Cybersalt Shaker

On behalf of Susan and myself, I’d like wish you all a blessed and joyous Christmas!

My Christmas meditations started quite unexpectedly this year on October 14th.

It was a cool, rainy day and I was feeling the effects of a cold. In our car port, our garbage pail was so full that the lid would not stay closed. We had been playing raccoon roulette (gambling raccoons wouldn’t come and empty garbage all over) for a few days so I slung the heavy, stinky garbage bag into the back of my pickup truck along with 3 or 4 blue boxes of sorted recyclables, and drove to the dump. It was just the miserable task that the miserable day and my miserable nose called for.

Close to where I live, stands a lighthouse on a group of rocks known as Race Rocks. This lighthouse steers mariners clear of the 8-10 knot (9-12 mph) tide that flows between it and the south coast of Vancouver Island. There are a number of sad tales of ships and lives lost in this treacherous passage of water.

In 1865, lighthouse keeper George Davies and family had for some time been looking forward to a visit from Rosina Davies? brother, sister-in-law, and three friends. On the day of their intended visit, the Davies scanned the nearby shore in anticipation of sighting the boat that would bring family and friends to break the solitude of the lighthouse keeper's family. Sure enough, the visitors did appear as planned, rowing towards their destination, Race Rocks.

My family and I watch TV the old fashion way - for free. Yes, thanks to the marvel of decades old hardware known as an antenna and rotor atop an old ship's mast, we enjoy 10 or 11 channels of free TV - no cable attached. Like most people, we do have cable in our neighbourhood but my wife and I agree that the channels we get have enough garbage to watch that we don't need to pay the approximate $60.00 a month to have even more to choose from.

To be honest, I guess our TV watching is not totally free. First we use electricity to run it and a few years ago we did have to replace the rotor. Last month, a little gizmo on the antenna itself broke off in the wind and I had to climb up to fix it. To reach the antenna involved quite a setup. I had to put two legs of our stepladder on the railing of our deck and then tie a couple of its rungs to the mast next to it. Next, like Tim the Tool Man Taylor (or is that fool man) I climbed the shifting, swinging ladder and pulled myself up to the top rung of the mast. I made my eldest daughter stand and watch me do this because I figured it would be good to have at least one eyewitness should a coroner's inquiry need to be called. At the most precarious moment of my ascent, she spoke out in a very worried and somewhat anxious tone, "Dad, I don't like this. You are worth more than $60.00 a month." Though I laughed at the literal meaning of her words, my heart was touched by her tender appraisal of my worth as I . . .

BIRD FLU! BIRD FLU! BIRD FLU!

There, now I've gone on and on and on about it too. The world is all aflutter about the possibly coming bird flu pandemic that threatens to make humanity sicker than many of us already are of hearing about the bird flu. Once it was the sky falling that caused everyone to worry, and now chicken little himself is the one who threatens to do us all in. Experts from every corner of the world are offering up their commentary and advice concerning this threat and so, not be left out, I will too - prepare to meet your God!