text:
The Curious Avenues of Professorial Inquiry
Posted on 12 May 20 by Tony Thomas	4 Comments
Professor Petra Tschakert at the University of Western Australia is halfway through a project to "locate loss from climate change in everyday places". These places include my very own Perth stamping ground of Willagee.
Heavens, my parents moved to Willagee in late 1953, when it was raw sand. Willagee featured the Housing Commission's half-finished jerry-built houses, for wharf toilers like my stepfather and ferals like our neighbours. I say jerry-built because, for example, our bath was cracked. The Commission installed a replacement, also cracked. We lived with it. My parents died but my big sister to this day is a Willagee girl. No-one knows more about 67 years of climate change impacts in Willagee, if any, than me and my sister.
I write all this with trepidation. I was backlashed when I last wrote about Willagee in 1981. Bob Gottliebsen had just started Business Review Weeklyand for a year I had to write all the Letters to the Editor. It was boring and as a family in-joke I wrote myself a letter urging capital gains tax on family homes, and signed it, "G. Princip, Willagee, WA". Someone from Perth wrote us a real and blistering response saying there was no G. Princip of Willagee on the electoral roll. The rotter had noticed my G. Princip might be the same Gavrilo Princip who shot the archduke and started the First World War. After reflecting for several seconds, we threw that complaint in the bin.
Anyway, Geography Professor Tschakert is discovering — with the help of a $353,000 research grant from grateful taxpayers — how my sister and I, plus other Willagee types, manage our climate "grief and hope".Innovatively, she helps us cope with our "intolerable losses".
Her four-year study also covers suburban Attadale and Kelmscott, further-out Darlington, and the wheatbelt towns of Toodyay, Northam, Merredin and Southern Cross. The research is not just academic folderol. She claims two significant benefits: "from this science of loss" she will do a "critical analysis" of our "community resilience in the face of socio-economic and environmental threats". She will also sool town planners or others from the government to help us. Her broad aim is to see how the ghastly impacts of climate change, namely "fire, drought and flooding", are putting our deepest values at risk.
Memo to Dr Tschakert: It would take a Noah's Ark extreme event to flood Willagee. It's mostly on a big hill.
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Fires? The only Willagee fire I can remember is when some lousy brats lit our Guy Fawkes' bonfire and ran off laughing. Drought? Our sprinklers doused the back lawn all morning in the Fifties and Sixties. For dam shortages since, blame The Greens.
The professor's project also embraces Willagee's near-neighbour, Attadale, a riverside joint once home to Heath Ledger and cricketers Mitchell and Shaun Marsh. Not much flood, fire and drought there either.
Her third suburb, Kelmscott, did suffer a bushfire in 2011, lit by some idiot on his private block in defiance of a windy fire-ban day. There'd been drought-fuelled build-up of grass and dry bush — nothing whatsoever to do with global warming. Ex-Resources Minister Matt Canavan last March forced sheepish CSIRO top brass to admit they had no studies demonstrating a link between climate change, fire weather and bushfires. Likewise, top climate crusader Dr Andy Pitman, of UNSW, publicly let slip last June there was no reason why global warming should worsen droughts, rather the contrary.[1] Since both Pitman and Tschakert are IPCC top lead authors. It's time they got their stories aligned.
I don't really understand Willagee's climate grief because the latest HadCrut global temp trend shows a mere 0.8degC rise in the past 80 years. For most Willagee veterans, the priority is flogging their blocks in a dud real estate market.
As for the professor's concern for safeguarding our values, my Willagee family know a lot about values. We got kicked out of our rented home on Stirling-highway, Nedlands in 1953 and wound up in "Mulberry Farm", a decrepit ex-air force camp near Fremantle. Mum has written of it as
this pinched little settlement where the homeless and dispossessed of the city were herded … Nights erupted into fights, the crash of breaking bottles, torrents of abuse between couples run ragged by the tension of waiting [for a Commission home], dogs barking in sympathy, an altercation that took a serious turn, a burly axe-wielder chasing a woman shouting, 'Don't you try that trick again, you bitch!' followed by the shriek of a police car siren.[2]
Stepfather Vic lumped sacks "down hold", the wharf's most dangerous and dirty work: "Bags of asbestos sometimes broke in the sling hanging from the high crane and showered men with the stuff. Only later did they know it to be deadly, even to women washing their overalls." Bad as the job was, it was worse when Vic caught the bus to Freo and got no job at the morning pickup, wasting his morning and his fares.
Finally came the letter offering us a cottage in Willagee (nicknamed "White-ant City"). We lived a week inside by candlelight until the electricity came on from Collie fossil fuel, but we didn't mind that.
Our neighbours comprised a man prone to beating his slatternly wife. Their feral kids and dogs all had fleas. The wife would lament to us that her oldest was "a ba-a-a-d boy!" hinting at misfortunes involving his sister and even herself. The least of his bad habits was throwing fire-crackers into the dunny where his mother sat screaming.
Mum at some point in exasperation told the husband to "drop dead". Two days later he and I were walking to the bus stop and a snappy mongrel jumped at him. He slid to the ground dead of a heart attack or stroke. Mum went in to console the widow. "'e was the breadwinner," she sobbed.
Their youngest boy grew up to serve a long stretch for rape. Mum provided the judge a character reference based on his hopelessly compromised Willagee upbringing.
Opposite our house was a newly-planted pine plantation on land owned by the incredibly wealthy University of Westerm Australia. We watched it grow for 40 years. It was cut down for suburban plots about the same year my folks paid off their mortgage.
Willagee today is gentrifying fast, swanky bungalows replacing the fibro-clad Commission homes. But pockets of old Willagee remain, including a cohort that forced the Butler Street liquor outlet to become a steel-clad fortress against break-ins.
Dr Tschakert can use any of this in her peer-reviewed report, free of charge. I fancy it's as good as her own output.[3]
For example, she thinks recent bushfires, floods and cyclones are uniquely extreme. They ain't. Not a climate modeller herself, she expresses touching faith in the mainstream IPCC models, of which 111 of 114 runs exaggerated the warming trends, according to the IPCC itself.[4] She thinks it "reckless" to ignore the models' forecasts and worst-case scenarios, which the IPCC in 2001 said must by definition be bogus.[5][6] She needs to read the devastating critiques of climate forecasting models by oceanic modeller Dr Mototaka Nakamura (MIT, Duke, Jet Propulsion Laboratory):
These models completely lack some critically important climate processes and feedbacks, and represent some other critically important climate processes and feedbacks in grossly distorted manners to the extent that makes these models totally useless for any meaningful climate prediction. [7]
Professor Tschakert specialises in people's "anticipatory" grief over global warming, ie., stuff that hasn't happened yet and might never happen: "There is fantastic research that shows how to embrace grief and loss in an anticipatory way. A term that is used is anticipatory history."[8]
She also appears to disparage individual resilience to climate because the nanny state ought to fix things:
… the Australian states would like to see their citizens ideally as resilient citizens that can adapt by themselves, that can make the right choices but on their own, (they) ought to be reinventing themselves to take care of something which, really, truthfully, ought to be the responsibility of the state.
Dr Tschakert seems unduly lugubrious, writing papers like "One thousand ways to experience loss: A systematic analysis of climate-related intangible harm from around the world."[9] She needs to look up tangibles like global agricultural yields. After a half-century of warming and extra CO2, yields for wheat, barley, rice, soybeans, spuds, and bananas continue to rise. On just about any indicator of health and well-being, the globe's population has never been better off (ChiCom virus and ChiCom threats excepted).
In another co-authored paper called "A science of loss" she also plumbs "strategies for embracing and managing grief".[10] A co-author was Melbourne Uni's Jon Barnett who had enough common sense to call b/s on Extinction Rebellion zealots at Melbourne University last December, much to their indignation. I clearly recognise Barnett's hand in this minatory paragraph:
Predictions of loss may themselves contribute to loss. Dramatic narratives about future crises have been shown to influence the risk of crises occurring. Several studies explain how talk of catastrophic climate futures rarely leads to mitigation and adaptation but instead results in fatalism, self-blame, underinvestment in vulnerable places, and even accelerated degradation of natural resources.
I did some "anticipatory history" of my own by attending Tschakert's lecture at Sydney University next August titled "Epistemic Violence and Slow Emergencies in Today's Climate Justice: A Provocation".[11] The problems of time travel compounded when the lecture was virus-postponed indefinitely but I still caught the gist of it, Captain Kirk-style.[12] She asked,
How do we find our ways within these emerging dilemmas [re basic climate justice] without losing track of core development goals in the Anthropocene and our commitment to decolonizing development and disaster scholarship?
It does all really make sense, or would if there actually was any "Anthropocene".
The $64 question is how much Willagee temperatures have actually risen in the past century or so. The answer is 1degC, or nearly that. I can't see how this small increase over 100 years can cause anyone much inconsolable grief and loss.[13] I wouldn't notice 1decC change over five minutes, let alone 70 years.
In any case my sister and I can now buy ample Kleenex at Willagee's Butler Street IGA to mop our climate tears.
Tony Thomas's new book,Come to think of it – essays to tickle the brain, is available as book ($34.95) or e-book ($14.95)here.
[1] "…as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought…there is no reason a priori why climate change should make the landscape more arid…this may not be what you read in newspapers."
[2] Williams, Justina, Anger & Love, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1993, p164. Also p180.
[3] A little coincidence: our first home from ca 1942 was at Number 30, Stirling Highway, Nedlands. Professor Tschakert now works at No. 35.
[4] "… an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations [computer models] reveals that 111 out of 114 realisations show a [temperature] trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend [actual temperatures] ensemble. This difference between simulated and observed trends could be caused by some combination of (a) internal climate variability, (b) missing or incorrect radiative forcing, and (c) model response error." [chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769]
[5] IPCC: "In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible." (Chapter 14, Section 14.2.2.2. )]
[6] MURRAY-DARLING BASIN ROYAL COMMISSION, Tschakert evidence, p3451
[7] Nakamura: The take-home message is (that) all climate simulation models, even those with the best parametric representation scheme for convective motions and clouds, suffer from a very large degree of arbitrariness in the representation of processes that determine the atmospheric water vapor and cloud fields. Since the climate models are tuned arbitrarily …there is no reason to trust their predictions/forecasts. With values of parameters that are supposed to represent many complex processes being held constant, many nonlinear processes in the real climate system are absent or grossly distorted in the models. It is a delusion to believe that simulation models that lack important nonlinear processes in the real climate system can predict (even) the sense or direction of the climate change correctly.
[8] MURRAY-DARLING BASIN ROYAL COMMISSION, Tschakert evidence, p3457.
[9] The professor also ran an undergraduate unit last year called, simply, "Disasters".
[10] Nature Climate Change; London Vol. 6, Iss. 11, (Nov 2016): 976-978. DOI:10.1038/nclimate3140
[11] If Professor Tschakert is a top-level UWA salaried professor she's on a base pay of $188,708 plus masses of perks starting with 17% super. A nice. little 2.6% pay rise for all UWA academics is scheduled next January.
[12] Commander of starship USS Enterprise
[13] Perth temp data from 12km away are all we've got. The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) ships temp data for Perth to the UK as inputs to the HadCRUT global temp series. For some reason the Met mobilises two data sets, one called "Perth Regional Office", and one called "Perth", from slightly different site locations. Both start at 1910 but the first stops at 1992 and the other is on-going. I know "the science is settled" but the two nearby sites have differed by as little as 0.4degC and as much as 1.4degC, with strange jumps perhaps suggesting data faults. The past century's temp trend is either 0.8degC ("Regional Office") or 1degC ("Perth").
Alistair – 12th May 2020
Love it Tony! I particularly like "anticipatory history" I'm going to use that myself! I've been reading Gertrude Himmelfarb about postmodern history being liberated from the tyranny of facts and thought that pretty was good. But this opens a whole new range of possibilities.
Peter Smith – 12th May 2020
I liked it too Tony. But I want to know whether people like Prof Tschakert have always (back into the sixties at least) occupied parts of academia and we simply didn't notice. I assume not cos I didn't notice back then. So when did they emerge and multiply; and how did they ever get these cushy jobs?
Tony Tea – 12th May 2020
When I was at school in the 70s we watched a CSIRO environmental fillum called System 6: A Fragile Nest. It was a documentary about Perth's ecosystem and how Perth was a monte to run out of water unless measures were taken. I can't remember what those measures were, but the doco was a cautionary tale against overpopulation in Perth.
I'm assuming that you in Perth are all pretty thirsty about now. I'm also assuming that if the temperature in Willagee has increased by 1°C in 100 years and there was nothing there in 1920 and something there in 2020, concrete, tiles and tar might just contribute to that 1°C rise. Not that you'd notice.
ianl – 12th May 2020
It seems there are advantages to academic tenure that those unendowed have not fully appreciated. Going Through the Looking Glass with Alice is actually a simple, requisite activity.
Doubting Thomas – 12th May 2020
Ianl, just as long as you check your sense of proportion at the door. It's moments like these that make me content, if not exactly glad, that these cushy jobs in academia are available if only to keep such raving nutcases happily occupied, and away from real jobs where they could do real damage.
Our taxes being well spent for once.
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4 thoughts on "The Curious Avenues of Professorial Inquiry"
12 May 20 at 11:05 am
"Anticipatory history", better known as "manipulative fiction".
This "academic" would have been writing peer reviewed chronicles of the search for the Holy Grail.
Pete Ridley says:
I tried to post the following comment onto your Quadrant article but there was nowhere for me to enter my details required prior to commenting.
Much more about the rabble-rousing founders and other significant members of Extinction Rebellion can be found in my article "spitlightON ExtibctionRebellion/RisingUP?/CompassionateRevolutionLtd! (https://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2019/04/spotlighton-extinction-rebellion.html).
organisation.
Some revealing quotes –
" .. Extinction Rebellion isn't about the climate .. never say we're a climate movement .. we're not. We're a Rebellion .. coming together through .. mass political action that breaks the law. It's the most effective way .. to actually create a
crisis in society .. Through mass civil resistance, we're going to create a
new global regime .. we are creating a separate, true, fundamental democracy ..
Extinction Rebellion is .. just about democracy .. we are calling for a fundamental change of the political and economic system .. We believe .. that confrontation through mass civil disobedience is necessary .. ".
" .. I run a charity and its mostly about securing your own salary .. ".
Anyone supporting this lot of mad anarchists should be licked up for a long, long time.
In Parts 1 and 2 of his Quadrant article on Extinction Rebellion – that enthusiastic scaremonger about predicted almost imminent global climate chaos/catastrophe/emergency arising from our burgeoning use of fossil fuels – Tony mentioned a few of the rabble-rousing XR founding and fellow members, i.e:
– "mother" of XR, Gail Bradbrook,
– XR's inspirational fantasist, Roger Hallam,
– theologian Stuart Basden,
– XR spokesman, philosopher and environmental activist Rupert Read.
Given their doom laden CACC message, it is reasonable to expect at least some of those XR members would have relevant education, training or experience in the hard scientific disciplines required for any hope of understanding the processes and drivers of the different global climates. There is virtually no evidence of this, with only one founding member (Gail Bradbrook) appearing to have relevant education – but without relevant training or experience)..
More on each of these members (and many others) can be found in the article "SpotlightON-ExtinctionRebellion/RisingUP?/CompasdionateRevolutionLtd!" (https://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2019/04/spotlighton-extinction-rebellion.html), Sub-section 3.1 "Founding Members and Associates".
Meanwhile, here are some snippets:-
3.1.1 Gail Marie Bradbrook .. is a molecular biophysicist by training, though she hasn't worked in that capacity for quite some time. Not long after finishing her post-doctoral research into 'protein saccharide interactions', she became a consultant for several 'political charities' and has, for the past 18 years worked exclusively as a professional campaigner – a role which, during a talk at Off-Grid Festival, she admits is 'mostly about securing your own pay-check' ..
3.1.2 Julian Roger Hallam .. is a researcher into social and political issues .. He holds several directorships, including with Compassionate Revolution Limited .. and Radical Think Tank Ltd .. since its incorporation in 2016 ..
Gail Bradbrook said that, following having her brain rewired by psychedelic drugs in Costa Rica .. " .. When I arrived back to the UK I was introduced to Roger Hallam and together we began to create the movement that would become Extinction Rebellion. Roger is an academic who specialises in radical campaign design and at the end of our first meeting, which involved the sharing of lots of ideas, information and data, he joked that he had just given me 'the codes for social changes'. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up .. ".
His "Open Democracy" blog profile says " .. Roger Hallam is an activist and social entrepreneur. He is currently doing a PhD at Kings College on the design of digitally enhanced political resistance and empowerment strategies .. " .. He appears to believe that .. " .. climate change is about race. .. " .. It is claimed that he recently said .. "My PhD is in how to cause trouble effectively .. Through mass civil resistance, we're going to create a new global regime .. " (https://newint.org/features/2018/11/01/climate-breakdown).
In her 13th April 2019 Mail-On-Sunday article "The middle-class zealots who'll make Monday a misery for millions with eco-activist group planning to bring chaos to Britain" reporter Holly Bancroft (who infiltrated the XR organisation) commented " .. The most prominent – and radical – of the XR leaders is failed organic farmer and PhD student Roger Hallam. After years in a succession of Left-wing groups, the 52-year-old says the 'name of the game' for XR is to 'bring down all the regimes in the world and replace them' .. In a recent interview, he said XR protesters should be ready to cause disruption through personal 'sacrifice'. If necessary, they 'should be willing to die' .. ".
3.1.5 Stuart Jeffrey Basden .. Although there is a dearth of information about Stuart Basden's qualifications, in his article "Positive encounters .. " .. he does provide a link to his 2007 theological thesis for the Degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada .. He then volunteered for a year on organic farms in various European countries (perhaps that's how he teamed up with Extinction Rebellion's inspirational co-founder and failed organic farmer Roger Hallam) ..
In July/August 2012 Stuart Basden became Director of Operations for the University of Toronto student group Toronto350 .. " .. We are building a global, grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. We started in June 2012 .. "
He resigned from Toronto350 and moved to Bristol in January 2017, where he " .. quickly got involved with a group of people who were excited enough by the RisingUp mentality .. " .. This was shortly after Gail Bradbrook's return from Kosta Rica following her " .. brain being rewired .. " by psychedelic drugs (see sub-section 3.1.1).
In order to understand better the abnormal mindset of XR's founders and associates it is worthwhile reading the entirety of a Stuart Basden rant archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20190423164501/https://xrblog.org/2019/01/18/extinction-rebellion-isnt-about-the-climate/).
3.1.52 Rupert Read .. Philosopher and Green activist .. Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia (one of the UK's hotbeds of CACC hysteria. He was a Norwich Green Party Councillor from 2004-2011 ..
His web site boasts that " .. Most recently, I have been a frequent spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion and I am a member of their political liaison team .. We need action, and soon, against the values of greed and materialism that have placed us upon the precipice of catastrophic climate and ecological collapse .. "
On 20th August 2018 the Irish Sun newspaper .. article .. "Time to forget climate 'debate'" by comedian Oliver Callan .. told one of his funniest satirical jokes yet, referring to politics/economics philosopher Rupert as an " .. ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERT .. ".
I loved the 15th May comment by en passant on your Quadrant article (https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/05/132997/). He described how convinced UWA were of the impending global doom due to the imminent ice age. Using proven science, their wonderful computer models left them in no doubt that the world would be virtually uninhabitable by the year 2000!!
By all accounts that fantasy has been replaced by the CACC fantasy that the world will be virtually uninhabitable by 2030.
Shades of sadly departed CACC propagandist Professor Stephen Schneider (see https://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2019/10/appendices-to-spotlighton-extinction.html Appendix 6.1).


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text:
Donahey, Gertrude W.
Affiliation Democratic
Name Gertrude W. Donahey
, Ohio , United States
Born August 04, 1908
Died July 11, 2004 (95 years)
Contributor User 13
Last Modifed Thomas Walker
Tags Widowed -
Info Widow of former Lt. Gov. John Donahey. Daughter-in-law of former Sen. Vic Donahey.
Gertrude Walton Donahey was born in Goshen Township in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, on August 4, 1908. Donahey earned a degree from Mann's Business College in Columbus, Ohio, before going to work in the Office of the Ohio Adjutant General's Business and Finance Division.
Donahey eventually became involved in politics as a member of the Democratic Party. Donahey was chosen as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1964 and 1968, as well as representing the state of Ohio on the Democratic Party's platform and resolution committee. In 1964, U.S. Senator Stephen M. Young hired Donahey as his executive assistant, a position that she held until 1970. These experiences prepared Donahey for an elected political position.
In 1970, Donahey became the first woman to be elected to a statewide office in Ohio when she won election as state treasurer. She continued to serve as Ohio's treasurer until 1983. Donahey commanded much respect in this position, both within the state and at the national level. The members of the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers, and Treasurers elected her as their president in 1981.
Donahey was also connected by marriage to two other Ohio politicians. Her husband, John W. Donahey, was Lieutenant Governor of Ohio from 1959 to 1963. A. Victor Donahey, Governor of Ohio and United States Senator, was Gertrude Donahey's father-in-law.
Donahey died in Bexley, Ohio, on July 11, 2004.
Husband John W. Donahey 00, 0000-
Father In-Law A. V. "Vic" Donahey 1873-1946
11/07/1978 OH Treasurer Won 63.51% (+27.02%)
06/06/1978 OH Treasurer- D Primary Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
05/05/1970 OH Treasurer- D Primary Won 43.91% (+9.07%)
OH US President - D Primary - Jun 03, 1980 D Jimmy Carter
OH US President - D Primary - May 02, 1972 D Edmund S. Muskie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Since I read recently how it could make a positive impact on our environment, I've been trying to eat vegetarian more often. And while I've got a few good meatless meals in my repetoir, it is always good to try some new ones. The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen by Peter Berley of Angelica Kitchen in NYC offered some interesting choices. This amazing book has really enticing, sophisticated recipes (and a cute chef.) Moosewood Cookbook it is not. I started with a pasta of cauliflower, raisins and pinenuts that was like nothing I've ever tasted before and very restaurant-y. Next I went with this recipe of White bean, Squash and Sage Ragout over polenta. I went for a layered presentation of polenta, some sauteed garlicky greens and then the vegetable stew. It looked good and smelled good but I overcooked my beans and they got mushy. I thought it was still OK. Dear husband took a pass on leftovers the next day - not a good sign.
Undaunted by this less than successful attempt, I moved on to another vegetable stew. This one from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, one of my favorite cookbooks. Moroccan Chickpea Stew is a little labor intensive, but worth it. This stew is like an exotic chili, full of chickpeas, spinach, tomatoes, onions, garlic and spices. Great dish.
Another fun one that scored major points for vegetarianism with Dear Husband is Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos. At first he grimaced at the idea of sweet potatoes in a burrito; but he changed his opinion soon after tasting. This one is from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, an oldie but a goodie in my cookbook library. These are pretty simple to put together and they come off more as a snacky, indulgent dinner, rather than a healthy one. But they are in fact quite healthy, especially if you use some of those health conscious tortillas that are now available in most supermarkets. (They have no trans-fats and usually added fibre. Some are low carb, some low fat, low-cal, some whole grain: pick your fave. I find they taste pretty good) So if you combine that, with beans and sweet potatoes and you don't overdo it with the cheese, then you're golden. Golden and crispy brown, that is.
Meanwhile, heat 2 T. veg oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute longer, stir in the cumin and chili powder and cook for 1 minute longer. Add the beans and veg stock, cover and cook until beans are soft and the flavors have blended, about 5 minutes. Use a fork or potato masher to coarsely mash the beans. Taste and season with salt and pepper. You should have about 1 1/2 c.
Remove the potatoes from the oven and cool. (Keep the oven at the same temp.) When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, halve and scoop out the flesh. Place flesh in a small bowl and mash with a fork. Discard the potato skin. Add the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. (I don't like nutmeg much, so I went really light.) You should have 1 1/2 - 2 cups.
Spread the tortillas with roughly equal amounts of the bean mixture and top with equal amounts of the potato puree. Sprinkle on equal amounts of scallions and cheese. Roll the tortillas into cylinders and arrange seam side down on a baking sheet (large enough to hole them in one flat layer,) Brush the tops with veg oil. For softer burritos, cover with foil and bake until warmed through, about 20 minutes. Bake uncovered for crispy burritos - that's the way we like them.
If you use bigger tortillas, you make less, of course. I made three big ones from one large sweet potato and 1 can of black beans.
For you Fine Cooking readers: I've got the black bean falafel in mind for a dinner very soon. Sheri - I can't forget the picture you posted of those. Plus I think there's a black bean burger from a recent issue that I haven't gotten around to making.
Deborah Madison is one of my favorites too! Oh, and we loved the black bean burgers.


This will be the year of folding mobile phones. Probably not the year in which they reach maturity but in which we will see suggestions from almost all the big players in the market, including LG, Huawei, Xiaomi and of course Samsung. In fact, the Galaxy X, which can eventually be called Galaxy F or Galaxy Fold is the one that sounds the longest time between different rumors and leaks. And official offers, because Samsung has already talked about its Infinity Flex Display.
On February 20, 1945, the Korean held the date of arrival of their new Samsung Galaxy S10, at a meeting. San Francisco, but now it seems that the tenth generation of mobile line S will have less prominence. The manufacturer announced the release of its Galaxy Fold in networks, which is also on February 20.
This time it's not an invitation to the technological media was sent, but an announcement made through Samsung's Twitter account. "The Future Receive" is the title of a short piece of video showing a folding device, and the appointment for next February 20, 19459005, the date on which we set the Samsung Galaxy S10 in its three variants. Four, if we have a 5G model that may not be in the same event.
. Originally rumored for March, The Fold already released Sounds by the end of February following information from the Wall Street Journal with reference to sources close to the Korean home. But we now have an official announcement in every line, and that was Samsung himself who quoted us next week.
So, it will be February 20 when we are presenting the three models of the Samsung Galaxy S10. The flat model, the normal model and the Plus model. With the fourth phone still in doubt, with its 5G jack, the Galaxy Fold closes the party . It will be necessary to prepare a good coffee, as a long opportunity is provided.


Windows Phone 7 SDK has provided two classes for consuming resources from the web. WebClient and HTTPWebRequest.
HTTPWebRequest is a low level API for web requests. Unlike WebClient, it allows to tinker some of the HTTP aspects like cookies and user agent.
One major advantage of HTTPWebRequest is that it returns on another thread, which comes in handy for large web requests. It will not lock up the UI thread allowing the UI to remain responsive during the request. Since the response is returned on another thread the program should marshal the response back to the UI thread.
HTTPWebRequest is created by the static method HTTPWebRequest.Create().
Call the EndGetResponse() to get the WebResponse, which will contain the stream to read the response.
WebClient is a higher level abstraction of the web request. It wraps the HTTPWebRequest to provide a more easier API to make web requests.
WebClient has a built in mechanism to report progress of the request in percentage. WebClient runs on the same thread, so programs don't have to use the dispatcher to pass data back to the UI thread.
However, since the WebClient runs on the UI thread, it can make the UI unresponsive if the program makes a long running web request.
// Supports reporting the progress of the request.
// Get the response. Runs on the same thread, so doea not require marshaling.
I think there is a place for using both the classes. Being aware of these differences helps to choose the best one for a given situation.
Web developers will find themselves in familiar territory with the navigation in Windows Phone 7.
There are additional methods exposed for going back and forward one step at a time. It is a good practice to check for the CanGoBack and CanGoForward property before calling the navigation methods to make sure there is more in the history to go back or forward.
A software architect by profession with a passion for technology. I try to jot down my random thoughts, things that I learn at work and my personal technology interests. I'm also a hobbyist photographer. To see my gallery, visit my photo blog.


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Home Family 1940 1965Cold Lake High: Cars, Girls, Rock and Roll
Cold Lake High: Cars, Girls, Rock and Roll
Written by Harold McNeill on September 27th, 2014. Posted in Family 1940 1965
Photo Collage: There was never enough time to do it all. Cars, girls, rock and roll were all part of the freedoms that came in the 1950's. If was a unique time in the Canada, and we made the best of it. The majority even managed to graduate with distinction. I was one of the non-distincts, however, my sister, Louise McNeill, graduated with a distinct distinction, that being the 1961 Honour Role. This post makes it clear why I failed to do so.
(Photo selection: Jimmy Martineau, Gordie Wusyk, Billy Martineau and drummer in the background, Gary McGlaughlin, playing at the Tropicana Night Club. Below, the Pinsky Cadillac. Harold McNeill and Aaron Pinsky in a "cool" shot at the Roundel Hotel. Sitting across from us is Dorothy Hartman, an awesome dance partner. We worked out the fine points of the back over flip as shown in the photo top right (Dance photos from the web).
Chapter 3: The High School Years
Link Here for Chapter 1 of the High School Years
Link to Family Stories Index
Perhaps the best way to pick my way through the final two segments of the Cold Lake High School Years is by selecting random memories. Not to worry, I will be discrete while keeping the history and stories interesting as possible. The post is not meant as a titillating account of a small town as in Peyton Place, but seeks instead to provide an account of how I950's High School kids in a small town at the edge of the wilderness on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border lived and loved. For the most part, private matters between consenting students during our time in Cold Lake High would stay in Cold Lake High. That does not mean I won't pick around the edges.
Peyton Place: The sizzling movie version of the best-selling book was released in 1957, just in time for our coming of age. While the movie was toned down, it still raised eyebrows and was soundly condemned in many quarters. By today's standards, it would be relatively tame.
Another thing that will become evident, this story was written from the male perspective. To make any statements about what girls focussed on in the day will be up to them. Any girls who wish to add to my descriptions, please write a few chapters of your own, they will be added to the post so we can compare and contrast our views of life in the 50's.
Two things defined High School boys back then as today – cars and girls. In my day the two consumed an enormous portion of our limited and highly specialized brain space – girls occupied the left hemisphere, cars the right. As we boys couldn't use both halves at the same time, the balance wavered from day to day. For that matter, our brains stopped working altogether when other parts of our anatomy kicked in.
Because we expended so much energy on these things, Sunday was reserved as a day of rest. However, that Sunday R&R only extended to about half my friends as the other half had to get up and attend Mass. It was not so much attending Mass in that beautiful church sitting high on a hill overlooking the lake, as it was deciding exactly how much should be disclosed in the Confessional. No matter that everything was bound to secrecy, there was no way in hell someone was going to confess a very personal transgression(s) to a man they knew well and who certainly knew their voices, Father Emile Champagne.
While Father Champagne was a mover and shaker in our community, a man who was loved by many, there was still the fear of telling him one's deepest secrets. Although he certainly helped where he could, there was no question he maintained strict moral code in which there were no gray lines between right and wrong. If any doubt remained after chatting with Father Champagne on religious matters, catechism took care of the rest. That little book "My Catholic Faith" only came in black and white and what the printed page did not explain, the pencil sketches left no doubt.
I certainly experienced that when I converted to the church in my early twenties and as told in another post, A Moment in Time. One of my dreads, just as with my friends in Cold Lake back in the day, was attending confession where I knew the Priest on a personal basis. As all Priests were men, it must have been doubly hard for the girls.
Of course, I did what many did back then – drove to a neighboring parish in order to confess to a stranger. For my Catholic friends, the greater the transgression the longer the drive! For some in Cold Lake that meant travelling all the way to Diocese H.Q. in St. Paul. During summer holidays, that time of greatest danger, the Diocese had to open two or three extra confessionals, as the line-up of kids from outlying parishes would stretch into the church parking lot (photo right).
Many from Cold Lake would car pool to save on gas and to get their stories straight. At one time in the late fifties St. Paul became known as "Confession Central" and the city fathers started promoting this in order to draw more business to the area. In this new age, it seems it won't be long before some enterprising Diocese will open a confidential "Confessions Page" (monitored by a Priest) on which parishioners in remote area's of the Diocese can get the more difficult transgressions off their chest without travelling a great distance.
Of course not everyone in our school had a problem with walking into that confessional. The reason? It was almost certain they would have to dig pretty deep just to find something worthwhile confessing. I'm sure many walked away with a single Our Father as penance. For me, it might take a few days' to recite the number of Hail Mary's and Our Fathers I was assigned.
There seems little doubt the secrets divulged in the confessional at Cold Lake led Father Champagne to build St. Dominic's Parish School in I957/58. Champagne's Campaign to build the school was likely his way of trying to get a handle on all those extracurricular activities he was hearing about each Sunday. Perhaps it was also a means of helping to reduce the number of marriages he had to perform during the summer after graduation ceremonies were complete. Well, confession or no, it never seemed to interfere with our daily lives.
2. Cars and Girls
While back in the late fifties many of us had access to a car, not all of could lay claim to having that special girl to call our own. Some of my close friend's did, some didn't. I was in the 'didn't' column, a tough place to be for a young man with a fragile ego. For those of us without that special girl, we had to make do with the sense of power and freedom that came with having four wheels and a big V8, although when the V8 fell short, I considered wearing a small button stating: Be Gentle, Fragile Ego.
When we did manage to wrangle a date, the Cold Lake Drive-in was a popular destination. More out of town confessional time had its origin at the Drive in than any other single location in and around Cold Lake and Grand Centre.
Photo (circa 1959): Frank Yochim is just rolling up in his 1957 Plymouth (lower right). I don't recognize the '59 Caddy in front of him. The low lying concession was a busy place and when we were short of money, would sneak in the back way and meet up with friends in a car. That left us with a little loose change for a popcorn and pop.
Don't get me wrong we didn't spent all of our time in the back seat as there was another activity that fueled our interests — Rock and Roll.
It was that undulating blues beat with snare drum in the background that captured the imagination of our generation in a way that helped us to strike back at the traditions that bound society through all those wars and hard times of the first fifty years of the 20th century. Much of the music from the war years was pretty depressing, particularly Country and Western, so when Rock and Roll hit the band stands in the 1950s, it was our way of delineating our generation from that of our parents.
Many of our Friday and Saturday nights began and ended at the extremely popular Tropicana Dine and Dance built on the outskirts of Grand Centre along Highway 28. Today, the building stands as just a shell of its former self. A few decades later on driving to Cold Lake to visit my sister and her family, I stopped to have a look at that lonely, forsaken building and imagined I could see teardrops falling from dust-covered windows.
Photo: The only one I could find of our group dancing was my kid sister, Louise McNeill (Yochim), dancing at some beach party. She was an awesome rock and roller and even took time to dance with her big brother if he didn't have a date.
For our generation, that the Axani Brothers decided to build in our district rather than some larger city, was our good fortune. It was a first class establishment that attracted bands from as far away as Edmonton and Calgary and while the outside bands were exceptional, our very own Gordie Wusyk, Jimmy Martineau, Billy Martineau and Gary McGlaughlin always drew a capacity crowds as they pounded out our favourites of the fifties.
By this point a few of you may be wondering how we managed to get in any schoolwork! Well, not to worry, we squeezed it between the small fissure between the left and right hemispheres and while it was not ideal learning space, we found that if we applied ourselves it was adequate to get through most exams. Anyway, enough talk about schoolwork, back to cars and girls.
3. The Rat Pack and the power of Detroit
As we worked our way through High School, many of us had a fairly powerful cars and our driving skills were good, but no matter how hard we tried, we could never match the power and skill of a group of guys three or four years older who had long since entered the work force. Having a seemingly unlimited stream of cash, these guys owned the best Detroit had to offer so they owned the road.
The 'rat pack' of Kenny Tattinger, Ronny May and their group leader and my future brother-in-law, Frank Yochim, left us in the dust. Frank, Kenny and Ronny would settle for nothing less than the best and the best was the all-new Plymouth that had vaulted the Chrysler Corporation into a commanding lead over General Motors and Ford. The latter two companies were left so far behind that year they fired their entire design teams. (Photo: Frank's fully loaded '57 Plymouth)
The new order of the day was a swept back design with completely new suspension, powerful V8's, TorqueFlight push button transmissions, power steering and brakes and tons of other features upon which legends were built. Literature of the day described the new Plymouth:
The 1957 Plymouth clearly took its cues from space ships. From the eye-browed headlights to the unobstructed greenhouse view, to the smooth, clean, sculptured sides, the idea of an earthbound space vehicle was everywhere.
And this described the power plant:
"Pumping out 215hp in standard form, an additional $36.20 could add a Fury 301 Quad package consisting of a four-barrel carburetor, special distributor, and dual exhausts, raising horsepower to 235 at 4400 rpm. Adding some confusion to this engine was the use of the term "Fury." The Fury 301 V-8 could be had in all car lines except the Fury itself, which came with the 318 as its only power plant. (link)
Several years later years, the Fury gained iconic status when featured in Stephen Kings thriller, Christine, the story of a car that came back to revenge its owner. The lead character, Arnie Cunningham, was a High School outcast who was mercilessly bulled by other kids after he had completely restored a classic 1958 Fury. No matter how hard the bullies tried to destroy that car, it always came back and each time one or more of them would pay a heavy price. In the 1983 movie by Columbia Pictures, 150 Fury's, worth $10,000 each, were demolished as the plot unfolded. (Trailer to Movie)
Of course Frank, Kenny and Ronnie were never bullied and they choose the Fury as it was the best and when it came to laying a jaw-dropping stretch of rubber, Frank Yochim was the best. When that ear popping, deep throated, four barrel, 318 kicked in, Frank stood alone. It was only years later he confided a little known trade secret to his favourite brother-in-law.
To get maximum power to the rear wheels in order to lay that seemingly endless stretch of rubber, Frank would slacken the rear brakes and tighten the front. Gunning the engine and gently touching the brakes held the front wheels back, while the rear rotated freely. By carefully controlling the resulting fish tail, it was possible to cut two strips of gravel all the way from Penner's Garage at the base of the Highway 28 hill leading out of town, until he was out of sight over the crest. Left behind was a massive cloud of dust that extended for several blocks as it drifted across town like a sandstorm in the Sahara. The phantom was gone, but the legend grew.
While it is certain the town cop, Dick Skinty, knew who laid those strips, he never got close enough to catch even a glimpse Frank, Kenny or Ronny. As the men worked out of time much of the time, Constable Skinty must have truly believed these guys were phantoms.
When he did get the occasional chance to pull Frank over, he would invariably check for liquor or other contraband, but Frank was always clean as a whistle and yet, although Frank never drank, he always had a ready supply for friends.
That Frank could transport liquor (highly illegal in Alberta at the time) and never get caught added to the legend. The mystery of course was simple and only revealed to his closest friends. That Fury held a secret that our Town Cop and the Yellow Legs in Bonnyville never figured out. The answer was so simple. Frank had installed a bladder inside the windshield washer tank deep inside the Fury engine compartment.
To set it up he cut the main washer line and connected another line that lead to the glove compartment. The new bladder was filled with the 'drink of the day' (often beer, but sometimes mixed hard liquor), so opening the bar was as simple as opening the glove compartment, pulling out the line, grabbing cup and pressing the washer button. Seconds later drinks were served. It was that kind of stuff which helped to cement the legend.
That my kid sister managed to corral the man less than a year after she graduated from High School, transferred a good part of the legend to her. While corralling him was one thing, that she was able to tame him and turn him into a loving husband and caring father for their seven children, added to her mystique. Today, 53 years later, Frank and Louise continue to live in the same house Frank built back in 1961, then renovated several times to accommodate their burgeoning brood.
Photo (from Greg Yochim): Frank, holding his first born (Greg), looks absolutely domesticated in this photo. Whether he still held the keys to his Fury or had traded it in on a six cylinder 140 hp station wagon, I can't recall. It didn't matter really, the legend remained.
4. Classic Wheels
While several of us owned a car, many just borrowed the family wheels. Of course there were limitations – the borrower was always under a caution flag, but, on the other hand, it was certainly much cheaper as the car came fully licenced, road ready, equipped with a repair package and gas was often included (at least until the tank ran empty). Some parents even resorted to never adding more than a quarter tank unless they intended to travel some distance to burn it off. Today, kids finding the family car without gas might even have a 1-800 number they could call to report parental neglect.
In the "borrow" parents car department, my High School buddy, Aaron Pinsky had access to a classic of the day – a brand new 1956 Cadillac Coupe Deville. Aaron even managed to snag the car before he had his driver's licence. Well, no he did not drive without a licence even though he was perfectly capable; he (and we) had another ace in the whole. That 'Ace' came in the form of a gangly, slightly older friend by the name of Guy Venne. Guy not only had his licence, but also a commercial endorsement as he regularly drove school bus. How safe and reliable could you get for a High School driver?
Photo Collage: Franks 57 Plymouth, Pinsky Family 55 Caddy, Moe Hill's 54 Ford Convertible and unknown owner
As Guy was rock solid, Aaron's dad, Charlie Pinsky, had no qualms about letting Guy drive the car to dances and other special events and Guy never missed on his promise to take good care of the car and its passengers. Besides, for Guy, the chance to drive a brand new Coupe de Ville on a regular basis, was not something he was going to screw up. Oh, the stories Guy could string to the girls in smaller towns about that car, his work and his daring do. The challenge for the rest of us was biting our lips as Guy strung them along. As a bullshiter, he was among the best I ever knew.
Now don't get me wrong, Guy was not the only one who jumped at the chance to feed a fragile ego. Having a chance to pick up a new date in that classic car was the stuff of dreams. Even our hero Elvis Presley could do no better. While candy and flowers were nice touch, they paled beside a chance to use the Caddy. More caddy stories will follow.
5. High School: Our first big chance to do really stupid things
By the time we all had licences and access to a car, it did not take long before we started doing those really stupid things; one was playing cops and robbers. As real cops were few and far between, we pretty much held free rein on the roads. When things got boring, like most of the time when we weren't using the left side of our brain, we started playing tag our cars.
In the game, usually run after dark, we would take turns being the lead car while two or three others would take up the chase. It was our version of Thunder Road,(right) a movie starring Robert Mitchum that had one of the Top 10 car chases of all time.
Using a combination of high speed, tight turns and driving without lights provided an amazing shot of adrenalin. Stupid? "Of course!" Dangerous? "Duh!" Fun? "Hell yes!"
In the game we soon realized that as the designated robber, having a working set of brake lights was a distinct disadvantage so a few modifications were made. We could have covered the taillights, but that was time to consuming when changing sides. Instead, we cut the wires to the brakes, placed a switch in the line and voila, the break lights could be easily turned off and on at a moments notice.
The thing that caught my buddy Aaron was forgetting to switch the brake lights back on after returning the Caddy home late one night. It seems his dad got pulled over a few days later and Constable Skinty told him the brake lights not working. Of course, it was news to Charlie.
He dropped the Caddy at Penner's Garage and it did not take long for the mechanic to find the cut line and the little switch in the back of the glove compartment. As I recall Aaron was without his wheels for a couple of weeks and Patsy Wusyk had to borrow her dad's car to get to those special events if the rest of us were fully booked.
Photo (left): Peggy Ruggles. It seemed her parents spent a fair amount of time out of town and as they lived around the bay from Kinosoo Park, it was an awesome place for a party. Thanks Peggy for hosting all the party people.
That same Caddy even turned around to bite me late one night while out partying at the Ruggles home. It seems that a couple of years of hard driving lead the Caddy to exhibit a few glitches including an ignition switch that regularly shorted out. Aaron and his dad always had to wiggle the key around to get things going, and sometimes when driving the engine would suddenly quit. After jiggling the key to get it restarted it would then backfire.
That night I was without wheels for some reason and as the Ruggles lived some distance out of town, I asked Aaron if I could borrow the Caddy to drive in to pick up a date. I was going with June McLaughlin, a close friend of Aaron's girlfriend Patsy, who had been living at Patsy's and was working late shift at the A&W. June was not related to the drummer in the band mentioned in the cover photo.
I was just heading down the hill towards Kinosoo Beach when the ignition shorted out and after jiggling the key several times the engine came back to life with a huge backfire. Soon smoke began to billow from under the hood and as I came to a screeching halt, gravel flew in all directions.
Jumping out it was evident the fire would soon consume the car if I could not put it out, so as smoke continued to billow, I managed to pop the hood just as the paint was beginning to peel. With no fire extinguisher, all I could do was begin hauling handfuls of mud from the nearby ditch. After several minutes of piling it on the fire finely died, but by that time, the engine, hood and front fenders were a sorry mess, to say nothing of my party clothes.
Somehow I got hold of Aaron and we went to tell his dad what happened. As there was no way I could pay to fix the Caddy (there was no insurance in those days) I was real scared. Well, surprise, surprise, all Charlie did was shrug and say that he was thinking of getting the ignition fixed anyway and now was probably was a good time. He never said another word about the incident and I used to see him almost every day as Aaron and I both worked in his fish plant filleting fish after school.
It seems that while Charlie sometimes seemed pretty intimidating, he was also very good in with dealing with his kids and some of the problems encountered along the way. Knowing Charlie, he probably ran into the same kinds of problems when he was younger.
Another amusing thing happened with the Caddy a year later when Roger Duckett and I were buying fish for Charlie at Muriel Lake just south of Bonnyville. It was early fall and although the weather had been beautiful, an overnight storm moved in and it began to snow heavily, so much so that in the wee hours of the morning our tent collapsed. With our sleeping bags soaked, we spent the rest of the night in the back of Roger's beater I940 Ford Van.
When Charlie arrived early in the next morning to bring us cash, he had fresh thermos of coffee and a couple of treats from one of the restaurants in Bonnyville, as he must have known we were likely half frozen. As he drove up we could see a length of fish cord strung through each of the small window vents and tied to the windshield wipers. In the passengers seat sat Chummy Martineau holding the other ends of the cord. As the snow built up on the windshield, Chummy would pull one cord, then the other to move the wipers and clear the snow. Charlie's only comment: "I was thinking about getting those wipers fixed, but never seem to get around to it." The Caddy had clearly experienced better days.
6. More Kids and Cars
One weekend, Roger Rhyerson, our next-door neighbor, borrowed his parent's car, a nearly new 1955 Chevrolet. We were playing the usual cops and robbers, but this time on the back roads between North Bay, English Bay and the Indian Reserve. Roger, who would never give up even though his driving skills needed a lot of work, kept ending up in the trees or scrub brush. He was always assigned as a chase car as there was no chance he could elude the rest of us for more than two minutes before he ended up in the ditch.
Arriving home late that night he parked the car in the driveway and went straight to bed. At 5:00 am, when Roger's dad as getting ready to leave for work, he hauled Roger out of bed and dragged him to the driveway to have a look at the car. It was filled with deep scratches from the front bumper to the back. I have no idea how Roger wiggled his way out, but he was a resourceful guy, so… As with Aaron and Patsy, I suppose his girlfriend Linda Briton probably had to supply the wheels for a couple of weeks.
On another occasion our group had a remarkable escape when playing tag around town. We knew Constable Skinty was away as we always kept tabs on his comings and goings. At one point during a chase when I was the robber, I circled back through a little known side road (little more than a trail) that lead towards the Indian Reserve from what is now 7th Street and 14th Ave. (near Watts Farm and Rose and Amil and Rose Sanregret's new home).
We had used the trail on a few occasions, but several months had gone by since the last chase in that area and it seemed like a good way to shake the others. Unknown to any of us, someone on the Reserve built a small house right in the middle of the trail. Travelling at breakneck speed on a moonlit night with lights out, the house suddenly appeared right in my path. With no time to break I went hurtling through with inches to spare between the house and the trees. The three or four cars on my tail then passed in quick succession. If there was someone home they must have wondered 'what in hell' was happening. After that narrow escape we quickly parked our cars and laid low for a few days.
Neither was my car immune to the damage incurred during those driver-training sessions, as one night when I straddled a rather large rock on some trail, there was a loud bang. I thought the rock might have hit the frame or some other under body part, but the car was still running and I never noticed anything until a couple of days later. I was out the highway and warping up to cruise speed when the car began to violently shake from end to end. It only took a few tests to discern the shaking only occurred when passing through 50, then 75 mph.
After jacking up the car, the only thing I could discover was a small dent in the driveshaft. It was an expensive fix, so from that point until I sold the car, I always had pass through those speeds as quickly as possible, so I could settle back for a leisurely drive.
7. The Peril of the 'Yellow Legs'
Speed kills and during those years more than a few friends and acquaintances met an untimely end, usually on one of the main highways after losing control or, worse, in a head-on collision. That's tragic, but when one is young, dying or fear of dying is not something that even crossed our minds and although we knew that could happen, a far greater concern was getting caught, perhaps losing our licence.
One day the RCMP (from Bonnyville) paid a surprise visit to Cold Lake High to speak at an assembly. In those days the RCMP were God's who could strike fear into heart of even the most reckless young man. A few days early a story had been circulating through the school about several car owners having set speed records on Highway 28 between Cold Lake and Grand Centre. Gossip had it that a few had topped 100 miles per hour on the hill heading down from Grand Centre toward the Drive in to LaPlont's corner.
Photo: Can you imagine what it would be like to have these two dudes on you rear bumper. Back in the day they were pretty intimidating and we never messed with them. Of course, for Constable Skinty it was open season.
I don't think Frank was one of the recent culprits as he was away much of the time working in Edmonton or other some other point. As his speedometer topped out at 150 mph, 100 would be High School kids play.
Before returning to the Mounties, and as further testament to Frank's driving and survival skills, late one Friday when alone and returning from work in Edmonton, he fell asleep at the wheel on Highway 28, somewhere near Vilna. Suddenly jarred awake as he entered the wide, slopping ditch filled with hay bales, Frank's driving skills kicked. As he maneuvered to avoid colliding bales of hay or rolling the car, he was just starting to slow when one of those long, shallow edged driveways, appeared in the headlights. With no time to turn or stop, he flew up the near side at just shy of 75 mph.
The famous torsion-bar suspension nicely absorbed the initial impact and when the car reached the top it leap from the ground as the torsion bars rebounded. Crossing the driveway the car gained altitude and had just reached apogee when a power pole entered its flight path. With no lateral control the Fury sheared the pole cleanly off a good 25 feet above the ground. Such was the speed and strength of the Fury that damage was limited.
Somehow Frank managed to maintain a level attitude as he came in for a rather hard landing some sixty feet beyond the driveway. When he climbed from the car, he could see the top half of the power pole swinging softly in wind from the power lines. The only damage to the Fury appeared to be the front bumper and radiator.
Frank kicked himself for not having spent the extra $200 bucks to buy the Fury self-regeneration package that was so well demonstrated in Christine. Seeing a light in a nearby house, he managed to get nearby farmer to tow the car Vilna and by noon the next day, after a quick repair job, he was on his way home. The power company was left to ponder what had caused their pole to split so cleanly. The legend continued to grow.
As for the Mounties at our school assembly, they let it be known they were aware of what was going on and left us with no doubt as to what would happen if they managed to identify the culprits. Although the record setters were not in our group and as far as we know, never caught, all of us decided to lay low for a few days. After a week passed, it was back to business as usual.
8. A Running Battle with the Air Force
As mentioned in previous stories, the guys at Cold Lake High had a running battle with the Air Force guys who seemed to be taking the inside track with a few of 'our' girls. While some of air force sorts were OK and a few even became friends, the rest, particularly the younger airmen and smartly dressed officers, were considered 'assholes' of the first order. Anything we could do to make their lives miserable was on the approved list.
Photo: F-86 Sabre. It was difficult to compete with guy's who were given machines like this and they even received free maintenance and gas. As least they could have made them pay for the gas to even things up. More will be said in Part IV about the influence these aircraft had on several members of our High School group.
One trick we used was baiting them into a drag race between Grande Centre and Cold Lake when we knew Constable Skinty was running his make shift speed trap at the entrance to town. Constable Skinty would set the trap by placing two pressurized hoses across the highway, like the type once used at service stations to sound a bell when a car arrived. With two cords being placed a known distance apart, speed could be easily determined by calculating the time between the 'dings'. Being the cool guy he was, he usually set up on the slight curve near the top of the hill (by the School Bus Shop) just before entering town where he could trap unwary drivers in the reduced speed zone.
With nothing else to do we would saunter down to the outskirts of Grande Centre, wait for some young Air Force knob heading to Cold Lake and slide in behind. We would egg the guy into a little drag race and let it ebb and flow as we rounded Laplont's Corner. Then when heading up to the hill towards town, we would pick up speed, but just before rounding the curve would let them gain the upper hand and break quickly. As they flew away, they might even be giving us the finger as they burnt through Constable Skinty's speed trap. As we slowly drove slowly, we would just smile and wave. No, we never gave them the middle finger – we were far more mature than that.
With this story another section of the High School years is complete. I will take a pause, post a several photos plucked from Guy Venne's collection and leave you to ponder what might happen in Part IV as we strive head towards graduation.
Class Photos 1956-1957
Link Here to the Full Photo Post on Facebook
The photos were obtained from photo albums preserved by a classmate, Guy Venne. The photos have been inserted in 60 collages similar to the ones below and covering the years 1956 – 1960. The first set of 25 albums will be uploaded to the McNeill Life Stories Facebook Page later today (September 27). Names will be added below these photos later.
Tags: Aaron Pinsky, Amil Sanregret, Axani Brothers, Billy Martineau, Charlie Pinsky, Chummy Martineau, Cold Lake Drive in, Cold Lake High School, Constable Dick Skinty, Dorothy Hartman, Father Emile Champagne, Frank Yochim, Gary McGlaughlin, Gordie Wusyk, Guy Venne, Jimmy Marineau, June McLaughlin, Kenny Tattinger, Linda Briton, Louise McNeill, Louise Yochim, Peggy Ruggles, Peyton Place, Roger Duckett, Roger Rhyerson, Ronny May, Rose Sanregret, St. Dominc's School, St. Dominic's School, Tropicana Night Club, Watts Farm
September 28, 2014 at 6:41 pm	| #
Hi Harold!
Great Post! LOVE the pictures and story! Would love to know if you have any photos of my Mom or other stories about her. I never knew she lived at Peggy's or worked at A&W. 🙂


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Lea Michele to Star in Possible 'Glee' Spin-Off
Inês Barbosa November 7th, 2013 - 2:30 PM
According to TVGuide, Ryan Murphy might be working on a Glee spin-off and the actress would once again get the leading role.
Although it is not certain yet, it looks like Glee creator Ryan Murphy is developing a spin-off of the series and plans to give Rachel Berry a leading role, as well as to some other characters of the show.
This news arrive after last week's reports that Murphy was thinking about moving the entire Glee setting from Lima, Ohio to New York, where Rachel, Kurt and Santana are already living and working.
There were also talks that the musical-themed show might move Kurt (played by Chris Colfer) to Russia this season or next, in a way to protest against the anti-gay politics of the European country.
Though nothing is confirmed, what is certain is that Cory Monteith's death was the catalyser to all these possible changes, since Ryan Murphy himself admitted to not knowing how he would end the show, since the original ending was designed all around Monteith's and Michele's characters.
Inês Barbosa
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Mid-range gyms are quickly becoming something of the past thanks to the rise of boutique studios and fitness classes, all of which are booming. It's probably to do with them catering for the new normal: fitness enthusiasts wanting to mix up their fitness regime and keep motivated without the same old slog on the treadmill.
But as with anything that takes off in popularity, there are now so many to choose from it's become hard to know where to start. How do the different studios we see popping up around the UK capital differ? Where's good for HIIT? Which is best for Spin? Well, I've gone and saved you a tonne of research and spent the last few months testing some out across the city of London to find out.
Say hello to Europe's first authentically-licensed TRX studio: Body Machine.
In case you're not already aware, TRX stands for Total-Body Resistance Exercise. Unlike traditional weight training that typically works one muscle at a time, TRX Suspension Training uses your body weight and gravity with the aid of the TRX Suspension Trainer, which allows you to move through multiple planes of motion and work various muscles and joints all at the same time.
Welcome to FLY LDN, a new studio in Aldgate that has attempted the union of yoga and tech in a way that I think works really well.
And no, it's not about measuring how many calories you're burning or what zone your heart rate is in (thank god). The studio has been very clever in the way it's gone about introducing innovation into yoga – by merely enhancing the experience and how the ancient practice is performed. The studio does this by offering vinyasa yoga classes set against a gigantic 4K display – measuring 20ft diagonally – that projects immersive and vibrant cinematic visuals (think Himalayan mountain ranges one minute and ocean swells the next) alongside curated playlists, both of which have been designed to elevate the feeling of escapism and relaxation.
Due to the sheer size of the display, the HD visuals do make you feel immersed in nature, but they work in two different ways. I found myself feeling more motivated as I went through the more energic flow sequences, and then more relaxed towards the end of the class, for example when gazing up while placing my hands together at heart center.
It might not be for everyone, especially the die-hard traditional yogi types, but the set up worked for me, and I can imagine it working for the next generation of yogis who find it difficult to feel motivated without some form of visual stimulation. Ps. In case you were wondering, FLY actually stands for Flow Life Yoga. So there you have it!