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Saturday, December 31, 2011, 5:30 a.m.

Some one once asked me where I grew up. The answer was Harrogate, England until I was 5 months old, Pendleton, Ontario until late 1945, Cartierville on the north shore of Montreal until age 6 and then the Village of Saraguay for the next 15 years. I have a lot of good memories of my days in Saraguay but also some bad ones. I will only talk about the good ones today. Saraguay was a village of some 200 families stretched from the border of Pierrefonds on the west to Cartierville on the east. In 1914 the western section of Cartierville, then considered farming land and part of rural Cartierville was separated from the rest of Cartierville to form the new village, largely the result of the development of a cottage village at the west side and the many large estates owned by Montreal Stock Brokerage families and large flour millers which began on the eastern side of the village as summer estates. There were the Gordons, the McDougalls, actually four families of them, and the Ogilvies, father and son. Mixed among them were the Cape family, large construction people still active today and a variety of smaller houses, a number of which were chauffeurs and groundskeepers for the various families. Another MacDougall family lived west of Saraguay and the Pitfields, related by marriage also had an estate there along with a large shorthorn farm that turned the creek black. There were private roads to the city and a polo grounds along with a clay pigeon shooting range, one of our favourites. There was also a time when the Patton family, which lived on a private island across the river, used to have a private ferry they used each day to take them across the river to our side and then they would go by carriage to the city. That was 50 years before I moved to Saraguay so a lot had changed with the addition of Gouin Blvd. Gouin, through the estates was dotted by giant oak trees that reached for the sky and provided a canopy of shade for the road. I remember them well from the days of  Hurricane Hazel when 17 of them came down across the highway. I was on my way home from caddying that day and had to find coverage in a friend's house. As we looked out the windows we witnessed two trees coming down in the front yard, a result of lightening strikes.

Dad was Secretary-treasurer of the Village of Saraguay for some dozen years, faithfully putting out tax notices each winter. My mother was his tax collector and secretary. It was a family thing but it paid a hundred dollars per month, handy for a growing family of 4 kids. On the 50th anniversary of the village, the area was absorbed by the City of Montreal. The daily cost of maintaining a water system, the road surfaces and a waste disposal resevoir became too large to be absorbed by the people resulting in a need for more capital support. In 2014 we will say that was 50 years ago....yet it seems like yesterday as do the fond memories of living in the village, playing tennis and football, or the summers on the river. It was our village and remains that to this day.

Maybe one day before I die I will hear from some of those people I once played with as a child and of my closest friends from that era, I have already outlived several of them. Life is a journey from cradle to grave....I hope it will be a long and pleasant one for all. 

Friday, December 30th, 2011 4:45 a.m.

I just fininshed watching a film on Netflix. It sure is a great site. The background reminded me of Western Canada which keyed to other memories. I have this thing about coincidences happening to me that do not happen to others. I do not know if I make them happen or if they just happen by accident. Here are four examples. In 1965 when I worked at the head office diamond department as a salesman  in the Montreal store of Henry Birks and Sons, I served a customer at the counter who was in from Victoria B.C. on her annual shopping trip to Montreal. I sold her a simple bulldog, the lock that goes on the back of an expensive pin. It was only worth 50 cents at the time. With the sale completed, I said to her that I would probably see her again sometime, at which she told me of her annual trip. Later that week I sold a very large ring and earned enough to go to my brother's wedding in Victoria along with my parents. It was a dark cold crossing on the ferry to Victoria and as I looked out the window I could see a woman hanging over the railing having a smoke. I went outside and saddled up beside her. As she turned her head to look at me, I simply said, "See, I told you I would see you sometime."

My second journey began about 1 a.m. on a fog stricken highway in Northern Ontario. I was driving a 1964 VW Bug to Calgary from Montreal having been transferred by Birks to Calgary to eventually take over the Chinook Shopping Center store. At some point, another white VW Bug of the same vintage came up beside us on a hill where one car could pass another. It was in the wee hours of the morning and for fun, we waved. I was travelling with my sister at the time. She was on a vacation. The two girls waved back and since both Bugs had governors on them that prevented them from going over 72 miles per hour, to protect the engine, we travelled together for at least an hour. Seeing a Chinese restaurant ahead, we all decided by hand signals to stop.

The two girls, for no other reason than I forget one of the names, will be Pat and Carol. The were returning from a vacation and had to drive right through to make it back to work at the Kamloops Bank of Montreal branch. We were planning to find a motel and have a sleep as I was doing all the driving. As we parted the restaurant, I said those fateful words again, "I will see you sometime." Sure enough, a year later on my return trip from being a the best man at a wedding in Victoria for an old Montreal Birks buddy, I stopped into the Bank. Finding Carol, I surprised her and waited to have dinner with her. She offered me the couch overnight which was nice. Pat had gone home to the Yukon and so I simply said that I would see her sometime. In 1967, I returned to Montreal to visit Expo67. I went into just about every pavillion, from the largest to the smallest. The smallest was in a food mall, the Yukon Pavillion. I came into the two roomed pavillion when it opened and stood waiting to be served. The girl at the desk looked up and I said, "Hello Pat, I told you I would see you sometime."

I was at a Kin National convention in Victoria and since the airlines was offering a triangle fare for the same price as a return trip as one of their promotions, we chose to vacation in San Francisco for a week after the convention ended. I said goodbye to my friend at the end of the convention buy saying, "I will see you again sometime." It was there in San Francisco that we met the friend from the convention again, not to mention sighting Glen Campbell, the then very popular folksinger heading through the airport.  

The last of my stories goes back to England and my honeymoon. Since both my new bride and I had family there, it was planned also to give British family a chance to attend a reception. Our plane landed at Heathrow Airport and before I could meet the genteman who was going to taxi us back to the village the family lived in, I stopped twice in the line to say hello to old friends from Montreal who had settled back into England. Even the two groups did not know each other. Such are the coincidences that seem to occur in my life. I am told that I could talk to anyone in the world and we could find a common connection six people apart. I must say that I am really beginning to believe that.

So, if ever I say to you "I will see you again sometime."...........you know I will.    

Thursday, December 29th, 2011, 6 a.m.

Today I started a blog about my years in Kin. It began to take up so much room that I just copied everything and created a page on its own for the subject. That has been what I have been writing about for the past three hours between cups of tea and toast. I am now on to coffee. I keep getting surprises when I roam around my brother's house. This time it was finding a painting I did a few years back, given it to them for Christmas and then promptly forgotten about it entirely. I get the same surprise when I open my storage room up after a few years. We tend to forget things so easily as we get older and the older we get we forget more and more. I plan to go out when I cannot remember why I am here...that should do it! The reason for this blog and pages of the website is that so I can record something every day for the rest of my life so that my children and grandchildren have something to look back on and see that I was part of their lives, even though I was not there at the time. As I write this I have opened another website and I am listening to great music on AM740 radio on my earphones. Technology is a wonderful thing and as it is changing so quickly, it is great to know that radio seems to be hanging around. However, when you look at the faces of all the DJs you come to realize that there is not one young one in the whole group. What does that mean, a new generation? I just stopped to listen to the 6 a.m. news. Nothing much there of any interest unless you are into what is going on in North Korea or who now owns Woody Guthrie's collection of original recordings and records. He wrote the original song "This Land is Your Land."  Other than that, nothing else comes to mind that I would call news but I do enjoy the older music they play.

I have been pigging out this week in anticipation of my upcoming diet. I am not sure how it will work but I am going to do what I can to slowly change my bad habits, cut down a great deal on certain foods and move away from those things that go directly to fat around the belly and buttocks. I also plan to spend the winter doing some swimming stuff and water exercises. I am walking a lot better but I don't have the necessary stamna as of yet. Hopefully that will improve too.

Have a great day. Time for me to grab a nap.

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 6:30 a.m.

Well, I am home again in my own bed. How nice it is. I arrived around 1:30 yesterday afternoon and went to sleep within an hour. Other than another hour along the way and a couple of trips to the washroom, I basically slept some fifteen hours. That was certainly a change. I guess it is difficult to sleep on someone else's sofa for three nights and not get a bad sleep. It was a terrific holiday nevertheless and I thank them for it.

Since I did not have a lot to say today, I worked on my Hockey Pageand added that to the website. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Have a great day.

Bob

Tuesday 1 a.m., December 27th, 2011

What do people see that you do not see? Well, as a guy I should automatically see the name of my blog as my nephew sees it except that I am not in my early 20s and girl crazy. Otherwise the "PANT" in panthouse would have a totally different meaning. I am too far gone from the days when the drive of being a man was controlling my every waking minute. Today, the thought of things sexual cross my mind occasionally but seldom does it occupy my ever-waking moments. My concerns these days are whether I will make it to the bathroom in time and can I get up from the chair. We tend ot forget that the aging process takes its toll on us. I suffer from arthritis, gout, a single kidney, a fatty liver and a number of other issues that seem to come with old age and obesity. I find it hard to get my breath at times and keeping my apartment clean, even as small as it is, is a monumental chore. If I drop something on the floor it can remain there for days until I get around to finding my pincher-arm to pick it up. I have myself conditioned with washing dishes on a regular basis but the floor is a totally different thing. Naturally the bathroom gets done more than the rest of the apartment but even then I can remember times when I was ashamed of it. I am hoping that my diet will help me stay on my feet longer so it will make the management of chores a lot easier. Heck, I might even start chaisng girls again.

Genetics fascinate me. I have benn contemplating the futre of the Carswell family mix with the new additons of this and possibly the next generation. We are Celts from Ireland and Scotland, possibly Picts and certainly Angles and Saxon from Germany. We are Vikings from Sweden and the current generation is adding Celts from Wales, German from Switzerland and a mix of Dutch and German from the Netherlands. My eldest nephew also seems to be attracted by Itlaian girls so that is another strain that will be added to the family tree. For all we know there could be some black Irish back there too. The phenominal thing about yDNA, the male side of things is that the genetic makeup of the male line is exactly the same as it was thousands of years ago, except for the occasional hiccup that has affected strains here and there. For example, a fellow named Jack in Vancouver, another named Ian in Australia and I share the exact same yDNA yet two other fellows in Australia are one digit out in one number in the sequence which indicates that slight varience I spoke of earlier. That generally means we were all born of the same family but at very different times. Where it really gets interesting is where we share the same yDNA with other males in the world who have totally different surnames. These lads were born with a different surname reference and often with a Mc preceding the name indication the notation of being the "son of" a particular person who was only known by their first name. That in itself denotes that the name was selected long before the common name of our family began and could most likely not be traced back to its roots on the family tree in modern records because it happened so long ago.

When one asks how the family name of CARSWELL came about I can give you a number of answers all of which quite plausible. First, it is noted in some places as being part of a particular land formation. Then it also relates to the name Cresswell and comes from the "well" or place in the stream were watercress grows at which they went to get their water for the day. Now, I have also come with another plausible answer. Being of the Scottish Clan of KERR, i could profess that I lived near the watering hole where the Kerrs got their water simply because the spelling of Kerr also appears as KER, CARR and CAR which also fits nicely with CAR's WELL. What do you think? I like mine the best.

Well that's about enough for today. I don't want to give it all away in one blog. "Have a happy!"    

GOT THE MONDAY BLUES?

No reason for that because it is still part of the Christmas holidays. We had a great family gathering, albeit in different ways. My son and daughter Skyped in this evening while the nephews and their wonderful girlfriends turned up in two groups, one last night, the other today. It was truly a family affair as no one else dropped in unlike past events. One problem though, the 6 year old 41-inch flat-panel TV gave up the ghost around 1 a.m this morning. I watch as the family here went to work scrambling for details, repair stories, finding suitable replacements and so on. By later this afternoon, the entire back of the TV had been stripped and the two small fuses located. Today, they will be found and it is hoped will bring the TV to life again for another 6 years. It seems this old Panasonic model was not one of the best. Otherwise, the turkey was great and the company superb.

Now that we have moved on to Monday, I expect to start thinking about my return trip home until we meet again for the next turkey. It is always a great visit and certainly worth the trip. This summer I plan to start digging through my storage unit and make an effort to downgrade it again. It is a never-ending battle but has to be done before I am too old to do it anymore. However, before then I have a lot of writing to do and a lot of editing to complete. The days never seem to end. Have a great Monday and don't forget, they always lead to Tuesdays and nobody likes doing laundry on Tuesdays. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS December 25th, 2011, 1:25 a.m.

I know it is only 1 o'clock in the morning but here I am waiting to see if I can catch Santa as he races through. We had a lovely supper tonight, a leg of lamb and we enjoyed the company of family that could make it for the first feast of the weekend. Now we get to cook the big bird and enjoy the 23 pound turkey. I love Christmas for that reason. But alas, it will be a long time until the next turkey is roasted. I am already dreading this diet I have planned for the new year. Even so, Christmas is for the enjoyment of the family and it is a gathering of the clan, so to speak. My older brother and I are closer to 70 than we wish to admit but such is life and the generations do have to go by. It is what it is.

My nephew David and his girlfriend Courtney were here from Thompson, Manitoba and his older brother Alex will be arriving later this morning with his special girl Christina. It seems that life continues on as it did for us in our own youth. Matt is still single but there is hope for him too. My son Robin will be in Victoria for Christmas with his sister and mother's family. He is arriving at some point from London, England.

The concept of the FAMILY unit is a unique thing. It draws on outside sources to create and widen the various branches of the family tree and regardless of whether or not the relationships continue, the offsprings become permanent parts of new families and they too have to go through the process of life. Life is a continual process and we look at one and another and see others in faces. My brother and I look like our English grandmother but with the blue eyes that were provided by her Swedish-Finnish husband. They are good eyes and unlike both of our parents who had considerable eye problems and wore coke glasses, we still carry on without glasses. At the same time however, we inherited family traits that one does not want but we have to deal with on a daily basis. Such are the results of millions of years of mixing DNA and hoping that the outcome will be as good or better than the last generation.

While you ponder all this, I want you to have a wonderful Christmas celebration and to remember that had it not been for the FAMILY you would not be enjoying the celebrations you are enjoying today. Now where is the axe and that turkey? 

Saturday, December 24th, 2011 3:30 a.m.

Tomorrow is a very special day for some religious types and especially for kids, for a totally different reason. We celebrate the festivities of our ancestors as they have done for some 2,000 years. We accept the beliefs of our ancestors or change our mind along the way and start to  believe something else. It is the right of mankind to do so and for that reason many countries today accept the practice of all religions within their borders. So, being an athiest or agnostic, whichever I am, I don't believe that the stories I have been told since childhood are the be all, end all of religion. Remember, they were first told 2,000 years ago when everyone was afraid of everything, when the Romans pinned people to crosses and threw the Christians into the lions ring to be eaten by the most feared beast of the day. Then there is the one about the virgin birth and Adam and Eve only having two sons. That sure ended the family tree. Oops, where did the rest of us come from? Now in the 20th century we look to the heavens not for God or Christ but to see how much and how far we can see. Heaven, as some believe it to be, is not just above the clouds like our ancestors always thought. And the angels do not sit on the clouds and play harps. In fact, today we are looking at worlds that could support life that are more than half a dozen lifetimes away and we seem to have the means to see them. Now how do I mix the beliefs of 2,000 years with all that, toss in the millions of years of unrecorded beliefs before that, add the fact that we are descended from the same tree as the Great Ape's ancestors and carry more than 96% of the genetic makeup of the Bonobo,  a smaller version of the Chimpanzee, from whose tree we branch off? The answer is simple. I cannot. For those reasons, I cannot believe in modern views of religion and my intelligence tells me that although I cannot tell you how our world exists or developed, I can tell you that the efforts to take advantage of the past as a fear tool is nothing new. For 2,000 years we have listened to the battle between heaven and hell and now, in the 21st century, the Anglican Church has finally come to the conclusion that there really is no such place as Hell. Wow, what a relief...I am sure I was headed in that direction. Then there is that old line, "if the facts don't fit the story, make the story fit the facts." Now, that does not mean that I disagree with the teaching of religion, they have played a most important part in the development of our world and allowed us to slowly establish communities and ourselves as humans with rights and wrongs, with values and with a number of other traits that have put us ahead of the rest of the animal kingdom.  Unfortunately, an adherance to religion has held back a number of races of people and their staunch beliefs have also killed their own kind. But, even so, they too are beginning to realize that they have to change to be come part of a better world. Like most of my family, my intelligence is rated in the top 5% of the population yet at the same time, I am not perfect. But it will also tell you that if I think some of what I am saying is intelligent, then maybe you should think about it too and think about what you believe. I have a respect for all the goodness that religions of the world have brought to our world and totally believe that it is time that religious persecution should be ended forever. Yet there are others who are so embeded in their beliefs and fall in an intelligence level so far below mine that they cannot be reasoned with. It is these individuals who hold back the rest of the world and make it a difficult place to live. Perhaps one day, the beliefs of the world will change their ideas when we finally are able to answer the question, "how did the whole world and universe begin?" Only then will we be able to live in peace and go on with our lives without the fear of what is over the next hill. Until then, be kind to your neighbour, love your family, accept that others have different religious beliefs, customs and attitudes than you and do your best to accept what is without having to change it. In that way, you will come to understand others, their ways of life and together we will hopefully make this a better place to live.

Happy Holidays!  

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Good morning,

Have you had your breakfast yet? It is that time of the day for me. I am up, raring to go and I just had one of my favourite breakfasts, chicken slices and cheddar cheese with mayo on buttered Swedish light rye toast....lightly toasted, of course. Don't ask me how I started to eat that combination, it just happened that way. Not much cooking involved but lots of flavour to deal with. Here are a few variations I still have to try. Toasted rye bread with peanut butter and fried bananas, rolled in bread crumbs and fried a second time. I have a great passion for raspberry jam and cheddar cheese and then I also make a mean tuna fish salad. The one thing about food that is always important to the palate is flavour. What I have learned in cooking and through a decade of being in the food industry, anything is a flavour for food. If you can eat it, it is able to flavour food. I have used ginger tea in stews, cold coffee in cookies, chocolate mix in yogurt and all sorts of other things you would not think about. I cannot think about them at the moment either.

Another trick to learn about cooking is the balance between sweet and sour. If you put too much salt in a soup, balance it off with some sugar.....and vice versa. If you don't have any sugar, use honey, sweetners, whatever you substitute for sugar. They all do the job. Most important, don't hesitate to use spices. After a few years anything without spices seems very bland. I make sure that my dishes always include garlic powder, black pepper, and Italian oregano. The spices that come from the Caribbean under those names tend to be very different so be careful when you go shopping. Try a little nutmeg or mace in your mashed potatoes. It creates a whole new flavour for the palate to deal with.

Now, when it comes to cooking on the stove, move away from the traditional pots. I have found that having a bunch of stainless steel mixing bowls is a great way to cook. I can put them directly on the small burner and boil potatoes or spagetti without the worry of the water boiling over the top. The only tradeoff is that sometimes things stick to the bottom and burn a bit. Even so, the net result is good food and no spillage. They also make baking a cake really easy if you are not concerned with the final appearance. Mix the ingredients up in a mixing bowl and simply pop it into the oven. If you want a different shaped cake, oil another mixing bowl, then sprinkle it with a pile of flour and add the cake mixture. You will be able to gather out a great rounded cake for icing. I seldom make my own icing anymore. I leave that up to the experts at Duncan Heinz and I simply buy their icing. Heck, we cannot be experts at everything.

But alas, my days of the wonderful foods and all the cakes and cookies is coming to an end. I have about 8 more days of happiness and then  I stop eating for the rest of my life...well, I stop eating they way I do it now. My goal is to drop ten pounds per month and see where that leads me. Soon I will have a closet full of fat man pants and not know what to do with them. I will have to decide, buy new or head off to the tailor. I just solved a sandal problem yesterday at the Aldo shoe store at the discount mall. While everyone is selling winter shoes and dress shoes, they were selling off the remains of their summer shoes and I found a pair of Chinese made Size 13 sandals that fit me like the Size 10 that I am. Now all I have to do is wear them in so they stop cutting the top of my feet to pieces.

Have a great day and don't let the mosquitos bite....  

3:37 a.m., December 22nd, 2011

I have already been up for an hour and I feel pretty good. I dashed off a few email replies and thought about my new website. I have not figured out how to make things all happen here yet so bare with me. There are titles that are looking for words but I do not know what to do with them to make them work yet. I still forget to go to the Blog Page to make an entry. I have the photo section worked out so that's good. Otherwise everything is "learn as you go."

My daughter won't let me put her 13-week belly photo on the website...heck, she roams around in bikinis all summer, what is the difference? I have a pot and it does not bother me....I just let it all hang out....well, for another ten days and then, CHOP CHOP!

I am trying to figure out how this website works so I can make full use of it. I want to start a page called TWIGS of the family tree. It is a series of family stories that I have been telling everyone in the family, a result of my research over the years. We have a very fascinating history that I think you would enjoy reading. It connects to Prime Ministers of Canada, The Parliment buildings in Ottawa, to famous Canadian photographers, the British hierarchy, the builders of Glasgow, the London Stock Exchange, and the London Docks. It cover the period of the Border Reivers, the days of the old sailing ships and early development of the Swedish parts of Finland.

My military historical research will take you back to WWII and it will look at both sides of the war. It will talk about the many people who I interviewed over the years and tell you their stories. That will happen on a separate website called STORIES OF WORLD WAR TWO. There are some very unique photos and histories you might want to know about. Internet friends all over the world have helped me with this one and I am proud to call them friends. That is all coming down the road so bare with me for a bit.

Well, it is almost four a.m. and time for me to get back to my book editing for a couple of hours. So, I will leave you here and wish you a fun day of shopping and a last minute of work....after all, we have to do a bit of that too.