Larry Gibbons
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A  Colourful Story

17/8/2017

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Picture
Wild Roses Near Port Hood Trail
You all remember Maritime Mac’s second cousin, Wilbur Mackenzie. He’s the fella who drove to Sydney to pick up a bicycle and returned home empty-handed, but with both he and his dog, Bradley having learned an important lesson about likes and dislikes.

Anyway, Wilbur, besides owning a 2010 red Accent, also owns a large, dark red pick-up truck. He uses it to plough his neighbours’ roads in the Cape Breton snow belt, truck fire-wood to folks and occasionally haul his sometimes sorry ass to this place and that. Once in a while, he even likes to sit in his truck, listen to the radio and occasionally rev up the engine. He loves his hemi.
Picture
Church on Mountain
On one particular Sunday, Wilbur, Bradley and his nephew, Tyrell jumped into the pick-up and drove to Wilbur’s friend’s small trailer. The friend’s trailer was stuffed with Wilbur’s friends and folks and the day was very, very hot.

How hot was it?

It was so hot that the cold beer became warm beer practically before it hit their lips. So, there were Wilbur and his significant others imbibing at high speed to beat the heat. Even Bradley was turbo-licking the beer out of a black, cast iron frying pan.

There was no air conditioner, so it got very stuffy, even with the tiny fan blowing to beat the band, bless its little fanny.

Wilbur was majorly sweating and it was supposed to continue to be hot for another few days. When he looked out the window, he could see the heat rising off the hood of his dark red truck. Wave after wave of hot air floating up, up and away.


And speaking of hot air, Wilbur let the laughter and much of the conversation zing over his head, out the patio door and up to the top of some mountain. Wilbur wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
Picture
Bald Mountain Summit
And Wilbur couldn’t help but notice that wee Timmy’s father, who was Wilbur’s cousin, could sure swear up a storm. He could roughly expound on any topic and therefore, wee Timmy, who was only seven years old, could already talk like an irate mechanic who’d just spent two hours throwing things at a rusty bolt.

“You want to go fishing with us?” Wilbur’s cousin asked.

Wilbur didn’t want to go fishing, because he can’t deal with wire or string or rope. It tangles up on him and drives him just a short distance from stir-crazy.

However, Tyrol was keen to go fishing and was one of the first ones in the motor boat.


“If you’re not going, would you mind looking after little Timmy then?” Wilbur’s cousin asked. “He gets boat-sick and we spend more time cleaning up his %^&$%^& puke than we do fishing.”

Wilbur said he wouldn’t mind, so very soon Wilbur, wee Timmy and Bradley were listening to the sound of the motor boat pushing its way through the heat. 

They’d only been gone about five minutes, when Wilbur realized he had to use the little boys’ room because of all the beer he’d downloaded.  However, little Timmy who’d been downloading his share of hot dogs and pop, had already bee-lined his way to the one small washroom, and the way he’d comported himself to the tiny water closet, it looked like he was possibly in for a number one and number two combo.  So Wilbur, whose kidneys were becoming more then a little insistent, went outside. Once there, he walked to the back of his steaming hot truck, unzipped and began to merrily stress the innocent grass.

Suddenly, he heard one heck of a scary boom. An explosion, which sounded like a stick or two of dynamite had blown up practically inside his head. Why, the ground even shook and Wilbur later told Maritime Mac that he had, for a brief instant, seen the big, fat, white light.

And then, who should come running out of the trailer, but wee Timmy! He burst through the trailer door, his pants falling down around his knees, trailing a stream of toilet paper and looking like a scared white-tailed deer. And my gosh, but he was cursing like a scared trooper.

“What the F$%^&* $^&$ $)(*% was that?”

Wilbur was still in shock and had no answer.

And we can’t forget poor Bradley. He’d been in mid-dump himself when the explosion occurred.
Picture
Bradley
What the heck had happened anyway? Well, I’ll tell you.    The truck had got so hot that one of its very large tires had blown to smithereens.

What happened after that, you may ask? Well, to put it bluntly, Wilbur wet himself. The little fella messed himself and Bradley got backed up until a week next Sunday.   And when the folks came home with their load of rainbow trout, did wee Timmy ever have a colourful story for them!
Picture
Deer on Trail Near Port Hood
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Cape Breton-Wow!

26/5/2014

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Congratulations to the following outstanding Cape Bretoners:
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Author Bill Conall, whose latest book, "The Promised Land" won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. His novel follows two generations of outsiders trying to fit into their new Cape Breton surroundings.  See more at: http://www.zoomerradio.ca/news/latest-news/bill-conall-takes-leacock-medal-humour/#sthash.i36alvOw.dpuf

Picture
Author and publisher Sherry D. Ramsey, whose speculative fiction book, “One’s Aspect to the Sun”, published by Tyche Press, made the eligibility list for nomination to this year’s Prix Aurora Awards.   See more at: http://www.sherrydramsey.com/?page_id=2094 and check out her current projects in process. Sherry is also well known as one of the three publishers of Third Person Press.

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Multi-talented Leah Noble, whose blog was featured recently on the front page of The Chronicle Herald in recognition of her creativity in drawing the world’s attention to Cape Breton : http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1205722-dream-big-cape-breton . Leah is also quick to acknowledge other local bloggers.


My old buddy George from Ontario has been crashing at our place. It’s his first visit to Cape Breton and we’ve made sure that he’s seen and experienced as much as possible. I’ve taken him on a few hikes in Middle River, including one on the mountain. Sure looked a lot different from the cityscapes he’s used to! And he really enjoyed our trip around the Cabot Trail. It was wow this and wow that. An explosion of oohs and aahs. We made many stops along the way so he could record some of the incredible views, but I don’t think he’s likely to forget any of it.  We finished the day with a campfire in our back yard.

We also took him to the Doryman Pub and Grill in Chéticamp last Saturday afternoon to celebrate his birthday. We were all impressed by the outstanding fiddling offered by Colin Grant and Jason Roach. It was a toe-tapping, glass-tipping time and there was a cozy feeling about the place. A nice mix of Celtic and Acadian music. If you haven’t been there, take a look at what they offer: http://doryman.ca/index.php/events . Try to get there early enough to get a window seat overlooking the water or you might be sitting at a boarded over pool table, which isn’t so bad if you are bothered by wobbly tables.

Here are some of the sights along the Cabot Trail that got George wishing he could move down here.  He had a good time exploring the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but he also enjoyed shopping in Sydney and North Sydney, eating pizza at Tom’s in Baddeck and getting a haircut at ‘Design Hair’ on Big Baddeck Road.

Cabot Trail
Cabot Trail Winding
Chéticamp Harbour
Chéticamp Harbour
snow on Cabot Trail mid-May
Snow along Cabot Trail in Mid-May
Clouds settling on Cabot Trail
Clouds settling on mountains
Neil's Harbour
Neil's Harbour
Grande Falaise
Grande Falaise
Mountainous vista
Such a Vista!
No matter how many times we drive around the Cabot Trail, we still find the scenery breath-taking. 
Tom's Pizza Baddeck
View from Tom's Pizza in Baddeck
Campfire
Relaxing around the campfire
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Weird or not Weird?

17/5/2014

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Cabot Trail
Cabot Trail in May 2014
I’d like to apologize for being so late with blog number nineteen. “I’m very sorry.”

And I’m aware that blogs are supposed to pop into the invisible yappy world at least every two or three weeks. Because if they aren’t out there, the magical graph which indicates how many people have read my blog, flattens out and then I get feeling like a nobody.

My excuse for being late, by the way, is that I was in Ontario visiting my family and friends.

Peach Tree Inn
Peach Tree Inn in Kingston, Ontario
First thing I had to do when I began to write this blog was remember how this blog-writing thing works. Because the city makes me crazy.

But not at first. I love driving into my old city haunts, rolling down the 401 and seeing the swamp on the east side of Kingston. Love seeing my family and friends.

Love the Peach Tree Inn with the big room. Two honking big beds, a large bathroom with a gigantic mirror. Now that’s some thrill, and the room has a window which nearly fills in one wall. It overlooks a gorgeous river of cars, trucks and motorcycles. With weird and not so weird people sauntering, power walking or running along its shore.

Who is weird and who is not weird? That’s a philosophical question that often tickles my thinking organ. And when I got thinking about this while I was in Kingston, I’d take a walk into the washroom and stare into the big mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Then I’d be off to the little refrigerator for a cold beer. And the room had a microwave, a desk for the laptop, a table to sit around, two big drawers, a couch; the luxury was almost too much.

While in the city we visited this store and that store. This pub and that pub. This mall and that mall. Always with the gorgeous river flowing by. Rushing onward towards who knows where. And that’s another one of those weird brain-tickling questions that is hard to answer.

Then back to the hotel and to the big bathroom mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Anyway, it took a few days of hurrying here and there before my brain began to curl into itself like a tired, nearly popped out baby in the womb. And my healthy Cape Breton routine of not drinking many glasses of beer a day ceased. My regular Cape Breton exercise program flabbed up. I began to do circles every few steps. Like a rat in a concrete shoe box with mechanically placed holes punched through the top.

Signs and rules. Rules and signs. Don’t park here. Don’t stop here. Don’t do this and don’t do that. Do this and do that. Scents galore. Good and bad. Tiny areas of grassy retreats next to tall buildings sprinkled with discarded dreams.

Well, you get the picture and when I finally saw the ‘Welcome to Cape Breton’ sign on the Canso Causeway, my mind and body stretched and yawned like a cat released from a cage.

Can you imagine me living in Toronto? I did actually live in Hog Town once. For eight months. Eight long, stuffy, depressing months.

***
Picture
I was reading a piece in a book edited by David R. Boyd. The book was called ‘Northern Wild’. The essay was called “The Subtlety of Land”, written by Sharon Butala.

She wrote: “Some years later, when I was an established author, I said to a Toronto reporter who had asked me a question about him, “My husband is a true rural man.”

“What does that mean?” the reporter asked, his voice full of skepticism.

“It means,” I said, “that he understands the world in terms of wild things.” I was a little surprised myself at my answer, having been called upon to explain something that until that moment had seemed self-evident, and realizing that, caught off guard, I had hit on the heart of the matter.

The reporter’s pencil stopped moving, his eyes shifted away from me, he reflected, his eyes shifted back to me, and without writing anything down he changed the subject. When I told this story to a writer-naturalist friend, he said, laughing, that for the reporter my answer ‘does not compute.’”

For me the city does not compute.

***
Flying SquirrelFlying Squirrel
I did manage to get two hikes into the Frontenac Provincial Park, a beautiful park north of Kingston. Twenty-two lakes dot this park. One of the places I love dearly. One of the few locales that kept me sane while I lived in Ontario.

My first hike was made with a long-time friend. At one point he stopped to knock down an old branch. While he was giving it a good shaking, a small animal scurried out of a hole. Scampered up the branch and sort of glued itself to a higher place. It looked like a red squirrel and it kind of didn’t look like a red squirrel. Upon further observation we decided it was a flying squirrel. I haven’t seen too many of them.

My friend took this picture of the flying squirrel and very kindly emailed it to me.


***
orange tape on moose skullOrange Tape on Moose Skull
Oh yes, I think I have to make a correction. It’s about blog number eighteen. My blogs are nothing but pure accuracy and when I make a mistake I feel obligated to correct them.

In blog eighteen I wrote that I used bright green trail tape to mark my paths. That was wrong. I used bright orange tape. At least the "bright" was correct.


***
One day, a sunny day it was, with the snow slowly melting and the wind not so frigid on my face, I sat in my woodshed and gazed out at the world. At our little mobile home. Smoke curling out of the chimney. I was content in the knowledge that Sue was inside, most likely performing some computer miracle. I sat and watched and listened to the river and the host of birds who were chowing down at our feeders.

I tossed out some pieces of biscuits. Bird edible. I waited for a creature to swoop down and beak up a quick snack. The food was close to where I was sitting. This, I knew, would make the creatures nervous.

crowHungry Crow
However, we have a crow who hangs around. Last night I even dreamed that he was outside our bedroom window waiting for us to feed him. He’s getting to be a semi pet. I think I gave him a name but I can’t remember what it is. I can thank the city for that. Would you know if I gave the crow a name?

This crow flew towards the woodshed. Did a fly pass or two and then landed about six feet from me. He grabbed a piece of food. But surprised me by not immediately flying away. Instead he grabbed another piece and another piece. About four or five, altogether. Looking like a hungry guest at one of those places where starvation sized sandwiches are laid out on plates for the guests to daintily pick up and swallow with a glass of fluid.

He took off, carrying his booty. He flew it to his gang, the five or six crows who hang out here.

These crows seem to get along. They seldom fight or rush at each other. Hold few food fights. Instead they all eat their own food. Like a good Christian family at Sunday dinner.


***
I’ll close this blog with a picture of one of our neighbours. He is a collector, a long-time resident and like many of us up here, a person who has managed to stave off elimination.

May the force be with him and with you.

Cape Bretoner
Our neighbour
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