverbial trip uptown is a daily ritual for many residents , wether they walk or take their wheels, invariably the four-wheel drive pickup truck.
Morning coffee is high on the list of priorities, and since most small towns don,t have Timmies, it involves the corner store or the local restaurant/coffee shop that serves as the local hangout for the boys. If the corner store is your destination of choice for your coffee, you will plan your arrival at your usual time so that you will meet the same people who also plan their trip for the same time. Conversations are deep and lengthy. "Mornin". "Nice to see the sun." "Mornin. Sure is but they say its going to rain tomorrow". "seeya". "ya".
For more involved and less heady dialogue one goes to the local restaurant or coffee shop.
"Mornin. Nice to see the sun". "Mornin. Sure is but they say its going to rain tomorrow."
"Ya, but we need it . The ground is dry. Can,t plant yet anyway". "SeeDunc’s changin’ the oil in his big machines. Must be gettin close". "Ya, well Dunc always was a go getter". "He went to the city and got his self a wife I hear". "Well maybe she got him. You know how he has held on to his money all these years". "I had a wife but she got to expensive. She wanted one of them new fangled washing machines. When I said the wringer washer still works fine she up and leaves. I still use that wringer washer once or twice a month and its been five years. So there you go."
No trip up town is ever complete without a trip to the post office. There is no door to door delivery like those ‘sissies’ in the city insist on. Everyone has a m ail box and a key. If you forget your key you have to beg the ladies in the Post Office to open your box. Do it more than once in six months and they regard you as a habitual offender and no amount of pleading will get your post box open without the key. The mail is usually in the boxes by 11:00 am so this fits in well with the coffee stop.
The Post Office is not just a place where you pick up your mail. The Post Office is where you find out what has been going on in the area since yesterday. "Big accident on the 401 at Dutton. Two trucks collided head on." " Anyone killed?" "Ya, both drivers and the load of chickens that one was carrying." "To bad. Where those the chicks that George was waitin for?"
"Heard the ambulance last night". "Me too". "Mac had a heart attack but they got him to the hospital in time". "Too bad!" "Pete's daughter had another baby this morning at 4:00am in Cleveland". " That make it an American?" "I think so." "Too bad". "Anyone hear how Cameron is doing with his radiation treatment?" "They think its workin real good, but I saw him the other day and he’s real red." "Too bad".
If you escape the Post Office before noon you head on down the street to the bank, the newspaper office, the lawyers office, or the grocery store to buy some food for lunch, or on a big day all of the afore mentioned.
December 15, 2004
The UK has its great train robbery and so does Glencoe. The circumstances of the Glencoe train robbery, though, are slightly different from that of the UK. Some of you may not have been aware, until you saw the picture of the train station that I posted, that the CNR mainline effectively divides Glencoe into 2 area, the area north of the track, where the LCBO ( Liquor Control Board of Ontario ) store is located, and the area south of the tracks, where the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) station is located. It is a fact that the crossing is known to be occupied by freight trains for as much as 10 to 15 minutes. Some of Glencoe's young intelligentsia came up with the idea that if a call was placed to the OPP regarding some fictitious emergency south of the tracks, just before a freight train was due, the police would not be able to respond to a call north of the tracks until the train moved. Armed with ski masks and no visible weapons, the two planners of this event held up the liquor store and escaped with a small sum of money and a case of their favourite brew. They escape and were not apprehended. Nothing breeds failure like success with some people. It worked so well the first time that a couple of days later they decided to try it agian. Guess what? A police officer had been dropped off at the LCBO store half an hour before the freight train was due, every day since the first robbery. The thieves were arrested. Fortunately for them they were young offenders and their sentences were light. Thus ended the 'Great Glencoe Train Robbery'. You really do need to visit this town!San Francisco has the 'great fire' of 1906( which was really an earthquake ), and Glencoe has the 'great wedding reception explosion ) of..... . The wedding ceremonty took place in the United Church in Glencoe, and the wedding reception was being held at the Glencoe Legion. The happy couple danced and laughed, and socialized with their guests. They then departed for a wilderness honeymoon in the wilds of northern Ontario. Not long after their departure, with no warning what-so-ever, the gas feeding the stoves in the kitchen exploded and killed every person in attendance at the reception. The newly weds enjoyed their week-long escape, only to return to find that all the guest at their wedding, including their families, were dead. There was a certain irony in the fact that the 'out crowd', not invited to the wedding, ended up having to deal with the aftermath of this major catastrophe. The loss of the Legion was a black day in the history of Glencoe. Of course the community pulled together and built a new and improved Legion.
There are memorable moments in the history of Glencoe. No, the Campbells are peaceful, and they don't massacre the MacDonalds. Glencoe once came to international stage when a corpse from the old funeral home on Main St. ( now a lawyer's office) was uncerimoniously deposited on the street one night, by some local residents intent on making some kind of statement.
This is not normal behaviour, even in Glencoe, so it is not surprising that the incident attracted a lot of attention, and was even mentioned in Playboy Magazine.
We've got it all!
The train stops near here. Glencoe restored its old train station, but the train stop is now a little shelter nearby. Glencoe is the only passenger stop between Chatham and London for Via Rail.
December 14, 2004
You know you have "arrived" when you can add Glencoe, Ontario to the list of places that you have visited. Lots of people, over 2 million per year, have been to Paris, more millions to Rome, and to New York City, but only a select few travellers have been to Glencoe, Ontario.Who among you have attended a function at the Cow Palace, shopped at Tender Tootsies, or had pizza and beer at PV? Have you ever attended a concert at the McKellar House, or visited the boyhood home of famous author Sean Reycraft? Have you ever seen where local celebrities such as the Ice Queen attended high school, or where the Coad St. gang tipped cows? If you cannot answer yes to these questions then you should consider adding Glencoe, Ontario to the top of your list of places to visit soon.
I shall post more about the interesting historical sites, entertainment facitities and other attractions of this incredible village in future posts.
December 11, 2004
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
December 09, 2004
This is a group of Dive Instructors from the UK. Note the Green Isand resort boat in the background. Green Island is a coral cuay on the Great Barrier reef. We stayed on the Island for several days way back in 1973. Today we couldn't afford to stay at the same resort for one night. Times have changed.
Cairns ( pronounced cans) swimming pool. This didn't exist when we were there in the early 70's. Most people wanted to go out to the Great Barrier Reef which is about 40 km offshore. There are Box jelly fish in the water at certain times of the year and they can be deadly, so a swimming pool becomes very attractive. Note the metal canopies provided for shade from the sun. At times we came to hate the sun, it was so intense.
KT in front of the Sydney Opera house. We lived in Australia when it opened. It was built a la London, Ont. arena, with no parking facilities. They had to add parking after the fact.
What would Australia be without a Wallabie. There are mini zoos in many of the small parks that have OZ type animals such as wallabies, kangaroos, wombats, and a variety of birds such as cockatoos and gallahs.
Here is KT's Fraser Island picture. I had to get Meredith to tell me how to get it from my email. Beautiful beach.
KT sends this picture from Fraser Is. on the south end of the Great Barrier Reef. It brings back fond memories. KT is another of my former students. She graduated from Western with a degree in geography. She's cool.
December 07, 2004
Didn't the Germans pose as Swiss during WWII? Hmmmm. Anyway, I think it would be much safer for all involved, Canadians and Americans, if the Am ericans were to pose as Iranians. Otherwise, Canadians who wish to travel in Europe will have to start posing as New Zealanders (Kiwi), or as South Africans, or as Icelanders. I see a business opportunity here. Possibly t-shirts that read "NOT AN AMERICAN" or "I'M A REAL CANADIAN, HONEST I AM..REALLY,REALLY,REALLY AM".Possibly a t-shirt logo with a beaver defacing the American flag would get the message across, but then,who knows how desperate the American Tourist is not to be recognized as such.
I, for one, would just as soon the Americans leave the Canadian identity to the Canadians, so that if I display my Canadian identity, I will only be held responsible for Canada when travelling.
When is a Canadian not a Canadian? I protest.
Dec. 7, 2004. 07:46 AM
American tourists urged to pose as CanadiansSpoof 'Go Canadian' package includes language primer
LESLIE HOFFMANASSOCIATED PRESSALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An American T-shirt company has a solution for fellow citizens who want to vacation in Europe without having to answer questions about U.S. politics: impersonate Canadians.
For $24.95 US (about $30 (Cdn)), T-shirtKing.com offers the "Go Canadian" package, full of just the kind of things an American traveller needs to leave home and its politics behind.
There's a Canadian flag T-shirt, a Canadian flag lapel pin and a Canadian patch for luggage or a backpack. There's also a quick reference guide — "How to Speak Canadian, Eh?" — on answering questions about Canada.
It's the brainchild of employees at the Mountainair, N.M.-based company known for novelty T-shirts it sells worldwide on the Internet.
The Go Canadian idea sprouted after one of company president Bill Broadbent's colleagues heard of someone being harassed about U.S. politics during a recent overseas trip.
Some people might not mind, but others "just want to be on vacation," Broadbent said. "So we were joking that they could just go as Canadians, and that just kind of evolved."
The package went up on the company website Nov. 12, and sold a couple hundred within weeks.
Sylvia Dawson's boyfriend has been joking that she needed to find him a Canadian flag for a coming trip to Spain. That's after his daughter, who is studying there, warned that he might be questioned about politics when he comes to visit.
So she bought a package.
"I said, `What are you going to do if someone asks you about the prime minister of Canada?' And he said, `I'll study up,'" Dawson said.
Such questions are the reason for the package's quick reference guide, which offers tips in case an American in disguise gets quizzed on Canada.
When it comes to sports, the guide suggests: "This is easy to remember. There is only one real sport in Canada and it is called hockey. Regardless of any trivia question, the answer is Wayne Gretzky.
If a Canadian says he had to "deke out of a meeting," it means he avoided the meeting. If someone is headed to "Hogtown," that's Canadian for Toronto. A trip to "Cowtown" means the person is going to Calgary.
And in all cases, the guide advises: "If your vacation is to be stress free, leave those heavy politics behind and travel with a light heart and quick wit, Canadian style."
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December 05, 2004
Formal in the Caribbean or seeing the sights in Europe, a banana sandwich needs peanut butter.
Wine with your banana sandwich? This is a formal meal.
Dessert or a banana sandwich? Which would you pick? The family obssesion it seems.
December 04, 2004
As Christmas appraoches and snow is around the corner its time to remember the last get together, the cottage at Thanksgiving.( actually this is 2003).The Admiral, Zach, and the Captain, Lexie, are in control of the ship.
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