Travelling along Route 66 I think about TV in the 50's. There were not a lot of TV's in private homes back in the 50's. I then remember movie theatres - especially the theatres in Hamilton: 'The Palace Theatre". The "Palace" was the grand movie theatre - so grand that the "National Ballet of Canada" and the new "Hamilton Philharmonic" performed in the Palace Theatre until the 1970's when a performing arts building was constructed. Advances in Western culture.
Today - May 27, 2020 was to be the first SPACEX launch in over a decade.
As a "snow bird" I love Florida during January, February and March and even mid April. I have never stayed here until end of May. Thanks to COVID, I was avoiding the Canadian reality of weather, and chose to stay in Florida instead of running back to get free health care in the event that I did contract the virus!
Today, I was so excited to watch the first SPACEX launch, but sadly it was scrapped due to weather.
WEATHER???
There has been nothing but weather for the past few weeks - thunderstorms and unbelievable rainfall.
Weather is not the important message of today - the point today was to comment on the first US launch into space in a decade. As of today, USA no longer needs Russia to launch astronauts into space. Today was to be a BIG day: the first launch in a decade. Then: launch time froze.
I had the great fortune to meet Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. He is the most accomplished human I have met. Gene Cernan's Grandmother crossed the US in a covered wagon. She lived to see her grandson land on the moon. Gene Cernan used a slide rule, in flight, to do calculations for his flight while in space. The 20th century saw great changes - two great wars and reaching the moon. Breath taking changes.
I would LOVE to ask all of the elected official in CANADA - and ask all of the USA Congress and the Senate representatives to do a basic calculation on a slide rule. The test would not ask for anything that would affect personal safety or influence any important life determining calculation. The test would be limited to a simple use of the technology that was available to Gene Cernan - while he was in space calculating his survival.
I can guaranteed - this a skill NOT considered important today when a cell phone can do the math and certainly not a skill pondered when voting to elect a "representative". It certainly isn't an important skill if your candidate is offering you "free health care", or free " FILL IN THE BLANK".
"Vote for me - I can't do math but I will give you free stuff!" COVID? Here is a good freebie. Please "Stay at home - we will send you a cheque and you can buy anything online. Everything will be delivered to you!".
I was so excited to watch the launch today and just like this virus is affecting the entire planet earth, nature held the trump card today. It is an amazing co-incidence, the launch was cancelled by nature just as our normal day to day lives have been cancelled by a virus!
Please note"There is a very fine line when walking in a Darwinian world view". I believe in good and in reaching for the stars and the moon and I believe that nations should be wary of group and ideas that tempt people with "What is in it for me?"
There is a big contest going on planet Earth. Big human ideas that are fighting against small ideas.
Free leads to nothing. Free really means "When it is gone, it is gone".
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Chinese take out - on Route 66
ROUTE 66 is what I have named my #alonetogether memoire - staying in place and hiding while the globe is experiencing Chinese take out.
What a terrible thing that so many apartment children have had their right to play taken away this year, and yet maybe the home atmosphere might re-awaken earlier times when we moved at a slower pace and took time to get to know one another. It is hard to imagine all of the modern challenges when I only know living in a house that my parents purchased the year I was born and two years after they arrived to the shores of the New World. My immigrant parents arrived as Displaced People I guess it was a derogatory term back in the day and yet they managed to give me a beautiful childhood and gifted me with sweet memories that still yield a warm feeling of home. Random memories of the shadows the Chestnut tree cast on my bedroom wall on a moonlit night still are clear pictures in my mind. Years later - as I moved to different rooms, in that same red brick house, I realized that my bedroom in those early years, was actually the room adjacent to living room and eventually became the piano room. My parents slept in what was meant to be the dining room. The living room always was the living room. The decor changed over the five decades my mother lived the house and in due course all of the rooms ended up being used as they were originally designed. Back in 1953 the bedrooms upstairs were rented out to single Latvians who were looking for a place to call home and the rent money supplemented my parents' income, much needed to pay for a house and feed a family. A poignant reflection as so many families have lost jobs and line up at food banks, April 2020.
My pre-school years were rich indeed - thanks in large part to the people who were my shepherds and thanks to my cultural heritage of my motherland and my family in particular. Children don't know the value of shiny things, or material things in general but if they feel the comfort of love and laughter and don't experience hunger then they are off to a wonderful start in life. I certainly don't have any memories of feeling deprived but I do have vivid memories of the sounds and smells from a simpler time. Bells were used everywhere and were as common as bird song. each bell had a different ring. Church bells used to fill the still Sunday morning air - a musical mix of chimes some close and some far away. Hearing the bell of the knife man coming down Kinnell Street would make my mother and grandmother hurry about to look if any knives and scissors needed to be sharpened. The sound of a horses hooves coming from Inchbury Street announced the rag man way before I could hear his call. The milk man and bread man travelled in trucks and didn't really make identifiable sounds for my ears but they both delivered their goods right to the milk box, built into our 1917 house - a luxury feature that was included in many other houses up until the who knows when. The egg man delivered regularly on Saturdays and he was the one and only man who would come into our kitchen and chat about current events and the happenings at his farm. I understood him to be a man who lived this exotic life and didn't really understand much about what a farm was but I was captivated by his hands. Hands which had large swollen fingers and were grey from what I thought was dirt and hands that didn't look soft and pink/white like my parents. He would talk at length about things I didn't understand, and the conversations which seemed to last hours to a mesmerized kid probably were more like five minutes long. This was our world in Hamilton, Ontario in the 1950's, a precursor to AMAZON delivery but the weekly service came with knowing the names of the egg man, milk man and bread man and subliminally learning the fine art of pleasant exchanges and developing an interest in the people we encounter and their lives.
Our Milk Box was accessed through the back porch. There were three grey wooden steps that led up to the porch door and once inside there was the entry door to the house kitchen. The milk box was to the left of the glass panel kitchen door. The milk box had one door on the outside of the house and the second door opened to the inside of the house. Milk, cream, cottage cheese, sour cream and butter would be left in the cool cavity created by the brick walls. Once I learned to print, my assigned and valuable family chore was to fill out the order form for the milk man and this chore was assigned quite early in my life. Important to note - my mother dictated and I made the appropriate check marks.
My mother taught at Latvian school which was held weekly on Saturday mornings. Two years old I simply had to tag along to her classroom and sit by her side while she taught older kids, day care had yet to be invented. I remember sitting quietly by my mother's side, probable a memory tweaked to perfection with time. I sat quietly because my mother kept me occupied challenging me to draw sticks and circles which eventually became letters and numbers.
Latvian school was housed in the Latvian Lutheran church building, across the street from St Patrick' Catholic Church and near the local Red Cross. This was a serious destination and knew it the instant I heard the sound of the door hinges and the smell of linoleum clad stairs leading into the church basement. The stairs and a metal edge that made a distinct hollow sound depending on the weight of the feet pounding the surface. The cloak room was to the left of the basement landing and descended even deeper into this Saturday world. The basement auditorium remained the same for years, and was where the big important assemblies were held and the room where I met Old Man Christmas who gave every excited child a cloth sac filled with treats that to this day I search out in mid December to have the feeling of Christmas recreated. Small round hard white icing ginger bread cookies that can still be found in German stores and paper wrapped "cow" brand fudge candies made in Poland. Some nice people of meagre means sewed these small cotton satchels and filled them and thereby spread the joy and magic to those Latvian immigrant kids. We were gifted with love.
Miss Smith taught Kelly Kirby at the Royal Conservatory of Music another important building in my life and far more impressive to my tiny brain. I was enrolled in a group class when I was three years old. Miss Smith's class was at the end of the long corridor of doors where all of the music studios and practice rooms were. It took ages to walk down the long hallway and my ears would hear violin sounds piano sounds and sometimes a horn sound. Accordion was something I only heard in the Latvian school basement, and I did become a terrible snob looking down on anyone who played what is actually a difficult instrument! Kelly Kirby method had kids drawing sticks and circles and soon thanks to Latvian school, and Miss Smith's Kelly Kirby Class I mastered drawings sticks and circles and learned to find middle C and was on my way read musical notes.
Sticks and circles led to printing and printing led to 'Majorin Kundze'. She had beautiful cursive writing and supervised the early writing lessons for all the kids back in Latvian school. Majorin kundze had another great talent - she made beautiful cakes. Her other important role was that of the Latvian Girl Guide leader. She taught us how to sew and embroider.
There was one slight problem. By the time I showed up at Loretto Academy for Grade one, I knew how to write in cursive. The Loretto sisters were (are) a teaching order - founded by Mary Ward back in the Middle Ages, 1609. Mary Ward was a trail blazer in that she did not enter the nunnery seeking a contemplative life. She established a religious community and opened schools for girls as she believed women were as capable as men as long as girls were given education. Somehow my mother registered my sister at Loretto Academy and when the time came I too entered this important life shaper institution. Grade one at Loretto Academy meant learning to print. I was six years old now I knew instinctively that it would be bad form to tell the nuns I could write in cursive. I can remember sitting at my grade one desk, afraid to be put in the polly wog pond and followed instructions.
I guess that is when I learned to be a rule follower and not to show off if I wanted to win friends and influence people.
And that is how I remember grade one and sitting still.
What a terrible thing that so many apartment children have had their right to play taken away this year, and yet maybe the home atmosphere might re-awaken earlier times when we moved at a slower pace and took time to get to know one another. It is hard to imagine all of the modern challenges when I only know living in a house that my parents purchased the year I was born and two years after they arrived to the shores of the New World. My immigrant parents arrived as Displaced People I guess it was a derogatory term back in the day and yet they managed to give me a beautiful childhood and gifted me with sweet memories that still yield a warm feeling of home. Random memories of the shadows the Chestnut tree cast on my bedroom wall on a moonlit night still are clear pictures in my mind. Years later - as I moved to different rooms, in that same red brick house, I realized that my bedroom in those early years, was actually the room adjacent to living room and eventually became the piano room. My parents slept in what was meant to be the dining room. The living room always was the living room. The decor changed over the five decades my mother lived the house and in due course all of the rooms ended up being used as they were originally designed. Back in 1953 the bedrooms upstairs were rented out to single Latvians who were looking for a place to call home and the rent money supplemented my parents' income, much needed to pay for a house and feed a family. A poignant reflection as so many families have lost jobs and line up at food banks, April 2020.
My pre-school years were rich indeed - thanks in large part to the people who were my shepherds and thanks to my cultural heritage of my motherland and my family in particular. Children don't know the value of shiny things, or material things in general but if they feel the comfort of love and laughter and don't experience hunger then they are off to a wonderful start in life. I certainly don't have any memories of feeling deprived but I do have vivid memories of the sounds and smells from a simpler time. Bells were used everywhere and were as common as bird song. each bell had a different ring. Church bells used to fill the still Sunday morning air - a musical mix of chimes some close and some far away. Hearing the bell of the knife man coming down Kinnell Street would make my mother and grandmother hurry about to look if any knives and scissors needed to be sharpened. The sound of a horses hooves coming from Inchbury Street announced the rag man way before I could hear his call. The milk man and bread man travelled in trucks and didn't really make identifiable sounds for my ears but they both delivered their goods right to the milk box, built into our 1917 house - a luxury feature that was included in many other houses up until the who knows when. The egg man delivered regularly on Saturdays and he was the one and only man who would come into our kitchen and chat about current events and the happenings at his farm. I understood him to be a man who lived this exotic life and didn't really understand much about what a farm was but I was captivated by his hands. Hands which had large swollen fingers and were grey from what I thought was dirt and hands that didn't look soft and pink/white like my parents. He would talk at length about things I didn't understand, and the conversations which seemed to last hours to a mesmerized kid probably were more like five minutes long. This was our world in Hamilton, Ontario in the 1950's, a precursor to AMAZON delivery but the weekly service came with knowing the names of the egg man, milk man and bread man and subliminally learning the fine art of pleasant exchanges and developing an interest in the people we encounter and their lives.
Our Milk Box was accessed through the back porch. There were three grey wooden steps that led up to the porch door and once inside there was the entry door to the house kitchen. The milk box was to the left of the glass panel kitchen door. The milk box had one door on the outside of the house and the second door opened to the inside of the house. Milk, cream, cottage cheese, sour cream and butter would be left in the cool cavity created by the brick walls. Once I learned to print, my assigned and valuable family chore was to fill out the order form for the milk man and this chore was assigned quite early in my life. Important to note - my mother dictated and I made the appropriate check marks.
My mother taught at Latvian school which was held weekly on Saturday mornings. Two years old I simply had to tag along to her classroom and sit by her side while she taught older kids, day care had yet to be invented. I remember sitting quietly by my mother's side, probable a memory tweaked to perfection with time. I sat quietly because my mother kept me occupied challenging me to draw sticks and circles which eventually became letters and numbers.
Latvian school was housed in the Latvian Lutheran church building, across the street from St Patrick' Catholic Church and near the local Red Cross. This was a serious destination and knew it the instant I heard the sound of the door hinges and the smell of linoleum clad stairs leading into the church basement. The stairs and a metal edge that made a distinct hollow sound depending on the weight of the feet pounding the surface. The cloak room was to the left of the basement landing and descended even deeper into this Saturday world. The basement auditorium remained the same for years, and was where the big important assemblies were held and the room where I met Old Man Christmas who gave every excited child a cloth sac filled with treats that to this day I search out in mid December to have the feeling of Christmas recreated. Small round hard white icing ginger bread cookies that can still be found in German stores and paper wrapped "cow" brand fudge candies made in Poland. Some nice people of meagre means sewed these small cotton satchels and filled them and thereby spread the joy and magic to those Latvian immigrant kids. We were gifted with love.
Miss Smith taught Kelly Kirby at the Royal Conservatory of Music another important building in my life and far more impressive to my tiny brain. I was enrolled in a group class when I was three years old. Miss Smith's class was at the end of the long corridor of doors where all of the music studios and practice rooms were. It took ages to walk down the long hallway and my ears would hear violin sounds piano sounds and sometimes a horn sound. Accordion was something I only heard in the Latvian school basement, and I did become a terrible snob looking down on anyone who played what is actually a difficult instrument! Kelly Kirby method had kids drawing sticks and circles and soon thanks to Latvian school, and Miss Smith's Kelly Kirby Class I mastered drawings sticks and circles and learned to find middle C and was on my way read musical notes.
Sticks and circles led to printing and printing led to 'Majorin Kundze'. She had beautiful cursive writing and supervised the early writing lessons for all the kids back in Latvian school. Majorin kundze had another great talent - she made beautiful cakes. Her other important role was that of the Latvian Girl Guide leader. She taught us how to sew and embroider.
There was one slight problem. By the time I showed up at Loretto Academy for Grade one, I knew how to write in cursive. The Loretto sisters were (are) a teaching order - founded by Mary Ward back in the Middle Ages, 1609. Mary Ward was a trail blazer in that she did not enter the nunnery seeking a contemplative life. She established a religious community and opened schools for girls as she believed women were as capable as men as long as girls were given education. Somehow my mother registered my sister at Loretto Academy and when the time came I too entered this important life shaper institution. Grade one at Loretto Academy meant learning to print. I was six years old now I knew instinctively that it would be bad form to tell the nuns I could write in cursive. I can remember sitting at my grade one desk, afraid to be put in the polly wog pond and followed instructions.
I guess that is when I learned to be a rule follower and not to show off if I wanted to win friends and influence people.
And that is how I remember grade one and sitting still.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Five weeks of isolation and White House Briefings
It has been inspiring to see the global mass co-operation to social distance and stay in place to slow the spread of COVID. Inspiring and then, suddenly our "alone together" world became a place for introspection and reflection and for me in particular alone in a pleasant house in a gated community with Florida sunshine and a backyard pool, I have become painfully appreciative of my good fortune in life. It is time, to once again, revisit the past and remember moments that shaped my life lived mostly in the last half of the 20th Century, and now twenty years (1/5 into the 21st Century) and send my perspectives to permanently float around in the universe of the 'inter web'.
I have turned to television to hear the daily Gov. Cuomo briefings, the daily White House Briefings, and TCM to watch movies and I suddenly realized that television has played an important role my entire life. Born in 1953, I remember Sunday evening as a special time when we watched Walt Disney and Ed Sullivan. Sunday evening was an exciting night. I didn't even realize that we were lucky to have a TV back in the 50's - but I thank my Mom and Dad, Latvian immigrants who arrived in Canada just two years before my birth.
Few stories were told about those early days, but I recall that my parents did have to work at the 'domestic jobs' that were assigned by the government in order to fulfil immigration requirements. Farm work for my mother, who did not have the physical stamina to meet her quota, and apparently a nice Russian woman would do the work for her, while my mom sat under a tree in the shade. I never did learn more details like who looked after my sister when my mother was working, or how long did this domestic labour last. I know that my father dug ditches in construction and that by 1953 my parents had saved enough money to purchase a house and a car. Two years. They disembarked in Halifax in 1951 - given a loaf of white bread, $5.00 and a Bible. How they reached Ontario I will never know - I just know that by the time I was born on June 6, 1953 my parents had a house and a car. By the time I was three, I have clear and vivid memories of watching TV in the recreation room on Sunday nights. I remember the excitement and the good feeling of family and home.
Sunday night, TV night, and that is how I learned that my parents shaped my ideas on work, and saving and spending and that they gave me a happy childhood and that I didn't watch news when I was a kid.
I have turned to television to hear the daily Gov. Cuomo briefings, the daily White House Briefings, and TCM to watch movies and I suddenly realized that television has played an important role my entire life. Born in 1953, I remember Sunday evening as a special time when we watched Walt Disney and Ed Sullivan. Sunday evening was an exciting night. I didn't even realize that we were lucky to have a TV back in the 50's - but I thank my Mom and Dad, Latvian immigrants who arrived in Canada just two years before my birth.
Few stories were told about those early days, but I recall that my parents did have to work at the 'domestic jobs' that were assigned by the government in order to fulfil immigration requirements. Farm work for my mother, who did not have the physical stamina to meet her quota, and apparently a nice Russian woman would do the work for her, while my mom sat under a tree in the shade. I never did learn more details like who looked after my sister when my mother was working, or how long did this domestic labour last. I know that my father dug ditches in construction and that by 1953 my parents had saved enough money to purchase a house and a car. Two years. They disembarked in Halifax in 1951 - given a loaf of white bread, $5.00 and a Bible. How they reached Ontario I will never know - I just know that by the time I was born on June 6, 1953 my parents had a house and a car. By the time I was three, I have clear and vivid memories of watching TV in the recreation room on Sunday nights. I remember the excitement and the good feeling of family and home.
Sunday night, TV night, and that is how I learned that my parents shaped my ideas on work, and saving and spending and that they gave me a happy childhood and that I didn't watch news when I was a kid.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
COVID 19 - Chinese take-out
So Harvey was convicted.
IF I knew him, and IF I had contact with him, I would say:
"Harvey - write a book and name - names!"
"Name those who benefited from your casting couch."
Apparently "casting couch" suddenly became an unknown term in the English speaking world. Perhaps the original Hollywood casting couch wore out after decades of use and Weinstein, his legal team and the judicial system didn't have the language skill to come up with a new term. A term that would connect with the modern "victim society".
" Harvey - name, names! Don't let all of your silent victims remain unknown. They only remained silent as they preferred fame and the cha ching of the cash register over calling you out and admitting how they achieved fame."
Harvey did make stars!
Also, all of those Hollywood pontificators at the award shows - have nerve to use the microphones they have the privilege to grab for 40 seconds and spread their personal politics. Their Hollywood community is infested with serious problems - drugs, lies sex and the selling of souls. They are blind to those foul things yet point judgemental fingers.
A diseased society - like a viral infection.
Viruses?
I thought that the WHO was a noble institution, looking out for the well being of the world.
Who knew that China was a founding partner of the WHO - and a major financial contributor? Who knew that the WHO announced on January 12, 2020 that the 'novel coronavirus' was "not transferred person to person"? Who knew that this lie would have such a devastating effect?
Now with a Global pandemic in full force the facts are floating to the top of the information swamp. The gig is up for China and the WHO, except that the global media conspiracy is still covering up.
For a simpleton - the lies are show stopping! Poor Trump - attacked daily by the collusion media - attacked by the late night jokesters and his political opponents; all who have the temerity to appear before cameras and lie. Wow - Hollywood, media, elected officials and WHO, Academy Award actors.
And that is how I learned that I should SHELTER IN PLACE in my sunny seasonal home, and remain calm knowing that what appears to be true is not, rather than return to where my socialist Government makes false promises of fortune for all.
IF I knew him, and IF I had contact with him, I would say:
"Harvey - write a book and name - names!"
"Name those who benefited from your casting couch."
Apparently "casting couch" suddenly became an unknown term in the English speaking world. Perhaps the original Hollywood casting couch wore out after decades of use and Weinstein, his legal team and the judicial system didn't have the language skill to come up with a new term. A term that would connect with the modern "victim society".
" Harvey - name, names! Don't let all of your silent victims remain unknown. They only remained silent as they preferred fame and the cha ching of the cash register over calling you out and admitting how they achieved fame."
Harvey did make stars!
Also, all of those Hollywood pontificators at the award shows - have nerve to use the microphones they have the privilege to grab for 40 seconds and spread their personal politics. Their Hollywood community is infested with serious problems - drugs, lies sex and the selling of souls. They are blind to those foul things yet point judgemental fingers.
A diseased society - like a viral infection.
Viruses?
I thought that the WHO was a noble institution, looking out for the well being of the world.
Who knew that China was a founding partner of the WHO - and a major financial contributor? Who knew that the WHO announced on January 12, 2020 that the 'novel coronavirus' was "not transferred person to person"? Who knew that this lie would have such a devastating effect?
Now with a Global pandemic in full force the facts are floating to the top of the information swamp. The gig is up for China and the WHO, except that the global media conspiracy is still covering up.
For a simpleton - the lies are show stopping! Poor Trump - attacked daily by the collusion media - attacked by the late night jokesters and his political opponents; all who have the temerity to appear before cameras and lie. Wow - Hollywood, media, elected officials and WHO, Academy Award actors.
And that is how I learned that I should SHELTER IN PLACE in my sunny seasonal home, and remain calm knowing that what appears to be true is not, rather than return to where my socialist Government makes false promises of fortune for all.
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