Home
The Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 194
The Grand Tour of every-day Victorian Life, from the POV of a town clerk, his domicile, domestic bliss and circumstance and his complete and utter lack of self-awareness that characterize the middle class. It's humour lies in recognizing these foibles in everyone but ourselves.
Definitely of an era, but not entirely to my taste, and I found myself relieved to find the last few pages of this fallen out, there was no need to read this through to any sort of conclusion.
The Pall of Days
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 237
September 3rd, 38 degrees Celsius. Unbearable.
And the forecast for the rest of the week was more of the same.
I'm thinking "End of the Summer" and work will get back to normal, a little more manageable, but - well, I'd forgotten a few things, like the Queen City Car Show and Shine, hundreds of vintage automobiles, Cadillacs, E-type Jags, Model T's, Hot Rods, a hobby for retired men, keeps them out of the way of their wives in the garage. Like my watches it's for love and not money, there's no way any of them will see a return on their love and investment, it's a passion.
September 4th, smoke from the Ymir wildfire fills the valley. Thick, so thick that my eyes smart and water, my throat chafes, and I've spent a lifetime preparing for a world on fire with my cigarettes, only this is a bit much. The good side is that summer has left the building, daily highs are reduced to around 25 degrees and in the evening temperatures drop below the low teens. Wintry nights followed by prematurely autumn days.
Sunday the auto show is over, instead the town is treated to the “mufflers are gay” motorcycle posse….fortunately it's just a quick ride through, they just wanted to wake everyone up.
Work, the vestiges of summer clutching at my shirt like Glenn Close rising up from the tub in “Fatal Attraction” - Friday, dead, other server leaves, I’m surprised with 3 walk-ins, 2 five tops and a party of four, no sooner than she’s out the door, always the way it is. And Saturday I go in to discover the day server has been hammered, place is a mess, takes an hour to restore it - and yet in the evening it doesn't happen. I've anxiety from the summer, the past few weeks, well, they've been brutal and without respite, and with every hotel full you have to be prepared, look what I just walked in to, only it doesn't happen, and maybe, just maybe we're back to normal.
The town, the air of Mordor, Mt. Doom, smoky, usually this would have happened a month, 6 weeks ago, so we had a pretty good run.
And the early fall sees me abandoned by my crows, there are plenteous falling and crushed hazelnuts and acorns on the street, no need of my peanuts, so after a few days I resign myself to my solitude, only they're back, waiting for me to show up without nuts so they can chide and chastise me, I go back upstairs, get some more nuts and we get the game on...
Pride Parade, Day Off, Drunk Neighbours
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 285
Sunday, I forgot to mention, was the closing day of Pride and the daughter and I on the way to the Co-op found ourselves in the midst of it. This town punches above it's weight in rainbows, although the abundance of Southern Plates suggest a large number came up from more conservative climes to a place where they wouldn't be so harshly judged.
And that evening, my neighbour to the right, a rather plain picture of country domesticity, has outdone herself and dressed up as a Pony Girl, the full regalia, galloping with her girlfriend off to the club, giddy up! I would never have guessed, but it becomes her.
Yesterday, reading my book, 38 degrees, record breaking temperatures, the sky slowly filling with smoke, a sullen bronze, errands to be done in the morning, before 10 or 11 when it becomes unbearable to go out, and maybe again a stroll after 8 when the sun is down and a cool wind. The day off is largely thwarted by a bored upstairs neighbour, the power outage pooched her TV, her boyfriend is off in Sicamous and she’s lost her phone, drunk at 9:00 AM and left it on the power box outside where the CPD club gathers, picked up and later returned by a couple of itinerant meth-heads, now she's popping in and threatening my day off, making rather suggestive overtures that perhaps if I'm as bored as she is...
I'm not. I have a book. She doesn't take no very well, but I congratulate her on her boyfriend and remind her of how well they get along and she gets it.
Now, a hot and hazy day, the rain of hazelnuts and acorns at the intersections and parking lots, the crows waiting for traffic to crack them, and going for coffee to find no line-up, the town now belongs once again to the locals, time to get on with a few other projects and start cleaning up the paper machete shredding, bust out the paints, the mixed media, this was a long year without wheels and I don't want next year to be the same...
A Boyhood in Nelson “Growing Up During the Depression” - Kenneth A. Morrow
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 237
The Charm of local authors, every town has a few, nothing of literary merit but curious so see how this town was in the days before, many of the buildings and houses still remain, and most of the people he mentions still have descendants of the people in the town.
Beginning in Trail, and the great die off for 30 KM around due to the pollution from the Smelter, then to Nelson where the author grew up, neighbours included the Maglio’s, who’s name still appears on antique buildings, building supply stores and one descendent used to Golf and was a great customer, the "Old Money" of the town.
Comprised of reminisces similar to “The Great Brain”, childhood stories of poverty, of illness and Polio and the fact that while many if not all families were stricken by diseases and disabilities that would be preventable and treatable today, many doubtless connected to the smelter in Trail, the final follow up with his surviving friends, neighbours, brothers and sisters, Nelson’s Chinatown and Red Light district, still, and when my Metal Detector comes from the locker I have some ideas of where to search, this town is doubtless loaded with buried treasures only needing me to unearth...
It does bring to mind how much things have changed, and largely for the better.
A fine way to pass a bloody hot day...
Page 4 of 875