Just Say Whatever to That Vision Board

An example of what a cardboard Vision Board could look like (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Prompts for the Promptless Season 2 Episode 2:  Vision Board

A vision board is a collage or collection of images of tangible and intangible things you want in your life. 

Wow.  People who actually make these things for themselves must be super focused and organized and on the ball.  And of course have a really good idea about what they want out of life.

I wouldn’t even know where to start.  My needs are simple, my wants are few.  My head is empty.  Therefore my (imaginary) vision board at the moment is pretty bleak and blank.

I’ve always tried to be very careful about the big and important stuff I wish for because things rarely turn out with the results I expect.  It’s so much easier to just let life happen without trying to control and force and manipulate the crap out of it.  There’s been nothing so far too hard to handle, and a million unexpected moments of joy that I never imagined could happen until they did.

Or maybe I’m simply too old and lazy for such brave visions of the future.  I have a year to go before retirement.  I would like to survive it.  Is there a picture to represent that?

I guess I could put it into words and hang that on my wall - GO TO WORK.  STAY ALIVE.

But then what if tomorrow I get run over by a bus?  Does that make me a failure?  If I had a board covered with pictures of places I’ve never been and people I’ve never met and expensive things I can’t afford and my family had to look at that after I’m gone, it would just make them sad.  Poor lady, never got to do any of the crazy things she imagined she might.  I would not want them to think my life had not been full because of a few small things it lacked.

If I had made a Vision Board for myself when I was 20, it would not have included pictures of me married to an outdoor camping wildlife enthusiast or living in tiny remote settlements in Canada’s Arctic.  But that’s what life handed me, and I happily accepted.  I never imagined myself living in Alberta either, but here I am.

English: Zodiacs navigate between icebergs in Arctic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I never wished to travel, but I’ve gone on some amazing trips.  Next spring I might end up in Greece.  But if I don’t, it doesn’t matter.  I like my life more or less the way it is.  That either makes me content and easy to please, or utterly unambitious and boring.  I suppose I am all those things.

There will be no Vision Boards for me.  I can see how they would work for some people, helping them to keep their goals and aspirations in view, reminding them where they’re going and what’s important, and inspiring them to stay focussed and full of purpose.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to wander around in the dark and deal with whatever I bump into. At least I know it won’t be one of those boards.

And if I find myself on a beach like this one, I’ll try really hard to cope.

English: Goudouras (Crete, Greece): the beach Nederlands: Goudouras (Kreta, Griekenland): het strand Français : Goudouras (Crète, Grèce): la plage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Just Jazzy 54

There’s an old stick-in-the-mud in everyones Family Tree.  You don’t need to be the one who fills that role.

Learn new things, go new places, open up your world.

 

Just Jazzy 33

Life is a journey. Tell your fellow travellers how much you appreciate their company.

 

A Letter From Rimbey 2

August 24, 1936

Dear Margaret,

What do you suppose would be the best thing to do with me.  I have a notion to get behind a wicked horse and ask him to kindly oblige by giving me partly what I deserve for neglecting to write.  I received your letter about four weeks ago and I certainly was glad to get it.  I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t had a  very good opportunity to write but of course that’s no excuse.  I suppose I had better start at the beginning and tell you some of the things that have been happening.  We went to the stampede in Rimbey and it was really good.  I was thinking I’d like to go and ride some of them but I had my good clothes on so I didn’t try it.  It was a good excuse, anyway.

English: Blindman River, near Rimbey, Alberta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, kid, how’s it going with you?  Have you got a school, etc.  I hope you don’t have to say no.  I just hired with a dairy farmer here the other day and he wants me to stay all winter.  Should I should, or should I shouldn’t?  I wonder.  If Marg is going to be away from home, I might just as well be.  I haven’t decided yet but you’ll let me know what you think, then I’ll decide whether you’re right or not, eh?Last Saturday morning I got a telephone message there was a wiener roast in Springdale and oh boy did I have fun.  I almost forgot I wasn’t with our own crowd at home.  They’re surely full of fun here and everybody enjoyed themselves.  There is one big trouble with this country and that is the mud roads.  They’re fine when they’re dry but when they’re wet, oh boy, watch out.  The car just goes about where it wants to.  Harold and I were going into town the other night in the rain and we were driving pretty carefully behind another car and that other car took the ditch over the river bank.  Well that gave me a start, and how.  Nobody hurt – pretty lucky.

They all piled in with me and we got to Rimbey and home again safely and was I glad!  I thought I did pretty well to keep on the road when the other fellows couldn’t.  On the way home from the wiener roast the rain came down in torrents and I was alone so I stopped for a while.  When it was over I started on again but the road was so slippery I got square across the road and had to back into the ditch to get going again and nearly didn’t get going.  I was afraid to go down the river hill when it was so slippery in the dark so I stopped and went to sleep in the car until daylight.

Then willy wouldn’t start!  Oh oh!  I got a guy out of bed and he gave me a pull with a team and I got home about ten thirty.  Did I get razzed or did I.  That’s enough of muddy roads for me.  If it gets wet, I stay home.

I think I’ll sign off for tonight and go to bed.  Maybe I’ll think of something more to write before another evening, so Good night kid.   Hank.

****

Smithson Museum in Rimbey, Alberta (Photo credit: Sherlock77 (James))

And here I go again.  Nothing much out of the ordinary happening, except that I was the object of an accident yesterday while riding the plough.  I was standing on it striking out a land when i hit a stone pretty solid.  I fell forward and hit my face on the iron rigging in front and you should see me now.  I look somewhat different.  It doesn’t hurt anymore but still looks bad.  Of course it isn’t nearly as bad as your accident with your hand last winter.

There is supposed to be a dance in Springdale tonight, so I guess I’ll go.  I don’t know what a person would do in this country if they didn’t dance.  Things would certainly be dull.

I’m going to try another page.  I surely wish I could write letters like you do, kid – they’re great.  The crops aren’t  very good out here, in fact they’re so poor that the boss and I invented a rig to use without twine.  We have a platform fixed on behind the binder and there I ride and fix the stuff into a coil then shove it off.  It was rather hard work the first day but I got used to it and it’s nothing but a day’s work now.

We don’t believe in hard work out here, they even have rigs to put hay on a stack without using the wagon.  It is pulled into the stack by a large rake affair and put on a stacker which throws it about twenty feet high.  All the forking is in making the stack.

Say kid, do you know if Newton is going back to the same school?  I’d like to see him.  I wouldn’t go to see him if I didn’t know for sure he’s there.

I can’t think of anything more to write except I’d like an answer lots sooner than I wrote.  You can send my letters to Rimbey in care of Irwin Budd, or to my farmer address – either one will get me.

I guess there’s no use writing when you’re out of things to write, so signing off for this evening.

With love and kisses, I remain, Hank

 

Just Jazzy 29

You can travel by letting your mind cross the country and your heart fly around the world.

 

A Letter From Rimbey

English: Blindman River, near Rimbey, Alberta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rimbey, Alberta, June 12, 1936

Dear Margaret,

I received your letter on Tuesday and was certainly glad to get it.  Its the first one for over a month and it does me good.  We only get mail delivery twice a week here.  If I’d stayed in Nanton I would have got it some time sooner.  It was a dandy too – everything in it was interesting.  Well I’ll try to go on from where I left off last time.

We finished our job on the Thursday at noon the day you got my letter and we just bummed around town for the rest of the day and part of Friday, then we decided to come up here.  We got to Calgary as you’ll know by the card I expect you received.  We fooled around there looking at the city until about eleven o’clock, then pulled out to the top of a hill to sleep.  We didn’t get up till the sun was high up in the sky next morning, and then got going again.  We arrived here Saturday evening about five o’clock.

On the way we saw a good many fields of stooked grain that had never been thrashed.  The hail had shelled it so badly it wasn’t worth thrashing.  That’s the kind of country this is, very undependable.  I’ve been driving six and eight horses at a time – it’s quite nice for a change.  I feel as if I’m doing something.

As I said before, we arrived here on a Saturday.  Well I sowed grain on the following Sunday and ploughed with six horses on Monday and several days hence.  Oh!  I mustn’t forget to tell you I was given a government job shortly after I reached Alberta.  I was on the road surveying and cutting brush for a few days.  Isn’t that getting up in the world, working for the government?

I was ploughing about two and a half miles from here today and a thunderstorm came up without much warning.  I turned toward the old barn and just got there in time for the hail and rain started to come and did it come!  The hail was no ordinary size either.  I couldn’t get the horses to go around to the side of the barn where the door was because the storm was blowing so hard.  They just stayed in shelter beside the barn.  Of course I had to stay and watch them, and got sort of damp.

There was supposed to be a dance in Bluffton tonight and I suppose we would have gone only the rain made the roads so muddy.  You see they don’t gravel the roads in the pioneer district and they certainly get greasy with very little rain.  The soil is mostly clay.

I guess by the time this reaches Ontario you’ll be home so I’ll address it to Turners.  How was our Blanche when you last saw her?  I guess I’d better write to her, I do so enjoy her letters and I guess that’s the only way of getting one.  That certainly is interesting about the colt and the calves, that’s what I’d call real news.  It’s much better than a lot of idle gossip.

I hope you’ll forgive me kid, something tragic happened to that letter you sent and I only had a chance to read it once.  The boss’s wife says she noticed an envelope in the sweeping but thought it one of her old letters, so it went into the stove.  I guess that’s what happened.  I remember you saying you didn’t want to go out and not enjoy yourself.  That’s swell of you because I feel the same way myself.  I’ve also met a lot of people, of course some very nice girls too, but they’ll have to go some distance yet to come up near the mark of a little girl I know in the east.

We’ve almost decided to go to the coast in July for the jubilee there.  What do you think of that?  Then when harvest is over we can go back home if we don’t land a job here or something.  I think it will be much nicer travelling in July than late in November.  There ought to be more to see while the jubilee is on.  I’ll try to take a swim in the Pacific Ocean.  Won’t that be something.  Of course I’ll send you some cards from Victoria and Vancouver.

King George-VI (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I asked Harold if he could think of any news.  He said King George died and King Eddie is now on the throne.  He says to threaten you that he might write to you sometime.  Well kid, my brain is beginning to go hooey again.  I know you’ll be thinking I’ve neglected to write but I couldn’t get it away any sooner anyway, so I guess you’ll just have to wait.  You can keep sending my mail to Nanton because I’ll likely be going back there before long.  I’ll be looking for a letter before long kid, so I’ll be signing off.  I wish I could think of more to write to the best girl in the world, but seeing it’s impossible -

I’ll be thinking of my darling until I hear from her,

with love,

Your Hank.

 

A Letter From Nanton

In 1936, when he was 22, my dad and a friend set off from southern Ontario on a great adventure, heading west.  They stopped where there was work, made some travel money and moved on.  My mother (getting her teaching certificate in Stratford at the time)  kept some of the letters he wrote to her when he reached Alberta. It must have seemed to her like getting letters from the moon.  I’m sure she sometimes wondered when he’d ever come back.  It’s possible he wondered the same thing himself.

The pages are soft and soiled, faded and worn, written in pencil, signed with love.

Nanton, Alberta, May 24, 1936

Dear Margaret,

One week almost at an end in a strange place among strange people.  They’re very nice the most of them at least.  We had a splendid trip all through, of course some flat tires and the odd fixing of the engine.  Once the car started fire in the Montana Mountains but we got it out before any serious danger.  I can’t think very clearly because of being interrupted by someone telling me what “to tell her”!

We had a jail birds job picking stones for a couple of days, then we went to help dig a cellar for Bill Scott who is going to build a new house.  I suppose I’ll be there for a week or so yet.  This prairie they talk about isn’t what they talk about.   It’s just as hilly around here as it is anywhere at home.  Where I’ve been working we sleep in a bunk car and eat in a cook car, different from what I’ve been used to.  The fellows I’m working with are rather rough talkers but very good to get along with. 

We went into Nanton last night and watched the people walking around the streets.  It made me feel right at home although I didn’t know very many.  Right at the present time I am at Bob Greggs trying to write.  Where I’m working they keep twenty-seven horses and a bunch of cows.  Everybody has lots of horses here.  They drive anywhere from two to sixteen horses at one time.  The seeding time is over but we may be able to pick up enough jobs to keep going till harvest when the big pay starts.  I wish I could think clearly for I’ve lots of things I’d like to tell you.

I made a bet with Harold last night.  He’s been talking of quitting smoking.  I bet him one dollar that he couldn’t quit till the first of August and he took me up.  I think it will be an easy dollar.  If I have to pay it, it will still be worth it.  Something else – we didn’t get a camera.  What do you think of that.  The scenery was certainly beautiful in the mountains in Montana at one place we were twenty-seven hundred feet above the lakes at the foot.  The lakes and mountain sides were surrounded by trees and shrubs with the sun shining in.  I’ve never been very struck on scenery but that was certainly a feast for the eyes.

English: Dust Storm in Black Rock Desert, Nevada (USA). Français : Une tempête de sable dans le Black Rock Desert, au Nevada (États-Unis). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In North Dakota we got into a dust storm that stalled the motor.  The dust was so thick at times that I couldn’t see the radiator cap.  We had all the windows closed but the fine dust settled in from everywhere.  We stayed there for about half an hour until a truck came and pushed us out.  We looked as though we’d just come from a thrashing and all our clothes were an awful mess.  If I never see another storm of that kind it will be soon enough.

This place is a bad town to be hanging around. Nearly everybody in town was tight last night, but believe it or not I wasn’t.  As long as a little girl in Stratford thinks anything of me I’m not going to give her any reason to change her mind if I can help it.  How is our Blanche?  I didn’t get to see much of her on Sunday, and our Ettie too.  Tell Marg Reed I’m sorry I missed her.

The worst of being so far away is it will take so long for a letter to travel either way and it does seem so long since I got a letter.  I suppose you will be as busy as a bee now getting near the end of the term, etc.

It’s certainly a lovely day today, not too warm or too cold, and the sun is shining.  So far I’m not sorry I struck out, although it’s going to grab hard at me during July and August.

Listen kid, I want you to have a good time, whatever you do.  Don’t stay at home on account of me if you get a chance to go somewhere.  You know what I mean.  But I don’t want you to fall in love, or anything like that.  That would make things bad for me.  Well kid, I was going to write a long letter when I started out but I’m at a loss now.  Don’t know what else to write.

I hope I may hear from you soon, for I don’t know how long I’ll be here.  Send the letters to Nanton, Alberta, care of R. S. Gregg, and that will get me.  Signing off for now.

With loads and loads of love, Hank.

 

Picture Potpourri

I’ve spent my morning pretending to reorganize things in an effort to make my work space more efficient.  Now that the clutter has been successfully rearranged (for better or for worse remains to be seen) I thought I might work on moving pictures around.  Then I decided chronological order is perfectly fine.

Here’s how the world outside my front door looked a few days ago.  It’s hard to capture a downpour with the rain coming down so hard it bounces back up again.  The neighbors car went from dusty to squeaky clean in two minutes flat.  And look at that golf course quality green lawn!  I continue to pay a lot of money for its beautification and upkeep while taking all the credit, although the rain deserves honorable mention too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the next couple of pictures on my phone sent to me from the other side of the country.  A lucky granddaughter on holiday in Nova Scotia.

She gets to go to the ocean and I get to look after her dog.

Sometimes he’s very dignified.  Sometimes not so much.  Today he’s happy because I’m not going anywhere.  That makes two of us.

 

Photo Challenge: Inside

Wouldn’t you like to get inside? I’ll drive you far away and crazy.

 

Postcards Home

In 1936 my mom was attending teachers college in Stratford, Ontario.  The love of her life, my dad, was off to see the world.  Well, western Canada, actually, but in those days, worlds away from home.  He and a buddy headed west to find work and adventure.

Amongst the treasures I gleaned from home this visit were pieces of correspondence between my parents, and letters they sent to, or received from other people.  Interesting stuff.  And amazing that it has survived all these years.

This was written on the 15th of May, 1936.

Dear Marg,  We reached Grand Forks North Dakota at two o’clock Friday.  We’re getting along fine now.  Hope you’re keeping well.  This is a big city.  I don’t like it.  The surrounding country is prairie.  Love Hank.

“Getting along fine now” suggests that things might not have been quite so fine before that.  Imagine two young men with minimal mechanical abilities setting off across Canada in a Model T Ford.

It may have looked like this new, but after thousands of miles and many flat tires and gravel roads later, perhaps not quite so lovely.

On the 30th of May, fifteen days later, he sent this postcard from Calgary.

Dear Margaret, We’re in Calgary.  We can’t keep still in one spot.  We’re heading for Rimbey for a while.  It’s about 250 miles.  Send mail to Newton and I’ll get it.  I hope you’re taking good care of yourself.  I’m having the time of my life.  Although I sometimes get rather lonesome.  We worked for about a week.  I’ll write later.  Love Hank

Dad was travelling with a friend from home, also off on an adventure, kind of like the ‘work as you go’ holidays people go off on today.  Except they go to Europe or somewhere slightly more interesting than Rimbey, Alberta.  Dad also kept in close touch with his family back home, thus the reference to Newton, his older brother.

There was work in Rimbey and I know that he stayed there for awhile.  When my parents came here to visit us in the 1990′s we drove them out there to look up the people he knew way back when.  Obviously they made quite an impression on eachother.

It’s unfortunate that I didn’t pay closer attention to the details of the stories dad used to tell us in bits and pieces about his time “out west”.  I was more concerned about the fact that they were so far apart for so long and either one of them might have married someone else.  Apparently both of them were worth waiting for.