Even they're fed up

I asked my Filipino cleaner if she would be voting Liberal next election.  As you know, almost all immigrants and permanent residents tend to vote Liberal.  "Absolutely not," she replied.  "They are ruining everything!"

So, there you have it.  If she isn't voting Liberal, presumably many others like her aren't.  Please G-D!!!!!  Deliver us from this evil!

She came legally and waited the prerequisite number of years before arriving.  But we now see that hundreds of thousands are jumping the queue via the foreign student scam.  Asylum claims from this bunch have jumped more than 1,500 per cent in the past five years.  1,500 per cent!!  That's a scandal encouraged by the Liberals who have allowed this since they came to power 12 years ago.

The study-permit system is being exploited as a way to enter and remain here because it's much easier to obtain than even a visitor's visa.  And it's working very well, thank you.  In 2018, there were 1,515 claims; by 2023 that number had soared to 25,465!  And, of course, they get to stay here while their claims are being adjudicated.   

Basically, we're f-cked.  Are these "students" actually studying at a college or university?  Of course not.  They enroll and bugger off, encouraged by immigration consultants who tell them it's an easy way to get into Canada.  "A lot of immigration lawyers are telling them to file refugee claims to stay in the country," said Toronto lawyer Vaibhav Roy.  

In the meantime, many are living in homeless shelters, or on the street while they wait because guess what?  There's no housing!

A perfect example of someone who should be deported is Zain Haq, a Pakistani national who first came to Canada on a study permit in 2019.  

What has he been up to since?  Staging illegal blockades.  So far, Haq has been arrested at least 10 times and convicted of several crimes.  After a year-long effort by CBSA to get him deported, he was almost out the door until an 11th-hour intervention -- by Liberal (of course) MP Joyce Murray -- stopped it.  

This criminal has been at the centre of two of B.C.'s most extreme environmental groups:  Extinction Rebellion and Save Old Growth, of which he is a co-founder.  Just a few months after arriving, Haq played a central role in extended bridge and intersection closures, plus a two-hour blockade of Vancouver International Airport.  Just to go one better, he organized a closure that blocked emergency vehicles trying to access St. Paul's Hospital which cost lives!  The Crown wanted a prison sentence, but he was merely given house arrest.

The illegal messes Haq creates.

How is this bum allowed to stay?!  How did Joyce Murray think it was OK to interfere with due process and overrule the legal decision ordering him out!?!  This is outrageous.  "Every single day we will be disrupting the highways in multiple locations -- both on the island and in Vancouver," he defiantly said, giving the finger to authorities.

And who's funding this assh-le and his crimes?  The California-based 'Climate Emergency Fund'.  Whaddya wanna bet Stephen Guilbeault donates to it?  Rhetorical.

This has got to stop!

 

Yep

The sky's the limit!

Spring madness is in the air out here.  The big news is that after more than two years and $4.8 million, The Calgary brain trust has come up with a new moniker for Cowtown:  Blue Sky City!  Yep, that's right, the brilliant minds at city hall recently announced that 'Be Part of the Energy' was out and 'Blue Sky' was in!

At the same time as announcing an 8% property tax increase wallop, the learned burghers at city hall managed to find an extra $2 million for this nonsense.  Scrounging around further in the municipal coffers they also managed to discover they had a $200 million surplus!  Wow!  Great financial planning, guys!  Way to go!

The Blue Skyers are hoping to attract even more souls to Calgary than are already invading every month.  Never mind that there is no housing for them, the Blue Skyers haven't bothered with that annoyance.  No, they are plowing along painting the town blue and reaching for the sky!

The papers are full of clap-yourself-on-the-back photos of smug officials grinning for the cameras, while the homeless wallow in despair on every corner and the potholes get bigger and bigger.

They've also gone ahead with blanket re-zoning for every neighbourhood so that multi-unit dwellings can be built everywhere.  You can imagine how well that's going down with NIMBY-ism in local neighbourhoods.  Not well.

However, Michael Mauws, professor of business policy and strategy at Athabasca University, has proposed what I think is a brilliant solution:  Charge people more for the privilege of low density.  Frankly, that makes perfect sense to me, but it'll mean a change to how the mill rate is calculated.  Low density areas require many more metres of roads, sidewalks, sewer and later lines and whatever else is buried under Calgary's streets, writes Prof. Mauws.

This sensible solution wasn't even considered by council.  It's just blanket re-zoning.  Period the end.  Just watch the fireworks at council meetings now, as irate NIMBY-ers flock in droves to freak out.  Sit back and enjoy it all, folks.

________________________________

There was another provocative piece in today's 'Herald', lamenting the madness of owning an electric vehicle.  Why?  Because there is no infrastructure to support charging.  "Simply legislating that all vehicles sold by 2035 must be electric doesn't guarantee there will be options as affordable as the gas vehicles currently on the market," writes freelance columnist Katherine Brodsky:

Craziness.

She should know.  She dutifully bought one in a valiant attempt to go green and do her bit.  But she discovered the condo she lives in won't allow her to charge it because the rest of the owners don't want to cover her electricity costs.  Well, why should they?

"There's something deeply elitist in the government policies that surround EVs," she says.  "Forcing EVs on people without encouraging or building sufficient infrastructure in advance is bound to lead to trouble ahead."  Ms. Brodsky has now figured that out, but she is stuck with a vehicle she can't sell and can't drive!

Another green turbine bites the dust.

Are you listening Stephen Guilbeault?

Unforgettable

Last weekend will forever be unforgettable for me.  Granddaughter and I spent it at the gorgeous 'Fairmont Palliser Hotel' in downtown Calgary and it was just the two of us to celebrate her 10th birthday.

Everywhere we went, I told the servers it was her birthday, which resulted in a special dessert with a sparkler on the top.  In other words, she was suitably spoiled.  

Dinner

One of several cakes

A little healthy food

Aerobic moves

Beautiful

Bedtime

This is was a special grandmother/granddaughter weekend she may forget, but I never will.    

Dear Diary

Well, B arrived back from Houston last evening and the laundry is already overflowing.  Away for three weeks visiting his daughter, son-in-law and grands, he returned with a workload I had not missed in the least.

I used to go too, but as you and I both know, Diary, his daughter and I are estranged, which means my step-grandchildren no longer know me.  That's a shame, my friend, because I am worth knowing.  We are estranged because she had the colossal nerve to bring her mother to our sacred, family cottage -- the cottage we shared as a blended family of six for 25 years.  (See "How could you," July 29, 2018)

I was understandably enraged.  That's when we fell out.

This is how I am now portrayed -- the wicked stepmother.

Of course, it's all about money.  The mother has lots, we don't.  That's the draw she commands.  Ironically enough, much of her money we had to give her in the divorce and custody settlement, even though she is the millionaire.  How we kept paying support when we had the kids the majority of the time, I will never understand?  "That's the judicial attitude," our lawyer said when I asked why she didn't pay us child support.

I raised this daughter.  Remember, Diary, how I went to battle with the Ottawa School Board to make sure she got her bilingual high school diploma?  They were saying she was a credit short, so I dug around and found a summer school credit, which they gave her, which ensured she got her diploma.  And that diploma?  That diploma got her the job at Disney in Florida the Hyatt Hotel in Calgary, where she met her husband.  The rest, as they say, is history.

None of that would have happened, had I not intervened.  You know, Diary, my anger is also rooted in hurt -- that and a touch of self-pity, I admit.  But that didn't stop me from insisting B visit his grands in Houston, a visit I also paid for.  And speaking of money, do you think it's right for B to give her hundreds of dollars for his keep while he is there?

I don't either.

The fact is, he will never see his grands again because a solo trip to Houston at his age is now out-of-the-question.  And daughter's maternal inheritance rules out any chance she will visit here.  That's pretty sad, but in a way, I don't blame her.  She has been either overtly or covertly warned that any alliance to B means a change to the will.  Happens all the time.  Wonder if she'll come to his funeral?  Probably only to the committal in Ottawa -- as long as it coincides with a visit to Mummy.

Well, he's back and our "normal" is returning, which reminds me, I better get at that laundry! 

Back to the future.

   

 

     

Rack and ruin

Today is budget day and we're in for a very, depressing treat.  In a series of pre-budget announcements, the government (the "govern" part of this word is misleading) has dumped out billions on ludicrous expenditures like:

• A renter's bill of rights
• $1 billion for school lunches
• $6 billion for infrastructure
• $15 billion for construction loans for apartment buildings, and
• $1 billion for child care.

And this doesn't include the billions already thrown overboard during their disastrous eight-year tenure!  When questioned by a parliamentary committee, claiming the new defence spending estimates were aspirational, Minister Bill Blair said, "These are not aspirational, they are funded costs we will be deciding in the next weeks."

Huh!?  They still have to decide, so of course they remain aspirational.

Here's who will be delivering the budget:

Our Toenail-picker-in-chief, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The always-classy Freeland.

While Freeland and Trudeau are pouring money down hopeless holes in other countries, this is how they have left 24 Sussex:

The Official Home of the Prime Minister -- a derelict dump.

Would the Americans ever tolerate their White House in this shape?  Would the Brits allow Number 10 to sink this low?  Obviously, that's what these goons think of Canada:  Nothing.

In other news, Tesla is laying off 10 percent of its staff because sales of EVs have slumped.  All I can say is, hahahaha!  I've been saying this forever.  They're too expensive and the batteries -- if you can find somewhere to charge them -- are not reliable:

Elon Musk is no dummy.

Same old, same old

Failing grade.

Taking children into care in this province has only resulted in many dying of drug overdoses.  The minister of child and family services, Searle Turton, should hang his head in shame.  So should the minister of Indigenous relations, Rick Wilson, because of the 47 deaths from overdoses in care, 35 were Indigenous youth.

Sad, sad story.

Children are taken into care because of neglect, abuse, malnutrition or drug-addicted parents.  But at least they are alive at the time they are apprehended.  Taking them into "care" means many end up just plain dead.

Cindy Blackstock, head of the child and family "caring" society, should resign.  She claims child welfare is her primary concern.  Really?!  I don't buy it.  Her organization gets millions and you can bet her salary is at least six figures while so many native children suffer in squalour and distress.  (But that's another issue.  Where does the $30 billion a year given to native leaders go?)

Doesn't she look cute.

It's unconscionable that such highly-paid ministers and community "leaders" are not doing their jobs.  Shame, shame. 

 

What was that all about?

The solar eclipse yesterday left me completely puzzled.  What was all the fuss about?  It was the so-what of the year here.  I mean, it was only a 40 percent eclipse in this region and I noticed nothing.  That may have been because I was sitting in a restaurant having lunch, but still, there was really nothing to see.

This was what happened in Cochrane and Calgary:  Nothing.

Before the event, it was plastered hysterically all over the media.  A million people flocked to Niagara Falls and booked every hotel room in the area just to see it.  They packed parks, set up campers and trailers and picnicked with lawn chairs everywhere.  Why?  I couldn't have cared less.  Cloudy days have been a lot darker here.  I'd rather watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, but then again, what do I know?  Apparently, I was the odd woman out, but that's usually the case with everything I do or write.

Another annoyance is the ad campaign to get everyone to buy a KardiaMobile kit.  All over the airwaves, this pitch is to get us to fork over $99 for a device that will let us track our heartbeat anytime we want.  Who wants to?!  Are we supposed to whip out our device at a party to check our heart rate?!  I mean, either it's beating, or it's not.  If it's beating, great!  If it's not, you're dead.  Either way, who cares?

Let's add a couple of other irritating ads to the list.  The first that springs to mind are those ubiquitous pitches for 'Sure Health'.  G-d!#$%%#@!!!!!  I hate that guy!!%#%$#@!!  I first blogged about this in 2018.  2018!  And that jerk is still on the airwaves making me crazy!%$%#@!!!   

Right up there with him is Kurt Browning flogging the 'Chip Reverse Mortgage'.  I used to love Kurt.  Now I hate him.  He too has been yapping at me from my screen since 2018!!  Please, buddy, just stick to skating.

So, those are my rants for the day.  I feel better.

 

Weird topic

Still not taken seriously

Not sure how we got started talking about it, but a young server at the local 'Joey's' in Calgary told me about how she had been raped.  Maybe I have the look of a kindly grandmother, but she told me that the worst decision she had made was going to the police.

What did the police do?  They had to charge him, but didn't really take her too seriously in the process.  After an entire year of living with debilitating anxiety, the case was finally heard.  The outcome?  The judge dismissed it because she had been at a party and had admitted having had a few drinks.

So, the rapist got walked with a smirk on his face.  "The judge made it seem like it was all my fault, that I had asked for it," she said.  Having had something similar happed to me when I was 20, 56 years ago, I totally related.  So, with all the "#metoo" clamour nothing has changed.  The girl is always at fault and the perpetrator gets away with it.

Can you believe it?  Yes, I'm sure you can and it's a sad, sad state of affairs that a lovely young woman like that was basically kicked to the male-dominated, judicial curb.  

Mothers keep protecting your daughters.

     

Then what?

After you do your environmental duty and dump your gas car, then what?!  I mean, who's going to fork out $50 or $60 K for a Tesla?!  The latest is that Tesla is actually cutting production because they can't get lithium for their batteries.

Duh?!!

And if you're dumb enough and rich enough to buy one, where are you going to charge it?  Alberta is experiencing rolling blackouts because there isn't enough supply to run a measly, little province of 4 million frigid souls.  My question is, what is Marie-France Samaroden, vice-president of grid reliability operations for the Alberta Electricity System, doing?  She must be getting a huge whack of dough and yet she can't figure out the meaning of the word "reliability".

My other question is why the rebate?  If the idea is to get people to buy less gas, why are we getting a rebate at all?  Doesn't that cancel out the incentive to use less?

Duh?!!

During the January cold snap, grid alerts and rolling blackouts were also the norm, as Albertans faced days of supply uncertainty.  If you can believe it, four -- yes four! -- natural gas-fired power plants failed because of "cold-weather" issues.  People, this is Alberta.  It gets cold here!  Time to freshen up your reliability chops, Ms. Samaroden.  

"We do our best to forecast and look forward as to what the supply will be, but there's always forecast uncertainty and operational issues that occur," she said by way of excuse.  Isn't that your job?  To figure out good, old-fashioned supply and demand.  What are you paid again?  

Laughably, the much-lauded windmill generators didn't work because guess what?  There wasn't enough wind to spin them in farms all across the province!  Hahahaha!

Useless most of the time.

Said Premier Danielle Smith, "The province's electricity system has been built completely backward.  It gives renewables an outsized role in supplying Albertans with power.  We should be able to rely on a certain amount of baseload power and then have another way of approaching the issue of intermittency."

She's right, of course.  But try telling that to the incomprehensibly thick federal minister of the environment, Stephen Guilbeault.  Nothing like having a convicted felon running the energy needs of an entire country.

Felon-in Chief, Stephen Guilbeault.  An outrage.

Completely off the rails

Just caught a few seconds of a press conference Trudeau was giving on the handing of yet more billions to causes outside the constitution -- like housing, for example.  Subsidizing school lunches and issuing a 'Renters' Bill of Rights' also come to mind.  Couldn't watch the presser, because the sight of him turns my stomach, but I did catch enough to know that once again, he is widely overstepping federal jurisdiction.

For what?  For votes.  It won't work, of course, and his promises can't administratively be realized before he is booted out of office.  Thank G-d!  We are being turned into a third-world economic disaster that our grandchildren will be hobbled with.  Our Clown-in-Chief couldn't care less.  He's a multi-millionaire.

We are also pissing Americans off on an individual level.  B is down in Houston visiting his grands and says the anti-Canadian mood is definitely strong.  People he has met on previous occasions are now very cool to this Canadian man.  Our refusal to sped a measly two percent of GDP on defense spending, as all NATO member countries are required to do, is generating the belief that Canadians are mooching off other countries -- the US being the main one.

While Trudeau is handing billions to other countries, he has let 24 Sussex rot:  

The current, disgraceful state of the Official Home of the Prime Minister.

24 Sussex has been the national home of the Canadian prime minister since 1951, when Louis St. Laurent moved in, but it is now uninhabitable due to rodent infestations, asbestos and mold, so he lives across the road in Rideau Cottage. 

24 Sussex, Canada's official PM residence

His handlers, who've also completely lost the plot, have told him not to spend the estimated $18 million to fix it because of the housing crisis -- which, by the way, his ineptitude caused.  Can you imagine the US president letting the White House crumble?!  Or 10 Downing Street?!  Would never, ever happen, but here in Canada it has.

Rideau Cottage, the dump the PM brings worldwide leaders to.

Why not take a few million from useless aid to Haiti to cover it?  Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper have volunteered to campaign a drive to get private-sector funding for the restoration.  How could this be objectionable?  Two former prime ministers, one Conservative, the other Liberal, have stepped forward to raise private -- not public -- money to cover it.

What did the PMO say to the offer?  No.  No explanation given, just No.

 As I said, Trudeau and his cronies are completely off the rails.  Nothing they do is for the betterment of our once-envied country.  It's all about votes.

Shame, shame.  

The state.....

...has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.  Isn't that what Pierre Trudeau said when he was prime minister and abolished the law against homosexuality?  Yes, that's what he said -- probably because he was bi-sexual himself.  I couldn't care less and when it concerned consenting adults, he was right to get rid of that law.

Consenting adults.

Now, however, the state is right in there between the sheets.  Trudeau the Younger has just announced the government will be paying billions for contraceptives for all Canadians.  This is yet another insane example of the many follies this government has begotten.  His government opened the immigration and illegal migrant floodgates and now has to try and control the resultant population surge.  

It ranks right up there with the millions being spent on installing tampon dispensers in all government washrooms so "women" who identify as "men" can use them.

A woman/man

But that's not all.  Now Canadian taxpayers will be shelling out $1 billion for school lunches!  School lunches!!#^@#!@!!  

None of these spending follies has anything to do with the running of the country.  They are simply hysterical moves to try and rescue Trudeau from his plummeting poll figures, which have him dead last as choice for pm in the next election.

We can't see his ass out the door fast enough!

  

More non-Canadian "news"

When B's family emigrated from India via England in the forties, his wise grandfather said, "Brian, forget about India and forget about England.  You live in Canada now.  Be a Canadian."

Very wise words, sadly not heeded by the many immigrants who flock here and form this association and that, bringing their battles and ills to annoyingly wage forever on Canadian soil.  Here's another disgruntled guy -- on the national news no less -- airing the grievances and woes of the Sudanese in Edmonton:

There are so many they even have an Edmonton chapter.

I'm sick of it.  You watch, next they'll be demanding Canada, i.e., taxpayers, fly their families out.  Last year, Canada gave Sudan $165 million!  $165 million while Canadians can't even make ends meet in their own backyards!  

Mr. Satti, if you want so badly to help your countrymen, go back there and do it.  Otherwise, please, heed B's grandfather's advice:  Shut up and "be Canadian".

Another............

 The Joys of a Girls’ Weekend

We had a lovely time!

I’ll have a Shirley Temple, please,” said granddaughter to the server the other day.  We were out on a “Girls’ Weekend”, enjoying lunch at a grownup restaurant.  Nine, but going on 21, this young lady had suggested this weekend for just the two of us and naturally I jumped at the chance.  It won’t be long before I am the last person she wants to hang out with and I know it.

We’ve had lots of sleepovers, but never an entire ‘Girls’ Weekend’.  That meant no husband, parents or brothers allowed.  What a treat!  

This was all happening because we had decamped to Calgary from Ottawa 12 years ago, when the first grandchild, her older brother, was on the way.  “I’m moving to Calgary,” I announced to my shocked husband at the time.  “What?  Are you crazy?  Our whole life is here, all our friends, our activities.  Do you realize what a mess the move will be?  And talk about expensive!  Are you sure?” he replied.  “Yes, I’m sure, but if you don’t want to move, I’ll visit you in Ottawa every six months or so.  But I’m moving.

“With all our son-in-law's family in Alberta and Calgary, do you really think I want to be an unknown grandma, who pops in every few months, while the other grandma is down the street is the “real” one?  Not happening,” I explained.  And so we moved.

When the second child – this one – was coming, I accompanied daughter to her ultrasound appointment to look after my grandson.  When we found out a girl was on the way, I let out a little yell in the waiting room.  How could we get this fortunate, one of each?!  And so began our journey with two grands.  

Retired, I had had a long career before we moved or should I say series of jobs, in both the private and public sectors and was now able to enjoy the fruits of many years in jobs I both loved and loathed.  Keeping an eye on the big picture, i.e., retirement, was the trick.  

After moving out West, my only job now is being a grandma and so far, it’s been the most rewarding.  I think women have an advantage because they must, by necessity, be able to juggle being a mother and an employee, while men of my generation – boomers – seem to focus solely on the job part.  Stepping out of the office and into being a grandma is much easier for us because we get our self-esteem from both places.

The “Girls’ Weekend” granddaughter has gone through many phases.  Initially as a toddler, she often sat on the floor with my makeup bag, experimenting with various shades of eyeshadow.  She also loved dressing up in my high heels and sequined frocks.  Did we have a girly-girl developing?  

As time went on, however, sports became the focus and the “girly” part, eyeshadow and high heels gave way to practical clothes and footwear designed for the sport.  Now it’s water polo, soccer and biathlon that dictate what she wears, where we go and what we do.  I know, I know, in my day in the fifties and sixties, biathlon, water polo?  Not a chance.  All we girls had were tamer and less fun versions of boys’ basketball and volleyball – plus Scottish dancing, for some bizarre reason?

So here we finally were, just the two of us, enjoying a leisurely lunch, washed down with her Shirley Temple and my spritzer.  Her Dad had dropped her off earlier after biathlon practice and in she walked with her weekend clothes.  I too was dressed up and had actually applied makeup – something I rarely do, now that I am retired.  It has to be a pretty special occasion, which this one was.

As we got up to leave after lunch, she suggested a visit to a nearby store to see what goodies they might have.  Was this the real reason for the lunch?  So I could buy a few things Mum had said no to?  Didn’t matter.  I obliged and we emerged with two new outfits and a pair of earrings.  She was thrilled.

A side trip to 'Winners'

Dinner was next.  Where to?  How about Chinese, she suggested.  So, off we went to a local Dim Sum restaurant where we sampled many delightful morsels presented in bamboo baskets.  She had never enjoyed the delights of Dim Sum and loved it.  She also marveled at all the servers who made such a fuss over her.  

“Nancy, is this your granddaughter?” they asked.  I tend to talk to servers wherever we go, so follow-up visits are always met with a welcoming hello.  Oh, and it also helps to tip well, something I learned from my parents and inlaws.  Instead of just being one voice at a large family gathering, this time granddaughter was the centre of attention.  Who doesn’t love that?

When it was time to go to bed, I informed my husband that he had to sleep in the guest room because this was a “Girls’ Weekend” and he was banished thereto.  After a good sleep – in spite of the odd kick in the night – it was time for bacon and pancakes.  Is it the syrup that is the main attraction?  Probably.  

Sadly, it was time to drop her back home.  But what a weekend it was.  Lots of conversations that would never have happened, lots of news on her life, her friends and her many activities.  The photos we took will serve to remind me that once upon a time, this little lady and I discovered things about each other one special weekend that have given me a whole new appreciation of the life of a budding young lady who happens to be my granddaughter.  And a big thank you to Shirley Temple, who graciously joined us.        

"Dopey and rudderless"

Jagmeet Singh

That's how 'Globe and Mail' columnist Robyn Urback described Jagmeet Singh's leadership.  Yep, dopey and rudderless about sums the guy up.  I mean, what's a working man doing leading the NDP in the first place?  Singh sports Rolex watches, three-piece, $2,000 suits and drives an expensive BMW while purporting to represent the downtrodden, blue-collar workers of this country.

The days of Ed Broadbent and Charlie Angus are sadly barely visible in the rearview mirror.  Those guys really did represent the working man, but Singh doesn't.  The reality is that his "leadership" was assured when a bunch of well-heeled Sikhs joined the party during the convention at the last minute and voted for him.  They then quickly left him on his own, but elected.  What do I always say about race as a motivator?  Exactly.

Singh simply doesn't wash as a credible leader and the sooner they dump him, the better.  Have you ever heard him speak?  Do not operate heavy equipment when you listen to his meaningless word salads.

The latest dumb move was the sight of NDP MP Heather McPherson standing to propose a motion recognizing Palestine as a state, despite the fact that it's not even a country.  It's a collection of territories compromising parts of this and parts of that in the general region.  There's no such country as "Palestine".

Singh knows he's doomed, which is why he will continue to prop up the Liberals because in the next election, he probably won't even win his own seat.  It will be a Conservative landslide and Singh and the NDP will be lucky to even reach official party status.  

___________________________

Speaking of race, I was chatting with a young Indigenous man and happened to mention funding.  "Instead of blaming us for all your woes, why do you not ask your own leadership what they are doing with the billions given natives by the Canadian taxpayer every year?" I dared ask.  He looked stunned.  I guess no one had ever asked him that annoying question. 

I then went on to discuss the case of Charmaine Stick, a member of the Onion Lake Cree reserve, who was being stonewalled by her band's own leadership in her quest to find out where all the money was going.  Even faced with a court order to comply, her band's leaders still refuse to turn over the finances.  This young man had never heard of her.

He then accused me of denigrating his heritage.  Really?  I am not talking heritage; I'm talking money, stats and figures -- the more than $25 billion handed a scant 1.8 million natives every year.  That works out to millions per native.  He had no clue and continued to accuse me of casting aspersions on his heritage.

Should I have responded by complaining about his heritage continually blaming mine for all his ills?  Should I have reminded him that, even though I am of Irish and English descent, I had nothing to do with residential schools and colonialism?  I didn't, but that's what the Indigenous continue to do to my heritage -- ad nauseum.

See, that's the sorry state of this file in Canada.  No one dares speak the truth and if they do, the race card inevitably is played.  It's all the fault of colonialism and residential schools.....How long is "reconciliation" supposed to go on?  I'll tell you how long:  Until the money runs out because that's what it's all about.   

Sigh............    

Cat fight in Medicine Hat

The persecuted Mayor Clark

The persecutor Mitchell

The mayor of Medicine Hat, Linnsie Clark, has been censured and stripped of many of her powers and her salary halved because she questioned City Manager Ann Mitchell in a series of what were deemed aggressive and disrespectful emails.

"We are all profoundly disappointed in your actions, wrote acting Mayor Andy McGrogan, reading the letter of reprimand into the record.  "The city has a duty to provide a safe and respectful workplace for its employees, including our city manager.

"Council expects you will take the opportunity to reflect on these finding and having done so, you will take the time to sincerely apologize to the city manager for your actions," McGrogan said.  Who the hell does he think he is??!!

Clark, who quit her job as legal council to the city to run for mayor, has had her presiding duties under the Municipal Government Act stripped and she will no longer be the official spokesperson for council.  She will not be permitted to attend meetings of the administration committee and is prohibited from entering the administration area of city hall.  Not satisfied there, Clark has been ordered to not have any direct contact with city staff.

Huh??!!  What did Her Worship uncover when she was legal council?  Must have been some pretty dodgy stuff for her to decide to run to try and clean it up.

Now, I have no idea what the spat is all about, but last time I checked, the mayor is elected by the people.  Last time I checked, city staff do not run the city; they take their orders from elected officials.  So why a duly-elected mayor is being stripped of her powers by administrative flunkies is beyond me?!

Reminds me of my days at Customs and Excise, when a director I worked with (female) said, "I don't get along with Vicki in the minister's office."  "Suzanne", I replied, "It's your job to get along with her; that's what you get paid to do."  Suzanne wasn't get highly-paid to fight with the minister's staff.  She was being highly-paid to do her bidding.

And what does the Alberta Municipal Affairs department have to say about this?  Nothing.  "The Act does not provide the minister of municipal affairs with any role in the adjudication of of sanctions imposed by a council under a code of conduct bylaw," they said.  So what, pray tell, is the role of the minister, Ric McIver, and the department?  

No clue?  Clark ran on a platform of change because of concern over administrative overreach and poor governance at city hall.  Looks to me she was bang on about overreach by unelected officials, but it apparently continues unabated, as administrative staff run roughshod over the will of the people.  Apparently, the inmates have taken over the asylum in The Hat.

It's too bad it's a battle between two women 'cause that undermines key democratic principles and turns the whole mess into a stereotypical, unserious cat fight.

Politics in Medicine Hat today.

    

Back to the future (another 'Globe and Mail' rejected essay)

Dipping a toe into familiar waters

Our budding water polo star. 

I read somewhere a few years ago that water polo was the toughest sport of all.  What with not drowning, you have to then play.  That made sense to me because I watched my daughter play it in high school and university for six years.  Water polo is a tough, demanding sport that challenges even the fittest, however, current research tells me it is not ranked the toughest, swimming is.  Nevertheless, I would still argue that water polo ranks right up there because it combines the rigours of swimming with the vicious moves of soccer, rugby and at times boxing and wrestling.     

So, it is with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I have now begun my second foray into water polo with her daughter, my granddaughter, who has taken up the sport.  She is nine and this is her second year.  

Driving her to a practice the other day, I thought back to the many times I had done the same with her mother, sitting on the hard, backless benches in the pool and discarding layers of clothes to adapt to the hot pool deck.  Water polo is not a sport for the trepidatious or hesitant.  It is a demanding physical sport for only the tough and decisive.  Watching a team of nine-year-olds duke it out, I started to figure out what kind of kid my granddaughter is.  

Fearless comes to mind.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, as I did, girls didn’t play many sports.  We had track, basketball and volleyball, but unless your school had a pool, no swimming.  The sports we did participate in were modified for girls, in other words, they were milder versions of what the boys enjoyed.  We were encouraged to take HomeEc, not shops.  Any girl who was a fast runner got to practice with the boys and that was a big deal for me.  However, it didn’t translate into serious sports, so I became a cheerleader.  

Looking back, it amazes me that cheerleading was such a big deal.  It was rather a rah-rah activity to support the high school boys football team, not a sport in itself, like Cheer is today.  And as for water polo, it was unheard of even for boys.

During all the years I watched games, I never quite figured out the rules?  The whistle blows and the teams suddenly turn and switch from offensive to defence, or vise-versa.  But I did know how brutal it was.  Underwater, some pretty vicious moves take place – such as scratching, punching and kicking.  If you were lucky, the referee didn’t catch them, but if you weren’t, the penalties could range from a game misconduct penalty to being thrown out altogether.  Often, players would emerge bloodied from unseen hard battles underwater.

As for mixed water polo, that is much tamer because the boys don’t dare do to the girls what the girls are capable of exacting on each other.

The name of the game also puzzled me, until I googled it and learned it had begun in the late nineteenth century in Scotland as a form of water rugby.  As for the term “polo”, that was taken from the term “pulu”, an Indian dialect term for ball.  Who knew?

Water polo practices with my granddaughter involve much more than just picking her up, driving her to the pool and watching her play.  I routinely pack a peanut butter and jelly fold-over for after practice in the car, where some of our most treasured conversations take place.  “Better safe than stupid,” she said one evening as we drove home through a blinding whiteout.  Cars were speeding past us, only to be seen in the ditch as we safely passed them.  A small victory which didn’t go unnoticed.  

Thanks to my observations, she now unfortunately knows the meaning of the word “idiot” -- a term I frequently use to describe other reckless drivers along the way who are not up to my safety standards.  I have, however, cautioned her not to use it without good reason.  She laughs uproariously at this advice because “idiot” is now one of her favourites and used in a host of other settings such as grocery stores and parking lots.  Oops! 

We also have chats about school, her friends, other sports and what she thinks about life in general.  With parents and siblings around, these moments are rare, but there is something about one-on-one car conversations that lend themselves to precious, one-on-one intimacy.

I have also had interesting and informative chats with other parents and grandparents in the stands while we watch.  I learned, for example, that one of the fathers and the coach played professionally and a couple of the mothers were competitive swimmers.  Their stories are fascinating and ones I would never have known without these encounters.

So, as we embark on another season of water polo, I will continue to bring along snacks and treasure every private moment with my emerging star.  I only hope I don’t see blood in the water anytime soon!  

What didn't 'The Globe' like about this one, pray tell?

 Family memories inside the linen closet

So much family history in a linen closet.

Like C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’, my linen closet invites you to step through it and journey through another time and space.  It is evocative.  It speaks to me of family history, lineage and memories -- both happy and sad.  Growing up, bed and table linens were important parts of my life and could always be counted on to appear at the perfect moment, in perfect condition.  

I still have all of the beautiful linens handed down to me, when my mother passed, and they include all those given her by her own mother and grandmother.  They are lovingly stored in the linen closet and taken out to grace both festive and ordinary tables, depending upon the occasion.  They are an integral part of our family and treated with respect and care.  Afterall, they were important parts of several young brides’ trousseaus.

Some of these linens go back to the early eighteen hundreds, when my great-great grandparents immigrated to Canada from England, where they had been part of the landed gentry, or Whigs.  The older, more fragile linens I have wrapped in tissue paper to preserve them, but I still call upon them to enhance a family gathering or spruce up an ordinary table.  Sometimes I wonder why I keep them?  Why not give them to an auctioneer for others to enjoy, because I doubt my own children will bother, given the care they demand.

My antique table lines include hand-embroidered cloths, with scores of islets each bordered with care by hand.  They also include small napkins for tea party sandwiches and cocktail canapés, as well as large dinner napkins.  Each has a distinct purpose and each requires careful laundering and ironing.  They harken back to a more elegant era, when housewives took great pride in the laying of their table because a matron’s table was a reflection of her status and station.  Even without a lot of money, or an expensive dinner to share, a wives' table linens elevated any meal.

The mystery to me is how those wives and mothers of yesteryear managed to care for their treasures?  Back then, there were no dishwashers, no dryers, no automatic hot water and no automatic laundry machines.  Everything was done by hand, yet they still found time to lovingly create and look after their linens.  

Looking through them the other day, I came across that familiar napkin with the ancient yellow stain, which I have never been able to remove.  This was the napkin that lined the breadbasket and onto which melted butter, the result of buns buttered and piping hot from the oven would ooze onto the napkin.  Heaven help you if you served unbuttered, cold buns!  I still use that napkin for the same purpose.

Christmas linens were particularly ornate.  I remember the large family gatherings, when they were unwrapped to adorn the table.  To those affairs, my ancient great-aunt would always be invited.  A strict teetotaler, Aunt May would scowl at any hint of liquor being served, so my father and uncles would sneak out to the back sunroom and out-of-sight for a little nip or two.  Even tea or coffee posed a significant risk if served.  “Would you like me to wave the teabag over your cup of hot water?” one of my more daring uncles would ask her.  Quite deaf, Aunt May always answered, “Yes, dear.”  As children, we found this uproarious.  By the way, an observant Presbyterian, she didn’t allow dancing either, so these dinners were pretty staid affairs.

When I married, my husband and I scoured country estate auctions, where treasure troves of linens and blankets could be found.  Sometimes, you bid on a lot, or a box, that might contain a lot of junk.  But it might also contain beautiful linens – such as thick, cotton pillowcases with lace borders, or wool blankets not to be found anywhere any longer.  Some of the blankets I have are so old they were woven on narrow looms and had to be joined together to cover a full bed.

Today, whenever I or my daughter entertain family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, my linens are taken out and when the table is laid, I can sense my mother and grandmother seated with us, happy to be included through their hand-worked linens.

Lots of things have been discarded over the years, but not my family linens.  They endure and always give a place at the table for our loved absent ones.   

Another reject..............

The Cocktail Party

A typical, fifties cocktail party.

The tinned, smoked oysters were the best.  That’s what my cousins and I would sneak and devour when we were in the kitchen preparing canapés for our parents’ cocktail parties in the fifties.  Not too many made it out of the kitchen, having survived our “help”.  

Remember those?  The elegant, neighbourhood cocktail party when friends would gather from six to eight to laugh, chat, drink, smoke and gossip?  Whatever happened to those?  I think they died out in the late sixties, for some reason?  In the neighbourhood I grew up in, they were ubiquitous.  Almost every weekend, one of the neighbours would host a cocktail party.  

What distinguished the cocktail party from other gatherings was the fact that everyone stood; no one sat.  The other feature was the dress code – always formal and elegant.  The women wore what used to be called a “cocktail dress”, while the men sported suits and ties.  No one arrived in slacks or an open-necked shirt, let alone – heaven forbid! -- jeans.  For us, it was always, “Mr. or Mrs.”  Never first name greetings for our elders.

The cocktail party heyday was in the fifties, just after the war, when no one had any money.  Back then I remember eating a lot of cabbage and potato dinners.  Salad in February?  Forget about it.  Root vegetables figured prominently in the dark, winter months and fruit came only in cans.  Unless something was in season, we didn’t eat it.

One-income families were the norm, which meant expensive dinners parties and family gatherings were luxuries reserved for feast days, such as Christmas or Easter.  The cocktail party, however, was an easier and more thrifty way to entertain with the fare being readily available and limited to bite-sized morsels.  

Along with the oysters, typical canapés would include Cheez Whiz-stuffed celery sticks or ordinary nuts.  I knew a cocktail party was coming up when my mother cooked extra bacon.  Bits would be placed on top of cheese crusts, broiled and cut into little squares the night of the party.  These were on a par with the oysters, but usually it was nothing fancy made with ingredients found in the average fridge.  

Along with preparing the snacks, we also circulated and served them.  At our house, they were always presented on a silver platter, which served to elevate even the most modest cracker and cheese.  Drinks were always measured properly with a shot glass and poured in the kitchen before my father would transfer them to the silver tray and take them out.  Even a drink for only one person would be served on that tray.  

With my father in sole charge of the kitchen bar, no one got drunk because no one helped themselves.  As I recall, everyone except my parents smoked, filling the whole house with cigarette smoke which would linger for days.  I even have vivid memories of pregnant wives -- highball in one hand and cigarette in the other – laughing and enjoying themselves like everyone else.  No soft drinks for them.  Feature that now! 

A scientist and non-smoker, my Dad had devised a way to keep cigarettes fresh for the weeks between parties when it would again be my parents’ turn to host.  He taped a water-soaked paper towel to the underside of a glass cigarette holder, soaked it regularly and stored them away until the next party.  Cigarette dishes were always set out beside the nuts for guests to help themselves and with my father’s storage method, the former were always fresh.  I mean, nothing was worse than a stale cigarette.   

For Christmas parties, guests would arrive suitably attired in festive garb, with seasonal corsages and fancy hairdos.  Back then, a respectable wife went to the hairdresser every week to have her hair done for the weekend.  Without a lot of money, my mother and aunts would give each other perms – short for “permanent waves”.  I can still smell the pungent odour of the solution applied before the paper wrappers and curlers were set.  What a production, but essential for any respectable matron.

In the fifties, there were few artificial Christmas trees.  But often the real ones were lopsided, or missing branches, so to create the perfect tree, my mother would take home extra branches to cover the bare spots.  I can still see my father lying under the tree, tying branches onto empty limbs while my mother gave directions.  “No, tie that one a little higher, Tommy.  That spot needs another branch,” she would say.

The small Ottawa neighbourhood in which I grew up was the first planned community in the country.  Bounded by four through streets, its winding, narrow roads, circles, crescents and dead ends protected it from commuter traffic.  The only cars you saw were those of the residents.  Lindenlea, as it was called, also featured a community centre and playground.  Ballet, Brownies, Cubs Scouts and Guides were held there, as were ballet classes.  There were winter and summer carnivals, with parents pitching in to make costumes and floats.

But the mainstay in those years was the ubiquitous, moveable cocktail party – the glue that held a wonderful group of friends and neighbours together through thick and thin.  Instead of noisy barbeques and expensive dinner parties, maybe I’ll host one this Christmas.  Why not?  Maybe it’ll catch on again?  

 

Why wasn't this accepted?

No luck with this essay either............. 

You must be Irish

I'm Irish, through and through.

You must be Irish.  I heard that regularly growing up, but as an adopted child, I had no clue?  My adoptive parents were of Welsh and English extraction, but me?  No clue.

That’s the way adoptions were handled in the nineteen forties.  Everything was sealed.  Children were given new birth certificates that matched their new identities and there was no possible way an adoptee could find out who they had been, or where they had come from.  The idea, of course, was to prevent trauma for both birth mother and baby and to ensure as smooth a transition as any natural-born child would get from womb to parents.  In other words, adopted children were to be treated just as if they had been born to the parents who were raising them.

But as an adopted child who had always known I had been adopted; my unknown origins always lurked in the back of my mind.  Who was I?  Where had I come from?  Why had my mother given me up?  Did I have brothers or sisters?  There was always a longing to connect with my birth mother, but life intervened and I grew up in a wonderful and loving home with an adopted younger brother and warm, extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  At times, being adopted was even a novelty to classmates and I vividly recall a fellow grade-five student standing up and asking the teacher if Nancy was adopted.  Proudly, I stood up and said “Yes”.

My parents had always made me feel special.  The tale they told was that they had entered a huge room, where there were rows and rows of cribs and babies and that they had walked up and down the rows looking at each baby, but when they saw me, they picked me.  Growing up, I treasured this story.  It took away any stigma.  But, of course, it hadn’t happened like that.  My parents’ marriage had been considered mixed, one being Catholic and the other Protestant, thus rendering them unfit parents in the eyes of the government.  Yes, that’s the way it was back then.  

A lawyer handled the adoption, which was not finalized until my brother and I were in our teens.  You can imagine the shock when my mother told me someone from the Children’s Aid would be visiting to see if we were happy living with them.  We then had to sign legal papers, confirming we wanted to stay with our parents.  

That was when I first learned my birth name because I had to sign as this mysterious, original me and that’s when my journey began.  Stealth unlocked my adoption when I forged a letter from my father to the lawyer who had arranged the adoption, asking that he release the file.  He did, but all that was on it was my birth name and hers.  Who was she?  Where had she lived and who was the person I had been at birth?  For a few years, I stored this riddle, but when I became pregnant, the intrigue kicked in again.  What was my genetic background?  Was there anything I should know?  Pre-DNA testing meant I was in the dark.  

The journey to unlock the secret of my birth mother was arduous in the pre-computer-pre-Internet era.  I scoured city directories, joined groups and took shot-after-shot in the dark.  Until one day, I hit pay dirt.  “Oh yes,” said a woman from a nearby town, “Shirley was my niece, but she died last year.”  I was crushed.  I had missed meeting her by only a year.  Even though I had never met her, I wept and grieved.  Pressing on, I eventually met her brothers, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins and learned all about this woman who had been a young girl of 18 when she found herself pregnant.  I treasured pictures and found I looked like her.  In those days, unwed mothers were shamed and shipped off to be hidden away until their children were born.  Later, learning she could never have another child, she must have been devastated.

I did not share this discovery with my parents, fearing they would be hurt.  I kept my research a secret, but everything I was learning about my birth mother rang true about the person I was, my personality, attributes, talents and shortcomings.  And, by the way, the Irish part was confirmed.  Back then, the jackpot had not been hit about my true identity.  That would emerge only last week.  In the previous 40 years, I had known only that I had one adopted brother and no half-sisters or half-brothers.

As time passed, the folklore about my maternal side was confirmed – or so I thought.  Apparently, I had Indigenous blood.  The story was that my great-grandmother had married a member of the Mohawk tribe and moved to the nearby reserve.  My birth father – an American semi-pro baseball player -- had been identified by relatives and I even managed to find a picture of him.  I thought all been discovered and my origins confirmed.  

I was wrong. 

Years passed and my birth story lay dormant.  I accepted it, after all, these people were not my family; they were my genetic roots.  Or so I thought.  Then DNA testing burst forth.  Why not, I figured.  Let’s find out once and for all what I’m made of.  I sent for a kit, spit and mailed it off.  A few weeks later, a few myths I had believed for years were shattered.  Indigenous blood?  Zero.  So much for that family lore.  

Over the years, I got report after report about genetic relatives – mostly far afield and distant.  I began to simply file and ignore them, but that changed last week when I got a message from someone who told me our genetics proved she was my half-sister.  What?!  Half-sister!  What did that mean?  Did we have the same mother?  No, that could not be because I was my birth mother’s only child.  The only link left was that this sister and I shared a father.  But he was not the father I had been told about.  He was another man who played on the same baseball team as my mythical father.  Family lore is one thing, but DNA another.  Yes, I was definitely this new man’s child.

Myths shattered, family lore over.  Very quickly I learned I was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters.  Seven!  Immediately I had gone from no sisters and one adopted brother to five sisters and two brothers.  I was now part of a family of eight.  It was overwhelming.  Now I knew why I wept at television programs about DNA and finding one’s roots.  Now I knew how much I envied those sisters and brothers who had found their siblings and birth parents.  This was what I had missed and what I had been longing for for so many years.  

Photos were exchanged, connections made, circle complete.  Now I know from whence come my brown, curly hair and hazel eyes.

Will these connections last?  I don’t know, but one thing I did find out, I am 100% Irish.  

More rejected........

Why this one was also rejected, I have no clue?

 Picnicking with my dead relatives

Just like Grandma Stapledon used to do.

When my grandmother was still alive, no Sunday was complete without a visit to the family plot.  There, she would place flowers on my grandfather’s grave and pay respects to other family buried there.  As children, we were always expected to go along on these weekly, after-Church excursions – boring as I found them at the time.

My grandmother’s father had been an undertaker in Brockville and with the family name “Lord”, naturally, she was teased.  “The Lord came down to bury the dead,” her friends would say.  Nevertheless, she was very comfortable with death and trips to cemeteries. 

We always made an annual summer visit to Brockville to visit her parents’ graves and yes, we planted flowers there too. 

She told stories of accompanying her father to the homes of the dead to help him lay them out in the family parlour in preparation for the wakes that would be held.  Claude Jutras’ film ‘Mon Oncle Antoine’ reminded me of the tales she would tell of these visits to the bereaved.  It both fascinated and scared me, but         

We were also expected to plant flowers at my grandfather’s grave every Spring.  For the bleak, cold winters, she had us plant small evergreens which we trimmed in the summer.

We would wander off, while she lingered, and drift through the neighbouring tombs and plots.  My imagination would kick in, as I wondered about those long-dead souls who rested nearby.  Some names I knew because their children and grandchildren were in some of my classes.  Some headstones were very simple, others tall and elaborate.  

Not far from our family plot were rows and rows of small tombstones marking the military men and women who had gruesomely died defending Canada.  No one ever seemed to visit those lonely, lost souls.  

But the graves that stuck with me were those of babies and young children, often adorned with concrete angels.  Many were younger than I, or the same age.  How could they be dead, I wondered?  Might I too die soon?  These were perplexing, existential thoughts of which I could make no sense.  My grandfather had been an old man, not a child.  That was normal in my world. 

Death is a part of life, my mother always said and she began taking me to funeral parlours when I was very young.  The memories I have of these visits were of the scent of flowers juxtaposed with the sight of old people dressed up in their finery and laid out in coffins surrounded by weeping relatives.  “Doesn’t she look wonderful,” some would say, as they approached the coffin.  No, she doesn’t, I would think.  She looks dead.

That cemetery was where my father taught me to drive.  “You can’t kill anyone here,” he always laughed as I navigated winding lanes and steep inclines fumbling with a standard transmission that required stopping and starting on hills without stalling.

Yes, I learned very young that death was indeed a part of life.  When my brother and father died, my mother bought another plot nearby; our original being full by this time.  Now visits to the cemetery were longer, as we had to visit and care for both sites.  I don’t know when it started, but one day my mother suggested we bring along some lemonade, a few sandwiches and a blanket.  Afterall, we were landowners there. 

Thus began a tradition of picnics with family members – departed and living.  Every nice day, someone would suggest a cemetery picnic and off we would go.  Early pictures are of my mother sitting on grass over the family plot helping to plant flowers.  Later she would rest beneath it.  Picnic fare consisted of her favourite sandwiches – cuccumber or tomato on white bread with the crusts cut off.  Trust the Brits to elevate vegetable sandwiches to a high art when meat was scarce.  

Often, I would make egg or tuna salad, finishing off with peanut butter and jam and always, always a thermos of tea. Vegetables, fruit and dessert were added to the fare, as these events became more elaborate.

As time went on, I began to pack elegant cocktails to replace the lemonade.  When my mother joined the departed gathering, no eyebrows were raised to this embellishment.  Often, we invited friends to join us, as we picnicked among many famous Canadians.  Sir Robert Borden, Canada’s eighth prime minister, John Rodolphus Booth, lumber baron, Sir Sanford Flemming, inventor of time zones, and Archibald Lampman, poet, are but a few.

A nearby grave houses one of my bosses; another the son of a dear friend who tragically died at 24 of an epileptic seizure.  You never felt alone at that cemetery.

As time went on, my husband and I thought it a good idea to get our affairs in order and purchase our own markers for the family plot.  Henceforth, picnics found us lounging on our own tombstones, contemplating the inevitable as we enjoyed lunches.  All that is missing on our stones are our dates of death.  Someone once remarked that on any headstone, the dash between the dates of birth and death tells the interesting part of the story.  Very true.  

When my mother-in-law died in England, we had her cremated and shipped over to join the gathering.  She now lies comfortably resting with my family, surrounded by the famous and infamous among the many species of birds and creatures that call the cemetery home.

When we moved out west, we had one, final cemetery Caileigh.  It was a special moment and marked the end of my life of tranquil cemetery visits stretching back so many years.  We made one final trip around the grounds, saying goodbye to many friends and relatives and those lost soldiers nearby.  It was a sad moment, but the memories I have of picnicking with my relatives are ones I will cherish.  Happily, I will be resting with them when my time comes, but sadly there will be no one left to hold picnics.