ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS & MY TWO BRIEF ENCOUNTERS WITH THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND

TONIGHT’S REFLECTION IN THE PARK’S POND
Big weather surprise after I published Wednesday night's post & headed out the door with Pheebs for a walk.  A/C was going in the house & yet it was cooler outside than inside.  Unbeknownst to us the temperatures had made a wondrous nose dive & instead of stepping out into 80 plus humidity Pheebs & I happily walked along in some very welcome much cooler 63f temps.  Yaaay, now maybe I can get a few things done outside without turning into a big 210 pound ball of sticky paste!!  Woke up to 58 degrees this morning & the thermometer stayed there all day.  Nice but I did have to put on a T-Shirt under my long sleeve flannel shirt.  Nice:))
 
 
YEP, THESE ARE ME ALRIGHT…YOU CAN TELL I’M A BIT HARD UP FOR PHOTOS TONIGHT
A question from Flowergirl asks, 'Do you copy and paste all the groaners or type them out? Just curious'.............I copy & paste the jokes from joke sites I find on the internet.  I probably chose 1 from every 7 or 8 jokes I read.  Some nights if I'm in a frumpy mood I can read 20 jokes & not find any of them funny.  It's not that at least 3 of those jokes aren't funny to me it's just that I'm not in a funny mood with myself.  Ladybug from LAZY DAYS AND LADYBUGS asked about the 04 Pontiac Sunfire we looked at last week.  Fred, the owner of the car said he would call us this week after he had the A/C looked at.  No call yet.  AsTimeGoesBye asked about the fifth picture in last night's post.  Yes it was a slug.  Found him in rotting pine stump.

Spent my morning cleaning both the Santa Fe & the Jeep despite the rain.  How nice to have a carport with a cement floor.  Had some 40's tunes on my cassette stereo while working away with the pitter-patter of a gentle rain on the carports' steel roof.  Kinda cozy.  Kinda groovy even:))  Kelly attended a free 8:30 a.m. outdoor Yoga class at Bayfield's Pioneer Park overlooking Lake Huron.  They were able to complete the class before the rains came.  Our skies cleared by early evening.  I tried Yoga once….maybe I will include that little episode in my Archive Memories if I can find it.  I know it was in Elfrida Arizona a few years back.


 
THAT’S PHEEBS COMFY BED IN THE BACK OF THE JEEP
RETIRED ROD had a comment question on my Tuesday night post in which he says. ' As you know, I have been around for a long time.... And as such remember all of the older posts... But can you go back to blogs you posted before you were on google... They would be fun reading, since most of us never knew you then'......Well it's kind of a yes & no answer for me on this one.  Before blogging entered my world I was on an internet forum for awhile called 50+.  Aside from interacting with others on the forum I did write a few short pieces which I later re-wrote & posted to my blog when I first became a Blogger.  I have included one of those pieces from that era at the bottom of this post.  It's about me & the Queen of England.  Don't tell her I put it in that order though.  When 50+ began to self destruct from members flaming at each other I bailed out of there.  Next came Microsoft's 'My Space' & that was my first introduction to a blogging format.  Think it might have been around 2005/06.  I blogged about our 06/07 trip to the South-West in My Space but nearly lost all those post's when Microsoft's My Space eventually went belly up.  I was able to save all the posts in email form but I never did publish any of them using the Blogger format which I finally switched to in late 07.  I know I had written a few other things in that period of time but have not been able to find them so consider them lost.  However I might just have me a look through our 06//07 travel blogs to see if I can find anything interestingly relevant.  Thanks to Rod for shaking up the big twist of matted cobwebs in my head:))

I wrote the article awhile back for an internet forum site called 50+ when the topic was, "Famous People I Have Met." (first let me say that I have never met any really famous people but I've seen a few) I reached back through my foggy memory banks at that time to see who I could remember. These are the folks I managed to retrieve from my mind’s slowly swirling mists of time...........
ARCHIVE MEMORIES::  I think it was sometime in the mid fifties & I was probably ten years old or so when I first saw the Queen of England. It was a fleeting glimpse as she & the Prince Philip passed by in an open car on William Street, Stratford Ontario Canada. But, I was sure she saw me. After all, I was a young 10 year old boy with a big imagination so why wouldn't she have seen me. The roadside was jammed with throngs of cheering people as far as I could see & the Queen of England had just become my new friend. It would be another 45 years or so before the Queen & I would lay eyes on each other again.
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Canadians will recall some of these next names.  I remember seeing our then Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker when I was a small boy in public school. He stopped in the village of Tavistock Ontario where I grew up & gave a speech by the town's water fountain. I related this story to a friend of mine from Tavy & he said, well don't you remember Pierre Elliott Trudeau coming through town a few weeks later doing the same thing. Alas, I didn't. Must have been one of those days I was playing hooky…………..
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In 1967/68 I was a doorman/car jockey at a then posh Tower Hill apartment building at the corners of St. Clair & Spadina Ave in Toronto. The president of the Canadian Cancer Society lived there & one night held a big entertainment function. I remember her name as being Mrs. Frankel.  Myself & another fellow doorman were at the big front glass doors as the limousines rolled up. We smartly stood at attention & swung open the doors for Princess Margaret & Lord Snowden. I remember how she glowed as she walked by with all her jewels on & how handsome Lord Snowden looked. Later that evening 4 of us had to move a heavy piano from a hallway into the suite where the party was going on because pianist PETER DUCHIN was playing. There was a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player there that night as well but not sure who it was. Might have been Carl Brewer.
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Sat at a table next to Canadian singer/songwriter GORDON LIGHTFOOT in a little Halifax coffee house back in 1966. He was with some friends.  I was in the Navy at the time. His career was just in the process of revving up & he was playing there. I remember their table was pretty "lively!!" Saw him once more after that in concert at The Center In the Square in Kitchener, Ontario. I think it was sometime in the eighties.  Gordon is probably best remembered for his song, WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD.
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Saw Rompin RONNIE HAWKINS at the Stratford Coliseum in the early 60's when he was a really wild & crazy guy. Some members of his band went on to form, "The Band" who in later years backed Bob Dylan.  Ronnie Hawkins was originally from Arkansas & is a friend of Bill Clinton.
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While living in Stratford Ontario back in the 90's I drove for a company called, The Stratford Airporter taking people to & from Pearson International Airport in Toronto. I drove Celtic singer & harpist LOREENA McKENNITT  home from the airport several times as well as another lady from a Canadian group called, FARMER'S DAUGHTER. Actors from the Stratford Shakespearian Festival frequently traveled as well. WILLIAM (BILL) NEEDLES, MARTHA HENRY & ROD BEATTIE were a few of the travelers I remember chatting with to & from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.  Rod Beattie is best known for his LETTER FROM WINGFIELD FARM SERIES
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Kelly & I saw Johnny Cash & June Carter at Toronto's Ontario Place as well as Tina Turner & Cindy Lauper. We’ve also been to concerts in Toronto to see The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, The Eagles, & Neil Young. Saw Roberta Flack on stage at the Festival theater in Stratford. Listened to MOE KOFFMAN playing, The Swingin’ Sheppard Blues in Stratford’s Knox church as well.
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Back in the 70's & 80's there was a well known & acclaimed Shakespearean stage actress at the Festival Theater in Stratford by the name of PAT GALLOWAY. Before moving to Bayfield in 02 I did a lot of grounds work for Pat & her husband Barnhard at their estate near St. Marys Ontario. Really, really nice down to earth people & Kelly & I became good friends with Pat & Bernhard. Fellow stage actors WILLIAM HUTT, DOUGLAS CHAMBERLAIN & feisty DOUGLAS CHAMBERLAIN would sometimes be there. I remember the last time I saw ‘Dougy’ as Pat called him he was in their kitchen wearing a Moo-Moo.  I don’t know why he was wearing a Moo Moo but he just was. (a moo-moo is like a frumpy dress that doesn't compliment your figure kinda like a grandma dress) In Pat's heyday we heard there were some pretty lively parties on their estate with various in town Hollywood actors popping in.  PAT GALLOWAY'S FILMOGRAPHY.
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Oh yes before I forget…………….. about me & Queen Elizabeth & our second meeting. I think it might have been in the summer of 1998. The Queen was in Stratford again & I heard she would be heading off to Woodstock, Ontario in early afternoon. Only one highway heading from Stratford to Woodstock so I knew her route.  Figured I may never see her again so I hopped on my motorcycle & headed over to a spot out in the country along highway 59 just a few miles north of Hickson Ontario. Nice open spot & no throngs of people this time. Finally, the normal traffic going by ended. No cars at all for awhile. Waited & waited & then one car went by moving very fast.  A few minutes another one followed & a minute later another car. This went on for about 5 minutes. Had I missed her?? Then I saw the convoy of cars coming fast. First one, two or three & then there she was & she was sitting by the back window on my side of the road. Light blue outfit with a matching powder blue hat. I was standing beside my motorcycle as I waved. No mistaking it this time, she looked right at me, but alas, there was no recognition in her eyes from 45 years before. Whoooooooosh, the car was by in seconds & she was gone..................... And that was my little story of, Me & Queen Elizabeth:))

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Senators William B. Spong of Virginia and Hiram Fong of Hawaii sponsored a bill recommending the mass ringing of church bells to welcome the arrival in Hong Kong of the U.S. Table Tennis Team after its tour of China.  The bill failed to pass, cheating the Senate out of passing the Spong-Fong Hong Kong Ping Pong Ding Dong Bell Bill.