Why Waimea?

A little about this blog........why Waimea?  Beautiful place on the 'Big Island' of Hawaii.  Reminds me a little of Kamloops, BC, Canada.  Bald hills as a backdrop to a small city.  Temperate climate....sometimes hot, sometimes not.  Forever changing.  Had an idea once to buy a house or property there, but life changes those ideas or economics!
Therefore, story lines will change as the climate there, and as Waimea was an adventure once so will the stories be of my numerous adventures through life.

The Western Horseman

Can you imagine this picture on the cover of the magazine 'The Western Horseman'. And Why not?

As you have already imagined or suspected, I have a story with this picture. This picture was taken just on the south side of the house in the driveway. Notice the soil? Remember my previous story: ' Post Mauling for Dummies' when I discussed they type of soil? Oh, you didn't read it? Well you'll have to read it to know what the heck I'm going on about. The story following is about the two main characters in the picture above. A fine looking specimen if I must say myself. Long powerful legs, straight back, fine facial features with a strong neck. Well manicured and sleek. And that was me. Thought that I was talking about the horse? NO. That was me. That friggin' horse was a man killer. If you look carefully at the picture you will see that damn horse was looking for a place to rub me out! I'll start at the beginning of this adventure.

I think that I was about fourteen years old in this picture and the story begins about a year before this picture. Dad had started doing a few odd stucco jobs around Caroline to see if he could get enough

work to be able to quit in Calgary and stay home. As it was Dad was driving back and forth from Calgary every week to work. Come home on the weekend, get a few things done and then give me multiple tasks to keep me busy. He always had some great jobs for me. One week while he was gone he wanted me to dig the septic tank. I did it, but it took a couple of weeks. Thank god for sand and no rocks. The worst thing was the roots from the trees. Another favourite of mine was the big pile of 1X6 boards that I had to pull nails from. The boards were from some deal my Dad made on an old church that had been torn down. (Dad could take all the wood home if he loaded and hauled it out of there). I wasn't to throw the nails out either. I had to straighten all those nails after I was done with the boards! I think that there is still a pail or two of those nails out in one of the old sheds. Well, I better get back to the Horseman story. So, Dad was doing a few jobs here in there on weekends. I was big and strong enough to help him on some of these jobs. I think one of the first jobs was Mike Steens house just south of town. Dad needed a labourer to bring him stucco mud. This meant running the wheelbarrow and numerous other things that I won't bore you with. So, being born in a somewhat Capitalist country where there supposedly is Child Labour Laws, I ask my Dad what he is going to pay me. Well, you can imagine the response I received. Paaaiiiidddd? Who the hell feeds you? Who puts clothes on your back? (Don't look at the picture above to see the clothes.........I asked you not to!). After some negotiating with my father we came to some sort of an agreement. He received in payment a 3/4 Charolais bull from Mike Steen (was it 3/4's because it wasn't full grown?, or what?). Dad decided that he would pay me. Here son this is YOUR bull now, for working all summer pounding posts and helping me stucco places. You have to look after it though. That means feeding it and cleaning the barn. Oh, Hooray, another victory for me! Right on! I was moving up in the world. My capitalist blood was pumping. I did the chores like a trooper all winter long, and right through the spring. Then one day I came home from school and there was my Bull....................gone! Where in the Sam Hill is the bull I enquired of Mumsy. Your Dad sold him. WHAT?!? That was my bull. She said with a nonchalant voice: "We needed the money." WHAT?!!? That was my money! You guys owe me that money. Mum never likes arguing with me. Later, Dad comes home with a horse. WHAT?!!? (I think that was Mum that said it that time). "I went and got this horse for John" was Dad's reply to Mum. I sold his bull so this is in trade. I picked out a nice horse for ya son. 3/4 Thoroughbred. Jeez here we go with the 3/4 thing again! Why is it 3/4's? Because the other 1/4 is Arabian. (I wasn't a full blown Horseman then, so, I didn't realize that what I had was a purebred KNOTHEAD!!) One of the reoccurring themes in my Dad's short life was his wheeling and dealing. He traded God knows what for this gie-normous McCullough Chainsaw with a 25 foot bar on it (I don't know; it was very long, maybe 4 foot). It would take 3 days just to sharpen the chain on it. Once Dad realized that he wasn't using the saw much (or more like, I couldn't lift the damn thing let alone start it!), he traded for a banjo (why would he get a banjo when the only musical talent that my Dad had was he could burp a few words, which by the way Arlene is very good at. If there was a competition for longest, loudest, grossest burp she could win a Gold medal for Canada!!). That Banjo didn't stick around for more than month when Dad traded that for a Violin. Geez he loved getting 'bargains'. Okay, back to the Knot-head (the HORSE! I know what you were thinking). I was pretty sceptical about this horse. I didn't think that I was a horse person. I liked dogs, but not horses. We had a good old mare out there that could be rode anytime and she was gentle. NO, I had to have this horse. IT was MINE. Ya, have to look after it though. Oh, sure Dad, thanks. Where did ya get the horse from. Oh, Hank Petersen, the 'hide buyer'. Well, I better get some use out of this horse so I

decided I would try riding the buggar. Good thing Judy lived next door. She always loved to ride horses, so she encouraged me to go riding with her. Sure, that sounds like fun. Did I mention that I had a hate on for this horse? No? Well, I think that it was a mutual thing. In fact I was pretty sure the horse made me hate it. The first time I was to go catch the damn thing it took forever. It did not want to be caught. Finally with Judy's help we catch the friggin' thing. Next the saddle. That didn't go too bad (once I figured out that the horn goes to the front.....just kidding). I don't know to this day why Dad got a 'Hackamore' (I think the principle behind the Hackamore is when you pull on the reins it pulls down on the nose or squeezes the nostrils or some very ingenious thing), instead of a regular bridle with a bit, but there are lots of things I will never know about why Dad did things the way he did. I am sure there was some good reason, ...............or NOT (probably traded a McCullough chainsaw for it and a banjo for all I know!). That Hackamore didn't help my relationship with this bloody horse one little bit. Finally, we are all put together, and I am on top of that ..Horse. Probably the picture was the only time that horse would hold still long enough to take a snapshot. So, Judy gets either Flika or Buck. I think it was Flika, a nice quarter horse. Off we go up the road to the south. Judy is one of those people that love horses. I think the French have the right idea when it comes to some horses. I think it is called 'Montreal Meat'. Judy then 'opens' up Flika and allows the horse to go at a controlled gallop. It was at this point that the Thoroughbred in my horse's pin sized brain thinks that this is a race and explodes into warp 3 without letting me know. SHIT! I better hang on because didn't matter how hard I pulled on that wonderful Hackamore we weren't going to be stopping too soon. Thundering down the edge of the road at break neck speed we go with the wind blowing my hair back out of my eyes so that when my life starts flashing before my eyes I will be able to see it without any obstructions. Thirty miles a hour, 40, 50, 60 mph and now starting to redline!!! Hey, this isn't too bad. Judy and Flika weren't seeing anything but our ass ends along with all sorts of shit and debris from 'Speedys' thundering hooves. Thankfully I wasn't too accustomed to riding horses and I had what could only be described as a death grip on the saddle horn. Did I mention in the previous story that I had to develop some muscles from pounding posts, and etc? I am sure I did. Because if I hadn't had that death grip on that saddle horn and the strength of 5 or 6 ordinary men then that KNOTHEAD would have had me peeled off that saddle and doing 27 somersaults in the ditch. Just when I was looking back to see how far behind Judy and her horse was this shithead horse of mine takes the opportunity to do an immediate 90 degree turn down off the road into the ditch. There I was out the side of the saddle hanging on like one of those fancy trick riders you see doing all sorts of fancy leg kicks or standing with one foot on top of the saddle and the other sticking straight out the back. Or one of those Western's with the good guy galloping with his horse and he's hanging off the side shooting at the bad guys, using the horse as a shield (must of been 'armoured' horses' to do that), or the guy that can drop one leg to the ground and the momentum swings him and his leg over top of the horse to the other side of the horse where he repeats the procedure with his other leg and so on. I am sure these people probably started out like me. I am sure that I did several of those fancy footed tricks on ol' Babe the Knot head horse just on this first ride. Finally I convince the horse to stop, or the horse just decided to stop so that I could shake a couple of lumps out of my pants. I was so friggin' mad at that horse that I probably could have shot it, but I was too busy cleaning out my pants (not really, just kidding).

This sort of thing went on for a few years with this horse but I was onto her ways. Shortly thereafter, that horse tried the same thing going down an old trail on the quarter and eyed up the perfect branch. It was just at the right height to rip me off her back. That was where my trick riding came in handy. That horse had it out for me, but it wasn't for about twenty years later that I found out that the horse didn't just dislike me, it hated all males. Hank had told Dad that the horse just hated me for some reason and that was why Hank got the horse in the first place. I wonder why Dad wanted that horse then?

I had a few more adventures on that horse before I left home to become a 'man of the world' (I went to BC to work for a year!). My sister Karen......yes, the 'Reluctant Mermaid' laid claim to the horse called Babe, but known to me as Knot head, and didn't have any problems with that friggin' animal. So today I have 3 horses, and I ask myself almost every day: 'Why do you have these horses?'

SPOTLIGHT IN CAROLINE

Writing letters to family and friends is becoming a lost art. I recently wrote a letter to my Aunt Margaret because she doesn't have a computer. I think that she appreciated it a lot. She said she cried a little when she saw the picture of my dad that I had imbedded into the letter. I have decided that I would start writing letters more often to those that might appreciate it (but then again, maybe not). A letter from me is far less annoying than all that advertising that we get in our mail boxes (or maybe not). Since I have been at home more often now, and stay here weeks at a time without leaving the farm, I thought it only best to doing something other than chores and prospecting for oil and gas (which is what I earn an income from). I'll give you a little glimpse of my days as a child on the farm in Caroline.
Mom and Dad had bought some land up in Caroline, Alberta with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Mary Jones in the early '60's. As a kid, that held no significance to me. I had bought candy with friends and we would pool our money together to buy a bag of 'Niggar Babies' as they were called then. They were delicious black (duh!) liquorish shaped like babies (wonder who the sick bastard was that thought that up?). (NOTE: that would be one hell of a Trivial Pursuit question wouldn't it?) My Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce Jones lived on a quarter section about a mile from where the farm was. (Vern and Vie Larsen bought the place and I believe they still live there). Well Dad would take me up with him to visit Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce from our li'l shack behind Grandma and Grandpa Jones' place, sometimes Mom would go to along with the rest of us rug rats. It was a long drive but it is funny that I can't remember any of the actual trips up to the Caroline area when I was a kid. I can remember being in Caroline or at Uncle Bob's but never the actual trip up. Jeez we must've drove up there a bazillion times too. I can't even remember when Mom hit the ditch and the grader having to pull our 1960 Red and White Rambler four door. (Mom loved that car). Later on in life, the only time that I couldn't remember the actual drive was (and I hate to admit it) when I had too much to drink or I was dogged tired. They call it road hypnotism I call it zoning out or being an idiot behind the wheel, which I found out later is the state in which most drivers in Calgary are in when they are in bumper to bumper traffic. One of my earliest recollections of Caroline was sitting in the car outside the Sportsman Inn (I'm not even sure if it was called that back then). There was 'angle' parking back then in front of the bar on Main Street and Dad parked us a few cars down from the main entrance to the bar. Well, Dad was a very sociable guy and loved to have a beer or two or three and sometimes even more. He worked in construction, what do you expect? A Saint? Anyways, I was sitting patiently as any kid would be in that car for probably what seemed like 17 days waiting for Dad to come out of there and go someplace else. Now it was starting to get dark and I couldn't tell who was coming out the front doors, so what was I to do? I couldn't tell if it was my Dad or not because the lighting was so poor. What if Dad had a few too many and couldn't remember where he had parked the car and the kid? Well, it just so happened that Dad had one of these big kick ass spotlight flashlights that had what looked like a car battery bolted onto them. Not only a car battery bolted on but also a car headlight for a flashlight. So grunting and aiming the 'flashlight' (probably to describe it as a 'Search light used in World War II to spot enemy bombers and fighters would be more appropriate) at the entrance whenever someone would step out, I would 'ignite' the search beacon onto the unsuspecting inebriated patron. The immediate reaction would be one not dissimilar to Whitetails and Muleys as you are barrelling down on them on the highway at night. BUT once the initial shock and fear wore off and their groggy minds clued in that they weren't being abducted by Aliens or they weren't a deer on the highway, THEN their demeanour ( emphasis on mean) would change rapidly. They would holler all sorts of demeaning (emphasis on mean again) profanities at my direction. Fortunately for me they would stagger, weave and forget what they were going to beat the hell out of because I would shut the laser beam down immediately when I realized it wasn't my Dad. UNTIL one guy came out but he didn't forget. He continued hollering at me and shaking his fist. Well for you that have known me my whole life know that I too have a bit of a temper and mean streak. I locked the doors on the car and lifted the laser beam up and hit him straight in the eyes!! He would have thought that I had delivered a near knock out blow to this reeling character. You know the type. They are so drunk that they exaggerate every thing and every movement. Well this guy goes reeling back to the wall and hits it hard, probably hard enough to knock the liquor laden breath out of him for a second or two. If someone was sitting inside the bar and they were sober enough (and I highly doubt that in that place) he would have thought that a car had jumped the curb and tapped the wall with its' bumper. The guy bounces off the wall and comes at the car again, except this guy was really mad now. He was screaming and spittin' and banging his fist on the car. He had his face right up to the windshield. Too bad I didn't have the keys and the foresight, I could've turned on the windshield wipers for effect! Then again maybe it was a good thing that I didn't, he would have ripped those wipers off and shoved them down my left nostril if he could get at me. Instead I used my only weapon of mass destruction afforded to me and shot him right in the eye with the search light again. WOW, did he lose it. I thought that I had a temper, YIKES.!! Maybe that is where I learned it from. That is all I remember from that incident, but I'll always remember his bugged out eyes, the spit flying from his mouth and the spit foaming up around his lips.!! Most kids would have been traumatized for life, and hey, maybe I was but, I think I took it in stride. I know that it wasn't long after that, that I asked Dad if it was okay to swear when I was mad. He said no it wasn't a good thing to do. I said that when I get really mad I needed to scream and holler. He said that if I had to swear to make sure Mom wasn't around (so I didn't swear around her, at least not too much, and that is probably why I kicked a big dent in her all metal doors on her kitchen cabinets. That is a story for another day.
That was my first memory of the town of Caroline. No wonder I was a little nervous going to school there in grade seven. But that too is a story for another day.

A Shower in Copenhagen

When I was 12 years old, we moved up to the farm northeast of the little village of Caroline. Population was around 400 people, 221 dogs, 14,520 cats and numerous other animals. Caroline didn't impress me too much as a kid. For one, it was way to far from the farm to be of much use to me. But every once in a while we would all pile in the car to go into town. Mom and Dad had this '53 Ford Station Wagon that we drove up from Calgary before we moved up and also used for a short period of time up at the farm. This car was a typical old beater. The wheel walls were rusted through so that if you were on a gravel road you would choke, cough and sputter from the dust. And if you whined and made to much noise Dad would roll down the window and the dust would just peel off the road into the back where us kids were and cake us with so much dust that it would suck up all the moisture out of your eyes. Not only that, but the exhaust would be sucked up into the back and I am sure that we would die. Dad also had this horrible habit of chewing Copenhagen Snuff. Well, once in a while he would spit out the window. He would sort of hold his lips back over his teeth and squirt this shit out through the gap in his front teeth. If you ever have saw the Movie: 'The Outlaw Jose Wales' starring Clint Eastwood then you would know exactly what I was talking about. Near the beginning of the movie he has this dog (I think it was a Blue Heeler or akin to it) that kept following him. He would tell the dog to buggar off but it wouldn't. Then he would turn and hit it in the eye with a pressurized stream of repulsive tobacco juice and the dog would go yelping off (now it has been at least 15 years since I saw that movie and it might not quite be that way, but I do know that he spit some tobacco juice in the dog's eye when it wouldn't leave). Getting back to my Dad and him spitting out the window. There I was sitting in the back seat right behind him, and he is barrelling down the road with the window open and the dust pouring into the back, gagging us kids. Being an incredibly observant child, I realized that the window provided some source of relief from the dust and heat. SO, what did I do you ask? Well, I opened MY window. It was great! I could actually get some fresh air and breath!! Arlene saw this and she did the same thing. Now, in life, we are sometimes 'blindsided' with things that aren't anticipated by even the most intelligent and wise. Look at our World Economy as an example. There were an over abundance of truly intelligent people that the world had never seen before in its' history. They were everywhere, all you had to do was just ask them and they would tell you how smart they were. Sorry, I digress. So, I opened my window and was feeling the fresh air on my face and in my lungs. Dad had the tunes on to the Red Deer Country and Western Station or maybe it was CFAC in Calgary. It was 'Country' back then. Listening to the tunes (not particularly enjoying the music but I was feeling good) when Dad leaned out a little further out the window and let go with a dark brown stream of Copenhagen snoose juice! I think we were going at least 50 mph so that stream of snoose juice went out as far as the laws of Hydrodynamics would allow it until the force of the air streaming from the front of our 2000 pound rusted metal sedan overcame the force of the snoose juice projectile that had emanated from my Dad's gap in his front teeth. The Snoose juice then was dispersed evenly, (almost like it was atomized, similar to perfume from a perfume bottle) along the opposing and stronger force whereas it abruptly ended up on my most unsuspecting face, including my eyes, nose, lips, hair and neck!! I recoiled from the window with utter horror. The smell of the pungent tobacco mixed with saliva was the most utterly repulsive odour that I had had to endure in my short life. I was grossed to the extreme. Then the initial shock wore off, and the incredible burning sensation to my eyes and lips was overwhelming. I wiped furiously to remove the disgusting concoction from my being as quickly as I could. I learned many important life lessons from that one disgusting traumatizing event. Never take a leak into the wind. Never stand downwind from someone who has been eating pickled eggs or any other thing pickled for that matter. In later years I felt bad for that poor dog that Clint Eastwood had spit on.