North of 49

One of my favorite speculative fiction franchises has been the Star Trek series. It brought color TV into our home! He's got a flat screen now! He's in a hurry cause Breaking Bad is on. My Pops was a hard assed hold out on the "new" technology because he figured there just wasn't that much color on the TV anyway and he could just imagine what the colors were so why 86 a perfectly good B+W set for a color one? Back in the day it was "Sony? Who?" In 1966 or 67 our Black and White Zenith television went to a better place. The family, at least as far as I was concerned, was going to a better place too. We were going to my Grandparent's farm! Gramps long after the farm was gone. Man I loved the farm, it didn't matter the time of year in fact I 'm not sure what time of year it was on this particular journey but it I do know it was dusk when we pulled off of highway 7 and up to a sleepy gas station in Buttfuck Saskatchewan. As...

I remember back in the day meeting my cousin Gerry for coffee at the Country Kitchen (i think it was called that) restaurant in Saskatoon. It was one of those grey almost spring days with a touch of heat in the air, the sight of snow, smell of wet pavement and the feel of slush lapping over the tops of your shoes. Gerry strode in and navigated around the anxious young teens in new sneakers and jeans and older farmers with the dust from last harvest still lingering in their John Deere hats, he came to the table smiling but not as usual. This day he seemed smiling but not his wholehearted deep rooted genuine smile. This was a smile that I rarely if ever saw, the surface smile, his face was doing what it should but his eyes were not smiling. He hadn't found all the good things and make his whole being happy, He's truly extraordinary in this regard and it's something which I must bow and tip my hat to because it has taken me a life time to acquire the basic skills to project...