Almost a Tiger

Something was wrong with Time . It was supposed to be my time, my
turn, but there seemed to be a problem.  When I looked up, the punt
was heading into the stratosphere in slow motion.  When I looked down
field, the defensive hoard was charging at me in fast frame. I looked up - the
ball now coasted leisurely like a hawk caught in a thermal. I looked down - too
many, too fast, too soon.  I finally cradled the ball and started to
pivot to the left just as one of the attackers became airborne. I
didn't make many yards unless you count the ones that I was driven
sideways.
 Early sixties, late spring, Hamilton, home of the Tiger Cats.  How I
got to training camp that year was more a matter of minor influence
peddling, and self promotion than it was of any real proven track
record.  You see, I had convinced myself that I was just like Garney
Henley, that good things could come in small, fast packages. I saw
myself as the new  phenom who would be running back kicks and
sprinting over the goal line to the roar of the home town crowd.
 It was a chance to play with my heroes of the game.  Perhaps it was
a little different then  because these were the days before the
multimillion dollar salaries, running shoe endorsements, and media
hoopla that generally puts sports heroes out of the reach of the
common sports fan. Most of the players were very approachable, heck
Bernie Faloney was a phys. ed. teacher at my high school and Frank
Consentino coached the rival football team. Maybe working two jobs
just helps to bring you down to earth.
  We were in an offensive huddle and this time the quarterback
Bernie Faloney gave me the nod. "Go out ten yards and then turn
around."
  "Turn left or right?"
  "Just turn around."
   I caught the ball all right because that pig skin was thrown so
hard that it punched into my stomach causing my hands to involuntarily
cover it. I have often wondered  how my life would have been different
had I spun off that first tackle and then put on the jets to zig zag
down the field and sprint across the goal line. Would I have had my
own collection of Grey Cup rings, and lived in a city where like
Cheers everyone would know my name ? Unfortunately, the instant that I
was being impaled by the ball some guy who had the size and speed of a
Mac truck and most probably a cute nick name like "The Crippler",
slammed me into the ground. I was lucky to have held onto my insides,
never mind the ball.
 Given my lack of size, I knew that my stint as a defensive lineman
wasn't going to be pretty.  There were some terribly intense people
who wanted on that Tiger's line. Some were top rated American college
players and some were already pros or even team regulars like Angelo
Mosca who prowled along the sidelines looking like he couldn't wait to
test out anyone who was showing real promise. The guy across from me
was from the US college leagues and he wore some cast affair on his
forearm. At the "hut", I found out why. His forearm came up and
connected with my jaw. My body twisted as I flew backwards. As I lay
face down the first person to run up my back was the ball carrier.
After him came everyone else involved in the play. Probably from both
teams.  As I lay there struggling to push my shoulders off the ground,
Vince Scott came over and offered some advice. "Son, you've got to
learn to back up!"
 In the end they never actually cut me from the roster so much as I
just knew not to come back. Not getting to wear the uniform didn't
stop me from remaining a loyal fan. Every year when the smell of lilac
fills the spring air and I know that the new crop of lads are out
clashing in the field, I close my eyes, play back the memories and
smile.  After all, I was almost a Tiger.
 Fact File
 Vince Scott- member of the CFL Hall of Fame, selected an All-Eastern
Guard 10 times
 Angelo Mosca-member of the CFL Hall of Fame, 9 Grey Cup Games, CFL
All Star 63, 70, elected an Eastern All-Star Defensive Tackle 5 times
 Frank Consentino -Tiger Cats 1960-66 including 63 and 65 Grey Cup
Championships
 Bernie Faloney- CFL Hall of Fame member Schenly Award in 61 for Most
Outstanding Player, Grey Cup record for most completed passes, most
yards thrown, most touchdowns, career-1,493 pass completions, 24,264
yards, 153 touchdowns
 Garney Henley-CFL Hall of Fame Member, defensive back, wide receiver,
20 punt returns for Hamilton Tiger Cats, 1960-75 career receiving
yards 4,657
 Ken McLeod -no officially recorded yardage

Confessions: This isn't over

 My grandmother Pirie used to say to me (with relative frequency) "Tell the truth and shame the devil." So I guess I'd better fess up ...immortal soul, clean conscience and all that. . So here it goes...... I chase squirrels.
  I just can't help it. I'll be sitting there with a fresh brewed coffee, reading the morning paper, the sun glinting off the fresh fallen snow when out of the corner of my eye I detect unnatural movement at the bird feed. "Squirrel!!", I yell to no one in particular and leap off  my chair.
 In the old days I would have suffered cold wet feet and risked frost bite but over the years I have learned, oh I have learned. My easy to slip into black rubber boots are in their appointed place by the sliding door. Slip,slip and then the all important click, click of the lock on the door. If this is one of my regular marauders this may be the end of the chase. Click, click I go again pointedly. The enemy holds its ground, inverted on the feeder chugging sunflower seeds like some uni student at a kegger. Clearly this one needs training.
  I slide the door open and leap out onto the deck. The enemy changes his stance and perches on top of the feeder. I step closer and clap my hands. Hand clapping is the ultimate weapon. I have tried snowballs but I can't throw worth a hoot and the basic building material isn't always at hand. Besides I'm not out to injure anything, just to move it along. For some reason the clapping works on a great number of animal species : squirrel, cats, dogs, raccoons, though if you have really big animals in your yard like mountain lions or bears I'd probably recommend trying something else. (Probably doesn't work with deaf animals like snakes either) Exceptions aside it works a charm on squirrels. However it has to be delivered properly. You just can't sit inside dozing on the couch and randomly clap your hands in hopes of maintaining some sort of homeland security. There is a definite method to this. Read and learn. Read and learn.
 The squirrel maintains its perch and waits for the next gambit. I close the distance a bit and clap once more. It leaps to the nearby small pine tree and does a poor job of hiding. I close the distance yet again and repeat the single clap. The squirrel now goes to the neighbour's maple tree where it climbs to an unreachable height, then turns to make its chirping noises at me. This is the critical moment in the game. Depending on how cold it is, and how I am dressed (some mornings not so much) and how likely it is that the neighbours will see me trespass on their property I approach the tree and begin to clap furiously. If all goes well, the enemy leaps from the tree to the fence and begins to scamper away. The really bold ones go all the way down to the end of the block where the fence makes a 90 degree turn but sit on the final fence post waiting for me to go back inside. I never blink first at this point. Until I see that furry tail go around the corner I will stand there with frost building up on my eyelashes while trying to ignore Jan's pleas of "Get back inside here before someone sees you!" I always stand my ground.
   There is fair bit of science in my approach. There have been many a text written on conditioning and every good animal trainer knows that it works. If it didn't, the big Hollywood animals like the lions and grizzly bears would eat all of those expensive actors instead of rolling around with them and then playing dead. I know that if I am consistent with what I do that the squirrel will eventually become so conditioned to the routine that all I have to do is get up and go to the sliding door and give it a good couple of clicks and the squirrel will scamper away right around the bend of the fence. Unfortunately each and every squirrel that finds one of my bird feeders has to be trained and there seems to be an unending supply of new recruits.
 Now I know that some "liberal" thinks will say things like, "The squirrels need to eat too." Yes they do. They need to eat squirrel food. I buy bird food. It says so on the bag. It does not say bird and squirrel food, just bird food. Some will say, "Just put it somewhere where the squirrel can't get at it." There is no such a place.
  As a somewhat  cruel spirited Christmas present Jan gave me some sort of squirrel feeder. It was basically a suet mix filled with various seeds normally associated with bird food and then pressed into the shape of a large acorn. How "cute".  It had a piece of wire embedded in it which had a loop at the end so that it could be hung from a tree to feed your furry friends. Not immediately my favourite gift but it had potential.
 I had heard that squirrels have trouble navigating clothesline, because to them it acts like a bungee cord. Armed with this knowledge I used a step ladder to hang a three foot  length of clothesline from not only the highest branch that I could reach but the one that extended itself the most. I tied the clothesline to the metal loop and declared "Game on!
  The first four days were nothing short of delicious. I sat glancing over my morning paper at a small gathering of the furry faithful that had come to drool at the offering which swayed pendulously before them. Their entire crew seemed engaged in a group brain fart while dribbles of coffee quietly escaped the corners of my smile.
  Then something happened. I won't go into the horrific details of how the nibbling took place but I will say that the last I saw of the "acorn" was its severely  gnawed and truncated body being dragged under the low lying branch of a pine tree. Someone had clearly lied about the clothesline bit.
 Spring and Fall bring fresh horrors to the squirrel war. In the Fall these rampaging rodents dig holes in  manicured lawns and even in  flower pots in order to bury acorns which they have no hope of ever finding again. In the Spring they prove me dead right by fruitlessly digging holes at random for their stored treasures while somehow managing to make off with every tulip bulb that was planted six months ago. A set of uninsulated light weight boots should be left by the door throughout both seasons.
  Summer brings peace to the land. The bird feeders are not filled, the lawn and flower pots have been repaired and replenished. I wear my flip flop sandals that have pictures of squirrels embedded on the soles and calmly drink coffee from my mug on which a squirrel asks," Could you direct me to the nearest bird feeder?"

The enemy comes to the yard now only to drink from the pond, which I allow because both sides need to rest and recover........... because this isn't over.
 Thanks grandma, I feel much better getting that off of my chest.   Ken

Singing in the Dark

Today, the G&S Choir sang at Golf's Steakhouse.  During my solo, the power went out.  Jan and I put together this song, to be sung to the tune of "Singing in the Rain".

I was singing my refrain,

Just singing my refrain,

What a glorious feeling,

But the lights didn’t remain.

We were singing for crowds,

But it got dark up above,

The sun’s in my heart

But my song got the shove.

The gloom didn’t chase

Everyone from the place

I’m glad you couldn’t see 

All the panic on my face.

The guitar couldn’t strum

The piano wouldn’t hum

What a glorious feeling

To be backed up by a drum.

I’m singing my refrain,

Just singing my refrain,

We blocked all the exits

So the crowd would remain.

It’s so dark on the stage

That we can’t see the page

So we're singing, singing….

A capella!!

My Life in the Boob Factory

 It's something that we all do, only I've done it to the point of nearly being arrested for indecent exposure. Ever since I can remember I've been unable to take a walk down the beach and come home empty handed. Maybe it goes back to ancestral times when we combed the shores for food, so we ended up hard wired to gather and hunt down the creatures of the shore.  Perhaps it is a more recently evolved material thing and we are secretly looking for bits of gold or buried treasures, or perhaps we think that someone will come along and give us money for our findings. In my daydream, some old school Cadillac will pull up and the driver will open the door for some vaguely familiar TV or movie star with a heavy American accent who says, "Hey there boy. I see you've collected some mighty fine shells. What say I give you a million dollars for them?"  More likely though, the shells glittering in water are attraction enough on their own and we just have to possess them. Moreover, they are free and decorative souvenirs of a relaxing day spent somewhere away from the cares of the working world. The trouble is, that I never come properly prepared for such ventures. A sensible person would know that a hand in hand walk on the beach will eventually deteriorate from some sort of glowingly warm Hallmark e moment into a full blown everyone for himself scavenger hunt. A sensible person would bring a bag.
  Men's swim wear is can be divided into two basic camps for the purposes of shell gathering. First you have the swimming-focused trunks like the Speedo. The Aussies call them budgie smugglers and other than the budgie there is no packing room for the likes of shells. If you wear one of these contraptions the only shells that you are going to bring home will be limited to how many you can pile up in you hands and balance against your chest.
Second, you have your board shorts. These trunks generally have good sized pockets in the front and maybe even some small ones in the back. Perfect for the surfer, perfect for the wandering scavenger. 
  The problem really isn't in the process. It's simple enough. Find something shiny in the water, pick it up and put it in your pocket. Done. The problem is that for the true shell connoisseur there is really no "off" switch. The pockets just get fuller and fuller and of course heavier and heavier. At some point you begin a war with gravity that your swimsuit just can't win. You get down to that-one-more shell that is the tipping point, or more precisely, the debriefing point. Now you know that you aren't likely to throw the shell back so you try things like tightening the string around the waist band. After that you try pushing out your belly. Eventually you end up with the string digging into your swollen belly as one hand now hitches up your trunks while the other tries to hold and gather more shells. This is usually when you see the best shell of the day and you have to let go of the waist band for just a second..........

   Collecting shells on the beaches of Hilton Head, South Carolina this autumn with Jan and my two sisters- and brothers-in-law presented us with some unique experiences. For some reason, the conch snails were there in full force. Usually you would just see the tip emerging from the sand. The best technique here is to straddle the protrusion and dig with both hands like a dog at the fence line. These specimens were quite fine but if you tried to jam two of these babies into your pockets, there would be a splash when your swimmers hit the surf. The first day we did the balance on your chest act but the next day the ladies in our crew broke out the plastic pails.
  The defining moment, that all important paradigm shift, came when my sister-in-law, Marg, held up a shell and said, "Hey look! A boob!" Sure enough, you didn't have to squint your eyes or be influenced by the power of suggestion, this type of shell looks like the real deal. Viewed from the top, these creatures have a classic breast shape with an areola and a nipple to boot. Depending on the size of the snail, the shell comes in its own versions from A (almost a boob), to B (barely a boob), C (can't complain), to D (Dang!) to DD (Double Dang!) which were the biggest that we found. I'm sure that Davie Jones is keeping the E to H (Help I can't get up!) ones for himself in his locker.
  Since Jan does a lot of work fund raising for The Weekend to End Women's Cancers, we figured that somehow we could work these shells into the cause. Unfortunately this now gave us a semi genuine reason for shell collecting. We now no longer even considered walking hand in hand in the setting sun, waves gently lapping at our feet. Oh no, from now on it was going to be a well planned full on assault on the shoreline. It was about to become an "all business now pal, don't be getting in my way, I saw it first" sort or thing.  In the spirit of fair play  we had to have the latest tide charts set out on the  kitchen table so that all of the couples could have an equal shot at setting their watches to the holy grail for gatherers -  the beginning of low tide. 
  Once we got our treasures home we had to figure out exactly what we were going to do with them. The first step was cleaning, as the entire haul smelled like taking a whiff in a garbage bag filled with old running shoes. They were put through various regimes of soap and water and vinegar and water and finally bleach and water and then water and water. This gives you a clean but a somewhat colourless and dull shell. The trick here was going to be to give these objects a more flesh like sheen.
  This had now become a science project. Complete with control specimens I had a ) car wax,  b) mineral oil, c) car wax with mineral oil over top, d) mineral oil with car wax over top The winner of the most life like was plain mineral oil.

The next problems were proper length of ribbon, making the length of ribbon into the properly  shaped Pink Ribbon logo, and attaching the ribbon to the shells in a manner so that they hung at the proper life-like angle. I had a week to figure all of this out before Jan was to take them to fund raise at a craft sale. At some point as I sat at the kitchen counter surrounded with spools of ribbon and scissors and tape and two different glue guns and glue sticks and waxed paper and aluminum foil and rubber gloves, an old dental pick and a pile of some kind of dead sea creatures that happen to look like human breasts,  I began to wonder what I had done in life to lead me to this point.
  It didn't take a lot of reflection before I had it whittled down to retirement. The way I see it, is that retirement puts you in the place of that charging bull who heads for the alluring bright colour but when he gets there the curtain is pulled away to reveal something unexpected, and unexpected can be many things - just not what you expected. I think that as I was plugging away at workaday life, I thought that retirement meant something like going back to my childhood where I  could just play with my friends all of the time, all day long. When I was a kid and wanted to play all I had to do was open the door and start to canvas the street. If there weren't any kids outside at the moment,I just started pounding on doors and asking, "Can ----come out to play?" It never took long to get a crew together and get at the serious business of playing. The reality of retirement life is that most of the boomer/zoomers, like myself, are really only semi retired and have schedules that are so over booked that an aircraft control expert is needed to schedule when you could possibly have coffee with them someday.  The result is that you can end up spend a lot of time knocking on your own door, so hopefully you don't have a lot of problems dealing with the person inside. 

   Thus, after years of education, work, maturation, and fate, I had become the sole proprietor of the boob factory that was set up on the kitchen counter. It took one day to do all of the set up and testing, and one day to do all of the actual assembly. Not bad at all.  Now the proof  would be in  the pudding.
   This weekend, Jan took the ornaments to a craft sale and they were well received. You actually don't buy the item, you just donate and take either a cookie or the ornament. Apparently double D's were the favourite. I won't speculate as to why.
 Well it seems that now I have an actual reason to go shell collecting. So if you see a guy stumbling down the beach with his hands full of shells cradled against his chest and his bathing suits pockets bulging and his gut pushed out....well just know that I'm on a mission here. 
                                                                                             Ken

Spontaneous Generation

  There was really nothing I could do. I just got to lie there and watch them die. I had just returned from my fishing misadventure (see In the Arms of a Man from Tuk) and was still at the crawling stage due to a herniated disc, so my options for personal intervention were pretty limited.
  As I lay face down on the flagstones peering into the water I watched a bizarre and disturbing scene. Fish that I had raised for eight years were swimming perfectly happy one minute and floating dead the next. I have been keeping fish since I was about twelve and part of the dues in fish education is learning first hand why they die. Over time you can evaluate fish behavior in a pond or aquarium in a similar way that a mechanic listens to an engine.  If they are breathing for air at the surface or facing into a corner doing the shimmy or rubbing themselves repeatedly against the rocks, they aren't just swimming around, they are telling you something.
 During the time that I had been fishing in the Northwest Territories, Ontario had been sweltering with high heat and humidity. This may have been a factor. On the other hand Jan had run the pond, circulating the water down the waterfalls and along its river, adding oxygen while its volume alone would make temperature changes somewhat gradual.
 All of the algae that had been blooming mysteriously cleared rapidly. This can happen naturally when the surface of the pond gets covered by enough lily pads thus blocking out excess sunlight.  In some  bodies of water you can get algae blooms that cause problems when they grow and then again when they die off causing a rapid loss of oxygen. Further, enough of this goo festering at the bottom can cause a deadly round of hydrogen sulfide. Interesting stuff but I doubt that was the problem.
  New pond/aquarium set ups are prone to problems related to the nitrogen cycle and the production of ammonia. Not the case here.
 Overfeeding can be a problem but we rarely feed our fish commercial food. They have enough planted material and a healthy insect population to keep them plump enough thank you.  
  Probably more to the point, our neighbours had been doing some heavy herbicide applications during the dry hot weather.The herbicides probably hadn't settled into the soil when the torrential rains hit and washed everything down into the pond which is well below surrounding yard levels.
  I have several water test kits but they were downstairs in the basement jumbled up in a bunch of junk and I wasn't about to crawl through the house, up and down stairways dragging the equipment with me like some kind of demented aquaculture rescue dog.
 The best that I could come up with was trying to do a partial water change. Lacking any quick access to a submersible sump pump I tried to use an all too small system that is designed for aquarium use.  It took forever and gummed up repeatedly but eventually I changed enough of the toxic water and replaced it with rain barrel water such that at least the pace of the deaths slowed markedly. By the end of the summer we had gone from just under 30 fish to a total of 4 including three that I had purchased in the "feeder" tank section of the pet store just to see if conditions had changed enough to allow for some decent chance of survival.
 Spontaneous Generation- The short hand definition here is that there was a belief that you really didn't need seeds or eggs or parents to start life, all you needed was something called "the wet" like a damp forest floor or a puddle or a compost bin  plus the sun and bingo you would sprout frogs or badgers or whatever. This has been a somewhat less than popular view since something called "Science" came along but I think that this new "Science" notion is probably wrong.
  In Ontario the autumn is called Fall for a reason. At some point all of those yellow, orange, and red leaves that adorn the post cards of Algonquin Park and lure the legions of "leaf peepers" to our province, fall to the ground and head towards our pond. I'm not sure that this is a phenomenon that is limited strictly to Ontario. I am quite of the mind that if you are standing in Fitzroy Park in Melbourne Aus  where you can see Capt Cook's boyhood home and a leaf gently wafts past your face, it is just beginning its journey to our pond.
 Normally I can somewhat keep up with what nature dumps by scooping out the day's contributions with a large net. Unfortunately this year just as Nature was letting loose her colourful bounty we were headed out of the driveway for Hilton Head South Carolina.
 The pilgrimage to South Carolina has become a new ritual, the draw being things like: warmer temperatures, sun rise/sun set walks along the ocean, sea shell gathering, good fishing, world class golf courses, herons, turtles, alligators, eagles, fried shrimp,whole flounder dishes, bicycling at low tide, walking to sea side bars, beautifully preserved historic communities, renting waterside mansions for a song, and more cheap wine and beer than you can shake a stick at. But after a while you've got to come back.
  The November return meant a beat the clock scramble to get ready for winter: drain and cover the rain barrels, paint and caulk around windows, clean and cover the barbecue, have the winter tires put on, last wash and wax for the cars, replace the furnace filters and the humidifier pads, turn off the outside taps and drain the lines, empty all flower pots and store in the garage, drain the gas in the lawn mower, change the oil in the snow thrower, trim trees, bushes and ornamental grasses before the last day for yard waste pick up, reset the controls on the furnace and floor heaters and humidifier and air ventilator, rake the leaves to the curb, AND muck out the pond. By contrast, when we lived in Australia, winter was the day when we thought that maybe we shouldn't wear shorts and perhaps look for that sweater that we brought,...na,...no worries, be right mate.
  All that was really needed here was the movie creature to go with this black lagoon. Leaves had displaced most of the water and what water there was had been dyed black by leaf tannins. Nothing else was visible - no water lilies no fish - just a cold dark undrinkable tea.
  Louis lent me his rescued from the thrift store submersible pump. A real beauty - lots of power and a long cord so that you could just toss it  right into the bottom of the pond. The hose attached to this pump was of uncertain parentage and vintage. What was for sure was that it had been patched a number of times and it looked like some of the patches may have worked themselves loose over the years. The only way to know for sure was going to be to set it up and plug it in.
 Now I should have known better than to straddle the hose while the pump powered up and the black sludge from the bottom of the pond began to serge through the line but I was too engrossed in watching the hose go from flat to full round under pressure. Neither Louis nor some funniest home video show could have better planned to have the largest split in the hose appear right between my legs.  Several seasons worth of rotted leaves and liquefied fish poop shot up and covered me from crotch to glasses to hat in an instant. By the time I got over to pull out the plug, the lawn had become a black swamp and I look like I had just been tarred.
  Now every Canadian is supposed to have ample supplies of duct tape on hand, in fact I think that it may actually be a law but I was out of this and any other heavy duty, wide tape. All I had was some thin electrical tape and there was  no use trying to see if I was really making repairs if the pressure was off and the hose was flat. So it was another good bathing in goo as I wrapped around and around and around with my little spool of tape as the hose continued to spew under pressure. At some point you can only get so wet but I'm not sure if this applies to filth.
  As the water drained I had Gord spray all of the algae off of the rocks in the pond while I climbed down in it, scooping out clots of leaves and chunks of overgrown plants.The fish would show themselves in due time, after all they were steadily running out of room.

 The pond is sloped in terrace fashion and the bottom of the bottom is quite small, just about enough to place your booted feet in and not much more. I carefully began scooping out the remaining small puddle of water with a plastic cup and only then did a flash of colour emerge from the blackness. It was cornered in no time but there was only the one. I continued with my plastic cup until there was nothing left on the bottom but the dry pond liner. No more fish. No more water in the pond, just rocks and rubber liner. It was now mid day, the light was good, everything that there was to see could be seen. Fine, one lone fish occupied a bucket along with a handful or two of large snails.
  Filling the pond is a surprisingly slow process. The diameter of a garden hose is smaller than the sump pump's and there is no need for heavy pressure. This more leisurely pace makes you appreciate just how much water you are using so that when the water bill comes you will have had time to prepare for the shock.
  When the water reached the top I put on the fountain, chucked Mr Lonely and the snails back into the pond and headed up for a shower and a beer.
   The sun sets pretty early here in November so by the time I got cleaned up and back out on the deck, beer in hand to properly  survey  and contemplate my handiwork, it was already getting dark. The beam from the pond light set on a terrace near the bottom of the pond confirmed what the fading rays of the sun were eluding to. There were two fish in the pond! Impossible!
  The next morning as I had had coffee and was confirming the miracle of the second fish with Jan, we now counted three. The three count held for two days and then there were four. They even had the exact same colour patterns of the original fish.
  I made a point of not checking  today.  Who knows what creatures are being generated in that "wet"? With all of this Spontaneous Generation going on in the pond I'm a bit afraid to look.  Ken

A Simple Answer to the World's Financial Woes

All over Europe countries who have overspent and have no money to pay are standing around with their empty pockets hanging out going, "Psst ….Hey Germany, can you spare a euro?" In America, the perhaps formerly most powerful country in the world, has just been put on official notice that they are being lumped into the same financial group as drunken sailors. One could almost be smug except that as as group, Canada's baby boomers have saved no money for retirement and pay out to debt nearly $150. for every $100. that they bring in. Simply put, the world has lost the plot financially.

Most of us knew the answer to these problems way back when we were kids. The problem is that like the children who came back from Never Never Land we forgot about it as we got older. The answer – cue the pixie dust - was the weekly allowance.

I have been informally surveying my friends for about a month now and have come up with a few trends

which transcend age variation and amount of allowance paid. Here in my own business report are the results of this survey along with a bit of financial commentary. 
  Allowances generally were given on a weekend after the wage earner got paid. The fact that we had to wait until the designated day taught you that money didn't arrive in a constant stream. For most people it arrived as a fixed amount on a fixed day and there were no exceptions, Friday didn't mean Thursday and this week's allowance didn't include next week's There were no pay day loans. You began to internalize budgeting.

Most allowances came with strings attached, some with strings of gossamer and some with tow ropes. In my case there was nothing really spelled out but I wouldn't dare be putting my hand out before the lawn was cut. My allowance was also mine – a totally disposable income, no strings attached - full tilt mad money - all twenty–five cents of it.

Many of my peers were not so lucky. Some were expected to save a certain portion while others were expected to donate to the church. None the less you were left with a weekly something in hand and this is where the bulk of your early financial training began.

That twenty five cents had buying power. For me the heft and sway of my financial clout rarely lasted longer than that Saturday afternoon, and I was forced to coast for the rest of the week, but it was a heady experience while it lasted. We didn't have malls back then and there were no department stores within walking distance. We had the drug store on the corner and that was all the shopping mecca that we needed. It had comic books, candy, ice cream and pop. It had nothing we really needed but pretty much everything that we wanted.

We had the whole inventory memorized and parsed out into categories of equivalent value.  The bigger ticket items cost ten cents each. Pop, a comic book, a bag of chips, cheezies, flavoured pop corn, a drumstick ice cream, a large chocolate bar all were going to cost you a dime. Items within this list could be further subdivided into what would last longer. An Arrow bar was delicious but all of those holes made it seem less substantial a purchase than an O Henry bar. Crème Soda was wonderful but way too tempting to shake up and see it go in an instant. Chips had the crunch but you could still eat Cheezies when they got stale.

Comic books taught us about group purchasing and sharing. Everyone in the group would get a different comic and then trade them around as we sat reading and munching. Comics were pretty much the mandatory purchase. Everything else went with the book.

 Nickels presented a new set of problems. You could always go for the large size Peppermint Patties or the sponge taffy, or the smaller sized chocolate bars but then that would be it for your allowance if you had already gone the Cheezies and comic book route.

That last nickel was usually saved for the penny candy section. Two for a penny and three for a penny gave you a pretty good bag stuffed with the likes of licorice-sticks, pipes, and nibs,or black balls or black babies(no that's not a misprint), packets of licamaid, wax shapes filled with coloured sugar water, caramel squares in cellophane, a strip of candy buttons (sugar dots on wax paper) and of course a few candy cigarettes just to get in training for the future. The important thing here was to stretch that last bit of money into items that you could, if you had the will power, make last over a bit more of the week. This need to stretch your allowance was the corollary to the general rule of consumer economics 101- first you have to get money and then you have to make it last.
  No matter how hard you tried, the allowance was never enough to fulfill all of your wants. Then again I don't think it was ever meant to, and therein lay another lesson. If you wanted more, you were going to have to earn it. As a group we caught on quickly. At two cents a bottle our generation pretty much had the lock on the invention of recycling. A morning spent scouring ditches by the the side of the road instilled  values of hard work and entrepreneurship which could be reinforced immediately with a bike ride to the store for instant reward/gratification.

 Having a bicycle had given me the freedom to travel with my buddies as I pleased. That freedom eventually led us to the fairly distant Stoney Creek Dairy. The dairy gave me a craving for quality ice cream that my budget couldn't afford. The budget constraint led to my constant nagging for jobs. The nagging led to a job that Dad figured would keep me quiet for a bit, while on my part I could dream about dairy delights as I toiled. 
  The job was about as "make work" a project as you could imagine. Dad hauled an ancient wooden  extension ladder out of the garage and set the two pieces up on saw horses in the backyard. My job was to scrape and sand all of the paint right down to the bare wood and then stain and then seal and then put on two coats of spar varnish. I'm pretty sure that in the realm of Dad Jobs this one has to be considered top shelf in the "keep em busy category". Dad jobs, of course, were always menial, hard, boring work for low pay and came with a heavy handed subtext of "and this is what you'll be doing for the rest of your life if you don't do better in school."
 I immediately hired a helper and promised to share the reward,although it was never stated exactly what the reward was to be because nobody really expected that I would stick to any project of that length. As we worked along we of course speculated on the possibilities of how our payment could be spent. My buddy had heard that they had a new dish at the dairy that was going to be this summer's rage. So huge and wonderful was it that it would put any sort of double decker or banana split to shame. This was it. This was to be my new focus. 
"What do they call it?" 
"Well my dad saw it and he says that it's some kind of an idiot's delight."  Idiot's Delight - now my dairy fantasy had a name.
  Neither sun, sweat, nor sandpaper were a match for my frozen goal and as the days passed there was no flagging from the cause. At some point Dad gave his nod of approval and handed over some cash to my friend and me. He even went so far as to suggest a treat as a bonus for a job well done. I knew what I wanted.
  Dad even volunteered to go in and get our treats as we sat on the bench. Awhile later he emerged empty handed but with his face contorted and glowing crimson red . This was not the portrait of a happy man.  As he told it, he had walked up to the counter and ordered a banana split and an Idiot's Delight. The man behind the counter seemed confused by the order. The banana split was no problem but he said that he didn't think that the other item existed.  Dad went on the offensive and said that it did and was very popular and that he wanted his request for an Idiot's Delight filled. Apparently there was a bit of a pause followed by, "Well sir what exactly would make you happy?"
  I was pointed in the direction of the door and told to order my own delight. Turns out it was called a Super Duper. 
   After this I pretty much looked for jobs that didn't have to be invented and supervised by Dad. My first job was to picket around a car lot with a sign that said, "These low prices are unfair!" A sweet deal at fifty cents an hour. After that came a job as a drug store delivery boy which was a bit of a challenge because I didn't know the names of any of the streets and didn't carry a map because I thought that my lack of knowledge might be found out. I'd just take the package and hop on my bike and start asking the first people that I saw for directions. If I didn't see anybody for awhile I'd just start knocking on doors for help. 
  By the time I got to high school I was still getting an allowance but it had slipped far below the needs of my current   life.  Only a better job, in this case loading trucks and box cars for the Canadian National Railroad  could cover gas, girls,dances and movies.
  I can't help but wonder if world leaders and finance ministers didn't grow up with allowances and how that has effected their thinking. Did they not learn that you can only spend as much as you have and that there are no extensions and that you have to make your money last?  Did they forget that things like houses are only worth so much in proportion to everything else? Did we all forget that for most people most successful money management comes from hard work and harder budgeting, not from lightning strikes like the lottery tickets or this week's hot stock or race horse tip. 
  I recently read that most people become happier once they reach their senior citizen years. I wonder if it's because at a certain age you go back on allowance.  Ken
    ( a special thanks to Art Vernon for the photo of his allowance saved in a coin collection)

In the Arms of a Man from Tuk

 He said that he was originally from Tuk or Tuktoyaktuk if you like, a small Inuvialuit community way up there on the shores of the Arctic Ocean on Mackenzie Bay. He described going on a whale hunt when he was about five. The hunt was not just about the searching for food, it was about the gathering of a community and the sharing of food even to other communities far flung across the Arctic. Roger had grown up in a boat and as our guide we would put his skills to the test.
 Louis and I had waited about three years to return to Frontier Fishing Lodge on Great Slave Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories. The trip isn't cheap (you could go on a cruise) but you get what you pay for in terms of good service, good food, fresh air, clean water and abundant large fish. Planning involves a number of trips to the tackle store and stocking up on things that you already have three of and things that you will never use but seemed to fit into the maybe, just in case, I've heard this colour is really hot this year, scenario that the salesman has woven for you.
  After the tackle store comes at least two weeks of packing and repacking the main bag plus the knapsack  carry on, plus the rod case. You have a 50lb max flight limit on the bush type planes so every piece of clothing gets double thought. You also, of course, have the dilemma of the fact that a bottle of scotch weighs more than a couple of long sleeve shirts so you are constantly checking the Internet weather channel to see if you can predict your needs.
  On Thursday morning I lugged my gear down to the foot of the stairs, set it on the floor, and as I stood up, my L4 disc herniated and I went into a spasm that twisted me into the letter C. I had no illusions of what this meant. Mr L4 has been the ruin of many a holiday over the years, but I knew I couldn't cancel out on my good buddy. And, if we didn't go this week we wouldn't be going this season. What if I cancelled and then felt better the next day? What if the chiropractor could put me back together? Maybe this wasn't going to be as bad as usual. I had two appointments with the chiropractor that day and at 3 am Friday morning we were headed to the airport. I was visibly in trouble way before we saw the sign that said Terminal 3. 
 An airport worker quickly sized me up and I found myself being pushed around in a wheelchair. Louis, meanwhile, had to do all of the check in stuff and somehow juggle the two main bags, the carry-ons and the over sized awkward to handle rod cases.
  Plastic bags leak. At least they do when you fill them with ice and then shove them down your back.  By the time we got from Toronto to Edmonton to Yellowknife my jeans were light blue on the front and a very suspicious dark blue on the back.
  In Yellowknife, we quickly arranged for whatever chiropractor would see me that day. He was less than enthusiastic about my prognosis. "I know that plane that you are going on. You won't be able to get in it. And if you do, how do you think you are going to be able to handle being in a boat?"
 The small plane was a bit of a stretch, but many patient people helped me on and off. The boat proved a bit more challenging. If you are sitting in a boat, every wave delivers a bolt of pain. One day the wind came up and we pounded through the waves to get back to the lodge for over and hour and a half. I nicknamed that trip "The Spine in a Blender Tour."
  Louis had spent some time as a grade one teacher and the he skills learned there came into play on a daily basis. He can tie your shoes in a jiff and they won't be coming off until he unties them, I tell you. He is equally good at socks and if it had been colder, I'll bet that he is a master at snowsuit management. As it was, due to just over freezing water conditions and highs of 15C, each day started with jeans, wind pants, short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweater, jacket, a baseball cap covered with a toque and a pair of gloves. I would lie on the floor as Louis found what I needed and threw it at me.
 As I couldn't sit for long, we kept trying to come up with different solutions that would allow me to take part in some fishing. One of the best I dubbed, "The Captain Ahab". From our cabin, we took a wooden chair which had a high straight back and high arm rests and placed it in front of the regular boat seat. I also had a wooden staff. Thus, with my left hand on the staff, I could push myself up to a more comfortable standing position and fish with my right hand holding the rod. I couldn't help but feel that I cut a rather commanding figure. I was clearly looking like the master of what the Australians call "the tinnie."
 We were in the river mouth right in front of the lodge because there was no wind/waves there. Everyone else had departed for larger adventures. I was doing the Captain Ahab and decided that I could handle a cup of coffee as well. Cue Louis. Before getting the coffee, I managed to get a few useless pain pills into my mouth. Now with coffee cup and staff in the same hand, I was intent on a bit of maneuvering in order to swallow the pills. Just as the cup reached my mouth the fish hit. The rod in my right hand snapped down violently causing me to lose balance and go into a painful spasm which sent me backwards, setting the hook as the next spasm came along, causing me to spit out the pills and throw the coffee at Louis. Fish on! I was oddly supported by the resistance of the fish, but by the time it was done, I was done. It was too big for me to stand up and hold so they just put it on my lap where it bounced and squirmed around like an over sized Labrador puppy while it got its picture taken. Next came the official measurements handled deftly by Roger, followed by a proper release that ensured that the fish had all of its energy back. Barbless hooks, handling by the guides, minimal time out of the water,catch and release policies all ensure a thriving industry. It was a bit humbling to think that if these lake trout only grow one half pound per year, that that 32 and a quarter pound fish was probably as old as I am. It was also the biggest fish caught that week.

  Catching Le Grand Guy did me in for the rest of the day. I took the next day off to lie on the cabin floor as well. My staff met its end that day for as I lay there enjoying some reading I noticed a bit of movement in the corner near the Coleman stove. The mouse was on tour and with some difficulty I was somewhat right behind it. It seemed to enjoy investigating the tops of the beds and when I thought I had myself secured at the proper angle I swung.  Unfortunately the staff was too long and broke against the cabin wall. This left me with seriously diminished weaponry and not much to balance with. The mouse was unfazed, he hopped onto Louis' pillow and tried to stare me down or win me over with its big brown eyes. Apparently half a staff works quite well when aimed properly at the top of the rodent's skull. Sorry about the pillow, Louis.
 Roger works so calmly that you might miss some of what he is handling. First is basic navigation. This is a huge convoluted lake. You can't afford to get lost and you can't afford to have an accident. There will be no one around to hear you, communication devices tend not to work, and the water is deadly cold. He is constantly checking for depth and changes in water temperature as well as wind and cloud conditions. He is also helping with lure selection, untangling a bird's nest in a reel, lighting his smoke, lighting your smoke, maneuvering to keep lines from being tangled on turns, netting and unhooking fish. He is also busy watching and pointing out the eagles.
 We were in a section that seemed to have no shoal or point or anything that would attract fish but we were catching them one after another, so I asked him what made him think that there were going to be fish here. "The eagle told me." My skeptical metre jumped to high.
"So just how does that work?" I asked.
"Well you see that eagle in the tree?" We did."It's there because the seagulls are here. The seagulls are here because the cisco are jumping at the surface of the water. The cisco are jumping because they are being chased by lake trout. That's how the eagle tells me."

  Roger also gathers the wood, makes the fire, fillets a freshly caught small lake trout and cooks up a fine shore lunch complete with mushrooms, onions, beans, and hash browns.
 Unfortunately I gave Roger one other task to take on that wasn't part of his usual agenda. At the end of each day of fishing I had to be gotten out of the boat. The dock is higher than the floor of the boat but there is a steel ladder to guide you up. All well and good if you can stand and put a minor degree of weight on your legs without having a screaming spasm. So the end of the day ritual became one of Louis pushing while Roger tried to block out what he was hearing as he lifted. Roger is a man whose size and strength are of a certain importance but as a dead weight to be lifted at an awkward angle, I am of no small measure. Perhaps the Kenny Lift will become an Olympic Event one day and Roger will get the Gold.
  The last day of fishing found me in a boat that had a deck at the front where I could lie down and fish on my back. This worked well except that Roger had to keep holding the fish up over the gunnels so that I could see what I had caught. By this time I could no longer sit and took my meals either lying on the floor or the deck of the boat or on the ground.

  The trip back was another study in wheelchairs and Louis balancing luggage. As the small plane landed in Yellowknife, the woman acting as an assistant announced, "Wow was that ever a bad landing!" I could have told her that. While at the Edmonton airport Louis found a helium balloon with a happy face on it and attached it to me as I slept on the floor. He said that he didn't want me to get lost. 
  I have been back for about a week and have regained some mobility and am looking into an MRI, but I still have a lot of floor time where I can think about my next trip back to the Northwest Territories where maybe next time the man from Tuk can just drive the boat and not worry about holding me.