Victoria wins Christmas, Iris makes herstory

THEY OUGHTA NAME A
 CITY AFTER HER:
My learned pal Victoria

Meet  lawyer Victoria Shroff.  

You'd like her.

Victoria's specialty is animal law.

From her Vancouver base, Victoria acts on behalf of all creatures furry, scaley, and feathery. 

She has fought to get an elephant out of jail and a dog off death row. Whether they're warm-blooded, cold-blooded, four-legged, two-legged or no-legged, all creatures big and small have the good-hearted Victoria in their corner.  

And this year, at least around these parts, she won more than a court case. She won Christmas.

Before I tell you how, we gotta go back almost four years. I'd landed a job at The Lawyer's Daily and my wife Helena celebrated by announcing "Congratulations on the new job Peter!" on a sign in our front window. 

More than announcing my cool new position, the sign was also a non-nuanced telegraph to the neighbours. Helena's mate got a real job! We also still have a land line. I think H is partial to it because gets me off the couch,

But that's beside the point.

SHE TALKS FUR THE ANIMALS:
Her honour Judge Iris presiding

For years before the new job and weird sign, the front window was our white cat Iris's purview. (Purr view. Can you believe I haven't used that before today? Me neither.) 

For as long as I can remember, Iris watched the world through that window. Then, after the sign arrived, Iris worked it, for more than two years!! (See here.)

At one point, Iris referenced Victoria the animal-loving lawyer.  

Meanwhile, in her spare time (ha-ha) Victoria penned a real law text called Animal Law in Canada. It's the first of its kind and I'm sure the book will be consulted broadly. (Animal law today is where environmental law was when I was a kid--in its infancy but about to explode. Just you watch.)

Yesterday, Victoria emailed me a picture of the cover of  the book and its acknowledgment page. I was thrilled to be named as somebody who played a small role in helping her bring this project to reality, but as she mentions in the kind message, others were involved. 

Including .... "And to Iris who years ago endearingly called me the Dr. Dolittle of Animal Lawyers.'"

Barely had Victoria's email arrived than I was like, copying and pasting and texting it all over the place. Sending it to my sister Charlene on Manitouin Island. Messaging co-workers. Telling my co-worker Adrian who works graveyard shift in freaking Manila!

 En route to the bank I met my dog-loving neighbours Steve and Rita. They were like "Hi Peter. How are you?"

IRIS THE MUSE: Victoria's clients could teach us
all a thing or two.

Me, pointing to their beloved four-legged pal whose name escapes me: "That red coat he's wearing reminds me of my favourite longjohns!" Then I hauled out my iPhone. 

"More importantly, check this out. Iris has made history." 

I plan on framing the message and book cover. 

And now I'm blogging about it. 

And you know why it's so great? 

Victoria's timing was perfect. 

This surprise playful message came at a time when almost everybody I know has just about had it with this thing that's going around and all the stresses it brings. We need all the diversion we can get.

That said, for all the excitement surrounding Victoria's citation, when I pointed it out to Iris, she was  surprisingly nonchalant.  

 

Come to think of it, not only did Iris not get excited at this news, neither have she or any of the other other cats and dogs of my acquantance let COVID get them down. Through it all, they just got on with business as usual.  

I think they're on to something. 

Thanks Victoria;  thank you Iris and all the other animals; and Mewy Christmas everybody. 

Huena verses the world

My late mom Huena Carter (nee MacIsaac) was a singing machine.

 MY DAD THE GROUPIE:
Huena sang. All. The. Time.

She had a pretty voice, too. Probably soprano. She wasn't trained, and I don't recall her, like, you know, ever belting it out. Huena simply sang  just loudly enough that anybody within 15 feet of her could hear. 

But she sang all the time.

Huena sang as she baked gingerbread cookies; she sang when she threaded sheets and other laundry through the wringer washer; when she rocked babies. And probably as she was knitting her trademark ambidextrous mittens, which of course could be worn on either hand.

Seems to me Huena sang as much as she talked

I also know that after she left her home in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and migrated as a single woman to the city of Sudbury to study nursing, she sang to fight off loneliness. I know that because for a few years near the end of her life, she kept a sort of a diary, in a notebook my wife Helena bought for her and in which Huena made mention of that very fact. 

At one point in the early 1940s some officious hospital supervisor told Huena that if she insisted on singing while at work she'd be sent home and wouldn't be able to finish school. Singing  in the hospital, he said, was just wrong.  

Happily,  Huena reported, a local physician who I figure probably had a crush on her, came to Huena's rescue and defended her right to sing. 

She sang on.

Her repertoire was vast and ribald. And she adapted her favourites. 

To wit: In Nat King Cole's hands, the song Honey went like this:

"I'm in love with  you, Honey,
Say you love me too, Honey
 No one else will do, Honey,
Seems funny but it's true.

"Loved you from the start, Honey'
Bless your little heart Honey,
Every day would be so sunny,
Honey, with you"

Here's Huena's rendition, which I like a heck of a lot more: 

"I'm in love with you, Peter
Say you love me, too, Peter
No one else will do, Peter
Seems funny but it's true.

"Loved you from the start, Peter
Bless your little heart, Peter
Every day would seem much sweeter,
Peter, with you." 

Speaking of, another of her favourites, she didn't have to adapt. Eddie my Love was made to order for my older brother. "Eddie my love, I love you only only.." 

Another Huena hit? A delightful item about a soldier with a severe stutter. Goes something like this:

"K-K-K-Katy,
Beautiful Katy
You're the only g-g-g-girl 
That I adore.

"When the m-moon shines
Over the c-cowshed
I'll be waiting for you by the k-kitchen door."

Remind me to ask my wife, a speech and language pathologist, if she finds that one as much fun as I do.

Many of mom's go-to's were old Scottish ballads like Donald where's your Troosers? 

"Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low, through the streets in my kilt I'll go;
All the lassies say 'helllooo' Donald where's your troosers?"

I'm thinking my eldest brother Pat named his youngest son Donald only so he'd get to hear Huena do that one.

What's really important is that when I needed all those lyrics for the purpose of this blog, they were right there where I needed them at the forefront of my brain. I started writing this about half an hour ago. Not one lyric did I have to look up. 

My singing mom engraved lyrics to Wild Colonial Boy and Bell Bottom Trousers in our brains right beside the words to the Our Father and the St. Clement's church Sunday Mass schedule. (9:00 a.m., 10:30, noon. If you slept in past noon you'd have to go to a suppertime French mass up at St. Eugene's.)   

Sometimes I think my mom had so many kids just so she could come up with songs for each one of us. 

Then again I'm such a slave to science I recognize that one of the reasons Huena had so many kids was that my equally Catholic dad Tom really liked when Huena sang. 

One hal of a hallowed evening

BROTHERS IN ARMS: Or in cigarettes, which 
can be just as important.

My daughter Ria to me: "How was Halloween on Grenadier?" (That's our street. Grenadier Road.)

Well now.

I figure between 100 and 125 trick or treaters showed up. Began as a trickle at about 5:30, grew to a steady flow by 6:30  and by seven, things were slowing down. Then around 7:20,  a neap tide of taller, slightly calmer kids revived the spirits for a bit.  That crowd, I can relate to.

So busy did the street get that, at the height of the trick-or-treating--during those extremely rare moments when the four shelling-out alleged grown-ups on our porch managed to stay silent long enough--you could hear ambient laughing and squealing from up and down the street. The air was electrified.

We hadn't heard anything like this for, well, 18 months or more.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS:
Imagine experiencing this junk for the first time!

And the costumes? They get better every year. 

One of my favourites this week?

A kid, in the second batch who looked like he might be in grade five or eight (how would I know?), had a slightly beat-up tin saucepan for a hat.

My brother Eddie, who has been a Halloween fixture at our place for as long as I can remember, said, "Lemme guess. A pothead." The kid nodded.

Best new thing?

Eddie, me and my wife Helena had help shelling out from our neighbour and friend DaJing.

DaJing's about my age.

He and his wife Yan Ping immigrated from China a year and a half ago. But since nobody tricked or treated in 2020, this past Sunday was DaJing's first Halloween ever.

Imagine. 

The costumes, the laughing families, the excited kids scurrying up the steps screaming "trick-or-treat" and their moms and dads, also dressed up (my hands-down fave was a mom wrapped in what must have been a few kilometres of cloth disguised as--what else?--a mummy) reminding them to be polite from the sidewalk with, "what do you say?" All this amid  a sheer ka-ka-storm of candy candy everywhere. 

Then imagine being DaJing seeing this for the first time from the vantage point of our eight-foot-by-eight-foot porch having beer, smokes, jokes, snacks and plain nutsing around with me, Eddie and Helena all competing for attention. I don't know about you, but at times like that, I just can't shut up. 

Pretty scary, huh?

 

But you also have to know this: A few months back, DaJing and I realized we could bridge the language barrier with--wait for it-- Google Translate. Everybody with access to the Internet can use Google Translate and it's the kind of technology my late mom Huena would deem miraculous. It even speaks Latin and Esperanto. 

TOWER OF BABBLE: My mom would deem
Google Translate a gift from God.

Real life example: I typed "My mom gave birth to 5 boys and 5 girls. I'm the youngest."

On DaJing's computer, Google translates it into Mandarin. 

DaJing types his response: "So you're the baby!" 

I read the English translation out loud while DaJing grins and moves his arms back and forth as if he's rocking a baby. 

And at the exact same moment as Eddie says "And he's still the baby," Helena's like, "you wanna talk spoiled? You wanna talk spoiled?" 

DaJing's still giggling but now he's also reaching into the little plastic pumpkin for another handful of OH HENRY!s to hand out to the kids. And he's laughing like a stoned teenager every time he does so.

You wanna talk chaos on the porch? 

 

Ed had never seen Google Translate before Sunday evening. When he figured out what it could do, he said, "If they had this when I was travelling around Thailand, I would have met lots more women." 

Then, tap tap tap, I could tell DaJing exactly what his new friend Ed said! 

Our goofy little party lasted the exact right amount of time: A hair shy of 120 minutes.

Just enough time to walk away with a few memorable lessons:

First, in response to Ria's original question about how Halloween was on Grenadier.

I can't imagine it being any better. Part of me believes this was the first post-pandemic party we've all been waiting for.  

Another lesson? You wanna talk something that doesn't need any frikkin' high-tech translation gizmo?

Laughter.

 

How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb shelters

TUNNEL VISIONS: Who doesn't
dig bomb shelters?

Until yesterday, I had never laid eyes on what has to be one of Ottawa, Ontario's, must-see tourist attractions. A visit to Canada's capital that doesn't include this site rivals Rome without the Vatican. Nashville but no Opry. 

I'm talking the Diefenbunker.

It's a four-storeys deep underground nuclear bomb shelter conceived in the late 1950s (just like me) then operated as an actual military installation until the Department of National Defence decommissioned it in--get this--1994! The thing has been a museum since 1998. 

On the fun/educational/weird scale, the Diefenbunker rates 11.5 outta 10. If you're a boomer, you'll be inhaling the forced reminiscence and memories. (Black ashtrays beside every black dial phone do it for me.) Several of the rooms will remind you of the best scenes from Dr. Strangelove like the one where President Mervin Muffley, played by Peter Sellers, says "Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. It's the war room!" 

Younger visitors to the Diefenbunker'll come away with even more material to make fun of boomers with.

That's all the details you're going to get here. If you're looking for like, you know, facts, go here. 

Meantime, here's how I learned to love the fallout shelter.

For some reason, I feel connected to John Diefenbaker. Maybe it's because he was prime minister the year I was born. I know all the words to the old Stringband song Dief will Be The Chief. He's the one who thought this thing up, back at a time when lots of people thought communists would commence bombing any second. The Diefenbunker, Dief figured, would provide shelter for 400 officials and soldiers (including the governor general, thank goodness) for up to 30 days after the big one hit. But whoever turned the place into a tourist attraction went to great trouble to include other people's perspectives. During our tour I noticed one of the wall displays showed lyrics to a 1950s anti-bomb-shelter song that I've reposted in the photo at the end of this blog, so you, too, can sing them yourself, to the tune of Sweet Betsy From Pike. 

DEBUNKED: 
Barrie'n me emerge

I don't mean to brag but my wife Helena and I are now a two-fallout-shelter couple. In 2017, she and I spent a few hours with the colossally eccentric Bruce Beach. Beach buried 42 full-size school buses under a hill near his home near Shelburne Ontario and thus created a shelter big enough for 500 people, complete with children's bunks, dentist office, a giant septic tank and tiny jail. (I was profiling Beach for CPA Magazine, and on a September afternoon a few weeks after our visit, he called me to ask when the story would be appearing. Me: "November, I think." Him: "Oh dear. I hope there's somebody around to read it.")

Back to the Diefenbunker. It's situated in a village called Carp, Ontario, a few kilometres from the tiny community of Huntley, where my dad, Tom, grew up. Construction of the Diefenbaker was a massive job maker so I couldn't help wonder if I was looking at any old cousins or uncles in the vintage b&w photos of the bunker under construction. Probably the guys in the pic with the sign that warns "Do Not Urinate Inside Structure! Penalty dismissal."

Another thing about my father? In all the years he drove us from Sudbury to Ottawa--and then all around the Ottawa Valley from the Carter homestead to uncles' farms then to old cousins' gravesites, down little winding dirt roads that all looked all looked the same and through villages with no street name signs--Tom never: a) glanced at a roadmap or b) stopped to ask directions. Tom had a bloodhound's sense for following the right path. 

In painfully marked contrast, here's baby boomer me heading to the Diefenbunker, trying to not look too obviously illegal, with one eye on the GPS and one on the road signs.  I'll be like, "Helena. Pretty sure this is the turn; wait, there's a road." And she'll be like, "Why don't you stop and ask somebody?" It's never pretty.

Now that I think of it I wonder if Tom was lost too but just didn't let on. 

God knows he would have gotten away with it. My mom was always too busy with us kids and we  were never in a hurry to arrive at an aging aunt's house. 

Maybe my dad just drove around and around until he eventually found where we were headed but just kept his mouth shut. 

That sure would have minimized intra-auto-conflict. 

I think I just learned something really important about wartime strategy.

I told you the Diefenbunker was educational. 

One more thing. Speaking of directions, I should add that if the big one ever does get dropped, I know the quickest route to at least two bomb shelters. So stay in touch. It could save your life.

(And here's the lyrics to that song I mentioned.)

Where we know from passwords

HASHTAG A ED OF HIS TIME:
Eddie and me on the steps of bus #55

Halfway up one of the big trees in the backyard of the house we Carter kids grew up in, there was an assembly of boards and planks and sticks nailed into the upper part of the trunk where the bigger branches spread out from. (It's called the tree's crotch, btw.)

I and my brother Eddie and a few friends called this assortment of nailed together pieces of  wood a treehouse, which is like saying a pile of soggy old newspapers and ripped magazines is  a "body of research." But never mind that.

You had to climb a ladder to get to our quote unquote treehouse, and sometimes, to ensure that nobody who wasn't welcome got in, we would invent a secret password. Clever huh?

This next part's beside the point, but who knew back then that inventing passwords would become such a critical life skill? Ditto typing! I am a pretty fair typist, but it's because I took high school typing to get into journalism. Here's something even better: Once in j-school, I earned a real university credit in "shorthand." While other first-year students were studying molecular behaviour and, like advanced calculus, I was learning shorthand. 

Meanwhile, back at the treehouse...

Can you think of a more effective way to keep your treehouse safe from invading strangers than a password? 

Let's say a guy--let's put him in his 40s--climbs the ladder to where Eddie et al are. Just for fun let's say the stranger's wearing a white short-sleeved polyester shirt, clip-on neck tie and the sort of  trousers that reached down to just above white socks--my friend Roman Stankiewiecz used to call them "water in the basement pants." He pokes his head up out of the tree's crotch and asks to join us seven-year-old boys in our treehouse. 

OUR TREEHOUSE: (Computer simulation by the author)

We would say, "Do you know the password?"

Him: "No." 

Us: "Sorry, you can't come in" 

Him: "Dang!" and down the ladder he'd head.

I guess on the off chance Mr. Water-in-the-basement-pants somehow knew the password, we would have had to have let him in. But it never happened.

Something really weird unrelated thing just occurred to me. 

At various stages of my little boyhood, in addition to being a (lousy) treehouse builder, I was: 

• a cub scout; 
• an early morning newspaper delivery boy (which saw me visit all manner of strangers' doors);
• an altar boy;
• a 12-year-old pageboy in Toronto which meant regular commuting alone on Greyhound buses between Sudbury and Hogtown, which is what a lot of people call Toronto;
• At one point, I spent a year at an all-boys school.

And nothing bad ever happened. 

I wonder if it's because I was really good at passwords.

The joy of riding off in all directions at once

Google will tell you the drive from Port Hardy on the northernmost tip of of Vancouver Island south to the city of  Nanaimo should take about four hours. On Wednesday, Aug. 11, my daughter Ewa and I -- on motorcycles -- made the trip in eight. 

I just realized now -- after starting this sentence in fact-- that after several motorbike trips together, Ewa and I have practised, perfected and honed to a point where we believe it could be at least a demonstration sport in the next summer Olympics -- serendipity. 

We could teach a George Brown College Course on how to travel with no destination. Starting with "why a run that most people in cars complete in four hours takes us eight."  

The Port-Hardy-to-Nanaimo trip was the final leg of a weeklong tour that led us northeast from Vancouver to Whistler, across to Pemberton and Cache Creek, up to Prince George then west to Prince Rupert, followed by a 16-hour voyage aboard the luxurious Northern Expedition ferry boat to Port Hardy. 

Four days to get to Prince Rupert. En route, in the town of Cache Creek, we coincidentally met up with friend of Ewa's on his motorcycle biking the same distance in one. 

Some people might say that by stopping every which place to have a look around, Ewa and I lost a lot of time. But the opposite happened. 

On a journey such as ours, you actually create times: hundreds of moments you'll never regret or forget. To prove it, I started this blog intending to tell you about all those little mini-adventures, but I just now decided I don't feel like writing so instead I'll just show you pictures. 

ACME ANVIL PLACE: I forget where this antique
dealer is. I just liked the picture. Antique store visits are miracle cures to
the too-much-Internet blues.

BAD-ASS NANA:
That's what it says on her
sweater. So how could I
not start yet another
unplanned conversation?
We met Janet and Laird
 at breakfast in Smithers, B.C.
They met at University
in Minnesota where he
was frat mates with one
Robert Zimmerman; in 
'68 she worked a vote
registration desk at the
famous Democratic 
conference featured in 
the film Chicago 7.  
Her shirt wasn't lyin'. 

BEEN THERE: DUNCE THAT:
Ewa, in yet another delightful diversion,
the little red school house museum at 150
MileHouse, B.C. Do yourself a favour
.but not until you're done my blog. Google
"The Dunce Hat Wasn't Aways So Stupid"
Turns out it's named after a philosopher
named Duns. Such are the treasures
you'll glean, travelling with your kid.

 

OLD HOME WEEK: Pictured with Ewa is Michelle, who we met in the parking lot of the Oceanside RCMP station near Nanaimo. Conversation went along these lines:
Michelle: "Where you from?"
Me: "Toronto."
Her: "What part?"
Me: "High Park." 
Her: "Be specific. Where in High Park?"
Me: "You know Roncesvalles?"
Her: "My dad was the mayor of Roncesvalles." (Roncesvalles is not a place you can be mayor of really, it's just a neighbourhood but still.)
Me: "What's his name?"
Her: "Gerry."
Me: "You're Gerry's daughter?? (I was so surprised you could almost hear the double question marks in my voice.) And I hugged the now-teary-eyed Michelle, who I'd never met before. But I did know and like her dad who died in January. The coincidence of us meeting like that bordered on the mystical. And it reminded me of a few lessons that Ewa's and my little trip retaught:
A) It's never too late to offer condolences to a grieving family member;
B) You never know what turn in the road the best part of an adventure's going to be around;
 C) This wonderful country of ours? Despite being so freaking big, in some ways, it's very small indeed; 

D) When my flight was heading out from Toronto to Vancouver, I found myself all happy and taking pictures out the window, as excited as I was the first time I rode a DC-7 prop plane from Sudbuy to Toronto at age 11. Everybody on board seemed to share the vibe. The WestJet flight attendant, when he saw that the only thing I had in my carry-on was my motorcycle helmet, said "Sir you won't need the helmet. We have seatbelts." The fun and spontaneity lasted the whole trip. Post pandemic, we'll all be appreciating the little things in life way more than before. Just you watch. 

 

  

Today's the day the teddy bears had no picnic

LIFE IN A FAR SIDE CARTOON: 
 I could see through the bear's crafty ways.

Somewhere along British Columbia's Highway 16, not too far west of New Hazelton, sits a little wooden kiosk and it's home to all manner of delicious treats including fresh vegetables and home-made muffins and they're all there for the asking. 

Yes, you can leave a donation in the tin box if you like; and each piece of food has a pricetag attached, but the honour system is clearly in effect. 

Last week, my daughter Ewa and I stopped in at the Alpine-looking kiosk, en route from Smithers, B.C., to Prince Rupert. I was riding a borrowed Honda 600 Shadow and Ewa was aboard her 2004 650 BMW "Apocalypse" so named because she's ridden that machine through places and conditions like no biker that I know of, including snowstorms, across North America, around some of the curviest bike roads in the world (including on our trip around B.C. last week) and it still runs like the cougar that crossed our path Saturday and the bike merits a place in the BMW hall of bad-ass fame. 

But never mind that. 

Back at the free-food booth, I had just finished leaving a note in the visitor guest book and was walking back to my Honda when Ewa called my attention to the approach of a local resident; specifically, a black bear.

I named the bear Huena, after my late mom. Not that Huena had any bear-like qualities but one fall evening away back when I was in university, three bears broke into our house in the middle of the night and ever since, black bears have been a Carter meme, even though memes hadn't been invented yet. Well, some of my nephews and nieces call my sister Mary Meme and she's no bear either.  But we Carters kind of like black bears. Plus I'm getting off topic again.

As soon as Ewa pointed out the new arrival, I suggested we abbreviate our picnic, climb back aboard our bikes and leave. It might well have been the best decision I made during the entire 10-day trip. 

It sure beats the doozie I made 24 hours earlier. After another roadside rest, I managed to resume highway speed with my black-framed photo-gray eyeglasses not on my face where they belonged but rather on my gas tank, from which they flew off, only to land on the highway and get destroyed by a passing vehicle.

  NEXT STOP LENSCRAFTERS:
Do these frames make me look blurry? Get it?

I should add here that I do not technically need my glasses to drive. My optometrist removed the little "X" on my driver's  licence in 2019, so the fact that my frames got smooshed in B.C., did nothing to impair my vision except I could no longer do a decent Clark Kent imitation. 

Also, since we're on the topic of gas tanks, I'm reminded that the bear picnic departure action was far wiser than my decision to not keep the Shadow's fuel topped up. 

On the second last day of our adventure, a few miles south of Port Hardy on the northern region of Vancouver Island, yours truly managed to set some sort of record by running out of gas twice. In the same hour.  

I knew when we were leaving Port Hardy, where we arrived the previous night after a 16-hour ferry ride aboard the Northern Expedition ferry boat, that I was low on gas. I just didn't know how low. 

NO FUEL LIKE AN OLD FUEL:
"Take me to your litre," I said.

So I putt-putted to a stop on the southbound shoulder of the mountainous highway 19 -- where the air literally smells like pine; it's sweet and almost unbelievable come to think of it -- Ewa courageously rode on ahead in search of fuel only to come across a gallant quartet of motorcyclists who roared to my rescue. One of them offered up a litre of gas he had kept for emergencies and that worked fine until we were a few more klicks down the road and the Shadow kacked out again. 

Another of their motorized cavalry offered up his spare fuel, which got me to the next gas station, in Port McNeill. 

With that, I'd felt I'd done my good deed for the month, outfitting those fellows with a year's supply of "those people from Toronto are so dumb" stories.

I was, however, bright enough to get away from that bear. 

Indeed, and upon reflection -- as the little booth got smaller in my rear view mirror (see what I did there?) -- I realized the little so-called free food shop was in fact designed, erected, and stocked with yummy human food, by the bears themselves, like a human mouse trap.  

But they couldn't fool me.

One more thing. 

I just re-read the above. 

LOVE THE SMELL OF PINE TREES IN THE MORNING:
Ewa ruling the road on her BMW Apocalypse

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that story made the trip seem like one screwup after another. Nothing could be further from reality. 

On our trip around B.C., Ewa and I covered something like more than 2,000 klicks through some of the most spectacular terrain on the planet. The guys who helped us on Vancouver Island were just a sample of the generosity and friendliness we encountered every day and night. From Cache Creek to Zeballos, from sea level to above the clouds--and as we rode through the clouds covered in dew I kept thinking, "being an angel must be a pretty wet past time; they probably all have great skin" and we had sunshine every day and the only negative things that happened were the ones that I just wrote about and they weren't really bad.

And can you believe I got to do all this with one of my kids? I am the luckiest man I've ever met. Sometimes, I even make myself jealous.

But I'm still pretty pumped about outwitting the bears.