The Greenwater Report for June 22, 2009

June 21st, 2009: Rain, rain, blessed rain!

We just got back from Tisdale and Ridgedale; it was raining buckets when we left this morning and we had the wipers going as fast as they could go for the first ten miles or so. After that, there were only a couple of brief periods when we could shut them down, and then only until we met a vehicle. When we got home late this afternoon, it had almost stopped raining, but there was quite a bit of water in the ditches. A man at Ridgedale told me they were in dire need of rain, and I think that was the case all the way to Saskatoon at least. It will be interesting to learn how much rain fell on the city – our neighbour’s gauge says 4½ inches but I don’t know if it has ever been emptied, or if she waters the gauge when she waters her plants.

Our reason for going to Ridgedale was to attend our grandson, Logan’s, baptism, and also for a visit with Mike, Marg and Danny who we hadn’t seen for some time. The minister, Rev. Alan Shaw, was extremely interesting and entertaining, but when it came time for Logan’s baptism, he wouldn’t leave his father’s arms. Aaron had to hold him while Alan dabbed water on his forehead, and that was okay.

Afterwards, we went to the home of Nicole’s sister, Erin, and her husband, Curtis and had chilli and cake, both of which were super. Erin and Curtis had their baby baptised today, too. Around their house, Aaron is called Uncle Bob as Aaron sounds too much like Erin. We also met Nicole’s and Erin’s mother, Cindy, who looks more like their sister than their mother, and Curtis’s parents, Diane and Jim Barber. We had a real good visiting time, and took a few four generation pictures.

Highway 41 is sure nice. Re-surfacing is just about complete on a long stretch east of Wakaw; there is a short stretch of older surface that is a bit rough, but then another long stretch of quite new surface. That highway is about twenty years old; it really shortened the distance from Tisdale and Melfort to Saskatoon and has seen a lot of traffic, but it broke up badly when still quite new. I suspect it has been re-surfaced, and in some cases rebuilt, several times since then; let’s hope this new job stands up better. Right now, it’s a joy to travel on.

We just watched a very interesting TV program called “15 Minutes of Fame”. This week, it dwelt on Mozart, Saskatchewan, which is where our daughter, Laurie (Corrie) Grimson gets her mail. We knew many of the people interviewed, including Laurie, Joyce Grimson, Edwina Onyskevich, Thor Arnason, the Nupdals, Jean Hallgrimson, and Emer Gudmiundson. Basically, it spoke of Mozart’s rise to fame when it became of philatelic interest in the 1970s. The fame was short-lived and the town has declined from about sixty souls to thirty or less. Unfortunately, the show spent most of its time decrying the demise of small centres with many shots of abandoned houses and cars, something that TV reporters just love to do. Don’t show the attractive features of a town – show the weed-grown back alleys and junked cars. Kinda depressing. They did the footage in winter, too, when nothing is at its best.