Steps towards a simpler life

Go to NF and some of the smaller villages, you'll be hard pressed to understand what the conversations are about
Stay where you're to and I'll come where you're at. :)

I had to make a winter service call to Jackson's Arm NF. They were pouring concrete using a gas powered drum mixer and my first thought was "Why didn't they call in a ready mix?"

Answer: It would have to come from Cornerbrook several hours drive away. I had to shut off the Toronto part of my brain.
 
Sport is really where the “integration “ shows up . We ran a program this summer on behalf of the SeaScouts and Cadets in Oakville. Ninety five percent were non white kids . Regular enrollment was eighty percent white kids . My help at football camp ( soccer ) was a complete smorgasbord of kids . We went to watch my friends kid at Canadian football camp , it was less integrated. Even getting girls involved at high level sailing has been a challenge, only changing because funding mandates make it happen .
But back on topic , the sooner you realize ( for me anyway) there will always be someone with more money , learning to be content with what you have will help. Learning to be content is almost therapeutic.


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The late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's buddy did an interesting talk on the difference between greed and envy. He argued that greed could be OK but not envy. Greed is going after what you want to make you happy, a fixed target. Envy is going after something bigger or better than what someone else has, a moving target.
 
My wifes family is from Twilingate NF. Most did their best to shed the accent and most of the behaviour . Three rums in you'd need a local translator.
My wifes grandfather owned a chandlery ( boat supplies) and engine shop , by the end of WW2 he owned most of the local fishing fleet through accumulated debt. He had a chauffer driven car in a town with 6kms of road. Then the fishery went south (literally) and he owned a lot of scrap with dockage bills and little sympathy from the locals. When's yous gets greedy and the cows come home to roost , no jigs dinner to be shared.
 
Sport is really where the “integration “ shows up . We ran a program this summer on behalf of the SeaScouts and Cadets in Oakville. Ninety five percent were non white kids . Regular enrollment was eighty percent white kids . My help at football camp ( soccer ) was a complete smorgasbord of kids . We went to watch my friends kid at Canadian football camp , it was less integrated. Even getting girls involved at high level sailing has been a challenge, only changing because funding mandates make it happen .

Sometimes lack of participation in certain "Canadian" activities is deeply rooted in cultural attitudes.

Parks Canada had a huge blitz a few years ago, trying to get more Asians and other newer immigrants to go camping. The program was called "Learn to Camp":


They were trying to change that demographic's attitude that sleeping in a tent was for people who never came from countries where not having a roof over your head was a daily fact of life:


Camping is for wealthy folk who have never experienced hardship, so they “make a holiday,” my 82-year-old mother, (who survived the Sino-Japanese war by hiding in a rice paddy) will tell you.
“I work hard so you don’t have to sleep in dirt!”

When we told everyone we sold our home and were going to live in a tent while we travelled the world by motorcycle, most of our Canadian-raised friends were like, "F* yeah!" My parents, on the other hand, were highly distraught believing we were choosing a life of destitution and doing so on a mode of transportation only used by peasants who couldn't afford cars.

They were so deeply ashamed that their son was living in a cardbox box under a bridge...
 
Sometimes lack of participation in certain "Canadian" activities is deeply rooted in cultural attitudes.

Parks Canada had a huge blitz a few years ago, trying to get more Asians to go camping.

They were trying to change that demographic's attitude that sleeping in a tent was for people who never came from countries where not having a roof over your head was a daily fact of life:




When we told everyone we sold our home and were going to live in a tent while we travelled the world by motorcycle, most of our Canadian-raised friends were like, "F* yeah!" My parents, on the other hand, were highly distraught believing we were choosing a life of destitution and doing so on a mode of transportation only used by peasants who couldn't afford cars.

They were so very ashamed that their son was living in a cardbox box under a bridge...
There's camping and there's tenting. A friend's wife detests tents because, as a kid, every summer they'd go west to visit relatives. Her dad wouldn't pay motel rates so they drove all day and then stopped late, set up the tent, Coleman stove and ate out of a cooler. Next morning it was pile everything back into the car and drive all day. That I call tenting.

Camping to me, is having a place to enjoy in a scenic spot with time to enjoy it.
 
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There's camping and there's tenting. A friend's wife detests tents because, as a kid, every summer they'd go west to visit relatives. He dad wouldn't pay motel rates so they drove all day and then stopped late, set up the tent, Coleman stove and ate out of a cooler. Next morning it was pile everything back into the car and drive all day. That I call tenting.

Camping to me, is having a place to enjoy in a scenic spot with time to enjoy it.

I will give you my mom's telephone number (it's a landline, of course) and you can explain to her the difference. 🤪

She may want to feed you first.
 
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