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EPISODE 192 MOVIE INDUSTRY … WHAT MAKES A MOVIE SEEM REAL

EPISODE 192    MOVIE INDUSTRY … WHAT MAKES A MOVIE SEEM REAL


alan  skeoch
Dec. 2020

DATELINE   DECEMBER 10, 2020
LOCATION: SOUTHERN ONTARIO




Possibly one of the worst days for anyone to work.  Covid 19 was spiking.  Hospitals across 
North America were bursting.   ICU’s were above capacity and the death toll in the United
States was above 3,500 … in just one day.   In Ontario, Toronto and Peel County were in
lockdown and the worsening situation made further lockdowns very likely.  This  was a
dark day like no other.  And the pandemic  seemed out of  control.

It was also a big day for the movie industry.  Two huge 5 ton trucks had just arrived at the farm followed
by two smaller trucks.  December 10 was loading day.   Marjorie and  I were nervous…only Woody
the dog was relaxed.  He liked visitors and there had been precious few  of them.

“Alan, wear a double mask and  keep away from the loaders…social distancing.”
“Marjorie, I will not have time to document the loading…I will be on the ATV all day…could you keep a record with
your iPhone?”
“I will…but I will also be making hot chocolate and a snack for the men.”

(She did make the hot chocolate but Woody  got the great chevron of  cheese and the cookies)

But first:

“Gather round everyone…socially distant but within earshot…I would like to make a short speech.”

Seven men, all masked, formed a loose circle.

“This is a dangerous day  for all of us.  Covid 19 is raging.  Hospitals are overflowing.
The day is Particularly dangerous for Marjorie and  me since we are in he
most vulnerable age group.  We have two 5 ton trucks to load with a huge number  of objects
that you may find questionable. This will take the full day.  I know  it  is hard to work with
the masks but it is necessary.  Please  respect both us and our collection…and be careful.”

“OK, Rob, you are now in full command,” And the loading began. Really we had three movies
to deal with.  Large objects were returned with big pieces from other movies.. while we  spent the day filling the two five tons.
Only one man ignored the rules and kept his mask below his chin jeopardizing us all.  He must
have been a believer in Donald Trump.   Should I say something?  I did not. It is impossible
to speak to believers in Donald Trump.

The day before I had spent several hours putting green markers on the items to 
be loaded.   The day was cold but thawing.
T

Movie people  are  quite secretive lest the story gets out before the movie is completed.   Therefore  I cannot say much about
the script.  My job  was to provide objects that made the movie set believable.  In this  case a  semi-derelict building with
long forgotten objects from the recent and  distant past.   This was certainly not a beauty contest.  Nothing pristine.

Those of you who have been following my stories…my adventures…about the decade in the mining exploration budiness
might like to look closely at these caribou antlers.  A First Nation friend,  Moses  Lord,  gave them to me on the Yukon job.
I crated  them and shipped them bak home much to the amusement of all including my Toronto boss, Dr. Norman Paterson.
“At my expense, Norm, not yours…although you probably would not have complained”.   This is the first movie job  for the
antlers…shipped in 1962…first earned their keep in 2020.



In the late 1940’s, my brother and I built our own scooters from orange crates, 2×4’s and roller skates.
When  the scooters got bashed  up…splintered…we just went to the back of grocery stores and
got another orange crate.  Kids do not do that any more .  Why?   Oranges come in paper boxes.



We worked  from 8.30 until 2.30 on the job.  Heavy work at times.  It is harder to breathe through
the masks doing hard work but the crew followed the rules (with that one lone exception).  Breakage?
yes, I heard  a loud crunch when crates of clay flower pots were put on the loading ramp.  Made me wince.

“Alan, how do you know that our things will come back?”
“We can but trust, Marjorie.”
“How would our lives be different if  we were minimalists?”
“Life would be pristine but bloody boring.”

alan skeoch
Dec. 2020

Posted on

Fwd: EPISODE 191 .ROCKS ARE OUR BEST CROP



Begin forwarded message:



Subject: EPISODE 191       ROCKS ARE OUR BEST CROP

EPISODE 187    ROCKS ARE OUR BEST CROP



Jack and Sean were paid for this  job.  

alan skeoch
may 2020


This is a story about rock  picking.


THERE is a very moving  film called  THE FIELD with Richar Harris  as  a hardscrabble  Irish  farmer whose field  is  all he  has
in life.   And  he is prepared to die to keep his Field.  I can identify with him.  There are 25 acres on our farm where meh grandparents
made a living somehow.  7  o 8 acres are swamp or a term used  more fashionably the water acres  are called a  pond.  Another 10 
acres are bush some of  which  we planted 60 years ago.  Red  pines…worthless for anything but pulp and hideaway locations for
wild Turkeys.  

There are two acres of sandy loam at the front of the farm but one of our sons  decided  to plant oaks and maples there
one week-end.   Our garden soil disappeared.  Now, 20 years later,  he is scooping out the trees to be replanted on fancy avenues.
Maybe we will get the good land  back but I am not holding my breath.   I will likely have to rely on My Field behind the swamp.

That leaves my  two acre field…as seen below.   Our best crops are rocks.   Every year more rocks…and more rocks.
Backbreaking work with a stone boat and  pull tractor.  Even with the bobcat the rock picking is  back breaking.

Ten years ago i bought a  special hydraulic tractor for Marjorie for her  birthday.  She has  never driven  it but I try 
to harrow our rock field with it annually.  Take a  look.  These rocks  come up every single year.

How did  our grandparents ever make a living.?  Simple answer is they did not make a living.  They existed…house 
with no indoor plumbing,  no electricity,  dirt floor basement, lots of small creatures living between the single layer of  bricks
and the split lath pleasured walls.  Hiding place for snakes and mice and bugs.  

Why send this?  Just in case one of you readers longs for the  good old days and are thinking of  buying a small farm.

alan skeoch
may 2020


Now the field  looks a little cleaner.  How did it get this way?   One  summer day Jack Skeoch 
and his  friend Sean were cycling by our house.


“Hey,  boys, do you want to earn a  few bucks?”
“Sure.”
“I will  pay minimum wage  or better…”
“Doing what?”
“It’s a secret.”

And that was the way I got the rocks picked  before we got the rock picker implement attached
to the Bob cat.  Better than sending the boys to some sweaty  gym.  Outdoors.  But no girls
which was a bit of  a  problem.



The Big Snapper looked  like a rock.  She was burying her eggs…


Now what to do with the stones.  My Cousin Eleanor and her husband  John built a large farm house with stones like these.
That skill I do not have.   So we just dumped the stones  in the rock pile.  Every farm has  a place for stones.

alan skeoch
Dec 2020


Posted on

EPISODE 191 HOW TO OPERATE A THREE FURROW DRAG PLOW (JUST HAVE THE STRENGTH TO PULL A STRING)

EPISODE  191   HOW TO OPERATE A THREE FURROW DRAG PLOW (JUST HAVE THE STRENGTH TO PULL A STRING)


alan skeoch’
Dec. 2020

THERE is no feeling like it.  Exhilerating.  All that machinery controlled by one short
length of parachute chord.  Pull the chord hard…the three furrow plow drops and sods
begin to turn.  Pull it again and  the plowshares  lift so you  can make your turn and then
do it all over again.  Wonderful feeling.  I wish the IHC W6 and the old John Deere drag
plow were willing when spring comes.

Posted on

EPISODE 190 STATIONARY NEW HAMBERG THRESHING MACHINE…UNWELCOME ANYWHERE

EPISODE 190   STATIONARY THRESHING MACHINE…UNWELCOME ANYWHERE FOR SOME STRANGE REASON


alan skeoch
dec.  2020


NOW  THAT IS A BEAUTIFUL MACHINE…BUT I GUESS ‘BEAUTY IS ONLY
IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER, NAMELY ME.



My previous Episode 189 tells the story of my impulsive purchase of 4 thresing machines  at a Kitchener auction many years
ago.  This is the story of the smallest of them.  It was made in New Hamberg, Ontario sometime between  1850 and 1900 and
designed to sit on a barn threshing floor where the sheaves of wheat , oats or barley could be hand  fed into the threshing cylinder.
Not many of these machines  have survived the change from small farms to large corporate farms.    As  a matter of  fact
not many people would even know what the machine did.  IT could have had wheels at one time perhaps.

About 20  or 30 years ago I gave the thresher to the City of Mississauga and  it was kept in the small barn beside the Bradley
Museum.  Nothing was done to indicate the importance of the machine.  

“That thing takes too much space”, some museum manager
decided…with follow  up questions.
“What is it  anyway?”
“Why do we have it sitting there?”
“Who gave it to us?” “Is there any paper work?”
“Let’s get rid of it.”

RING…RING…RING.
“Hello, Alan, how would you like a small threshing machine?”
“What colour?”
“Sort of a faded orange…quite  old…stencilled says New Hamburg Manufacturing Company.”
“Do you know where it came from?”
“We have no idea.  No paper work.”

“Well, let me tell you.  I gave the machine to the City of Mississauga.  It is an important artifact.
“It was yours?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we do  not want it anymore…come and get it.”  “Or it will be disposed  of …”

Now that was a double shock…First, no one knew I gave it to the Bradley House museum decades ago
 Second, they were dumping the machine and just by chance called  
All this at my personal expense…I felt badly treated  by my own city of  Mississauga.  
Almost like I had backed up and dumped a load of garbage.  I still feel
let down.   The ‘come and get it now’ phone  call was a real slap in the face.

Sp I asked Andy to help once again.  This time no safe place in mind until after the pick up.
I sent an email to the Wellington  County Museum…seemed a good fit since they have an
immense historic  barn with lots  of room and  the thresher was designed for a threshing floor.
No answer.  NO ANSWER!   Not just a ‘thanks but no thanks” but NO ANSWER AT ALL.

So what to do?  “Andrew, we’ll  take the machine to Bill  Brooks…he owns a machine shop
in Rockwood and has helped in the past.

And that is where it rests today…two years later.

Imagine that.  Here  I have a very rare ‘flat to the floor hand fed threshing machine … a rare machine …and
no one has the imagination necessary to see that it is preserved for future  generations.


After the urgent call…i.e”.Come and get it or it goes to the garbage dump”…my son Andrew helped immediately.  Then Bill Brooks and his brother Joe Brooks helped.
They put it under cover where it sits today.  The thresher would look perfect in the Wellington County Museum. The  gigantic barn which  is near empty.  But no one will
respond.   Bill Brooks  cannot keep  it forever.  And our barns  are full.  What should we do?


Museums are loss leaders.   They do  not make money.  They take up space.  They are unnecessary.  Right?  


alan skeoch
Dec.  2020
Posted on

EPISODE 189 NEW HAMBURG THRESHING MACHINE


EPISODE  189    NEW HAMBURG THRESHING MACHINE…FINDING A HOME WAS DIFFICULT

alan  skeoch
Dec./ 2020




Thirty or forty years ago I bought 4 threshing machines at the Thompson Auction  sale near Kichener.
I was alone.   Marjorie would likely have put the brakes on my enthusiasm.  Maybe not.  When impulsive
decisions are necessary, I often make them.  

Some readers may  not even know what a threshing machine looks like.  They were ‘dinosaurs’ of the 
grain fields up until the modern combine harvesters rendered them obsolete.  If asked to cut to the
quick . Make it simple.  My answer?   “Threshing machine are  big, big,big.”

This story is about one of those four machines.  The New  Hamburg Threshing Machine as pictured
below.


At the Thompson sale no one except for me seemed interested.  I cannot remember how much I paid for this beauty but
it was around $100.   The other three  were about the same price give or take a bit.  When I drove home from the sale
I had one thought.  What was I going to do with these machines.  First off, how could  I move them from the sale.  Then
where would I take them?  Then how could I care for them?

Let me put this in modern terms.  Imagine you bought four tractor trailers at a sale.  What would you do with them.  Write a  list of
all your friends  who  would  gladly take a threshing machine in their back yard and then build a driveshed around it.  The list is likely
very short.

This machine is the most stunning and enigmatic of the four I bought.  Painted with unusual images…a crocodile,  a lion, a bouquet 
of tulips.  At the close of the 19th century it was the custom to paint machines as if they were Christmas presents.   A kind  of
advertising.   But this New  Hamburg Machine was really made to appear unusual.   What is the significance  of the crocodile?
The  answer?   Threshing machines had  teeth that chopped up wheat sheaves like a crocodile did with dogs, cats or people
if they inadvertently got in the animals mouth.    The lion?  Stood for courage, perhaps endurance.   The tulips?  Now the bouquet of
tulips is hard to explain.

What was I to do?   At the time we were involved with Riverdale Farm which  is located in the centre  of the  City of Toronto then managed
by Judy and Mark Spurr.  Both of them were enthusiastic about my donation.  So I hired Gordon Hume to load the machine on his
flat bed truck and take it to Riverdale farm where it sat majestically on the threshing floor for a decade or so. 

 En route to the farm Gordon Hume drove along the Gardiner and up  Parliament Street startling anyone walking.  At the time there
was a CBC radio station on Parliament Street and by chance David Shatsky or Christopher Thomas, hosts of Radio  Noon, were  out for a walk.
Think ti was  David.
He gawked at the machine.  He knew there was a story on the move and  eventually traced  the story to me.  That led to my
career on CBC Radio for several years.  

Story telling about rural Ontario or anything else that touched my fancy.  Several years
doing stories every Friday until one day I was told, “We don’t need  you anymore.”   Not a nice ending to my radio career but
I had  been prepared for that when another radio journalist told me privately that “we all have a shelf life, Alan, be prepared.”
On air personalities get the chop often.



It was  not just me that got the  chop a  few years later.  The New Hamburg Threshing machine also got the chop when some opinion laden bureaucrat
decided he or she did not like the thresher.  I got a call  from someone.  “Alan, the Thresher has been moved out of the barn and is sitting
exposed to the weather.   It will not last long that way.  Will you take it back?”

Of course I said  I would come and get it. But where could it go?   Someone suggested Doon Pioneer Village just outside of the City of Kitchener.
The thresher was made in  New Hamberg…close to Kitchener.  The Village manager was receptive.  “Yes, I think this machine would be a 
star in our exhibit hall”, he said (something like that).   

How could  I get the machine from Toronto to Kitchener.  As luck  would have it our son Andrew and his partner Nick had  just set up
a creative landscaping business.  Working with huge boulders…making gardens look like mountain streams…big scale stuff.  They
had a flat bed truck and  one day the thresher was  loaded and hauled to Down Pioneer Village where it sits today.  (I hope it still
sits there…I have heard  nothing about it for decades.)


Did I hear you ask, “Alan what happened to the other three threshers?”
They make a good story as well.  I still have two of them.  I did  have all three
for a year or so  but put one small , flat to the floor,  thresher in an auction and  it
is now somewhere up near Goderich being cared  for …I hope.

I heard that comment!   Who said “Is Alan nuts?”

Wait until I tell you the story of the other New Hamburg thresher.  It is a story with no ending yet.  It is a story which reflects
badly on museum curators.   No, not quite true.  Museums are loss leaders.  They do  not make profits  and they are constantly
squeezed by cost cutting people who have no imagination.  The kind of people who rolled their eyes when I bought
those four threshing machines years ago.   Yes, I am a  bit nuts.

alan skeoch
dec.  2020

Posted on

EPISODE 187 1962 YUKON TERRITORY”” SHARING SUMPTUOUS DINNER WITH BILL DUNN



Begin forwarded message:


From: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
Subject: Dinners 1) Mississauga 2) Yukon NOT QUITE THE SAME BUT BOTH DELIGHTFUL
Date: March 7, 2018 at 10:33:11 PM EST
To: Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>, julie Skeoch <julieskeoch@yahoo.ca>


EPISODE 187    1962 YUKON TERRITORY    “SHARING A SUMPTUOUS SUPPER WITH BILL DUNN”

alan skeoch


Dec. 2020    YukonTerritory in summer 1962

 I  was combing through my mining days pictures, now converted to digital.  And  what to my wondering eyes
did appear but a supper in the bush.  Candlelight, dinner in a  washbasin (double duty), a bed made of balsam poles  and
a bit of luxury with a real mattress.  This was the only job where a  real mattress was provided.  Never had  one that summer so
do not know how this fellow, Bill Dunn, got this one.  Stole it probably, he was good  tat that kind of ting.  And he is
all dressed for a fancy meal in long Johns.  Supper in  a basin…shared.   Easy to make  You want the recipe?

Supper  Recipe, Dublin Gulch

-Can of ‘Bird’s Custard’  (two cans if you wish)
-Powdered Milk and water (keep it thick)
-something else…looks like hash 
-Pour into wash basin … after washing hands in basin
-Mix well
-Get two  spoons
-Candles for romance
-We used the other pan to get gold dust in the evenings in Dublin Gulch

Note:  Bill Dunn’s feet are as white as ivory.   Why?  Because  he  had
holes in his gum rubbers as I did.  Water  seeped in and kept feet 
nice and white.  Unfortunately the feet got boiled from body heat
and skin peeled.  Not pleasant.

.

I am amazed at the number of people who wish  they had the adventures that came with mining exploration.  Maybe this 
picture will change minds.

This is Bill Dunn, one of our Yukon Crew.  Became a good friend for that short Yukon summer.  How did he get there?
He was engaged to be married to a girl in Peterborough or Lindsay.  The night before the wedding his friends put him
on a plane to Whitehorse as an ‘end of wedding’ gift. We hired him.   Dirty trick, right? Not so sure Bill was the marrying kind really. 
He left her standing at the altar but I don’t think he would have been the best kind of husband.  I could  say more but won’t unless pressed by
a  reader.  he found another girl in Mayo Landing…another disaster.  In a drunken rage she tried to knife him but failed.  Much more
to that story that is  also better not told.  Bill was   quite happy eating out of this wash basin.  Then again it may not be Bill…all I
have is a corner of his nose, his hairy lower legs and his supper.   How come he has new boots?  That is a real mystery.  Most or our boots were gum rubbers ruined by the low growing brush daily so that were full of holes  for water to rush in and  rush out.  That is why his feet are so clean.  Maybe he  stole those  boots from
someone….maybe a new guy on the crew that did not stay long…a lot of guys drifted  in  and out of our  bush  camp.   Why?  Well it certainly was not the food.  Fine five star dining every night providing you had  a wash basin.

alan skeoch
Dec. 2020


Posted on

EPISODE 187 … All worldly possessions YUKON JOB 1962


EPISODE 187    ALL MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS…YUKON JOB 1962

NOTE:  THIS SHORT STORY WAS WRITTEN MARCH 10, 2018 DESCRIBING LIFE
PROSECTING IN YUKON TERRITORY IN THE SUMMER OF 1962.   SOME READERS
MAY HAVE SEEN IT BUT I WANT IT INCLUDED IN THE EPISODES .. EPISODE 187.
YOU MIGHT MAKE OBSERVATIONS.  I KNOW THE PICTURE IS TOTALLY SELF 
CENTRED…NARCISSISM.  PLEASE FORGIVE.

SEE IF YOU CAN FIND THE BIG BOX OF HOME MADE COOKIES MARJORIE SENT
BY MAIL.

I MAY TRY TO RETRIEVE ALL THE YUKON STORIES.  THE JOB WAS QUITE AN ADVENTURE.
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE STORIES…READ THEM AGAIN…YOU HAVE NOTHING
BETTER TO DO.  

ALAN


From: “alan.skeoch@rogers.com” <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
Date: Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 12:05 AM
To: Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>
Subject: Alan Skeoch … All worldly possessions YUKON JOB 1962

DUBLIN GULCH CAMP, YUKON TERRITORY, 1962

NOW THIS IS REALLY SILLY…(found in old 35 mm slide)

alan  skeoch
March 2018

Readers  come in all sorts … interested and bored,  large and small, old and  young, critical and open-minded, full of evil thoughts and just plain joyful.  Which are you?


Some readers  might be interested  in this small corner of the universe  in the summer of 1962.   
 It’s a game….see what you can find.


SEE IF YOU CAN  FIND THESE ITEMS BELOW IN THE PICTURE ABOVE

1) Pants…note knee patches  made of medical first aid  tape…only had 1 pair of pants, no time to wash them.
2) Bed…made of light canvas and  metal rods…never lasted long…flat to floor eventually
3) Baby Rabbit…given to me by Moses Lord, First Nations  member of our crew, caught it by  hand, eventually freed the little fellow but meanwhile he
lived in my gum rubber boot in the evenings leaving a few soft marbles each morning.
4) Escapade magazine…must be good article in there on geophysics, else why would I keep it?
5) assorted  soda cans and bottle of  stuffed  olives
6) 2 pairs  of socks drying on my clothesline beside bed…socks were so important…dominated all.
7) 1 bottle of antiseptic…kill microscopic bastards trying to kill me  by slipping in open  wounds chewed  open
bu larger bastards  (mosquitoes,  black flies, moose flies,  deer flies, grand  wasps)
8) A small library including Pierre Berton’s Klondike, Michener’s Fires of Spring, Steinbeck’s East of Eden, 
9) boot insoles drying on top shelf…holes in boots meant water sloshed around most  days, body heat boiled  my  feet, pock marked.
10) Hair brush that was never  used
11) Moose lower jaw bone   (mailed back to Toronto with pair of caribou  antlers)
12) single caribou antler. Moses Lord got me  a  full rack to send home by freight truck.
13) Scottish tam at top. When I started teaching my principal, Mr Ellis, said to me privately “You will never get ahead
if you continue to wear that tam.”   Wonder what he would have said if he saw this picture?  Probably say “I knew it!…look at him.”
14) Alarm clock…rang at 5.45 a.m. Get up, dress, make breakfast, slather bait for bugs, and be on trail by 7.30 or so.
15) PICTURE OF MARJORIE…WE WERE ENGAGED…SHE GRADUATED U. OF T 1962, I DID SO IN 1961,  POST GRAD YEAR 1962
16) bottle of Eno’s fruit salts…for upset stomach.  Food we ate made that necessary.
17) candle in wine bottle…
18) Huge box of cookies sent as a  Care package from Marjorie who was back in North Bay.  She also sent chocolate cakes.
19) Mosquito lotion
20) Camera case and  pile of magazines…maybe scientific journals but more likely the other kind.
21) Diary on top of stump table
22) My brief  case in which was wrapped my idea of Yukon gold (see 23)
23) my Mastodon  Tooth found in a gold  sluice box  in Dublin Gulch.  It was a great teaching item when  presenting the theory
of Beringia…where Asiatic  people migrated to North America 10,000 to 20,000 years  ago when the Bering Sea was a vast dry plain feeding  Mastodons,
Mammoths and other giant now extinct creatures.  Must have been  a good lesson for some student stole the tooth the first  year I taught high school.
24) Alan Skeoch, 23 years old, bearded,  post-adolescent, Rover Scout, potential groom, Geophysical Field  Man. future teacher…immature… reticent to give up
the life of luxury implied by this photograph .   Marjorie took the view that ‘if you can’t beat them join them’  and  Marjorie Joined our  crews on jobs
in North Ontario at Paradise Lodge and Wart Lake in 1963 and a short and final job at Merritt, British Columbia.,in 1964 where the local mining executives thought
she was a hooker. 
25) Prospectors rock hammer

  26) plank under cot to prevent collapse

27) gold nuggets … tiny … really just gold dust which I dropped on black electrical tape and  mailed to Marjorie.   Should do a story about

our discovery of gold.  In 1962 gold sold at $35 an  ounce and was controlled by he Canadian government.  Today it sells at around $2,000 an ounce and the Gold Standard

has been abandoned.  A friend  in Dublin Gulch had  a slab of  gold as a kind of knuckle duster if he was ever robbed.  His cabin was amazing…Mammoth tusks and bones
leaning against the walls…and those huge teeth.

WHAT A WONDERFUL LIFE.

ALAN SKEOCH
MARCH 2018


Posted on

EPISODE 186 HOW TO LOAD A TRACTOR

EPISODE  186    HOW TO LOAD  A TRACTOR


alan skeoch
Dec. 2020

You may  wonder how a bull dozer gets  on a trailer.  Then again
you may not.  No matter here is a step by step visual instruction
just in case someday you are asked  to load  an IHC W6.

A few years ago we did it differently.  I remember with a shudder.
We drove the IHC W6 up a ramp  to the truck bed.  Getting it
off the truck  was absolutely terrifying.


This is the sediment bowl through which gasoline flows from the gas tank to the cylinders.  Look at the little bit
of grunge at the bottom.  My old IHC W6 always had  a bit of grunge.  Now it has a lot of grunge as  it has not been
going since the day we loaded it here in August 2017.  Needs a new gas tank.  Is it worth the money?  I must ask
Bill Brooks…he  can fix anything and  has kept the W6 alive long past its normal terminal age.  

That’s Andrew Skeoch doing all the work.  The movie was “Fanrenheit” something or other. 

alan  skeoch
dec.  2020

Posted on

EPISODE 185 HISTORY DEPARTMENT PARKDALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE CIRCA 1980

EPISODE 185  HISTORY DEPARTMENT    PARKDALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE   CIRCA 1980


alan skeoch
dec.  2020

left to right, back row: Gerry Wagner, Frank Bitonti, Susan Gilmour, Sam Markou, Terry Wickstrom
front row left to right: John Maize, Lynne Roddick, Alan Skeoch, Phil Sharp
(picture taken at Centre Island fun park for kids)

When I was hired as a history teacher at Parkdale Collegiate Institute there were two great educators involved…John Ricker and Evan Cruickshank.
Both of them said the same thing.  “Alan, if you take the job at Parkdale you will never leave.”  It seemed strange since both of these people
did not know each other well.  …both heads of history departments and both eventually teachers of teachers
at the Faculty of  Education.  My thought? “These guys must know what they are talking about.”

So I took the job and  never looked back.   No other job in education appealed to me.  The students at Parkdale were family.
The kind that punched  you on the shoulder and said “Good  morning, sir”

I think this photograph says it all.  We loved teaching.  We loved each other.  We loved Parkdale.   And let me add with pride
…I think we did a good job with our kids.   

Especially when we came to school dressed  like the picture above. (not true)

Each face is  a story.  But let me tell one story about a teacher that could  have been ignored.  Gerry Wagner, with the
Coonskin Cap.  His family once owned  a factory in, I believe, Czechslovakia.  World War II intervened and the factory was
seized.  Somehow the Wagners escaped.  Gerry ultimately got a job at Parkdale.  A quiet man.  We called him ‘the Wag’.
He was a great poker player.  Bob  Marshall and  George Stavropoulos (not in picture) tried to bluff Gerry in a game we called
East York #$%$    Gerry took their money.  The poker game was so silly that it is worth describing.  Each player took a
card face down and put the card on his forehead.  Then the betting began to force others out of the game.  Bob and  George were
determined to make Gerry fold (even though Gerry held a king or an ace)…they upped the anti, again and again.  Gerry took
all them money.  And he grinned…a quiet grin. Any man that had escaped Nazi Germany could not be bluffed.  We played
that poker game in our old farm house. Some beer may have been involved.  Good times.  Nickel dime poker…no one loses much.

Sounds silly?  Each of these people could be a story as silly as the story about Gerry.  Let the good times roll, as they say.  Before Gerry died he bought me a
wooden fish from Mexico.  It sits  above my head right now.

So I owe much to John Ricker and Evan Cruickshank…and to Parkdale.

alan skeoch
Dec.  2020   


Posted on

ALAN

I JUST MADE A MISTAKE AND SENT MY NEXT STORY AS A POSTSCRIPT OF 184…DAMN DAMN DAMN
IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME TO WRITE THESE STORIES AT THE SPEED REQUIRED…I.E. ONE STORY PER DAY…SO WHEN MY RESEARCH GETS SENT EARLY THAT MEANS MY STORY IS KILLED AND I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
THE PACE IS EXHAUSTING AT TIMES.
ALAN
P.S. THANKS DIRK FOR SETTNG UP THAT BLOG