DanOCan

I was apprehensive about vacation this year, only because we hadn’t had a chance to give the trailer a proper shakedown cruise before heading out on the highway.  Never mind a “proper” shakedown, the trailer hadn’t turned a wheel since we parked it last autumn.

We hadn’t even gone a kilometre when I realized something was not right.  The electric brakes on the trailer didn’t seem to be grabbed properly.  Again, never mind grabbing “properly”, they didn’t seem to be working at all.  I unplugged the brake controller and then plugged it in again and that seemed to get things working enough to head out.

We had a close encounter with a couple of deer on the TransCanada Highway near Morley, AB but other than that the trip was uneventful.  We stopped for three Geocaches along the way:  one at a rest stop at the Kicking Horse Rest Stop, one at Kay Falls, and one at Craigellachie — site of the driving of the last spike of the transcontinental railway.

Kay Falls was an adventure.  We spend a good 30 minutes searching a juniper at the base of the falls, getting completely soaked — so much so we both needed to change our clothes afterwards.  The mist from the falls was coming so hard I didn’t want to take time to set up the camera for a good picture so I pulled it out of the weatherproof bag, snapped the photo and quickly stashed the camera back in the bag before it got too wet.

                 OKay Falls

As for Craigellachie?  Well, it is one of those places that every Canadian schoolkid learns about.  It is the spot where the iron spine of our nation was forged together, tied together with the driving of the final spike — the ribbon of steel.

I’ve wanted to visit this spot for many years.  The parking lot was RV-friendly and, despite the mosquitos, it was pleasant to walk around the manicured lawns and explore the exhibits and take in the history of the location.

           Tonight is a single night stopover in Kamloops and tomorrow we’re westbound one more time.  The “Summer of Awesomeness” is in full swing now!

Look up “recess” in a dictionary and you’ll likely get something like this:  “A temporary cessation of the customary activities of an engagement, occupation, or pursuit.”  Walk past an elementary school and when it is time for recess you will see kids swarm from the classrooms and onto the playground.  It seems so simple…

Looking back I can see how recess was so much more than that.  Recess is where you made your social connections, both good and bad.  Whether you were getting beaten up, playing with friends, or trying to tease that cute girl just so she would notice you, recess was where your true learning was taking place.  Recess is where you were establishing your pecking order, recess is where you were developing your reputation, recess is where school transcended math, spelling, art, and the other subjects teachers were trying to cram into your head.

I remember my last recess.  It was the Spring of ’84 and I was ending my second year at John Davidson School in Coaldale.  John Davidson was a pure elementary school, so being in Grade Six meant we were the big people on campus — as it were.  We could look down our noses at all the other grades.  No one would mess with us.

The next year we would be back in R.I. Baker which was a mixed elementary/junior high school.  We weren’t going to be the dominant kids anymore — in fact, we would be the youngest and the smallest kids occupying the east wing. 

Something even more daunting was the lack of recess.  There would be no more 20 minute breaks twice a day to interrupt the monotony.  Sure, there would be short breaks for class changes, but there would be no more recess. 

I remember how, even at the time, I felt something was being left behind forever.  I remember that last recess.  I wandered around the playground, watching my friends and classmates on the swings and the monkeybars.  I remember trying to capture the memory, trying to gobble it up in my mind to file away for later years.  I wanted to bottle the feeling, to sock it away and guard it judiciously, to keep it for a time later in my life when I would be able to appreciate it in its proper context.

**Not my photo — it’s linked to someone else’s Flickr account.

It turns out that recess *was* as symbolic as I thought, it’s just that it took more than two decades for me to realize it.  It represented transition.  Not just an age thing, but a transition from being the top of the heap to being someone starting over.  In our lives we are faced with these sorts of situations all the time — just when you think you’re at the top of your game someone will come along and knock you down.  Just when you think you have it all figured out life will throw you a curve and make you start over.  When you think you have something conquered a new challenge will emerge.

If asked to list the major milestones of your life, your list will likely mirror that of most people:  first day of school, getting a driver’s license, graduation, marriage, kids, retirement.  You’ll have to forgive me if I choose to add that last recess to my list.

It’s Friday night.  I just got back from hockey.  I’m too wound up to sleep but too tired to think coherently.  Sitting down and banging out a little something on the keyboard seems to be a good way to let my mind wind down to the level my body is at.  I guess that makes this the Seinfeld of blog posts – a post about nothing.

I spend a lot of time stuck in traffic on Deerfoot Trail coming home.  That gave me time to think, which for me is a dangerous place to be.  My thoughts turned to Friday nights. 

I’ve always loved Friday nights but they don’t get the respect they deserve.  Why are all the great songs about Saturday?  Saturday night gets Elton John telling us it’s alright for fighting, it gets the Bay City Rollers belting out a S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y.  Brad Paisley not only sings about American Saturday Night, he makes it the title track for his album.  Bon Jovi may feel like Monday but he soldiers on knowing one day he’ll feel like Saturday night.

What does Friday get?  Rebecca Black.  ‘Nuf said?

Friday nights are great because they take you straight from work into the weekend.  There is a huge upswing from corporate drone to party boy.  Saturday nights are OK, but since you’ve already had the day off they aren’t that much of an improvement from the rest of the day.

Friday nights are the bad boys of the weekend, the music too loud, cars too fast kind of nights.  You have the whole weekend laid out in front of you and the possibilities are endless.  Saturday nights are fun, but more of a “date with your wife” kind of night. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, he says covering his butt…)  Saturday nights are planned, Friday nights are spontaneous.  Saturday nights are reservations at some stuffy restaurant, Friday nights are clearly beer and wings in the pub.  Friday night is the first date, Saturday night is the fifth anniversary dinner, leading into Sunday which is the mini-van pack with kids day of the week.

Now, having said that, it turns out my Friday is almost over.  Beer next week after hockey no matter what, right?

It’s has been a long time since my last posting.  It’s not that there has been nothing going on, but rather there has been too much going on. 

We have been undergoing a major kitchen renovation which has disrupted the entire house and our normal routine.  Every room in our house has been tossed, turned upside down, or otherwise thrown into a state of chaos.  As a result I have been spending little time downstairs in the office where the desktop computer lives which is where I do most of my writing and photography work.  Doing either of those things from my netbook sitting on a corner of the couch just doesn’t work well for me.

It’s not just the writing and photography which have suffered either.  It’s been a long time since I BBQ’ed something, or got in a decent hike, or even managed to get away from work long enough to play floor hockey over the lunch hour.  All those things that define “me” have been forced to take a backseat to “the kitchen project”.

Related to all this house work taking place was the acquisition of a new dining room table.  The table needed some assembly — nothing complex, just eight simple 1/2″ nuts needing to be tightened so the top stays fastened securely to the legs.  Pretty simple right?

We started out by locating the toolkit.  I used my standard “This looks like the right size socket, nope, too big, let’s try this one, nope, too small, how about this one?” routine for determining what size of nuts I was dealing with.  That went fairly smooth, but then it was time to locate the ratchet that goes with that socket.  It was not to be seen anywhere inside the toolkit.  This struck me as odd since a ratchet is not likely the sort of thing one is likely to see around the house without wanting to put it back in its proper place. 

Now, I’m not much of a handyman, but I know I am not going to be able to tighten the nut to the bolt with a socket if I don’t have the ratchet.  (Sounds like I know what I am talking about, eh?) 

While I stood by “to guard the table” I sent Shirley on a hunt for the power drill.  After all, the problem I was having was the lack of a proper driving device so therefore the solution must be to obtain some other method of applying force to the nuts.  And, if I could step up from a manual ratchet to ANYTHING powered it has to be an improvement, right?

After several failed attempts to locate the drill — “Is it in the garage?  I think maybe the basement.  Hmm, not sure, it might be in the bedroom from when I took down the shelf.” — Shirley finally returned with the drill. 

In my headlong rush to come up with a new way of applying torque to the socket I failed to take into account that I wasn’t sure how I was going to mate the socket to the drill.  D’oh!

I poked through the toolbox and couldn’t find anything I could fashion into an adapter.  I even tried to fit the socket directly into the drill’s chuck (seriously, this handyman talk normally makes the women swoon!) but it wouldn’t fit.  Time for Plan C.

“Go grab the yellow drill bit kit.”  (Yes, he who holds the power tools gets to bark commands to those just standing there with the “You idiot!” look on her face.)

Shirley returned with the yellow box.  I immediately located the part I wanted — a socket on one end with the other end designed to fit into the chuck of the drill.  (**swoon**)  Just one problem — the parts in the kit only went up to 7/16″.  I had already determined I needed a 1/2″.  Now, I may not be a mathematical genius, but I’m pretty confident that 7/16 is less than 1/2 — once you being them to a common denominator, that is.  (Hey, maybe I am a math genius!)

OK, Plan D!  “Go find me something that might work!”  (I’ve learned the key to developing a successful plan is to not make it too specific.)

Shirley returned a fourth time, with another plastic kit.  I opened it and out fell — wait for it — a ratchet!  And, the socket I had actually fit in the ratchet!  Success!

It was at that moment it hit me — I had turned into my dad.  Growing up I had always wondered why he needed to have a shed and a garage full of tools.  I wondered why he could never pass by a Macleod’s Hardware, or a Canadian Tire, or a Peavy Mart — well, you get the idea — without stopping and buying some new set of tools.  Usually those tools would appear to be very similar to a tool set I knew he already had at home. 

Yes, as I stared at the new table sitting there with multiple toolboxes and a power drill sitting on it I suddenly felt a lightbulb turning on.  There was a moment of understanding, an odd sort of connection spanning the years, an awakening.  More than 20 years after his death I felt the urge to shout “Hey Dad, I get it now!” 

It was just supposed to be a table but it ended up being so much more…