AND ALL THE WILD TIMES I OVERLOOKED WHEN WRITING THIS BLOG

Here I sit at the start of year 2024, staring into my screen, wondering what I will write about next. I am not having any great “AHHA” moments. So, I start to read thru a list I had made before I started this journey. Basically, what I did, early on, was to jot down short sentences of things that may trigger my memory. I basically jotted down anything that came to mind. I just kept this list for reference, in case I ever run out of stories. Something like throwing crap against the wall to see what might stick. Many times throughout this journey, I have referred to this list for inspiration. And many times, it has helped to remind me of a memory, story or event that had slipped into the crevices of my mind. So now I am reading it again.

After writing 355 articles from our past, I am sure that the list has, by now, outlived its usefulness. I cannot imagine that there could be much else to say. Or, for that matter, much else that anyone would care to read about. Surprisingly, and too my amazement, contrary to my first premise, there are a lot of memories that I never put to paper. However, in line with the second premise, there are probably few that anyone would suffer through reading about. So, I’m about to go “off-road” a bit and see if I can write a few short sentences about each of them. I am going to write them regardless of timing or location. I will pay no heed to history, only poetry.

Let’s say it is kind of a “mop” up of snippets that ended up on the cutting room floor. I am now going to sweep them up and patch them back together. Maybe they will fill in short periods of time, that were empty of memory or event. When reading this, trip down the path of discarded memories, if you find anything that you would like me too expound on, please leave me a comment. I will do it with pleasure. Please remember, that, when leaving a comment, it is not posted immediately. Rather it is held in a “queue” until I can verify that it is not some sicko, trying to send us a virus. Or perhaps some sick puppy trying to publish bad stuff using my blog. Usually I check every couple of hours and post comments as soon as I know it is you.

Early 1970’s – This is a second hand memory of Deysi’s dad as told to me by Deysi. Papi ruled his clan and was not known for running a democracy. He knew a lot of things. One of which was medicines. From what I am told, he came up with some cures, that would make modern medical science, cringe. One of my favourites was his cure for “anything”. He would take a jar, throw in a few raw eggs, add some lemon juice. Swirl it around and seal the jar. This would then be put in a dark place for 3 months. If you ever got “sick” around him, you were going to get a good shot of his cure. Apparently after three months, it had morphed into a nice, yellow, yummy looking, sauce.

Needless to say, I expect this family was the healthiest in all of Peru! I cannot imagine any of them complained about anything that might get them a spoonful of the cure. According to Deysi, even if he could have found her and tied her up, she said, he still couldn’t have made her drink the egg cure-all. And even now after all of those years, she is still very emphatic about that. She looked at me very seriously when she said it. I totally believe her. I don’t think, even Papi, was tough enough to make Desyi take a drink of that concoction.

Or possibly his thick “lung” broth. Too make this, he would chop up whatever cows lungs he came across in the market. Into this he added all of the other pieces of offal attached to the lungs (but not the stomach parts). And then rendered the whole concoction down. To the point where he had a nice thick “lung” (gravy like) broth. He would then give you a spoonful to make you strong. Especially if you ever complained of any weakness. Apparently, Deysi had one dose of his strengthening agent. She said that, she ran to the garden and violently threw it all up. Never again did she ever feel weak in his presence.

Or one of my all-time favs. Papi got a HEN, not an ordinary chicken. He then took that nice yellow fat from it, put it in a jar and placed it in the sun. Now if you ever got a cold, you were going to get the sun cured chicken fat rubbed on your back. Probably smelled a way better than our “Vicks” cure that we were given. Or Deysi’s younger sister Lupe’s fav. Papi took all the eggshells he could find and ground them to a powder which he fed to her to strengthen the broken bone in her arm. He was full of these miracle drugs. According to Deysi, only Mami and Deysi’s brother Arnie were willing consumers of Papi’s cures. The rest run and hid.

1971 – I remember this flashback vividly. I was young and embarking on my career in Engineering and Construction. I was living in Calgary, and had been sent to work on a job in Saskatchewan. It was located due east of Saskatoon. I drove there, from Calgary with one of our project engineers. I must say Saskatchewan was as flat as everyone said. The highway was pretty much straight, from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Anyway about 3 in the afternoon we are riding, I’m half asleep, and half driving, when lo and behold, in the ditch on the side of the road, we encountered two locals, in full gear, FISHING IN THE DITCH! Not a tree, mountain or lake in sight. Right on the side of the Yellowhead Highway. About 30 miles further on, I ask my partner, “did you see that?”. His reply, “Yes, but I’m trying not to think about it!“

1971 – I also remember fondly, of another time in Lanigan Saskatchewan, working on the Alwinsal Potash Mine. I had been there a few months, and as always eagerly awaited paydays. On one particular Friday, I got paid and couldn’t wait to fly in and cash my check. I was so broke that on opening my wallet to check the status, one hungry looking moth flew out. And that was all I had. So I jumped in my vehicle and headed for town. I came flying up to the bank, hop out and give a tug to the door. What the hell? It was locked. I see a sign that reads, “GONE CURLING SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!” Geezus, and so was every other business in town! A whole town, locked down tight! I then drove 70 miles to Saskatoon, to cash my pay check.

1972 or so – On this very same Project, I encountered a wild character. He was truly a “free spirit”. He was of First Nations heritage and worked for us as an ironworker. This guy was was big and strong and danced to his own tom-tom. We became fast friends. His work was in an area where they were installing a huge steel cylinder. It was used to dry out the potash after it was mined. This cylinder was about 12 foot diameter and about 15 feet long. Protruding out the side of it were two 12 foot long tubes about 6 inch diameter. Inside these tubes, each had a big-ass steel ball.

The principal was, as the dryer turned, one ball would roll to the end of the tube, while on the other side, the other ball came hurtling down the other tube and slammed into the cylinder. The steel ball crashing onto the side of the cylinder was meant to loosen any Potash sticking to the drum during the drying process. And then the tube turned half cycle and the other one came crashing down. The crash it made was deafening! It sounded like a church bell just went off in your eardrum. A half turn later the first one came hurtling back down and CLANGGGGGG. This went on day and night, whenever this piece was operating.

This noise really pissed the big guy off. Somedays he had a raging hangover and this banging, drove nails through his skull. I remember one day shortly after it was totally operational, when a few of our big-shots, got together to show our customer’s, big-shots, our progress. The “suits” were all walking around nodding and murmuring and otherwise, pretending that they knew something. As they passed the big drying drum, there was an ominous silence. Not even a tiny ping. The cylinder turned but the “cleaners” did not hit the drum to loosen the sticking potash.

There was a lot of red faced mumbling and teeth sucking going on in that group. Later it was found out that “someone” had “tack-welded” the balls tight into the tubes so they could not roll down and crash against the drum. Nobody “ratted out” who did it. However, later, when I passed by my big friend, he had a “shit eating grin” from ear to ear. I suddenly knew the answer to everyone’s question.

1975 – I vividly remember my dad sitting in his rocker in Red Deer, surrounded by his grandchildren. It could have been D1, D2, D3, Mel, Michi, Mikey, and Kris. He would have his pants tucked up inside of his best cowboy boots. After all, it was his opinion that if you pulled your pants over the tops of your boots, then nobody could see how fancy they were. The cowboy hat would be on his head. He would have his guitar out and sing his favorite Hank Snow, Tex Ritter or Roy Rodger songs to his enthralled audience. Mom would be on the other side of the room, tapping her fingers and supervising the whole performance. These were their happy times.

1988 – The Grand Canyon. This is another memory of Deysi’s father. He was here, standing with about half his feet sticking out into the Grand Canyon. He just stood there rocking back and forth, not a care in the world. My heart stopped. It was about a 5000′ straight drop into the Colorado River from where he stood. I know I felt a loosening of my bowels. I sidled over to Desyi and told her, “I’m not climbing down there to get his body if he falls!” “You hear me?” However, in the end, we all know that I would have been rappelling down that cliff to retrieve him.

1988 – Also on the famous trip to the Grand Canyon, I remember leaving there in the afternoon, hellbent for Vegas and a change of scenery. I wish I could blame Deysi or her parents, or the girls for this one. But alas I cannot. I am cruising down the interstate. Not a car in sight. Not a tree or even a signboard. I am making good time. There is nary a twist or turn in the highway. It was as flat and as barren as the Atacama Desert in Peru. I’m really into the drive now, thinking of early dinner in Vegas and a few games of chance. All of the sudden, from nowhere appears a state trooper behind me, lights flashing and siren howling. Lord knows where he came from. He must have been hiding under a rock or something.

Geezus, well maybe I can talk my way out of this one. After all, we are foreigners, and maybe innocent of USA traffic rules. He strides over, not looking particularly friendly. “License and registration’ please,” he drawls. “where you going, where you live and what is your hurry?” he asks. “We’re going to Vegas, we are from Can…..” Here I stop, OMG I just remember we now lived in Ogden Utah about 3 hours from where we now sat! I was just about to blurt out Canada and then hand him an Utah driver’s license. I tried to charm him, but he was not a sympathetic type. He gave me a ticket for $180. Hell, before I even got to Vegas, I was nearly $200.00 in the hole.

1993 – I remember driving from Pennsylvania to Canada to visit the family. Once there, we piled Papi, Mami, Desyi and Ange in the car for a look at the Rockies. At one point we end up in the Columbia Ice Fields (a major glacier). We board a bus for a tour of the ice. I will never forget Papi, once the bus had stopped, wandering over and standing on the ice, above a crevice, rocking back and forth, while staring into eternity. My heart never beat with the same rhythm ever again. You couldn’t yell out, because that may have just been the little thing that jerked him over the edge and into the abyss. I know this sounds much like the Grand Canyon memory and it was. Possibly slightly more scary because, here, he was standing on ice.

1994 – Shortly after we returned for a brief stay in Canada, in 1994, we found a nice house by a relatively new golf course in Calgary. We did not stay there long until we found a home to purchase a few blocks away. One very vivid memory was of Ron and one or two of her friends selling lemonade over the fence in our backyard to each of the golfers as they teed off. They were young teenagers then, but even so, seemed to attract a lot of business. I’m not sure anyone ever turned down their offer of cold drinks. They had Deysi making juice and baking cookies and struggling to keep up. These girls screeched hysterically and giggled as each group showed up to tee off. Lord knows what they were talking about? I’m sure I didn’t then; and don’t want to know, even now!

1996 – Another memory of our brief time in Calgary in the early 1990’s, also happened in our house by the golf course. Ange was, about 10 years old, and by now felt very capable of making life decisions. One day she hops up to the table and announces that her days of playing the piano are over. Ron had just informed us that under no circumstances would she be bullied into taking piano lessons any longer. She viewed it as a form of abuse. Well Ange sees her sister get away with it and decides to try it on. The words are just out of her mouth when her sister says, “Hell no, you’re not. I had to do it until I was 16.” Deysi considers her decision and says, “Ange it is your turn to clean the table, AND THEN GET IN THERE AND PRACTICE!” Well, she had tried.

1996 – This recollection is of a visit we made to Rockford, Maryland, at Christmas. We went there to visit our friends C, the Kiwi and Rosco. Over the years we had worked together and raised our families together. They, like us, also loved to travel and look at things. This particular time, C had invited us all out to a new style Pizza place, called California Pizza. What was unique was that they had had broken away from the traditional salami/pepperoni pizzas. The now served them topped with “anything”. We were just sitting and minding our own business. Patiently waiting for our orders. When, for about the fourth time in 20 minutes along came a “manager” to inquire how was our food. At that point we had been served about half of our orders.

You could see C, was desperately trying to control himself. And I think would have been successful if that person had not made one more final stop. He was just beside himself begging us to tell him how wonderful he was and his food. Well I can see C starting to lose it. I know the signs well. On the outside he looks calm, but I know there is a raging volcano inside. So he stands up and asked, “do you really want to know how we are enjoying our meal?” Eagerly, with head bobbing up and down, with a face splitting grin, he says, “Oh yes sir”. C starts on him. It reminded me of a job site meeting with him in charge where someones ass was about to get “nurtured”.

He starts like this; “You asked me how the food is, well let me tell you this, I wouldn’t know because mine has not yet arrived!” He adds, “meanwhile some of the others are almost finished.” Now he is getting up a full head of steam, the girls were looking the other way. Myself and Rosco were enjoying the show. He continues, “and of the meals we had delivered, one was the wrong one.” “We kept it so we didn’t have to wait another 30 minutes to get a replacement.” “Now we were sitting here peacefully, trying to make the best out of the poor service, and you come along about every 5 minutes to solicit a compliment.” At this point the manager wishes he were someplace else, however C is not letting go of him now.

He then puts the final bullet in him by saying, “and I don’t blame the staff, it’s obvious they have no guidance and are mostly likely confused”. I’m enjoying myself a lot, and have a few things that I could have added. However, C is doing just fine by himself. I just sat back and enjoyed it. Almost certainty this manager, thought long and hard before going on to the next table, to hound them for a compliment. I also expect some poor waiter had his ass handed to him, when the manager got back into the kitchen. The moral of this story is “if you ask a question that you don’t already know the answer too, you risk being blindsided by something that maybe you weren’t expecting.”

1998 – This memory is about Ron helping me finish the basement in our home in Edinburgh, Scotland. This, was, so she could have her own “space” away from us. I might say, at this point, that this was one of the few times in her young adulthood, that we spent time together. She wanted her own domain so badly, that even putting up with my endless chatter and life lessons was worth it to her. She hauled materials, helped with the layout, tapped on a few nails and even cracked a fingernail, I think. Of course she reported all of my failings and inadequacies directly to her mom.

However, we did do it, and after a couple of evenings and weekends of putting up with me, she did finally have her own space. We did not have metal studs, nor could we put in anything permanent. But with the strategic use of curtains and dividers we did manage to make a private area for her to move in to. It might not have been as beautiful as her quarters in Calgary, but it did work. Thereafter, you had to ask permission before entering her domain. But In the end, she did not stay down there long, before deciding that her room upstairs was more to her standards.

2008 – This next one is vivid in my mind. It is very hard to write about and not offend someone. However, that is not my intent. I write it merely, to show another situation we found ourselves in, that we previously had no experience with. It all started one fine Saturday morning, in summer, during a retirement trip by Deysi and myself to London. We were trying to find something fun to do, and decided to take a train ride to the beach. We had oft-times heard of Brighton Beach. So, not knowing another beachside destination, we boarded a train at Heathrow and headed Southeast towards the beach.

We buy our tickets and climb aboard a railcar, packed with what appeared to be football hooligans. I was a little nervous, recalling horror stories, I had read, about innocents caught in the middle of a soccer riot. The only thing I noticed different about this group of hooligans was that they all wore colourful costumes, had loud makeup on, painted hair and many of them were showing a lot of skin. I thought maybe this is how they stir up their enemies, by taunting them with outrageous costumes. They sang and danced, drank and hugged each other, all the way to Brighton beach. At that point they spilled off the train. OMG, I’m thinking, We have landed ourselves in the middle of a soccer riot. Will we escape with our lives?

We got down off the train and were immediately engulfed in a crowd of laughing, singing, hugging and smooching people. The crowd surged towards city centre. We just kind of surged along with them trying to stay inconspicuous. In reality we stuck out like two chickens in the wolf’s den. As we are headed toward the centre of the city, the crowd gets more intense, louder and a little more excited. I am pretty much sure that we will be recognized as fans from the opponents team, and immediately be beat to a pulp. Once again, as often in my life, I am scared speechless. Deysi has a tight grip on my arm. However, I’m thinking, soon I’ll be making a break for freedom. At that time it will pretty much be every man for himself.

As we approached downtown Brighton, we spied a hotel. Quickly we sidestepped out of the crowd and into the lobby. We found a sort of bar/coffee shop and took a seat. The waiter comes by and I ask, “who’s playing today mate?” He looks a bit puzzled but finally understands. He says, “the Brighton Gay Pride Parade is on today”. “You are right in the middle of it”! Now it’s my turn to be a bit puzzled. I turn to Deysi who tells me what it means. If that was meant to put my mind at ease, it failed miserably. I now felt even more conspicuous. You have to remember, I was still an innocent, even at this advanced age. I knew only what was fed to me by the media of the day. I still felt, that we might be in for a good “pillaging”, anyway.

As it turned out, we separated ourselves from the parade and spent our day, by ourselves, on the fisherman’s wharf. Everyone else, of course, was in the heart of town taking part in the festivities. All in all, it was a great day at the beach, and I learned that this crowd was far better than the football hooligans that I had thought we had fallen in with. The saddest part of this whole side trip was that I cannot find any pictures of it. I believe it was in the days of my movie camera when I taped everything. Oh well, that does not mean that this memory is not true. I can still see the images of our trip in my mind. So there! And yeah, sometimes, I can even hear the voices!

2012 – Or how about the time that Deysi’s family’s neighbours, in Peru, come up with a great money saving idea. Seems like they got their heads together and decided to climb the power pole outside of the house. The way they figured it was by “tapping” into the power line, they could connect free electricity to part of their house. What the hell, who needs the power company to do something that easy? Well up they went, and within about 30 minutes they had created a power outage to a whole section of the city. If I remember correctly that outage lasted the better part of 24 hours. Deysi remembers it slightly different she said they were up that pole stealing cable TV service, and tapped into the wrong line. Either way the end result was the same.

I also remember Ange, not too many years ago, when she moved to Victoria. It seemed that she had a difficult time trying to find some place to live. She looked at quite a few apartments, but none “jumped” out and “grabbed” her. One day she is speaking of a friend who just moved to town and was in an apartment. My question was, “Ange how did she find an apartment so fast, when you can’t?” Her reply, “Dad she has no standards!” I will leave you with that thought. I have cleared up a few random snippets of the past. Oh well, I can now get back to my memories of the retirement years. I can just imagine how excited you are. Hell I cannot even say, that, I am looking forward, to any more “old man” stories, either.