The Beer store

I don't know about everybody but i think here in hespeler it is time for a new beer store. Here is a picture of the Hespeler store and the galt store, you decide.

More mysterious lights in Hespeler

I took this picture of some weird lights near Townline road.

A Child of the War

The following is a letter received by my Mother on August 20th 1944. It was sent by her brother Bruce on August 9th 1944 from the trenches in France. Unfortunately he was killed in action on August 14th 1944. The last communication the family had from my Uncle Bruce.

Dear Mary

Hya squirt,how are yuh? Don't know why I'm writing, i can't think of anything to write about but mush. Say hello anyhow, so here i am sitting nice and comfortable like in my slit trench swatting mosquito's, killing ants and things and writing all at the same time. Cripes a guy needs about four hands for this job. It's not a bad lost of a day though-at least it ain't raining. An enormous big bee just flew in,stopped in mid air like a helicopter somewhere in the vicinity of my schnozzle and stared me in my face like as if he was trying to make up his mind. However he apparently didn't like the looks of my ugly pan so he spread out his four or five inches of wings and flew away. I'm still cross eyed from looking down my nose, ah the brute.

How are all the boyfriends or have you found one steady one?. Cripes i haven't even been out with a gal since march-I'll soon be losin my Hespeler technique what little there is left.

Are you still at the same job and still doing the same thing-sitting at a desk, writing letters to your boy friends? That must be a pretty fair job. You even use the company paper i notice, you crook. Well, yesterday i received your letters from Grace, Mother,Alec, George Oliver and a girl and her Mother & sister in England, and a parcel from Grace as well. So i did okay for one day.All i gotta do now is answer them and boy that's a job. Well now ole dear, must scram for now so bye for this time, hope to see you soon but hear from you sooner.

Your big brudder Brucie.

The chase

One thing about my family is that you come to expect the unexpected. And when you throw a Nun,my Dad, a couple of shots of brandy and the Jehovah Witness,you wind up with an interesting afternoon. Such an occurrence happened and thank the lord i was there to witness it.
The year is hazy but i was still in high school so i guess it would have been around 1972 or 1973. My mother's sister was in fact a sister. Aunt Grace to us but Sister Francis Regis to the rest of the world. She always loved to come home to Cooper Street and sit out on the back patio talking to my mom and dad and enjoying the family life. This day she and my dad had opened the brandy and had a couple of shots when the doorbell rang and my Dad got up to answer it, when he came back he told Aunt grace that there were two Jehovah Witness's at the door and he had told them that there was someone who wanted to talk to them and they waiting patiently at the front door for her. Now in those day's the Nun's still wore all the habits and as luck would have it my Aunt's was on the chair beside her and she gladly threw them on and went to the door. but what happened after that is why this story sticks in my mind. Walking briskly up cooper Street were 2 Jehovah Witness's being pursued by a Catholic Nun in all her glory yelling "come back, we have a lot to talk about", never had i been more amused at something my family had pulled off and i swear my Dad almost split a gut laughing so hard heck even my Aunt and my mom could hardly stop laughing. Ah Summer, memory's are made of this. Aunt Grace is no longer with us but everytime i think of her i have to smile. I mean how could a little lady like this scare two grown men, really?

Lughnasadh August 1

Lughnasadh[loo-nas-ah] is the festival of the god Lugh. It is the celebration of the first harvest of our local staple grain,usually wheat or barley. Some hold their rites on the full moon of Loe as it passes through Aquarius. By the calender Lughnasadh is August 1.
The season of growth since beltane has come to it's end and now we enter the season of reaping. Myths are often played out during the Lughnasadh rites, with the Corn King offering himself up to be sacrificed and being reborn as a loaf of newly baked bread. The sacrifice of the king was at one time very real, as blood was offered back to the gods who had given the grain. The focus of the rite now is still this weave of exuberant life and release it to death. It is both a celebration of what we have sown and nurtured, and an acknowledgment of it's dying as it gives itself up to our needs.
Lughnasadh is often the biggest of the festivals, with people traveling from far and wide to share the joys of their harvest,bringing music and food,and trading crafts and stories. Good beverage and friends go well on this festival.