Important Birthday

Important days piling one right after the other. Yesterday was the celebration here of an important wedding. (MINE. Ta Da.). The most important day of my life but none of my wife’s family, or mine for that matter, was present because it was a mad scramble to be sure to get married on the 21st. birthday of my bride to be.

There are many reasons to get married on your bride’s 21st. birthday but the most important to us was that, in England then, the parent’s permission had to be given to marry before the 21st. birthday & my stepfather to be, being a Victorian type farmer, couldn’t fathom what I could do to support his daughter (I had no difficulty).

The church was crowded with our Canadian colleagues and other friends & the wedding was a great success.

In the 1950’s Toronto was expanding very quickly & our wedding took place in the basement of what was to become a fully built church. This type of basement church was quite common in the Toronto of those days but a basement church was quite new to us. Not a cathedral wedding at all but never the less a church wedding for a marriage that lasted our lives.

Important Wedding

The PSW who awakened me this morning was talking about an important wedding. Must have been mine because that was the one important wedding in my life.

Carol & I were married on her 21st. birthday in a little Toronto basement church in the then rapidly growing Toronto. It was January 1955. We were lucky to remain a living couple until she passed away in October 2017 having been happily married all those years.

For the last year or so we lived together in the same suite in a long term care home & every time I think of her toward the end of her life shouting from behind the curtains where PSW’s were washing her “No peeking Bill” I chuckle.

The wedding to Carol was the important one in my life.

Carol, like I a little earlier, came on a ship. it was winter & storm. The ship was heading for Halifax but was delayed by the storm in the Atlantic.

RED CROSS to the rescue in arranging an early enough flight to Toronto so we could marry as planned on her 21st birthday!

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

That is what Sherry, Recreation Head told a group of Residents at a group discussion today & then gave us many useful well reasoned examples.

All present agreed & gave some good Residents stories & bad cases too.

No matter the subject, all included the other part of that old saw – “Worry about the big stuff” & there is an unsaid word – ONLY.

Crescent Park. The Lodge With a Heart ABOUT THE BIG STUFF.

We are all human (so far, thinking of Robots) & when a complaint is made by the same person too often for our ears we humans have a tendency to develop deaf ears. Effective complaints usually come from people who only complain when they have a B-I-G reason.

Crescent Park. The Lodge that listens to Big Reasons!

Jobs for grandkids ?

To start with, I have to write that I strongly support all the things I have said about good education for our grandkids.

I am convinced that planet earth will have jobs a plenty for those well educated & equally so for work in this advanced N. America. What then about jobs in Canada? locally? Oh dear. Not so sure. Oh dear.

Sustainable global population is a third of present. Ottawa says that Canadian population is planned to grow, also Ontario. Confused? Me too. The Canadian government in Ottawa accepts that Global population has to go down, down. All this can only mean a shift in the distribution of global population.

Alright then. Ontario population is being planned to grow and Canadian population is planned to grow and this can only mean, hurrah, more jobs. Who are the employers? Not my concern & I am not into that kind of guessing other than to think Canadian would be employers are very venturesome folk.

Don’t forget that if the population here is to grow we will have immigrants. As to the indigenous population, I read that it is both growing fast & also, hurrah, vastly improving its education

All that I say about Population is me only doing my best guess.

 

 

A Good Month,Year,Decade.

June in Ontario is Seniors Month. A time to thank Visitors, Volunteers & staff for all they do for us residents.

Crescent Park Lodge where Visitors, Volunteers & staff have a heart.

Here we go 11 better by making every month a seniors one, by being a caring community where residents don’t just take kindness we give kindness. As time goes by and we get to know each other we really become one community. We notice when a community member needs a helping hand and respond as physically capable.st

All months are Community months. Visitors, Volunteers & staff have a heart.

No, we are not part of the fanciest building. No we are not built to all the latest standards. Yes though we do meet the latest medical & caring standards as laid down by the Ontario government. Yes though there is no more mutually caring community anywhere.

A Very Good Time Always for Crescent Park Lodge

STEAMING Canada (Hurrah)

We are STEAMING at last.

STEAM

Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, Math.

I am enthused that we at last have this in our rounded education curriculum, the curriculum we so much want as a choice for our grandkids.

STEM

We have for many a’month pushed the importance with our families of a good education for our grandkids and personally I have been saying that we should make sure to have a dose of the verbal/written arts in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). It seems that some others are like-minded and now (Ta Da) we go with STE(ART)M.

Crescent Park Lodge residents want their grandkids to have STEAM!

Loneliness Gone

Once was a time, not too long ago, that residents in long term care homes had no electronic marvels like the telephone and TV and the marvellous cellphone. Then we had to rely on visitors, often very difficult for them. In those times we usually had to take advantage of living in a community and working together for social contact. It worked partly.

In an even earlier time of course we had no long term care homes and there are many countries that still do not. As to these I know nothing.

Today we all enjoy some form of electronic contact as everyone having a home has at least a phone. All long term care homes in Canada are equipped with a communal phone or possibly residents have telephonic connection from their own living quarters. Count your blessings.

Then there is TV access which is always available in a common room or individually. Count your blessings.

Using God given powers of thought the Ontario ministry has decreed that all long term care homes have an informed and active Re-creation staff. Count your blessings.

Thank you Mom for giving me that idea. Count your blessings.