Signal to Noise » family

Jumping the centuries

gord — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:11:31 +0000

The Noye family, inspired by a man that I smell like (and without needing two tickets), Jan and I and the girls went out to Orwell Corner Historic Village yesterday to partake in the Orwell Corner Winter Fun Day. The writeup in the local paper suggested that we could

Visit with farm animals, go sledding, make snow taffy, help Blacksmith make a nail, horse and sleigh rides (weather permitting), plus traditional indoor board and card games. Hot chocolate will be served.

It was all true and to top it off there was a light snowfall that floated clumps of stick-on-the-end-of-your-nose snow. It is very hard not to spout words like “idyllic,” “rustic,” “picturesque,” “unspoiled,” and other synonyms … because it was a lot of fun. A lot of people worked hard to make an afternoon of sleigh rides, hot chocolate, and maple syrup taffy in the snow.

We spent about 45 minutes in the blacksmith shop and Robin and I got to make some crafts with steel. She got to make a nail and I made a double-ended hook. When Robin was not making her nail and hammering she was driving the fan to keep the force hot. She was told that in the late 19th century she might earn ten cents for a day of keeping the shop clean and the fire hot. She would probably also have been a boy.

All told, we spent a little over two hours wandering around the village, eating taffy (actually, picking taffy out of teeth and hoping not to dislodge fillings), patting bunnies (free to a good home), going on sleigh rides, and drinking hot chocolate. We finished the day at home with warm stew and many smiles.

A worthy place in the sun

gord — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:34:49 +0000

I have been busy. It was more than that … but I have been busy.

I want to pimp a cause: Camp Triumph. My family has taken advantage of the camp for two years (the first year was in the old location; this year was at the new, very beautiful and developing location).

The creation of the new camp has involved a lot of donated time, materials, and sweat and has resulted in a beautiful beginning. I really suggest that you take a look at the previous link (repeated here) to see the effort that went into planning the new site with respect to everything from wind direction to sunsets to energy efficiency to longevity of the buildings.

There is a Facebook group for the camp and you will find many, many people extolling the camp’s value. If you are unsure of the camp’s value then take a look at the testimonials of the children who attended and their parents. I know it is truly a great place.

What I would like you to do (whoever you are) is to consider voting at the Aviva Community Fund site for the project to Build a Lodge for Camp Triumph. It will cost you a registration (email and password–you can disable the “send me updates emails” while registering) and allow you to cast a vote each day from now until December 16th.

That is all. If you can find the time and inclination I would appreciate it and you might (no guarantee) get a small warm feeling in your belly. Your mileage may vary. I want to help the camp because it helps others a great deal.

I will end with one final note from the write-up on the Aviva site that underscores the commitment to the camp by the people who work there. Nobody at the camp gets paid, it is a labour of love,

“Everyone who works at Camp Triumph is a volunteer. In 2009, 74 volunteer staff participated. All of the Camp counselors are university students coming from a variety of faculties such as Medicine, Engineering, Architecture, Journalism and Fine Arts. Our other volunteers range from Educators and Guidance Counselors to Firefighters.”

Quiet evenings

gord — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:43:55 +0000

I am tempted to write a book about working at the Sun-N-Shade campground this summer. There have been enough laughs, quandaries, and pearls of wisdom in the last two weeks to at least fill a trade paperback. If I could come up with a touchy-feelie title that evokes folk knowledge and caring (perhaps something involving chicken soup or self-healing) I might just might make my fortune and be able to ride the talk show circuit for a few years and retire in the splendour deserving of a modern-day oracle. Of course to do all of this I would need some reasonable stretch of uninterrupted writing time; so that idea is out.

I have come up with a chapter title for the portion of the book that relates the wisdom bequeathed to me by George, the social hub of to campground. George does everything from stand-up comedy to emptying garbage cans and is able to find humour in most any situation (self-deprecating or not). The chapter will be called “Grab the Easy Stuff First.” This is not so much a philosophy as a way of life that has been honed by years sailing off of the east coast of Canada. Even though he professes what might be construed as a lackadaisical attitude toward work I have yet to see any of his jobs undone. To abuse a nautical metaphor, he gets where he is going with minimal tacking and almost no wake.

Speaking of time, I have been writing this post for five hours now and I … cripes, I just got interrupted again and this sentence has taken me twenty minutes and I forgot what I was going to write. I cannot wait to see the narrative of this post when I am finished.

Ah, the jobs. I am fascinated by the number and variety of small jobs. The bigger jobs such as collecting the garbage, cutting the grass, and cleaning the facilities are all running without me getting involved to muck things up. There have been a few times that I have wandered in to clean up a large mess or move things about to make cutting the grass easier, but I am not needed much there. It is the “everything-else” jobs that fall my way. Here are some of the “everything-else” that I have undertaken (skilled in the area or not):

wasp nest removal
clothes dryer repair
golf cart repair
lawn mower repair
reversing and parking obscenely large trailer
argument mediator
computer technician (including wireless network)
tour guide
restaurant critic
delivery and shuttle services
fan belt squeal remover
and so on …

There are a ton of little jobs like that (some longer than others) and every one of them interrupts something–usually supper.

I would have to say that I am enjoying the variety and challenges that I am getting these days at the campground. There is a fair bit of tedium when it comes to checking people in and taking reservations and doing the books but the rest is a very interesting adventure. There is, however, a significant downside: the evenings.

I am alone in the evenings. When all of the jobs are finished and all of the music has been played and songs sung–then I am alone to finish my work and go to bed. I never suspected that this would be the hard part of the job. I have been married (with children) for quite a long time and this stretch has been the longest period I have been away from my family at night. I am missing my family at night a lot. It is just too quiet. There is no conversation, no discussion, no planning for the next day … just quiet.

I was talking with a man a while back who is a widower and he was telling me about how empty his house has become. We talked for about ninety minutes about this and that with always the underlying theme of emptiness. He was not unhappy, it was more adjusting the the change of not having a loved partner around to maintain their well-established pattern. I found myself trying to be sympathetic but not really understanding the nuance he was trying to convey. I suspect that like many people, I had simplified the situation to fit my understanding and past experiences.

My situation is a temporary dislocation and not a permanent loss. But I cannot help but feel that there is a part of both circumstances that is common, the disruption from comfortable routine and companionship. I have been struggling to put my finger on why I am bothered by this at all and this is what I have surmised. It may be complete twaddle and I know it sounds (borderline) silly, but so be it. As a footnote, part of the discussion on loss was the fact that very few people discuss that type of loss (I was told that it was discussed more with women and less with men) and it is very difficult to put into words. Maybe I understand the nuances a little better and maybe I don’t. I know I am looking forward to getting back to my comfortable routine.

Knowing my place

gord — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:06:57 +0000

I am about to take three weeks and work at the Sun-N-Shade Campground (the world’s most underwhelming web site that belies an amazing place). This is an adventure for me and I have been drafted into the position by virtue of the fact that my parents are taking a bus trip for the last three weeks of August. My parents run the campground.

When we started with the campground we worked it together but I have spent less and less time at the campground in the last few years. As it turns out, my parents are far better at knowing what people want than I am. The result is that the campground runs in ways that are mysterious (to me). Most of the knowledge exists firmly encased in the minds of the two people who are taking a trip to Arizona for three weeks. It is a subtle thing, but I am beginning to suspect that there is a bit of fear within those same minds that they are abandoning the campground. Anarchy and horror awaits.

I, however, am confident that all will be well. I have run the campground before in a previous incarnation. I like to think I am level headed and not prone to violent outbursts. I have run companies in the past. But, I am still “the son” that is moving into my parents shoes.

When we dropped into the campground last night and all was running well. My parents were taking a break before the evening show at the hall and the people at the campground had it running like a well-oiled machine. We hung around for over an hour and chatted with campers and generally had a good time.

It was the cap to a wonderful evening to have my mother quietly pull me aside and tell me that if things are too tough for me in the next three weeks then my younger sister is willing to fly over 2000kms to help me run the place. And my aunt in Halifax can be available too.

No matter how successful or credible I might ever become … I am still a son.

There is nothing more sincere than a parent’s desire to protect a child. I will not sully the moment by allowing the possibility that the protective instinct is for the campground and not me.

I hear your pain relief

gord — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:29:39 +0000

I want to share the funniest thing I have ever heard while in the presence of my wife giving birth. There are many dangers in repeating said funny thing. The number of women who use the word “funny” in relation to childbirth (without an impressive stream of surrounding negatives) is very small indeed. The amount of breathing exercises, birthing classes, coaches, and pain-numbing drugs are a testament to the decidedly non-funny nature of giving birth … at least for women.

The great gift about being a sensitive supporting husband is being able to find the humour in any situation. I use this great power to rewrite history (and childbirth comes with some built-in amnesia; that is why women have more than one child, I am told) and turn any event I please into a rollicking laugh festival. Actually, maybe my great gift is my wife’s tolerance for that trait.

Here is the situation: the contractions are coming fast and furious; there is no time for an epidural; pain relief comes only from a cocktail of inhaled happy gas; and the doctor is standing in the room wearing black and red rubber boots. There is pushing. There is breathing. There are nurses looking impotent and hopeful. There is my hand with rapidly bluing fingers locked in my wife’s right hand. Her left hand holds the gas mask with a passion I could only envy. And the air is filled with the most impressively creative and horrifyingly obscene swearing I have ever heard–ever.

I may be overstating the hopefulness in the nurses but their impotence can not be overstated. Two of them just stood look at each other wondering what form of assistance they could offer. It is a tricky balance because (apparently, according to them, and I believed their sincerity or desperation) while the gas relieves pain it discourages pushing and the pushing bit is quite important. The benefit of the gas was a respite from the increasingly more profane swearing. They were torn; I could tell.

They finally accepted that they would have to reduce the gas to get the kid and (after attempting to remove the mask from an impressive left-handed grip) they reduced the gas and encouraged pushing. The implication that my wife was not doing enough was dangerous for them to make at this point but, fortunately for them, she was otherwise occupied. My hand was long numb. The swearing was now bridging multiple religions and sexual practises with surprisingly little repetition and some wonderfully inventive juxtapositions.

Then one of the nurses said something that pretty much halted everything: “you know, you can’t push when you are yelling and swearing.” I burst out laughing and even Jan took a break from agony to look over at me (I had been little more than a human stress ball to this point) with an expression that made me laugh harder and fear for the lives of both the nurse and myself.

I am reminded of this because it turns out that the nurse was wrong. It turns out that cursing can help cut pain. I now understand how a relatively calm, quiet, and non-swearing expectant mother was able to channel the entire stage show of the longshoreman’s amateur comedy and insult night with free beer provided. It was all pain relief. The deep-rooted, evolutionary response to pain is swearing loudly. I am now planning a program of birthing lessons (for a very reasonable fee) to take advantage of this newfound knowledge. And the best part is that I am pretty sure that fathers can join right in to help ease the pain.

There and back again

gord — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:44:23 +0000

I do not think I have done many things more difficult than sending my daughter off to camp for a week in the Magdalen Islands (Le centre nautique de l’Istorlet on Havre-Aubert). It is difficult to let somebody you have been protecting and guarding go off out of protective range and left to her own devices … for a week … without any contact. I am not trying to compare myself to “America’s worst mom” , but it was tough enough to send her away with adult supervision for a week to an island (well, archipelago is probably more accurate) and not hear from her for a week.

The picture (above and to the left) of her leaving for camp shows a couple of things: she has already made a friend and is leaving hand-in-hand with her new friend; and she is not even slightly hesitant or showing any desire to look back once she took the first step toward the boat. I now have a more perfect understanding of what it means to have an experience be bittersweet. I could not be more proud of her being able to go off by herself to a place where she will speak nothing but French for a week, but would it have been too much for a father to ask to have even a brief backward glance? Just a little glance would have been okay.

So off she went. As much as we could do to research the camp (we went to the information session and talked to other parents who had children attend) it was still traumatic. As you can tell, it was a far bigger deal for mom and dad than it was for daughter.

Nonetheless, we survived and I was gratified to see her come back happy, tanned, and full of stories. She even managed to run the last few metres to greet me. I managed to maintain my cool just long enough to take a picture (on the right) and then dropped all pretence of cool and gave her a big hug. I continue to wrap myself in the comfortable knowledge that this was a great experience blah blah blah … she is more self sufficient blah blah blah … she learned a lot blah blah blah … and so on.

The truth is that all of these reasons are spot on the mark. She did many (nautical) activities she had not tried before and had fun. We had a great time spending some “alone” time with our other daughter. I am filled with a newfound (and possibly illusionary, but I do not care) feeling of being a good father. And, best of all, we are back to “normal” with the exception of the girls’ bedrooms; they have been torn asunder to improve them and paint them pink. Life is good.

Waking Bushmills memories

gord — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:41:06 +0000

I finally finished a bottle of Bushmills ten-year-old single-malt Irish whiskey that I carried back from a trip to Ireland that Jan and I took a while ago. I am not a particularly heavy drinker. Well, check that; I am indeed a drinker (a little) and according to dubious science I am indeed heavy, so I guess the previous statement is not strictly true. But around the ole household a bottle tends to last quite a while. The aforementioned Bushmills has lasted more than fifteen years.

When I had the bottle’s lifetime pointed out to me I realized how many people have taken a drink from that particular bottle (via a glass mind you), I had more than a touch of melancholy. A lot of good people (certainly as far as I am concerned) have bent an elbow holding a glass of that whiskey (including my father who reached for it rather than a more common Canadian variety beside it when he desired a base for his drink with ginger ale). Some of the melancholy likely came from the funeral scene in Waking Ned Devine which was playing as I finished my glass.

So, in keeping with he end of the movie and the history and heritage of the bottle, I toast the friends that shared it with me and the fond memories of those times, Sláinte.

Canada day at the campground

gord — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:00:05 +0000

It is almost quaint to hear an automated voice on a telephone call instructing the caller to insert more coins to continue a call. I got a call from my mother-in-law on June 30th telling me to gather my family and make sure we were at the Sun-N-Shade campground in Borden-Carleton on Canada Day. As this campground is owned by my family I had no problem with the request although I wondered why it was coming from my mother-in-law; she has no connection to the campground. I agreed (I am working to maintain my acceptable son-in-law status). I started to ask some questions regarding the reason we should trundle off to the campground and what time would be appropriate but the aforementioned automated voice interrupted to request more money. My mother-in-law was out of change so all I got was a “I have to go. I will see you tomorrow at the show.”

Ah ha … a clue.

It turns out that my parents (and several others) were putting on an evening performance of music and entertainment (a common happening at the Sun-N-Shade) that evening and they had been pressed into service for a bus tour at the last minute. My mother-in-law, her sister, and a number of her friends were on the tour and would be rolling in to the campground to see the show.

There were a few performers that began the show and then a longer set by the Dunromin Duo (the picture above is of them playing–and yes, there are three of them). They are (from left to right) Harold Noye, Vans Bryant, and Marnie Noye (the silent bass player). If you are a Last.FM person you can listen to their album. Jericho Road (Harold and Marnie Noye and Vans and Emily Bryant) came on after a break to finish the show.

The show was very good … really. The opening performers played traditional Maritime tunes (conspicuously evenly balanced between the provinces) and a couple of country songs. Dunromin Duo concentrated on duets (typically the “brothers” songs of the 1930s to the 1960s) and chose songs featuring close harmony including a version of “Kentucky” by the Louvin Brothers that ran close to eight minutes. The lyrics are below. As it works out to just slightly less than a minute for each line you can understand my amazement that I enjoyed the song as much as I did.

Kentucky you are the dearest land outside of Heaven to me
Kentucky your laurels and your red bud trees
When I die I want to rest upon your graceful mountain so high
Kentucky that is where God will look for me

Kentucky I miss the voices singing in the silvery moonlight
Kentucky I miss the hound dog chasing coon
I know that my mother dad & sweetheart all are waiting for me
Kentucky I will be coming soon

Kentucky you are the dearest land outside of Heaven to me
Kentucky I will be coming soon

Without disparaging the earlier acts, the evening was more enjoyable as it progressed. Jericho Road’s bluegrass and gospel music was an excellent capstone to the evening and the people I spoke with at the end of the evening echoed my sentiments. This Canada Day was far from typical for us; we usually see fireworks and sometimes outdoor concerts. I was expecting simple and homey and familiar. I got all of that–I was surprised by how much I truly enjoyed it.

Biking in twos

gord — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:19:26 +0000

I had planned to do a lot of biking this year but I have found that I have very little reason to get on my bike for travel. I used to bike to work (which was a decent 20+ km each way) last year but I am working from home this year and do not really have the need to wander too far from my coding dungeon to ply my trade. The end result is that my bike has not been out of the barn yet this year.

On the other hand I have been riding tandems far more than I ever have. I am not counting kilometres too closely but the number is likely closing in on 400km already. Part of that is the training I was doing with a friend (he recently completed a two-day 200km tour in Toronto) and the rest is on a recumbent tandem that we bought this year.

Because I promised my youngest daughter that we would bike into school together this year, and as today is the second last (the penultimate for all you word geeks) day of the school year for my daughter, we saddled up bright and early for our ride into school. I brushed the spiders off of the recumbent tandem, adjusted the seat positions, and stuck a bottle in one of the cages (nothing like having a new batch of baby spiders on your bike to make an early-morning ride ever so less enticing–I did this before my daughter saw anything; that might have scuttled the plan before we got started). Then, a little before 8:00am we began our ride to school.

It is at this point where I should mention that we live at the bottom of a rather steep hill. If you think PEI is flat then you are right from the point of view that there are not a lot of mountains (“The highest elevation is 466 feet (142 metres) above sea level in Queens county.” from Prince Edward Island (province, Canada) — Britannica Online Encyclopedia). On the other hand, I live in Queens county and our house is approximately 3 metres above river level; I call that close enough to sea level. Also, Prince Edward Island may have more roads per square kilometre than any other province but they saved a fortune by not changing the grade of secondary roads from the natural rolling and winding paths that were their ancestors. So, this is my way of saying that the ride to school this morning was anything but flat.

I had anticipated the 14km ride to take a little under an hour. I was wrong. I had forgotten to factor in the recumbents-are-more-comfortable-but-make-hills-excruciatingly-painful-to-climb coefficient. For our ride that coefficient was approximately 1.3. My daughter rolled into school at 9:14am. I will try to have her at school on time tomorrow. It is best to end on a good note.

The next ride will be on a nice flat stretch where the recumbent tandem really does shine.

So, my legs are sore. She did her best but her nine-year-old legs were no match for my older and much greater mass. Some of the sweetest words I have ever heard were “Do you need a little burst of power now daddy?” and I heard them often enough to find them funnier each time. She would blast out twenty or thirty hard pedal strokes that would rock the bike side to side and then let out an exhausted sigh. The bike would slow a bit and then (inevitably) I would hear “I can recover quick if you need me to do it again.” It was a great ride.

I am smiling. She was smiling when she walked into school. One nice family moment and one more reminder that even a bad day on a bike is better than a good day in the office.

The evening adventures of Grandma Dowdel

gord — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:42:52 +0000

It is a long-standing tradition at our house that we read aloud stories before bedtime. The stories we read have have grown from the early (and insipid) books that repeat words and phrases to amuse children to short anecdotes with bright pictures (often authored by some guy named Munsch) and now to stories of some length, without all the pictures, and with a plot and characters. I love these stories.

It is a shame that many of the books for young adults are missed by the not-so-young adults. I do not know how many books we have read aloud but the bookcase in the children’s room would suggest that the number is in the hundreds. We have read some of the “classics” from Roald Dahl and Judy Blume (Fudge and his brother are great). There have been some newer books by Andrew Clements, notably Frindle. And there are a host of others I have not mentioned.

I want to point out, again, that these books are enjoyable to read. I will allow that part of my joy in reading them is seeing the pleasure in the audience. Hearing the laughs and making the funny voices is always going to improve the experience. But I also found that if I missed an evening and was behind a chapter or two I would need to read the missing pages before I would allow more to be read (okay, that last bit may be an indication of my compulsive nature … but I was not going to miss out on the story). And there is nothing like having a children’s author describe and explain some of the most complex and emotional issues facing children (and everybody) to make it tough to choke out heart-wrenching dialogue out loud.

The last books we read were A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. These books are two of the most enjoyable books I have read. Each book is a series of short stories (a chapter per story) and are told from the point of view of Joey Dowdel (A Long Way from Chicago) and Mary Alice Dowdel (A Year Down Yonder) and describe visits to Grandma Dowdel in a small town in Illinois. The stories are set in the late 1920s up to the late 1930s and are told in retrospect by Joey and Mary Alice when they are in their old age. The language and attitude of Grandma Dowdel had me laughing to tears. Peck also manages to wrap the character of Grandma Dowdel in a nostalgia that is not overly sentimental (in the sense that she shot the lid of dead man’s coffin when a reporter was in the room) and still showed a deep caring for people who were having a hard time. This was the depression era–most people were not doing that well.

I cannot remember ever having such good chats with the girls as the chats we had after reading chapters from these books. It is surprisingly hard to explain why some of the things that Grandma Dowdel does (which are, let’s face it, illegal) are morally correct; certainly there was no moral confusion in Grandma Dowdel’s mind.

We just finished reading A Long Way from Chicago for the second time and it still evoked the same laughter (and occasional tear) as it did the first time we read it. I suspect the biggest reason was my greatly improved voices, but I will allow for a bit of ability on behalf of the author.