happiest childhood memories

my answer to mother's latest question: what are my happiest and saddest childhood memories

okay... my happiest childhood memories. this is a tough question because i don't really remember how i felt about stuff, i only remember what happened, so i can't really tell you when i was happiest, but i can tell you which memories make me happiest now.

the first one i can think of is the day dad, uncle louis, chad, and i went fishing at adam's creek. you and sophie may have been there, but i don't remember. we fished all day and didn't catch a single thing (as far as i can remember) and we went home soaking wet and exhausted but we had an awesome great time.

the other one isn't really one contiguous memory but rather just clumps of memory or vague nostalgic feelings. like exploring the rock "desert" (that's what we called it) next to our house with chad. or exploring the woods and fields on our property with chad. once, i think it was a snow day, chad and i were home alone and we packed a lunch and some supplies--chad's rifle, an axe, matches--and strapped on some snowshoes and then we went for a long hike through the woods in a blizzard. we were out all day, came back in time for supper. another happy memory is on a sunday afternoon, again we had a giant snow storm, mathieu was over for the afternoon and he, chad and i rode the old bomb (the black snow machine) all afternoon and into the evening--until we had to come back in to get ready for gospel meeting. i also remember chad and i shoveling the drive way late at night in dead still ice cold weather or blinding snowstorms and then coming inside to sit by the woodstove until our faces thawed. also the summers we spent at tower lake with cousin mitch.

my saddest childhood memories... hm. another tough one.

probably the times i was mean to chad or the couple times i yelled at dad. like once when chad bonked his head and started crying and i called him a wimp. :(

or the time when dad and chad and i went hunting and i kept lagging behind and whining about it and my mittens came off and i got snow down my sleeves and i felt like dad wouldn't wait for me (that part doesn't really make me sad, the next part does:) dad kept bringing it up, almost every year when we went hunting after that and he would tell me how bad he felt and how he wished he would have come back and picked me up and carried. that makes me sad. i bet that if i came home today and got dad to take me hunting he'd bring it up again ...

also, when dad used to sing "cat's in the cradle" i always cried when he sang that ... and then he'd sing it just to make me cry and i'd get angry at him. i think i was fifteen or sixteen (old enough to be at the dentist by myself, but before the dentist office moved into the mall) i was in the dentist's chair and the hygienist was working in my head and the song came on the radio and i was so embarrassed and worried that i was going to start crying. fortunately, i didn't.

one time in early spring (early enough that there was still about five or six feet of snow on the ground but late enough that it was really warm and the snow was mostly slushy) chad, jeremy, and i went for a hike ... we were in snowshoes and for some reason chad and jeremy did okay but mine kept sinking and i couldn't keep them straight so they'd tip me over and then i'd trip and fall into the slush. so i took off my snowshoes when we were about halfway to our destination and tried ploughing through the slush but the layers of crust kept breaking under me and the snow was too deep for me to walk on the ground and keep my head above it, so i kind of had to swim/crawl through the snow and i kept getting wetter and wetter ... i was SO angry and upset. finally i just turned around and headed for home. chad and jeremy got to their destination, made a fire, had lunch and headed back before i even made it back to my snowshoes. by this time i was soaked right through my snowsuit to my underwear. jeremy made it to my snowshoes before i did and picked them up, chad caught up with me, picked me up and put me on his back and carried me the whole way home. that makes me sad because i regret being so angry and feeling sorry for myself for being wet and cold.

also, when dad had his gall bladder taken out. it was a saturday and he had to go to work, but there was a family breakfast thing at uncle louis' house. i drove dad to work and i think he wanted me to go straight to uncle louis' from there but i was really tired because i'd stayed up late the night before so i went home and went back to bed. at around nine or so, dad came home and woke me up because he wanted me to drive him to the hospital because his stomach hurt really badly. i got up, had a long hot shower while dad waited for me and then drove him to the hospital, just dropped him off, and then went to uncle louis' and waited until after breakfast when almost everyone else had left to tell uncle louis that dad was at the hospital!!!!! then, uncle louis got his jacket and keys and got right in the van and we drove to the hospital together and went to the emergency entrance where jesse was working in the reception area with the triage nurse. jesse told us that dad had been admitted... so we found him in a gowny thing on a hospital bed hooked up to an iv thing... and i felt so ashamed of myself.

i guess that's not really a childhood memory anymore though ... it's more like a young-adult memory so i'm gonna stop there.

earliest childhood memories

an avid reader asked me what my earliest childhood memories are, so after spending the morning delving into my brain, this is the result:

my childhood memories are very cloudy. i don't really remember one continuous stream of memories, just clumps.

my earliest ones involve playing in the sandbox with my brother chad behind our little yellow house on government road in kapuskasing. and we also played on the front deck. chad and i would slide through the bars and then back in... or that might have been at my grandmother's house on byng street, but in my memory it was at the yellow house. i also remember dad putting chad and i to bed, sleeping feet to feet at opposite ends and i had my braces on.

i remember cutting my finger on something in the basement of the rodger's house in val-rita (the one we moved into later) and it bled and bled (well, it seemed like it was bleeding a lot, but i couldn't have been more than four years old so it probably just seemed like a lot) and my mother said something about me going to school soon.

and then i remember moving to val-rita. for some reason, i remember my father and someone else knocking down a wall in the old yellow house and pulling a step-stool out from behind it. (i doubt that actually happened--it just seems so bizarre that we'd store a step-stool in the wall or that we'd even have room for one there considering that the house was so small, but that's how i remember it.) and i remember sitting on the tailgate of a pick up truck in grandma's driveway/parking lot and crying because i didn't want to move and mr. larocque telling me that i was gonna be living in a nicer, bigger house and that everything was gonna be ok. or something--i don't really remember what he said, just that he was teasing me or something.

i remember my first day of school. well, actually, i just remember mom getting me a blanket (for nap time) and a back pack and telling me that i was going to school. i started going to school in the afternoons. i remember standing at the end of our driveway in val-rita (where perras road splits
into our driveway) waiting for the bus. i remember being at school, and being surprised that i could speak english. i remember brian; he was a bully and every day he'd pick someone different to be his "friend" and one day i was all happy because he picked me.

i remember pooping my pants in kindergarten ... or was that grade one? and mom and grandma came to get me at school. wow, that still embarrasses me (not that mom and grandma came to get me, but that i pooped my pants.)

so... yeah, those are my earliest memories, i think. i hope they make for some nice funny reading.

Gideon's Spies -- the secret history of the mossad

so i just finished reading this book by gordon thomas, loaned to me by my brother in law, steve. it's a quite fascinating and remarkably (even surprisingly) well researched account of the history of mossad from its inception in the 1950s.

the book begins with an examination of the death of princess diana from mossad's perspective. it gives details about the conspiracy theories surrounding her death and the death of her lover dodi al fayed, and driver henri paul--who was an informant, not only for local french intelligence agencies, but also for mossad and other foreign intelligence services and the press.

the book is full of anecdotes. it tells the story of rafael eitan's kidnapping of adolf eichman in argentina, it tells stories about assassination attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) against terrorist leaders who could not be brought to justice. it also tells about mossad's involvement in the death of britain's media tycoon robert maxwell. the most annoying thing about these anecdotes is that they are often inconclusive. they tell a small part of a story, or are used as an example and then the author trails off to discuss something entirely different. for example, it tells the story of dr. ri che-woo, a north korean microbiologist who escaped from north korea along the new exodus route, revived by douglas shin--a korean-american pastor at a suburban los angeles church--, and norbert vollersten--a german doctor who completed a work term in north korea. the story is quite touching but ends abruptly when dr. ri che-woo is captured by chinese public security officers. nothing more is told about new exodus or any of its other participants, though they were painstakingly introduced.

the book made me think, though: it's hard to justify the existence of secret intelligence or security agencies in a democratic country. the very secrecy surrounding the actions of these agencies makes them inaccessible to the democratic process. the only way they can be controlled by the people is through the democratically elected head of state. but, these are often untrustworthy. furthermore, how can we even know that we can trust our democratically elected heads of state if some of the actions that they approve are forever cut off from public knowledge?

it is our fear of the 'other' that necessitates secret agencies: fear of terrorism, fear of enemy nations, fear of friendly nations... it was fear of the soviet union that brought on the need for secret agencies in canada and the usa, and much of the western world.

gideon's spies does not vilify mossad but neither does it lionize it. it simply "tells it like it ... is" (in the words of meir amit, former director general of mossad 1963-1968).

i think the main lesson from the book is that human intelligence (called "humint" in the book) is better than electronic intelligence, gathered by satellites and computers. mossad relies almost exclusively on human intelligence through its katsas (field agents) and sayanim (sleeper agents or informers). they have a relatively small number of katsas, but many thousands of sayanim in almost every country. mossad's model is contrasted with american intelligence agencies such as the nsa and the cia who rely heavily on satellites and space age computer technology.

the book should be required reading for anyone who wants to study modern history and the role of secret intelligence and security agencies around the world in the cold war era and the post cold war era.

Dan and Katie Come to Halifax for the Weekend

We had Dan and Katie for the weekend. They arrived shortly after midnight on Friday. (Thankfully, Janelle and I had the weekend off.) So after I got off work I did five loads of laundry and tidied up the apartment a little. By the time Janelle got home after seven, we were both exhausted. And Janelle had been so busy at Little Caesar's that she hadn't had supper yet. (It was halloween, they made their greatest sales ever.)

Saturday morning Dan and Katie, Heidi, Janelle and I went to the market. While Katie, Janelle, and Heidi shopped, I accompanied Dan to the part of the market where they sell peanut butter balls. Dan bought a couple and an apple and then we walked along the waterfront for a while.

Then Mary Ann (my big boss) called and I had to reclean an apartment that I had cleaned Friday... So we all went back home and Dan helped Janelle and I clean while Katie and Heidi went to the blackmarket. (Probably to buy drugs and guns--thereby ensuring Kenny's job security.) Anyways, it took a little more than an hour to clean the apartment, Janelle was fantastic because she knew just what to do and how to do it. It was a bit of a consolation to me that Mary Ann made the carpet cleaners redo their job in that apartment too.

After lunch we went to Peggy's cove (see Janelle's facebook for photos) and had a wonderful, great time. And when we got back we had Nathan and Andrew and Emma Joy and Heidi for supper. We decided that, instead of having a guestbook, we would make our guests draw pictures for us with the tablet. That's how we discovered that Nathan is an artistic genius.

Nathan painted this with watercolour

and drew this with crayons

this is heidi's contribution.

Dan drew this guy. He also drew the first one.

After supper Janelle, Katie, and Emma Joy went to the mall while Nathan, Andrew, Dan and I stayed at the apartment. We jammed for a bit, and drew pictures, and Andrew and Dan had plenty of Cape Bretonese conversations (yikes).

Sunday we had Heidi and her dad (who flew in from Fort McMurray on Saturday night--Janelle and Katie made a "welcome home" poster for him). for lunch. After lunch Dan and Katie had to head back for Sydney. And it was freezing cold outside. Janelle and I spent the rest of the evening recouperating from the weekend. We napped, snuggled, watched a movie...

On Monday, after work, Juaniece came over and we worked on her website. Ok, it's still not up yet, but I'm hoping to get something up SOON. This time she wanted it totally revamped... so we completely changed the look of it.

Sofa Shopping with the In Laws

janelle and i had the night off yesterday, so we called up her parents and decided to go sofa shopping.

so, after a wonderful meal with janelle's parents (baked potatoes, cheesy broccoli (how do you spell that anyway??), and roast beef (i think), with delicious carrots--i think she baked them with honey and orange juice--yum) i was full and sleepy. perfect for sofa shopping.

the first place we went to was ashley furniture in bayer's lake. it's a fantastic store with a huge sales floor full of sofas, mostly, tastefully arranged and set up to sell. also, the sales staff is really helpful and not pushy at all.

sofa shopping, especially when i'm not doing the purchasing, is probably one of the most relaxing things there is. i just sat on all the different couches and recliners while we discussed the pros and cons of different couches. we found one sofa that we all really liked, that would look excellent in janelle's parent's apartment but we were still wondering what else there was out there, so we went to sears.

sears is a ridiculous store. they just put everything they got on the floor with no arrangement or design to it so you have to go looking for what you want. anyways, we just sat in one couch and talked about the one we liked from ashley's, then we went back to ashley's and janelle and i waited in the car while mister and misses went inside to buy the sofa.

afterwards, we all went over to our apartment and played apples to apples and banagrams while we feasted on whole grain tortilla chips and cheesies and some caramel brule and wine. it was an altogether fantastic evening.

after they left, i was in a hurry to get out of my pants because they were getting painfully tight.

Bamboo Tablet Thing

so, janelle bought me a writing / drawing thing, like one of those tablets that come with a pen and you write on the tablet with the pen and it shows up on the computer screen. well, she bought me one of those.

so i started playing with it and at first i found it really hard to work with, but i've now figured it out (i think) and produced my first painting:


ok, so it's not that great--it's just a tree with a sky and a sun. but it's start, you know. maybe eventually i'll be able to paint all sorts of things. what i really want is to see janelle develop her stick figure art. :)

on the darker side... i've gone back over to windows :( well, at least 25% of the way there. we're now running windows exclusively on janelle's computer because i couldn't use the tablet thing on mine while it's running ubuntu. so here's to many more forays into piracy...

Che -- A Revolutionary Life

So, I recently finished reading "Che -- A Revolutionary Life," the biography of Ernesto Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson.

It's a good book because Ernesto Guevara is a fascinating and exciting character. He adopts the name "Che" (which means something like "Hey You!") around the same time he becomes a solid communist. Interestingly, though, he never joins the Soviet sponsored international Communist Party. After studying to become a doctor specializing in asthma and allergies, he spends the rest of his life trying to spread the proletarian revolution in South America. The book records his early life, his struggle to bring the revolution to the world by guerrila warfare first in Cuba and later in Africa and finally in Bolivia and finally his death by execution in the Bolivian Andes.

The detail provided in the book is amazing; it was obviously very well researched. What I liked most about the book was its honesty about Che's character. It wasn't romantic or glorified but it showed him as a regular human being. It's true that he was an outstanding man who did some very remarkable things, he also had some very admirable qualities--his determination, his hard work, his passion, and his quirky and kind of weird sense of humour--but the book also records his flaws and presents him as a deeply flawed individual (just like the rest of us).

For example, Che continues to believe unquestioningly that people are basically good and that they will put their self interest aside and work for the good of the group even when he is faced by the complete self-centeredness of some of his closest comrades who, after they have commited their lives to the revolution and are told by Che to count themselves as already dead, lose faith in the struggle and abandon both their comrades and the revolution.

When he goes to the Congo, the great Congolese revolutionary fighters won't fight, they run away dropping their weapons and baggage as soon as anyone fires at them; they won't carry anything but their weapons--when asked to they say, "what do I look like? a truck?" or "what do I look like? a woman?" or "what do I look like? a cuban?" (Because Che and his soldiers ended up having to do all the heavy carrying because the Congolese wouldn't). Anyways, the Congolese revolution ended in failure because of the simplicity and self-interestedness of its fighters.

In Bolivia, Che himself is betrayed by the people he came to help. His goal in Bolivia and in all of South America was to improve the conditions of the common people and give them a stake in their government because they were being oppressed by North American backed capitalist military dictatorships. It was the common people of Bolivia who, many times over, reported his whereabouts to the Bolivian army. It was the Bolivian army that tracked down and executed Che in the Bolivian Andes as he was trying to escape the country after the failure of his short-lived guerrilla campaign.

It's a book worth reading. It shows the flaws of the communist-socialist system through the eyes of a communist. Che drew much opposition and disapproval from the officials of the Soviet Union for his methods and practices, and also his militant anti-North American stance. But his stance is justified, to a certain degree; the book shows North American adventurism and imperialism and their effects in South America resulting in the poverty of the common people and the dependence of the state on North American industry for import/export and economic aid and how this dependence was fostered by American imperialism. It also showed how the North American anti-communist campaign saw many fascist dictatorships installed in South America: Augusto Pinochet's North American backed government in Chile; Batista's regime in pre-communist Cuba; the CIA sponsored coup of the Arbenz government in Guatamala when the US government thought he was getting to be a little too socialist; and the US supported dictatorship of Rene Barrientos in Bolivia. Nevertheless, it also demonstrates the imperialism of the Soviet Union as it tried to gain exclusive control over its sattelite states.

It's a book that can change your world-view of the events of the Cold War.

Bongo Drum

So the other day, Vince inspired me to buy a bongo drum for my wife.

Okay, well, he didn't exactly intentionally inspire me to buy a bongo drum for my wife, what he did was send me a book in the mail. Of course, I wasn't at home when the mail came it, so when I got off work I had a notice saying that I had a package at the post office.

Meanwhile, I've been wanting to buy Janelle a bongo drum ever since she bought me a guitar. That way I can play the guitar and she can beat the drum and we can be kind of like band. If only we could find someone to play bass.

Anyways, it just so happens that the music store is right across the street from the post office, so while I was at the post office getting my book from Vince I thought, hey, I'm gonna go look at how much those bongo drums cost. So I went. And they weren't as expensive as I thought they'd be. So I bought one and brought it home, and played with it, and left it in the livingroom.

So when Janelle got home from work, I surprised her with it and she was thrilled :) Now we read psalms to each other: one person reads and the other beats the drum.

And We're Back

So, after a long silence, we've returned. And, as you've probably noticed, we've also updated the website.

Maybe the reason I haven't written anything in so long is that noting really interesting has happened. We've had a long and mostly uneventful summer. The furthest from home we've gone is to Sydney to visit Dan and Katie and for Andrew and Emma Joy's wedding in Margaree. All on the same weekend. And we spent a week and a half in Ontario in June to see cute, dear little Jelena Joy Labelle. And her parents and grandparents, of course.

While we were in Ontario we also got to see my old room mate and great friend Jason and we found out that our automobile needs a new transmission. So we decided that we're going to sell it. Living without a car is going to be interesting...

There's a lot of things we intended to do but never did, like white water rafting, hiking, more travelling. But, all in all, we had a pretty good, quiet summer.

Now Janelle is back in school and very busy. I'm now working out of the office instead of doing all the cleaning, which is a nice break; also, I'm learning a lot of new things so that's pretty exciting. I'm sure it's temporary, though.

Also, Janelle and I are teaching ESL one night a week and we've made some great friends through that. It helps that a lot of our students live in our building.

We've kind of decided that we're going to try to go abroad to teach English with our friend Luke. We're thinking Egypt right now, but that could change. So I'm looking into taking a TESL course to get certified for teaching English. Janelle and Luke will both have it because they'll have graduated from the B.Ed. program at Mount Saint Vincent University.

Anyways, that's the boring plot of our uneventful lives.

Doughnuts and Coffee

so it's five am on sunday morning. i just relieved our night watchman. in three hours, we'll all be awake and ready to face another day of move ins and move outs. i can't wait until the craziness has subsided. janelle can't wait until school starts. (she's crazy.)