Looking back at me…
My year was heavily influenced by some amazing men and women and what they represent – the passion and compassion that I crave in people who I call friend.
A reminder that:
There are, despite how I feel some days, people who are travelling down a highway that is much worse than mine.
It was damn cold at the dam at Trent Severn lock four. This is a remotely controlled combined hydro and river control dam, one of the few that you can walk across to get to the corresponding lock.
Batawa is a community in eastern Ontario, Canada. This planned city was founded by Thomas J. Bata in the 1930s near the city of Trenton and is today part of the city of Quinte West. It is the site of the Bata Shoe Company’s old shoe factory, which began operation in 1940.
Tomas Bata was a believer in the ‘commune’ concept for manufacturing. The Bata company owned the town, providing accommodations at a reasonable rate to its workers.
The company controlled virtually all aspects of the village. Many of the residents were immigrants from Bata’s homeland, Czechoslovakia.
In 1955 a dedicated group of Bata Shoe factory employees obtained permission from Bata to clear some trees and install a homemade rope tow on one of the hills close to the shoe factory.
With hard work and sheer determination they founded the Batawa Ski Hill which has evolved to three lifts and seven runs with state of the art snow making and grooming.
Low-cost foreign imports of shoes made Canadian production too costly. The factory closed down, yet the town lives on as a beautiful community on the shores of the Trent River.
More pictures in a girlgeekcat album
Yes, there is some new old stuff at the National Air Force Museum, including a torpedo in the weapons bay of the Halifax …
… this cute little airplane …
And then there is this kinky little contraption disguised as a flying helmet
And a field of dreams
Four train engines in a row
Four Canadian Pacific engines are sitting idle, waiting for some circumstance to pull their load to it’s destination.
This is an EMD SD40-2
Another EMD SD40-2
And this is also an EMD SD40-2
Ha-ha! According to Shane, this is a SD40-2F
More pictures in a girlgeekcat album
I walked down to the intersection of Glen Miller Road and Hamilton Road and waited in the cold – a sunny day with a breeze that made flags flap gently as they are unfurled by those who wait.
I had made a choice to be here – unlike the wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters, unlike the fathers and brothers and aunts and uncles and children who were not here by choice but by necessity.
The repatriations are honoured by many and respected by all.
And we wait…
Three this time…
I find it rather interesting that according to the British Columbia, Ontario and Canadian governments, I can be summed up quite nicely with a few pieces of plastic and paper.
These instruments prove who I am, they identify and classify me and afford me an entitlement to stand in line for government services that will be denied to me yet showered upon those who enter Canada illegally.
Because I have worked for these documents I can be held responsible for the manner in which I operate a motor vehicle, wait for months for urgently needed health care and be taxed on many levels.
They also legitimize my name and my right to it and they set me aside as an individual with her own dreams, hopes, fears and foibles; however, while they carry vast amounts of information about me, they do not provide an insight into who I really am.
Anyhow…
Just a couple of my hats, not all of which are pink. Some are black, some are sort of brown. Not all of my hats are ball hats – I also have Tilley hats and dress up hats.
What the hell – I’m a bit bored.
I think that being half a century old I’m entitled to to the title of Snow Babe, or maybe Winter Chick. Ok, I’ll settle for crazy woman next to frozen lake…
I know you lust for my shades.
Local weather – well, local to me Comox Weather – Olive Debeach’s home Ucluelet weather Victoria Harbour CBC news Qunite West news Scientific American