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IN THIS ISSUE

• Freddie and Geoff Goodship visit an elephant camp in Thailand
• The editor remembers the Great Depression
• Jim Olson and Mike Britto write to us, as do others
• Tom Kyle´s story that shows early progress in Saskatchewan
• Bruce Galway, Catherine Green, Jay, and Jean Sterling suggest sites

Freddie and Geoff Goodship have spent part of this endless winter visiting Thailand. Below are his and her descriptions of one day at an elephant camp. To see the pictures mentioned, visit either http://members.shaw.ca/vjjsansum/or http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html.

GREETINGS FROM CHIANG MAI

ELEPHANT CAMP

First, Freddie writes: As you can see by the photos, we had a great day today.

Our tour took us to the elephant camp, where we first watched the elephant show in which the animals perform a number of activities such as dancing, playing football and basketball, dragging and stacking logs, etc. They were very entertaining. In Thailand, apart from shows, the animals are used in logging operations.

We then rode in an ox cart to a nearby Lisu village (bumpy and rickety). Following this we rode the elephants back to the main centre. I had thought we would have to ride them bareback, but such was not the case. A thick layer of padding is put on their backs and then a wooden seat on top of it. So my fears were unfounded, although the ride did seem a little tippy at times. Geoff especially liked the part of the ride through the river.

Ox Cart Ride (left) & Elephant Ride

The next adventure was a bamboo raft ride for quite a long distance down the local river, which was not very big and quite shallow in most parts. Here again I had thought we would get wet but there were raised seats on the raft. It was very peaceful and soothing to just float along with two men using poles to do the little bit of work needed to propel us through the right channels.

Raft Ride

A super buffet lunch was served at the elephant camp and then we were off to the last place on the tour, which was an orchid and butterfly farm. There are over 1,000 varieties of orchids in Thailand. We have only seen a few, but they are gorgeous - as are the butterflies.

All in all a very interesting and pleasant day.

These experiences are not something we will see elsewhere so we?re really enjoying them. We took 153 pictures and some movie footage which we will show when we get home.

Tomorrow will most likely be a morning wandering in some part of town and then an afternoon at the pool.

Now Geoff: Perhaps the secret of a successful marriage, and we think ours is heading in that direction, is to appreciate that we often see things differently. In response to Fred´s account of our trip to the Elephant Camp, I propose to send a different point of view.

The photo on the left shows an important part of our elephant ride: the view from the back of the elephant itself. What you see is the elephant´s neck and the back of her right ear. You can also see the back of the Mahoot and Fred´s legs. The photo doesn´t show it very well, but Fred´s feet are well above the elephant´s ear.

And before I go further, it´s time to introduce the elephant. Her name is Pong, and the Mahoot´s name is Tuk.

But first, here´s the view over the other side of our ship. Note that Tuk´s feet are tucked neatly behind Pong´s ear. I think Pong and I enjoyed wading through the river more than Fred did. If you look carefully, you can see the toe of my running shoe at the bottom.

 

With the present economic crisis threatening to evolve into another world-wide depression, this seems like an opportune time to recall what I have written about the so-called Great Depression. It incidentally also gives some idea of how my sister Nell and I spent our childhood and the conditions under which we lived during

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

It was the "Dirty Thirties," when hobos rode the rods, and family men lived and worked in relief camps for $1 a day. In small towns, it seemed as if the whole world was poor. Tradesmen and professionals took part of their payments in produce; men knocked on doors offering to work for a meal. As I remember it, there was a different feeling to that depression: most people were in the same boat, if not actually floundering in the water; doors were always open; people helped one another. There was not the stigma associated with poverty that is a sign of these less-kindly times. No-one thought it was your own fault if you were poor.

After living in a number of logging camps around the Shuswap Lake, our mother insisted that Nell and I should be going to a regular school, so on a summer day we left the camp, our belongings piled high on a raft towed by one of the boats that were always available. (The horses and logging equipment were not with us; I guess Dad had sold them to some other logging outfit. I am also assuming that small spreads like ours were no longer viable, or Dad would not have abandoned it so readily.)

The day we left the camp was cloudless, with a light wind. The Shuswap can breed sudden storms that have taken many lives over the years, but that day remained calm. I towed a hand-carved wooden boat behind the raft. I don´t remember looking back nostalgically at the camp I would not see again for many years; I didn´t know then how much influence the bush would exert on my life.

We moved into an empty house about five miles from Salmon Arm, on Engineer´s Point. A big old house, it was a far cry from the log houses of the camps, but there was still no running water, no electricity, no phone. It was still on the lakeshore, and we drew our water directly from the lake. Beside the property ran the main line of the CPR, and Nell and I waved at every train that went by. In those days, trainmen always waved, and some of the men in the cabooses used to throw us bundles of funnies and chocolate bars. They probably had a regular host of children living beside the tracks who awaited their coming. We always waved at the men riding the rails, and they waved back.

We walked three miles along that track to Canoe (uphill both ways, of course), where there was a two-room school. Nell went into grade 3, in one building, and I went into grade 4 in the larger building. With four grades in one room, we got a circular education: by the time one reached grade 7, one had heard all the lessons for all the grades four times. Not a bad system. By the time I left there in the middle of grade 7, I had a thorough grounding in grammar, poetry, history, and arithmetic. There were few frills. No wonder - how could any teacher offer lessons in the basics to four grades and have time left for much else. We did learn a few crafts, but I suspect these served the purpose of keeping us occupied while the teacher was busy with other classes.

We were poorer now than we had been in the camp. Mother received $20 a month for a family of four, and even with the low prices that prevailed at that time, it was slim pickings. She still baked her own bread and pies (no meal was considered complete without dessert, either fruit or cake or pie), canned berries and jam, and made countless stews composed more of vegetables than meat. Our diet consisted mainly of starchy foods: bread, porridge, pancakes, potatoes. Cheap and filling.

Nell and I needed more formal clothing now that we were going to school. I remember we received a box of clothing from a church group that supplemented our very basic wardrobe. I don´t remember ever being cold, though the winters were so hard that the lake froze over, but I do remember being self-conscious in a dress my mother had sewn for me. She was no seamstress.

We moved to Salmon Arm when I was in grade 7 so we would be able to go to high school. Mother had had to stop school to go to work when she was 14, on the death of her father, and she was determined that we would finish our education. Our earlier unorthodox schooling had not harmed us; the correspondence courses of those years and another I took in first year university were among the best lessons I ever had.

Still we were as poor as the proverbial church mice, but again it did not make any difference in our social life at school. Dad went back into the bush to work in other men´s camps and Mother maintained a home for us on the little amount of money he could send her. We paid $7 a month for an old house in the middle of the little town. Our allowance was 25c a week, and we spent it all on the weekly movie. When Dad joined the army in 1939, Mother got $50 a month - more than she had ever had before in her life.

In the summers Nell and I, along with most of our classmates, picked berries. Arriving at 5 o´clock in the morning, we often had to wait until the dew had burned off before we could begin. We would finish the raspberries around noon, and then if we were unlucky, would have to pick the sharp-thorned loganberries. At the end of the berry- picking season we would have made enough to buy our school books for the coming term. Once I had enough to buy a used bike with an oval rear wheel which produced a slight galloping motion, but it beat walking.

Our amusements were simple. We walked and biked every road around Salmon Arm; we climbed Mt. Ida and McGee´s Mountain; we skated on the big lake when there wasn´t too much snow and on the Little Lake where we could clear rinks; in the summer we walked or hitchhiked out to Canoe or Sandy Point to swim. (Salmon Arm´s water was too polluted even then swim in: the sewer emptied out into the arm.) Every night every kid in town strolled down to the railway station to watch the passenger train come in. It was more of a place to gather than any fascination with the trains that drew us there.

By this time we had electricity, running water (cold), and phones. I never lived in a place with plumbing until I married at the age of 24. (No wonder roughing it holds few attractions for me now: I lived like that for too many years with no choice.) We had an early-model radio on which we listened to Fibber McGee and Mollie, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny. We had a baseball team and a lacrosse team which played neighboring towns in the summer, and a hockey team for our winter amusement. When the indoor rink was not busy, we used to skate round and round to the sound of loud music. A great place for the young people to meet and flirt.

In my leisure time, I read everything that fell into my hands. I worked my way through the small local library and the high school library. I was especially fascinated by the myths and legends of gods and heroes, and the innumerable fairy tales. This taste has persisted to the present: one of my favourite genres is fantasy.

And all this time, we were working our way through the local high school, until finally we graduated into a world where there were few opportunities for young people - just like today. But then came the War; the boys all joined up, and because there were no boys left to fill the position, I was offered a chance to become a printing apprentice at the local newspaper office. I started at $7 a week for 40 hours; at the end of my five years I was receiving $25 a week.

But by now I was an adult; my childhood was ended, and so is my story of that childhood.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jim Olson writes: I missed your earlier note about your sister´s passing. From earlier issues I remember how close you were. I lost my only brother two years ago and still feel the loss so I understand the emptiness one feels at points of remembrance - but they are also points of pleasure as well as I recall our shared experiences.

Mike Britto writes: I fully endorse what Stan French says about "Three Cups of Tea," by Greg Mortenson. I was lucky enough to be able to get that book from our library. Once I started I just couldn´t put it down. I am happy that I read it. I am not familiar with the northern part of India [and Pakistan] but I am fairly familiar with many of its customs. The trials, the adventures, the near-death experiences, the poverty, the suffering.... I really admire Greg Mortenson´s courage and determination against all odds. For westerners it´s a different world.

ED. NOTE: Again, my heartfelt thanks to all who have written to offer their condolences on the death of my sister, Nell, and especially to Jim, our only practising poet, who wrote the above tribute.

Tom Kyle, who lives in Manitoba, tells a story that shows

SASKATCHEWAN AHEAD AGAIN...

After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, scientists in New York state found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, California scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, stories in the LA Times read: "California archaeologists have found traces of 200-year-old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers."

One week later, the Moose Jaw Times Herald in Saskatchewan reported the following: "After digging as deep as 30 meters in sagebrush fields near Moose Jaw, Ole Karbaluski a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Ole has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Saskatchewan had already gone wireless."

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway forwards the URL for a video of Terry Fator, a talented ventriloquist and singer who won the 2007 America´s Got Talent contest. He writes: If you watch this throughout, pay attention to Terry´s mouth ... there is no indication that he is the source of the various voices he has invented.

http ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNJ02rxaNrs&feature=related

Catherine Green sends this URL for an article that claims that having a pet is like being on drugs:

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/595994

Jay writes: On a credit card like VISA or MasterCard there is often a charge for "balance insurance protection," even though the balance is paid off every month. I only became aware of this because of a segment of a CBC program called Marketplace. I dug up an old bill and yikes!, I was paying it too, even though I keep my balance paid off.

According to Marketplace, the "protection" insures that you don´t have to pay the *interest* payments if you lose your job, or get hit by a truck or a meteorite or whatever. So I phoned VISA, and was finally connected to a representative, who only agreed to cancel the insurance after I threatened to change to VanCity Credit Union.

Here is the original story that alerted me to this:

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2009/credit_card_catch/main.html

Jean Sterling writes: Here is a link that people with young grandchildren might like.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-BgUnYzXU-Fo/elmo_and_andrea_bocelli/

My granddaughter, who recently turned two, likes Elmo. She was delighted with Elmo singing the alphabet song, and that led me to Elmo and Bocelli singing the goodnight song. It´s "Time to Say Goodnight" based on "Time to Say Goodbye". She was delighted with this, and I could feel her relax just before popping her into bed for the night. It also is a nice intro to some good music.