Month: October 2018

FamilyLife ExperienceTechnologyTravel

November Blues

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

We’ll be spending the month of November in Almonte this year. This hasn’t always been the case for at least part of this gloomy month.

In 2007 we were in the Mediterranean, starting in Barcelona. In 2010 we went to Nassau. In 2011 we cruised to the Caribbean from New York. And in 2016 we came back to Florida from Rome.

A lot of the time we got away to shorten up the cool rainy November experience. This wasn’t always successful, as can be seen from the thundery spell we had in Florence a couple of years ago. At least it was mild.

Sometimes the November weather we encountered was pretty spectacular. Just not here in Almonte.

I make a computer-based calendar every year to put on the kitchen fridge, and I use photos for each month from my digital archives. I have very few local photos for November – usually it is a Med or tropical venue. The reason for this is simple. Almonte isn’t at its best when it is cold, rainy or sleety. And I don’t often feel like going for a photo shoot in the grayest, most unappealing month of the year.

Well, this is not a bad November photo I guess – and it’s even in North America. This pic is of the William H. Seward House in Auburn NY – taken on a glorious day in 2012. Not many of those days that I can remember though. This is about as close to Almonte as I can get at this time of year – and still get a decent photo.

As November approaches, I can take solace in the stimulating activities to come – raking up the last of the leaves, putting the BBQ away, getting winter tires on the Jeep, renewing license plates for the cars, blood tests and doctor visits, flu shot…who could ask for more?

 

FamilyLife ExperienceTravel

The Lyin’ in Winter

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

One thing about living in the Valley is you are not going to escape the specter of winter. However, October is a little early for the whole scenario. Snow at this time of year is possible, but with cool and rainy November on the horizon we don’t expect it to last for long. Besides, I still have some leaf cleanup to do.

No big warmup is forecast but at least this early white stuff will melt (I hope.) We didn’t go far yesterday and I do have all weather tires on the sedan so we managed. Winter tires on the jeeep are not far away. So winter, I’d appreciate it if this appearance was just a False Flag.

It sure would be tempting to book a cruise though.

FamilyLife ExperienceTravel

Another Birthday

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

October is a major family birthday month with daughter’s near the beginning, younger granddaughter’s towards the middle, and Maria’s coming near the end.

When we first met, Maria was nearing what we used to call “the age of majority.” It arrived later back then. She was already playing a number of recurring roles as daughter, sister and university student. Later on, she was wife, career woman, educator, mother, aunt, grandmother, volunteer – just to name a few. She was – and is – a Catholic Christian throughout.

She does it all with grace and a keen sense of duty. Many people (myself included) tend to take her for granted, but she always perseveres. She has the inner strength to get through a hurricane or tsunami, but sometimes she gets upset when the cat locks himself in the front closet. Go figure.

We’ve done some traveling, Maria and I. It took a while until we were financially OK to do so but since the late 80s, we got out and about. Above is a pic from a 2003 bus tour – of Italy. Nowadays we usually include the grandkids.

So Happy Birthday my dear and many more adventures to come. God willing.

 

 

EconomicsFamilyLife ExperienceTechnologyTravel

So What’s the Point Then?

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

The last couple of posts were rather depressing. Let’s face it – nobody wants to live in the UNFriendly Town. And in spite of some bitterness over the election results on social media, the fact remains that by and large most folks you meet in Almonte will be kind today. The election day is just that – one day. There are 1460 days to come before we have to do this again.

I know some people in the neighborhood who have different opinions on the issues than I do, but that won’t stop me from fixing their computer if they have trouble. Nor will Maria give them a hard time if she volunteers with them at the Hub.

Besides, how does this political stuff affect your life, really? I don’t live near the Rail Trail so motorized traffic won’t affect me much. I am sure I’ll be able to go out on the old railway bridge to photograph the river without being slammed by an ATV 3-wheeler. As for our new councilors – they’ll learn. It looks easy when you don’t have to do it.

So maybe I should change gears, and post about the reasons we live here happily. Why we retired here.

  • There are the river and the falls – always picturesque, breathtaking in the springtime, dazzling in the winter rime.
  • The historic factories and lovingly preserved downtown buildings are a tourist draw that keeps the old town thriving. Almonte is a destination stop for many city folks – especially on the weekend. Antique stores, boutiques, tea rooms, fine dining – find them all on one street. Well, two if you want to go to Baker Bob’s.
  • Festivals and more festivals – all year round.
  • Not many towns have a Black Watch Chewing Tobacco sign in plain view (see above.)
  • Close to the city and a major airport. Also if you aren’t concerned about The Donald, it is a short and comfortable drive to the US border.
  • Good medical care. We have a hospital right in town.
  • Excellent Internet and cable TV service if you live in town.
  • The fact that we have hydropower stations right in Almonte means we never go long without service. Even in the Ice Storm that crippled Eastern Ontario in the 90s, Almonte was only off the grid for a few hours.
  • Our daughter’s family lives within easy driving distance and we don’t have to drive through Toronto to see the grandkids. Maria’s mom and my sister are a couple of hours away via two lane roads. No expressways thank you.
  • Clean air, dazzling sunsets, dark night skies with a million stars.
  • Autumn colors are fantastic thanks to the large proportions of red maples in the forests around Almonte.
  • Want to see deer, wild turkeys, foxes, hawks, blue herons and Canada geese in their thousands? We got ’em. Sometimes even in the town itself.
  • Best Pizza ever.

Not to mention the fact that Almonte was the hometown of a world-class sculptor for the Olympic movement AND his friend, the inventor of basketball.

Being right in the path of a river has meant that Almonte has a long history of bridge building and care. There have been a number of messages on the Web from the mayor, successful candidates, and concerned citizens with hopes that bridge building will continue between the electorate and the council members. I hope so too. We all love living here.

 

 

 

 

Life Experience

Ode to a Woman of Substance

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not. (Robert Kennedy)

Mandy Martin and I go back a little bit – all the way to those group lunches at the Dutch Oven in Cobourg. That was in 1970, when she was a kid reporter with the Sentinel-Star and I was trying to learn how to be a food scientist up the road at General Foods.

I met her family, and what impressed me the most was how her parents so elegantly combined the spiritual with the practical, the positive with the normative. His name was Norman, hers is Norma – so normative was pretty much inevitable I guess.

Anyhow, I believe this blend of what is and what should be has served Mandy well in her journalism career. She has done her share of tilting at windmills but she keeps a calm head while doing it.

We lost touch for a while but with the rise of the Internet I was able to read some of her stuff online, and then a few years ago we connected through the magic of Facebook. I found out that Mandy had turned in her journalistic hat for community worker; she and her husband now live in the lovely town of Cramahe (ex Colborne) just a few km east of Cobourg on the lake.

In the past year Mandy – who has been active on many fronts in Cramahe – got frustrated with the political process at the municipal level. So she decided to fix it. She ran for mayor. And yesterday she won. Get ready Cramahe, a new era is dawning and you don’t know it yet!

In my long life, I have been privileged to know many women of substance, both personally and professionally. I even married one. But I want to take time today to wish my old friend Mandy all the success she deserves. She’ll do the town proud, I’m sure of that!

 

EconomicsFamilyLife ExperienceTechnologyTravel

Living In The Friendly Town – Part II

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Whoa! Or is it Woah? Either way, life in the Friendly Town might be a bit more problematic after yesterday’s municipal election results were published.

The time leading up to the election was dominated by sniping between the incumbent councilors and a newly formed ratepayers group that was determined to bring them down. Did they? Well it was out with the old, in with the new (sort of.)

A popular present councilor was elected mayor. The deputy mayor is a local land baron who was formerly mayor himself – a man part of the ratepayers’ coalition and severely critical of the old council. Don’t see that partnership working all that well. Of the 5 council members, 4 are noobies from the ratepayers and one has 20+ years experience on council. Hmmm….

The new council will skew towards supporting the ATV lovers, allowing rural subdivisions, active support for development projects like Enerdu, supposedly cutting taxes and spending while reducing the town’s debt. OK then.

The incoming mayor is well respected, has deep rural roots and is a consensus builder according to most pundits. She will need to be.

Many of the council races were close and there appears to me at least that there are deep fissures in the community of Mississippi Mills. If you are a proponent of draining the swamp, I suppose that is what happened last night. I just hope that the alligators don’t show up.

 

 

 

 

EconomicsFamilyLife Experience

Living in the Friendly Town

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Recently I read an excellent Millstone article written by a young single mother who grew up in Almonte, moved away and then came back to raise her son. It made me happy to note that the place we chose to retire isn’t just a senior citizen’s home. However, Almonte does have its attractions for the oldsters and we take advantage of them as much as we can.

It has long been known as The Friendly Town – even says so on its water tower.

Of course, with the municipal election campaign coming to an end tomorrow the Town of Mississippi Mills (Almonte’s part of it) doesn’t seem as friendly as it has in the past. The outgoing council came under a lot of criticism and we have a new slate of candidates who want to sweep the old councilors and mayor out the door. The incumbent mayor is not running again. Some of the debate has been quite nasty. The issues?

  • High taxes, money not spent wisely on infrastructure. The new candidates think they can fix this. We’ll see.
  • Traffic in Almonte. One mayoral candidate wants to get rid of bike lanes, allow lots of street parking.
  • The Ottawa Valley Rail Trail. This was formerly a CP Rail line. It runs right through Almonte over that bridge above. The rural folks want to drive ATVs everywhere on the Trail. A lot of Almonte townies want to restrict the Trail to bikes and pedestrians in urban areas. You know how the anti-bike lane guy feels. There doesn’t appear to be any way the ATV jockeys can safely bypass Almonte if they don’t use the Rail Trail. I’m not sure I want to be in the middle of the bridge with a convoy of ATVs bearing down on me.
  • Enerdu power project. There was a lot of debate about letting a private developer use an old industrial site on the river to triple the size of his hydropower plant. He had to rip up the riverbed and build a big powerhouse right downtown to do so. In the end, the town was forced by the Province to allow it. This left a lot of negativity over the previous council, but in the final analysis they were powerless to do anything. The town doesn’t get a dime in taxes from this new plant. There was a lot of Fear Uncertainty & Doubt about how this project would turn out, and I was one of the naysayers (not that it ever mattered.) However aside from a bit more of an industrial strength look to the riverscape downtown, it could have been a lot worse.

I leave you to be the judge. We have the bulky new powerhouse in the river, but they fixed up the old flour mill behind it so it looks a lot better. Win some, lose some.

  • There were other issues like making Almonte’s downtown a Heritage district, but I think both sides agree this was an OK idea.

I think I’ll end here for now and pick up the narrative later when the election results are revealed. To be continued…

EconomicsFamilyLife ExperienceTechnology

Back to the Past

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

So we have three (count ’em) TV outlets in the old homestead. Two are HDTV and these have fairly modern TVs hooked up. The third is an old CRT TV and SDTV PVR that used to belong to my daughter and son in law. That one’s in the basement and Maria watches it from time to time.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to modernize the basement setup and a few months ago I thought the time had arrived when the old PVR stopped working. However when I checked it out, all I needed to do was replace the hard drive with another old junk drive I had here.

Lately though, I foresaw another opportunity. The picture on the TV was black, the info about programming wouldn’t load. I tried rebooting and resetting the cable PVR with no success. So I called Rogers to send over a guy to verify that the PVR was dead.

He checked the signal and found it very weak – nothing wrong with the PVR. He went into the furnace room, checked the cable connections and found one that was loose – wanna guess which one? Tightened it up, picture was back – all’s well in the SDTV universe.

So back to the past we go – Blast!

EconomicsLife ExperienceTechnology

Ganga Din

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

I never have used pot – never smoked a roach, never ate any of Alice B. Toklas’ brownies. I’m sure lots of kids did it 50 years ago when I was at Queen’s – but not me.

Having said that, I am not a “Reefer Madness” fan, nor do I think that possession of a bit of weed should give you a prison sentence, a criminal record, or crippled employability.

I do not think that smoking dope is any more of a health threat than smoking tobacco (but no less.) I don’t think it’s a gateway drug either. So I have no problems with decriminalization. Maybe it has some medical benefits – I won’t be finding out personally.

All in all, I wasn’t that concerned about legalization. Not unless my personal space got trampled on. And I believe that is what is happening.

I cannot turn on the TV or go on the Web these days without being bombarded by all the hype about cannabis stores, government regulation, cannabis stocks – blah, blah, blah. It’s all about the money. Money for the capitalists, money for the taxman.

I’m not happy about the fact anybody can turn their home into a grow-op. I would want a conditional clause put into any offer to purchase that nobody had been growing ganga in the bathroom, thank you.

Nor do I want to breathe in any sort of second-hand smoke. Tobacco smoke stinks. Pot smoke is worse. I want the street to be smoke-free. It can never come into the workplace. I’m concerned that just because pot is legal, a bunch of morons will interpret that as a license to pollute the air in parks and playgrounds.

It also bothers me that so many former food factories in Ontario are now pot growing factories. It might be great for Smiths Falls or Chatham – or maybe Cobourg – but it doesn’t seem right to me. There seems to me to be a disproportionate use of small town facilities for growing it.

And what about driving high? We just introduced another legal impairment method. One that’s harder to detect. Maybe it’s already a problem but it won’t be lessened by legalizing weed.

I believe that far too little thought has been given to education in responsible use, especially with the young people. What is being done to keep pot out of their hands? Will it be any more effective than it is now with black market dispensaries?

The above probably sounds like senior citizen ranting – keep those dam’ plants off my lawn. But I haven’t seen anything in the legalization effort so far that isn’t all about the money and nothing else.

 

Life Experience

Five Alive

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Well maybe she’s not a total juice blend, my younger granddaughter – but she is a juice girl. She loves her apple and orange juices – especially when she goes to McDonald’s.

Susannah turns 5 tomorrow. It is hard to believe that the time has flown by so fast. She is her mother’s girl for sure. An early talker, she is already picking up French in her senior kindergarten class. Grandpa can’t jerk her chain anymore – she just laughs and says “you’re only joking!” She gives me that professorial look over her glasses when she says so.

She is a girl’s girl like her sister – loves Barbie, loves being a Princess, loves her dresses and costumes. But she’s also up for rough and tumble games with Dad – jumping in the leaves or on the trampoline in the backyard. There’s nothing the older two can do without her wanting to try it too.

She’s popular with her friends and with her teachers at the school – many of them remember her as an infant coming in with her mother when Sarah volunteered in the classroom. But she’s no longer a baby, that is for sure.

Happy birthday Susannah and it won’t be long until you are 5 and a half.

 

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