Saint Christopher

A little over a year ago I spun you a tale about the perversity of the universe.

Well, really, more than one. But this one in particular, where that perversity was applied to my experience at the tender age of sixteen, I kind of left hanging.

Despite the colossal lack of clamoring, here, in second-person to help you live it, is the next 90 minutes in the life of Ananke's Well-Aimed Rock.

October 23rd, 1983

N 49° 44’ 43” W 114° 53’ 18” 

You know the water is freezing; it’s late October, for one, and the river is cold at best in the summertime. Glaciers feed the Elk up in Elk Lakes Provincial Park, seventy kilometers to the north.

You also know that the boy is standing on a shelf about an inch wide, and that rock face extends at roughly the same eighty-five degree angle another twenty feet under the water. There is very little keeping him from sliding all the way in from the weight of his clothing and boots.

All of this, and the realisation that he needs Help Right Now flashes through your mind in a nanosecond, just after you've already started running, and whole seconds before his friend looks up from his futile attempt at pulling the larger boy out, and asks from a hundred yards away in a voice tinted with desperation “Can you help us?”

Time stops for you. You're a machine.

You hear the drum of the sound of your footfalls on the seventy-year-old deck timbers on the trestle bridge.

You look up, and you’re already there, task one complete, task two queued up; time to descend the treacherous three-meter (10 feet) of cliff face to the river's edge without kicking rocks or debris on the boys, or falling in yourself.

You've detached. You hear your own voice barking orders to the boy who is still dry. Get his dad, you say. Tell him to bring his truck.

In your mind, this makes perfect sense - everyone in the Sticks has a Dad. Every Dad has a truck. It’s the natural order of a mining town. The wet boy will need somewhere warm to sit when you get him out.

There is no if.

You strip off your coat and leave it at the top of the cliff - to keep it dry so the kid has something to wear. Good thing you attached the sleeves.

You pull off your belt too, maybe you can loop it around… oh, to hell with that, you think, and toss it aside. You don't have time to waste on finesse.

You move down the cliff face like a shadow might on a sunnier day, ending up in place just over the boy's head.

You ask his name, as you know you should so that you may more readily set him at ease. He gives it to you. You tell him to take your hand. He holds up something that feels rather like a brick of cheese just taken out of the fridge… and you note that it has about the same grip. He confirms this by saying he can’t hold on.

Okay, you tell yourself through the adrenaline burn, time to rock and roll. Squatting on your right heel, you stretch your left foot down to just touching the water's edge, simultaneously grabbing a handful of something stable on the granite face over your head.

Good thing you're tall - you cover about eight and a half feet of the cliffside extended like this.

You take the boy by the jacket, center chest, just below his armpit line with your left hand and make as hard a fist as possible, holding his coat.

You know you only get one shot at this or you’re both going swimming – and with everything you have, you stand on your right foot, catapulting the waterlogged 12 year old, scrambling, out of the water, and up to the safety of the ledge overlooking the cliff.

You follow him, noting that whatever you’d used as a handhold is still in your right hand.

Evidently it wasn't that stable.

At the top of the hill the boy sums up his experience, telling you “Shit, Thanks,” as you strip his jacket off of him, replacing it with your own - advising him that his fishing career is probably over once his parents show up.

The adrenaline is bleeding off now, used up in a rush.

You consider getting him out of his sopping jeans and boots, but decide of the side of propriety, and you send him up to the bridge to sit on the concrete piling on the sunny side – it’s also out of the breeze - and wait for his ride to show up, while you put your discarded belt back on.

Scant moments later as you are collecting scattered fishing gear, you hear the pounding footfalls of someone running on the bridge deck, followed by a hysterical woman screaming, “Where is he!” over and over.

You realize that they cannot see their son sitting where you placed him, so you shout back that he’s on the bridge. You climb the short path to the bridge deck and note with a little irritation that his father brought a rope, not a truck.

Introductions are perfunctory and hasty. The man gives the same name the boy did… which makes the boy Junior.

You think you know the name, but don’t recall why, and you decide it’s not important.

Your jacket is returned to you because mom, even in her panic, thought at least far enough ahead to bring a blanket. The man offers to pay for dry cleaning – which you laugh off, stating that it's a wash and wear jacket, but thanks anyway.

You can almost see an inclusive bubble close around the three at this point, and you decide that your presence is really no longer required. You walk away without another word, not wishing to interrupt, or, really, call further attention to yourself.

You will later find that no one saw you leave – by all accounts, you vanished.

It's 50 meters to the crest of the incline with the bridge at the bottom; that crest is your target as it also holds the trailhead you want to take to get you to the CP Rail line and bridge to get home.

Upon reaching that crest moments later, you turn back to look once more at the reunited family unit, only to see another member crossing the bridge.

This one you recognise; she's the new girl in your grade 11 class.

Okay – that must be why the name is familiar. You put it out of your mind.

Completely.

Your walk home is the usual forty-five minutes and is entirely uneventful.

You walk in the front door of your home just as Dad hangs up the phone in the front room and stands up to face you as you step out of your shoes.

“I know what you’ve been up to,” he states, wearing his usual sardonically inscrutable look – a half smile you’ll recognize in the mirror in years to come.

Your mind flashes panic as you know that the CP Rail lines are technically trespassing, and the train bridge you crossed is inherently dangerous.

You brace for trouble, and it probably shows on your face.

He takes your hand to shake it. “That Phone call was from the new Staff Sergeant in command of the RCMP detachment. He said he’s called every Johnson in the phone book trying to find the parents of the boy who just rescued his son.”

Right, you think. That’s where you've heard that name before.

Mr Bill

Obviously, compared to Cesar Milan, I got nothing. But I know Dogs.

I grew up with dogs. A while back I mentioned one of the more memorable canines in my history, but I'm afraid I misspoke in that telling;  the truth is I don't recall us ever owning a dog less than 60cm (nearly 2 feet) at the shoulder. I guarantee I never had to bend down to pet one of our full-grown dogs.

Ever.

At one point, Mom had posted "Large Dogs" in sticky letters on the side of our house in the Sticks to advise the uninitiated what they would find if they ventured further up the driveway, into the back yard. "'Beware of Dogs' makes people think they're dangerous," she'd said. "I just want people to know they're there."

That made sense, and still does. It's my observation that dogs, no matter the size, are only dangerous if you do something stupid.

You saw the plural. Mom and Dad were always of the opinion that a pair of dogs was better than one; they keep each other company. One was usually several years older than the other, and helped train the new pup into the pack.

I'm pretty sure the only reason I survived childhood in the Sticks was because of our dogs. Well... that's not exactly right.

The only reason I survived to the age of seven to move to the sticks was because of our first dog. When Mom, at her wit's end, would finally give up trying to find me, my brother The Artist would hold a piece of my clothing for the dog to smell and send him after me.

And then the dog would lead me home, covered in mud, sticks and glory having spent several blissful  hours playing on the banks of the Columbia river.

As stated - the dog routinely saved me. Mostly from infanticide.

To this day I recall my last moments with that dog. I suspect I was his last human contact before passing - he went downstairs in the house in the Sticks, knowing it was time, accepted his friendly, familiar pat from me, looking up at me with a  smile on my way up for breakfast, and that was that.

I was eleven. So was he. That Hurt.

And, as it turns out, He wasn't The Dog.

Dad, as usual, picked out The Dog. He was from a litter of a police shepherd and an unregistered purebred Alsatian shepherd, and big and clunky as a puppy, brought home because he was inquisitive. He was calm, even-tempered and didn't bark often. He was also energetic, athletic, and very, very intelligent.

He would also become gigantic.

Dad named him after a Norse God and a local Glacier. The Artist took note of his placid, accepting demeanor and dubbed him Mr. Bill.

When he was four years old I would run him and the other dog on a spur of Highway 3 that had been bypassed by the new construction. I used a Chevy Blazer. I clocked him at 35 miles an hour in the broken terrain of the roadside ditch. Fallen trees and all.

I would play with the dogs. We'd wrestle. The Dog was big and strong, but my reflexes were sharpened from playing with the older dog, a lightning fast Norwegian elk-hound cross that was running to fat. I'd alternately tap her cheeks, and she'd try to relieve me of my fingers.

Great fun. Excellent for your hand-eye coordination. People wondered why my forearms were commonly scratched all to hell up to the elbows.

And she made it so The Dog couldn't compensate for my dodge. We chased each other around the yard a lot - usually ending with me catching him by the scruff of the neck in mid lunge, neatly avoiding his playfully snapping enormous fangs, and pinning him.

My friend the Forester tells me both of those games were fairly terrifying to watch.

The Dog, however, gave Dad fits as he would not be contained in the yard. Dad eventually had the backyard fences to six feet, with prison-like chicken wire sloping inwards on wood frames. And he'd still clear it.

And would pretend he couldn't hear you calling him.

To my knowledge, both times The Dog ever harmed a human being were by pure chance. One of the neighbourhood kids was playing tag with a group in our back yard and tripped over him. The Dog, used to this sort of thing with us, rolled up with his forepaws extended and caught the kid in the armpit with a dew claw. Drew blood, of course. Mom watched it happen.

Quite naturally, the kid screamed blue murder that The Dog bit him, and the RCMP were called.

Mom relayed what she saw, and the officer sensibly realized that if That Dog bit a ten year old, the ten year old would be short an arm.

And that's when she posted her sign.

The other time involved my brother, The Artist, who still sports a scar on his lip. We suspect The Dog had become senile at that point - that happened not long before he'd passed. But, as usual, I digress.

Dad was, however, becoming concerned that he'd have to do something as The Dog - while being probably the most benign family pet we could have, was a potential menace to the local wildlife. That was shortly after we finally got him off the elk he had chased across the Elk River.

The Dog solved the problem for Dad by waking up one morning with retinal detachment. Evidently it's a common genetic failing in the breed. At six years of age, The Dog was entirely blind.

It kept him on the ground, and cautious about sticking around. It also gave him milky white eyes from cataracts, making him even more terrifying to meet at the door of the house.

But it also had an effect on his judgement.

This would explain why, at 4am one morning on the last camping trip I went on with The Dog, he decided that porcupine might taste as good as it smelled, and got his muzzle judiciously laced with over a hundred quills for his trouble.

These things happen. The seriously unfortunate bit was that it happened on the first night in to a 3 day at Fish Lake.

Obviously, Mom, Dad and I cancelled the trip that morning, and rolled home, with a short stop in Fernie at the closest Vet.

I, being vaguely gorilla-shaped, got to carry the 60 kilo (that's a little over 130 pounds for my southern friends), blind, drooling, semi-conscious shepherd back to the truck. I chalked it up to Karma. At least he was all right.

The elk-hound was now his eyes. And when she passed shortly after, the New Dog picked up the slack... and appropriately so.

The New Dog was a yellow Lab Mom jokingly named after Dad's favorite libation, as Dad was wont to yell that upon entry to the house.

"Now," she'd said, "at least he'll be calling the dog."

If the Shepherd was intelligent, The Lab was a freaking genius. By the time he was barely a year old, I - visiting from University at this point - watched him drop his favourite kong in a 4 gallon pail of rainwater because he knew The Dog wouldn't be able to find it.

Most of all, The Dog trained me brilliantly with regard to how to approach and handle other dogs.

I  put myself though University working as a Security Guard, among other  things. One evening, the wife of one of the tradesmen drove up through  my gate house to have lunch with her husband. I walked up, handed the sign-in sheet to her, and stepped over to the big Rottweiler in the bed of the truck and was ruffling his ears with both hands, talking to him the way one speaks to a dog when one is ruffling his ears with both  hands.

She stared at me in open mouthed astonishment. "He NEVER lets anybody do that."

I shrugged in an offhand manner. "We're in the same business,"  I told her.

HeliParenting

"You're sure about this?" Ford asked me as he put the car in park.

"Yep," I said, getting out and slinging my haversack over my shoulder crossways, and putting on my battered old Tilley Hat. "Kid's gotta learn sometime."

"Okay, well... guess we'll see you in a couple hours, then."

A year ago August, Kid One was just freshly nineteen, and rankling a bit under the operational rules of the household he was living in.

Ours.

He'd just spent the summer working at Canada's Wonderland as a games barker for his second season - and the two school semesters prior discovering he wasn't really interested in University.

No, I don't find fault in that. I wasn't until I was twenty. The up side was I'd been out in the world for a couple years prior, and had come to recognise the other options were... not.

Anyway, he'd been making noises about moving out and finding his own place, on his own. His Mother and I were a little concerned that he mightn't have a clear understanding of the reality of that. He'd argued vociferously with his Mother about that before his shift.

So I was bringing the reality to him.

He seemed a little surprised to see me walking up to him. "Where did you park?"

I asked to see his cell phone and wallet. I put the cell in my pocket - with his bank card - and handed the wallet back to him.

"What's going on..." he seemed a little... well.  I certainly had his full attention at that point.

"You've moved out on your own. You can't afford more minutes on your cell phone, and you just have enough money in your bank account to pay your rent. So. How you gonna get home?"

I turned and started walking.

Ten steps in, I turned around to find him still standing where I left him.

Staring. Open mouthed.

"I recommend you try to keep up," I told him. "I'm the one that knows the way home." And I started walking again.

My kids are Millennials.

I've read the blogs, seen the jokes, all that. Let me tell you a secret. If someone is suffering from an irrational sense of entitlement, it's because their parents failed to train it out of them.

I've seen that illness before, in my own generation. I feel like my parents were successful at killing it in me... but I'm probably mistaken. I can pretty much guarantee in a Freudian sort of way that each generation to the dim distant past was seen that way by the one prior.

That's because we forget that we all got it trained out us. All that we recall is that our lives weren't this easy - and that's how it's done.

The Herd thought I was insane, of course. “Gotta be at least a 10 km hike.”

“12.7, according to Google Maps,” I replied. That works out to nearly 8 miles for our American (and British) friends.

I wasn't concerned.

I'd spent a lot of my youth walking that far as a matter of routine. As a result, when I got the job that would eventually sustain me through University, I didn't bat an eye at the fact it was across the Oldman River and a hike across town from where I was living. I just packed my uniform in a gym bag and hoofed it. Buses didn't run at that time of night anyway.

Night shift.

Also, I'd been telling all my boys that I would never make them do anything I wouldn't do myself. So. Time to pony up.

Periodically I'll jokingly send my Beautiful Wife an image like the one at right when she expresses what is probably a legitimate concern a parent should have about one of our boys. It's intended for both of us to check our behaviour... and to guard against the behaviour indicated in the image.

She has, on at least one occasion, threatened my life as a result... but I digress.

I misspoke when I told my brother-in-law Ardy's wife, Lane, that I’m careful never to set my boys up to fail. What I meant to express was that I never give my boys a challenge that I’m sure they cannot accomplish.

Very often, they are sure they cannot accomplish these little challenges, and yeah, they just might land on their faces once or twice. But I have more confidence in them than they do.

I think the real issue might be that we are all proud to be able to provide our children conveniences we never had, and that we enjoy the comfort they provide for us too. I guess the key is to get our kids to know – that is to Understand and Appreciate -  that that cell phone–big screen TV–gaming system–Internet access–ride to school/work/friends/Brampton is a privilege, no matter what they think.

She and I work pretty hard at that.

They've also learned - the hard way - that fair is a bad word at our house. They don't like fair. Fair is a serious downgrade.

Took me a few minutes to convince Kid One that he could actually walk all the way home. Once he decided I was serious, he got down to business. At the end of it all, he seemed to really enjoy the walk and the perspective. He said so, anyway.

More than I did, actually. I had a little flare up of the injury that got me out of the Armed Forces  - about 20 minutes in to the walk - and went the next 2 hours or so on a nasty ankle sprain.

No, I wasn't gonna call in for a pickup at that point. I'd committed to the principle. Seems I'm a bit dogged about that kind of thing.

Didn't even limp until the last 10 minutes.

I reminded him of that evening 13 months ago just the other night. He was worried that his new job – and a 3 am wake up time – would get the better of him.

“You can get used to anything, Kid,” I told him. “Look on the bright side - it's only a 10 minute walk.”

Consequences

I want my own eponymous law.

I quite enjoy researching things like eponymous laws and keeping up to new ones - legitimate laws of science and Physics like Boyle's law relating to volume and pressure... and, perhaps slightly-less-legitimate... or at least less empirical... ones like Murphy's and Finagle's.

Being an observer of the universe in general and civilisation in particular, I've found that those like the latter two are pretty much where I live. So my own eponymous law shouldn't be as difficult as you'd think.

A couple things happened in 1986.

Well, okay - an awful lot actually happened, especially to the US Space Shuttle Program, but for purposes of this discussion, I'm only interested in a couple minor little pebbles clinking at the top of what may have become.... well. Perhaps you'll see.

For starters 1986 marked the closure of my first - and last - year in the Canadian Forces. It's also the year that Canada announced the phasing out of the dollar bill in favour of the Loonie.

I was working in a training co-ordination shop on base at CFB Chilliwack at the time. We took a lot of 35mm photographs and, subsequently had a lot of empty 35mm film cases lying around. I noted at some point that the inner diameter of the case was just a bit larger than a quarter.

I hated change jingling in my pockets. And found it was hard on the pockets, to boot. So I started carrying loose change in a film case. Nicely prepared me for the release of the Canadian 1 Dollar coin - the Loonie - the next year as they too fit neatly in my film case. Suddenly I could have 6 or 7 dollars not jingling in my pocket.

Ten years - and three or four film cases - later, the Canadian Mint scraps the 2 dollar bill in favour of a coin - dubbed the Toonie. And they fit too.

But then came the turn of the millennium, and a cascading disaster to hit my little change bucket.

Digital Cameras.

That's right  - the technology that killed Eastman Kodak had a direct impact on how I would manage my loose change in the future. I collected only the couple film cases I could scrounge and held on to weather the gathering storm.

Then I went to work in Oilfield completions. Fun Job. Dispatching heavy equipment and crews all across northern and central Alberta in all weather conditions into isolated little oil leases with as little as four hours notice. Handling explosives and radioactive sources for the completions. Attached to a cell phone for 14 straight days, and then off for six.

One of the more amusing aspects of the job was that I carried a license to handle explosives, and a radiation exposure badge.

The badge was a conversation starter on those occasions when I would be escorting a damaged child to the local x-ray technician; they carry them too. You're only allowed so much exposure in that tightly-regulated nuclear industry, and the badges monitor your risk.

The explosives handling license was akin to a get-through-airport-security-free card. After a week of handling shots and primer cord, loading them into completion tools, and then going home and working on my laptop - it's handy to have that card when you take a trip. I forgot it once on a flight out here after such a week.

They didn't swab my Macbook that time. Probably a good thing.

One of the common explosives we used in setting down-hole plugs was called a BP-3. It's the primary ignition explosive in a Baker setting tool. They're crumbly, slow-burning, and slightly green. Some clever person a long time ago noticed that they bear a passing resemblance to the scat of wild turkeys.

Turkey Turd has since become the industry term for it.

The best thing about them for me was they shipped in a little round plastic case  - a little wider, and a little shorter than a 35mm film case. So I grabbed an empty one, Had my change in it ever since.

The other day I noticed some residue crusting the inside edge - and took pause for a moment as I considered exactly what was causing the green you see in the picture.

It's copper oxide. So something in the case is being turned green by the pennies.

I've been carrying this thing for 7 years. Nothing else has ever been in it.

Except for a low grade explosive.

Which means I've been passing currency with explosive residue on it.

I don't recall ever having this thing with me on an airplane... now that I think about it.

But I must have. Like... to Cuba. And Mexico.

And a couple places in the U.S.

What's the threshold for the sniffers at airports?

How many people have been bewildered by presence of explosives detected on their person in the last 7 years?

Oops.

Net0gre's Observation of the Ripple Effect:
Unforeseen consequences are - at minimum - directly proportional to the usefulness of a given clever idea.
 

Road Apples

One of the great secret places of my youth was Top of the World Provincial Park.

It's a little remote.

If you have a look at an aerial view, you'll note that there are sort of roads kind of near it... but not too near it.

Interestingly, it's nearly exactly between the Sticks and another of the great camping spots of my Childhood, Wasa Lake.

I may have mentioned that it is the nature of travel in the interior of British Columbia that locations that are not very far apart as the crow flies, are some distance to drive. Wasa was like that; It was a pleasant drive, but 90 minutes from home. And it was close to Gramma Jay's.

And we could swim, with a sand beach and everything. And it had a fantastic little Ice Cream shop/Candy/General store that kids just loved.

But today, we're talking about Fish Lake.

Wasa was a drive, but Fish Lake, the main feature of Top-of-the-World as far as I was concerned, was an excursion.

It required rather serious preparation, both in gear and psychology... because, to paraphrase Boromir, One merely walks into Fish Lake.

For about 2 and a half hours, on average.

So, it isn't exactly a day trip. You usually plan for at least one overnight, so you have to carry in a tent.

And a bedroll. And food.

You get the Idea.

Naturally, the first time we went in, Dad and Uncle Crazy Legs planned it as a day trip.

The clans had gathered, as we frequently did in the summer. Uncle Crazy Legs, also a teacher, had exposed my cousins to the same sort of youth I had, with the only real difference being location. They ended up in Dawson Creek in 1979 or so.

Yes, it's a real place. No, it was there before the TV show. No, it has nothing to do with the TV show. And, yet again, I digress.

As a matter of fact, the clans had gathered in a marvelous clearing just under the bridge across the Lussier River - the same Camp spot Dad, the Artist, and I would later eat peaches. We were to be there the better part of a week. As it turns out, it's about 20 minutes from the parking area at the trail head to Fish Lake.

That's right; Parking Area. At the time it was a rough-hewn rail fence abutting the Primordial Forest, with a wide track of gravel to park on, just off the Whiteswan Forest Service road.

I recall that the day trip had been part of the plan all along; Dad had made some arrangements. The greatest of these were apples.

To this day, I don't know where the idea came from. He had Mom pack a couple dozen large Red Delicious apples, several tubs of peanut butter, and bags of mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and trail mix in the tent trailer.

The day before Fish Lakes, camped en masse on the Lussier River, we all went to work. Under the direction of Dad and Uncle Crazy Legs, we cut the tops off the apples like one would a Jack-o-lantern, slanting in so that the top could be re-installed later. Then we spooned out the apple cores. You had to be pretty careful not to scrape too deep, or you'd break the skin of the apple. That would ruin it.

Once the cores were out, Mom had mixed the other ingredients together in a large bowl, and we spooned the mix of peanut butter, mini-marshmallows, chocolate chips, and trail mix into the apples, and pushed the tops back on. The peanut butter makes them stick.

Usually.

What you get is a highly portable, ridiculously highly energy- and protein-packed snack suitable for eating while hiking.

And no trash. The whole thing is biodegradable. It's about as perfect a Back-Country hiking snack as you can get. Fills you right up, too.

I was ten at the time. I don't recall which of us coined them Road Apples - so I won't take the credit. And yes, we all thought the Irony was pretty funny, too.

Tragically, my Beautiful Wife is deathly allergic to nuts. So is my niece. Subsequently my opportunities for making them again are pretty thin. That... and I live in Ontario now.

See, I only ever made Road Apples for the hike into Top of the World. The two seemed to just go together, like London Fogs on Christmas Eve. Ask Lange. She knows what I mean.

Late one summer in my 20th year, my friend The Angry Scientist wanted to do some High-Altitude Hiking and Photography, and, since the plateau is at about 2200 metres (that's about 6700 feet for you southerners),  we decided we should trek in to Fish Lake. I'm pretty sure that's the last time I made Road Apples. I don't recall his feelings about them.

I'm also pretty sure that's the last time I saw Top of the World. I think that was after the one where Mr. Bill couldn't resist a 4 am taste of Porcupine... But THAT is a story for another time.

Low Tech

I remember my first computer.

Touchstones like that are more commonly the First Car, First Pet, First Love, First Kiss.

Of course I recall all those too - but household computing defines the turning point in the information age. And that's where I live.

My first computer was an old 286 clone that I was given by friends in trade for services as the Gardener at Chez Graham. This may be where I developed my affection for making thing grow neatly; I certainly fought the Idea at the house in the Sticks. Mom kept a pretty extensive vegetable garden. Weeding it was one of the worst menial chores on the docket.

Things change.

Dad took some time to embrace technology, but not so long as you'd think. His office at his elementary school in the Sticks picked up the education standard in the fall of 1982; the Apple //e.

I'd had a marginal amount of experience with them at that point; friends of mine had parents who were notorious early adopters of technology - especially that which would benefit the advancement of their children's scholastic educations. They were both teachers. All three boys have degrees. Two have Doctorates. They're all extremely intelligent, well-rounded and successful in their fields.

Just sayin.

The first time Dad went to take a poke at his office Computer, he called me at the house.

"How do I get this thing to work?" He asked.

"Well, just type MENU, and hit the enter button."

"Ya, I know about that. How do I turn it on?"

And that was my first experience as Tech Support. It wouldn't be my last.

One notes that the next generation of personal computers had the power switch up front, and labelled.

Go figure.

Dad loved computers. He had, prior to that, an electronic chess board that had 10 levels of play, and he played it a lot; none of us could ever present much of a challenge for him. It got to the point where he would routinely beat it on its highest setting.

He had other challenges, as all working folk do. He loved his students, school, and staff, but had... challenges... dealing with a School Board rife with political agendas - especially his Superintendent at the time.

He was discussing his frustration with that particular person on Saturday afternoon in my 14th year, when I had a (for me,  exceedingly rare) Moment of Clarity.

"You know that chess game of yours?" I asked him. "I think it's kind of like that. You're playing at level 10 against a level 2 opponent."

Dad stood there looking at me for another one of those Longest Moments in Recorded History. It would not be the last time I saw that look... but it would be infrequent.

And then he started to laugh.

"Kid, you're exactly right, you know that?" and that was the last time I ever recall seeing Dad stressed from work.

It would, of course take me many, many years to understand the truth which I had, in my naïvety, spoken. I have since become a student of Hanlon's Razor and the Dunning-Kruger Effect, but I, as I occasionally do, digress.

Anyway, Dad also saw fit to let us have a really cool, second generation Video console in the mid 80's, under the rationale that it was good for hand-eye coordination, and problem solving. We got a little Intellivision II console... and played it until I had to re-engineer the hand controllers so the buttons worked.

I Loved Sub Hunt. Atlantis was pretty cool, too.

Dad would eventually commit all his writings and gaming to a third- or fourth- generation Mac. He spent a lot of time on it until the fall of 1997. I've salvaged what I can of his writing over the years, and have, on more than one occasion, threatened to publish it out here somewhere where it can be enjoyed. He'd like that.

And I like to think he'd really get a kick out of where his Mac home computer has taken western Society.

Well... maybe to a point.

I call Mom once a week, every Friday evening. Depending on how tired she is, and how much stimulation she's had through the day, her memory is either crystal - or not so much. Less of both is usually better for lucidity. For the most part, I get to repeat the same jokes, stories, blog posts, and she always laughs. I find it rather cathartic, and pleasant closure to a usually hectic week. I always feel like she's happy to hear from me.

This last time, she said in an offhand sort of way "Well, My watch does everything..."

I chuckled a little at that. "What?" she said. "It tells me the time, the day, the Date..."

This is a digital she's had for probably a dozen years. Mom was never quite so interested in technology as was Dad.

I've seen my Mother's cell phone. From a couple years ago. It was a ridiculous, obsolete brick then, too. She only ever turned it on when she wished to call out.

I said Mom didn't particularily embrace current technology. I didn't say she didn't have good ideas.

So I explained the current level of technology that is the Standard Issue Smartphone. Calendar, Address Book, World-Wide Instant Communications portal, Library, Encyclopedia, Phonebook, Interactive Map, Camera, Video camera, Stereo system, Music Library, Entertainment platform, Voice memo recorder, GPS Unit, and on, and on, and more computing power than NASA used to send Neil to the Moon in '69.

All arranged neatly in a package sized to fit in the palm of your hand. It's very nearly miraculous.

Mother was suitably impressed. Or perhaps asleep. I was almost assuredly Oxidizing by then.

As a matter of fact, I've been watching a series of television programming from the BBC dating back to the mid 70's called Connections. It's an excellent series starring James Burke. I highly recommend it.

The fact that I watched it in my home, on my wireless network, using my hand-held tablet, merely enhanced the delicious irony of the content.

I must admit, also, that I wrote the majority of this posting lounging beside the pool at my Brother- and Sister-in-Law's house.

On that same Tablet.

It's awesome. I used to tell people right when the Internet got interesting that I didn't know everything... but I knew where to find it.

And THAT is the other side of the sword. Smart devices are going to make us all Dumb, I swear. Nobody has to remember anything any more.

Kids don't know their own phone numbers because it's speed dial. #1.
Can't read a map because the GPS tells us to turn in 50 meters.
Can't look up anything unless it's on Google.

And most recently there's been an alarming trend of kids walking into disaster, Ears budded, eyes down.

And sometimes... driving.

Man, don't even go there.

And -  Pretty Soon we'll be wearing them... or they will be integrated into us.

It's gonna make us Dumb. Maybe that's how SkyNet wins.

Evidently Mom's been making noise about wanting a computer. I think we'll check her out on an iPad first. See how it goes...

Star gazing

Seahorse was a hundred and fifty when I met him.

I think it was 1978; it's a little hazy because all I have to go on is how old I think I was and I'm pretty sure I was around 11 because I don't remember having glasses at the time. Could be wrong.

Seahorse  was called that, as the story goes, because he'd attached a little Johnson Seahorse outboard engine to a canoe once to troll a river. Sounds like him.

By the way, I don't recommend that.

His last name, ironically, was also Johnson. His daughter married Uncle Crazy Legs, and the irony is doubled from what my audience has no doubt noted in that she had no need to change her surname as a result.

I think that made him my Great-Uncle-in-Law, but the protocol, as protocol commonly does, escapes me... and, as is my custom, I have digressed.

He drove a little Mustang sports car, usually, he admitted, drafting at 135km/h (that's 85 mph for my southern friends) behind Greyhound buses as the cops never stopped them, and at the time, at least, his grandkids - my cousins - thought he was the Coolest Granddad on Earth.

They probably weren't wrong.

He owned a 1957 Dodge Crusader that was both Salmon Pink, and available for use in at least one of my cousins' High school graduations. I recall waxing it for one such occasion. Beautiful car. Push button clutch.

He was one of those guys that built the Canadian West with his bare hands, and left the blood and sweat of his toil with a shrug as he moved to his next  job. I met him to look at some history.

Dad was interested in BC's Flathead Valley. In the very early 20th century, there was Oil exploration there, and, as it turns out, Seahorse was on the crew that built the oil derricks that tapped wells in the region. Obviously, they didn't find much. Turns out that's good.

Nearly a hundred years later, these sorts of derrick are portable steel rigs on the backs of very large trucks, travelling in convoy, quick to set up and dismantle, leaving  - you hope - only a clearing and a capped pipe surrounded by a bit of fence in their wake. Not so then.

The derrick Seahorse helped Dad find was in the bottom of a draw down off the forestry cut road in a large clearing, made for the camp. Some of the remains of the camp structures were still evident, and the Derrick itself was in the middle of the clearing, towering timbers intact. It was HUGE.

That particular location became, for me in my youth, Flathead. We camped under that derrick for most summers for years to come, dragging that silly little tent trailer, building smokehouses in the riverbank, storing Pop Shoppe pop in river-rock cooler I built in the stream, fly fishing for hours, hours and hours, having shooting competitions, and playing Soccer-baseball with a dozen kids when we all met up.

And sitting in macramé lawn chairs, looking at the stars.

There is very little in the way of light pollution in that particular location. As a result, you can see the mass and sweep of the entire Milky Way Galaxy during a new moon. It's really something I'll never forget.

Dad was as good a guide to the sky as one could reasonably expect. He was better at bushcraft, of course, but at least he could name a few constellations for a pack of awed kids, having just survived a truly phenomenal Ghost Story.

My only real regret is that we never had a telescope to bring. We did have binoculars, of course, and pretty good ones. So there you are.

My friend the Angry Scientist had a telescope, and a pretty good place to use it in his youth. His parents had an acreage just out of the Sticks on Matevic Road - that was my real introduction to astronomy... and archery, as it turns out.

He would have loved to see that sky. We did see sky like that later, he and I, on a trip to Fish Lakes... but that's one of those stories for another time.

I have a telescope now. It's just a little one - but it's a start.

There is a hydro lease behind my house. The light pollution is pretty bad, given where I live, but you can still see a few things. Youngest Boy, at the tender age of eight, has already seen the craters of the moon as defined by its terminator, the rings of Saturn, and three of Jupiter's Moons.

And he's Interested.

We'll be taking it north with us on whatever trip we get to muster the Land Yacht toward. I can only hope to find a sky like Flathead... but probably not.

It doesn't really matter. Every time I look up now, I think of Flathead, that derrick, Dad, the Angry Scientist, and Seahorse Himself.

Thanks, guys.