JohnF

Sounds like you wouldn't be very happy there. Why would you ever consider the move? JF

But there will always be someone who feels any form of capital punishment is cruel and inhuman. Is a quick whack on the neck any worse than strangling in a noose if the drop doesn't break yer neck? Is a lethal injection any less horrific in the anticipation than being strapped into an electric chair, or hearing the gas filling the room? JF

Saturday morning used ta be when ya went to pick up the beer. Now it's goats. I missed something somewhere along the line. JF

I was 189 once - for a few days only I suspect. I've lost far more in my life than you now weigh, or even did before your great reduction. Now I'm close to what you started at. Yer smart to start now. Be even smarter and keep it off. As for the smokes - can't help ya there, never was man enuf to smoke those things. I enjoyed my pipes and cigars for years but cigarettes always just gave me a headache. Now I suck on the odd cigar on the golf course, inhale the whole thing, but then I can go weeks till the next one. Must be in the genes. Good luck with that. Think of it this way. If you can quit the smokes you'll smell better to all around you, and ya won't be hawking up gobs of green stuff to gross them out and spoil the flavour and texture of yer coffee. Those floatin' greenies make the cream curdle somethin' awful. JF

Grand Bend 1965/6 JF

He sits backwards on the buddy seat and grips the trailer tongue firmly in his lil redneck digits? JF

Where's the trailer hitch? JF

I agree. If someone chooses to immigrate to Canada, then they should embrace the Canadian way of life, including the laws and accepted customs, and not expect us to alter our lifestyle to that of the country they chose to leave. And by the same token I believe that if a Canadian chooses to emmigrate to another country they should embrace that country's life style, laws, and customs and not try to impose our Canadian values on their new country. This is a matter of choice, not a matter of pick and choose. If that sounds harsh .... tough. JF

Yer goats have Shrek ears. JF

I'll call him Kip the next time I see him. See what he says. And yes, they're nice people. JF

Audubon says they range as far north as the top of the Great lakes in summer. JF

Yup. JF

Our condolences. Don't know you but Cliff just lives around the corner, and we've known them since our kids played hockey years ago. JF

Whatdaya wanna go up in a mixmaster fer? Them thar thangs is fer mixin' dough, not galivantin' off to chase fish. Serve ya right if all ya caught was a mess of nasty ole catfish - great long-whiskered ones with whiskey breath. said the same thing to a friend of mine who thinks he's purty smart fer flying up to the top of mountains to ski down. I asked him "What's the point? Yer already safe at the bottom." but he said "There are only three truly great peaks in this world , and I wanna climb 'em all." Apparently the helicopter is an efficient way of getting up above the easy parts. Using a mixmaster to fish is so technological, next thang ya know we'll be using sonar and tv - oh ..... wait. Never mind. JF

So d'ya think the MNR will extend the bass season by a month or so? JF

I just want the fish to ignore all the other guys and bite down on my lures. I don't wanna have to be smart about this fishing stuff, and I don't wanna spend an arm and a leg on gear. I just want the damned fish to come out to play with whatever lure I'm throwing whenever I'm throwing it. JF

Or perhaps it's even more fundamental than that. If you consider that Canada has 1/10 the population of the US and a relatively expensive infrastructure due to extremes of weather, geographic size, etc. and a smaller industrial base then it's understandable that Canada doesn't have the big bux to throw at amateur athletics. Then you've got the university athletic scholarship/development system in the States with huge alumni support. We've got a lot of different sports here in Canada with their hands out, summer and winter, and the keepers of the vault keys have to be careful not to favour one sport over another, even hockey. So at the end of the day none of our amateur athletes get the kind of support they need to compete with the big bux and sophisticated development systems of other countries. Many countries are either summer or winter sports oriented, and then there are those that simply select the sports that will get the lion's share of the support funding. Canada's trying to be too many things to too many people, to compete in too many sports with too few dollars to go around. It's no one's fault really. What's a common observation these days? That the top Canadian athletes can set new national records and still not be in the same class as the powerhouse countries' athletes. The gov't tried a few years back to focus on the top contenders but that raised the ire of too many, probably in no small part due to typical gov't mishandling. Seems to me what Canadian athletes need are for some major sponsors to select a few individual sports to which to direct their support dollars. It means that some sports will come up empty-handed but others might just get the necessary funding to run proper training and development programs. I sure wouldn't want to be the person or persons deciding which sports and athletes would get the lion's share of the funding to the exclusion of all others but it's probably the only way canada will ever get the kind of medal results we want to see. JF

T'would appear to me that the rivers have been the most affected. Too often the water clarity sux or the water's just too high. With all the flooding the fish seem to have been chased into peculiar places that we haven't found yet. My limited experience with lakes has been that they're less noticeably affected by all the rain other than the waves and lightning. By most accounts the fish produced have overall been smaller. Dunno how much that has to do with the weather. Normally where I go to fish (in waders) we can see the fish around us and have a sense of their size and numbers. This year I'm just not seeing anything like the usual numbers of bass or carp. Lots of minnows and bait-sized fish but not much in the fun sizes. JF

Gotit. Mebbe ya shoulda asked who didn't get it. JF

Tried the very spot where Marko caught all those smb's the other day and saw nary a sign of a basslike critter. Several very large carp, and a few smaller models, cruising around me but no bass at all. That water's shallow so it's not hard to see what's there with the right glasses on. Was wading down under the bridge to try the other spot when the skies opened up. With the rains I moved above the dam to stand under a willow tree and chuck weedless worms and plastic frogs at the lily pads. Again nothing. I know there were fish out there because something rather large splashed a few times just off the lily pads. Couldn't get out yesterday as we were celebrating my Mom's 90th birthday with about 148 other folks. Today the temps seem to have dropped even more. I'll try to get out to see what that brings, or takes away. Of course one can't catch fewer than zero fish, can one? JF

You fished a dock??? JF

They hang the better pieces like that. A 3 hour trip on a hot highway with lots of diesels in front does wonders for pre-tenderized baby possum. JF

They're just practical. Roadkill is already tenderized. Ya just gotta ignore the tiretread pattern. JF

I suppose just being warm doesn't mean much down yer way. JF

Only when they're dead. JF