Foremost on my Mind: This is Sports?

I suppose I should be heartbroken over Calgary's loss to Toronto in the 100^th Grey Cup last week. Should be, but not. I feel badly for John Hufnagel, however; one of the truly class acts in the CFL, and maybe a little bit for Kevin Glenn, their underrated and unappreciated backup. He may never get to this dance again.

In fact, not only am I not heartbroken, I'm ecstatic. Note I didn't say anything about being happy with Toronto winning. I dislike any team from hogtown almost as much as I hate any team from cowtown.

And no, it's not sour grapes because the Stampeders clobbered my BC Lions the week before. Nor is it because I am so blindly loyal to teams from BC: In every other compartment of my life in Alberta, I'm truly Albertan.

Apart from whatever I like or dislike, there were two events that happened during the year that really turned me off the Calgary Stampeders as a team, and it was only creative justice that allowed the Stamps to fail at the Grey Cup. These two things reflect the arrogance and insensitivity of many of today's athletes—now caught in a microscopic way, via the Calgary Stampeders. If I say the name Jon Cornish and Nik Lewis, you should sense where I'm going with this.

You may recall Cornish “mooned” the fans at Taylor Field a couple months ago. Because of the gross, perverted nature of mooning, you should understand why I'm outraged at this vile action. Why he wasn't appropriately punished, I don't know.

I'd like to see (just an expression, of course) one of the athletes from either Foremost or Bow Island-area schools moon the fans in the other community, then see them get away with it. Not a chance.

You may also recall Lewis's tweet about having OJ Simpson's gloves and now “needing a white woman”—a direct reference to murder of Simpsons's wife, Nicole. All he got was a slap on the wrist (via a fine)--which is quite ironic, because that's basically all Simpson got.

If you smell something afoul, it is the smell of a double standard. Unless the crime is really severe, today's athletes, much like today's corporate leaders and politicians, seem to operate in a different legal stratosphere—far, far above the rest of us common people.

So when I speak of today's athletes, I am thinking of all professional athletes—hockey, basketball, baseball, and soccer--to say nothing of the less-flamboyant sports, such as golf, tennis, and auto racing. The millions of dollars they make, the morals they disregard, and the misery they foist on family, media and (ultimately) themselves, is fodder for a book, not a mere column like this.

And while I am in a sounding off mood, let's talk briefly about the NHL players' strike. I certainly can't afford watch a game live, and I rarely watch a game on television, so I am not missing much. The thumbtack on my seat is the fact that honest, common people—namely, the vendors, the arena staff, the area retailers, the advertisers, and such— are losing their shirts over this idiotic strike while billionaires and millionaires quibble over how to the divide the booty.

It's the same arrogance and insensitivity we saw in Cornish and Lewis, only a little more sophisticated and widespread.

I find it hard to feel sorry for the over-paid and under-worked professional hockey players. Even the bottom-feeders, so-called, rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars per season. Do they think of anything other than their cottage mansions, Caribbean holidays, and BMW's? Honest citizens are floundering in their businesses because of the intransigence of the players.

I don't know what world they live in, but the world I live in, hard-working people are close to losing everything they've worked for, because of these clowns. Just to put things in perspective: Many of today's hockey players make more in a week of hockey than these guys make in a year.

The business of sports—be it the Calgary Stampeders or professional hockey players, for example—is a mark of an economy out of kilter. They have assumed a much larger, powerful financial role than they should.

I know some players have Foundations whereby they contribute to health and education, and this is noble and proper. If there was a greater return to the local community through financial contribution, I would tone down my rhetoric instantly.

I can handle good old-fashioned gamesmanship, but I draw the line at mindless physical acts and heartless twitter comments—to say nothing of limitless greed posturing. Where's the sports in that?

Foremost on my Mind: Don't Have a Cow, Man

The closest I ever got to a real farm when I was a kid (other than seeing “farm” in a dictionary) was just down the road—an honest-to-goodness dairy farm in rural Vancouver. I heard that the local Holt brothers were looking for a real dairy man, and I showed up one day, presenting myself as wannabe milker.

I think I blew the interview when I said I would be the guy putting the white milk in the white bottles, the chocolate milk in the brown bottles. (Yes, Maurice, all milk was sold in bottles back then, and much of it was even delivered door-to-door back in the '60s.)

I didn't get the job, of course.

The next closest thing to farm life was when I went south to Arlington, Washington, during my summers, and hung out at Hoys or Kazens. I was truly a city slicker back then, but pride and self-respect forbid me from telling you all my bumbling experiences—including the one that had my hosts wondering if I knew anything about a cow's anatomy.

I just knew that if you pulled hard enough on those finger-like things hanging down from the bag-like thing between the back legs, you could get nice, sudsy white liquid. But if you pulled too hard, you could get a nice, sudsy red stuff from a kick in the face, administered by blessed Bessie.

Because I believed that a farming environment would be good and healthy for the family, I vowed that if I ever grew up and had kids (I think we all agree on the latter experience, at least), I would expose them to farm life. My shift to Alberta just over ten years ago provided that opportunity. Two separate acreages have allowed me and mine to raise chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows, from birthing to butchering, and all that happens in between.

I have learned many things over these past ten years, and mostly through repeat mistakes. One thing I learned has been the joy of eating one's own fresh meat: We know exactly what we're eating and where it came from. Too often, however, I have ruined an otherwise perfectly happy meal by asking: “Is this wonderful roast Poopsie or Blanche?”

Another thing is the need to keep one's fencing tight. A loose strand is to a cow what a red flag is to a bull. Cows, like love-struck teenaged boys, have ways of getting out. (Uhmm, cows and teenaged boys: I can think of a few more comparisons, and not all of them complimentary...at least to the cows.)

But one of the key lessons I have learned in this business is the matter of, ahem, reproduction. No matter how upside-down the human world is on the matter of males and females, every cow needs a bull to, ahem again, service it, so as to produce a young one. Mother Nature can play tricks with the inner mechanisms, of course, and sometimes a cow “misses.” And Mother Nature can be so cruel that if the cow comes up empty two years in a row, then it's Freezercity for the bovine.

(Maurice, let me translate for you: The cow gets butchered and put in the freezer—okay?)

The bull-cow thing is a real dilemma for yours truly every year. Seems like I'm always having a cow, and that's no bull (uhmm, one could take that about three different ways.) It takes a lots of creativity on my part to arrange for a bull, which I don't have, to be transported in a stock trailer, which I likewise don't have, to service a cow (or two or three), which I do have—all to get a calf or two or three...maybe.

Take Millie, for instance: She has been our faithful milk cow for the past nine years. She had had her first calf when we bought her, so that makes her at least eleven years old. To blend a couple of old adages: It's not what you know, it's what have you done for me lately? She has “missed” again, so I think she's moving over to Freezercity very soon.

We'll “miss” her ourselves, but not in the above sense.

If I ever saw those Holt brothers again, I would have one simple question for them: How does a brown cow eat green grass and produce white milk?

Foremost on my Mind: Big Bucks at Starbucks?

One of the realities of living in Smalltown, Alberta, is the need for meaningful employment for the young men in the family. There are only so many jobs to go around in a village, and if there aren't quite the right connections and the right skills, well, Bigcity, Alberta, there they go.

If they are not gifted at farming, for example, it may be difficult to find work close to home. On that note: Anyone gifted in farming will never be unemployed in the near future, if I am assessing the vocational landscape correctly. There always seems to be the need for dependable, qualified workers on area farms—or at least that's what I hear.

I speak as a father of six sons who need to become contributing members to the society, through responsible character, family leadership, and meaningful employment. Slowly but surely, these sons of mine are gravitating towards all three components...more or less

It's the one who has a bee in his bonnet for Starbucks that I am thinking about at present (or would that be a “bean” in his bonnet?). Either way, by the time you read this, he will have bolted from the frozen tundra of southern Alberta for the warm climes of BC's Okanagan Valley, to become a coffee connoisseur at Starbucks. His ultimate goal is to run a speciality coffee shop, so I suppose Starbucks is as good as any place to start.

The cynical side of me says, Really? How clever does one have to be to pour coffee? When you

strip away the aura of the Starbucks logo, when you take a hard, reasoned look at what is involved in running a Starbucks counter, well, I wonder what the real attraction is.

On a side note, it can't be the coffee. Far too strong for me. Also, I'm over 30, so it doesn't have the peer pressure component to it. McCafe, here I come.

The reasonable side of me answers the idiotic comment in the paragraph twice-removed with the following response: You've got to start somewhere, and Starbucks is as good as any other place. There are hundreds and hundreds of Starbucks scattered across North America and Europe, so advancement is clearly possible—to say nothing of travelling and seeing the world while working.

Pouring coffee isn't a really high-end skill, though someone has to make it just right. The people skills, not the pouring skills, is one thing that makes Starbucks such a great place to work—and to hang out. Additionally, the management side of Starbucks has a real appeal for any young buck, my son included.

A shift to Starbucks is a shift out of the home, out of the family unit. It marks another change for us and we will need to adjust. Some of ours have left for marriage, others for school, and now this one for work. If we had a normal-size family, we would be empty nesters by now. However, with four gone or going, others itching to move on, we still have a lot of bodies kicking around the Back Thirty. We simply can't relate to the notion of having just two kids.

The loss (or would that just be a departure?) of another body also means a shift in duties and chores. One must not think of kids at home only as extra workers—dishwashers, moppers, dusters, and such. That would be selfish control. Over the years, with varying degrees of success, they have learned to pitch in, help out, and do their part. This training, then, has helped gain them experience for jobs outside the home—including working at Starbucks.

Perspective plays a big part in how we view a family member leaving. Thus, it could be considered a loss, or in fact it could be considered an expansion--a stepping out into the real world, if you will. I see it as the latter. There is no greater way for anyone, writer included, to appreciate how good, how cheap, and how easy, things are at home—than by leaving it.

Even if it's for a cup of coffee.

Foremost on my Mind: Slip, Sliding Away

It's not too often I get to meet Formostians—Foremostats? Formostites?--anymore, even though I no longer live there. However, between a “chance” encounter on the lonely 879 the other day, I was greeted by a number of people that I have seen or heard of, but never actually met in my many years of living in that community.

The reason? Through a relative of mine, Mother Nature.

She sought fit to share a little icy rain in the wee hours of the morning, a couple of weeks ago, and I guess I saw fit to not see it, feel it, or sense it, until my van went flip, flop, and fly. Still working with that music metaphor, there was a lot of twisting and shouting: my van twisted as I I shouted.

Over the course of three hours, I met a teacher here, a mother there, and nice family from east on the 501. There were others, but I never got their names, just a friendly wave. Here's a public thanks to you (and you know who you are) for taking the time to stop and see if I was okay.

Yes, I should have taken you up on your offer to take me into Foremost, and yes, I am sure I could have had the tow truck driver pick me up at the school. Had I known that from spinning out to setting out, it would take three hours, I would have grabbed the first four-by-four that slid by and headed north.

In the meantime, I froze to death (merely an expression), while I had to stand outside my van to make the phone calls. That would be phoning in the rain, but no singin' in the rain. No cell service, apparently, on the slope down to the edge of the field, even though I said please, Mrs. Operator.

I had other options, beyond taking up the above offers. For one, I could see the lights of Starbrite from the scene of the crime, but that would have been a hard day's night. I know John and Hardy and Jason and others there, so that might have worked. Further west of there, Stu and Corrine Collin, along with Luke and Avery, would have been a natural choice, but I didn't want to walk that line.

However, in both cases, it would have been nothing short of foolhardy to start out in the cold to walk that far. It wasn't even that cold, at that, so it must have been the wind chill factor. At least if I stayed by the van, I would be able to retreat to it to warm up. Walking a mile or two or more, with no place to warm up on the way over, would be careless at best, deadly at worst.

Some positives? Again, I was impressed and gratified at the number of people who made the effort to stop and see if I was okay. I do that a lot myself, so it was good to be on the receiving end. Also, I missed a day of teaching. That's not a really good reason, especially if the administration is reading this, but suffice to say, I was able to go home and recuperate (read = hot bath, hot coffee, warm house, warm bed), rather than shiver my way through a lesson on prepositions.

Lastly, it shows me just how vulnerable I am. On a much, much bigger scale, the recent Hurricane Sandy debacle has done the same. Sometimes, we think that with the right tires, the right timing, and the right technique, we're good to go—almost to the point of feeling invincible.

However, as meaningful as the experience of spinning off the Foremost Highway was, I believe I have learned my lesson, or maybe even lessons. They are as follows:

1. Always check the weather report for the route you are taking; assume the worst and hope for the best;

2. Always make sure your loved ones know what route you're taking; it could be a matter of life and death, though rarely;

3. Always make sure you have a fully-charged phone, a full tank of gas, and some extra clothes;

these extras will last through the night, if necessary;

4. Always drive with your four-wheel system on (if you have one); if you don't, please don't drive as if you do.

Needless to say, once I started driving, I was glad to be on the road again.

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