TubaOrNotTuba

Right about now people are celebrating the 50th anniversary of SNL. Blockbuster programming for a Saturday night. I have not seen any episodes recently but there was a time in my life when it was a staple. The best of comedy in a two-hour format. Many of the cast members have gone on to other large roles in cinema and stage. It seems only fitting that the network would try to celebrate the achievement. We do have access to a lot of the better skits. Thank you, YouTube. Where would the rest of us be without you? I cannot think of any other comedy program that has presented as many great moments for us. So many characters and so many scenes that make us giggle. Better than Hollywood at much less cost. I probably should try to find out if the program is still available in my local area. But I won’t. Much easier to put aside the calendar and simply take the humor as I find it. For sure some of the skits are based upon the current news cycle but even years later we can still take pleasure from the antics of the trained cast members. I heard numbers about how many people have appeared over the years and for the life of me I cannot remember that number. The reality is that it is not important about «the who» or «the win» or «the why». Just take your moments as they come and if this kind of humor triggers you double down. Watch some more. No need to name anyone at this point. You should do your own research. Some of the greats have already died which is normal given the length of time the program has been around. There was a time when half a century was no more than the span of a lifetime.

During a recent conversation with a family friend, the question came up. What about a career working on the passenger train? Now I have given this a lot of thought over the years. Not because I wanted to do it but because I, too, wondered. It seems that we still have trains in parts of the country. However the opportunities to get paid for traveling back and forth to the same bit of countryside occurs less and less. No need. The number of riders is down and the number of employees needed to make sure the service is comfortable is also down. The railroads have rationalized this scientifically. The question is always there. Why, if the mileage has not changed and the trains are more mechanically robust, why do trains not run on time. Because therein lies the issue. If you get on board your train at departure time you would expect to get back at something that matched reality. I cannot answer this on behalf of the rail companies but all of the videos I have watched show the trains arrive consistently after that I’m showing on the schedule. Even in cases where the tracks are not shared between freight and passengers. So what has gone wrong. The tracks are still being maintained and the idea of a certain amount of time for a certain distance has never really gone away. What has happened to passenger service. It does no good to compare rails and trails. Even if you walked on an old railbed you could say that you should arrive at the time you expect. The trains have no compunction to follow this rule of thumb. I speak from years of experience in that I often traveled across a section of the country. Rail travel was economical. And we usually arrived within an hour or two of the time we expect it. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live on a continent where the trains run on time. That does exist apparently. Not just a folk myth. But here in North America we seem to have put the idea of keeping to our schedule into the realms of fantasy. I must try to learn more about this odd rule of physics.

There is a new bird hanging out in the driveway. It might be a ring-necked and it might be a red-neck. I cannot clearly see. However given that I live among people who watch birds I’ve learned that there are some things you really should not say even in jest. For example getting out the recipes for roast pheasant do not go over well. Right up there with roast rabbit. I am unable to decide whether or not wanting to eat the animals in my area is a good or bad thing. I can remember when people kept animals around just for that reason. Be it a calf or a piglet you could imagine it as a meal. That was normal. Now not so much. To be fair I have never had to pluck a bird. There must be some trick involved and someone told me once that boiling water is involved. Again I have no direct experience. For me the bird that goes into my oven comes ready for the job. Same thing for the restaurants that sell me such products. No need to learn how to pull out the feathers before starting supper. As for the bird visitors in the driveway apparently they will eat sunflower seeds. That is almost a generalized thing around here because the fox also enjoys them and the squirrels and just what every other animal that shows up on the doorstep. Hay! even I ate some flower seeds back in the day. In small quantities. Mainly for the salt. We choose our food according to what is available. Forget the products that are common in other parts of the world. We go with that which we can find close by. For the record I will not be eating fox anytime soon. But that bird with the ring-neck had better watch where it walks. I have watched cartoons and I know that a wooden box and a piece of wood and a string will get me a meal. Based on my patience.

It may be quiet outside but I can still find other places that have winter weather. For example Toronto is doing back-to-back storms. And Ottawa. And Montreal. And even us if I can trust what the weather forecast had to say. I am not truly worried. We have had our ice on the roads. We have had our snow on the lane. In fact as I listened to the world around me I can hear young people sliding on the hill outside. Yes I have a hill even though I have never gone down it on a double runner sled. I do not own one. Nor a toboggan. In fact this hill serves only to keep the sea away. I cannot tell you how other people handle such things. In the town where I went to high school our street was a hill but it was not suitable for sliding. Instead we had some very good slopes not far away. I could even walk there with a toboggan back when I had one. I think that it has all been replaced with shopping malls because a town needs its places to shop more than it needs hills slide. The people in that area take great pride in their proximity to true ski hills. Another oddity is that I knew no one in high school that actually skied. There was that one girl from Germany or Austria but I think that she was an outlier. There only because of her family. She knew how to ski well enough to make a living at it. The rest of us were just flatlanders who could find our way down to the lake even in the dead of winter secure in the safety of a thick layer of ice. Oddly I ended up watching a documentary last evening about the good old days in that area. Ships that were used to hunt for submarines. If only we had known we would have asked much better questions of the older people in the area.

I have heard the noon cannon. Not often and not recently but it was something I witnessed at different times during my life. Mainly as a tourist. I started thinking about it and I realized that back in the day this was the best method to let people know that noon was at hand. Fire off a random canon instead of doing things that seem simpler. Things like ringing a bell or waving a flag. You can hear the big boom a lot further. And given the background that we have in Canada of keeping the military around for whatever reason almost every military base at one time or another had a noon signal. I guess someone had to synchronize to watch is. And the tradition carries on in certain cities. Coming to mind we have Halifax and I think Louisburgh and Saint Johns and Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver. The list becomes unwieldy. Each city wants to keep traditions alive mainly for visitors. After all watching someone load the gun and pull the lanyard and plug their ears fun I guess. For those in the local area it serves as a way of letting them know that it is time to go and find the lunch box. Now I have also lived in factory towns where they blew a horn or sounded a siren. Neither of those have the same month as a blast of a cannon. That might be an idea for a road trip. Go off and find out where the time signals are still used. On the railway there was a signal that came down the wire as they say at lunchtime. The station agent could then synchronize the clock that hung on the wall so that anyone coming in from the train could find out the current time. A useful way of doing things when you want the trains to be where they’re supposed to be at the right time. Collisions are so messy. And passengers like the trains to run on time without the interference of a government. But I digress. Locally we have nothing like that. I think we still use sun in the sky as a way to mark the hours.

Our driveway is kept clean by two brothers. Local people. And they have matching tractors. I had not thought much about that before today. I mean I never knew which one was in the lane but I did not really care because we paid to the same people. However today we had both tractors in the driveway. Not because of a heavy snow or ice accumulation. Rather something I had never considered before. Even tractors can get flat tires. The brothers lost no time. Within the hour they had raised the tractor remove that wheel down there patch and left. They know what they’re doing. Again I had never thought much about it before. So, instead, I went back to old TV. Ended up finding an episode of Cannonball which was a big favorite before I ever started school. Big rigs on the road. Now the episode left me nonchalant. No big thrills here other than hearing the Canadian references because this was early Canadian TV. In fact I wonder if that show ever made it across the border. The plotline, today, had something to do about a truck shipment being hijacked. Or not. When the thieves opened the truck it was empty. This was nothing more then the decoy. So tricky. And the big clue to let one trucker know that something else was going on was an obscur reference from a very old English poem. Education was important. There were no guns used and the theft was only an intention. More Canadian than that I do not know what it would be. Yes, I will look for other episodes. Hoping to see something that I remember from such a long time ago. Any plot lines that I did know have faded away but this is a good chance to renew my memories. You must recall that in the mid 1950s we had a TV with one channel. You either watched what was on or you went to bed. When you were four years old getting to stay up and watch TV always carried the day. Or night.

I am technically a political inactivist. That means that I tried to be informed and they do watch the polls even when election is not in progress but other than that I offer little to the candidates not even my support. I do remember the first time I came into contact with a political campaign. I forget who had the bright idea of two of us going to a local candidate and offering to be workers. I was not even old enough to vote so I was hardly on their radar. And the job that I was given was to take a large hammer and some cut pieces of wood. And then to go out and put signs on peoples lawns. With their permission of course. The reality of things is that when you go to someone’s door and ask for permission to put a sign on their lawn they will probably say yes. Hardly an activist response. I also learned that you cannot tell the colour other voters skin be it red or blue by their house. You do have to ask. Now why is this important? Well it is not. We know there will be an election federally before much longer. And if my luck holds up none of the candidates will make it to my door. I may be a known quantity. Based on how my father and grand father and great grand father voted. In the political world they keep track of such things even though I could not tell you how any of those individuals actually marked their X. For my part I have generally voted in a manner that would not bring shame to any of my ancestors. As well the political machine ignores me as just one more vote. Among millions. A very hard way to learn that you are not that important in their world. Gain one or lose one, the politicians do not really care. I have been listening to online common carry about how things may go in our next set of elections. Even the experts have no idea. What seemed like a done deed only six months ago is now not so sure. Just as bad as trying to find a new job. Being a politician is hard work. Will there be any signs of my lawn? Not likely. We have a large screen of trees so that passers by cannot tell if we are even at home. A sign would be a waste.

I would love to have one of those crystal balls. One that allows you to see where things are going to be in the future. All I have right now is my own view of history. The things I remember other things I do not. If my children or my grandchildren ever ask me how do we get around in the good old days I will have a sketchy answer. Locally we had passenger trains. We also had the trusted horse and cart. And at one point in my life I went on a sailing ship. That was unique and much noisier than I expected. We also have airplanes but given the cost I have rarely used the service. Went to a few local cities but on the whole, planes are something that goes by overhead when I am not looking. I have never taken a motorcycle to go anywhere locally. I have never got on a skateboard and gone down the hill two quickly for safety. I did use a bicycle on a regular basis until I no longer needed to. Blame that on cars. As well I have learned that most of our travel is not really necessary. I can go for weeks without any need to head into town. Or out of the province. Hence those trains and sailing ships are just an extra. I should try to find out what happened to that one ship because it was cool. And some of the trains are in a museum because that’s where trains end up. Try to imagine that the passenger cars I used half century ago are still in service somewhere. The railroads know how to keep their gear going for much longer than anyone else think about it have you ever seen a scrap yard for trains? Not sure we have one in this part of the world. Oh and we have ferry boats when they aren’t broken or Catching Fire. That is an odd way of looking at things but that is also the approach used by our local ferry service. I guess that they made the assumption that when we got the bridge we no longer needed to maintain that service. Hence my curiosity. What will be in place half century from now. What will we need to do to get from here to there.

So far this winter I have been dealing with a new reality. The frozen door. We have a number of ways into the building and for some reason an ongoing basis a couple of the doors get ice along the edges. This is new. Due in part two temperatures that go up and down the sun will hit the door and water will accumulate along the edges then a couple of hours later the door is sealed completely forget using the doorknob. My strategy right now is to go outside and give a couple of decent body checks. A bit like in hockey. I have the height and the mass to make that work as long as I do not slip and fall. After until now all has been good but I am aware that the risk is there. I could just stay inside. I do that almost all the time anyways. But what to do if i needed to get out. For that reason and that reason alone I take the time on a daily basis to make sure that the outdoor exits are exits. My way of looking at things is that we only have a couple more months of potential solid winter. Might as well live it to the max. We also had a power failure last evening. One that had been forecast sort of. Leads me to wonder if our public utility is now developing a way to do rolling blackouts. They haven’t said so I won’t but when the generator in the city was dismantled and the two huge stacks were taken down I had to think to myself that somebody was being a little short sighted. We have an extension cord that goes from here to over there under the water. It has been doing a great job. It is just that the utility is working hard to keep up with the demand. They blame it on the shift from burning wood to using heat pumps. The same ones they convinced people that they should purchase. I am confused.

My remembered stories of mythology are limited. In school I simply was not paying attention. But I do have in mind that man who wandered around in a maze. With a cord. Making sure he could find his way back out. Now in real life that is not how it works. Those who go down into caves may use a cord but they also have other devices. Once you figure out that a compass or a GPS will not do the job you develop other strategies. Most of us, also have little access to a true maze. The average set of utility tunnels at a university is laid out with care and attention to making sure nobody gets lost. I know. And as for getting around the city which the average person learns to do early in life we depend upon a whole set of visual clues. Check it out. Do you see any traces of lines left by students on their way to school. You see. You can learn the skills. Now I am several days into a retrospective study of one of the best maze games ever written. And what I take away from all the accounts of those involved in the rating of the game is that they understood the strategy. A cave devoid of details is confusing but if you drop strategic bits of treasure it becomes child’s play. I must find those games because they sound like a great deal of fun. And as for wandering around and getting lost even I have developed strategies for that. Find a friend that will serve as your guide. Stay close to home. Be ready to ask directions. And carry a long roll of cord if you must. After all it worked thousands of years ago and we all need tested ways to get out of the maze.