Hello and welcome to a wet Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is August 15th. This past week, the Youngest celebrated his golden birthday. I remember my golden birthday. I was 7 years old. I had 2 parties: one with my immediate family and then one at my aunt and uncle's farm. Now that I think about it, maybe they just had a party-party and I thought it was for me because it was my golden birthday, because when you're a kid, golden birthdays are a very big deal. I have a photograph of my dad and me at the extended family party. My dad looms large, with lumberjack arms and a deep tan from summers spent working outside on his myriad engines. Maybe he'd built a garage that summer, or had repaired a roof. In any case, when I look at that photo, to me he looks like a live version of the phrase "strapping young man," at age 34 and despite smoking- let's just say - 4 packs of Marlboros a day. And in the photo, this brown (relatively healthy), strong man is...
After a Russian MiG fighter pilot defected to the US during the Cold War, he was taken on a tour of an American supermarket. The Russian, having grown up in a world of scarcity and shortages, thought the store had been staged for his benefit. No, he was told, this is how it is here. You made the right choice landing your plane here. I appreciate the abundance and variety of foods available even in a remote place like Roseau. I am grateful to the farmers, truck drivers and the efficient bureaucrats who make it all possible. Now that I've said that, I'm going to whine about the checkout process. Some of the cashiers are great. You can have a true human interaction with them. But many are too busy chatting with the adjacent cashier to see me as more than a credit card. "Tap it again, dear." So I was delighted when our store installed self-checkout stations. There was a learning curve at first, but there was a staff person to make things right. ...