Alan Skeoch

Year: 2018

  • HEAD ON CAR ACCIDENT IN NEW ZEALAND…ANDREW AND KEITH SURVIVE



    Begin forwarded message:


    From: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: Fwd: HEAD ON CAR ACCIDENT IN NEW ZEALAND…ANDREW AND KEITH
    Date: April 3, 2018 at 6:54:08 PM GMT-4
    To: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>




    Begin forwarded message:


    From: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: Fwd: HEAD ON CAR ACCIDENT IN NEW ZEALAND…ANDREW AND KEITH
    Date: April 2, 2018 at 6:03:01 PM GMT-4


    HIGHER RESOLUTION?  HOW DO I DO THAT?


    Begin forwarded message:


    From: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: HEAD ON CAR ACCIDENT IN NEW ZEALAND…ANDREW AND KEITH
    Date: April 2, 2018 at 5:28:16 PM GMT-4









            NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

    (Andrew Skeoch and Keith Merker)

    ghost written by  Alan Skeoch
    from interview with Andrew Skeoch

          (North Island,  New Zealand, winter 1991)

          The  road was empty.  Or, at least it seemed  so.   Keith was driving and I was in the passenger seat reading.
    The two girls were in the back dozing.  We had  been surfing on 90 mile beach, a vast expanse of hard  sand and
    foaming waves.  Wonderful place.  So huge that other cars are few and  far between and the hard  sand allowed 
    us to park at the water’s edge.  We had a  great time.   

    But that was  about to end.  Suddenly.

    “Car! Coming at us head on.”  Keith yelled but probably never finished  the sentence.  I looked up just in time to see
    a white car with two boys coming at us on the wrong side of the road.  A blind curve.  No time to think or act.

    Kaboom!  Both cars were welded together and  both came to a  dead  stop in showers and gas  and metal  fragments.
    None of  us had seat belts.  The moment after I looked  up from my book…milliseconds…I flew from my seat right through
    the front window. Head first.  Something on my head  was  torn as  Ihit the crumpled hood of our  car. Blood. Lots of it.
    My nose  was severed badly and would not stop bleeding.  It felt like a flap of meat rather than part of  my body.

    Initially I was the only person who cold stand, however.  Keith’s chest had  hit and  collapsed the steering wheel while
    a stiletto like piece of metal impaled his knee.  he was pinned.

    The girls?   I tried to get the back door open on Jo Anne’s side.  Hard to do.  Blood pouring down my face. Finally 
    the door was wrenched  open.  Jo Anne look like she was dead.  A limp body.  I placed her on the ground and
    tired to revive her but feared the worst.  Then her eyes opened but she could not talk.  Her jaw was broken dead  centre.
    But she was alive.  The other girl was mobile by then but badly cut in the lower torso.  She was stretched out on
    the highway beside Jo Anne.

    By  that time Keith had  freed  himself and  took a look at me.  Something had  to be done.  I was losing so  much  blood.
    So he wound my head  and  face with tape…looked like  a mummy.  But the tape stopped  the heavy bleeding.  Keith
    could not walk.  He hobbled.

    The boys in the other car were in a state  of shock.  We pulled our camping gear from our car and  laid out 
    what we could  right on the road.  

    No car came.  We hoped and prayed but no car.  After two hours I decided to try to walk  and get help.  I was
    the least hurt although my bloody clothes  looked  terrible.  And the making tape bandages were sinister looking.  Who would stop
    to help once they saw me at the side of the road?  Just as I started,  a  car full  of  tourists came
    around  the bend.   They had  phones.

    A helicopter arrived in short order with a medic who bandaged us up and loaded both girls aboard for
    the flight back to Auckland.  

    Keith and I  had to wait for an ambulance and then faced a miserable six hour drive to the same hospital
    in Auckland.   My nose was bad.  I feared the worst.  What would life be like without a nose?  The windshield
    had lived my nose  across he bottom and up the right side.  So it was just hanging by he flesh on the left side.
    What followed was wise than the accident as far as I was  concerned.  It was  night when we arrived but
    there could be no delay so the surgeon began  stitching immediately.. Freezing kept the
    nostril bridge from hurting but the rest was  sheer agony as the doctor had to reach up inside my nostril
    to get the stitches to take hold.  And there was no freezing up there.  This was not a nice experience.

    There was, however, a rosy ending.  Archie Clarke, the investigating police officer came down to
    Auckland with us.  He was  responsible for policing the Northern Territory so that was  some distance
    from his home base.   As far a the accident was concerned we were in the clear.  the other car
    was in our lane.  Their fault.   Some comfort but not much for our car had to be written off and 
    we had  very little money left.

    Then a weird thing happened.  Archie Clarke volunteered to take us all…two boys and two girls…to his home up
    north while we recuperated.  

    In the end  we had a two week all expenses  paid vacation with a terrific family who loved and shared
    their outdoor life.  We even went out hunting for wlld pigs in the wilds of the North Island.  I wonder how many police officers in Canada would do that?

    Andrew Skeoch (almost verbatim)
    April 2018
    (The accident happened in 1991)

    P>S>  Andrew never told us  how bad this  accident had been.  By pure chance I found
    these pictures  while converting 35 mm slides to digital pictures.




    This  picture  gives  a good  idea  of the impact.  Both cars are welded  together

    like husband and  wife.  We never really got to know the boys in the white car.  They were

    in shock.  Guess they knew they were also in big trouble.  Wrong side of the road. Nobody  had  been drinking. I say
    that just in case you think four males and  two girls were violating the liquor laws.  Bad  
    things happen to good people.



    The gas tanks were not ruptured. That is cooling fluid on the ground.  If fire had  started

    I don’t know if three of our people would have got out in time.  I might have been the
    only survivor.  Cars  explode often in this kind  of collision.  We were lucky.  If you look
    closely on the right side, you can  see the girls  wrapped in sleeping bags awaiting aid.

    Notice that Keith Merker can  barely stand up.  Also this  gives a good  idea  of  what it was  like the fly through the windshield of our car.

    What windshield, you say.  Precisely my point.  Lucky my nose is not attached to that last remaining glass shard.  Notice the bent steering wheel

      pushed  up against he dashboard by Keith’s  chest.


    Help arrived.  Red car.   We had made the girls as comfortable as possible as we 
    awaited the helicopter.


  • HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF BUTLER’S RANGERS?




     HAVE  YOU EVER HEARD  OF  BUTLER’S RANGERS? 

    (MEMORIES  OF  THE WYOMING VALLEY MASSACRE AND THE VENGENCE OF SULLIVAN)
    (noted at the Farm Sale for Charles  Colin Trout, on  March  31, 21018)

    alan  skeoch
    April  2, 2018



    THIS is  Marjorie Skeoch sitting and guarding  her possessions like a  mother hen at the Troup auction sale, March  31, 2018, on the farm near Vineland, Ontario.
    Notice her right hand, resting on that wood  box.  THAT IS  NOT HERS!  That box  is the platform used by auctioneer Rick Rittenhouse to elevate himself above 
    the crowd.   She thought I bought it.  Back  in the deep past, in the  1780’s, Loyalist veterans  of the American  Revolution must have guarded their few possession like 
    this.  Marjorie’s family were Loyalists…United Empire Loyalists…so  she comes  by this feeling of  dispossession naturally.  She was  not connected to Butler and  
    his Rangers however.


    THIS FARM HAS A LONG HISTORY…DEEP ROOTED IN THE CREATION OF CANADA

    AND IT WILL REMAIN AS  IT IS TODAY…NOT SUBJECT TO DEMOLITION



    THE STORY

    Below is  an  imaginary dialogue between Marjorie and Alan  Skeoch:


    “ALAN, did you hear about that house?”
    “Hear what?”
    “Owner  says  it goes back to the Butler’s Rangers…”
    “Way back that far…are you sure?”
    “Mr. Troup says so.”
    “And  who  is he?”
    “Owner of this  farm since the death of  Charles Group in 2015,”
    “Butler’s Rangers  were a bloody tough bunch in the American  Revolution according to what I’ve read”
    “Whose side?”
    “Our side…the British side, they fought some nasty battles  with Jospeh Brant’s Iroquois…a  lot of people died, some  scalped.”
    “Losers…”
    “Right…after the Wyoming Valley  Massacre they had  to get the hell out as  fast as they could.’
    “Massacre?  Wyoming?  Never heard  of  the place or the massacre>”
    If you are American you would  remember.  Bunch of American militia, around  450 of them  under guy by  name of Denison got caught.  Sucked into a horseshoe
    ambush…slaughtered mostly, then their farms  were  burned…Iroquois scalped  a lot of them, ‘blood and gore all over  the floor”
    “How  can you make light of a massacre.”
    “Sorry.  It was bad.  Women and children fled  into the  forest and some escaped to tell their story.  No doubt time has magnified the event. But it was
    a bad scene.  Hard  to imagine how deep  the hatred was  back in the 1770’s and  1780’s…even up to 1815.”
    “If Colonel Butler and  his force  won Wyoming Valley  battle,  how come  they fled later?”
    “Because the American decided to get even.  Sent Sullivan north with several thousand troops…they ripped  Western New York state to bits.  Smashed, killed,  burned the 
    homeland of the Iroquois.  They had a  war cry…good one…

    TORIES WITH YOUR BRATS AND WIVES
    SHOULD FLEE  TO SAVE YOUR WRETCHED  LIVES

    “Sullivan and his troops drove Butler and  his Rangers, only a couple of hundred strong, north…across the Niagara River  eventually.   Iroquois refugees  by the 
    hundreds clustered around  Fort Niagara…that big stone fort on the US side of the river now but in the 1780’s it was  British.”
    “What happened to them?”
    “For a  few years Butler and  the Iroquois launched  lightning and violent raids into American Territory…raid, wreck, burn, retreat, killing was part of it….war
    is never pretty.”
    “And then?”
    “After the American victory in  1776, the Loyalists  and  Iroquois  were settled  along the new border, principally the Niagara River.  Butler’s guys were
    each given a 100 acre farm in the then wilderness of Upper Canada.
    “Do  you think this farm is one of those land grants?”
    “I do.  But first must do some checking.”

    “While you are  at it, tell me about this guy Butler…I  see his  name often.  Such as  the sign “Butler’s Buring Ground” near Niagara  on the Lake..

    AFTER A  LITTLE  RESEARCHING


    THE FARM OF CHRISTIAN PRICE…AND  CHARLES  COLIN TROUP

    “OK, this farm seems to have been granted to Christian  Price, a private in  Butler’s Rangers…daughter must have married Troup family, hence name change over the years.
    Colin Group died In 2015…not long ago…leaving the farm to others in the Troup Family who  own  Lakelee Orchards…easy to spot from the QEW at Vineland exit.  Lots  of  peaches.”
    “Is that where we buy our peaches by the bushel?”
    “Same  place…part of the Christian  Piece land  grant.”
    “Where are the Pries buried?”
    “Why would  you care?”
    “Just trying to check your story…”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “Not all  the time, no…sometimes  your enthusiasm  gets  ahead of the facts.  Where are the Price graves?  Gravestones  give facts.”
    “Gone.”
    “How  can  that be?”
    “Big storms  on Lake Ontario washed  the Price Burying ground out into the lake…coffins and  all.  Maybe gravestones can be found by good  divers,  but I doubt it.”
    “Facts gone?”
    “No, lots remain…more than enough to back up this story.”



    “SAY, ALAN, tell me a  bit about Colonel Butler…seems to have been loved and  hated.”
    “You might be interested in how he became a  Colonel”
    “Not really…assume appointed  by King George.”
    “Nope  just named  himself  Colonel and went around gathering men who were pro British.”
    “But who was  he?”
    “A rich man…had 27,000 acres of land before the American Revolution…very Pro-British…was an officer but just not as high as a Colonel.”
    “Lost it all?”
    “Yep, lost every square inch of it.”
    “Assume  he got lots  of land here  in Upper Canada…given by a grateful King.”
    “Nope, he only got 500 acres…lost 27,000 acres (*which may have  really been Indian  land)…became a kind of sleazy businessman in getting  access to Indian land for personal profit.”
    “Surely  King George III was aware of shady  happenings?”
    “King George  III was not that great…loony a  good  part of his  live. Americans
    made fun of the king…and rightly so.

    KING GEORGE THE THIRD
    SHOULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED
    ONE CAN ONLY WONDER
    AT SUCH A BLUNDER

    “Was Butler a bad guy?”
    “If you believe American historians, Butler was a despicable murderer…but take that with a grain of salt.”
    “Why?”
    “The history of war is often  written by the winners.  Washington won the American Revolution so the Loyalists  (nice  name) became Tories  (bad  name) and
    Butler’s Rangers  became evil.”
    “Truth, is there such a thing as truth?”
    “Look for the middle path.  Butler’s Rangers were no better and  no worse  than other troops fighting on the American frontier.”
    “Did Butler achieve anything?”
    “Sure did.  He won  the loyalty of the Iroquois warriors and  fear of them stopped American forces  at the Niagara  River. They trusted  Buttler
    more than that trusted  any American leaders.  Their land was taken and Buttler was part of the final settlement of the Iroquois on the Grand River
    of  Upper Canada where most remain today.”

    “What about Christian  Price?”
    “He married  and  settled  down on his  new farm…then, in the 1780’s, covered with giant trees and  bisected  by streams and swamps.Today covered  with
    peach, cherry and grape  orchards and  bisected  by a wide swath of the multi-lanes  QEW along with service  roads..”



    Above are Mr. and  Mrs.  Troup, direct descendent of  Christian  Piece and the exploits of  Butler’s Rangers.  To Canadian Buttler and  his  Iroquois irregulars were heroic  defenders of
    British colonial life.  To Americans,…?  not so!



    And after the auction sale was  over, Andrew helped Marjorie and I load  our purchases…so the story has some hard  goods as  well  as  soft print.



    Treasure?  Well, this hand operated corn sheller (below) is to my mind  a  grand treasure.  Comes  complete with a  hopper feed system and  a  hand crank.  Mr. Troup and who knows how many Troup’s before him, gathered  
    corn cobs  each year and stored them in this  corn crib set up on stone pillars to keep the rats and mice away.   Then shelled the cobs into piles  kernels  to feed the livestock…pigs,  chickens especially.
    The corn  sheller has survived as has the farm granted to Christian Piece in the  1780’s. Now called Lakelee Orchards. As mentioned, Today the QEW cuts right through the original lakefront part of the farm.  And  somewhere out in the
    lake rests  the tombstone of Christian Price, washed away.




    FOOTNOTES

    Charles Colin Troup

    TROUP, Charles Colin –  Peacefully on Friday March 13, 2015 at his residence at the Orchards in Vineland Ontario in his 89th year. Predeceased by his wife Muriel May Hodge (2002). Survived by his daughters Marilyn and Sandra and son David (Sev). Grandfather of Jason, Nicholas and Aundrea Troup, Victoria and Jessica Gibson, Fred Leppard and Sarah Thiede. Great-grandfather of Noah, Ava and Aleah. Also survived by many nieces and nephews. Colin lived a very full life and was probably best known as a fruit grower, income tax consultant, and a stamp collector who exhibited his award winning collections internationally. He was a member of both the Jordan Lions Club and the Beamsville Ivy Lodge for over 50 years. Special thanks to Dr. Overholt and his staff for looking after dad in his final years. Cremation has taken place. The family will receive friends at the VINELAND CHAPEL of TALLMAN FUNERAL HOMES  on Friday March 27, 2015 from 7-9 pm with a service in the chapel on Saturday March 28,2015 at 11am. There will be a private family interment at a later date. If desired, donations can be made to the Canadian Cancer Society or the Heart and Stroke Foundation in his honour. Online condolences at www.tallmanfuneralhomes.ca12909130
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    Re: Butler’s Rangers

    ANON-Y-MOUSE (View posts)
    Posted: 07 Dec 2001 02:17PM
    Classification: Query
    Just type in Butler’s Rangers. The Lincoln & Welland Regt.
    has all of them on their site.
    Christian Price was a Butler’s Rangers. He lived on the
    shore of Lake Ontario, (now the North Service Road)in the
    former Township of Louth (Now Town Of Lincoln)on Conc.I, II & III, Lot 15. Sons & Daus. of American Loyalists by
    Wm. D. Reid. PRICE, Christian of Louth Children: 
    Elizabeth Md. Jacob Culp of Clinton O.C.19 May 1819
    David Of Louth, O.C. 19 May, 1819
    Christian of Louth. O.C.19 May 1819
    Peter of Louth O.C. 19 May, 1819
    Abraham of Louth O.C. 17 Mar. 1825
    Catherine O.C. 19 Dec. 1833
    Jacob of Louth O.C. 19 Feb. 1831
    John of Louth, O.C. 19 Feb. 1831
    Mary md.John McCarthy of Louth O.C. 19 Feb.1831
    Nancy Md. John Haines of Grantham O.C. 19 Feb.1831

       

       

    Re: Butler’s Rangers

     charlief_1 (View posts)
    Posted: 08 Dec 2001 01:47PM
    Classification: Query
    Edited: 12 Feb 2002 01:40PM
    Christian Price died 1832 buried Price Family Burying Ground, Louth which was washed away by Lake Ontario. He married Barbara Overholt born Bucks Co., PA; died 1822 buried Price Family Burying Ground; daughter of Isaac Overholt who died 1824 buried Mennonite Cem., Louth. You can find Barbara’s siblings and my notes on these folks in CD 24 of the Pedigree Resource File.

  • “SOMEDAY I WILL DRIVE A TRACTOR, DADDY”

    “SOMEDAY  I WILL DRIVE A TRACTOR LIKE THIS , DADDY””

    “NOT AS LONG AS YOU HAVE THAT THING IN YOUR MOUTH, ANDREW.”
    “SHOULD I TAKE IT OUT?”
    “NOPE, KEEP IT IN AS LONG AS  YOU CAN, GROWING UP SHOULD BE DELAYED  AS  LONG AS POSSIBLE.”

    PICTURE OF ANDREW SKEOCH

  • DADDY, CAN I EAT ThIS?

    “daddy, can  I eat this?”


  • in AN IDEAL WORLD!!!

    I REMEMBER vaguely and no doubt inaccurately a great painting and attendant comment about an ideal utopian world where “the lamb will lay down with the lion”.

    We are certainly not anywhere near that perfect world.  Nor is it even achievable.  Murder sanctioned by religion points that out to us every day.

    Obviously Marjorie has not given up hope…(picture taken some time ago and made digital today)

    alan skeoch
    March 2018