THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014
6 - THE INDEPENDENT, BIGGAR, SK
by Bob Mason
Shades Yours Truly remembers distinctly hearing Pierre Berton (Canada’s most successful writer!) saying on a T.V. Program that he never felt so fulfilled in his life as when he was reciting “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”, by Robert Service: A bunch of the boys were whooping it up In the malumet Saloon And the kid who handled the music box Was playing a jag-time tune When out of the night, which was fifty below And into the din and glare. And right away Yours Truly remembered . . . He looked like a man with one foot in the grave And scarcely the
strength of a louse. Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar And called for “Drinks on the house!” Those kind of ribald verse had always appealed to Y.T. since way back in the cabin-building days up north. Yet he had forgotten most of them! Way, way back there, when young Bob was about 16 years old or so, one of his cousins had hauled some logs from Emma Lake and we were building a cabin. Somewhere he had found an old book by Robert Service and as it was the only one we had, as soon as we were doing hewing and hammering, we read it (well, it was the only reading we had!).
This is the law of the Yukon! Lo’ how she makes it plain! Send not your foolish and feeble Send me your strong and your sane! Yours Truly is a little sorry about this, but although we memorized quite a few verses, over the years, as mentioned above, we had forgotten most of them! Forgetting things gets to be quite a problem as we get older (at least for Y.T. it does!) and, looking back, regardless of the thousands we remember, we have to mourn a bit for the other thousands of things that we have forgotten! We like to think that when Berton came down to our level a bit (when he mentioned his passion for reciting Dan McGrew), he sure brought us up quite a bit when we realized that our own “memory” is one of life’s great assets! Many of us feel that it is impossible to remember everything, but, according to Wilder Penfield, that belief isn’t entirely true. Every though we have ever had has been recorded in the limitless volumes of our memory!
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while lifetime of his memories were in there, waiting to be told, and never would be! “My gosh!” Yours Truly thought, and kind of wondered! I think that all of us want to be remembered for something! All over the world, huge statues have been erected (one of them named “Ozymandias”), and all over the world “nothing besides remains” (pardon me Percy Bysshe Shelley), so on we go, eh? Sending in these boring pages in to The Independent, all the time knowing, as another great writer wrote: There are as bits of confetti To a world that will stumble the street, Meaning no more than a nuisance As it tramples them under it’s feet. Unheeding, unlearning, untrying These lines that I write will be lost. Unheeded, unheard in the crying That the greed of the future will cost! Unseen by a world that is busy Discarded, destroyed and disdained. But oh how I wish, as I read them That the old inspiration remained. Well, I didn’t say he was “good”! (Mebbe
“great” at 180 pounds!). Perhaps Yours Truly better stop drumming up a lot of this “theory” stuff, or he will end up confused as he has made the reader become. And just remember that he has a whole row of ring binders above his desk to remind him where he has been, and what he has done. Except that there is a lot of space in between his scribbled lines that doesn’t tell of those times that have “slipped his mind”! It’s kind of embarrassing, this “getting old” stuff, and sometimes Y.T. wonders if he’ll forget the things that he has marked down! As Berton pointed out, there are only a few things in life worth remembering anyway! Now let me see . . . I ducked my head as the lights went out, Two guns blazed in the dark, A woman screamed and the lights shot up, Two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head and pumped full of lead Lay “Dangerous Dan” McGrew P.S.: I mustn’t forget to send this in to the superintendent, Indemnity, Indescribable . . . Okay, The Biggar Independent by Friday, eh?
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Often to flash through our minds as some long forgotten moment of our past! All of this psychological stuff aside though, our memories (or lack of them!) are great things! During The Great Depression, there must have been some awful time, but mercifully we have forgotten most of them. We only remember (with pride!) that sometimes we worked very hard for a measly $5 per month, and were happy! We must have spent many long, cold and dark nights in Europe during WWII, but can only remember a few of them! We’ve made a lot of fine friends over the years, but regrettably we have forgotten many of them, too! Mebbe the observations on that birthday card Jim Brown gave me on our 80th birthday are going to come true someday, but Y.T. isn’t looking forward to reading lines like: “You know you are getting old when . . .” Y.T. met an old friend some time ago. “Hullo,” I greeted him. “How the heck are you keeping?” The guy gave me a strange far away look and asked, “Who are you?” Sorry, sometime down the line something had happened to cut his whole memory off! Without a doubt, a
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by Karen Kammer What a couple of cool days we have had. We all wish the sun would come out soon so that we can get our vitamin D. We want to wish the farmers good luck in the upcoming seeding season. Monday at Diamond Lodge we started the week with exercises. The afternoon consisted of Bean Bag Toss. Tuesday was current events and
Blast From The Past later that day. Wednesday was our monthly Men’s Coffee Group. At 1 p.m. we loaded the handibus and took residents out for a drive. We got to see the town and even out in the country side. Then we made the best stop of them all . . . ice cream cones! Delicious treat for a warm day. The perfect combination.
Thursday was exercises and bingo. Friday was Barbecue Club and sing along. Home Sweet Home Bingo was the game played Saturday morning. The residents watched “Walk the Line.” Sunday was 1-1 time with residents and Church of God did our service. We hope everyone has a good day. Take care and see you soon.
NOTICE OF PREPARATION OF ASSESSMENT ROLL Rural Municipality of Grandview No. 349 Notice is hereby given that the assessment roll for the R.M. of Grandview No. 349 for the year of 2014 has been prepared and is open to inspection in the ofÀce of the assessor from 8:30 a.m. to noon and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the following days: Monday to Friday, May 9th, 2014, to June 10th, 2014. A bylaw pursuant to Section 214 of The Municipalities Act has been passed and the assessment notices have been sent as required. Any person who wishes to appeal against his or her assessment is required to Àle his or her notice of appeal with: Shonda Toner, R.M. of Grandview No. 349, Box 39, KelÀeld, SK, S0K 2C0, by the 10th day of June, 2014. Dated this 8th day of May, 2014. Shonda Toner, Assessor