{"id":7923,"date":"2021-03-14T14:12:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T18:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7923"},"modified":"2021-03-14T14:14:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T18:14:52","slug":"episode-283-stonehooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7923","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 283 STONEHOOKING"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE  283     STONEHOOKING   <\/p>\n

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Jackson Skeoch  and I are admiring a pile of rock shingles on a Mississauga beach<\/div>\n
\u2026yesterday\u2026March  15, 2021.   We have been in isolation for a<\/div>\n
full year now due to Covid 19.  A  good time to reflect on an event<\/div>\n
that happened a year ago.<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
March 2021<\/div>\n

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It took a month to put my lecture together.   The occasion was a  fund raising dinner held at the Stonehooker Brewery, Port Credit, on<\/div>\n
Feb. 29,2020.   We had a grand time entertaining and drinking fine beer with 100 guests.  Sold out tickets.   I was the feature<\/div>\n
speaker  who  was introduced by my wife Marjorie.  She took 20.5 minutes in her introductory remarks which were a hoot.<\/div>\n
In the process she managed to push a wine bottle from lecture to cement floor which shattered like a hand grenade.  Shaymus<\/div>\n
Stokes then picked up the pile while Marjorie continued with her admiration of her husband.  She had practiced the speech<\/div>\n
for four weeks.  Why the wine bottle?  Because the label featured a wise comment by Albert Einstein.  \u201cA mind that opens to<\/div>\n
a new idea never returns to its original size.\u201d  Think about that for a moment.  <\/div>\n

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Now we had allocated 45 minutes for my speech and the rest of the time for dining and sampling beer from the huge vats<\/div>\n
surrounding our dinner tables.   Our son Andrew began tapping his watch as Marjorie spoke.   She ignored him just<\/div>\n
as she ignored the splintered wine bottle.  Imagine the scene\u2026Shaymus at the foot of the lectern gathering shards of glass<\/div>\n
while Marjorie carried on without pause.  She was on a roll.   If the gods  of ancient Greece really existed then her<\/div>\n
husband, namely me, should be placed among them.  Wow!  I know this long introduction sounds like trouble.  It was<\/div>\n
not so because Marjorie performed with a kind of innocence few speakers are able to accomplish.<\/div>\n

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The result?  I cut my speech\u2026less than half.   Who would listen to a Greek god?  I did  not have a<\/div>\n
wine bottle to smash on the cement floor.  I was just a back up speaker.  Andrew tapped his watch.<\/div>\n
If there had been a long pole with a hook it would have been used to haul me off the stage.<\/div>\n

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So a year has passed.  One of the most catastrophic years in human history.  Pandemic  \u2026 Covid 19 spread<\/div>\n
with the speed of summer lightning.   Meetings of people in large groups has plummeted.   We had 100<\/div>\n
people at the Stonehooker Brewery on Feb. 29,2020.  One daughter in law, Gabriela, and one grandchild<\/div>\n
 Nolan flew over from London , England for the occasion. Other friends came from as far as  Collingwood.   We had fun.   <\/div>\n

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 Then the deadly PANDEMIC curtain came down.  We have<\/div>\n
all been in isolation for a year.  And the isolation may continue longer.<\/div>\n

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Seems to me like a good time to send out that speech.   So here we go.<\/div>\n

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Begin forwarded message:<\/div>\n


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From: <\/b><\/span>ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>>
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Subject: <\/b><\/span>speech feb .29 shingle beach at Rattray Marsh…Ordovician  <\/b>
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Date: <\/b><\/span>March 29, 2020 at 5:11:34 PM EDT
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To: <\/b><\/span>Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>>
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WALKING BACK IN TIME<\/div>\n
(will make you feel smaller than a grain of sand\u2026or speck of shale)<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
March  11, 2020<\/div>\n

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\u201cLet\u2019s take a walk, Marjorie,<\/div>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThere is a shingle beach that fronts the Rarrray Marsh.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBecause I am trying to get a grip on \u2018time\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n
\u2018Time cannot be held.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cIt can  in the mind\u2026\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNot even there.  Tine moves on\u2026fast sometimes, slow at others.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just take our time and see where it leads.”<\/div>\n

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(Note, the Rarrray Marsh is one of the wonders  of the City of Mississauga,  It slumbers behind  a rock  strewn beach of Lake Ontario.  The southwest quadrant of<\/div>\n
Mississauga\u2026almost approachable\u2026.definitely unforgettable.)<\/div>\n

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\u201cWouldn\u2019t a  sand  beach be more charming?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThat depends upon the power of your imagination.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cEasy to trip and fall here.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cRight\u2026if you do trip and fall you will find yourself among interesting company.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cPiles of flat stones.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cPiles of blue shale\u2026.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAre you trying to make these stone sound romantic?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cRomantic?  No, these stone make me feel humble\u2026like a speck of sand on the beach of time.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCarry on.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDo you know how old these pieces of shale are?\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t even know what shale is\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cShale was once mud\u2026pressed by the  weight of untold piles of mud\u2026heavy\u2026so much so<\/div>\n
that this ancient mud became sedimentary rock called shale.<\/div>\n
\u201cOur city sits on top of this vast expanse of ancient mud\u2026for that matter the ancient mud<\/div>\n
once ground and dried became the cement that holds up all the buildings in Mississauga.<\/div>\n
And for seventy years, 1850 to 1920, slabs  of this  shale were pried up by crowbars right from<\/div>\n
the place we are standing, pried  up in great slabs, manhandled onto schooners and  sailed<\/div>\n
to Toronto as the foundations of all the great buildings of the time.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDo you mean the Stonehookers?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cRight.  Nothing quite as Romantic as those stonehooking years.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cUnless, you actually had to do the stonehoking\u2026it was a brutal business.<\/div>\n
\u201cAnybody die?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cMany. In 1900, One of those old  stonehooking schooners, the Pinta, capsized<\/div>\n
just offshore around here.  Young crew trying to make a few bucks before <\/div>\n
winter set in.  They were spotted by some men shingling a barn roof off Marigold Point.<\/div>\n
Spotted in the November mist\u2026then gone.  The schooner just flipped over.  Searchers<\/div>\n
found three of the men right away.  The fourth was found  frozen under the thwarts <\/div>\n
of the hooking scow some days later\u2026body frozen solid.\u201d<\/div>\n

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The Stonehooker Lillian resting in Port Credit Harbour in 1910  (Lakeshore Road and Credit River, SE shore.)<\/div>\n

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The harbour reached its peak between 1880 and 1900 with the advent of stonehooking; one of the primary building materials for construction in Toronto was shale from the bottom of Lake Ontario. The vessels that raised this stone were called Stonehookers and a great many of them were based at Port Credit.<\/div>\n
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