Last Saturday

My friend that I had known since high school died of COVID September 22, 2022. I had heard that his wife was packing up and moving from their rural property on Saturday into Spruce Grove, Alberta. I did not hear it from her, I heard it from a guy named Terry that has the farm across the road. Terry and my friend Cliff knew each other well. Over the last few years Terry and I have become friends.

I had a set of four tires on rims that were stored in a locked shed on the property that I needed to retrieve. I could have moved them across the road and stored them at Terry's place. A few days before I ran across someone who mentioned that he just bought a car and was looking for the same rims that I happen to have, so I might have them sold.

I got there in the midst of a lot of activity. Her father and his wife, her brother, her sister, and Cliff's mother were there and a lot of stuff was already packed into a U-Haul truck. I got my tires and stuffed them in my car. Cliff's wife was in the yard, she saw me and I her. She made no attempt to come over and talk to me. I know she is going through a lot. Cliff's mother came over to talk to me. I know it is damn tough for her, she had three children, Cliff was the oldest. I asked her to tell Cliff's wife that I wished her well.

I have reason to suspect his wife does not like me. I am indifferent to her. I loved the guy like a brother. He married her because when they were dating they were not careful one time and she got pregnant. They got married, he asked his dad for some help applying for a job, got a job in a mine where he worked close to thirty years and worked hard at his marriage and providing a home.

Some years after high school I lost contact with him and reconnected. When I did meet again he had a wife and a kid that was about three or four so I had to catch up on a lot of stuff I had missed. 

I had heard years ago that she did not like me because I was a bad influence on him. This was really funny as the reverse was true. I had come from a strict household. He was the one that introduced me to some questionable activities. All I will say is that I had fun. If I got him into anything it was getting his motorcycle license. I had mine since I was sixteen. He got his about ten years ago, got a Yamaha Bolt, and loved every minute he was on it.

Terry came over from across the road and he and I spoke for a few minutes. He wanted to say a few words to the family. I stood and waited, looked over the place. Cliff loved the spot. He had one hundred sixty acres that he had grand plans for the future. I doubt his wife liked the place as much as he did. His family is moving off and it will be put up for sale once the legal matters for the estate are settled. Kind of hard to see the remainder of someone's life being dismantled before your eyes.

I met Terry at his place. Terry is a hard working redneck. His property is always neat and the lawn always looks manicured which is in contrast to how Terry looks. He owns a farm property just down the road that has an old truck on it. I asked if he minded if I stopped in and took a photo. I left, drove into the yard, got the photo, and discovered I was stuck in four inches of snow. I drove just far enough onto snow that I thought was hard packed. If I had not driven that four extra feet I would have been fine. I called Terry and he sent his son to rescue me. Off to see mom.

One of my better visits with mom. Mom handed me the Drayton Valley paper when I was there. I have many cousins, some I have not seen in years. One cousin has a kid that has made the local paper several times through the years and not for anything you want to brag about. He got busted by the RCMP for 147 grams of meth, 38 grams of cocaine, 26 grams of fenanyl, stolen property, robbery, driving while prohibited, and whatever else they decide to throw at him at a later date. He is in his thirties and is on pace to spend more of his life in jail than out of jail. I suspect he enjoys being locked up. The vast majority of my relatives are law abiding productive members of society.

Reviewed mom's bills to see what needs to be paid and what has been paid. One the way home I grabbed a pizza because it seemed like a good way to cap off the day.

Michael Truman has photos of one of my favourite places to visit

michaeltruman.blogspot.com/2021/11/more-about-witch-house.html?showComment=1643581256202#c1163223108964950200

Fargo

Recently saw this Fargo pick-up in Hodgeville, Saskatchewan.

Now that's a beauty!

- Michael Truman

Past Presence Website

One July years and years ago . . .

As previously mentioned on this blog I spent some of my grade school years in a place called Cassiar up in northern British Columbia below the Yukon border. I liked the place. I was a company mining town and the mine was Cassiar Asbestos Corporation. There were about one thousand people in the town and we were surrounded by wilderness and mountains. In the winter we got about twenty feet of snow and you could build epic snow forts. The one television channel, which was our national broadcaster, was a drawback. The programming was horrifically boring. I read a lot of books when it was too cold to go out.

I was fourteen and developed a hot appendix one July. Cassiar had two doctors and a building referred to as a hospital. If your injury required much more than first aid you were in trouble. I am not sure how rewarding it was if you were a doctor and somehow ended up in Cassiar.

I was at the hospital once that day and was sent home saying I had a stomach ache. Later I was back at the hospital and then was told I had an a serious case of appendicitis. I needed to go to a real hospital. The doctor made a phone call and my parents were told to take me to the airstrip and wait for the air ambulance. There were a few people that had planes. One was my shop teacher that had some kind of contraption with a metal frame covered in canvas. Some years after we moved away one resident that had a plane died after he flew his plane into a mountain. I digress, the airstrip there was gravel. A straight strip of gravel and nothing else. There might have been a windsock. In the winter people raced snowmobiles on the airstrip. The RCMP officer would use his radar gun to clock snowmobiles for the snowmobile club.

The plane that came to get me was a Seneca. Besides the pilot there was a nurse. The destination was Whitehorse and my mother went with me on the flight. My father and sister joined us a couple of days later. It was a very nice sunny July day spent in agony. The twin engine plane had a smooth, quick, and uneventful ride. The plane landed in Whitehorse and an ambulance pulled right up to the plane on the runway and took me straight to the hospital. No siren but I got the flashing red lights. One of the few times in my life I got priority treatment.

At the hospital the surgeon met me and after a quick exam decided I could wait a few hours. The poor guy just recently finished patching up five people who were injured in a car accident. The flight nurse dropped by to check up on me. I did not see her or many nurses after that, I happened to arrive in the midst of a nurses strike. I got operated on that night.

The doctor did a wonderful job. You can barely see the scar. I was in the hospital for the better part of a week. Due to the strike I ended up in the adult ward with a roommate who was recovering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was accidental, he was out in the woods with a handgun and was jumping over a stream, slipped, and shot himself in the arm. It was not serious. Hopefully he learned something from that incident.

The family was together in Whitehorse and I was being discharged. During my time in the hospital they got to have fun. My father at the time worked for Finning Tractor. Finning flew us back to Cassiar in the company plane. The company plane happened to be a older de Havilland Beaver that was painted Caterpillar yellow.

Interesting experience in a Beaver. They are a single engine plane and probably the best bush plane ever built. Dad sat beside the pilot, my sister and I were behind them, and my mother sat behind us in kind of a rumble seat. Dad had been a heavy duty mechanic for Finning in Terrace, BC and had been flown into remote places to work on equipment. The engine kind of drones as you meander through the sky. Great views from Whitehorse to Cassiar as you climb over mountains and down valleys. You would be flying level, sometimes drop a few feet, then climb back up again.

The flight was uneventful except for the part where the pilot opened his door, was half in and half out of the plane (if I recall correctly I think he unscrewed a cap) and violently pounded his fist on the wing several times. I think there might have been an air pocket in the fuel tank. I was unconcerned as I was not feeling well. Dad had experienced weirder things in small planes. My sister was unfazed for whatever reason. Mom was turning white in the back of the plane convinced the pilot would fall to his death with our soon to be crashing fiery death quickly following. Eventually he accomplished what he wanted to do, pulled himself back in, and closed the door. The landing was uneventful. So went my summer vacation.

If you ever get an opportunity to ride in a de Havilland Beaver take it. Much more fun than appendicitis.

Up yours, winter!

Raining this morning on the way to work. On the way home the temperature dropped a bit and it started snowing heavily and accumulating on the highway. Managed to do the speed limit on the way to work. On the way home it was about twenty to thirty kilometres an hour under the speed limit due to ice and snow.

The gravel country roads are icy with some drifting snow. The schizophrenic weather is not fun.