NaBloPoMo 2010

Okay, in honor of National Blog Posting Month, I will make a monthly post this month. Yeah, just one--I know it was supposed to be 30.

This has to do with being a Canadian.

My wonderful wife, along with being very supportive, does make fun of me once in awhile, and often it has to do with something from my Canadian upbringing.

One such thing is the way I pronounce "been" to rhyme with "seen". I present the lyrics from a popular song as evidence of the correctness of my pronunciation.

Oh what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night.

This should be a rhyme, right?

However, today on the way home from the funeral of her uncle, we heard the song performed and heard the singer sing "been" like "bin". Sure enough, I am out of touch with others south of the 49th.

I owe my life to sugar

I am currently trying a diet which avoids all sugars, in an attempt to manage the symptoms of rosacia.

This is ironic, because I owe my life to sugar.

My family of origin lived on a farm 7½ miles north of Taber. Our mother worked hard inside the home; laundry, meal preparation, childcare, etc. Our father was working in the fields or with the cattle or farm machinery from sunrise to sunset, and often even in the night. We children helped out as needed, and were expected to do well in school and work on our homework as well.

The family income came solely from mixed farming. We had twenty or so beef cattle, mostly cows (except in the Spring), and a milk cow. We had an extensive vegetable garden and fruit trees and bushes. We grew wheat and pastureland, and, especially, sugar beets. I say "especially" because sugar beets were our biggest cash crop, and provided the bulk of the annual income. This crop gave us our lives, and we gave a good deal of our lives over to it. And risked our lives for it: earlier, I have recounted our father's serious accident with our sugar beet harvester in "Farm Injury".

That is how I owe my life to sugar, even though I may now need to stop consuming it.

One final irony, this one political. Over the years, I have been tempted to criticize farm subsidies. You know, talk about farmers being paid to leave their land fallow, and such. During my teenage years, I learned that our cash crop--sugar beets--was subsidized by the Canadian government. It seems that other sources of sugar, from other countries, were much cheaper than the actual cost of producing sugar from sugar beets. So, a free market economy would put the sugar beet industry out of business. However, Canada wants to be independent of other countries for its sugar supply. Therefore, the Canadian government subsidizes the sugar beet industry so that it remains profitable, and so that Canadians can continue to enjoy reasonably-priced sugar regardless of world conditions.

So, I also owe my life to agricultural subsidies, even though I am a fan of a free economy.

While on the subject of ironies of life-owing, this: since I am descended from the second wife of a polygamous great-grandfather, I owe my life to polygamy, even though I oppose polygamy now.

Playing with food

Okay, this is another bit of proof that I am weird.

Anyone can read this blog, of course, since it is on the public Internet. But, my main purpose in writing it is to record a few things that might be of interest someday to my children. Most of the interesting dialog that happens in my head never goes any further. So, here is a tiny fraction of one evening's worth.

Last night, my wife and I took her son and his girlfriend out to dinner at a Chinese buffet. As usual, I created a symmetrical work of art out of each plateful, as I selected it. The last plate was a bit boring at first, so I played around with it while eating. And--can you believe it?--actually took a picture of it.

This reminded me of eating grapes with my sisters around the kitchen table in the farmhouse when we were kids. Grapes were not an everyday food then, and quite a treat when we got to have some. And, we did things like hold one stem upright, so that it looked like a tree. Then we would tell each other stories about Farmer Brown and his harvest, as we picked and ate one grape at a time. Fond memories.

Friday Flashback: Near-death experiences

Disclaimer: the phrase "near-death experiences" usually refers to cases where a person is medically dead, and subsequently revived. In this post, I am talking about cases where I came close to dying, but did not actually do so.

I will mention four of these in this post, although there have been others.

1. At age 15, I fell with a telephone pole while doing some repairs at the top of it. This has already been told in full in "Fall on a Spring day".

2. At age 20, while walking the streets of Geneva, Switzerland, my companion and I approached a street corner and the sidewalk narrowed to a few inches, so we were walking single file. Just as I reached the corner, a city bus came around the corner with its mirror just missing the wall. It was at eye level. Fortunately, I ducked in time, as did my companion.

3. A few months later, in Béziers, France, I was on "splits" with a Zone Leader. He was able to drive a car (while I only had a "moped") and I was in the passenger seat. We pulled up to a stop sign at a narrow road which allowed trucks to by-pass the city. He looked both ways (even though it was a one-way road) and then, instead of pulling forward, leaned back and continued talking to me about something. Moments later, he must have seen a car pull up behind him, out of the corner of his eye in the rear-view mirror, so he started moving. I saw an 18 wheeler bearing down on us at top speed and so yelled, «attention!» (French for "look out!). He hit the brakes, and the truck hit us. I can still see each set of wheels going up, over the top of our engine, and down. One after the other, each axle of wheels slammed into and over the car, just inches in front of our faces. Strangely, the car wasn't moved laterally. Just smashed. And, we survived uninjured.

4. When I was approaching 40, and had two young children, my wife and I, along with Elizabeth and Andrew were in our Plymouth minivan, south of Springville, Utah. We were stopped at a railway level crossing by blinking red warning lights. There was no barrier. We waited what seemed like several minutes. No train. Must have been a malfunction of some kind? Just as I was relaxing my brake foot and getting ready to cross, a freight train screamed past. Yet another close call.

Friday Flashback: Western stories

False advertising alert: since I grew up in the West, technically all of my stories are Western stories. Well, anyway, let me ramble through a few.

This post is partly about television. Our family purchased a first TV set sometime in the late 50's or early 60's. I particularly enjoyed westerns, especially John Wayne. While watching one one evening, I became enamored of the phrase, "put up your dukes." The next day, I tried it out at school and the kid promptly knocked me to the floor! This was in elementary school, as we were walking out the door for recess. Needless to say, I never used the phrase again (without heavy quotes) and didn't get into any more fights.

About this time, a few friends and I formed a science club in elementary school. One of the kids kind of took everything over, so the rest of us quit the club.

In my Junior High School days, I had a favorite TV show. Just after arriving home on the school bus, Fireball XL-5 came on, and I watched it every chance I had. Even though color TV's were available at the time, we had a black and white set. And, one channel, channel 7 out of Lethbridge.

My sister and I both wrote stories for that western newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press Weekly. The one that appeared from me had the pen name of "Solar Scout," another indication of my early interest in space travel.

All of this dreaming about space travel might have helped motivate me to get good grades, culminating in the ninth grade with my receiving the Governor General's medal. An article in the Lethbridge Herald covered the announcement.


Later, in High School, some of us organized a science club, called the Apogee Scientific Organization. We flew model rockets, among other things.

Just after graduating, during the summer, I hit a softball for the first time in my life (other than practicing alone). It was actually a home run, and very sweet, because one of my former school mates happened to be walking by at the time, and as I ran to first, I heard him ask in wonderment, "was that Conrad who hit that?"

Ingenuity

The seat belt buckle is held above the floor by a little plastic button that is riveted onto the seat belt at the right height. The plastic button is black and visible in the middle of the belt towards the bottom of this picture.


Sometimes, it breaks off. Thereafter it can become difficult to find the buckle, because it can slide along the belt all the way to the floor.

I first tried a safety pin for awhile, reasoning that the small hole in the belt must not be a safety hazard because the hole is there for the original equipment button in the first place. However, when the safety pin comes undone, it can cause some damage to a questing hand.

So, I used a large keyring. Carefully starting it through the pre-existing hole in the seat belt, I worked it around until it was entirely in place, encircling half of the belt. It is clearly visible around the right half of the belt midway down the picture.


This works very well, and the questing hand can find it easily, and without injury.

Friday Flashback: Public Speaking

As most of my readers know, I was raised in a family that belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During the growing up years, we just considered ourselves to be Mormon, and that's what everyone around called us, as well.

Part of the religious practice is to attend a Sunday meeting called "Sacrament Meeting" which includes speakers chosen from among the members of the congregation (called a "ward").

At that time, it was customary to have one or two "youth speakers" start out early on in the meeting. They were customarily followed by two or three adult speakers. When I was 12, I got my first opportunity to be a youth speaker.

When I stood at the pulpit, I began to cry out of fear or tension or something. I couldn't seem to get control. My dad, who was seated on the stand behind me, as a member of the bishopric, came and stood beside me, with his arm around my shoulder, while I composed myself. He sat down once I started to give my talk.

I have always appreciated his gesture. Many a time I overheard him in our home asking my mother with some exasperation, "why is he crying?" I can't remember her answer, nor do I really know myself why. But, I used to cry quite easily as a child.

After this traumatic public experience of crying, I had a stern talk with myself, and mostly control myself ever since.