The Great Camping Trip

Hi all. I remember in the early nineteen eighties how I became infatuated with Tom Thompson, especially his days in Algonquin Park. I decided to go there myself for some camping and spend time on the backpacking trails. I put all my goods in storage and on July 1, 1982, I went on the bus to Whitby, Ontario, the farthest the bus would take me.
Once there, I found I had missed the bus that would take me to the park by ten minutes. I wondered what to do, there wouldn't be another bus until the next day. I went into a restaurant and had something to eat. When I came out, I noticed two young men with camping gear. I asked if they were going to the park and would they drive me. They were not going to the park but said they would drive me. One lifted my pack into his car and mentioned that it was a bit heavy. I'd put everything I thought I'd need in it.
Arriving at the park and helping me on with my pack, he said it again, he didn't know how I would manage, it must be two hundred pounds. I thanked them and went onto the path.

It was agonizing walking with that pack and I was still on the trail when it began to get dark. I heard footsteps and two people came into view, an older man and his smaller, younger wife. I asked them how far to the nearest campsite. The man said I'd never make it before dark. He offered to carry my backpack back to his car and take me to their campsite and then in the morning they would take me in their canoe to the portage where it would be a small matter for me to get to the campsite. He took my backpack, commented on the weight and off we went.
I ate with them that night and set up my tent. The next day they took me across the lake and I went along the portage as planned. I made it to the campsite where two men came up to me and said how worried they had been about me. They had left at the same time as me and thought I should be there but I never showed up. These two set up my tent and had me down to lunch. My campsite was on a ridge while theirs was just feet away below me by the lake.
They went swimming after lunch, yelping at how cold the water was and had me down to tea after dinner. The rest of the time I spend exploring the area. At the end of the weekend, these two men packed up to leave and asked if  I would take their food as they didn't feel like packing it out. I was happy to, they had cheese and margarine and other goodies. I had brought mashed potato flakes and rice and Quaker's Oats. After they left I could feel the aloneness but after all, that was one of the reasons I'd come, to get to know nature.
That night, I left the margarine out on the stump and heard some kind of animal out there. The next morning, the tub was gone. I was to find the empty tub when I was leaving, licked clean by raccoons.
Anyway, I'll tell the rest of the story at another time. Bye now.

Exclusion

If I could gather all the bitterness in the world and put it in a bottle, I would label it EXCLUSION. I especially think this is the reason why the mentally ill get into so much trouble with the law. They are pushed around and abused and picked on, stared at and such. They have no one to talk to about it, no one who is sympathetic to their plight. Everybody 'understands' why people feel upset with them.

I wonder how much their trouble making would change if people were nice to them and accepted them as people who have a chemical 'condition' that renders them unable to control certain aspects of their minds. It's just a thought. Treating people decently might get big dividends for society.

Good-bye, Good Riddance

Most of us in the Western world are happy with the news that that supreme source of evil, Osama bin Laden has got his just dues. It just goes to show that justice is done when a society concentrates on doing so. Let's hope that there are no 'little' Osamas waiting in the wings.

Is Horror Natural?

I once worked with a woman from Romania. She was puzzled at the Western love of horror movies. Coming from a country under the dictator Ceceascu she knew all about REAL horror. She asked me, "Why do people pay money to scare themselves?" It was something I'd never thought of before but have thought a lot of since. I wonder if it doesn't come from millions of years ago when we were small and there were many big creatures that liked to eat us. Somehow we wish to recreate this feeling because it feels normal, we've lived with horror for so long in the wild. It's just a thought. I know I'd never convince her that it is fun to be scared but that is just what our instincts have left us with.

Hi All

We all need tolerance and the best way to get it is to be tolerant yourself. Never mind if someone isn't as smart as you, they often have other qualities in them.
I'm lucky to live in a city with diversity. There are many ethnics groups here and I find many of them have a better understanding of what it means to be free than native born Canadians. They love it here and that they are guaranteed their lives.
I just feel that so many Canadians forget how important freedom is and how we stay free. They don't vote, for one. Also, they seem not to remember that others are entitled to the same freedoms as themselves. They'll see someone who is 'different' in some way, or not mainstream, and they'll say he/she should be locked away. I remember being told how there was a tribe of Natives, very poor, who lived by the highway, people complained they had to see this poverty when they drove by. So the government moved them away from the highway. How cruel.
There's so many people on the earth now a days that the only way to get along is with tolerance. So many people just need kindness to get through. Why is it so hard?
Well, I'll stop ranting. I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Character Creation

I've done quite a bit of genealogical research and I've found that the people I've found practically cry out to be 'characters' in stories. Sometimes just their names are interesting, take for instance Mag Scurr in The Dress Lodger by Sherri Holman. She was a real person fictionalized.

One thing I've found interesting is signatures. I have many documents with signatures and I find getting a good book on handwriting analysis can give me great ideas for characters. One of my ancestors had a signature that told me he was generous with money. His bride's signature, on the other hand, revealed she was tight with a buck. What great tension!

I'm going to pick up this topic in future posts. See ya all later.

Snow Day

Hey, there's lots of snow in Eastern Canada. I went out before it began and shopped. Tonight I going to work on some of my stories. They come together well with good critiques. I was thinking today of when I worked as a gardener in BC. Out there, this will be the last month of winter and my work would start soon. Well, I'll be back in a couple of days.