WHEN I GET GROWED UP I WANT TO DRIVE A BIG YELLOW BULLDOZER

COLUMBUS, NEW MEXICO….I WAS STUCK FOR PHOTOS TONIGHT SO JUST THREW IN A HANDFUL OF OLD RANDOM RV PICS

I was all geared up for a bike ride this morning but unfortunately the bike had other ideas. It did start alright but ran rough for about 5 seconds & stalled. And, that was it. No amount of cranking could get it to fire up again. Finally wore the battery down so my morning bike ride was in the dumpster. Put a trickle charger on the dead battery, strapped on the Jeep & headed off to Goderich. My mission this morning was a couple furnace filters, a new flashlight & a manual bicycle tire pump. Mission accomplished.  Later in the day I tried the bike again & as soon as I turned the key & hit the starter button the bike was purring like a kitten.  Honda’s do like to purr you know:))

 

NEAR QUARTZSITE ARIZONA…JANUARY 2007

The unusual number of cars at Goderich's A&W Root Beer this morning gave me a chuckle. It was a good example of people gathering....after the fact. Pop star Justin Bieber had popped in with some family members & a couple body guards Tuesday for a burg. BIEBS IN GODERICH  Bieber's home town is Stratford Ontario, less that an hour's drive east of Goderich. Figured maybe he was home for a few days & maybe wanted to come up to Goderich to have a look at last year's tornado damage. Goderich would have been the Bieber family's closest beach when Justin was growing up so I'm guessing he was just out for a drive re-visiting a few old places from his childhood. Am I a Justin Bieber fan? Nope, can't say I am. Seems like a fine young fellow alright, well mannered, heart seems to be in the right place & he appears to be considerate & thoughtful of others. If he stays on that track he'll probably grow up to be a fine young man. But, does the talent match all the hype. Not in my opinion it doesn't. At least, not yet. I think the meteoric rise of Justin Bieber would make a perfect classroom textbook case of how super successful marketing & frenzied media hype can easily influence the young masses. A person does not have to be highly talented to be a mega star. All the best to Justin Bieber though & may he someday live up to all the mega media hype surrounding him. May he one day find the fluid dance moves of a Fred Astaire or a Michael Jackson. A Roy Orbison like voice with the guitar styling's of an Eric Clapton. All the best Biebs, all the best:)) Just my opinion of course..............

 

TUCSON ARIZONA

IVAN & HAILEY THE WONDER CAT are in northern Ontario right now & blogged about the land of many lakes & being near the town of Dryden. The mention of Dryden Ontario & it's smelly pulp & paper mill immediately sent me on a trip down memory lane.

KITT PEAK…ARIZONA

It was the mid 50's & I was living in Tavistock Ontario with my Mother & new Stepfather. He had been working on the railroad locally but had landed a job in North-western Ontario as a heavy equipment operator with the Riley Construction Company.  They were working on the new Trans Canada highway system west of Dryden. He drove the long stretch out to the new job & few months later on a rain soaked windy day my Mother & walked across the wet tarmac at the then Toronto’s Malton airport & boarded an airplane to fly out to Thunder Bay, then known as Fort William-Port Arthur.  My Stepfather (Irvin) met us at the airport & off we went on a car trip west heading for a little place called Oxdrift Ontario. I remember sitting glued to the car window all the way totally transfixed by the forests, rocks & endless lakes. For a small boy, it was like being in magic land & I have often wondered if this 231 mile trip through rugged bush country was the very beginning of what would turn out to be this endless wanderlust I carry with me to this very day.

THE OLD GANG AT PLAY SOUTH OF QUARTZSITE ARIZONA
Oxdrift wasn't really anything more than a name on the map. No town to speak of. Just a building or two scattered along the highway with a general store called Fotheringhams down a dirt road right next to a main rail line running east west across Canada. When my Mother was learning to drive Irvin's 1954 maroon 4 door Ford, her & I were nearly struck by a train at that crossing & I've never forgotten that.

IN THE SHADOW OF PILOT KNOB…YUMA CALIFORNIA
In Tuesday's post I had mentioned about a couple short vacations on a dairy farm but until this morning I had forgot about the time we actually lived on a farm, & that was in Oxdrift Ontario. Irvin had been boarding with a bunch of other construction workers at an older farm couples house right alongside the newly torn up highway. When we arrived in Oxdrift my Mother & I also lived in that same very crowded farm house with the construction crew. Pretty fascinating memories for a small boy sitting at a long breakfast table piled high with food & about half a dozen or more big burley hungry construction guys. They all slept on floor mattress's in a loft area of the farm house we called, 'Granny Stewarts'. And, that's where my wee bed was as well. The construction fellas were all nice to me & it wasn't long & I knew them all by name.

CAMPED ALONG THE BANKS OF THE SAN PEDRO RIVER NEAR SIERRA VISTA ARIZONA

I remember the day well when a few weeks after our arrival I went with my Mother & Irvin to the nearest big town of Dryden Ontario. We were there to look at what appeared to me to be a very long beautiful silver & red shiny trailer. I had never seen anything like this before & just loved the thought of living in it. Well, it wasn't long & we were, but not before my Stepfather had it towed all the way from Dryden to Oxdrift & placed about  a hundred yards from Granny Stewart's boarding house. We would spend the next 6 months or so living in this long magical house trailer right next to a big barn full of dairy cattle & views all around that stretched off to distant forests & lakes. This 6 months turned out to be a very memorable time in this young boys life & I will just touch on a few of the highlights I still remember.

BOONDOCKING NEAR TOMBSTONE ARIZONA

The public school in Tavistock was a large two story brick building with 5 or 6 large school rooms holding grades from one to eight.  The country school just outside of Oxdrift, was located down a long gravely country road with grades one to eight all bunched together in just one room.  It was quite a change for me, to say the least.

WE GOT SNOWED ON AT JEANNIE & RAY’S RANCH NEAR McNEAL ARIZONA

The little one room schoolhouse with it's wood stove at the back was located maybe a couple miles from Granny Stewart's farm & my memory of how I went to school & came home every day is sketchy. But I do remember walking home from school one day with other kids. I do recall going to school another morning on the back of a Shetland Pony. The Fotheringhams General Store owners had a Son my age & he had a Shetland Pony. Granny Stewart's farm was located between Fotheringhams' s General Store & the school. Can't remember my classmate's name now but I do remember him letting me sit behind him on the Pony as we made our way to school one morning. Second fading memory I still have took place in the winter. Not sure if it was a horse drawn sleigh or a tractor drawn wagon that came along the road picking up farm kids along the way but I do remember being all bundled up climbing aboard the wagon & sitting with a bunch of other bundled up kids on our way to school.  No school buses in that area then.

AT THE GENERAL STORE IN PORTAL ARIZONA

My Stepfather Irvin drove a big yellow D8 Bulldozer & of course was my hero because I wanted to drive a big yellow bulldozer when I grew up too.  And, if I ever get growed up, I still might do that.  Some days just after supper he would drive my Mother & I out to a section of highway where a large rock cut was about to be dynamited out for the highway.  I remember the big sudden jarring booms, the dust, & the flying chunks of rock.  I remember the time my Mother, not being used to cooking with gas, almost blew us up.  Turned on the oven, waited too long & then struck a match to light it.  Ka-boom!!  Singed hair & eyebrows plus a very startled & scared little boy standing just a few feet away.  Always remember some kind of problem with the sewer pipe connection too.  Things weren’t hooked up as well as they are nowadays with house trailers.  And, thinking of smells………..oh how we hated it when we had an East wind blowing.  It blew the dreaded heavy pungent sulphurous smell of Dryden’s big pulp & paper mill all the way to Oxdrift.  Many a morning I headed off for school with my nose buried deep in my coat.  Even I smelled better than that old smelly pulp & paper mill…………..

MORNING WALK…CLARK DRY LAKE BED NEAR BORREGO SPRINGS CALIFORNIA 

Aw yes, many fading memories. But, my post is already too long so maybe another day I'll share some memories of a little one room school house in north-west Ontario back in the 1950's.  And, by a slight twist of events, that big shiny red & silver trailer actually ended up on another farm………….just outside of Tavistock Ontario.   But, we weren’t living in it.

A DESERT CHRISTMAS NEAR BORREGO SPRINGS CALIFORNIA…2008

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A few tongue twisters tonight.........

How many cookies could a good cook cook if a good cook could cook cookies? A good cook could cook as many cookies as a good cook who could cook cookies.

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One-one was a race horse.
Two-two was one too.
One-one won one race.
Two-two won one too.

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When I was in Arkansas I saw a saw that could out saw any saw I ever saw. If you happen to be in Arkansas and see a saw that can out saw the saw I saw I'd like to see the saw you saw.

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- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

- Home is where your pet is:))

- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)

- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward

- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
stargeezerguy@gmail.comrkansas and see a saw that can out saw the saw I saw I'd darn well like to see the saw you saw.