Lessons Learned Too Late - A picture is worth a thousand words
Take lots and lots of pictures -
No question that technology has changed a lot over the years. When I was a kid my Dad had one of those old folding box cameras, but he did take a lot of pictures of us as kids. Those pictures are long gone now and I wish I had thought to scan them all before they were gone.
A big part of my life was my ten years in the band. Fans were always taking pictures of us, both on stage and with them at breaks, but today I don't have a single picture of me over all those years. I was in the house band at the old Club Bluenote, backing up some very famous entertainers, yet I don't have a single picture of those nine great months.
Over the twenty-three years I was married I owned all kinds of cameras, from instant cameras to decent digital ones, but I have but a handful of pictures of the kids and family. We did things like spend a week in Florida, going to Disneyland during our vacation and I don't have a single picture of our holiday. We went to Expo 86 and spent three weeks traveling around BC and Alberta with my parents. Again, not a single picture.
During the fourteen years I spent in the Okanagan I was a little better at getting pictures. Things like Merritt Mountain, hiking, skiing, boating and lots of other things I did get pictures of, but what about all my friends and my dance partners at the Corral and so much more? They are all wonderful memories in my mind, but I have very few or no pictures of any of it. Countless hours spent dirt-biking, snowmobiling in the mountains, boating, hiking and so much more, not to mention family. My mother and father are both gone now and all I have is my few photos to remember them by. Now that they are gone I wish I had hundreds of photos of all the special moments we spent together over the years.
So, no matter what you do or who comes into your life, take lots and lots of pictures. You will never regret it, especially not when you grow old and have them to look back on to relive those wonderful memories. If you have kids make it a regular thing to "interview" them every birthday to watch them grow up. Record every special, and even not so special, moment in their lives. Encourage them to take lots of pictures of their own friends growing up. One day they will thank you.
Lessons Learned Too Late - Your health is vital
Never take your health for granted.
Although I was never an athlete or played any organized sports, I was always in good shape. Except for when I crashed my dirt-bike and couldn't do anything for a year, putting on forty pounds in the process and being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, I was always active. When I was much younger I was a drummer in a band and that kept me in good shape, that and lugging equipment around. Before I got my license, living in the country meant I did a lot of miles on my bike.
My early years of marriage were consumed with home renovations and I was always either at my day job, or renovating our house. Over the course of my career, before my break-up, I did spend a lot of time either in my vehicle, travelling to either work or sports events for the kids, or on my butt at the office. I did bike ride with my daughter, Heather, and once in a while we would kick around the soccer ball, but there wasn't a lot of regular exercise. I did join the racquetball club and played at least once a week. I smoked. I drank. I ate poorly, but I was in okay shape. I took no regular medications and had no health issues.
My really "active" life started at the age of 43, when I moved to the Okanagan. I was determined to make up for lost time in Ontario, working all the time, so I took up pretty well every activity going. I joined the Courtplex and played racquetball regularly. I hiked the mountains. I dirt-biked the mountains with my Dad just about every week-end. I mountain biked. I roller-bladed. I downhill and cross-country skied. I water-skied. I snowmobiled in the Greystokes and around Revelstoke. I was always doing something, including renovating for some girlfriend at one time or another. I worked and played hard, but I felt great. I took a test for lung capacity at the Courtplex and they had to do it over again because they didn't believe the results. I was in the top three percent of Canadian men even though I smoked. I could play three hours of racquetball on a Sunday morning, then come off the court and light a cigarette. Even my friends who smoked were shocked.
After I was diagnosed with diabetes, life changed a little. I now had to take daily medication. My doctor told me that if I didn't lose the weight I had gained being off for a year that I would die, plain and simple. It was a wake-up call and I lost the weight in about four months and got active again, this time with even more passion. I remember things like cross-country skiing with Darlene and Norma, both twenty years younger than me, but after I reached the crest of the very long hill, I lit a smoke and waited about ten minutes for them to come over the top, huffing and puffing and cursing me when they saw me smoking. When I took my group out hiking every Sunday I would have to wait for them to catch up, again, many of them much younger than me. When we all went boating together, I was usually the one who wanted to go skiing all the time. I danced at the Corral from nine o'clock 'til closing, several nights a week. I was still in great shape.
Throughout my time in Panama and after I returned to Toronto, my diabetes was pretty well under control. I worked hard renovating in Panama and I walked everywhere, having no car or bike. In Toronto I got a bike and I bladed and biked the trails near my cousin's place. My cousin fed me too well, but my weight didn't change too much. When I came to London I still biked and roller-bladed and did some work for my then girlfriend.
This all came to a crashing end when through circumstances I had no money and no meds for six weeks. Although I begged anyone I could think of, from government to charitable organizations, no one would give me my meds and I ended up in the hospital with dangerously high sugar levels. There was a period of five days in December that I slipped in and out of what's called DKA, finally getting much needed insulin from my doctor. December 16th, my last day of work at Home Depot, was also my last smoke. I had no money for food, let alone cigarettes, so it wasn't much of a decision. Over the next six months I gained twenty-five pounds. I have acid reflux. My feet are swollen and painful all the time. I developed "frozen shoulder" in my left arm and cannot lift anything. Even the simplest movement is painful. My vision is blurry first thing in the morning. I sleep ridiculous hours. As someone who functioned well on a maximum of seven hours, and who never could "sleep-in" or nap during the day, now I get eight or nine hours at night, and I can nap for several more hours during the day. I laid down yesterday at three for a short nap and woke up at seven o'clock! My nurse says it is a side affect of the insulin I am taking, but I also know I have zero stamina now. I can't walk more than a few hundred yards before I need a rest. I can't bend over and tie my shoes. Between my arm and my weight, getting my socks on and off is a challenge. I take a whole mess of drugs, from early morning through bedtime. I hate needles, but I have to take four of them every day for the rest of my life.
So, the lesson here is to stay active, no matter what. Watch your weight and keep it down because, as you age, it gets much harder to keep the weight off. Look around you at all the older fat people. Maintain your ideal weight as long as you can. Don't deny yourself some good food, but do whatever it takes to stay in shape. Find whatever exercise turns you on and keep at it. You'll be glad you did. If you do "fall off the wagon" don't just accept it because it will only get much harder to take the weight back off or get back in shape. The longer you let yourself go, the harder it will be and, like me, you may just get to the point where there is no going back. You will feel like you aged overnight, believe me, I know.
"Adventure" Boating
It could be said that all of my boating in the Okanagan should be called "adventure" boating. This was a term Wade and I started using to describe just some of our boating experiences, but it could also describe my record with boats in general.
When I first moved to the Okanagan I believed in the adage that it was a crime to live on the lake and not have a boat. One of the very first things I did when I arrived in the spring of 1993 was to buy a boat from Dockside Marine, which was to set a theme for the next fourteen years. I put a deposit on it because we were heading back to Ontario in the van to sell off everything in the house on Mara Crescent and would be back in about three weeks or so. I was to bring them a certified cheque for $5,600 after we had water tested the boat. My brother and I met the sales guy from the dealership at the Kelowna marina and he took us out for a spin. The boat seemed perfect, so I handed over the cheque to the sales guy and my brother drove the boat back to our marina in Westbank. I was to pick-up the trailer later in the week.
When my mother and I returned from garage saleing Saturday morning, where I bought a tow rope and a spare gas can, my Dad greeted us at the door and, from the look on his face, my first questions was going to be "who died"? He told me he had watched a story on the news about a boat on fire over in Green Bay and he had run down to make sure my boat was still in the marina. It wasn't. We immediately phoned the RCMP to report my boat stolen and see if we could match up the information, but they had little to share. A local resident had gone out to the burning boat to make sure no one was on board, then he had phoned it in. Although the RCMP attended to where it sank, they had no information what-so-ever as to its location. They said it was way too deep and I would never find it. They were useless and proved even more useless as far as catching who stole my boat. I managed to find the witness and he was very helpful. I asked if the engine was in the "up" position or down, but he could not remember. Because the boat was in the marina I left the engine down and this would mean it might not have been destroyed in the fire. I hired a recovery crew and we met the witness out on the bay. Amazingly he was within twenty-five feet of where it went down. They towed it to the beach but as soon as it started coming out of the water I saw that the engine was in the "up" position and it was just a mass of molten metal. The leg was fine but everything else was toast.
Oh well, I thought, I never even got to drive my first boat, but the dealer's insurance would cover it so I just needed to find another boat. I called the dealer, who informed me that it was not covered by their insurance because it was a consignment boat. I said no one disclosed this to me, and they still had my trailer, so the deal was not finalized and they were obligated to still be insuring it. To my amazement they said insurance was up to the owners of the boat. When I called them they said that they had let the insurance lapse back in May when they took it to Dockside, who they understood were insuring it as part of their inventory. They were as amazed as I was that there was no insurance on the boat.
Before I just accepted that my welcome to the Okanagan had been losing $5,600, something I could ill afford, I contacted a lawyer who agreed that the deal was not finalized because I had not taken delivery of the trailer and had not signed off. Obviously I needed the trailer and the papers to transfer the insurance and get new plates for the trailer. He made it all sound pretty simple and said we could sue them in small claims court because it was less than ten thousand dollars.
When we first got to court I learned exactly what kind of closed-knit community Kelowna was. The principle from the dealer was an ex-mayor and he was greeted warmly by the judge. After hearing his argument that the boat had been paid for in full by certified cheque, the judge ruled that was sufficient to consider the deal done and we never even got a chance to speak. So much for fairness. Welcome to Kelowna!
Much as it pained me not to have a boat, it was a couple of years before I thought of owning a boat again. I don't even remember the exact circumstances of how I found my next boat. I seem to remember it was parked outside a door and window salvage place, which should have been my first clue. It was a strange little boat because it was a tri-hull, something I didn't even know existed. The guy from the store came out and said it was a consignment boat, but he knew a little about it. He said the tri-hull design made it very stable, especially in choppy water, which there was no shortage of on Lake Okanagan. We took it out on a relatively calm day and it ran great. He was right - it was incredibly stable. I bought it.
Although I don't remember exactly how many years I had my little 14 foot "cork" we sure had some interesting times. Every decent weather weekend was spent on the lake, most of time just trying to find some calm water to ski. A bunch of us boat owners would find each other somewhere around Kelowna and tie all the boats together, kick back, enjoy the sunshine and some "pops". It was heaven. At the end of the day someone would volunteer their place and we would buy some steaks and have a BBQ, then pull our boats and meet at the Corral for the night. It was the best times of my life with the best people. Thanks to boating I soon had about twenty really great friends.
Two of the more "adventurous" (read life threatening) experiences with this boat were the hydroplane races and our weekend across from Summerland. Pretty sure it was the first year of the races and, of course, the best place to watch them from is on the water. The wind was pretty strong and the water was choppy, conditions my boat didn't like much. As the water got too rough the races were cancelled and everyone started for home. We had been on the north side of the bridge. Often the conditions on either side of the bridge were night and day. This was one of those times. As we came under the bridge, heading for the Eldorado just down the shore from the bridge, where the trailer was, we encountered the biggest waves I had ever seen on the lake. Thankfully Wade, who has a lot more experience than I did, was driving. We had two very drunk girls in the back and he looked at me and said it was good they were drunk because they didn't know how much trouble we were in. That didn't make me feel much better.
He started basically "tacking" like a sailboat, because if we headed straight down the shoreline, the boat would have been swamped. Every once in a while Wade would shout that we had "incoming" and a wave would crash over the bow and flood the boat. I had the sump pump running full blast, but the boat was lurching so badly there was no way I could manage to also bail with a bucket. At one point, when Wade yelled, I was on the cell phone, so I calmly told them to hang on and held my phone up high so the water crashing over the windshield wouldn't soak it and then went back to talking. Wade told this story many times. Admittedly it must have looked pretty funny. At full speed, the ride to the El might have taken ten minutes, max. This day, with all the tacking, we didn't get close until forty-five minutes after coming under the bridge. The swells were so huge I had no idea how I was going to get off to get the trailer and even less idea how Wade was going to get the boat on the trailer. As we approached the dock he said I had one shot at it and I would have to leap because he couldn't come in too close or he would crash into the dock. I literally took a "leap of faith", praying to make the dock, and not smash my body into the end of it, or worse, hit the water and drown, but I made it.
I backed into the boat launch area as best I could but the waves were just huge. I didn't know whether to stay to help Wade or stay away to avoid being killed when the boat came launched in mid air somewhere around the trailer. So true to Wade, he hit the crest of a wave, surfing the boat up towards the trailer. As the wave broke the boat landed perfectly on the trailer, literally a few inches from the winch. Wade just bowed. I hooked it on and pulled out and we tied it down properly. I had never seen anything like that, before or since. There were so many things that could have gone so wrong!
One of the joys of having a boat was to pack up and head to the other side of the lake, to Okanagan Mountain Park, find a deserted cove and camp for the night. One warm summer night Jackie and I loaded up some firewood and headed across to a favorite cove. It was getting a little dark by the time we got there but I managed to tie the boat off with the anchor and a nearby tree. We slept in the raw, of course, and when we woke to a glorious sunny, warm day, well, nature took its course. The next thing we hear is the giant CAT machine start-up at the top of the cliff, where someone was building a house! We made some guy's morning. You never saw two people get dressed faster!
Wade and I thought we would see if we could get a bunch of our friends together and camp across the lake for a weekend. Early Friday morning we started looking for places but they were all taken, all the way down the lake. We finally found a perfect sheltered cove with no one there, so we decided to head off early the following weekend and claim it. The following Friday was an awesome day. We loaded all our stuff into my boat and Wade's, Summer Thunder, and made our way down to our cove, just across the lake from Summerland. We spent the day and much of the next ferrying people across from Shaughnessy's Cove. In between we ate, drank, water skied, hiked and, in general, had a blast. I think over the weekend we had some twenty-one people spend some of the weekend there.
The number one "adventure" ever? Well, we decided to boat down to a pub in Penticton Saturday night, so we loaded up both boats. I remember having at least four good looking babes in my boat for the trip down. We had tied our boats off at the docks in front of the Lakeside and gone into the bar. Around ten-thirty someone came into the bar hollering that whoever owned the boats outside should get out there right away before they smashed to smithereens. When we rushed down to the dock the first thing I saw was that my bumpers were completely smashed to bits and my boat was crashing up against the dock. In minutes it would also be in pieces. Wade hollered instructions to me that I had only one shot at cresting the wave out of the marina or I would be smashed on the rocks behind us. Where were the girls who had traveled sown with me? Safely on Wade's big boat. I had a moment of panic at going it alone, but at the last minute, my buddy Greg volunteered to risk his life with me.
We no sooner managed to leap over the first giant wave out of danger from the docks, than the bow nose-dived into a huge wave and we were swamped by tons of water. In the darkness I heard Wade hollering at me to speed up so that we would cut the wave and not drown. I gently moved the throttle up but we were being thrown around like the cork my boat was. I honestly didn't think we were going to make it, especially not in the pitch black of night with no idea where we were or how not to crash on shore. Wade saved my life that night. He kept checking ahead and coming back, circling my boat and making sure we were okay. It took us hours to navigate to below the single light we remembered up on the hill and get into our little protected cove. No idea what we would have done if we had not had our sheltered cove or anywhere to go. It was a brutal storm. I wanted to kiss the sand when we finally made it back.
When we packed up the next day and bagged all our garbage, as we always did, everyone started piling the bags in my boat, not Wade's. I asked if they thought I was a garbage barge, which was a huge mistake, as the name stuck. I came down the lakes with babes and went back with bags of garbage. Not a happy ending.
Near the end of one summer we went up to boat and camp at a campground in the Shuswap, I think it was called Scottie's Cove. We ventured down the south leg of the Shuswap and ended up in a little marina, called Little River Boatworld, to get gas. While I filled up, Wade had wandered up to the lot to look at the boats for sale. He called me to come and have a look at one. It was what's called a "deep V" for the hull design. It had a very wide berth; a ski locker and an Evinrude 135 outboard. It was also very clean with hardly a mark on it. This boat had obviously been cared for. Wade urged me to speak to the dealer about it and I did. He said it was a 1984, one owner boat that they had always taken care of from the day it was new. They had just done a complete engine rebuild and he showed me the file, which showed $3400 for the rebuild alone, plus regular maintenance since 1984. They were asking something like $9900, but I told the guy I would only pay $8400, which was nothing to do with the boat value; it was all the money I could manage until I sold my current boat. He phoned the owner and to my considerable surprise and delight, he agreed. They would give it the once over and deliver it down to me in Westbank the next week.
So, here I was owning two boats all of a sudden. I was working at Central Valley Trucks at the time, who were located right at the very busy corner of Highway 97 and Sexsmith Road, so I asked if I could put the boat in the yard with a For Sale sign and they said no problem. A few days later I got a call from the RCMP telling me they had found what was left of my boat just outside of town on Glenmore Road. Although we had a security video showing them hooking up to the trailer, the black and white quality was too poor to read a plate number. I went to see the boat which had been ditched off the side of the road. There was nothing left but a shell. They had even stolen the sump pump. I managed to get a decent insurance settlement, plus they never asked me about the trailer, which was still fine and I sold it for over a thousand dollars on top of the insurance settlement, which was about six grand, so I made out okay.
There's a whole sidebar story here as to why it took forever to get my money from the insurance company, involving a boat that Greg wanted sold and he had transferred it into a friend's name, Don, in Vancouver. It had been stolen the very same weekend as mine and when the police called Don, like an idiot, he said he knew nothing about it, so the police thought there was some sort of ring stealing boats and they thought I was part of it. I wasn't.
The funny part of the new boat was that I had to put ten hours on the engine before I could take it over a thousand revs, so I spent the better part of a week puttering along the shoreline in Westbank. Finally on Saturday morning I knew if I went down to get gas in Peachland that would come close to the ten hours, so off I went. I was disappointed to be all alone on such a momentous occasion, but no one was available. It took forever to get to Peachland, of course, cruising at about trolling speed, but eventually I filled up. As I looked out to the lake that had been so calm coming down, now I could see the whitecaps. Just my luck, I thought! All this time puttering around to log hours on the engine and now this!
I eased out of the marina and started heading back to Westbank. The boat was pitching and rolling in the swells, so I gave it a little more throttle. It felt like it was cutting the crest of the waves a little better, so I gave it some more. Before long I was at full speed, knifing through the crests of waves with ease. I could have had a drink, the ride was so clean and stable. I was thrilled and let out a yippee, but no one was with me to hear me. I was so excited to tell Mum and Dad how great the boat was when I got back. It was the start of many hours of wonderful boating in my favorite boat. It was everything I could have wanted. The deep ski locker was perfect. The wide beam was perfect for having lots of people on board. The engine just purred and you could have a normal conversation at full speed. The deep V design is perfect for conditions on the Okanagan.
Had I not run into money problems I would never have had to sell that boat. I don't remember the exact circumstances but I had a period where I didn't work and money was getting tight. It was nearing the end of summer, the worst possible time to sell a boat, but I had no choice. I parked it on the side of 97 at Ethel and prepared to sit there until I sold it. I got asked to move it twice, and I said I would, but I stayed put. Eventually a nice young couple stopped to have a look and they ended up buying it. Although I had installed a smoking stereo system in it for a few hundred bucks, I basically got back what I paid for it. This was my last boat and will probably stay that way.
Although not specifically my boat, Dad's boat sort of ended up being mine and it was even more of a disaster. It involved a crooked dealer, a crooked seller, and a horrible bank, but it's one for another day. I'm missing boating on the Okanagan a lot right now and don't feel like another story at the moment. More later.
Memories of the Kettle Valley Trail
My Dad, rest his soul, and I spent almost every weekend dirt-biking on our trusty Hondas. We saw such amazing country and had so many wonderful memories. You couldn't beat dirt-biking for a cheap sport. I had several Hondas over the years, my favorite a 1987 Honda 185 that we bought off George who used to run the off-road adventures. Dad and I modified an old boat trailer by adding ramps using steel door frames and tie down bars.
We could load our bikes in about five minutes. We had a pack of beer in a cooler strapped to the back of the bike. Mum packed us a lunch. Even though we rode miles, one ride being two hundred and fifty kilometers through Douglas Lake ranch, we hardly ever used more than a couple of bucks of gas. It was always a hoot when we stopped and opened the beer, which, of course, exploded after being bounced around on the back of a dirt bike.
We biked everywhere around Kelowna and up behind Peachland, and up in the mountains around Revelstoke. My very first ride, when I got my first bike, was the Kettle. That was back in the days before motorized vehicles were prohibited. At the time most of the trestles were scary as hell, with missing ties everywhere. We had parked at the lot at the end of June Springs road and, after a couple of the smaller trestles, which were scary enough, we came to the huge steel trestle, I think number 5 or 6. We got off our bikes and walked to the start of the bridge. I was amazed at how high we were (I think it's two hundred feet above the valley) and I was worried about all the broken and missing cross ties. Dad said, naturally, "don't look down" and told me to just think about it being a normal road, forgetting we were so high and death appeared almost certain. I still remember the moment of panic when I hit that first tie and the bike started lurching up and down as I crossed the next ties. Thankfully most of the missing and broken ties were off to the sides, as I had no clue what to do if they were in my path. You couldn't turn the wheel or down you would fall between the ties and you would be thrown off like a bucking horse, falling to your untimely demise at the bottom of the canyon. I think that bridge is something like five hundred feet long, but that day it felt like it was miles until I finally reached the safety of the other side. I wanted to get off and kiss the ground. I also had thoughts of killing my father for making me go across, but he couldn't stop laughing, which took the edge off the moment, that is, until he reminded me we had to go back the same way. I had forgotten that or I may never have gone in the first place.
Over the next ten years or so we never had a "bad" ride. Every one was filled with adventure beyond anything I had ever done, then or since. On one ride, I think up to Jack Pine lake, we were cruising along, Dad in front this time (we took turns eating each other's dust), when all of a sudden there was the biggest moose I had ever seen, trotting along beside Dad. They were both moving along at a pretty good clip and Dad was looking back at me with a huge smile on his face. All I could think of was what if that moose decided to turn into Dad. He would be just a memory. After a bit the moose did turn, but went off the road, probably as startled as Dad was at the experience.
Don't remember exactly what year it was, but one day when we went up to bike the Kettle, there were new barriers built and signs saying our days of dirt-biking the Kettle had come to an end. From then on I went up many times but on my mountain bike now. Still a wonderful place to go! As we sat on our beach in Westbank, watching the fire across the lake, I had no idea that I would wake up one morning to learn the trestles were gone. I had worked with the restoration society, adding planking and safety railings, with a great bunch of people. I broke down crying at the thought that it was all gone now. The fire of course went on to destroy 234 homes which was even more tragic. I was so angry when I learned from someone related to a fire-fighter that they had decided to "let it burn" when they first arrived at the initial fire, supposedly because they had been arguing for years to do a controlled burn in Okanagan Mountain park. The investigation that followed was a political white-wash and the truth never came out.
Another horrific experience with the Kettle was a windy day we were biking around number fourteen to eighteen, if I remember right. The wind was so strong that we were getting off our bikes and walking them across the very open and dangerous trestles. As tough as it is to ride across, it's even more fun trying to push a two hundred and fifty pound dead weight bike up and over all the cross ties. I got about half way across when I sudden strong gust of wind made me think I would be blown off. I had a moment of sheer panic and froze, afraid to move a muscle. I called to Dad, who had gone ahead of me, for help. As soon as he saw me frozen in terror he hollered that he would get across and then come back for me. It seemed to take forever, but he came back, took my bike from me and then coached me to walk across. I wanted to get down on my hands and knees. My hard leather biking boots felt like I would slip and fall any minute. It was not a walk in the park by any means. The following week we learned that a nineteen year-old girl has fallen to her death the following week off that same bridge. She was with her boyfriend, who must have been traumatized for the rest of his life. When we went up again there was a stone monument to her with her picture. It was a difficult and emotional moment for us. Such a tragedy! Naturally I thought about how that could have easily been me.
I know after the fire there was a huge movement to rebuild the trestles. When I left the Okanagan some had been restored and some had bypasses built. I don't know what the status is today, but in my dreams I hope to get back there one day and again bike the famous Kettle, one of the Okanagan's least known treasures.
Just Be Friends
This one is for all the broken-hearted men
Who feel that they will never love again.
They had found the one they’d been searching for
Someone to love unconditionally and truly adore.
But something went wrong along the way
The moment of dread. Those words she’d say.
“Let’s just be friends” ripped a hole in your heart
Just when you thought you would never part.
She was your one true love. The girl of your dreams.
Were those moments of love not what they seemed?
So lonely as one. So much better as two.
Now filled with pain. No idea what to do.
Too much sadness and pain for one man to bear
How could she do this to me? Why doesn’t she care?
The Ship Sailed Without Me
For most of my life I maintained a file called, simply, "Ideas", where I put drawings and writings and anything else related to an idea I had for a business venture. Before long the file became bulky with lots of ideas over the decades. When, at the last minute, I had to pair down everything I owned to fly to Panama instead of drive as I had intended, the file had to go. Naturally today, as I struggle to survive, I think of that file and wish it were still with me. For much of my life I have been criticized for being "ahead of my time", so many of those ideas in that file might be more workable now.
It is said that "you need money to make money" and that is very true, most of the time. In my life the rare exception would be Canada Lift, a forklift company that my colleague, Gerry Waterhouse and I formed on a whim and a prayer without a dime to our names. We secured the national rights for distribution for a Japanese company, NYK; setup a national network of dealers who gave us order, and got a line of credit from a bank to buy our first trucks, almost a quarter of a million dollars, almost all of which was pre-sold. As the trucks were coming across the ocean the bank changed their minds and pulled the dealer financing program, leaving us with no way to sell our stock. We met with a very high-priced lawyer who told us we could sue the bank and we would win, but he needed a fifty thousand dollar retainer and it would take ten years. I remember to this day asking him where the justice was? He replied that in Canada it was not a case of justice, but rather how much justice you could afford. We folded up our tent that day. So much for not needing money.
Pretty well my first idea was called BASIC, which stood for "Best Available Service In Canada". It was a take on basic book-keeping, but it was designed for busy lifestyle types and seniors who didn't have time to pay their bills and keep track of everything. The idea was that, for a monthly fee, we would pay all their bills on time and provide them with a monthly summary. The idea was to get our foot in the door offering this service and then upgrade our clients to doing their taxes, book-keeping, financial statements and so on. I felt the seniors market was very strong because these were people who easily forgot to pay on time even though they had the funds. My longer term goal was to see accountants or bookkeepers hold franchises across the country, all paying me a small fee to be under our marketing umbrella.
Another more forward thinking idea was actually called, at the time, The Future Shoppe. I went so far as to have a logo designed for it, which was a light bulb and stylized lettering. It cost me a pretty penny way back then and I hung on to the proof of the logo for a long time, long enough to see the Future Shop come along and send them a letter claiming my original name, but, of course, I had not registered the name and they blew me off. I remember writing a story about the experience of visiting the Future Shoppe. I wish I had it today because it included several technical ideas that didn't even exist at the time. The concept of the store was basically to act as a showplace for all new products, kind of an early focus group for manufacturers to test out product ideas and to launch new products.
An idea that I think has even more merit today was called the Big Kids Club. It was designed along the lines of the Welcome Wagon idea, but it extended to organizing special events to bring people together, especially those new to the community. I had developed about thirty different features, just one of which was hooking up with local businesses to offer special discounts to our club members. Sort of an early Groupon idea. It was all based on the idea that religions that had been bringing people together for centuries had fallen out of favor, leaving people to find friends on their own, something a lot of people find very difficult to do.
When I first decided to go to Panama part of my research involved what was planned for where I intended to live, in Boquete, up in the mountains. Thinking like a Canadian and not realizing that things in Panama took a lot longer, I saw things like the expansion of the road between Boquete and David to four lanes; a new road from Boquete to Volcan on the other side of the volcano; the expansion of the airport in David meaning new international flights; a planned flight from Toronto to David; a new refinery port on the Pacific near David, resulting in four thousand new workers being needed, and the multi billion dollar expansion of the Panama canal, all being huge signs of growth in Panama, much of it requiring housing for workers who would be in the country for only a couple of years. There were also changes being suggested to the Pensionado program that would make it easier for people from the US and Canada to stay for longer periods like six months.
When I researched housing it appeared that there were numerous homes, but they were all of Panamanian design and had no hot water, something that North Americans expected. First I designed a system that would easily add hot water to existing houses, adding the required plumbing on the outside of the home (no freezing here) then covered them up with architectural elements. I planned to use the profits from selling the place in Westbank to acquire older homes and then flip them after renovations. That all fell apart when I lost everything on the place in Westbank, thanks to my "friend" who let the roof collapse under the weight of the snow build-up that he was supposed to remove.
Even though my big renovation plans had collapsed when I first got to Panama I had started researching rainwater harvesting because I had heard so many stories about people running out of water. I knew that we were in the mountains, with hundreds of streams and rivers coming out of the mountain tops, plus we had over a hundred and twenty inches of rain per year, so I wondered how we could possibly have shortages? As it turned out, Panama was just about the only country left in the world that had no rainwater harvesting. I started researching systems and put together a business proposal and secured the rights for Panama for the equipment I needed. I hooked up with a local custom home builder who was willing to do the excavations for my underground tanks plus the plumbing required. I also had connected with a large developer who was putting cisterns under the patio slab and he was going to refer all his clients to me for the rainwater collection. I had made a connection with a guy back in London who was willing to be a silent partner and all he wanted to know was how much money I needed to get going. I explained that I needed a truck and some basic equipment but all I needed for the equipment was a line of credit with my suppliers. Once I designed the right systems for people they paid upfront because it was a custom system, so cash flow was not an issue. This guy made plans to come to Panama to meet with my builder friend and finalize the financing. I was off an running and thrilled to be in such a worthwhile business. I was just waiting for his flight information.
Days turned into weeks. My emails were not answered. I didn't want to appear desperate but my builder had a client coming down from South Carolina and he wanted to setup a meeting with me to design their system. Not only did they want rainwater harvesting, but also solar water heating, greywater treatment and power to keep them off the grid, which in Boquete was notoriously unreliable. I had no choice but to send him a little pushy email saying that we were going to lose everything here if we didn't respond. He sent me back a short email saying that they had discovered terminal cancer in his wife and he would obviously not be leaving her to come to Panama. The dream was gone. I did manage to consult to a guy who had been ripped off with his Poppa Paradise development. He drove me to his island near Bocas del Torro and I spent a week designing his system. I sourced the entire system and gave him the quotes, but, after I returned to Boquete, I never heard from him again. Although he put me up in a luxury cabin and fed me for a week, he never paid me for my time or contacted me again, even though he went with my recommendations.
The Big Idea, the one that would make me millions, is one I have been working on for several years now, to no avail. Over ten years ago I had put a proposal to Microsoft and at the time they had laughed at me, stating that Microsoft would NEVER allow such a thing. Today we know it as "cloud computing". The proposal I have been trying to get through to them and people like Apple, Google, Ning, My Life and anyone else who might listen, would revolutionize the way we all use the internet. I continue to try to get through to the movers and shakers in these companies and in the industry, but it's a closed system. Everyone hides behind the lawyers these days, worried about "intellectual property" concerns. There is no room for original thought anymore.
The Family Saga
This will be the hardest blog to write because what has happened with my kids is the biggest regret of my life. Those who knew me way back when, when the kids were young, know I was a "family man". Nothing was more important to me. I struggled with the fact that my own birth family had packed up and moved out West without me, but my priority was my own family and I accepted that without question.
Yes, I've moved around a bit...
My parents moved around a lot when I was just a youngun. We lived for a time at Donalda Farms, which was to eventually become Don Mills. We lived in Ajax. Not sure where else but we eventually moved in with my grandparents at 7 Hugo Avenue in Toronto. My grandfather passed away soon after we moved in. When I was just about to turn twelve we moved out to the country, to a farm house north of Streetsville, now part of Mississauga.
After living in the "big city" where I could go anywhere I wanted to, to living in the middle of nowhere, miles from anything, I was pissed at my parents. Eventually I learned to play with my brother and sister and we had lots of fun. The saving grace was that all my parent's friends came out on the weekends and brought their kids, so there was always lots of kids around to play with. I was always the oldest though, so I did more babysitting than playing.
My first digs on my own were a bachelor apartment in an old building my Dad had bought at 226 Main Street in Brampton. I paid him $90 a month. It had a shared bathroom, a door to the horrible crawl space type basement, about a four foot kitchen, a closet of a living room and a tiny bedroom. I had a TV and two lawn chairs and that pretty well filled it up. For a time I shared it with Russ Bird, who ended up being my best man at my wedding. Can't imagine how we ever shared such a small place. For a while Janice and I pretty well lived together although that was never actually official until we got married.
In a casual conversation with my Dad about Chris coming along and us needing more space, he asked why I just didn't buy the building from him? Here I was barely twenty, with no money, no credit and a new baby, but I thought what the hell and started trying to find financing. I worked for the bank and figured it would be a snap. Wrong! Not only would my own bank not touch me, but no bank or credit union would. I ended up getting two private mortgages which cost me a fortune in penalties and bonuses and I bought the place with a hundred dollars, for a grand total of nineteen thousand dollars.
There were four apartments in the house. Ours was most of the main floor; an old guy who worked at the garage down the street had two rooms, but no bathroom (we never figured that one out); then there was the bachelor we originally lived in, which we rented to a single guy. The upstairs had a number of interesting tenants over the time we owned it, the best being the lady who came to the door in her nightie asking me if we could work something out on the rent. I told her I couldn't pay the mortgage with that! lol
Not too sure how we ended up looking at the place on Fairglen. I think we had some interest in selling the Main Street place so we had talked to a Realtor, Andy Anderson. He called telling me the place we were going to look at was a disaster, but the price was right and we could make good money on it. As soon as he opened the front door the smell of dog piss hit us and Janice wouldn't even go in. They had black velvet paper on the living room walls; it was cooking hot in the house; the bathroom sink was propped up on two by fours. Yes, the place was rough, but I knew it was structurally sound and everything was cosmetic. It had been listed for $59,900, for months, but had been reduced to $45,900 now. We offered $42,500, final offer, which was accepted. We then had to panic to get Main Street sold to close on Fairglen. It was a very long story, at one point involving a crooked Real Estate agent, Max Harris, who tried to steal the listing from his own company, but we ended up getting bridge financing for six months and eventually sold it to our next door neighbor!
I did a huge amount of work on Fairglen. It was a basic bungalow with things like a purple fascia and lime green foundation. We did a full aluminum siding job and covered it all up. I spent a fortune on landscaping, putting a new lawn front and back and numerous trees and bushes. The neighbors all came by to thank me for getting rid of what was the eyesore of the neighborhood. We sold it some five years later for $59.900 and bought a new house at 122 Elderwood Place, our first and only new home.
There is nothing to compare to your first new home. Getting to pick out all the colours and cabinets and broadloom is great. I also got to install a complete sound system throughout the house before we even took possession. Loved having ceiling speakers and a volume control in our main bathroom because we could crank up the tunes while we showered. I worked hard landscaping the entire yard. We backed onto the ravine so it was beautiful. Our neighbors were Keith and Rhonda Graham. She was a stewardess for the old Wardair and a gorgeous blonde to boot. Janice was never too keen on me going over there.
This was the time I was in Real Estate and the market basically fell apart. Interest rates went off the charts and it was not the time to be in the business. I had no choice but to sell. I sold it myself though, for $96,000 when we only paid $63,500 for it new. We had built up a lot of credit card debt and owed money so we didn't come out with any windfall. We rented a townhouse on Ashurst Crescent. Our next door neighbour mentioned she was going to sell so we borrowed a down payment from Janice's mum and bought the place. Moving next door was the worst move of our lives because we didn't pack anything, so it was a gazillion trips to move. I did a huge amount of work on this one, like removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room and pulling down the bulkheads in the kitchen and adding custom cabinets. We ended up with multiple offers, selling it for more than anyone had ever before. We bought the model home at 26 Mara Crescent, our last home.
Although small this was quite the place because it had been the site superintendent's home while the subdivision was being built, so it had every bell and whistle you could imagine. We had ceramic tile where other homes had vinyl. We had a jetted tub in our main bath. We also had a large pie shaped lot and although it did back onto a plaza we had a nice architectural wall and I did a major tree and bush planting to soften it. We had a large deck and lot of flowerbeds.
Unfortunately we sold it right in the middle of one of the worst market crashes ever. Had we been able to sell in good times we would have got at least $240,000 because of all the upgrades and the landscaping. Our next door neighbours whose place had no upgrades bought their place for $221,000, so I know the $240,000 would be realistic. But with the crash we were very lucky to get $189,900, still more than we paid for it, but not great. The worst thing for me was that Janice got it all. I refused to see it all go to a lawyer, even though Janice had always said if we ever split it would be 50/50. Things sure changed as soon as I left. She ended up with the cash to buy a new place. I ended up going bankrupt.
When I moved out West I stayed with my parents on the lake. They had been going south to Yuma, Arizona for years, so I rented the place from them for the first winter I was there. It was the very first time I lived alone in my life and it was wonderful! I still remember the day they left. I was in my pjs and I put my feet up and had my coffee, knowing I didn't have to do a thing for anybody, for the first time ever. It was heaven!
I'm not sure of the sequence of exactly when I lived where. I had an apartment at the corner of Springfield and Ethel. It was a loft type unit above the stores and I loved it. It was pricey at $800 a month, but I had a room-mate who paid me $300 and was never there. He worked in the field for Telus and was only home a couple of days a month. The perfect roomie! I lived in a townhouse in South Kelowna for a while. It was a nice two bedroom end unit and I had lots of room. I moved there after leaving Karen, with whom I lived for about a year and a half up on McKenzie Road overlooking Kelowna. Nice spot. I lived with Tracy and the kids on Molnar. I moved to live with Doug Cummings, the Realtor, on Menu Road after Tracy asked me to move out. I lived with Ans up on McGinnis Road in Westbank (now West Kelowna). I was living with Ans when my Dad died and I moved in to care for my Mum until I got her into a home. I then sold her place and moved to Horizon Blvd, briefly because the by-law officer came by and told me I could not live there. I was on my way to put a deposit on a basement apartment in Kelowna when I checked my email and there was an email from my Realtor telling me to go and look at a mobile that was about to go into foreclosure and I could just take over the mortgage. The rest was history and the worst mistake of my entire life. I lost everything.
From there it was to a house I rented in Boquete, Panama, then to the place I renovated in Volcancito up in the mountains above Boquete, which turned into major mistake number two. I returned to stay with my cousin in Etobicoke, then moved to London. I lived with three other tenants in a small house on Elliott Street until I had "issues" with the landlady. For a time I slept on the floor of a friend's office, then I went through all three shelters in London, finally landing in a window-less apartment downtown on King Street, a place I could ill afford even with a job. Back last summer when I was in the shelters I applied for public housing. They finally called and I am now in a public housing building on Hale Street in a one bedroom unit. It's pretty basic but a whole lot better than staying in a shelter.
I long to return to the Okanagan some day, but, short of winning the lottery, that looks bleak. I miss all my friends out there and the gorgeous valley. I am stuck in a city I loathe and can't get out of here fast enough. My health is very bad right now and the first priority is to get better, but not a day goes by I don't want to just head out West, dumb as that may be. I don't want to die here, all alone with no friends. I hope I deserve better.
Springtime in London
The forecast said no rain and a temp in the mid teens, so I decided to finally shed my winter coat (it's been a long, cold winter with record snowfall) and wear my vintage leather jacket for the first time. Not too bad on my way catching buses to the clinic, but when I came out just after two o'clock the wind was picking up and it sure didn't feel like the temp had made it into the teens as forecast.
I arrived a couple of minutes early to the bus stop. There's no shelter there and it's pretty open, so the wind has a chance to really pick-up, which it did. As it got worse and worse I realized the bus was very late; in fact, I waited over forty minutes before a bus came along. I discovered after contacting London Transit that the bus I should have caught had broken down. By the time I caught the bus I couldn't feel my ears or toes. It was a good thing I had just got over a cold or I would have come down with pneumonia, I'm sure.
Two days later as I came out of the clinic, I noticed the sky growing very black. There was a light drizzle and a little wind, but nothing too bad. I hoped the bus would be on time before it got too bad. Suddenly the rain became torrential and, even though I had my umbrella up, the rain was coming sideways and in seconds I was soaked right through. Then a gale force wind came up, pushing me down the sidewalk and, as I heard the huge garbage container at the Tim Hortons go crashing over, my umbrella suddenly turned inside out and broke several splines, rendering it useless. By the time the bus finally came, late as usual, I was soaked right through to my skin. Even things in my backpack were wet. I looked like a drowned rat. When I finally got home and peeled every article of soaking wet clothing off, my skin looked like I had been in a bath too long, it was that wet.
Getting anywhere was becoming quite the adventure with the weather and now I didn't have an umbrella until my cheque came in for next month. The sweet girl I had sold my bike to last fall to get money to eat was heading back to Italy for a couple of months and we had been talking about her lending me the bike while she was gone. We had made arrangements to meet at Starbucks at Oxford and Wharncliffe last Thursday morning. Although that is a very long way from where I live I figured I would ride as far as I could, then put the bike in the bike rack on the buses the rest of the way. When I got up the forecast was brutal. It was raining and the temperature was falling and it was going to get much windier. I asked her if we could postpone meeting, but she was leaving later in the day to Toronto, so we went ahead with the planned meet. I wasn't too concerned because I would just need to take the bus the whole way and not ride. Good plan, except that not a SINGLE bus in all of London had a bike rack on it! I rode as far as downtown hoping to catch one of several coming my way, but no luck. I ended up riding the entire way home in the wind, cold and rain. Not pleasant. I learned when I phoned LTC that only FOUR routes in the entire city actually have bike racks. This they don't tell you on their website. They promote the racks as though they are on every single bus in town. Not so!
Ah, springtime in London. I need to get outta here!!!