Reminiscing & Griping

Reminiscing

I've been back in Oakville for ten days now and taking my ease. Getting
reacquainted with my own apartment, getting various utilities restarted,
and watching favourite DVD's on my Home Theatre System.

When I stepped on the scale and got scared about what's happening there
decided I needed a walk, a daily walk in fact. At least my BP Monitor
declares that's in check. Walked to the end of the cul de sac at the
east side of Trafalgar on Marlborough Ct. Surprising how tall the trees
grow but then I've lived in the area 35 years. I can remember when the
first apartment buildings were built on this land just after Tree Top
Estates Townhouses were marketed in MacLean's Magazine with much hoopla.
I met four people out walking. Two an elegant elderly couple out for a
stroll with adjustable canes. It got me to thinking about how things
have changed since I came to Oakville 40 years ago. Can it really be
that long.

In Austin my pastor friend who lives in an upper-middle-class
neighbourhood with doctors, lawyers, and retired generals locks his door
immediately upon entry. Makes me think back to my days delivering mail
in the Reynolds/Trafalgar corridor. If one had a parcel for a customer
one opened the front door and tossed it gently inside making sure the
door was closed again before Fido could make it there. Always delivered
the mail through the slot afterward to much ripping and tearing. The
world has changed so much since those innocent days. A few blocks east
of there the egg man used to come in the back door, open the fridge and
check to see if his customers needed eggs.

On to some news items.

The Grand Ole Opry, it seems, began as a radio station founded as a
means of schilling insurance. Who knew? They still flog Humana health
insurance.

Recently the southern most point in Canada, Pelee Island, became
isolated when both it's ferries broke down making an expensive plane
ride the only means of getting onto or off the island. This in the
middle of the spring bird migration.

A recent show I listened to on NPR made the point that Europe doesn't
have a debt crisis, it has a loan crisis. The banks who hold the loans
in question are on the hook and should either Greece or Italy default on
those debts the amounts are so big that no government is capable of
bailing them out. At stake is the collapse of the Euro Zone.

On a lighter note:

Which muscle is the strongest?
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

Take that Arnold Schwarzenegger.

United Airlines once had a campaign that encouraged business flyers to
take their wives along with them. It was very successful so they wrote
letters to the wives thanking them for participating. Turns out he women
who received the notes were not the 'wives' their husbands took with
them. End of campaign.