WHY IS CHRISTMAS DAY SO EMOTIONAL?

What is it about Christmas Day? Why do I have so many emotions on this particular day? I had a happy childhood and a good life. I was never neglected or abused. I love Christmas - the rituals, giving and receiving gifts, the cooking and the eating. I even re-watch old Christmas movies every year (and I rarely watch any other repeat). I like the religious, social, and culture aspects and look forward to the holiday every year. I have even eventually learned not to over-extend myself.

Yet.... on Christmas Day, I find myself just about losing it when an impromptu choir began carolling at an extended care home where I was picking up a lunch guest.

It got even worse when I arrived home and found my children had arrived. (And, I see all of them regularly!) The whole day was an emotional roller coaster.

I can't pin it all on short days and lack of sunlight!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Why I Live in Vancouver

I think this must be the only place in Canada where I can sit outside on my deck on a sunny Saturday afternoon and enjoy a pomegranate and the Saturday newspaper in shirt sleeves on December 5th. While we have had several frosty nights, on sunny days the temperature sores.
This is cat grass that I planted around November 10th on the deck. Today it is about 4 inches tall.

Sunshine and Flowers

There is apparently a green flash just as the sun sinks into the water at sunset. Several times in the past two weeks, I have watched the sunset but have not been able to catch that few seconds although others watching saw it one night.

We have had a glorious two weeks of sunshine on Maui while the lower mainland has had more than it's fair share of rain. This has been the most relaxing vacation I have had in a very long time - it has felt somewhat like a cruise.

Remembrance Day November 11

Shortly after my Mother-in-law moved into a seniors home, I arrived at her door with my then 19 year old son. As she was expecting me, I knocked and then opened the door and walked in. As she came towards the door, she cried out and grabbed a chair to sit down. When she caught her breath, she said that she thought her brother had just walked in the door.

It was November 11th and my son had just finished participating in a parade. As a member of the Reserves, he was in full military uniform. This was the mid 1990's. Her brother had died in the First World War. She was about seven years when she last saw him. This is the photograph taken in Chilliwack before her brother went overseas.

On my side of the family, my Uncle Jack served in the First World War. He came home with a war bride, my Aunt Nora. They moved to northern Canada to live for many years in a mining camp without running water or even electricity at the beginning. In spite of this, children were born with great regularity every year or so. Eventually they did move from the mine site into town. My Mother often remarked on how hard life would have been for Nora who had only known 'balmy England' (my mother's words). My Uncle Jack lived well into his 90's and always had war stories to tell. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of them.

We lost a member of our family in WW2 as well. My Uncle Bob lost his life in the Second World War at Normandy on August 10, 1944. He had one son who was born in 1942. I don't know if he ever had the chance to see his son.

This is a ration book that belonged to my father-in-law who worked in a munitions factory near Valleyfield, Quebec during the Second World War. My Mother kept her ration books too for many years after the war. Sugar, butter and gasoline were some of the products that were rationed.

Every Day Heros North Van Style

This is a fifteen minute presentation made for the District of North Vancouver Fire Department's 2009 Annual Awards.  I lived in North Van for several years and my nephew is a fireman there.    While watching a year in life from the eyes of a fire department, you will see glimpses of the rugged terrain and unique location of this city.

http://web.me.com/lumierephotography/District_Of_North_Vancouver_Fire_Rescue/Movie.html

A Forest on My Deck

Here are the 12 trees I have transplanted over the last few days. I plan to grow them on my roof-top deck. All twelve trees were purchased from Canadian Tire and Super Store at the end of the season. I paid two dollars each for the larger trees and a dollar each for the three little ones. They are all cedars - four tall upright that can grow up to 12 feet high, five round ones that can grow up to about 6 feet and three golden cedar shrubs that should not grow more than a few feet tall. If they were all to survive for a few years, there would be no room on my deck.

I hope that enough will survive to form a screen from my neighbours across the street. They all have good root systems and had totally outgrown their previous pots. I am hoping that new branches will form in the spring to fill in some of the bare spots.

So far, this little garden of trees has cost me less that thirty dollars. I was able to scrounge/recycle most of the supplies - the stand was stairs from a hot tub, most of the pots came from a building site, the soil was mostly composted, and I was able to use left over fertilizer from the summer.

I will try to remember to update this next year.

After the Frost

This is my garden on Thanksgiving Day, Monday, October 11th. We had our first frosts on both Saturday and Sunday morning. I picked the last of my green peppers from some very sad plants. Almost everything but the carrots, beets and onions are now finished. The last of my tomatoes are ripening on my kitchen counter. It was a great gardening year - not too many bugs - and great weather. I was expecting more problems growing strictly organically but it was all good. I had way more food that I could eat fresh or give away. Next year I will have to think about preserving some - especially tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini.

The few flowers I planted are still looking good - mainly sweet peas, a small rose bush (shown here) and some volunteer violas.


And these are the last of my ripening everbearing strawberries.

Next year it will be even better.

Individuation

I have discovered a new-to-me word. Betty Friedan in her book The Fountain of Age defines individuation as the process of becoming more of one's self. I think she in turn may be using her interpretation Carl Jung's definition. But, it is a real word, Latin in origin.

This word is used to describe what happens during our third stage of life, the first and second stages being childhood and adulthood. Unlike some popular misconceptions, Betty Friedan shows us through many studies that this stage is not one of conformity. We not only not grow into an homogeneous group, we actually have the greatest variability of any age group! She attributes this to the fact that we no longer need to conform to the latest style, or compete with the 'Jones', or fit in at work, school or social group. We can finally be ourselves, and true to ourselves. This can be a very freeing time.

I think we need a new name for our group that does not suggest decline, disease and death. While Friedan acknowledges that these things are definitely a part of this stage of life, it is by no means the defining feature, or at least it shouldn't be. While few studies have been done on healthy older people, some longitudinal studies have captured this group almost by accident, and most show that this group show little or no decline in mental abilities until the last year or so of life and several expanding, growing attributes. These attributes are things like generativity, emergent wisdom, autonomy and the ability to trust oneself. While not the usual measured attributes like math and spelling and puzzle solving, they are non the less important to the realm of happiness and contentment with life. Youth may have learning as a prime driver and adults may have doing; maybe this stage of life has something like contemplation or spirituality or maybe something even more expansive as its driver. This group has years of life experience at its disposal.

Martha Beck wrote an interesting piece in the current Oprah Magazine about 'problems'. Basically, she proposed that we should be thankful for the one big, seemingly unsolvable, problem that some of us consistently stress over all of our lives.


For the past many, many years, my problem has been my weight. Each New Year, it is at the top of my resolve list and almost every September, I vow that I will take off ten or twenty pounds before Christmas. And, many, many times I have been successful in doing just that. I have probably lost over three hundred pounds at one time or another in my life. Unfortunately, I have mostly gained it back and often added a few pounds. In the last three years, in my seventh and longest attempt at Weight Watchers, I have managed to maintain and consolidate a series of small losses and except for one extended 'four month holiday', have not seen too many big reversals in weight. Yet weight loss is still right at the top of my list of priorities and a constant struggle. For this I should be thankful, at least, according to Martha!


Martha's reasoning is this: This big insolvable problem is the lid of my Pandora's box of more frightening problems. Spending all of my time stressing about a problem that can appear to be solvable allows me to ignore the others. If I did not have a weight issue I may be forced to deal with other overwhelming issues.



There is a lot of truth here for me. I am a master at avoidance. Fortunately, Martha has a solution. She doesn't want me to discard my obsession, at least not yet.

What I need to do is recognize this problem is what she calls 'the designated issue'. Once it is labeled as such, it can be handled. What I need to do, from time to time, is to mentally set aside this 'issue' and open the lid to examine other issues dwelling beneath the surface. I need to take one out at a time and take some small steps to begin to resolve it. Then push the lid back on.

In time, the pressure cooker that is holding all my issues will begin to lose steam as progress is made. When this happens, in theory at least, my designated issue should itself begin to diminish in importance because it too will become easier to resolve.


I think this approach is worth a try.


http://marthabeck.com/blog/


At the end of all this, I need to keep my big 'problem' and be thankful that I have one because it is keeping a lid all my really unmanageable problems.

William C. Haley, Where Are You?

This letter must have meant a lot to my mother-in-law as she kept it her whole life. Maybe it was because her brother, Edmund, had died in France in November, 1917 at the age of 18. I suspect that William Haley, (was he called Bill Haley?), would have been about the same age in 1942.

It looks like Grannie belonged to the De Salaberry Club in Valleyfield and that the members took it upon themselves to write to soldiers. And it looks like this young man was still in training in England. Knowing Grannie, I am sure she wrote back to him.

So what happened to Bill? Did he see action after he wrote this letter? He doesn't show up on the veteran's lists so he probably made it home after the war. He was in the Canadian Air Force, 9th Canadian Field Squadron, RCE, 4th Armoured Division. William Haley would be in his mid eighties now if he is still around.

Is being busy the new lazy?

This question was posed in this book by Tim Ferris.

He has found unique ways to break away from the repetitious routine and find the time to do exactly what he wants.

This is a good read and a good escape.

It was the 'pick' for the last Wealthy Wilma's meeting.

If you are looking for some answers to take control of your life, eliminate the clutter of email, voice mail, etc., and start to re-prioritize, this is the book for you.

And, you can read most of it on line. http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/#

Why is pound abbrievated as lb.

The internet tells me that "lb.", the short form for the word pound, has a Latin origin. The Latin word, libre, has as one of its meanings, scales, like this one.


The word, pondus, in Latin means weight.



The current weight of the pound we use in Canada which is the international avoirdupois pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms or 16 ounces.


I just learned today that a pound is China is 500 grams but in Taiwan a pound contains 600 grams. We sometimes refer to a half a kilo as a metric pound.

Wikipedia tells me that the expression avoirdupois pound was invented by London merchants in 1303. It sounds more like a French expression about eating a lot of peas. Ironically, the troy pound takes its name from the French market town of Troyes in France. The word, troy, should have an English origin! It sounds like a typical old English word. I think the only things weighed with troy pounds are bars or gold and silver. A troy pound is about 12 ounces or about 373 grams.

A pound weighs slightly less than half a kilo. I wonder if the pound was just slightly more than a half a kilo if we would have eventually made the weight of a pound equal to half a kilo.

And while we are at it, does anyone see the day when we will use only metric measurements.

And, who started using this sign - # - to mean pound, and why? Does it always mean number if it is before a figure and pound if it is after a figure?

And lastly, how did ounce get shortened to oz.

DREAMSICLE DELIGHT PIE

This is easy to make and delicious. I wonder how many weight watcher points per slice.

Dreamsicle Delight Pie

8 ounces fat free cream cheese
Dash of vanilla extract
1 large container frozen light topping (at least 12 ounces)
1 small box sugar free orange gelatin
1 small can pineapple tidbits drained
1 small can mandarin orange slices drained
1 low fat graham cracker crust

Cream together two thirds of the container of frozen topping with fat free cream cheese
Blend until smooth
Add vanilla extract and mix
Sprinkle envelope of sugar free orange gelatin over mixture and blend

When completely smooth and creamy fold in pineapple and mandarin orange slices
Put mixture into pie shell and refrigerate for several hours
Top with remaining of thawed frozen topping and serve
Serves 8

SESAME BEAN SALAD WITH ASIAN FLAVOUR

This salad came from The Vancouver Sun this week. When I made it on Friday night, several different people commented on how good it was.

Of course it takes a lot more than ten minutes to trim the beans, toast the sesame seeds, and assemble the dressing. But is is fairly quick and would make an excellent 'bring to a barbeque' dish. For large gatherings you would only need to increase the quantity of beans as there is ample dressing. The bright green beans sprinkled with sesame seeds look great in a clear glass bowl.

Shaw Communications

Does Shaw care that they have incredibly bad customer service? I switched to Telus in July and promptly returned my cable modem to a business which was on a list I was given. A month later they warned me that I would be charged for it. I found my receipt and tried to call them. After several minutes, I gave up waiting on the phone thinking that they were as unstaffed in customer service as they were with dealing with returns. I figured an employee would get around to registering my returned modem within a few days or weeks.

However I was wrong. Yesterday I got another notice, this time with lots of warnings about destroying my credit rating. This morning I waited 19 minutes on hold listening to Shaw Cable advertising and other repetitive nonsense. When a girl finally answered I gave her my name and address and she asked me to hold. Immediately a voice mail message came on. The message was one that was used for after hours calls. The CSR did not come back on the line.

I finally hung up and am once again waiting - now for over fifteen minutes.

Again, I would like to do something more than just vote with my feet!

By the way, Telus has been good so far. No problems at all - and much better program selection - more reliable and much cheaper. I will keep my fingers crossed, it will continue to be good.

....now over 20 minutes......THIS IS A THURSDAY MORNING BETWEEN 9:30 AND 10:30!!

Finally after about 24 minutes I spoke with Jennifer who confirmed that my modem had been returned and recorded on July 20th.

Gerontology

gerontology n. The scientific study of the biological, psychological, and sociological phenomena associated with old age and aging.

Once upon a time I took some courses in gerontology. These courses were concerned with the quality of life in the last quarter, about health and activity and abilities. There were studies on absorption of nutrients, and physical changes in hearing and eyesight and dexterity. At that time, several papers discussed the difference between natural aging and ill health. Many of the factors attributed to old age were actually the result of poor health. There were studies on how to make homes safe to avoid falls and keep people out of institutions. There were oodles of studies on dementia in its many forms. There were studies on other mental illnesses that increase with aging, particularly the increasing incidence of low key depression. A few people even researched sexuality in people over sixty. Many papers were written on the transition from an active life of work to a more sedentary life with advice on how to make the change successful.

I don’t remember anything that spoke implicitly or explictly to the amount of time an older person spends with their own thoughts. With the elimination of a nine-to-five job (which while sometimes boring, did keep your mind occupied) and a diminishing number of people with whom one can interact on an intellectual level, you increasingly find yourself alone with your thoughts.

I don’t look for people to talk about philosophy or anything like that, just for people who still read the papers, a few magazines and an odd book who can speak about events and ideas rather than just the weather, the high cost of living, and other people - maybe this why I have taken up blogging.

Other Blog Spots

I think I was a little hard on Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice. She has a nice blog about her book: http://stillalice.blogspot.com/


Julie/Julia has a blog http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/ This is the blog that was the basis of the movie.

Reading blogs may becoming my current addiction.

Longfellow

Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
----Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1881)

Does anyone know the poem from which this quote is taken? Is there a searchable data base anywhere on the web for American poetry?

Longfellow was very prolific - it would take far too long to read through his stuff, even on the web.

Lili Marlene

I was named after a song released by Perry Como in 1944. It was probably just becoming popular in Northern Ontario as I was born. The top ten songs made our Hit Parade about nine to ten months later than the radio stations in the south. I suspect that this was probably No. 1 in July 1945 when I was born.

Here are some details I found on the internet.

"A recording was made by Perry Como on June 27, 1944 and issued by RCA Victor Records as a 78rpm record (catalog number 20-1592-A) with the flip side "First Class Private Mary Brown". This recording was later reissued as catalog number 20-2824-A with flip side "I Love You Truly." The song reached chart position #13 on the United States charts. The song was recorded during the musicians' strike and consequently has a backing chorus instead of an orchestral backup.

"Lili Marlene" has been adopted as the regimental slow march by the Special Air Service, Special Air Service Regiment and Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

English lyrics

Tommie Connor, 1944

Underneath the lantern,

By the barrack gate

Darling I remember

The way you used to wait

T'was there that you whispered tenderly,

That you loved me,

You'd always be,

My Lilli of the Lamplight,

My own Lilli Marlene

Time would come for roll call,

Time for us to part,

Darling I'd caress you

And press you to my heart,

And there 'neath that far-off lantern light,

I'd hold you tight,

We'd kiss good night,

My Lilli of the Lamplight,

My own Lilli Marlene

Orders came for sailing,

Somewhere over there

All confined to barracks

Was more than I could bear

I knew you were waiting in the street

I heard your feet,

But could not meet,

My Lilly of the Lamplight,

My own Lilly Marlene

Resting in our billets,

Just behind the lines

Even tho' we're parted,

Your lips are close to mine

You wait where that lantern softly gleams,

Your sweet face seems

To haunt my dreams

My Lilly of the Lamplight,

My own Lilly Marlene

When I was growing up, I knew that this has originally been a German hit and I thought the song was written about Marlene Dietrich.

Not long ago, McLean's magazine did a piece on clues to Alzheimer's. Some researchers, apparently, are examining Agatha Christie whodunits to discover if there were early warning signs of dementia in her work. Agatha Christie wrote from her late twenties to early eighties. While it is not conclusive that Agatha had Alzheimer's or any other dementia, apparently her later books, like Iris Murdoch's (who did have Alzheimer's) were meandering and fuzzy. One of the telltale signs of approaching dementia is the inability to extract from memory specific names. People who are eventually diagnosed with dementia increasingly use indefinite nouns like 'it' and 'thing'. With failing memory, the vocabulary declines.



With this in mind, I have been trying for the last three days to remember the name of a coastal resort area in Italy. It is a place I particularly liked and have often thought of returning. Yet, the name of the area escapes me. Usually when this happens, the name pops into my head a day or so later. But, so far, nothing. I will need to use Internet resources to find it.



Of course, it doesn't help that I watched "Stone Angel" on TV this past week. //http://www.alliancefilms.com/en/89/details/display/11360/
Hagar was suffering from a form of undiagnosed dementia and, just as in real life, it was downplayed and untreated. Her long-suffering devoted son and daughter-in-law focused on her physical ailments only.

Judging from the people I see around me, I suspect that this goes on more often than not. There is still such social stigma attached to so-called mental disease that people fall into this abyss called dementia and no one steps up to the plate to help them. Only when this disease is very advanced are any steps taken; often, it is too late.



Even when individuals themselves may suspect that there is a problem with cognition, they often don't take appropriate steps, not so much that they are incapable to do so, but because of the stigma attached to dementia. That, combined with the very murky ideas about aging and a failing mind leave many of us questioning when to react to iffy situations. What exactly is a seniors moment? And when does the odd memory lapse, which everyone has from time to time, constitute something more serious?

Over the summer, I read a so-called novel called Still Alice. Alice was a fictional high-achiever who developed Alzheimer's Disease. With her perfectly supportive husband and family, her disease progresses quickly and steadily to its bitter end.

Unlike real life where things get better and then get worse and then get a little better again, and where support services are difficult, if not impossible to find, this novel progresses like an appropriate soap opera to a natural conclusion. It was meant to leave readers with hope and enlightenment which it probably did but it was also sooooo unrealistic.

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Still-Alice/Lisa-Genova/9781439116883

Gorden Pincent played the husband of an Alzheimer's victim in the movie "Away From Her" not too long ago. To me, this felt like a more realistic rendering of the disease.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491747/

In our politically correct society, we have down-played standards. Surely there is criteria out there that can give us an idea of how a fifty or sixty or seventy year old brain should perform. Why can't we take a test and find out if we measure up?

How I Spent My Summer (Vacation?)

Does anyone remember those painful essays we had to write during the first week of school in September? I still think of my potential subject matter after all these years. There is something about preparing for September! Even though my children have long left school behind them, I still get the feeling of new beginnings this time of year. The first of September, like the first of January, is a time to make plans. The brochures are out with all the new offerings, - interesting activities - intriguing night school courses - the possibility of meeting new people - and maybe even changing direction. But first of all, I need to reflect (write about) my summer which is passing by so quickly.











My garden around the first of July:





We have had a long and, for Vancouver, an extremely hot summer with little or no rain. Consequently I have spent most of my time out of doors - walking, biking, gardening, swimming, shopping and for the most part being lazy (except for a two week course compliments of the federal government in an air conditioned Douglas College). My garden has done exceptionally well both for vegetables and weeds. I have a bumper crop of tomatoes just beginning to ripen now. The first five or six while quite small in size have been delicious. I have also read a few books, nothing exceptional, and watched a few movies, two of which impressed me.

Food Inc. is a documentary and it has haunted me since I watched it a few weeks ago. I just wish there was something more that we could do to improve the lives of 'factory' animals. Just boycotting the products from these 'industrial farms' just doesn't seem to be enough.

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

On a happier note, I watched Julie & Julia last night and it was absolutely delightful. In spite of a less than stellar performance by Meryl Streep, (I knew the whole time that this was Meryl playing Julia), this movie entranced me. I highly recommend it. Today I taped the Julia Child Special on PBS for comparison. And it has brought me back to blogging again!

This is Julie's website. http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Art - Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum

http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/the_exhibitions/exhibit_vermeer_rembrandt_and_the_golden_age_of_dutch_art.html

Was anyone else disappointed that only one Vermeer was on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s exposition of Dutch painters? While I know that Vermeer created only a small number of paintings in his lifetime and that the Rijksmuseum probably only has a very few of them, it was a little disappointing to me. I was hoping to see at least one red hat or pearl earring or some other piece for comparison.

At least it hasn’t curbed my plans for a European vacation which includes Paris (The Louvre) and The Hague (Mauritshuis).

In spite of the above, the exhibition at the Art Gallery this summer is well worth seeing. Make time to look at the way houses have been furnished over the last six decades while you are there. It’s fascinating.

http://www.cdnarchitect.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000094222&issue=04272009

Happy Canada Day

God_Bless_Canada.pps4842 kb View Download

This week, two columnists, one from the Vancouver Sun and the other from the Globe and Mail, both suggested that Pierre Burton's teenage fantasy about having sex in a canoe was a uniquely Canadian attribute. The columnist who became a naturalized citizen actually thought it was possible and suggested that she was truly Canadian because she had done the deed.

We all seem to have strange views about who is truly Canadian. While we can almost all agree that someone who was born, lived and died here might qualify, all the rest of the population is up for speculation and debate. Maybe this is one of the identifiable markers of Canadians.

Tomorrow, regardless of our views, we get to celebrate all that is uniquely Canadian, eh?

The Outcast

This is a great read - the story, the prose - it was mesmerizing. And it took place in the 1950's. I can't believe how significantly our values have changed since then. A book like this brings it all back.

I can't wait to see the movie version!

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307396662

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-outcast-by-sadie-jones-785275.html

The Cost of Living

Several weeks ago, I went on a quest to discover miners' wages in Northern Ontario in the 1940's and was not successful. This item from Maclean's in 1950 was the closest I came to finding information.

If the average weekly wage was $45.00 per week in 1950, the weekly wage in Northern Ontario was probably closer to $40.00 per week in the early 40's, given that inflation was high, particularly towards the end of the war when labour became scarce. That would have put my parent's mortgage payment of $30.00 per month at more than 20% of their income. If food was 40% of their income, it did not leave very much left for other essentials!

This puts perspective on our own complaints about the high costs of food today. Although it doesn't look like housing has improved much - at least in the Vancouver area!

Below is a list I found in my Mother's old cook book. It was compiled, I think, when my parents were contemplating the purchase of the house in which I grew up. It is readable once you have clicked on it to make it larger.

This is stewed strawberry/rhubarb in the making. It is so good on toast when it is still warm.

Raspberries in our community garden are starting to ripen. I had my first handful of berries today. It is very early - we don't usually have ripe raspberries until July but we have had a warm, dry June this year.

Beets from my garden are just starting to form globes - I am still eating the leaves but am steaming them now and adding a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I should be eating green beans in a week or so.

My current favorite place in warm weather.

Bridges & Bits of Vancouver History

This is my favourite bridge in the Vancouver area. The Alex Fraser Bridge was built for Expo 1986 and is now over 20 years old but it still feels new and modern. It has amazing large steel cables that make it feel both safe and majestic when driving over it.



This is the Burrard Bridge built in about 1932 and named after Sir Harry Burrard-Neale (whoever he was). It is built in Art Deco style and has guard towers at either end which are kind of quaint.

Actually, I do know a little about the fellow whose name was used on this bridge. There were two Sir Harry Burrards who were cousins and both were friends of Sir George Vancouver. The first Sir Harry Burrard was honoured by the naming of Burrard Inlet while the second Sir Harry Burrard-Neale was remembered by naming this bridge and the street after him. The Burrard bridge actually spans False Creek. (The two bridges over Burrard Inlet are Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Memorial.)

There is another interesting object in this photo. The middle apartment tower in this photo is Martello Towers. (Does anyone know how to apply labels here to photos like you see on facebook to identify objects and people?) Anyway, this property, at the corner of Beach and Thurlow, was originally supposed to house the City Hall of Vancouver. It was to be built in the same Art Deco style as the bridge. The town fathers at that time however deemed the expense too great and elected to build a cheaper structure way out at 12th and Cambie on what was then park land.

Engineering Wonders

If two crews drill from either side of a mountain, how do they know if they will meet in the middle? How was McCulloch able to make a little hole straight through four rock walls in a straight line to create a railway shortcut through the mountains? How were the crews even able to scale down shear cliffs over a raging river gorge to start the construction? All of this was done at a time when there wasn't a lot of high tech gadgetry. If you click on this photo to make it larger, you may be able to see the light at the end of the third tunnel - the tunnels are that straight!



Great engineering feats have always fascinated me, particularly bridges. How exactly does one build a suspension bridge? As I watch traffic flowing over Lions Gate Bridge (yes, occasionally traffic does flow in Vancouver), it seems impossible that such a flimsy structure can carry all that weight.



Of course, not all of our bridges have been engineered all that well. The Second Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1958 just as workers were placing the last piece to join both sections of the bridge.
Eighteen workers lost their lives due to a simple error in the calculation of the weight the structure could bear. This bridge was rebuilt and eventually called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

Next week, the Golden Ears Bridge will open connecting Maple Ridge to Langley. It will be an electronic toll bridge - the first toll bridge in British Columbia in several years. They are giving us a month of free use before tolls apply. I can't wait to try it out. But, I think I will wait a day or two, to let others test it out first.

McCulloch's Wonder

Writer Barry Stanford describes the Kettle Valley Railway, McCulloch's Wonder, as the most difficult and expensive railway on earth. Engineer extraordinaire, Andrew McCulloch, designed, built and operated this railway starting in about 1915. It serviced southern British Columbia, through to the Kooteneys until about 1973. After it was abandoned in 1989, it became a recreational area for hikers, skiers, bikers and others.

http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/thomp-ok/kettle-railway/map.html

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to bike to the Othello-Quintette Tunnels in Hope and along a portion of the Kettle Valley rail bed near Princeton, BC. These sections are part of the TransCanada Trail. The Coquihalla Canyon gorge is truly awe-inspiring in itself with its rapids twisting through a narrow passage. Contemplating the combined the power of this river with the amazing engineering talent that was required to design and build the four tunnels and two bridges through this gorge for the railroad is just mind-bending. This is another example of one of the well-kept secrets of British Columbia.

In other countries, there would be resorts, hotels and tours to see something as spectacular as this!

Anecdotes

Definition from Wikipedia: An anecdote is a short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident.

Near the end of Six Degrees of Separation, Stockard Channing (Ouisa) says words to this effect: "Does a person's life just boil down to a few interesting anecdotes?", and then storms out of an important dinner party for her husband. This, of course, got me thinking about blogging because for me, blogs are a series of anecdotes.

Shortly after I started writing this blog, I set up a separate blog to record my family history. Since then I have created well over a hundred entries in it and have not even scratched the surface of what I want to say. Most of the blogs are anecdotes of what I can remember growing up and of the information, photos and clippings that I have saved over the years.

I have often felt that my children missed out on the benefits of a large extended family. While they were growing up, no one got together just for evenings of talking about the past and telling stories; there were few family get-togethers at all. We always seemed to be busy doing other things. For the most part they know very little of their background. Now they are busy with their lives and not particularly interested. There may come a time, however, when they want to know more and they will have this blog as a reference.
Am I doing the people who have gone before me a disservice by reducing their lives to a series of (I hope) interesting and amusing anecdotes?

Snow in June

It has been snowing cottontree fluff for the last few days. The massive cottonwoods are releasing the dandilion-like seeds into the air. In the evening when the wind dies down, the white fluffs hang in the air and settle softly to the ground like large snow flakes. Riding your bike through the trails is like being in a Walt Disney 3-D movie. You feel as if you are moving through the first snowfall of the season, except of course it is very warm. This is what our trails looks like just now.

This is a close up photo of the cottonwood seeds on the ground. Click on the photo to make it larger.

This plant is like the energizer bunny - it just keeps blooming and blooming. It is an azalea which I received on Mother's Day and it has been increasing in blooms ever since, in spite of some very warm weather. Most azaleas only bloom for a week or two. I just hope I can keep it alive so that it can bloom again next year.