TubaOrNotTuba

The building is still there, I think. It became a car dealership or something similar. But for a couple of years it was the most dangerous building in the city. Nothing to do with explosives. This was our roller rink. Now in the beginning we all believed we could handle this. We were Canadian and we understood skating on ice. This was a little different. Really fancy boots with wheels on the bottom. We would go to this location and we would skate around in circles to a soundtrack. Worthy of a movie I think because none of us were good at what we did. The real challenge was to try not to fall on your head. This was before the days of helmets unfortunately there are no recorded deaths. Just a few arms. I was there one afternoon that happened. We had taken two school buses full of people with no experience brought them in put skates on their feet and turn them loose for an hour or two period of course someone had to fall. We all knew that you could skate much faster if you joined hands and then snap the whip. Someone did. The contact between cement and young bodies can lead to carnage. Or broken arms. Your choice. I do not know if the current generation understands how dangerous life was back in the 80s. We had to copy the fads that came from the United states. Go ahead. Ask your parents if they remember disco. Their response should tell you all you need to know. Some things are best left on the other side of the border. Speaking of disco we had dance clubs in the city centre. The floor had flashing lights and the soundtrack was equally loud compared to the roller rink. Same people. Less acceleration. The slow dance rarely leads to sudden death by falling. All of this is now part of my past.

I think that being famous is overrated. In a world where things are transactional I have met very few truly famous people. Unless of course they were in disguise. I have met no Prime Minister or member of the royal family or even a famous politician or musician or athlete. Wait, there was that one time when Gordie Howe gave me an autograph. But he didn’t know my name and I had to be told his so it really was nothing. As for famous musicians, none have ever come to my door and my door was always open to them if they had. Perhaps I am just an unknown. Although I would like if you ever meet a famous whoever that you check to see if they know me. Coming at it from the other direction if you will. What does really show is that I am not likely to be invited to see the man who is richer or the man who is famous or the man who has done more for humanity than anyone else. Do they realize what they’re missing? I have however been to a few places where things are famous. I saw those faces carved into a mountainside and I saw a large ship go by in the night. Those count for something. And once I saw a famous airplane. You see we all pick our moments and our places to be. Never underestimate what you have accomplished. And I have read books and seen movies and listened to recorded music that involved people who have achieved their moment in the sun. We cannot choose where we will go in our lives. Wait. I can choose where I will go. I just will keep that limited. A factor of time and budget. And maybe, tomorrow someone will come by just after the moment they become famous. I will hold that in anticipation. 

Not having much money is actually a good thing. Very few scammers are out to empty my bank account. And I will not be buying a fancy electric car that I would never drive. Ever since our national government placed a retaliatory tariff against that car company this morning the price just doubled. I am watching the news to find out how people react to the silly moves made by various governments. Our neighbors to the South are in full mode of running a clown show by placing tariffs on things they need. Only if bought from this country. Go figure. I mean, I have. If you suddenly make the price of essential items rise only two make your own country richer you depend upon people buying those goods in your country. Hence my mirth at the idea of my buying a fancy car. The tariffs have been in place since midnight and so far I have not paid any mind. Most days I spend near nothing so I am not going to be affected short term. If I decide to go out and buy a ton of aluminum, on a whim, I will have to find a way to spend more money. Oh wait, that doesn’t affect me because I live on the right side of that imaginary line. But somebody must be going to pay them; else why all the wringing of hands and clutching of pearls. Yes I know the economic pressures are bad for all involved but I will have to wait to see just how much of an effect this whole thing is going to have on anyone other than those with a lot of money invested in stocks and bonds. They’re already feeling the pain. Will this push the world to war? Or turn the whole system upside down with a deep seated depression? Actually the depression will be felt by those who pay attention and I think you can get stuff from the pharmacist to take care of that too. But I do not speak from a place of deep experience by virtue of being too poor to care.

This may seem like a painful exercise but you need to do it from time to time. Seek out speeches by your politicians. Try to determine how long it takes before the speaker does a loop. Public speaking is a talent and not every politician is talented. Someone explains to the politician that he must speak for a given amount of time for appearances. And when you only have a short message the tendency is to loop. If that loop is extremely short everyone will notice. Extended by only a few phrases and you can fool the simple persons in your audience. Remember back to when you had to give a speech in school. Most of us never made it beyond a couple of sentences scrolled on a crib sheet. We found it fulfilling to stay on stage for as long as possible even when we had nothing to say. That rule applies equally to politicians. I listened to a curated speech given by one of the candidates to be Prime Minister. It did not go well. The person in charge of the podcast was quick to point out then a phrase repeated over and over again does not make that phrase better. I have another example. We have someone else who wants to be Prime Minister and that person has reduced the message to three words. When the underlying policy changed the speech did not. Proof that the politician does not always listen to what they’re saying. Just saying. Keep an eye on them as we move into election season. See if you can spot the inconsistencies that are required to keep the train of thought going. Like a real train it requires fuel. When you run out of fuel your train will roll to a stop. With it your hold on the attention of your audience. Try to find a politician that has a true message for your own sanity.

I probably haven’t looked hard enough. I tend to shop for things where I already know what I want and what the risks might be. However, after watching some videos on inspecting an RV, it is clear that I need an awful lot more experience before I go off to buy something unknown to me. So many places where things can go wrong. It all starts with the wheels. You hope that they meet the ground in the way they are intended. If the rig is upside down that is a red flag. That probably goes for airplanes as well. If the RV has things that are obviously damaged, you can make the assumption that this happened after manufacture. That is the moment to ask the current owner what might have happened. If the owner says that it happened when he turned the rig upside down save your money and walk away. I’m taking this without any degree of seriousness because I am not shopping. For others with hope in their heart and dollars in their wallet they have to take the whole inspection process seriously. The old axiom about buyer beware applies here as well. Remember, the owner is not going to tell you something to make you want to shop elsewhere. Part of their job description. If what you hear sounds too good to be true it probably is. Keep in mind that an RV usually does not go upside down all by itself. And if there are only three wheels you should be  asking what happened to the other wheel. Think of it as due diligence on the part of the buyer. Remember the seller has no such rule in his job description. We have been fortunate. We are now on our second RV and in both cases we got what we wanted at the price we accepted. Something about buying objects that are pretty much pristine. Do I want to shop for another rig right now? No. That counts as a succinct response. I continue trying to learn just in case but it is reassuring to look out the door and see that our other set of beds is there ready to travel. Eventually. We’re waiting for winter to end and according to the Almanac that will be soon.

Elections are important for some of us. Others take the whole thing a bit more loosely. The province of Ontario had an election yesterday. The men running for premier refused to release any sort of campaign. He simply told them that this was for five more years. And as any sheep would do when told to do so the electorate allowed the government to continue without a break. Nothing lost except the cost of the election itself. I really hope that the company who sold them this bill of goods will still be as popular five years from now. I would not count on it. Now back to regular programming. We’re coming into a new month that many use to predict the end of winter. Something about lamb and lion. And based on the weather reports this year is coming in like a lamb which means that we can expect another four weeks of poor skating. Poor everything. Do not hide your boots or your parka just yet. Forget laying on the beach on a towel. Not my fault I warned you winter is endless in this part of the world until it isn’t. We now have to get ready for mud season. Again not me. I have learned that wandering around in the mud is a silly thing to do. We did hear from the kids yesterday. All are well. That whole predicted trip back just at the beginning of January is still on hold. Thankfully. I would prefer to have a new bed of grass outside and a sump pump that does not need to be verified every day. Difficult to do when you are off on a road trip. Someone suggested putting a camera with Wi-Fi pointed at the hole. I had to reply that this would not keep the water out. It would just let us know a few hours earlier that we had an emergency on our hands with too far to drive and insufficient time to make things right. The wisdom that comes with old age.

An exciting start to the day. Not for me but for my son and this family. A fire broke out in their building in the other section but the family had to be evacuated and sent to shelter elsewhere. That included the cat who had to travel reluctantly in a sports bag. I’m getting all of this second hand but there was no serious damage to the building and they expect to be reintegrated into their apartment later today. After the authorities turn back on the electricity and the water. I have been lucky in my life. All of the fires have taken place after I have moved out. In some cases decades later. That means that the house where I was born is gone and the first apartment where I lived is gone and the home of my grandparents and their family is now gone fire is a real hazard and if you have not checked your emergency exits end your smoke alarms and all of the other things that make us safer please do so now. Moving on. I was watching a video they talked about travel by train. The reality is that I have never had the opportunity to travel away from this province and on to the rest of Canada. Train travel by the time I reached university had already changed over to transit buses in this part of the world. That bothers me but not enough to make a big scene. My travel by train back in the 70s was often for a day or more at a time. Economy travel with the knapsack and the lunch and a lot of patients. Add warm clothes because back then trains were heated by steam and that often stopped working at the most inopportune moments. Like in the middle of the night or on that last few hours of travel between major cities. You simply pulled your coat tight around you and sat back and waited for relief. For all of you that have traveled your lifetime on planes, you do not know what you missed. Planes may come down suddenly but trains tend to stop in the middle of nowheres for hours at a time. And we have long winters.

The line in the song mentioned the feet up on the sand. This was not about the experience of going to the shore in the summer. Rather about someone being a refugee in a new land. My own origin story is somewhat similar. One of the branches of my family tree came here by boat. A normal thing given that I live on an island but there’s more. This was a whole family on their way to a new place and their ship just did not quite make it all the way. Wrecked I’m not sure with sand. Given that the ship was too damaged to continue the family moved in land and found a place to set up a small farm. A few acres at first and they probably had to clear the trees themselves. At that point in time there was no service you could phone to come in with a small bulldozer and set you up. You cleared the woods you dug up the ground and you made a firm. The farm is still there with new owners. When the family arrived they too had their feet up on the sand. It was just before the summer so the water would have been fairly warm. Nobody died from it. And here I am more than 200 years later within walking distance of that same beach and that same farm. I really wonder what it was like at the start. Where do you get your tools? Do you find someone from down the road to come in and give you a helping hand? I probably will never have all the answers to my questions. There is no one from that time. Still alive. Written records are rare. I can only assume that the family was simply happy to be alive. And from the stem to stay here going forward means that they found this to be a comfortable land. Much like me.

I guess that you can always pay more. For almost anything. Today I came across an old episode of that auction show where people bring in their treasures to be evaluated. This particular episode kept me interested because they were going over how old musical instruments can rise in value. Among the showcased pieces were guitars that were older than I. As well some of the instruments were epic in that they had been played by famous musicians. That is not a sign that something is better but it does drive the price up at auction. Most of my shopping for instruments has been done at retail. The local music store. Although I did get that cool recorder in a pawn shop between trains but I digress. My own collection is sparse. In fact the oldest piece is a violin that was purchased when I was just a boy. And that I have played. And it was not a rare treasure. The only anecdote was a surprise on my music teacher’s face when he saw that a name had been written inside. My father. He had pushed a ballpoint pen in through one of the sound holds and place his name. Too difficult for anyone else to erase should the instrument be picked up by accident. I would love to see some of these older instruments. To see if the sound really does improve with time as I have heard. I would really love to come across some of the brass instruments that I handled in high school. A long time ago. And given the way that budgets in schools run those instruments are probably still out there. Perhaps on a future trip to the place where I went to school. Even if the building has changed. I have no experience with larger instruments. A grand piano is forever if only because it is so difficult to move. But a guitar? You can pick that up and take it with you. And if the previous owner has shown any care the instrument should still be playable. Hence the high price at auction I suppose.

I no longer keep an AM radio running in the background. I also do not own a record player anymore. Or a cassette player for that matter. Some of the younger people in the audience are now going to have to ask others. What is he talking about what is this AM record thing. And the reality is that is how we used to get our music. Because we all had our music. It was so popular that they published lists every week which were printed on paper and hand it out in the local record store. Once again what is this record thing? The reality is that music has always been evolving and starting sometime about a century ago it became mainstream. Everyone had access to some sort of record player or radio that would allow them to listen to the music they wanted. If you were to go to my sisters’ home you would probably find these odd little black plastic discs that had the name of a song on each side and squiggly lines engraved in that plastic. You can Google it. To most of us that is how music was distributed. I can remember stopping by the local record store downtown every chance I got. You went to see what was new and what was going to be popular tomorrow. Things changed that quickly. I do not have any intention today to provide you with a history of music distribution. Just accept that it was and remains a very important part of our culture. Today I watched a short history of Spotify and realized that I had so much more to learn. I do not have an account on that platform thank you. A correction is necessary apparently we do have an account although I have no idea how to access it or what is there. But getting back to music. I no longer buy little plastic discs with a song in each side. I disposed of all my cassette tapes decades ago. Filled a dumpster with a lifetime of sound. And now I simply browse because there are so many other places to find music. Evolution for the nation.