I tell you, the inmates are running the asylum… again

Canadian television journalist Mike Duffy of CTV. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Canada has a Prime Minister named Stephen Harper.  In case you misunderstand, I do not say that with any pride.  But there he is.  He has a chief of staff named Nigel Wright who it seems has more money than brains.  We also have a Senator named Mike Duffy.  Now Mike is a proven liar and crook who claimed more than $90,000.000 in expenses for a primary residence which was not, and apparently the government (dear dear Mr. Harper), said that if Mikey paid back the 90 grand ‘the government would go easy on him.)* CVT News.

When Mikey repaid the dough the ‘ government praised him for showing leadership.  Now just what has all this proved?

*You can lie, cheat, and steal and as long as some other guy – no not ‘guy’ but the Chief of Staff pulls out his wallet and pays you will be lauded a hero.  A fine specimen of a human being.

*One must wonder just what ethics Nigel used in accumulating his fortune.

*Young up-and-comers to the political scene have now learned honesty no longer exists -did it ever in politics? – just make sure you have the right friends with money and power.

Nigel Wright has taught us that money rinses of the stench of thievery and one must then wonder exactly what did Mikey have on old Nigel.  Or perhaps old Nigel did it to ensure future favors.  Such a circle.  Such an insanity.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/harper-s-chief-of-staff-nigel-wright-slideshow/nigel-wright-appears-house-commons-ethics-committee-tuesday-photo-20101102-145222-488.html

Now I must dash off to send my dear friend Nigel a letter.  I do hope he remembers how close we once were because He could pay off my existing debt although since I did not accumulate it illegally he may not want to help.  Damn.  How can I make it look like a crime?  Oh yeah – he is the crime.

BTW 2 other criminal senators are big time po’d that they couldn’t give Nigel what he wanted cause they have been left out to dry.

Related articles

• Senate expenses: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff wrote cheque to cover Mike Duffy’s expense claims (thestar.com)
• Harper’s chief of staff personally bailed out embattled Sen. Mike Duffy (macleans.ca)
• Mike Duffy made secret deal with Harper’s chief of staff during audit (ctvnews.ca)

A Personal Post

World War II poster from Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not sure that anyone outside ‘the family’ would be interested in this particular post, so don’t feel bad if you pass it by.

Today when looking through some of my writings I came across copies of letters my father had sent to his mom in 1943, and one letter from his younger brother Dick to him.  My father enlisted in the army in 1941 when he was seventeen years old.  Not at all unusual for young fellas back then to enlist underage and to be accepted to go to war.   The Second World War was firmly entrenched and in its second year.  The government made enlisting sound exciting, patriotic and gosh darn it, the right thing to do.

A year later, August 6, 1942 my uncle Dick sent my Dad a letter to his training site in Niagara on the Lake in Ontario.  A few months later my Dad was sent overseas.  These letters are of interest to me of course, because they are a link to a time and people I never knew.  My uncle at the time was about fourteen years old.  It is a nice little look at the times. Spelling, grammar and stroke outs are as in the letter.

The envelope is addressed:  Pri Raymond Gingerich

Reg. No. A-76033 C. Comp

Scots Fusiliers of Canada

Niagara on the Lake M.P.O. 203

Dear Raymond,

I received your letter last night and I would have answered then but didn’t have time.  The scouts went swimming at the pool, and but I didn’t have much fun.  I passed my swimming test and now I just have a couple more tests to pass and I’ll be a second class scout.  I have quite lots of fun these days.  Ostell’s are back from Wo Wasaga beach and now I have someone to play with because I don’t pl;ay with Stan Flaherty anymore because of his “old man”.  One day Stan and I were behind Flaherty’s with some water in bottles and old man Flaherty said, “It is only babys that play with water,” and I said, “goo” and he sold told me to get home and I said it will take a hell of a lot more than him to make me, so I don’t play with Stan anymore.  I would like to be up tere if there is lots of fishing and especially swimming.

Last night when we were at the pool I met a nifty girl and when I was diving off of the board I was loo looking at her when I hit the water I almost killed myself.  I am enjoying my holidays but thery will soon be over and school will starts start again; although I think we will have more fun this year because I will  have more fun this years because I will have old lady Neu Neuman for my teacher.  Please excuse all thos those strokes up there but I wrote one line twice.

We, meaning Johnny Ostell and I are going to save our money to go on hikes this summer and we may get lost and wander down to the canal so if we do , (we will) come and see you.  We are going on a hike some time next week and we have everything cha planned to go to the other side of Preston and we  ,if we get tired we will thumb and if I get a ride with a guy thats going to you yu vicinity I’ll go with him and I not worrying (were about where to sleep or coming back.

Oh, well enough of fooling because I wouldn’t even start to get to Niagara because I likely wouldn’t be ablt to find you anyhow.  Well, I guess I will say So long because I want to try and write to Harry yet to-day sooo……..

So Long,

Your brother

Dick

P.S. I wish you the best with the farmer’s daughter **(drawing of fingers crossed here)

Adios

write soon

So – Long

 

FITFS Barb19 Passionate About Pets and People Australian Style

Well happy Friday everyone!  Fridays are my favorites and all week long I look forward to Following In The FootSteps of someone I admire here in Blog Land.  Someone that I would like, in some small way emulate.  And today it is all about Barb Taylor who truly is passionate about pets and people and I think about everything that lives.

Our Barb is originally from the UK and after some serious world travels (having lived in Germany, Singapore, America and Australia) she settled down on the east coast of sub-tropical Australia.

Like me, she seems to have  started this blog back in January 2011 and committed to postaweek at the encouragement of a friend.  Her second post pretty much encapsulates her philosophy.  She said, “

A hundred years from now,

it will not matter the sort of house I lived in,

what my bank account was, or the car I drove . . .

but the world may be different

because I was important

in the life of animals and the creatures of this earth.

Are You Iimportant in the Life of an Animal?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

©passionateaboutpets.wordpress.com

From that wonderful platform Barb has given us all sorts of treasures about dogs, chickens, dingos, joeys, kangaroos, whales, and even wasps.  And there is more!

The very first time I discovered Barb was waaaay back when she posted on the Town she grew up in called Peebles.  I was so excited because I had just recently returned from Scotland so knew the area she talked about. (I left her more than one comment that day)

March 10th, 2011 ‘I was in Peebles a couple of years ago..just a Canadian girl visiting her mom’s native land…it is beautiful. My Mum was from Gorebridge.  Love the country..love the people and proud to have some of that fine Scots blood in me,
Christine’ 

So I am talking addiction here.  The kind you cannot shake -thank goodness-

As we, in Canada, face the coming fall and winter, Barb is sailing into spring and coming summer.

In September that year she and her hubby flew off to her homeland where she saw her brother for the first time in 25 years.

She is very proud of her adopted country – Australia – and there is a wealth of information about it in her posts.  Matter of fact there is a wealth of information about the world in general.  Living true to her philosophy she is indeed -

important in the life of animals and the creatures of this earth.

Actually I believe she is important in more lives than she realizes.

Passionate About Pets and People Australian Style

Please do stop by to visit, to learn, to feel.  And do say hi or leave a comment or two.  **I so wanted to throw in something about putting shrimp on the barbie since it is a comment linked to Australia and BBQs but just couldn’t work it in anywhere!

Related articles

• FITFS Our Soul Dipper Amy (bridgesburning.wordpress.com)
• FITFS Lenore’s Thoughts Exactly (bridgesburning.wordpress.com)

This Writer: What I Learned on a White Sandy Beach in the Middle of Canada

Grand Beach (Photo credit: Travel Manitoba)

About three weeks ago I spent an amazing eight days on the prairies in a nice little place called Lockport Manitoba.  Now, I had been to the city of Winnipeg in the past on business and did not care for the swarms of homeless who came out of recessed doorways in groups and surrounded me and frightened me so I had no desire to go anywhere in that province ever again.  Lesson one which should not need to be said:  Don’t judge people or a place based on one experience.

Then my dearest friends relocated to Lockport to be closer to family and friends so a little reluctantly I boarded a Westjet and headed out.  Lockport itself and its surrounding beauty will have to wait for another time because today is about the beach.  An easy drive my second day took us to Grand Beach Manitoba.

Now in my experience, Canada does not have a lot of Caribbean comparable beaches, and certainly none that stretch for miles of white sand and dunes.  Shallows extend quite far into the lake making it an ideal playground for families, young people, and seniors.  The second lesson is pretty closely tied to the first:  If you haven’t been somewhere don’t assume it doesn’t exist.  Funny thing is that mountains, rivers and prairies often depict Canada in photos but I can’t remember ever seeing a beach quite like this one.

Grand Beach is fresh water of course, so no, there was no pounding surf.  It lies on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg which is the sixth largest lake in Canada at 9,465 square miles.  The first five comprise of three Great Lakes, Huron, Erie, and Superior, and the other two are in the NWT (Northwest Territories), and are called Great Bear and Great Slave Lake.

I never have considered myself an ornithologist as I can pretty well only identify Blue Jays, Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, and Sparrows.  Oh and Hummingbirds.   But darned if I didn’t learn a couple more things that enriched the experience.  Lesson three:  Birds are incredibly interesting especially when seen in their natural habitat.

Piping Plovers

PIPING PLOVERS (charadrius melodus) are an endangered species of bird protected on Grand Beach.  They are a small sandy colored sparrow sized bird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel. (Just as an aside there are two more things I learned – Manitobans – uh Manitobians – people in Manitoba take their wild life and food markets very seriously – but that’s another story.)

American White Pelican

AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS (pelicanus erythrorohynchos).  Go figure.  If I was on a game show like Jeopardy and my fortune depended on my knowledge of Pelicans in Canada I would be going home in a sorry state.  This spectacular aquatic bird breeds in the North American interior and migrates south each year.  Including its long huge beak it can be between 50 – 70 inches in length and has a wing span of 95 - 120 inches.  Is that amazing or what?  Its bill is flat on top with a large throat sac that allows it to scoop fish out of the water.  Now that is what I call ‘fast food’.

Our Pelicans are both smart and naughty.  They are smart enough that in shallow water they form a line or a semicircle and corral fish.  The naughty part is that they suffer from Kleptoparasitism which means they steal food from other birds.  Thieves they are.  Their victims can be other Pelicans, Gulls, or Cormorants.  Wikipedia reports that at least on one occassion the victim was a great Blue Heron who lost its treasure mid-flight.

Now some of you are shaking your heads and saying you knew all this but it was new and exciting for me and here is the last lesson: Just because I am old(er) and at times feel like I have the wisdom of Methusala  never ever assume that there is nothing I can’t continue to learn and that learning is still exciting.

Now before I dash off to find out what the heck a Cormorant is I will leave you with a wee limerick my father liked to recite to us as children written by Edward Lear.

A wonderful bird is the Pelican.

His beak can hold more than his belly can.

He can hold in his beak

Enough food for a week!

But I’m darned if I know how the hellican!

 

 

 

Let’s Pretend Tuesday is Monday: Oh the Plots We Weave

I know!  I know!  There is a large percentage of people who hate Mondays.  Really hate them.  That first workday of the week signifies the end of weekend fun and the beginning of toil.  Now you see, for me, Mondays have always been about new starts, list of goals and objectives to be reached.  A day of such optimism.  Fridays conversely are not so much as I must come to terms with what I did not achieve.

Today ( Monday) is always ‘Oh The plots We Weave’ day when we look at a couple of actual news stories and comment of ‘what ifs’.   This sort of came about when I would post on a news piece and generally rant or comment.  Then I got thinking, this is where stories and books come from.  News stories, observing momentary interactions and letting our imaginations fly.

So first thing right out of the front page of the HAMILTON SPECTATOR there are 2 items which caught my eye and my ‘Oh Lord where is the sanity when you need it’ button.

1)  FATHER SUES PUBLIC BOARD OVER ITS GAY EQUITY STAND   Oh Boy, this isn’t even some backwoods notion, it comes straight from the mind of Eustathios ‘Steve’ Tourloukis a dentist in Smithville.  His claim is that as a praciticing member of his Greek Orthodox Church his rights are being violated.

Now now children, play nice.  Would someone please point out to our dentist that this province provides a large number of Christian Churches with the sole purpose of raising students in the environment you desire and that his child or children are part of a PUBLIC school.  You know Public as in every one of every denomination is free to attend.

‘ What if”?  What kind of plot could we develop from this little bit of information?  Well it could be the father has to loudly decry the learning material because he is in a personal secret struggle from these very urges…nah that is too common a thread.  ‘What if’  ..ah you know what?  Whichever way this plot goes it could be trouble.  Can you think of anything provoking?

2)  COURT ORDERS LONG-GUN DATA TO BE TRANSFERRED TO QUEBEC  I have to admit that there are a couple of things about Canada that make me squirm a bit perhaps even to the point of embarrassment and the Gun Registry is one of them.  Several years ago a registry was put in for guns.  It was badly managed, very expensive and about as effective as flying into the sun.  So now in a fit of rare insight it was decided to take down, nullify, disband, destroy, the long-gun registry.  In doing so the government continuing of its life long mission to give meaning to ‘stupid’, ‘most stupid’, decided to also destroy all the information they had gathered on the registry quest.  One province spoke up – Quebec – who is trying to keep its portion of the registry alive.  The Quebec court said the government has no right to destroy registry data….

‘What if”?  We created a super hero to fight stupidity -  faster than a speeding bullet? Where to start? Where to start?  Well first there will be the need to gather up all politicians and give each one’s head a good shake so they in fact will have their heads on straight.  Could you imagine a world where everyone was sane in political arenas?

What if then our dentist had the same thing happen?  Hello!  A moment of clarity!  I think I will send my child to a school that does meet my requirements for education.

**Please note there are far and wide implications in each of these cases.  There is also more detailed info that one needs to consider before being pro or con.  The only consideration I have presented in the subject matter as a possible story line or plot.  Besides the fiction will certainly be more interest than the reality of it all.  I think.

Related articles

• Christian father sues Ontario school board for ‘religious accommodation’ (toronto.ctvnews.ca)
• Science confirms: The only workday we like is Friday (deathandtaxesmag.com)
• Feds get deadline to hand over Quebec gun registry data (ctvnews.ca)

Scottish Invasion Recedes, Next Step Winterpeg

Well, Monday and ‘Oh the Plots We Weave’ has come and gone.  Not much news to have fun with anyway around here in these suddenly less summery and more autumny kind of days.  As my friend Celi called it yesterday in her post ’that gentle late summer slide.’

There have been body parts showing up in the Mississauga and Toronto area and the school teachers may end up going on strike (again) which will delay the start of the school year but no wonderful ‘what ifs’ to get from any of that.

Our fave cuz has returned to Scotland taking with her some fine memories and leaving a strange void which will take time to get over.  This dear gracious woman left Saturday past to race back in hopes of enjoying some remnant bit of summer that had eluded her until she arrived here.  Well not entirely true.  After a couple of months of daily rain showers on the home front she looked forward to the 30 degree heat wave we boasted. Until the day her plane set down in Toronto bringing with it our very first thunderstorm of the season.  The funniest part was the morning she awoke, checked FB to see her son had written that it was nice to wake up and not have his sunburn hurt.  It seemed old Sol made an appearance just as she left.

Actually the weather was pretty good here and did not rain on our parade too much and it sure was nice some of that brown earth actually turned green and at times lush.

So now here on the mountain I get ready to leave to visit friends in Winnipeg and will fly out early evening for 8 days.  Now Winnipeg  is the capital of Manitoba just less than a thousand miles to the west of us. They have branded themselves ( according to one site) as the cultural cradle of the country.  I am not sure that is entirely the case – whether it is more so or less so than a hundred other locations in Canada.  The French were the first settlers in 1738 and named it Fort Rouge.  Almost a hundred years later it was renamed Fort Garry and finally after 150 years of messing around between the First Nations, the Metis, the French and the British it became Winnipeg in1873, which is a much better name since it so easily converts to its winter ID – Winterpeg.  Wikipedia states that Winnipeg is the coldest city in the world with a population of over 600,000 based on the average night-time temperature from December to February, inclusive.

It is of course my intention to be and gone before any suggestion of winter winds appear.  I have not seen, (other than Skype) these dear friends for more than a year.

Posting may be sporadic – but I will be thinking of  you and post as soon as…..

Oh by the by …my friend Joss is preparing for a big exam please do stop by and cheer her on!

Oh the Plots We Weave: Fictional Life

Stephen King explains in his book, ‘On Writing‘ how he comes up with some ideas for plots or characters.  In the course of his day he is acutely aware of people and events around him.  It can be a furtive glance from someone or and interaction played out and while he may not know what is truly happening his genius mind begins to question – what if?

So let’s take a look at a couple of possible fiction opps out of this week’s news.

OH ODA – Skip the Juice

Canadian Politics and its politicians are in my opinion dull, classless, lacking luster, crooked, self serving…um better skip this part and contine on…

Bev Oda was most recently Minister for International Co-operation.  HUH?  Me too.

Anyway she ended up resigning from the government for putting a $16 glass of orange juice on her tab.  Oh and $1000/day limo costs. Oh and she apparently altered a document which resulted in denied funding to an ‘aid agency’ (whatever that is).  And I have not read yet anything about her general work quality performance.

Possible What If Fiction ideas (if it isn’t already)

Perhaps Oda had a highly classified job so secret it cannot be divulged to the public and suppose she came across information vital to the survival of mankind.  But just suppose those in power decided to take her out. *In Canada we don’t ‘take people out’ if you know what I mean.  We just make them blush out of shame, lower their heads and shuffle out the door with their $52K pension in their back pockets.

Hmm on second thought maybe this is not the best story to do a ‘What if’.  How about this one?

LUNCH ON THE GO

A woman in Georgetown was sitting eating her lunch at her desk which was located in the foyer of a fitness centre.  An SUV crashes through the large window, strikes her carrying her in the desk chair through the back wall into an office where she was found under the SUV but still in her desk chair.  No mention was made of what happened to her lunch.

Possible plot ideas?

There are quite a few that come to mind but consider:

The driver’s husband was having an affair with the lunchee and while the wronged woman had no planned intent to attack when she saw her enemy so clearly framed in a wide picture window and spotted her smug smile as she ate her lunch with relish (ha ha) the jilted wife found she had no control as her hands gripped the wheel and her foot put peddle to the metal and before you knew it the deed was done.

Of course in another scenario it is possible the driver saw the lunchee pick up a glass…a glass of orange juice..and assuming it was one of those deadly $16 glasses of OJ she sped through the window to prevent the woman from committing a Bev Oda!

Y’all have a nice rest of your Monday!

A Story Plot Free to Blogging Authors or Canada’s Justice System at Its Best

A Story Plot Free to Blogging Authors or Canada’s Justice System at Its Best

Some reporters do an excellent job reporting facts to the public accurately and without  judgement – just the facts ma’am just the facts.  And one of those reporters is The Hamilton Spectator‘s Ken Peters.  My first draft was filled with sarcasm scathing and railing against our shame the Canadian Legal system and our Justice system.  But what good would that do?  It would serve only to spread anger.

So as I read through the article I thought to myself, what if this was a plot?  A story outline? Perhaps one of you could use it. So without a turmoil here is a bit of information:

Characters *note these names are real so you will have to change them*

a). Dean Paquette – Defense Lawyer* get over the usual Perry Mason, LA Law idea that all defense lawyers are good and right.  No judgement here..just sayin.

b). Assistant Crown Attorney Carey Lee.

c). Reverend Jose Silva Roman Catholic priest and alleged perpetrator.

d). Ministry spokesman Brendan Crawley for Ministry of the Attorney General

e). Crown Attorney Tim Power

f). Deputy Crown Attorney Tony Leitch

g) Marcus Soares posted bail

h) Diocese of Hamilton

STORY LINE: B & A Make a deal that if C leaves Canada no prosecution.

A says if he never comes back he will never be arrested.

C returns home to his native Brazil

E states the ministry will investigate. Uhuh.

B is on a 6 month sebatical and presumablcabin not be reached.

E is on vacation and cannot be reached

F says no comment except to say there are no plans to attempt to have Silva extradited

H announced C resigned but H did pay for a portion of C’s legal bill

A says the sexual assault was on the ‘low end’ and C is a man of the cloth

G posted bail

A says the bail money would not be forfeited as part of the negotiation

A says C’s passport and visa were close to expirery so A obtained a valid passport for him.

**My additional,comment – Aside from the appearance that Canada has established a way to get rid of perverts without justice to the victims and to infect the rest of the world by shunting off its poisons there is one major consideration.

WHAT IF THIS GUY WAS INNOCENT?  No one wins in this situation and at this moment I don’t I will be waving any ‘yay I am Canadian’ flags.

Following in the footsteps…..Jaime

I have a few, well quite a few blogs I read everyday – must read everyday even when I cannot find the time to blog or actually have nothing to say. (Who ever thought such a thing could happen to  me?)

What has me stymied is that many bloggers actually have a system or plan to what they post and for the life of me I cannot find a personal theme and through my own good taste read only the best of the best.  (This statement may not be 100% accurate as one cannot possibly read every blog to determine the best.  Let’s just say everyone I have on my list excels.)  Amazingly enough it is the excellence of my bloggers that has made me feel a certain degree of shyness in putting my own contributions forward and the frequency of my posts and my writing in general has suffered mightily.  So still feeling overwhelmed by the sharing the stage with the greats I have pledged to return to blogging daily in the hopes that my personal genre will become evident since not writing at all has done nothing good for me. Nuts, there I go getting off track.  I guess what I am trying to say – short story long is that for a bit I would like to follow in the footsteps of these great folk. The order of presentation from day to day is not related to best first since I consider all I read ‘best’.

Today I am looking at Jaime who has a couple of things going regularly one of which is her ‘What I learned this week’ series.  Now I don’t have the patience to choose articles over a week but there is usually one day of the week in which the news reported seems just plain ridiculous and begs comment.

1)  Food Fetish Teacher * previous post of The Ontario College of Teachers   I have long had an issue with this College for its ability to hide teachers’ crimes from the public.  There have been changes – thankfully or rather nauseatingly.  Gavin Bradford lost his licence for inappropriate sexually laced on-line  web cam conversations WITH AT LEAST 21 OF HIS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS.  Sorry about the shouting but the worst part is that this all happened in 2006.  Investigations started in 2007 a full year before this jerk actually resigned.  Shame, shame, shame on you College of Teachers.  Obviously child safety in Ontario, Canada matters everywhere except in the school system where children spend their whole childhood.

2)  Beware the libraries in Ontario.  Seems that sniffer dogs (specializing in bed bugs) have picked up the scent of BEDBUGS in our libraries.  While no live bedbugs were found in the books, the eggs were.  I immediately thought of my friend who loves her library.  She will be weirded out.  Too bad they can’t teach sniffer dogs to dig up fetish freaks in education.

3)  ”Slut walk returns”.  Never heard of this before and I immediately pictured something like Hollywood’s walk of fame and wondered if the city was building a special walkway for local sluts but discovered instead it is a walk to combat sexual violence and victim blaming.  I wonder if sexual violence to non-sluts is also covered?

4) “Cops bust 154 drivers in Binbrook”  Nice.  Too bad they did not put the same effort into busting bad teachers.

Well that pretty much covers today.  There probably is more but to tell you the truth I am sick of news for now.  At least I did not come across anything about TomKat divorce.  I know I would not be able to keep my breakfast down on that one.

 

Terramundi and Centennials and Birthdays

Friday June 8th was not only my birthday but also the city of my birth, Kitchener Ontario.  The city was 35 when I was born and I think that is about all I will say of that.  Its original name was Berlin and it was renamed when the first World War took place.  I guess our city fathers felt Berlin was a little Germanic considering so it was named after Lord Kitchener.  It did not change the fact that the largest population was German.  The city apparently boasted a spectacular bust of Kaiser Whilhelm 1 and a few days after war was declared three young Berlin men (Fred Bolton, Alan Smith and John Ferguson) toppled the bust and dumped it into the lake at Victoria Park.  Unfortunately in 1916 there was considerable animosity from the non-German residents.

It has been interesting reading the history pages on line as many of the names we have for parks and streets are linked to the actual people living at the time.

In 1920 Charles How’s Royal Cafe was raided by Kitchener police who seized a large amount of opium and smoking equipment so I guess drugs in the cities have a long history.

In 1922 we were visited by William Lyon Mackenzie King who was then Prime Minister and a native son of our wee town.  Not so wee since 10,000 people came out to meet him .

Canadians are known to be generally a polite tolerable people however 1925 saw a clandestine attempt to oraganize a Kitchener chapter fo the Ku klux Kan that ended through disinterest.  The organizers met in a private home but two Daily Record reporters ‘were able to glimpse a’crowd’ of three around a table.’

In 1927 it seemed there were bootleggers to be caught and in 1928 the city’s Health Department found two gypsy families living in an abandoned store and shooed them out.

The first of the famous Five and Dime stores opened in 1932 by Walter Zeller.  I remember my mom still calling them Five and Dimes.  In 1936 specific mention is made of a shoemaker William Thoms who road his bicycle from home to work every day for a distance of 12 miles.  It was estimated he cycled a total of 131,400 miles.  The distance would have been much greater but during the winters he had to walk and they did not tally up those miles.  He stopped, or retired I guess at the age of 82.

One hanging was detailed in 1940.  Reginal White who was the third and final person to ever be so disposed of for a crime in the city.

1942 mention of note was that the local library reported many strange things found in books used as markers, but none so strange as a slice of bacon.

It was not until 1946, on Devember 24th that Canadian women were given equal status under the new Citizenship Act.

There are many interesting facts listed at kitchener100.ca by decade.

So while my own history did not come close to the city of my birth it was an incredible event.  This was our first Terramundi party.  I had decided I did not want any gifts as I could not think of a single desire.  Terramundi is perfect.

According to the accompanying tag:   (In the picture below mine is the blue and pink). ‘This is an Etruscan Money Amphora. These money pots have been used in Italy for the last 2,000 years and their hand thrown design has remained the same.  Examples can be seen in the British Museum.  TRADITION:  ONce the first coin is dropped the money pot must be fed til full, then smashed whilst making a wish.  It is customary to replace pot and spend money on good things.  Pots bring fortune.  There is a fortune coin in each pot.

The whole idea was that instead of bringing a gift bring a Loonie or Toonie ($1.00 or 2.00 coin) and throw it in the pot and make a wish.  Everyone was way to generous with me but the idea remains pure.

So folks that was my start to an amazing weekend!

Terramundi Money Pots