Just another Yankee with a Maple Leaf on her back-pack

While still engaged to mom, dad whisked off to the University of Washington to get a BA in theatre. Mom and dad corresponded faithfully until one day Dad mentioned working in a Sorority to supplement the GI bill paying his way. “You mean a Fraternity, don’t you” was mom’s reply.  Nope, dad replied, he was pretty sure it’s a Sorority cause men don’t look this good in satin.  My parents married that fall and my sister was born in Seattle the following year.

We always assumed because she lives in Canada, pays taxes in Canada and never declared U.S. citizenship after reaching the age of 21, she was a Canadian. Until, that is, she had to apply for her passport and was told she really wasn’t a Canadian…or American…or, well, anything. It took a signed declaration by my father, his birth certificate to prove his citizenship and the intervention of Rowe’s Member of Parliament to finally cut the red tape for the passport to be issued.

Never take life in this country for granted. It is a gift, a blessing and a jewel beyond price.

Visit Jowi Taylor and the amazing Voyageur at www.sixstringnation.ca , better yet, go to your local book store and buy his book. 

Thanks for visiting Baba's Beach today. If you have any comments, we'd love to hear them.

Music from the Podsafe Music Network this week:

Song of Assisi by -MARC GUNN - Celtic Songs, Sci Fi, and Cats

Maple Leaf Rag by Jeanne Backofen Craig

September Wind by  Hardwire Speers

O Canada by *Danny Fong* (Some Tracks Feat. A cappella quartet, 'Mixed Nuts' or other friends and family)

Noodling by Jay Moonah (Thanks to Daniele Rossi for the recording of the 6 String Nation guitar at PAB 2009)

To Michelangelo the process of his art was to look at a block of marble at dawn in order to see the figure it contained and then to take away all the pieces that didn't belong. I seem to be a work in progress with lots of pieces being removed but I'm pretty sure the final result won't exactly be an angel.  Maybe I'm just not ready to be one yet.

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” - Michelangelo

Thanks for visiting Baba's Beach today. If you have any comments, we'd love to hear them.

Please visit us at www.babasbeach.ca and send comments to babasbeach@gmail.com

Music from the Podsafe Music Network this week:

Elegy for M by Ash Verjee

VoiceDance - Choir SATB by Danny The Multitracker

They Cant Take That Away From Me by Sylvia Bennett

Something good can be found in just about anything, I guess.

Sulfa drugs and penicillin came out of the First World War; RADAR, plastics and synthetic fuels from the 2nd.

The Vietnam War brought about a revolution in technological support for the disabled - I kid you not - and a healthy distrust of being told "this is for your own good." Maybe the current unpleasantness in the Middle East will lead to an end to dependence on Hydrocarbons.

But wouldn't it be great if we could cure cancer without starting a war to do it?

"You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way." Will Rogers

Thanks for visiting Baba's Beach today. If you have any comments, we'd love to hear them.

Please visit us at www.babasbeach.ca and send comments to babasbeach@gmail.com

Music from the Podsafe Music Network this week:

Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the (Excellent) Motion Picture "Once"

When your child has Type 1 Diabetes, you become a family with diabetes.

Actually, you become part of a huge international family all dealing with the physical and emotional roller coaster of life with a chronic disease.

This is a YouTube presentation by the Vancouver Island JDRF teen council who are the teenagers in the Type 1 family. They're old enough to speak for themselves and get the word out. One of them is our daughter and she's decided to bring her friends to babasbeach in time for a family walk.

To donate, please click here

The two icons of 50's TV were Dragnet's Joe Friday and June Cleaver, domestic goddess on "Leave it To Beaver". He was all about the facts, while her thing was house, hearth and doting on her sons, especially the unfortunately nick-named youngest lad - to the eternal gratitude of junior high class clowns everywhere,  "Gosh, Ward, you were a bit hard on the Beaver last night". Snicker, snicker.

Joe Friday would not get that joke either. But his partner would.

Life for women has changed a lot since the 50's but media still show us as being impeccably dressed, wandering through a spotless house that never needs cleaning and waiting for a husband - doesn't matter whose husband - to come home and brighten the day or afternoon.

The modern reality is more like Law & Order: Tedious Daily Routine but it probably wouldn't make it in prime time: most women are too busy working the home shift to watch it.

I woke up this morning and knew that it was a special day but I wasn't sure why. It was one of those feelings that you just can't place. Then I remembered. It would have been my Grandmother's Birthday.

Then it really sunk in. It would have been her 100th birthday. Now, the vast majority of folks don't make it to 100, and many wouldn't want to. She had enough love in her heart for 200 years and for that I'm thankful. I'm thankful that she got to hear her Great-Grandchildren play in the back bedroom and I'm thankful that she lived long enough to see them walk on the sand at Baba's Beach.

We'll be back in the next couple of weeks with more podcasts and some video podcasts from some recent (and not so recent) travels.

Cheers Beach-Granny.

I grew up in a house that was filled with music. Despite the budget considerations of raising four children on a printer's salary, there was never a problem finding money for a piano, a saxophone, and a clarinet for us to play or for the long years of tormenting teachers with our efforts to learn how to play them.  We still don't know how they managed to do this and feed us too. Music, love and wiener soup - could these be the ingredients of the glue that held our family together?

As a present to Dad for Father's Day 2007,  my brother, sisters and I have purchased a brick in memory of  Nicholas Blaseckie at the Forest Workers Memorial Park in Cowichan Lake BC.  

For information about the Memorial Park, visit the Cowichan Lake website at http://www.cowichanlake.ca/bus/forestcoop/fworkpark.html

Music in this episode was recorded live at the Greater Victoria Strings Orchestra  "Bach to the Beach" performance on June 7, 2007 at Willows Beach, Victoria BC.

An Irish Party In Third Class - Gaelic Storm

Entrance Of The Queen Of Sheba - Handel

For more information about the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) please visit www.jdrf.ca

To pledge our daughter in the 2007 Walk to Cure Diabetes, please click here.

If you're going to be in Kingston, Ontario for the Podcasters Across Boarders, please let us know...We'd love to meet you.

Music this week for the Podsafe Music Network:

Moonlight Piano Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2, mvt. 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven performed by Ajero, Mario

A few years ago while sitting in a coffee shop in Victoria's laid back equivalent of the Upper East Side, Gordon Head, I overheard two young moms, upwardly mobile, impeccably dressed, comparing pictures from a child's birthday party.

Every second comment, be it on the cake, the way the yard was decorated or what everyone was wearing was, "That's just sooo Martha". It took me a minute to clue into the fact they weren't referring to the hostess of the party but The Martha...Stewart.  How the mighty have fallen. The coffee shop is closed too.

Thanks for visiting Baba's Beach today. If you have any comments, we'd love to hear them.

If you're going to be in Kingston, Ontario for the Podcasters Across Borders, please let us know...we'd love to meet you.

Please visit us at www.babasbeach.ca and send comments to babasbeach@gmail.com

Music from the Podsafe Music Network this week:

Family by Rob Costlow

No, not those horse people from Gulliver's Travels or words that sound the same but smell different. It's trying to win an argument by pointing out your opponent is wearing white after Labour Day. A good debate is a wonderful thing - like a tango with words - and dips should be one of the dance steps, not the participants.

Lee Maddeford - The Soft Hate Song