Youth with a Mission

Can you believe how quickly this summer has flown by?  Auntie can't.  It seems like just yesterday I was blowing up pool toys, setting out lawn furniture and stringing up my Tiki lamps!

With the end of summer comes the beginning of a new school year for the youngins.  One by one and in groups, they  scampered by my house on Tuesday morning en route to their first day of school.

The little ones, accompanied by their smiling parents, were all kitted out with shiny new backpacks and unscuffed shoes. The older ones slunked by, either alone, or in groups of friends.  This back to school parade gave Auntie a chance to contemplate the younger generation...

If you believe everything you read, today's youngsters are nothing but a bunch of marauding, hoodie wearing bandits, lazy as sloths except for the energy they can drum up to check their Facebook, text their friends, and lift Cheetos and cola to their insatiable mouths.

Auntie knows better than that.  Thanks to nieces and neighbours, this summer Auntie attended two eye-opening events for youth that were very different from each other but at the same time, both offered opportunities to lay the groundwork for a very optimistic future.

Commandant Mark Watson

Not far from the airport in Ottawa, down a long, long road past an expansive lawn with big, noisy jets flying overhead is Hangar 11. Hangar 11 is home to the 742 National Capital Air Cadet Squadron, the largest Air Cadet Squadron in Canada.  It's also where my brave alpha niece, Nora, spends her spare time and energy.

The Air Cadet motto is "Our Youth, Our Pride," and after witnessing their year-end 49th Annual Review, I think they deserve their distinguished title!
 

Instead of floating around all summer like dandelion seeds, these youngsters from 12-19 years old learn survival skills, travel the world, participate in flight activities and win scholarships.  Some of the keeners go on to earn pilot's licences but in the meantime, they all seem to share the unique feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves.  What could be a better flight path into adulthood than an attitude of humility, discipline and purpose?

The bake table was a sell out by night's end

I'm sure we'll be seeing many of these Cadets volunteering their time to help others or at the controls of an aircraft.  Be sure to wave or salute the next time you see one flying overhead.

Not long after my memorable visit to Hangar 11, Auntie attended another notable event for local youth.  This time it was the Glebe Collegiate's annual musical extravaganza coincidentally, with a military theme, Battles and Victories. Lucky for Auntie it was taking place right down the street from our summer shack in Ottawa.

A peek inside the fertile mind of the high school student

The neighbourhood buzz was that the event was a sell out and I think the buzz was correct!  The line to get into the auditorium snaked up and down the hallways for half a kilometre so Auntie had a good chance to put her snooping eye to work observing the inner workings of the school.

The bulletin boards and hallways were festooned with class projects and posters promoting the Student Council elections.  Many of the performers were milling around, excitedly anticipating their eminent big moment on stage.

A basketball machine. Michael Jordan, watch out!

The fund raising bake table near the auditorium entrance was doing a booming business and the cupcakes with bright blue icing were quite popular judging by the people passing us with blue lips, teeth and tongues.

At long last the line flowed towards the auditorium and once we found our seats we settled in for a memorable evening of entertainment.

It was a bit like watching an early episode of the popular programme, Glee without the students' backstabbing politics and angst ridden, hormone driven histrionics.

One after another, quartets, choirs, and orchestras performed, each act followed by cheers, photo flashes and applause from the crowd.

Everyone was playing and singing his or her heart out and then, "poof."  The whole thing seemed to be over as soon as it started.

We all wandered home in the warm summer night, our hearts infused with song.

Even though both events couldn't have been more different, they both left me filled with renewed hope and optimism for our younger generation. 

Thank goodness for nieces and neighbours who invite Auntie to these fabulous events!

I can hardly wait until next year!

Timothy Austen, Fearless Students' Council President.  See you next year Auntie!

Things are Looking Down!

When Auntie was a very little girl, one of my favourite TV shows was The Friendly Giant.

"Once upon a time, not long ago and not far away"  the show began as the camera moved along the street of a charming little town. The Friendly Giant's soft, soothing voice would tell us about the town's comings and goings as the camera moved slowly along the street, sometimes past the train station, sometimes past a farm, the general store, or the post office, giving us a little tour until we reached a big boot.  That boot was bigger than one of the town's buildings and that big boot belonged to the Friendly Giant!

Up and up the camera moved from the Giant's boot, up along his leg as he told us to "look up, waaaay up!"  For us viewers, "way up" was past his tummy, past his chest, finally stopping at his smiling, familiar face.  

But that wasn't all.  We went higher still when the Friendly Giant invited us to join him for a story in a turret high up in his castle.  That's about as high up you can get when you're 5 years old without being on a plane!

My Dad was an "up looker" as a child

The Friendly Giant taught us that there were always good things to see when we looked up.

Looking up runs in our family too.  I think I first learned to look up from my dad who was also a skilled "up looker" in his own right.

As a child I was content and happy to look up until my 10th birthday when all that changed. On the way to the nearby skating rink I found a scattering of $2 bills lying on the ground in the snow.  What a find!  After that day I was convinced that looking down was a good thing too.

I still enjoy looking up but I must say that looking down came in handy when Auntie moved to France and looking down meant avoiding piles of stinky dog poo.  

Looking down at Jesus

By far the most interesting thing I've ever seen looking down is when Auntie and Uncle Jim saw an image of Jesus on the 16th step of a staircase while we were descending towards the subway in Kowloon.

No doubt about it, while looking up is quite popular, looking down is easier on your neck and you just never know what you'll find.  

So the next time you walk around your neighbourhood, why not "look down, waaay down"  for a change?

There are some strange and wondrous things down there!

Looking down at a Monarch butterfly

Looking down at a mermaid

This guy knows how to look down

Oh no!  Someone from New York melted!

"Can you please put back the Nice Matin Menton (Newspaper) to Christian, thanks"

Looking down in Tokyo

Must buy birdseed, newspaper, new perch ....

The Future of Yesterday

Mechanix Illustrated, March 1961

This morning while Auntie was killing time on the NASA website, as one does, looking for some footage of Monday's Mars landing, I realized something was missing.

After watching simulations of the landing in the riveting, Seven Minutes of Terror followed by  a video of the happy but tired mission control ground crew in NASA Lands Car-sized Rover on Martian Surface, I was puzzled.  Where was the real time video of the Rover as it was landing on Mars?

When I mentioned my puzzlement to Uncle Jim, he smiled, rubbed his chin and in a patient and fatherly way, explained using short words that Auntie could understand that there was no video of the Rover landing because there were no cameras on Mars to transmit it.  Wha?  Oh yeah!  Heh, heh.  How silly is Auntie?   I'm always heartened at how patient Uncle Jim is with me.  

Landing on Mars seems like a complete miracle to me yet at the same time I expected more.  How did this happen?  I remember how something as simple as a game of checkers kept Auntie and her friends amused for hours. It's ironic that something as complex and technologically advanced as landing a Rover on Mars got me thinking about how simple entertainment used to be.

Back in the stone age before television, video games, iPods and flip flops, families spent time in the evenings crowded around the radio listening to dramas and plays. Everyone huddled together and stayed quiet as the words created movies in one's mind.   

Listening to plays, radio dramas and comedies back then required listening skills, imagination and an attention span.

There was no way to time shift the programmes either. If you missed a radio broadcast, the next day you had to ask your neighbour over the back fence what finally happened to Superman in last week's cliff hanger or how Our Miss Brooks got herself out of a pickle!

Auntie is a big fan of radio dramas.  In a practical blend old new, my iPod is filled with programmes like Our Miss Brooks, Father Knows Best, Radio City Playhouse and The Mel Blanc Show.

But my favourite, by far, is a Science Fiction series called, X Minus One. It's outstanding dramatizations of stories from famous science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov will stick in your mind forever.  Listening to these broadcasts gives my imagination a good workout and keeps my brain occupied while I bake cakes, do the laundry or dig in the garden.

While I was watching videos of the ground crew at NASA cheering, crying with joy and high fiveing each other as the Rover landed, I remembered an episode of  X Minus One, Mars is Heaven, by Ray Bradbury.  

In the drama, astronauts land on Mars and encounter evil, but clever, mind reading Martians and... Well, you should listen to the broadcast yourself and learn about the dangers of travelling to new planets and accepting dinner invitations from relatives who should really be at home on Earth.

Here's how the narrator introduces the programme:

"When the first space rocket lands on Mars, what will we find?  Only the ruins of a dead and deserted planet, or will there be life? Intelligent life in some strange form that only we can imagine? Will we be welcomed with open arms, or will the Martians treat us as invaders?

Only one thing is certain, some day a giant metal ship will take off from earth to travel through the black velocities, the silent gulfs of space, to descend at last into the darkness of the upper Martian atmospheres and on that day, man will finally know the answers, the day we first land on Mars!"

Riveting stuff!  Especially to someone who lived in 1955 and their idea of futuristic innovations was a long-life tube for their radio.

Well, here we all are, as predicted, in 2012, landing on Mars.  Even though NASA didn't send any humans to poke around, just the Rover, it's a technological miracle all the same and one that writer Ray Bradbury wrote about long ago.

If you'd like to hear the rest of the broadcast, and Auntie recommends that you do, click on the picture of the radio...

Listen to Mars is Heaven here

If stories about space are not your cup of Tang, here's a website where you can download all kinds of old time radio shows for free. 

Go ahead, put down that Nintendo, gather 'round your iPod, and fire up your imagination.

Trouble on the Bubble at the Carp Drive-In Bingo

With our car bursting with snack-filled Tupperware and an assortment of bingo daubers in all the primary colours, BFF Sean and I rocketed down the highway last night to attend the much anticipated season opener of the Carp Drive-in Bingo.  

The 4th of July had been etched in my brain, and scrawled in my day-timer ever since our first visit last year and I'd been looking forward to tonight ever since.  Lucky for us that Sean had the night off.

Bingo-wise, Sean and I had a lot of catching up to do.  Last year was our first time at the Carp Bingo and 2012 marks its 56th year.  I calculated that we had missed about 108 games since it's inception.  That's a lot of fun, a lot of pie and incalculable bingo winnings down the drain.  Clearly we needed to re-evaluate our priorities.

This was the only cloud in the sky

As luck would have it, Wednesday was a perfect evening for playing bingo and sitting out of doors, under the stars. Even at 9:00 the thermometer read a balmy 25 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Well, maybe just one.  Since there was a constant, light breeze, any lurking mosquitoes blew away, leaving us free to concentrate on our daubing, snacking, and chatting with our fellow players. 

 

For the uninitiated, here's how the Carp Drive-in Bingo works:  when you arrive at the Carp fairgrounds you park wherever you want or you can park, leave your car, and play at the long table that's set up directly in front of the callers. This is where Sean and I sit to play and also be closer to the pie in the canteen.  Last year we had arrived late and the pie had sold out. This year we knew better.

After buying our bingo cards, you can buy dinner at the BBQ that starts at 6:00 or you can lay out a blanket and enjoy your own picnic.  On this beautiful evening there were many families who were doing just that.

The game starts at 8:00.  If you decide to sit in your car to play bingo, you tune your car radio to FM 91.9 and you'll hear the caller call out numbers over the radio.  You daub your card and if you're lucky enough to have a bingo, you honk your horn, flash your headlights, scream and yell like a lunatic and one of a team of volunteers dashes to your car to verify your numbers and hand you a mitt full of cash. 

Disturbing news and grammar

Unfortunately, all was not tickity-boo for the Carp Drive-in Bingo this year.  

 

Sean's two servings of fruit

Last week, the AGCO, Ontario's Alcohol and Gaming Commission, watchdog for all things gambling, let it be known that anyone under 18 years of age would no longer be permitted to play bingo. Seems that helping your dear old grandma or your aged Auntie to find numbers on her bingo card after the sun goes down would lead these helpful and innocent youngsters down an inescapable vortex of addiction, poverty, and shame. 

 

Warning signs were posted here and there on the fairgrounds and watchful eyes were on the lookout for children holding daubers and having fun. 

 

City of Ottawa elected Counsellor, Eli El Chantiry made a guest appearance and called the numbers for one game.  Afterwards, he clarified for the crowd that in fact, those under 18 were allowed to daub bingo cards, they just weren't allowed to buy the cards nor claim the prize money. 

Our congenial callers

 

After Mr El Chantiry left, the caller calmed everyone's frayed nerves with a comforting announcement: "we apologise for having corrupted your kids for the past 56 years."  Apology accepted.

The VNP table (Very Near the Pie)

Near the end of the evening, in between games, there was an announcement:  "we're giving away a free piece of pie at the canteen for the person who travelled the farthest to come to tonight's bingo!"  Auntie jumped from her seat.  No one would have come as far as Auntie came.  That piece of pie was mine!  

I walked quickly to the front with my Monaco Carte de Sejour or Resident's Permit, gripped in my paw.  I lifted it up, smiled, and showed it to the pie lady at the canteen.  Sure enough, I had travelled the farthest and I won a piece of Lemon Meringue pie for Sean.  Lemon meringue pie was his favourite after pumpkin pie. 

The runner up was a nice young man who had travelled from Rimouski, Quebec.  Wait a minute, he looked under 18.  Is he allowed to win pie? I guess he was.  The corruptible young man from Rimouski walked off with a big slice of butterscotch pie.

Come with me human.  I want some pie!

Aside from the thrill of a possible bingo win and being surrounded by corruptible youth, it's a lovely way to spend a summer evening and we can hardly wait until next time!

 
 

How May we Help You?

Thomas, Cameron and Terrance.

A funny thing happened to Auntie the other day and I hope it happens to you too and often!

Picture this:  the red gas tank warning light comes on in your car.  Oops, you're almost out of gas.  You drive your car into the nearest gas station, ready to fiddle with the nozzle, pump gas in your tank, get your hands dirty, curse a bit when you're almost overcome by gasoline fumes and then need to pay for all that fun.  

 

But this time was different.  When I pulled my car up to the pump, three young men ran over to my car.  I locked my doors and grabbed my shoe phone, fingers poised over the "9-1-1" key, ready to squeal the heck out of there.  I thought I was just about to get robbed!

But then I noticed that those three young men were all wearing the same shirt with the same logo. Then as they came closer I realized that they were all quite handsome.  And wait!  They all had name badges pinned to those well pressed shirts.  And wait, they were all smiling!

Hmm.  Thugs with crime on their minds don't usually smile.

Auntie cautiously rolled down the window a crack and no more, just in case it was a clever ruse.  One of the young men put his face next to the window, smiled, and asked, "fill it up ma'am?"   Auntie unlocked her car doors and smiled a smile of relief at Uncle Jim. This looked familiar somehow...  It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's... service!  

For any of you reading this who were born say, after 1980 or who have never visited Hong Kong or Japan, the subject of this post may be a little foreign for you.  It's all about service.  Good service.

What is this strange thing called, "service" you ask?  Gather round boys and girls and Auntie will explain.  

Look closely.  This is squeegeeing.  It's included with your gas.

Service is something you are offered generously and thoughtfully by others to help you.  It's something we all notice and remember.

Good service is meant to make your life easier and your day more pleasant.  It's the opposite of bad service from lazy and selfish people who yak on the phone to their friends while you're trying to get information or pay for something.  Sadly, we all know what bad service looks like these days.

Here's another example from bygone days of what service looks like:  you buy lots of things at a grocery store and while you pay for them, someone puts your purchases in a bag and offers to carry it all to your car.  I can see you scratching your heads and wondering what that would feel like.  Take Auntie's word for it, it's quite nice!

Check your tire pressure Ma'am?

Terry O'Reilly on his excellent CBC radio programme called, Under the Influence, has a recent episode called, "It's the Little Things" describing his experience with companies who excel at customer service and how they do it. Some of the stories are heart warming,  some are clever and some are just common business sense.

At our local Home Hardware shop, the customer service is always attentive and welcomed.  They have lots of staff walking around so within minutes after you arrive, someone will ask you if you need help.  Auntie is always glad for help in finding that strange plumbing whatchamacallit or to get some helpful advice on which sprinkler to buy or what toxic liquid you need to remove stubborn paint stains.

By the way, while Terrance was filling the gas tank, ding, ding, ding, and Cameron was squeegeeing my windows, swish, swish, swish, and Thomas was checking the oil, dip, dip, dip, Uncle Jim and I were sitting comfortably in the car, kiss, kiss, kiss.

After they verified that the tank was full and things were under control with Auntie's car, Thomas tended to another customer who had arrived at the next pump.

Pretty pastel car wash goo

After Auntie paid, she and Uncle Jim drove through the car wash.   After all, we wanted the car to look spiffy for our trip to The Dairy Queen for ice cream.

Auntie's hoping that whenever her red gas warning light comes on, she's near the Island Park Esso Service Station.  Or when she needs some hardware do-dad she's near her local Home Hardware store.

Let's hope good service catches on.