Camping at Weatherhead Creek

When I lived in Mission, I used to go camping constantly.  As a 15/16/17 year old teen, I'd plan a camp and invite a bunch of my scouts along with. Most of them were younger than me, though I'd often get Gordon to come along, and he was two years older.

One of my favourite areas to hike in was this area around Davis Lake Provincial Park.

When I did camping as a part of wilderness hiking I traveled light. No tent, just a fly sheet, ground sheet, and some rope to hold it up.  I'd point the open end of this shelter toward the fire, and we'd generally have a couple of dead hemlock saplings that we'd broken or cut down that we'd put across the fire. It would burn through at the middle, and we'd reach out of the sleeping bag to push the two ends in as they burned away. We'd talk, plan our next adventures and tell jokes by the fire light, occasionally pushing some ends in to keep it burning.  Eventually we'd fall asleep, to awake in the morning when it began to get light.

Just past the end of Davis lake, possibly still in the park area was a creek that ran past the road called Weatherhead creek on the old topographic maps.  There was a rough logging road that ran down up along the ravine that the creek cut through the mountains (it was a sizable creek), and I recall trying to hike up it with some of my scouts (to see where it led and what interesting discoveries we'd make up there, of course...)

We did this one time, and one of my scouts, Raymond, brought a little transistor radio with him.  We had crawled into our shelters, with the embers of the fire still glowing.  He turned on CKLG and we listened.  I remember that no one spoke as we went through several songs. I clearly recall two songs that we heard that night. They were Dreams by Fleetwook Mac and Miracles by Jefferson Starship.

Music has always meant a lot to me.  There was something about those two songs that really felt like magic that night.  To this day, hearing either of those songs takes me back to Weatherhead creek, under a flysheet, with my young scouts, me still in my teens and with a fire glowing just outside my shelter.

Translink Compass Beta: My card arrived today

I was accepted a week ago into the Translink Compass Card Beta program and the card arrived today.

The card is pre-loaded with $100.00 of pretend concession fares.  I have to have valid fare to use the transit system, but they want me to "tap in" and "tap out" with the card whenever I use Skytrain or Bus, so that we can validate that the system is working correctly.  The actual test is due to start next Monday, so I'll give you some updates then.  They also gave me a bunch of little handouts if anyone is curious, as I'm also a Compass Ambassador!

Stay tuned for more updates.

Christmas when I was Little

I was just looking at some pictures that my wife put up on her blog and it took me back to when I was little.  I've dredged up a few pictures from the past.  I'm a little unsure of the timing, but from what I'm wearing and from Margaret's size and age, I'm pretty sure that this is mostly 1965.  This picture is not Christmas, but it's a clue. Note that Margaret is having her 3rd birthday (November of 1965), I'm 6 years old in this picture.

Here are a series of pictures of us around our Christmas tree, in the dining room of our house on Imperial Street in Burnaby.

One of the highlights of the year was visiting a friend, we called "Miss Lydia".  This was probably after Christmas, and I'd had a haircut.

I got the honoured spot on her lap.  I got this army helmet (with a first aid symbol on it, indicating I was a medic). I loved this helmet and for years, I'd wear it, riding my bike around with my toy guns, playing war with my friends.

I used to add my toy plastic animals to the manger scene.  My mother never minded, in fact it might have been her idea.  She caught me playing with them, here. 

Playing with open toys under the tree.

I remember all these toys.  I loved the monkey, the train and the tractor with the trailer that it would pull.  I recall that the steering wheel actually turned the front wheels.

This wasn't actually Christmas, I think it was the following January, but you can see that we had some serious snow.  I've got my little-red-barn lunch-box with Dick and Jane sitting on the fence and Spot running. I did a little hunt on the internet and couldn't find it anywhere. I'd love to find a good picture of one.

Update: I found a good picture of one:

Finally, for fun, I threw in a much later picture, from 1969, when I would have been 10.  I believe this was another visit to "Miss Lydia's" place, as I don't recognize the furniture.

So that's my little trip down memory lane.  I hope that this stirred up a few of your own memories!

Hope you're having a Merry Christmas and that you have a Blessed New Year in 2012!

1960s Summer Fun

When I was a little boy growing up in Burnaby, there were a lot of fun thing that we did in the summer.  Summer was this glorious, long time when we all played together, went to fun places and did fun things.
Often we just did things as a family. The picture below shows my dad playing with two of my sisters and myself.  It always seemed that the summers were longer and hotter when I was little.

Here's a picture from when I was really little (2nd from left) in a park.  We probably had a picnic lunch. We were always doing this.

Stanley park was a great favourite. Here we are at lost lagoon feeding the ducks. (me on the left).



Then there was Lynn Canyon.  We loved to hike in it, pretending we were soldiers, or explorers.  Note that pine cones were always grenades. (me front row, right.)



But there was no treat like swimming in the summer. I think some summers I practically lived in my swim shorts. We'd go to McPherson pool for 15 cents admission, because it was close, or once I was 9 years old, we would sometimes go to Central Park pool, which was only 10 cents.

Sometimes we'd lay on the cement deck after swimming, and feel the hot, rough concrete under our soft tummies, baking them dry as the sun cooked our backs.

When I was really little, we'd go to Lobbly Park. It was just east of Nelson street, and one block in from Kingsway.  The park is still there, and I recall Antoon (my oldest brother) was the playground attendent when he was 16 and 17, (I was 9 and 10).  I remember climbing over the fence with a friend to explore an abandoned house in the next lane.  We had to climb on a garbage can to get onto the high fence, we'd lay across it, the hot rough wood on our bare tummy, then slide down the other side.

One of our favourite swimming holes was Stanley Park's 2nd beach.  Here's a picture of me with my friend Shawn goofing around near the playground.  If you look close you can see the sand caked on our bare feet.  Now this was living! (me on the left).

I'm sure that summer is just as fun for children today, as it was for me way back in the 1960s.  But I suspect that we had a bit more freedom to roam, a few more places to roam without adults interfering, and it just seemed a bit safer to be a child then.



The Accidental High School Bomb

When I was in grade 8, we had a science class in a portable. I remember the first class, the teacher gave us 4 chemicals and told us we had to figure out how to make Oxygen and Hydrogen with them. You would know that you had it when you held a glowing flint stick (piece of smoldering wood, actually, no flint) over the test tube. If you had hydrogen you would get a pop. If you had oxygen, it would turn into a blaze.

Before we started he threw in one more comment. "There is no way you can make a bomb with this, so don't even try!"

So we went to work. I was working with my friend Richard, and nothing was working. So, we tried putting all 4 chemicals into the test-tube. As near as I can tell, thinking back on it, we must have got one layer producing hydrogen, and another producing oxygen.

My friend was holding the test tube and he lifted it off the bunsen burner, as I held the flint stick over our test tube for probably the 10th time, but this time there was a difference!

There was a loud bang, and a flash of flame that shot about a foot out the top of the test tube! The bottom of the test tube was gone (we never found any glass, either) and my friend and I both jumped. I think a couple of girls shrieked (might have been a couple of boys, too!)

The moral of the story? Don't tell 13 year olds that something can't be done unless you're really sure it can't!

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but I did learn something. Hydrogen and oxygen are a dangerous mixture!

Anne Murray at the Canadian Jamboree in 1977 (PEI)

I was looking at this old clip earlier today, then I happened to turn on CBC and caught the tail end of Anne Murray’s “Anne Murray and Friends” show about making her CD.

The clip talks about the scouts following her down to the beach for a show she put on. I was there, as leader for a patrol from Mission (I was only 18). We watched Anne work her magic, and I even recall the Israeli scouts (including girl scouts) getting up on the stage and playing “the good, the bad and the ugly” theme song with their hands, like flutes.

I’ve always loved Anne’s music. It was some of the first songs I learned on guitar and I still sometimes play songs like snowbird and I’m on the top of the world.

Thank you, Anne for so many years of music, that somehow connects with great joy and times of fun in my life!

Grown up Shoes for Little Feet

Today (Good Friday) I sat on the front porch and cleaned two pairs of shoes.

My hiking boots had been caked with mud, but it all nicely dusted off today. I'd taken them on a geocaching expedition with the 4SW Burnaby Cub Pack several weeks ago for spring camp 1, and we encountered some serious mud on the way (but had a great time!) I didn't have time to clean them until today.

Yesterday, I took my Willingdon small (Bible study) group in the small bus down to La Conner, WA to see the tulips at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We wandered through a tulip field staring at the amazing blooms! What a picture they paint! Unfortunately, the fields had a lot of mud, much like river silt, the kind that gets into everything, so I had to dust and polish these shoes today, as well.

While I was polishing them, I recalled vividly, what it was like when I was little, to get ready for church on a Sunday morning. One of the things we'd do (I can't remember if we did it the night before, or just before heading out) was to polish our shoes. I had black shoes, that required regular polishing, that I'd wear for almost everything.

On Wed of this week, we took the Cubs karting at Ron McLean park. Down a ways from where we were karting, there is a ravine, which is part of the park. I remember playing in that ravine when I was about the same age as the cubs (8-10 years old). I clearly recall trying not to get my black shoes too dirty (or soak them in the creek). I also recall getting my bare legs (I was wearing shorts) into some stinging nettles.

We wore those shoes everywhere, with just a few exceptions. Of course, in the summer when it was warm I didn't wear any shoes or socks at all, and at school, you had to have gym shoes. You could only wear them for gym, so you wore your other shoes at other times. And of course, in really heavy rain, you wore your gumboots, and took them off and walked about in socks in school. I can recall having got a bit of water into my boots, so one of my socks was half soaked, and felt a bit cold as I padded about in the classroom.

The shoes we had were really the same shoes as grownups wore to an office, but in a smaller size. We were expected to dress like miniature grownups.

Funny how times change! Now, the kids have shoes that are specially designed for kids, with lights that flash, and velcro instead of laces, and super heros emblazoned on them!

And, no! I'm not going to say that it was better "way back when". Some things were, some things weren't. In this case, I like it that kids have something specially made for them. And no need to polish, just throw them in the clothes washer!