We bid a special welcome to Miss Misaki Usuzawa, winner of the Japanese new singer of 2012.
Miss Usuzawa, a student at the Ootusuchi Junior High School, encouraged people along the coast with her songs following the Great Disaster of 2011.  (Link to Times Colonist article)

Welcome Friends from Japan

We begin this week with a visit by several friends from Japan who made our 2013 tour to that country so memorable. Mr. and Mrs. Rioichi and Ayako Taguchi were enthusiastically greeted at the airport on Saturday.  Although it is not their first visit to Victoria, it is such a pleasure to have the opportunity to share our city with them.

Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Yocihi and Rieko Sakashita, who also graciously hosted us during our recent visit to Morioka, are now unable to make the journey. We shall greatly miss the opportunity to return their kind hospitality and will look forward to seeing them again in the future.

Also attending later in the week will be Mr. Toshinori Suzuki, Principle of Ootsuchi Junior High, the West Coast school devastated by the 2011 tsunami and which we visited last year. He will be introducing one of his students, Miss Misaki Usuzawa, a folk singer who won the grand record prize as the Japanese new singer of 2012.

The young artist, just now entering her mid teens, comes from one of the areas devastated by the Tohoku quake. She is considered a genius singer, excelling in the traditional style. Her mother, Mrs. Nakoko Usuzawa, will also accompany her daughter on the trip.

Others being welcomed to Victoria include Mr. Osamu Hirano, President of the recording company working with Miss Usuzawa  and Ms. Miwa Ishiganki, a Director of the Iwate Broadcasting Company.

During their stay, the group will attend a number of functions, including a courtesy visit to the Victoria City Hall where they will be welcomed by Mayor Dean Fortin.  Miss Usuzawa will perform a mini concert at City Hall as well as during a later visit to St. Margaret’s Junior and Senior Schools.

As a special treat the young singer will perform in a concert at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday, February 21, from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. The general public is invited to attend.

Bill and Rita McCreadie and other friends of the Victoria-Morioka Society will host the group at a number of private functions over the coming week.

Harold and Lynn McNeill

Links below for video and photo albums:

1. Misaki Usuzawa You Tube Video

2. February 2014: Arrival in Victoria in Victoria Link Here  (This link provides a full set of photos from the visit)

3. Japan Trip 2013: The Journey Begins

4. Japan Trip 2013: The Adventure Continues

5. Japan Trip 2013: A Trip to the West Coast (Slide Show)

6. Link to February, 2014, Times Colonist article

More links are provided in the stories linked within the above albums.

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Texas Newsman, Dan Hansen, in Dallas-Fort Worth
NFL Openly Gay Draft Choice: Will the right choice be made?
(Link Below)

I seldom listen to, let alone share, the rants of news show hosts who earn a living by being controversial, but I logged into this one because it was shared by a friend, Bria Wilson, whose FB postings are balanced. At first I flushed, then was shocked, shocked to see someone from the Southern US, let alone a broadcaster from Texas, speak in this manner? True, I am biased against much of what flows from the lips of those southern shock jocks and others, but this is worth a listen – then a little reflection upon our own position in these matters.

Celebrating our Differences.

Link Here: Dallas sportcaster’s shocking shocking response to Michael Sam coming out as gay.

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Photo (GNS Newsletter) (March, 2013).  Cheryl Murtland and staff from SMU with another group of students at
Monty’s Surf Camp in Jiquilillo, Nicaragua. The little kids are from the nearby community of Jiquilillo.

Fireside Grill, Victoria, BC (February 6, 2014)

It was a great evening of meeting old friends and making new ones as Cheryl Murtland and others from St. Michaels University School, continued their work with another group of students as they hosted a fundraiser for the Together Works Society (1).  The funds will be used to support projects in and around he remote community of Jiquilillo, Nicaragua.

Together Works Society, a Canadian non-profit Society, is the brainchild of Donald (Monty) Montgomery (2), a teacher from Parksville, British Columbia, who runs a Surf Camp near Jiquilillo on the northwest coast of Nicaragua.

Photo (Fireside Grill): A few of the many SMUS students who have diligently worked on the fundraiser.

In April, these students along with fifteen others will be travelling to Nicaragua to help with Surf Camp projects as well as taking time to savour the sun, surf and sand at the camp.

Given the -6C temperature and three centimetres of fresh snow this morning, the incentives to travel to Monty’s little hide-a-way is even more enticing.

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Screenshot of the February Seaside Magazine Web Site
(also, page 7 of the February 2, 2014 Edition)
The Homepage of the Website changes each month to match the cover of the hard copy edition.
Link to Seaside Magazine

Link to Photos of the new Seaside Magazine Reception at Mary Winspear Centre

Link to the Most Recent Update (February 27, 2014)

Congratulations to Sue Hodgson, Publisher of Seaside Magazine on the launch of the new Magazine Website.  The site, designed by Sean McNeill of McNeill Solutions, provides a bold new online presence for the locally owned and published magazine.

Sue Hodgson and her talented staff, Editor in Chief, Allison Smith; Design Assistant, Kelsey Bormann, and Advertising Sales, Marcella MacDonald, have worked to create a dynamic magazine catering to community interests along the West Coast with particular focus on lower Vancouver Island.  Sue speaks to the collaboration between Seaside Magazine and McNeill Solutions:

“Seaside is all about celebrating the community, so we were thrilled to work with locally owned web design and marketing company McNeill Solutions. Designer Sean McNeill helped us to come up with a website that truly reflects Seaside Magazine.”

From his side of the equation, Sean states:

“It has been an exciting project to create with a magazine that’s so focused on local culture. Working with Seaside came to be through the strength of referrals in our community. We are excited to continue working with them in the future.”

Congratulations, Sean, on a job well done and to Sue and staff for their continued pursuit of excellence in the production of a quality magazine.

Harold McNeill

Link here to a January 2013 article on the launch of the Seaside Magazine 

SIC Beauties: A new post being written explores the efforts of a group of young people as they work to enhance their artistic abilities as well as bring a high level of social commitment to their entrepreneurial efforts. It is in this new world that many young people seek to find new ways to interact with each other and with their business contacts.  The photos below include several Young Entrepreneurs who are part of the SIC Beauty Crew.

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A Call for Justin to Come Home

Over 100,000 citizens of the United States have signed the petition calling for Justin Bieber to be expelled from the US and his Green Card revoked.  The petition claims Justin is not a fitting role model for young people in the United States.  US law requires the White House respond to any petition with 100,000 or more signatures.

Following is a partial list of celebrities that have signed the petition: Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, MacCauley Culkin, Charlie Sheen, Alex Baldwin, Anna Nicole Smith, Tonya Harding, Mel Gibson, Geraldo Rivera, Denis Rodman, Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Ozy Osborne, Keanin Reeves, River Phoenix, Exl Rose and Eminem. 

Perhaps Bieber should come home as it seems it is he who is being lead astray.

Oh, a good post of Facebook yesterday featuring O.J. Simpson and referencing to Denver.  The last time we had a Bronco chase that was so widely watched was in Los Angeles.

Harold

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Profit from ‘Stateoil’, the #4 ranked oil company in the world and 70% owned by the Norwegian Government, has made all Norwegians Crown millionaires   (Link to Article) (Link to Ownership). When our family visited Norway in the 1970s, hundreds of oil rigs were being built. The North Sea oil boom was well underway and from that date forward, Norway kept tight control of their share of the resource.

What can Canada learn?

As a result of a FB post made by the daughter of a Cold Lake High School friend about free university in Norway, and an earlier post I made about the quality of ‘birth to death’ social services in Oman as compared to Canada, a few folks were inspired to take me to task. My position in both cases was that Canada and the Provinces need to make better choices regarding the use of our natural resources. Let’s take a look at how Norway manages its resources.

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Photo (From Web)  Pibroch, AB, main street as it looked in 1951 when we arrived. During a trip to that area in 2010, the main street had not changed all that much.

Link to Next Post: LacLaBiche
Link to Last Post: Edmonton
Link to Family Stories Index

THIS STORY IS CURRENTLY BEING PROOFED AND UPDATED

Chapter 2  The Gypsy Years in Pibroch

January 9, 2015:  This post is brought forward for the accountant we met in San Francisco who looked after the accounts of several Hutterite Colonies in Alberta. He is retired but at one time worked with the Colony in Pibroch that is featured in this post.  If that accountant happens to pick up on this post please leave a message.  Regards,  Harold

1. Introduction:

After bidding a final farewell his youth, the years used up toiling away on a rock farm near Birch Lake, Saskatchewan, Dad was being drawn back to farming. In the spring he had taken over as foreman on the Murfitt spread in Pibroch, Alberta, a mixed farm with 200 head of cattle and about half the 640 acres under cultivation. It provided Dad with an opportunity to reconnect to animals and the land after having spent several years mink ranching, logging and doing construction work.

While horses had given way to tractors during the intervening years, Dad still had plenty of farming skills that made his services eagerly sought after and, as well, Mom would again be working in unison Dad. Taking over the farm kitchen she would work her magic as she cooked for a half dozen full-time farmhands in the off-season and twice that many during the harvest.

For Louise and me, it would be a new school and new friends, something we were becoming accustomed to as we shifted from pillar to post over the past two years. The great news about this move – Louise and I would be reunited with Mom and Dad in a country setting that was reminiscent of our early years. Our time at HA Gray Junior school in Edmonton was rapidly coming to an end as we would be heading North as soon as the school year was complete.

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Collage: The above photos provide a small representation of the five years a group of young people spent completing Junior and Senior High in Cold Lake, Alberta. The following story places a context around their world, a world that was becoming vastly different from the one in which their parents and grandparents had spent their teen years.

Link Here to Chapter 2: The Silent Generation
Link Here to Chapter 3: Cars, Girls, Rock and Roll
Link to Family Stories Index

THIS STORY IS CURRENTLY BEING PROOFED AND UPDATED

Chapter 2: The Silent Generation

September 1, 2014: Sorry for the delay. Chapter 18 along with about 300 photographs of our High School Years through to graduation, will be posted within the next two weeks.

The Silent Generation, a name coined to define those born between 1925 – 1945.  While it was applied to those of us who filed into Grade 8 at Cold Lake Junior (photos in the footer) in September 1954, we were so close to the cusp it seems to have missed the mark. Our small group preceded the Baby Boomers by a few years and in the months following graduation, we helped to add a tidy number of Little Boomers to Canada’s rapidly growing population.

The Silent Generation! Really? It seems the Time Magazine reporters who defined our group obviously never traveled to Cold Lake High in the late 50’s, nor did they do any first-hand research at those week-end ‘retreats’ at French Bay, English Bay or Marie Lake. For that matter, all they had to do was drop by one of the week-end parties at the Ruggles, Hill’s, Sanregret’s, Poirier’s or any of a dozen other homes when the parents were away. People called us many things, but ‘silent’ ‘grave’ and ‘fatalistic’ were not the adjectives that flowed past their lips.

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