April 13, 2020 . . .

Duty is a lot easier this time! Just staying at home – cooped up like everybody else. (That is, for all of us seniors – South Windsor Seniors, I should say.) A whole lot easier than standing guard duty on the roof of a GATR Site in Sioux Lookout in the winter!
And, like a lot of us, I’m looking for something to do. I think I’ve decided. I think, that every few days, I’m going to write something and post it on my blog. So here goes . . .
I hope that everyone’s safe and smiling!
You know, it’s interesting what you remember, or maybe it’s just part of growing old. I’m thinking back to a Christmas, a long time ago. I think I was eight years old, when my brother Ken gave me a hockey stick and a puck. And the time that my Dad took me for a walk downtown to see what was missed in the large wooden barrel. It was left in an alleyway (I think it was behind a building on Pitt Street) full of straw. My job, as a little boy, was to pull a wagon, and we found several plates to take home to Mom! Wow! That was how it was, growing up in the 1940’s.
And, then there was my other brother, Jim. We were both in the RCAF in 1963. I was stationed in Sioux Lookout and Jim was stationed in Saskatoon. I was looking for something to do, so I thought – Why not visit Jim, just for the heck of it! So, on my days off, I hitched a ride to Station Trenton, where I got a flip in a Flying Box Car to Station Winnipeg. (For those of you that don’t know what a flip is, a flip is a ride in a service airplane that just happens to have a seat free for an off-duty serviceman or servicewoman.) From there I got a ride to Headlingly, Manitoba.
It was there that Duff Roblin picked me up. I didn’t know him, so he introduced himself and told me I was in luck – he could give me a ride right thru to Moosjaw, just a few miles south of Saskatoon! Wow! Mr. Roblin was, at that time, the Premier of Manitoba!
And, years later, Ken and his wife, Vera, Jim and Rosemary, my brother and sister, drove up and visited Inge and I, when we lived in Perth. My two brothers and I drove into town and ended up at the Legion. We got talking to the bartender, and when he found out we were all Veterans, he called the curator of the war museum in Perth. That man drove over fifteen miles into town and opened the museum, just so we could see it! Then he gave us a guided tour of the museum!
Memories – just a few.
I don’t know how long we’ll be cooped up, or what will happen. I don’t think anybody does. However, I do know that, when Inge and I moved back to Windsor, it was a good move.
Stay safe and keep smiling!
‘til we meet again . . .