As I remember from childhood

The stories of Genesis are a family story. It is amazing to see how the thought that the eldest daughter must marry first carried down through the ages. In a family of seven children I always knew I was number four. It was an interesting place to be actually. All the emphasis was on the two eldest (a daughter and a son) although the third child, the brother next to me in age had a special spot in the family because he was named for a young man who died in the Second World War. I was the listener in the family I think (actually named for my grandmother Blake's mother (Elizabeth Rawlins)) and perhaps in every family there is a listener; since I have kept to myself on a personal level that is unknown to me but simply a suspicion. I was really freer to pursue my life I think than my older siblings as they had the position of eldest daughter and eldest son to fulfill so had much expected of them. The next was named for one who died in the Second World War as a young man, Douglas Haig McAlpine, just 24 years of age in 1942. Douglas Haig McAlpine was one of  the Rovers (Scouting)  known to my parents also heavily involved in Scouting/Guiding during the 1920s, 1930s and into the 1940s in London, Ontario. 

The Bible is a powerful book read by many the world over and much of the Old Testament is the basis of the three major religions of the world - Christianity, Islam and Judaism. What do I accomplish in re-reading once again the entire Bible from cover to cover? I am not sure what I am looking for but the desire to re-read is powerful in my mind and I will read to the end of Revelations. I already feel calmer in my mind as if it is something that I need to do at this age of nearly 81 years. I am mostly withdrawn from the world around me except for my blog which is on a public forum. 

Today is cleaning day and it is the top floor. Shortly I will clean the bathroom first and then vacuum and dust. The usual order as that is the way that I live in an orderly fashion. The tree is now gone from next door and the tomato plants are growing much quicker as they are getting more sun in the morning now. They would have grown anyway but perhaps not quite as fast or as large as they are now. There is too much shade in the yard now for that type of plant to do well. The walnut tree dominates and blocks out all the sun through the afternoon but contributes nothing as it is a tree weed rather than a favoured greenhouse tree. It poisons the ground around it trying to grow more walnut trees!

Yesterday was a quiet day and actually very warm but we spent most of it indoors working on our projects. The special Indigenous Prayer Service at Church also included a tribute to Father's Day and the last day for the Choirs to sing as a block until the Fall return. The hymns will now be many of my favourites as one must count on the members of the congregation to sing and less common hymns are not generally chosen in this Common Time of the Church Year that is the Trinity or the Pentecost as it has been named these last years. It is the time of Jesus taking on his Ministry and ends with Christ the King Sunday just prior to Advent One. It is the way I live my life now following the Church Calendar just as I did as a child. 

I am working on the First Chromosome for the Blake file and it is slow work. Parts of it are known to me and it includes a number of common areas that are probably looking at areas in the British Isles so I might need to regard that thought as I work my way through. The preponderance of matches early in the length are shared with individuals having early Colonial ancestry in the New England States. The Blake grandparent includes both Blake and Knight. The Blake from Andover, Hampshire, England area and the Knight from the area to the west and south of Blandford Forum, Dorset, England. Both groups are known to be colonials with Blake being primarily in New England and Knight primarily in Newfoundland. Separating Blake and Knight is the object and it will take a while to sort through the First chromosome. All the other chromosomes are ready to look at the small number that I could not separate into Blake or Knight.  Phasing the great-grandparents is simply bringing my known lines squarely back into the 1800s beginning with 1837 (the eldest of the eight great-grandparent was born (William Robert Pincombe) and the youngest great-grandparent was born in 1859 (Ellen Taylor). Seven of the great-grandparents appear on the census of the British Isles (six of them died and are buried in the British Isles). One great-grandparent was born in Canada (parents from Holme on the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire and Bewcastle, Cumberland) as my first Canadian born ancestor (Grace Gray, 1839) and one migrated as a child with his family William Robert Pincombe in 1850 (coming to what became Canada from England was thought to be just migrating to another area that was part of the British Empire rather than emigration). Both of these individuals are buried in Canada. 

Time for breakfast, tea all drank and solitaire puzzles to do.  

I have completed to the end of Genesis Chapter 21

 Time has passed so quickly and if one recorded all the births and the deaths one could know that but I am not sure that is what I am to learn whilst I re-read the Bible. I think it is the birth of Abram and then his son Isaac that is monumental in the Chapters of Genesis I have just read. Abram now Abraham is one of the great patriarchs of the Church to this day and is a patriarch in all three of the Great Religions of the World - Christianity, Islam and Judaism. As I read through these many chapters this morning it is the Tower of Babel that stands out for me as well. That always intrigued me as a child because at that point I had never heard anyone speak any language other than English. This was before television and in London, Ontario I was far away from the French language in Quebec or the First Nations and Inuit languages but that would change quickly as time passed. In eighty years our lives have changed so very very much. 

We were just recovering from the Second World War when I was a young child. My first real memory of my family is my older brothers pretending to be airplanes flying into Berlin to save the city from starvation as the Soviet Union had cut off access by land. Berlin was a divided city following the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences with governance by France, United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union and already the bleak time ahead of us as the Iron Curtain tumbled down, which was created by the Soviet Union, was being discussed. We were listening to the radio and my grandfather, father, mother and siblings were all in the room. It was a tense time so is perhaps why it is my earliest memory. 

Does this lead my mind forward because that is what I am looking for I think. I seemed to be needing some special thinking these days and I have no idea why. But the reading is calming me because it tells of that deep past that is the ancestry of every Homo sapiens walking the face of the earth today. These written words date back a long way in time and Sodom and Gomorrah stand out for all time as the Creator's words with regard to how we live our life. We must show love for our neighbour which really means respect. 

It leads me to NATO in my thoughts as this organization has grown from its earliest roots  that fateful date 4 April 1949. It was and continues as a mutual defense alliance to defend our way of life from the Soviet expansion after Stalin had promised to withdraw the Soviet Union troops from the occupied areas of Eastern Europe. The founding members had three goals - deter Soviet expansion, foster collective security and promote European stability. And that is where my thoughts remain with this ongoing illegal war between Ukraine and Russia which Russia started. NATO has never been involved in aggression and that is not its mandate. The desire to protect children was the thought in my mind through these past couple of years but one realizes there is no protection for the children of the world where the laws of the Creator are not followed namely love one's neighbour as oneself. 

The Bible doesn't explain any of that to me in these early chapters but is really a collection of thoughts and details of happenings that were important to the peoples of the time at that time which is why they were written down. The Creator God no longer walked with man at the time of writing as far as we know and the need to remember all of this was important to the people who recorded it. Sort of like my grandfather passing on stories to me that I now recall because they were repeated to me time and time again. Why didn't he write it all down? One wonders that now but I think about my grandfather and I was a young child capable of memorizing great amounts as he had learned because we had such a close relationship and he enjoyed teaching me so many things. Would his writing have persisted was possibly the thought in his mind so he fell back on the usual mode of passage of information in the time that he lived although lots of books had been written but I was only a young child just eight years of age when he died. He chose well really as my mind was capable of pulling back all those stories from the hidden spots in my brain and I did share them in my recorded stories in files because that is the way and  they are backed up. Will they exist? I am not sure that matters because I have shared them in my blog which appear to be read by thousands although it has been suggested to me they are just bots reading. However the comments which I receive but do not publish suggest that real people do read this blog. 

I will continue with my reading until I reach the end of Revelations. I am a fast reader and sometimes as I read I wonder should I record that? But the actuality is the Bible is the most read book in the world so why would I record other than what God sent Jesus to tell us - to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength,  and love our neighbour as ourself. It is a while since I read the Bible although I read the Bible Reading of the day and until yesterday pretty much every day for many years. I can remember when I was ill after my first child was born that I was re-reading the Bible, my new Bible that I bought not long after I came out of the hospital. That is a vague memory as I had been very very ill but it also could be I used my Bible I won at a Bible Challenge for being the first to find so many verses when I was eight years old and first went to Bethel Chapel as they had a Bible study for children after school which I finally persuaded my parents to let me attend after they discussed it with our priest. The priest said let her go and follow her interests. 

Cloudy today and it is Sunday and I will try to attend my Church online and if not there are other services online or I can just read through the Service as I have it at hand.  

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles. 

I am able to be at my Church today and it is a special service - National Indigenous Day of  Prayer which is dedicated to the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Re-reading the Bible

 When I am doing my morning run in the basement these days I watch YouTube and the last few days I have been watching readings of Books of the Bible. In my mind, I feel I have not been reading enough but I could not decide what to read as I do read all day long more or less but my mind was searching for what I wanted to read especially. I have read the Bible before and parts of it are known very well to me but this is a different sort of feeling. I feel the need to re-read the Bible in light of the changes in our world both environmental, political and social. These changes have occurred particularly in the last two decades. Thinking about it I believe this desire to read the Bible once again goes back to the Crimea being taken from Ukraine by Russia back in 2014. I have felt somewhat compelled to write about both Russia's war on Ukraine and the attack on Israel by Hamas over the past few years. They are happenings that have created the world we are now living in - it is like a world out of control seeking to find that steady spot that was there in the early 1990s but we need to make it a better world; a safer world and a world ready to face the future - I feel as if we are sinking into the past. 

I believe the answer lies in the Bible which is the oldest collection of history of our world known to us. So yesterday I started reading Genesis with the experience of 80 plus years of living. Raised Anglican and I have worshiped Anglican most of my days (except for a brief period when I was a Volunteer Secretary and later other volunteer items like Adult Bible Studies at Edward's United Church). I did become distanced from my Anglican church during the conversations on the Residential Schools as I could see no value in the process that was being followed. When my Anglican Church accepted their responsibility with the problems in the Residential Schools which were under their care I found myself feeling once again a closeness to my Anglican Church. During the early part of our marriage we went to Edward's United Church and I went solo to early Communion at my childhood Anglican Church and joined my father who was a weekly attendant at the early service. Edward and I were both happy with my decision although we had always agreed that we would raise our children in the United Church and for a number of years we did attend the United Church as a family when we moved to where we are currently living. Edward was very involved singing in the Choir for about fifteen years and Treasurer for ten years. A chance mention in the bulletin of our local United Church took us to a lecture series during the regular service at Dominion Chalmers downtown and it was a time that Edward was feeling the loss of his only sibling (his older brother) and the rapidly declining health of his mother. His conversations after Church on Sunday with this learned Early Testament scholar who was also a United Church Minister helped him on his path. However this minister retired and a large change in the ministry resulted in Edward deciding to go to my Anglican Church since I had spent nearly twenty years at his Church. 

As I reflect on my Bible reading, I find myself thinking that the answers to so many questions that persist and puzzle many of us in the world today are in the Bible. Hence I began as I did as a child many many years ago reading Genesis (my latest Bible is the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, 1971). Although initially I was raised with the Revised King James Version I moved to this new Bible in the 1970s. In a way my religious life was unchanged from childhood as I had attended the Anglican church with my parents and siblings and the United Church with my grandmother, uncle and aunt as a child when I was at their home. 

I think the other incident that brought me to this was a storm the other day where lightning struck a tree next door and took it down. It stood right next to the wooden fence and yet it never touched it. The lightning cut it into two well down into the trunk (the tree was two stories high) but both sides fell the other way and yet it leaned towards the fence; its branches constantly touching it. It was weird but the storm was heavy and full of hail the size of peas. I looked at that tree and thought about that tree and finally it was cut off and moved away. 

So part of my day will be reading the Bible instead of the Bible Verses that come to me through the email. I feel the need to do a Bible Study for me pursuing answers to what is happening in the world. They will be my own thoughts and I may or may not share them over the months it will take me to once again read from Genesis to Revelations. 

Yesterday I reached the story of Noah in my reading and contemplated the role of Homo sapiens in our world as mentioned in these early Chapters of Genesis. 

Today I will continue with my reading. These first chapters encapsulate eons of time and give us a picture of the Creator God of many if not all of the religions of the World (my knowledge of other than the Christian and Judaism is weak). My Anglicanism was learned mostly at home to be honest from my grandfather and father although the priest at my Church at that time was Father Abraham and his booming voice from the pulpit still comes back to me on occasion. I did go to Sunday School all of my childhood until I began to sing in the Church Choir when I was eleven but it was the sermons of our priest that provided my learning as a child. To me the early chapters of the Bible tells us the stories that were passed down by word of mouth over eons of time. The Anglican Church has a deep past in the British Isles although the Christian Church of England dates from before 314 AD and was preceded by the Celtic Church in England and back into the shadows of time immemorial. 

The weather here is pretty normal for this time of year, still pleasant most of the time and rainy - June is like that and will continue like that to the end of the month and then July tends towards hot and dry. The more moisture the better and except for the hail, the crops are probably doing well.  The tree still mystifies me as I glance at it lying waiting to be picked up in the front yard of the house next door. I wonder if they will pick it up unorganized as it is - we will see as this is a new company doing the recycling and usually one has to bag the small things and tie up the big lengths of branches. 

I also realize that in my blogs I refer to First Nations but I am not entirely correct as my thinking includes both the Inuit and the Metis but in reality First Nations does only refer to the First Nations themselves who have been in the Western Hemisphere from time immemorial with the Inuit arriving about 5000 years ago I believe and the Metis are descendant of the first colonials and many of the First Nations. Just to clarify that and I will try to be more specific in the future.  At nearly 81 though I will probably not entirely succeed but will try.

 

 

Rain again but the ground can still absorb a lot more

Another rainy day with thunder storms expected and the sky looks very cloudy. Just  17 degrees celsius this morning. Friday as well and this will be a good working day. I tend to find that Thursday is not a day of big accomplishment although we made a few decisions on the house layout that we will follow through with the next couple of weeks. It will make working easier. 

 Contacted the Chilliwack Archives and they will take the box of BC Kipp material so will get started on preparing that material for shipment to them. Although Edward and I worked together quite a bit on genealogy I do not know anything about the Kipp family, do not actually know any members of the Kipp family other than Edward's nieces and wanted to ensure that this material was not lost as the year's pass. I will ask the Archives if instead of discarding any duplicates that they have in their collection they could ask the members of the family that have donated to their archives in Chilliwack (who still live there) if they would like any of the items that are duplicated in their holdings. 

One other item to prepare this summer is the Allen material which Edward took to Gravenhurst back in 2019 when he went to meet with some of his cousins. It was a long trip and the first time that I had even been driving in this area north of North Bay. We did take a bus trip that ended in Moose Factory and included a train ride back in 2011 which we greatly enjoyed but other than that our time in Northern Ontario was principally in the Wawa area and further west and north from there canoeing in the backwoods in our early twenties primarily. 

Just noting as I brought my tea up that this was the tenth time that I climbed up and down the stairs today already. I also did my usual yoga and calisthenics for an hour first thing with a cardio load of 35. Already 3000 steps on the FitBit so 1/4 of the way to my goal of 12,000 although generally I run higher than that around 15,000 steps per day.  I am trying to review what I have done on a regular basis to keep my memory in the present very active. I suspect that might be why older people remember things better from long ago than the present items simply because their active memory in the present just isn't utilized as much as when you were younger. 

I was always taught to be respectful of our politicians as they give up  their private life (and I certainly relish mine and protect it as much as I can) to work for Canada. I am getting tired of the constant criticism which is actually becoming quite unjustified in the current political climate. This picking apart of every word expressed is becoming quite boring and useless. 

We must be patient; it takes time to create and we must be ready to grab all the possibilities to make Canada the country that the founders wanted and planned for in the 1860s-1910s. Their ideas were huge and they paid off and now it is our turn to make the same sacrifices to bring to fruition the promise of Canada. We do not have to be lesser than what we can be; but it will take time and sacrifice. We have lived through two World Wars that decimated our young people but yet we managed to continue to grow and prosper and we still can especially as our youth is straining at the yoke to be that powerhouse of the future. 

So today continuing with my work project as I did not actually touch that yesterday. We went shopping and the day disappeared rapidly but there is now 6 metres of linen towelling to turn into eight tea towels and will get that going. All that needs to be done is the hemming and the sewing machine is waiting. I made tea towels from this very same linen toweling 50 plus years ago and the last of the dozen are pretty thin and really only good for rags one might say. It will be nice to have new tea towels. They will shrink when they are washed and will take a few washings to make them really useable. But it will be fun to do. 

I wondered if we would find tea toweling and there was actually quite a bit of choice. Not cheap by any means as it is now $19.00 a metre and I vaguely recall 29 cents a yard way back in those days. I made a dozen then and there are two left. 

Drinking tea and solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

 

Equal treatment in Canada

 The Editorial "Alberta just wants equal treatment in Canada" was an interesting read. With the highest salaries in Canada it will be hard for Alberta to be equal in terms of overall wealth (they are wealthier and do not pay the high Provincial Income Taxes that are paid in other provinces or the extra Health Tax which we pay in Ontario). In terms of representation in Parliament, Ontario continues to be the most under represented in Parliament. I still think the original idea of the founders to think in terms of region (the Senate is based on this principle) has merit. Each region has specific interests and when the Western Premiers gathered to meet I thought that is really a good idea. They are a large region land wise and potential untapped value in these areas is huge so looking towards the future as a co-operating group is a really good idea. Alberta and Saskatchewan are basically landlocked areas depending on passage to the east through Manitoba but also through the Northwest Territories or to the west through British Columbia but also the Yukon with its access to the Arctic Ocean. So the co-operation between the western provinces/territories is really very important (which the Founders clearly noted and planned for in the original drawing up of borders in the Prairie provinces). In the east we have my province Ontario with its huge population, Toronto forms the centre in terms of business (used to be Montreal but talks of separation caused that city to lose hugely at the time as the race to be in Toronto began and is still ongoing). Toronto is ideally placed within Canada with its access to the Great Lakes that can take it west to Thunder Bay (and we await the Trans Canada being widened!) or east to the Atlantic via the St Lawrence Seaway which we built ourselves in the 1950s as the Americans were not interested in building that with us; for a small country we have pulled our weight on this continent quite remarkably until the mid 1960s which was a mistake that we are rectifying. You can tell we are moving back into that direction because of the heavy use of the Bridge between the United States and Canada at Sarnia since the bridge at Detroit/Windsor has been inadequate for quite a while. Hence Canadian taxes paid to build the new bridge at Detroit/Windsor in its entirety (using 50% Canadian and 50% American materials) so that there was better access between the two highways for the truckers and they shouldn't have to make that huge detour all the way to Sarnia to go back and forth. Sharing the tolls with Michigan once the bridge is repaid to Canadian taxes is a good sharing between two friendly nations - the benefits huge for the population of Michigan. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few because trickle down economics is a failed idea. It takes one back to the Dark Ages in the history of Homo sapiens in the Eastern Hemisphere. 

But I digress from Alberta. Certainly as a Canadian and an Ontarian I appreciate Alberta very much. The founders knew very well what they were acquiring with the acquisition of Rupert's Land and did due diligence in seeing that the original inhabitants (First Nations) were properly recompensed then and into the future. Billions of dollars have been poured into Alberta (particularly during the Great Depression as well as the explorations to use the oil in the oilsands) from Canadian taxes and Canada deserves to be recompensed in a reasonable way for that huge expense (the value of Alberta must be 30 trillion and likely more to purchase).  Since this is about Alberta I will not dwell on the other regions of Canada which include Central Canada (Quebec and Ontario) and the Maritime Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island which were joined by Newfoundland in 1949 when they joined Confederation and we linked Labrador with the new province). Each region has its own specific needs and one must always bear in mind that Quebec using the French language has been a challenge within Confederation however the use of the French language and culture has expanded far beyond the borders of Quebec and other provinces are now officially bilingual. It has enlarged our intelligence speaking two languages for sure. 

So yes we appreciate Alberta within Confederation; we are not jealous that you have the highest salaries in Canada. After all in Ontario we have lived in the shadow of Toronto all of my life where if it involved Toronto it got done and if it didn't then you waited and tried to work Toronto into the estimate! I lived in London until I was thirty and when we moved to Ottawa 51 years ago one could see how much that city has suffered from inadequate funding because it wasn't Toronto. The 416 was basically a two lane terror trip home for many many years having already driven the 401 for most of the way from London to Ottawa until finally a Premier from the north changed that and we have a four lane highway 416)! However that Toronto centralization is changing a little perhaps as I see the mine in the north that has been wanting to happen is going to happen at long last after more than two decades and the road apparently is finally going to be built according to Premier Ford. Thank you. 

So yes we want to see Alberta prosperous and will continue to pour money into future projects from the taxes of all the people of Canada. Just wanted to write that down in case anyone doubted how much Alberta is appreciated within Confederation. But personally if the First Nations are not satisfied with events in Canada then I think that is wrong; they have been at our side from the earliest days helping to make Canada great and we should respect their knowledge of the land. Am I descendant of the First Nations, no I am not simply an appreciative Canadian noting the great contributions that have been made by the First Nations and continue to be made. Helping them to re-establish their villages/towns with the same excellent conditions which we enjoy in our cities/towns/villages is very important. We were meant to walk together in this country just as Tecumseh walked (read that as worked together) with Brock to save Canada more than 200 years ago. 

As for Senate representation that is purely decorative but helpful on a regional basis which was the whole purpose of the Senate - to keep everybody happy within Confederation. With proposed unbalanced number of senators in the Western Region we might miss seeing something needed/revised in one of the four provinces or two territories. The presence of six senators in each of these four provinces is essential in order to know what is happening in these provinces. The Senate is large enough unless one is adding for the Territories. The voting in the Senate is not really consequential because eventually when the regions are satisfied with bills then the vote of the House of Commons will prevail. At the moment I do see Yukon and the Northwest Territories very under represented considering the role these two territories will play in the expansion of trade by Canada and the desire to work the valuable deposits within these areas over the next decades.  

Not what I planned to write at all. Today is a work day and will run my Copilot program to look at the Blake matches. Should be interesting. One item to note is that the files which Copilot produced for me had stripped out the formatting that I had in the Excel document.  Now that isn't a big deal as I can just put it back in by column but it is interesting to note that. Plus the file that was produced was out of order but I had a column which lets me restore the original order. Little items that are not consequential but would require me to have extra lines in the program in order to have the perfect file that I now have. The tradeoff though is excellent as producing the files myself would have required my writing a python program which takes time and has to be trialed taking up even more time. Eventually AI will have protocols perhaps that can be readily called upon but will probably always need the human eye to regard the file and ensure that what one has thought will be produced is produced. 

Like the advance into the computer age (I was into computers back in the mid 60s and watched as the world caught up) saving money wise/time wise is unlikely. What was promised as a time saver was certainly not that as the size of companies swelled in order to make use of all the advantages of computers. I think the same will be true of AI in the long run and sudden changes will be upsetting to the systematic flow of work in industries that try to convert overnight. 

 Solitaire puzzles are next.