Alan Skeoch

Year: 2023

  • EPISODE 884 SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL IND IN FIRE

    EPISODE 884   SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL IND IN FIRE…Robert Frost in 1920 remembered on this evil day in 2023


    alan skeoch



    Fire and Ice

    Some say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I’ve tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.
    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To say that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice.

    Robert Frost wrote this poem in 1920, shortly after the end of World War 
    when the results were obvious and horrific…when 60,000 young Can Canadians died 
    including Uncle Jack who I would never meet.

    Today we are seeing the resurfacing of fire and ice in the Gaza Strip  where Hamas
    sent killers loose with one purpose in mind…To kill Jews.

    Perhaps we need something to sooth our nerves … to dampen our apprehension of
    evils yet to surface….to hope a resolution is possible even though we might feel 
    as Robert Frost did in 1920.  A century ago.

    I Tried to capture the clouds of hope on this evil day.


  • EPISODE 883 THANKSGIVING DINNER AT FARM OCT. 9, ,3023

    EPISODE 883   THANKSGIVING DINNER AT FARM   OCT. 9, ,2023


    allan skeoch
    Oct. 9, 2023

    It is easy to take our good fortune for granted.  Too easy.   On this day 
    there are so many  who do not have our good fortune.

    See if you can find the long dish with goat cheese and pear slices
    soaked in brandy and garnished with green things.   Marjorie at her
    creative best.   Yum Yum.

  • EPISODE 880 “GET IN THE POLICE CAR, SON, WE ARE GOING FOR A RIDE”

    EPISODE 780


    alan skeochOct 6, 2023







    E

    This was ‘MINNIE’S in the 1920;s


    EPISODE 880  :”GET IN THE POLICE CAR, SON, WE ARE GOING FOR A RIDE”

    “Have you ever sat in the back seat of a police car?”

    In an earlier episode i asked if you had ever been strapped.   That got quite a  response.  John Morton said he ws strapped often in elementary
    school which explains his attitude to authorities.  Bob Root said he ws strapped by the best teacher he ever had in public school.  The strapping
    did not change his mind. “She was wonderful!’.  Erin Furlong said she was strapped at home often along with her siblings.  

    “You were never strapped, Alan.”  commented my brother.  But the strapping seem so real.  The wooden chair in the Principals’s
    office….the drawerwhere he kept the strap…the caution lest I pull my hand away….the sound as the strap hit his knee…
    “Never happened, Alan, .”  Is Eric right?  Or was I just too ashamed to tell him and mom?  Afraid Dad would 
    high tait down to Runnymede PS. to straighten out the man with the sore knee.  “Never happpened, Alan!”   God, Eric can be a 
    spoillsport.   And truth is so hard to pin down.  I could concede….Eric might be right.  But listen up…Eric witnessed this one.

    “Remember the police car, Eric?”
    “Now that was a  fact…you got arrested.”
    “Do you remember why?”
    “The key…Minnies swimming pool…”


    See the jumping tower on the left….and the pool below…jumping was dangerous….


    Here is Minnies Tower….pool far below….pic  taken about 1954…do not take a running jump…
    might land on har 1953 Ford Meteor or the fence.

    We had been swimming at Minnies, more properly known as the Mineral Baths across Bloor street from High Park.  A rather run down swimming pool whose main feature was a high
    wooden tower  designed only for the brave.  

    “Never take a running leap from the top tower, boys.”
    “why not?”
    “You will impale yourself on the iron fence along the south edge of the pool,  Do it
    if you favour easy suicide.”

    It was a rough place built way back in the 1920’s.The male changing room had banks of wooden cabinets.   Gray and dingy’  It was the lockers that got me  into
    very serious trouble.  Police trouble.

    I was putting on my pants when the idea came to me.

    “Hey Eric.  I bet you dollars to doughnuts these keys are all the same.  One key
    can open any locker.  They’re just skeleton keys.”

    Then I made the big mistake.

    “Watch this, Eric, and I stood on the bench and slipped my locker key into different locker.   Were all keys the same?  I never found out.  The moment

    I put the key in the locker next to me, one of the locker room boys peeped around the corner and started to yell.

    “GOT HIM! Come quick, I just caught some son of a bitch breaking into the lockers.”

    Before i could say Jack Robinson, a bunch of muscle guys had pinned me to the floor.

    “Got him.  Hold him down while we call the police”.The police?  
    Oh God, no, not the cops. What could I do?  Who in tarnation would believe my key idea.
    sounds like a stupid excuse.   

      “I was only testing the key…thought all keys were the same.”  No one in their right mind would believe 
    that story.  

     As the muscle boys were shouldering me into Minnie’s office I got a look at Eric.  He was dumbfounded.  Jaw dropped.   Maybe thinking how he could
    help his big brother….He was just a year younger than me.  I said noting but noticed him heading for the bike rack. He would get the bikes home.
    I needed dad but he was fast asleep from night shift at Dunlop Tire Company.  Not sure I wanted him,,.  Afraid he would start
    World War Three on Bloor Street.  Dad was a ‘those are my boys right or wrong’… kind of parent.  And he was tough.   Slapping huge chunks of vulcanized rubber
    on to spinning wheels was a big man’s work.  He could take care of the muscle boys.   But there  must be a better way.

    They had me pinned to a stool in Minnie’s office.  

     “How many lockers have you rifled?”  
    “None”
    “Bull shit kid…The cops will get the truth out of your”
    “Any minute now,.. here comes the cruiser.”

    A big guy in blue levered himself from his car.   Carried a revolver.  “So you are the kid who breaks into lockers.  A thief?”
    “I was only trying to see if the key was the same….”   His eyes looked amused. I was not crying.  Wanted to but just could not  do it.  

     I knew my career as a Humberside student was done for…

    What would Cruickshank, Green, Burford, Schroeder, Charlesworth…. think of me? .and  the principal W.E. Taylor who rescued Ted Puccini and me from
    a local poo hall.  Maybe W.E. would expel me…. worse still what about the girls  of the Runnymede Presbyterian  Youth Club?
     Girls would look at me with disdain,  I was on the road to purgatory.

    The cop looked at me in a funny way.  He did not call me a son of bitch.  Quite the reverse .

    “Come along with me son, I’ll drive you home..”

    Did he call me ‘son’?   Was I hearing right?  “I’ll take the boy home,   He won’t do that again.”
    So I escaped  and crawled into the back seat of the cruiser. “Son, get in the front
    seat with me.”  Did he call me ‘son’ again.  Was this a trick…bad cop – good cop scenario?
    And away we went.  I never went back to Minnies again.  But new worries surfaced.
    What would the neighbours think if a squad car pulled up to our door?  What would Grandma think?  She was living with us for a while and 
    loved us.  Sh liked  sitting on the verandah watching the Annette Street trolley stop where smokers often discarded cigarette butts.  She liked to chew tobacco.
    She was dying…perhaps a month to live. She knew it. Granddad had died a few months e earlier. A 19th century woman. Over 90. 


    “Officer…sir?” 
    “Yes”
    “Could you drop me off  around the corner on Gilmour?   
    “Suppose I could, why?”
    “My grandmother loves me and she might be sitting on the porch and….”
    “And she might form  a different opinion, right?”
    ….I’ll pull up out of sight ,  don’t worry but do not do that key trick again, son.”’
    he called me son again as he let me out.  I have liked police ever since and rarely use the term cop which is a put down word.

    I never mentioned that Dad was asleep in the bed room.  Dad would believe my story…I think.


    So that is my story about getting into the back seat of police car as  a suspected criminal.  Even a nice guy like the policeman would not
    believe the truth about the key.  Would you?  Never went back to Minnies so I have no idea if  it was a ‘one key fits all’ locker room.
    Minnies was demolished a few yeas later…lockers gone’

    Maybe you have had
    a similar  experience.in a police car
          
    alan

    P.S. A s some readers know Dad said “I have two sons, one is a  gutsy bugger and the other is as stupid as Joe’s dog.”
    Sounds stupid I know but believe it or not the terms had meaning.  Dare not  tell you the meaning in this story. They were
    terms of endearment.   Dad expressed affection in odd ways.




  • EPISODE 879 TREES ARE SMARTER THAN YOU AND ME….THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMNG

     EPISODE 879    TREES ARE SMARTER THAN YOU AND ME….THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMNG


    alan skeoch
    Oct. 2, 2023


    “I grow old … I grow old … 
    I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” 

    ― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems


    AS A MATTER OF FACT, I THINK I’LL TAKE OFF MY PANTS
    AND TAKE A DIP IN LAKE ONTARIO IN  MY UNDERSHORTS
    …SUMMERTIME ‘ AND THE  LIVING IS EASY “   GETTING MY
    POETS IN A JUMBLE.  HOT WEATHER RESPONSIBLE.

    WHY ARE THE TREES LOSING THEIR LEAVES?  STUPID THING TO DO.



    Hot weather.  Must still be summer.   That’s what I think.

    But all the trees think differently.  They are getting ready for winter
    even though the temperature is 20 , even 22 or higher.   Bathing suit weather.

    But the trees are dropping their leaves,,,millions of them fluttering to the 
    ground because the trees know their time of green glory…of feeding from the sunshine 
    is coming to an end.

    How do they know this?

    Simple.  The hours of daylight are getting  shorter and shorter.   It does not matter how
    hot it is at high noon.  What matters is when the sun goes down.   Have you noticed?
    Ask the trees in the forest…along side roads…in your back yard…they can tell the time.

    Trees are watching sunsets.  And shivering.

    alan




  • EPISODE 876 IN THE BEGINNG…A CREATION STORY…SKY WOMAN FELL FROM THE CLOUDS

    EPISODE 876  iIN THE BEGINNING…SKY WOMAN FELL FROM THE CLOUDS…


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 29 2023

    NOTE: THE story of Sky Woman fascinated me . Why?  Because her rescue was done by 
     the creatures on earth.   There exists harmony between humans and all living things
    in this creation story.  Seems a nicer CREATION STORY  than Adam and Eve.

    SKY WOMAN

    An excerpt from a book you will never read
    titled YOUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND, a book I wrote in the hope
    it would improve young  Canadians understanding of  our native people.
    The book never got that chance.




    “Where did we come from?”
    “How did we get here?”
    “What was the FIRST CAUSE?
    “Can something be created from nothing?”

    Questions such as these have bedevilled thinking people .  These questions do not seem
    to have bedevilled non-thikeers as much.  So I write this for thinkers.

    When I wrote YOUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND some time ago the trigger mechanism in
    my brain was the Turtle legend common to many aboriginal peoples in eastern North America.
    It is a story…a legend….a myth…a ‘belief’ that makes more sense than Adam and Eve
    because the story is in harmony with other living creatures on planet earth.

    Initially, like Adam and Eve, the ‘giant Turtle’ story was told orallly and therefore changed a 
    little with each telling.  But the essence never changed, The story was recorded in print after the arrival of Europeans.
    Relatively recently.

    No doubt my version differs from other versions.  So be it.  I write this as if it was told tome by a wise
    aboriginal leader.  A woman.

    IN THE BEGINNING

    “In the beginning” the earth was covered in water.  There was no land.
    The gods lived in peace abed the clouds with covered the earth.

    One day a tree fell over and poked a hole one clouds.

    Sky Woman was  curious and she peeked through the hole at the watery
    earth below.   She leaned over too far and fell through the hole in the clouds.

    She was falling faster and faster when a loon saw her.   The loon flew under and
    Sky Woman landed on the loon’s back.



    She was heavy and the loon cried out to the creatures below for help lest Sky Woman drown.

    The Great  Turtle told the Loon to ‘let Sky Woman land on my back’ 

    But the back of the turtle was too small so the turtle gathered all the 
    living  creatures in the watery world for a conference.

    “Sky Woman needs more space.”





    And so the water animals…the loon, goose, beaver, otter and muskrat began to dive 
    down deep in the water world.   ‘They tried to reach the muddy bottom
    They tried often but failed.   Then the lowliest of the water animals, the
    muskrat, made one last effort.   The muskrat dived deep…too deep
    to keep alive ….but, in the muskrat’s last living act clutch a paw of
    mud which was carried to the top of the water.



    The other water animals opened the muscrat’s paw where it 
    clutched a ball of mud.  “What should we do?”  they asked.
    Then the wise old turtle said.   “Press the mud on the edge of my
    body.”  And when they did so the mud began to grow larger
    an larger unitil  the back of the turtle became the land we know
    today.

    WHERE DID OTHER HUMANS ORIGNATE?

    Sky Woman was piegnant when she fell.   In time she bore two
    sons.  The sons did not like each other.   One son was good
    and one was bad.  They fought bitterly and  the bad son
    nearly killed the good son.  Both lived 

    As might be expected various speakers in an oral society
    would make changes But the essence of the story is still intact

    -a water covered plant 
    -gods living above the clouds
    -a fall through a hole in the clouds
    -Sky Woman falling
    -rescue by a loon or a goose
    —haven provided by the Great Turtle
    -need for living space 
    -all animals attempt to get mud
     – most fail
    -lowly muskrat succeeds 
    -mud multiplies to become land in the watery world’
    -Sky Woman was pregnant and had two sons
    -one son was good, the other was evil 
    -they fight




    STORIES OF CREATION ALL ORIIGINATED AS ORAL STORIES TOLD OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 
    EVENTUALLY THEY WERE TRANSCRIBED AS WITH THE BOOK OF GENESIS AROUND  500 BC
    OR IN THE TIME OF NOAH…
    AND  THE ABORIGINAL CREATION STOIES  TRASCRIBED BY EUROPENS IN HE 19TH CENTURY.

    BOOK OF GENESIS
    Genesis 1:1 forms the basis for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) and some scholars still support this reading,[5] but most scholars agree that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds, this is not the preferred option,[6][7][8] and that the authors of Genesis 1, writing around 500–400 BCE,

    Most of the myths from this region were first transcribed by ethnologists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These sources were collected from Native American elders who still had strong connections to the traditions of their ancestors. They may be considered the most authentic surviving records of the ancient stories, and thus form the basis of the descriptions below.[2][better source needed]

    Northeast (Southeastern Canada and Northeastern US, including the Great Lakes)

    From the full moon fell Nokomis – from The Story of Hiawatha, 1910[3]
    Myths from this region feature female deities, such as the creator, Big Turtle;[4][5] and First Mother, from whose body grew the first corn and tobacco.[6] The two great divine culture heroes are Glooskap[7][8] and Manabus.[9]
    Other stories explore the complex relationships between animals and human beings. Some myths were originally recited as verse narratives.[7]