Dad, Tell Me About the Time (66)

Friday, August 29, 2025

Have you ever experienced a natural disaster?

Not really, living in California we do feel an earthquake once in a while, but it has never done more than rattle the cupboards. The “Northridge” earthquake on January 17, 1994, at 04:30:55 PST woke Lisa and I up but while it was a major earthquake, it did nothing more than rattle our closet doors. The epicenter for that earthquake was near Vicky Conrads (Cormack) home in Woodland Hills. It did a lot of damage. There are only two other events in my life that might be considered natural disasters.

We have had two wildfires that have forced us to evacuate but while we know several people who lost their houses we were never in any kind of danger.

The only other “natural” disaster would have been in was the spring of 1990 while living in Rosemary. I’m guessing at the year, but it was close to 1990. We had just experienced a major spring snowstorm. It was one of those storms where it is very wet snow and you get a LOT of icicles.

The power was out but George Riel and I headed in to work anyway. We noticed that a lot of trees had been brought down by all the ice, but we had only gotten a couple of miles down the road when we noticed that the power line was down across the road. It was hanging about 18” above the ground and George nearly ran right into it. We drove around the power line and eventually got to work only to find that the power was out at Global as well. We could do little at work without power, so George and I headed home.

Listening to the radio we learned that the storm had brought down hundreds of miles of high voltage power lines all across southern Alberta and that it would take a week before power was fully restored. A small town like Rosemary could be without power for even longer. We packed up everything in the fridge and put blankets on top of our freezer and headed to mom and dads for a week.

List all the musical instruments you play.

Today the only musical instruments I can play are my lips. I can whistle and make a trumpet sound. In the past I have done the following.

From eight years old until about ten, I took piano lessons. I never got very good, but I still understand the basics and could play a simple song with a lot of practice.

In my first year of high school (grade ten) I took band. About a year before I started learning a tenor saxophone because mom happened to have one. I don’t know where it came from. I got to the point that I could play simple tunes. 

Once in band, they switched me to a trombone. 

I got to the point that I could play simple tunes on that and then they decided they needed a second baritone and switched me to that. 

I got pretty good at it and even marched in the Magrath Cardston Marching Band. It was fun and I enjoyed it but in my Junior year I had the option of taking shop classes such as wood shop, auto shop and drafting. That was the end of my musical career.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

If I could retire today, I would continue to do exactly what I am doing today. I love to design and build things. Since I already do that for eight hours a day, in my spare time I love to read, run, bike, go to the beach, garden and anything like that.

If you received a gift of a billion dollars, how would you spend it?

That’s easy, in this order I would…

1) Give half of it to Uncle Sam
2) Pay off my house
3) Let mom retire
4) Buy a fully equipped shop and continue doing exactly what I am doing now
5) I would pay off all my kids houses and get them in their dream houses, within reason, no mansions here
6) I would set up a fund where my kids and grandkids could write me a proposal for starting a business and if it passed certain criteria, I would fund their business.