wildbillsdreamscape

Read his obituary today. I am going to find out more about Echolot -  A collective diary (Germans in World War II), published 1994 – 2000.

http://www.kempowski.de/

A major item on the to do list got done last week. The cottage was built in 1969/70 here on Georgian Bay. A few years later a one car garage kit was put up as a boathouse/storage building. Since the late 1980s, the water level receded and the 14 foot aluminum boat has sat in the boat house along with its cradle and boat track rails waiting for the Bay to come back. It hasn’t. During the 1990s, my father and mother passed away after some illnesses and the boathouse continued to accumulate materials of various kinds.

Also around the property, bits and pieces of decks and stairs and even some original yellow plywood window flaps had been tucked away in various corners. Dock sections and shore line defense (wire baskets known as gabeons). The guiding principle was “keep it for it might be useful down the road”.

Well, practically none of it has turned out to be useful. So after much discussion and some procrastination, a bin was ordered. What size do you order? Hard to say. But a 20 yarder was dropped off bright and early one Wednesday morning. It was scheduled for a week’s stay.

Now, I have a history of blowing out my back. It goes back to my 18th year when a boulder needed shifting on the property here and no bulldozer was available, so I volunteered and damaged my lower transverse ligaments. Since then periodically, my back goes “out”. Having developed a good sized gut over the years has not helped. So I decided to take it slow and easy.

The first day I worked for about 45 minutes loading stuff carefully along one side of the bin. I wanted to leave room for some sizable wooden dock sections. To move these I had asked for some help. Two fellows were going to come by on the Friday. I did another 45 minute session of loading and called it a day.

That night it snowed and kept on snowing to the tune of 6 inches. I spent time on Thursday pulling pieces of this and that out of the corners of the boathouse. Friday I just stared at the snow trying to will it to melt. The fellows did not come on Friday. On Saturday more work pulling things out and getting them stacked up to load. Sunday the snow finally melted away. Monday morning I did a little more work loading and then sat down to wait and see if the two fellows were going to come as planned at 9:30 am. If they showed up, then the dock would go in. If they did not, the space I had preserved in the bin for the dock would go to other items and the dock would have to go next year.

They showed, well, one guy showed, not good news. It meant that I would have to help move five dock sections planked tops over a 2 inch x12inch frame structure 5 feet x8 feet long. Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, and slightly less heavy (one section was a little smaller than the rest).

My back began to ache as we sized them up. However, after a little fussing and thinking, we ended up tipping them up on their ends and flipping them over and over on their ends to the bin, a distance of about 80 feet. My back survived. Three old sets of wooden deck steps got sledge hammered into pieces and the morning’s work was done. Thanks to Jamie the dock sections made it into the bin. I did about 25% of the hefting on those, he did the rest.

Tuesday some more odds and ends: old glass windows, two old lead pane windows from the old 1939 built North Toronto house (why they got brought up I will never know), old lawn mower, old curtain tracks, bits of metal, my mother’s old wheelchair (should have donated that back in 1996 the year of her death), old fibre board, pieces of 1970 panelling quarter inch plywood, old shingles (been sitting for 20 years outside), and old this and old that and I was done. Totally beat.

Called Wednesday morning and they picked it up around noon.

1.65 metric tonnes = 3638.25 pounds
that is a lot of stuff – 30 years worth

It has been a semi-lousy Fall with lots of rainy days. Today has been a high wind day. Georgian Bay has been large-waved and the water level has been the highest of the year. A ton of leaves are wet and waiting to be raked up, put in large plastic bags. They then get driven to the local transfer station (the dump). They then are dumped out on the great leaf pile. 60 bags (large clear plastic bags, a little larger than your standard green garbage bagis the current local world’s record. Leaves hang too long on some trees. Other trees drop them fast. It is tricky to try and get them done before the late Fall rains and the early snow. It is a sad time of the year. I see the things that got done, the things that will have to wait another year. I hope the warm weather does not draw me away from the chores that need to be chored.

May 18, 1981
Victoria Day Monday
Saturday morning went up to the cottage. Sunday noon Mass at the Shrine, which was very cold inside. I left Sunday at 4:30 p.m. and drove to the Oakville Centre. This morning cleaned up some of the debris. Sean M. called to say that he was over-shifted without food. So I brought him 2 cheeseburgers to the security guard firm where he works as a dispatcher, just above St. Clair on the east side of Yonge. The old Samaritan rides again. I told a lie when he asked me about those two ladies, J and C, I said I had lost touch with them. He leaves for his new life in Australia by the end of July.
    Mom and Dad had requested a book of Julien Green’s, Memories of Evil Days. Some interesting lectures. One was about diary writing. Accuracy, honesty.
    Friday – bought a tape cassette recorder. Lunched with Curt and Ben. Judy R. phoned me Saturday just as I was leaving for the cottage. I had sent her a card ten days ago.  She was in TO for 2 days and will be back Thursday. Why did I send the card? Because I need some contact. Like the fellow Bill Hurt encountered on the streets of NYC. “I need some contact.”
    Friday at noon as I was walking through the college grounds with Ben to meet Curt, I bumped into Mark M. who was looking as if he was “a little tightly wrapped.” He is in TO because his Dad is having an operation. I thought of him when I was at Mass on Sunday and said a kind of prayer that it would work out well.
    Getting through the days…one step at a time… like Hicks or maybe not.
    Funny thing about the reading last Thursday at Port Perry. I was not pleased during or after – but listening to the tape made me feel that it was worthwhile—Q? because no people to respond to?

May 18, 1976 2:30 p.m. I went down to the college today. Ran into Prof. K who looks well after his heart attack. Saw Fr. S. Saw Dan S. Saw Mike B. Picked up The Image of the City by K. Lynch for Susan. Bought my tennis membership. My class last night was fine. The essay is amazingly short. Liz S. and Sean K. are in the course. Brian T. is trying to be in there, but it is difficult because of his summer job schedule. Very cold last night. Cold and rainy today. Wore my winter coat downtown. 8:00 p.m. Janice came by, partly to prove that Susan’s ill fame has not barred her from the house. Once and only once. I am to pick up her tennis membership tomorrow. Susan is to be here at 8:30. She is not feeling well. I don’t know quite how I am supposed to act.
    Mike B seemed to be pushing me to write some prose this summer.

May 18, 1975
The metal shack is up and nearly finished, all that remains to do is to anchor it. I went swimming this afternoon. It was very chilly but I stayed in at least five to ten minutes. The rocks in front seemed greener than I remembered. Flyers 2-1 Sabres. I have memorized “The Silken Tent” by Robert Frost. Looks are not everything. What is the real attraction? Is it just her smile, her eyes, those lovely, lovely breasts, her long. long hair. Distancing has occurred to me. If it is true that I have only been in love with her body and I am resentful because she has slept w. F and not with me, then there is no reason to continue.

May 18, 1974 Saturday
Dad and I came up to the cottage last night arriving around 10:30 p.m. It took me awhile to go to get there but I slept pretty well, and got up at 9:40 to help Orville, the stone-mason lift the river-bed stone slab along w. Dad.
    The robins built their nest back in their usual spot above the lights at the back.
    The fire-place looks really nice. The lawn looks good, very little winter kill. The water seems as high as last year, already, and it should peak some time in June.
    I am going to try and finish a first draft of my Paterson imitation. In fact, I have brought Paterson along for a little re-reading, to see if I can see what the movement most basically is through each book, and then all the books.
    I’vbe brought a few other books along. Some that I have already read and some that I didn’t get to last summer: The Nigger of the Narcissus and The Waves. Norton Anthology Vol. 1 for some readings for ENG 306.