Sunday, June 26, 2016

Weekly Winner ~ Get Fired Up For Summer Contest


Jackie Wisherd wins a copy of Secrets, Lies and Love by Roseanne Dowell.

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Where has all that time gone? Tricia McGill

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Come October this year I will have been in Australia 50 years! Of course that sets me wondering just where all those years have gone. It seems that when we are young we are forever wishing our lives away. Remember when you told everyone you were as old as the upcoming birthday whereas now we tend to knock years off our age. Lord knows why I do it, but my sisters have always lied about their age, so I guess I just followed on with the fibs. It is just a number anyway and what difference does it make in the scheme of things. I have very few regrets and can honestly say my life has been full and rewarding—which is more than some people can boast.

The world has changed at a rapid rate. I did something yesterday that made me realize I am becoming that old lady who complains about what goes on in this world. But then again I had plenty to moan about. I won’t go into details but it was a foolish rant I had, as what I was complaining about is so out of my hands there is sweet nothing I could do to change things.

But, to be honest, I reckon I have earned the right to voice my opinion on the state of the world and my country and even the fact that there are far too many products on the shelves at my local supermarket, and I have to spend ages searching through the many products that are likely all the same but just have different names. And then there is the added problem of finding products that do not contain palm oil, or are gluten free, or don’t have too much salt, fat or sugar in them<sigh> etc. etc.

Things were simpler in my young days. My mother would write me out a shopping list and give me probably about ten shillings or a pound and off to the shops I would go with her cloth bag over my arm. I waited in a queue for the lady or man behind the counter to serve me (we knew the salespeople all by name and most of them knew us too). The biscuits were kept on a shelf in a tin and you asked for the amount you wanted and they would be weighed out and placed in a brown paper bag. Same with everything else. No yards and yards of plastic that would find its way into the sea and then into a poor hapless turtle who mistook it for food. No ten or more different types of milk that comes in plastic containers, just sterilized or pasteurized or plain milk that had a layer of cream on the top. Milk was delivered daily anyway by the trusty milkman, who would leave his bill at the end of the week with the milk and then next morning my mother would put the cash she owed him wrapped up in a piece of paper and tucked inside the top of an empty bottle. 

My love of horses stemmed from feeding crusts of bread to the milkman’s and baker’s horse who pulled their cart. Living in the center of London, this was the nearest I came to a horse until I was old enough to take a bus out to Epping Forest. My mother would let me keep the change, by the way, which was usually a penny or so. 

Now don’t get me started about the auto machines in supermarkets that have replaced the cashier who you can have a chat to. The stupid machine is only worried about whether you have any Fly Buys or whatever other gimmick the shop has going. The machines have diddled me three times now and if I didn’t have my wits about me and checked my receipt they would have charged me twice for articles.

We older folk tend to rant on about ‘The good ol’ days’ but between you and me they had a lot going for them. I would often miss the last bus home from a dance when I was a mere teenager and have to walk a mile home at around midnight with no fear of being attacked, propositioned or mugged. Perhaps I was just lucky, or it could be that we had no social media or TV to warn us about the evils lurking out there. Perhaps I just was, and have always been, one of those people who look at life through rose tinted glasses. In that I am fortunate as I’ve never had cause to view life with fear.

If we had to contact one of our many cousins or aunties who lived out of London, we wrote a letter. Get that? We actually sat and wrote it on paper, bought a stamp and posted it in the letter box! We never missed a marriage or any special occasion for that matter simply because we didn’t have a phone or any other means of getting in touch. If someone popped in for a visit they were always welcome even though they hadn’t warned us by phone or email that they were coming over. Oh dear, now I am becoming maudlin, but you get the drift, things were simpler then but life was a whole heap better—in my honest opinion.

Okay, time to stop my rambling on. I’ve said it before, I am no poet, but here are a couple of nonsensical rhymes I penned years ago to do with time and how it affects us with its passing.

Time Marches On.

Time marches on, it won’t stand still
Relentlessly it forges forever onward
As sure as a flood surges down a hill

Life as we know it is a precious thing
So soon youth is past and dreams are gone
Moving like clouds, forever fleeting

But old age brings chances to find peace and fly
To spread our wings and soar like a kite
With few pressing reasons to wonder why

Shortcomings are trifles of little concern
Worries don’t plague as they did when young
We have the complacence and wit to learn

When young we set out to prove we are strong
Told all we could overcome obstacles many
Could never abide being told we were wrong.

The advantages are many to being mature
Our critics don’t bother us much anymore
We have wisdom and knowledge making us sure

Why waste precious time on ponderous issues
Sit still, procrastinate about where and why
Why bother to fret about time we may lose

There are those around who will try to deter you
Criticize you often with unkind words
But maturity lends us a much different view

We have all the benefits of hindsight and age
Can take critics opinions with style and grace
Lose patience with those who fight and rage

There are still lots of things to do with our time
Places to go and stories to write
Our days we must fill with poems that rhyme

Time will catch up with these fingers and feet
Take away all our strength and our vigor
But while we’ve a brain any problems we’ll meet

Endeavors and dreams won’t lay waste
On and upwards we’ll go to fill that last page
One thing’s for sure we’re in no great haste

Till our last breath we’ll strive to fill the last page
Make statements that sometimes upset
But that’s the prerogative of those near old age

The sands of time run out oh so fast
We must fill our days as much as we can
Till we cross that last hill and breathe our last.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And this one is simply called PC. (I do love mine and wouldn’t be without it, or my laptop, but oh there are times when it can drive me insane.)



How I yearn sometimes for those long ago days
of carefree lessons with Miss Aniseed
A living teacher who talked, breathed and taught
the alphabet and sums, and how to read.

With a graph on the wall of the alphabet,
she taught us to know that B followed A
And how to read as if it was simply a game
that we just knew we had to play.

These days the children learn all that they know,
by staring at screens and pressing a mouse
They create data bases in front of these monsters,
and often don’t care to go out of the house.

They enrich their minds with all kinds of info
fill heads up with mind-boggling facts
All by playing around with a machine
a thing called a PC which always reacts.

How things have changed since those long ago days
when Miss Aniseed taught us how
to read and to write, to spell and to add.
In just a few decades we’ve reached here and now.                                                                                    

computerized world where fingers and toes
aren’t needed to count up to twenty
Where some machine with an endless supply
of instructions is there to teach us plenty.

By opening windows, they solve problems
and puzzles with consummate ease
Peer at horizons; create new dimensions,
with just a few taps on appropriate keys.

But even with all its careful programming,
its systems and drives can be really perplexing
To lose a file, get lost in confusion inside
this thing’s brain can be really vexing.
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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Randall Sawka, Continuing Travels in Asia



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Nancy and I have kimchied and sushied (so tasty) our way through Korea and Japan. It was awesome. We made some new friends and met a handful of friends from years gone by. Our flight from Osaka to Taipei seemed simple enough. We had our train ticket to the airport in plenty of time for the 2:40 flight. Oh, how I wish I had checked whether the flight I booked was AM or PM. As I said, our flight from Osaka to Taipei was a Randallesque disaster. We slightly messed up our budget, but collected a few more air miles. The wife didn't find that amusing. During the quiet flight I was able to get work done on my next novel.





From Taipei we took the short bus ride to our home for the next three months, Taichung. The city is vibrant and loaded with some of the kindest people you can imagine. I suppose it's main claim to fame is that it is where Life of Pi was filmed.

We live up there, seven stories up in a modest but comfy apartment lent to us by our friend Michael. He will be in Canada for the summer.


I write in the very early morning (AT 5:30) in the covered area I call my gazebo. The image shows me at a moment of limited creativity as Nancy used my iPad to take the photo.


The area behind me is typically filled with dozens of people doing Chinese Kung Fu. They asked us to join them. I told her that there are 35 women and 2 men. She said "that's the norm." Hmm, just like Canada.

Later in the morning the weather becomes hotter than a BWL. That is when I stroll down to an AC equipped coffee shop like the one pictured. As most of the sidewalks here are filled with hundreds of scooters, the walk is an adventure. Pedestrians are easily second to vehicles who battle it out for the lane and-a-half going in each direction on most streets. The system requires each driver to edge over or turn or stop or upturn or ? Slowly. Thus, the others adjust to the move. The horns don't blare constantly as in other countries. Only when someone flies through a red light (and it's surprisingly often) do they let them have it.




 Until next time.......Randall Sawka


Friday, June 24, 2016

Can Nonviolence Stop the Killing? By Sandy Semerad

         I’ve been thinking about Dr. Martin Luther King lately, and wondering what the slain civil rights leader and champion of nonviolence would say about the deadly mass shootings in our country.

I started thinking about King as I listened to the song, People Get Ready. I’d heard the song before, but I’d never paid attention to the words until Larry, my piano-playing husband, wanted me to sing it. I had forgotten Curtis Mayfield had written the song. According to Mayfield, the lyric and tune germinated as he waited at a Chicago train station for King to arrive.

Although he wrote other gospel songs, this particular one became an enormous hit. It has been recorded by Rod Stewart, the Neville Brothers, and others, including Mayfield himself. Mayfield would have been 74, June 3, had he lived:
          
         “People get ready                                    
          There’s a train a-coming
          You don’t need no baggage
          You just get on board
          All you need is faith
          To hear the diesels humming
          Don’t need no ticket
          You just thank the Lord…”

King eventually used this song and others, like Keep on Pushing, also written by Mayfield, to inspire marchers as they faced violence and jail time.

I once had the honor of meeting Dr. King. He was pacing back and forth in the Atlanta Airport, as if lost in thought, unaware of his surroundings.

I watched him for a while before I gathered the courage to walk over and say, “Hi Dr. King.”

He froze. I thought I saw alarm in his eyes.

I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. “I just wanted to meet you,” I said.

He kindly took my hand.

Being star struck, I don’t recall what he said in response. I couldn’t quite believe I’d actually met him.

Tragically, a few years later he was assassinated. As I watched his funeral on television, daughter Rene—only a few weeks old then--cried most of that day, as if she had absorbed my grief.

No question those were turbulent times: The Vietnam War, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in ‘63, followed by King’s in ’68. Then two months after King died, JFK’s brother Senator Robert Kennedy was murdered. But even in that crazy decade, we never heard of mass shootings, outside of war.

Dr. King would have been appalled by these senseless killings, I know. He’d always espoused peace.

Four years before his death, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.  He fought for racial equality, using nonviolent resistance as he sacrificed his life to bring about peace and justice for all.

His I have a Dream speech called for us to become better, braver, unbiased and more dignified. (I alluded to his great speech in my novel A Message in the Roses, which is set in Atlanta). I can close my eyes and still see him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, during the March on Washington.

If he were alive today, I’m confident he’d continue to march and use his powerful oratory to speak out for peaceful perseverance. 

As Dr. King, I abhor violence. It’s incomprehensible to me that three of the deadliest shootings in the United States have occurred in the last ten years: Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando, FL. (June 12, 2016)—49 people killed, 50 wounded; Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA (April 16, 2007) 32 people killed, 17 injured; Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. (Dec. 14, 2012) 26 people killed, mostly children. The shooter also killed his mother.

The weapons used in these shootings were obtained legally, according to a CNN report. I’ve also read there were two other similarities. The shooters had been prescribed antidepressants--often large dosages--and they used weapons of war (assault weapons).

However, the U.S. Senate recently voted down two pieces of gun violence prevention legislation--June 20, 2016). This legislation failed in large part due to the powerful National Rifle Association’s lobbying efforts, according to the Washington Post.

       In the spirit of Dr. King, Georgia Congressman John Lewis led a sit-it in the U.S. House. Lewis, and other democrats, wanted the House to allow a vote on "common sense" gun control legislation, but House leaders refused. Lewis, a civil rights icon, who risked his life and marched with King, said he will not give up the fight until tougher gun laws are passed. 

       Most Americans support tougher gun laws, according to public opinion polls. Yet, the majority of our lawmakers refuse to act. 

       This baffles me. Too many beautiful lives have been lost and too many hearts have been broken.

I’m thinking Dr. King would say we can find a solution if we work together, but we must choose the public good over special interests. He’d say violence is never the answer, as he stated so eloquently in his I Have a Dream speech:

“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

Amen, Dr. King. Amen.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016

The Weight of Words by Victoria Chatham




Coming Soon!



All authors know that writing can be a lonely occupation. They also know that sitting for hours with a computer is not good for them. It’s easy to get lost in the flow of writing. The upside is – the book gets finished. The downside? All that sitting may add a few extra pounds. It is so easy to forget about taking the exercise we all need in favor of just adding a few more words to the work-in-progress, and those words can weigh heavy.

I have a love hate relationship with weight. Photographs show that I was a child of average build and size, but all that changed when I was eight years old and had a three month long bout with pneumonia with much of that time being spent in bed.

I apparently did not have much of an appetite and the doctor advised my mother to not worry about what I ate as long as I drank plenty of milk which, in the early 1950s, was whole milk. Consequently, by the time I got out of bed, I was almost as round as I was high and so began my life long battle with weight.

It didn’t seem to matter what I ate, there was the potential for another inch on my hips. Through my teens I managed to keep a regular weight with numerous activities – horse riding, swimming, badminton, archery and good old rock ‘n roll.

As a Mom with a young family, I burnt a lot of energy keeping up with my three kids. Then I experienced a complete metabolic flip-flop when, after a divorce, my weight plummeted. Family and friends encouraged me to eat – and I did. Anything, at anytime, anywhere. It made no difference. At my lowest weight I was 87lbs and it took me two years to regain a somewhere-near right for my then age, height and build of about 120lbs. Once I reached that weight, I maintained it for several years but it was a constant balancing act.

I lost weight again, naturally enough I suppose, when I immigrated to Canada. My husband was a true blue, dyed in the wool steak and potatoes loving Canadian but he was also a man who loved to cook. How could I refuse to eat a meal so lovingly and carefully prepared for me? From chicken wings (I’d give you the family marinade and sauce recipes but my DH would probably come back to haunt me if I did) to planked salmon, chili and sea food dishes, he tried it all. If he didn’t cook at home, there were a variety of restaurants to be enjoyed. 

And life was changing. We became so busy that what we were doing was more important than what we were eating so, you guessed right, I started putting weight on again. Breakfast was about the only meal we ate at home. Dash here, grab pizza on the way. Dash there, oh we’ll just pick up coffee and donuts.  Then there were the days when we didn’t make time to eat until the evening by which time we could have consumed half a cow because we were so hungry.

Everything changes, and life changed again when my husband passed away. Being a consummate shopper, he did the shopping for what groceries we did have at home. Faced with not much more than an echo in my fridge, I had to start taking care of myself again and I reverted to what the cashier in my local grocery store laughingly referred to as ‘English shopping’. I bought fresh produce on a day to day basis which is almost anathema to the average Canadian shopper.  I started eating more meals at home, boring and time consuming though preparing food for one person was. I’ve never been fond of frozen meals, and could easily live without a microwave, so my meals at home were mostly salads.

Now being more mature than I’ve ever been, in years anyway, it really does matter what I eat. Over the years I’ve weathered the various theories that have been touted around. You know- the ones like apples-are-bad-for-tooth-enamel versus eat-an-apple-before-each-meal, coffee-is-bad-for-you then one-cup-in-
the-morning-is-fine. It all boils down to eating sensibly. A little of everything does you good as my grandmother used to say, with the emphasis on ‘little’.

And where, these days, do you find ‘little’ of anything? Supersize this or that, MSG-laden pre-packaged food products and the question about a bag of chips, ‘Can you eat just one?’ I have discovered for myself the truth nutrition gurus have been telling us for a long time – diets don’t work. Diet programs are great for initially losing weight, but how many people actually learn the lesson of smaller portions of the right foods aligned with exercise? Many don’t so, when they stop the program, the weight piles back on.

So where am I on a scale of 1-10? I must be honest. I’m pretty low on the totem pole actually. I know I could and should pay more attention to my diet. I know I could and should take more exercise than my walking and yoga. With each book I start I plan to take my exercise first thing in the morning to get it out of the way, but my characters have a siren song and I often find myself sliding out of bed into a housecoat and sitting down at the computer to get to grips with them. The walk can wait until later in the day, the yoga stretches I’ll do in a minute.

I’m starting another book now. I have a schedule up on my white board of how each day Monday to Friday is going to be. By the time I finish this one I hope to have lost the few pounds I put on with the last one. Come December I’ll let you know how I did.






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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

The Song Her Paddle Sang










The Song Her Paddle Sang



For nearly two decades Emily Pauline Johnson, known by her stage name as Tekahionwake, thrilled audiences at the turn of the century across Canada and Europe with her recitals. Born half native Mohawk and Caucasian in Brantford Ontario. Although more white than native, by Canadian law she was classed as a native.
Her father was head chief of the six nations tribes and her mother of pure English bloodlines. Their marriage shocked Canadian society, at the time in the late 1800’s. Pauline went on to continue that wave of awe during her stage performances with many of her plays and poetry stood up for native beliefs, unheard of in her time.
            Her health, precarious as a child, led to her early death in Vancouver where she died of breast cancer at an early middle age in 1913. Pauline grew up devouring poetry and read most of Shakespeare, Longfellow and Byron, among others. One night her lucky break occurred when she was part of a Canadian authors reading night. She recited a poem about the plight of the Indian’s side of the North-west rebellion, titled ‘A cry From An Indian Wife’. The assembled crowd went nuts and she was the only one to be given an encore. From there Pauline Johnson went on publish several books of poetry and tour Europe and North America for nearly two decades.






All her poems, recitals and comedy sketches she wrote and produced at a time when the country was still in its infancy and women were not known, for the most part, to take control of their own lives. While not really classed as a feminist, she was proud of her native heritage.
Most of the time she toured the country in rickety horse drawn buggies, slept at flea bitten hotels, or worse in sheds. Although on one trip to the log mile houses of BC she was treated so well Pauline was quoted as saying ‘slept like a baby, laughed like a child and ate like a lumberjack’. In many towns where the populations were less than the cows surrounding it, word would spread like wild fire and soon people would be packing into the place. She also attracted the attention of many famous people, presidents, prime ministers and dined with royalty while in London.
She eventually befriended Joseph Capilano, the Squamish chief, at the time, which lead to the publishing of the book ‘Legends of Vancouver’, detailing many of Vancouver area oral stories.
The streets of Vancouver were lined with hundreds of people for her funeral procession. A memorial built to honor her in Stanley Park now sits now mainly forgotten under a stand of trees next to the Teahouse Restaurant.



For those who love poetry, I’ve condensed below her most famous poem, ‘The Song My Paddle Sings’.

West wind, blow from your prairie nest, Blow from the mountains, blow from the west
The sail is idle, the sailor too; O! wind of the west, we wait for you. Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so, But never a favour you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between, But scorn to notice my white lateen.
I stow the sail, unship the mast: I wooed you long but my wooing's past;
My paddle will lull you into rest. O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep, By your mountain steep, Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings. August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I, Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift, On either side of the current swift.
The river rolls in its rocky bed; My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip, While the water flip In foam as over their breast we slip.
And oh, the river runs swifter now; The eddies circle about my bow. Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl, In many a dangerous pool awhirl! And forward far the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore. Dash, dash, With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash. Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into. Reel, reel.
On your trembling keel, But never a fear my craft will feel.
We've raced the rapid, we're far ahead! The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway, As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away. And up on the hills against the sky,
A fir tree rocking its lullaby, Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings, Swelling the song that my paddle sings.





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