Going down memory lane and ceaning up

I shut it all down and headed out of here shortly before 4pm, with no jacket as it was very mild and warm out there. I read a bit on the way in and noticed just before Rexall place the empty lot before coming to the overpass how it was all gated off. I got into the office shortly before 4:30pm and got a bunch of cans and bottles from the afternoon shift and got the end dialer. My mistake because it was very blurry, I couldn’t read the names. In the 2nd half Super went and moved a bunch of us but I had 2 sales and $60 by break. Not good. Super moved me to do the CWF and my 2nd call I got a sale and then nothing for almost an hour. Finally I got one sale and I ended up with a measly $108. Not good but during the afternoon other staff along the back were struggling with low totals as well. As dismal as that was I was glad to get to Corona station to crack open my book and escape a little. Anne came home shortly after I got in. She made me some lunch and we watched the local news.

Greg won our little $5 bet but I’m going to go him double or nothing for Pittsburgh/Detroit. I’m saying Detroit. This way it will give me some leeway.

On this day 29 years ago, I recall Richard and I getting on a Greyhound bus for Vancouver. This would still be at the old Greyhound bus station where it was occupying the North side of City Center Mall. In those days they had the milk run and it took us a good 18 hours to get to downtown Vancouver. The SCA in those days had virtually no Rattan, which was the preferred material of choice to make practice fighting swords for tournaments. This was Richards first brush with Vancouver as he was trying to organize his “House of Khonsu” as he liked to call it back in Edmonton. My progress towards “membership” in this enterprise was stalled going nowhere and I thought about resigning my petition. When we got to Vancouver I wish I had the inclination to go back to downtown New Westminster and take a couple of photos. The Courthouse was just being developed and I think my old apartment building the last place I lived in while in New West, was being torn down at this time. It was to make way for the new Douglas College which currently sits on that site. I don’t know if Richard knew anyone in Vancouver but the idea was to contact the SCA since we were also on SCA “unofficial business.” We looked up the SCA North Shore Vancouver Chapter while rummaging through a couple of occult bookstores. We also made contact with the SCA and they housed us up for Friday/Saturday night as long as we attended their chapter classes on medieval fighting and assorted lectures. We stayed at this young lady’s house. Her name was Kelly. She was maybe all but 17 at the time. Richard warmed up to her right away. That Friday afternoon we found ourselves in the Kitsilina area at a quaint occult book store where I found my first copy of 777- Magick in theory and Practice and another copy of the Thoth deck and some other stuff at that store. Then we found our Rattan, We Didn’t get a lot of it. Our home base for that weekend was Kelly’s place. I often wondered if Richard ever re connected with her when he ended up moving to the kits area in 1983. The lectures were worth it as we got a lot of great information to take back with us when we left that Sunday afternoon. I think I had about $350 with me on that trip and $400 in those days bought a lot. Again we were on the milk run back.

So it’s going to be Detroit Red Wings/Pittsburgh penguins again for part 2. It was mentioned on the news last night that the last time the same 2 teams that made back to back playoff appearances in 2 consecutive years was The New York Islanders and The Edmonton Oiler’s. How’s that for an omen? Game #1 of that series starts on Saturday night. I can’t wait. Game #2 is on Sunday.

I also cleaned up my welcome block, the one with my photo in it. Top left corner. It reads a lot better indicating my hobbies what I’m into. Next time Anne’s sister is here I’m going to ask her to take a photo of both of us, where she’s sort of standing behind my left shoulder with the same kind of pose only where I’m wearing my Edmonton Oiler shirt. Something like that. But that wont be until the next time she comes here.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim