Sunday 31 July 2011

Title

Ok, here's your chance to weigh in, my many readers (that's you Aunt Sarah and Uncle Huck).

I've just begun to consider Hill, a Geography as title of this manuscript I`ve been working on. Used to be imagined by a former name to do with Hillsdale, that part of the city.

I invite you to talk about this title or titles in general. Meanwhile, I`ll carry on.

Monday 25 July 2011

Road Trip With My Sisters, Step One

This happens soon, leaving from south of Sherwood Park in Alberta. Day One might look something like two or three new (to us) highways down to three ferries near Leader, Sask., maybe staying (staining?) the night in Eston or sneaking onto a certain farm near Luck lake to pitch our tent. (Except sisters #2 and #3 have said "no tent" so I'm pretty sure it's the Eston Inn--greetings my friend Brit!--on night One).

Maybe Outlook gets us for night Two, by the time we hit Riverhurst ferry north of Herbert where sister #1 and I were born, #2 got as far as grade 9, #3 graduated grade 12. (Yours truly, in grade one, carried her books. Remind me to take my revenge by kicking butt at the card table, where bridge or cribbage or Scrabble could break out.)

Day Three, well this is getting to be too many numbers but I think we meet aunts and uncles and cousins for lunch August 14 in Saskatoon (my initial idea was to have them dangle food bags along highway 11 so we grab them as we drove by, Tour de France style). Later we'll drive to sunset, might be the command, if get to make commands, which for sure I will, being the birthday boy.

I'll ending up telling you more.

Thursday 21 July 2011

The Gerald Hill Diet, Step Six

I tell you, friends and family--stay away from liquor. Never mind the intrinsic caloric muscle of two pints of Palliser Porter after a workout, necessary to wash down the spicey chicken noodle dish and the green salad, blue cheese dressing, at Bushwakker. (A man gets thirsty after a hip mobility workout, my hips so far open I walked one way and imagined another.) The liquor wants more; a stop at the grocery store on the way home from the pub becomes the first purchase of a deck of Rip-L Chips since this diet began.

Can you tell I'm a third of the way through the first bag? I can. But I've already downed half of the follow-up Stella, so things are out of whack.

So, liquor. Sure the sunset over the court house looks fine, and the One Way sign (south) on Smith promises discovery by the movie crew shooting a block away. But it's not worth it. Rip-L #15 has lost snap. That half bottle of Stella looks a dirty-sweater green. This is no way to wait for the end of your diet, I tell you.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Live (by Digital Delay) from the Lone Eagle Motel in Herbert, Saskatchewan

Only by driving through the hottest spot (Medicine Hat) at hottest point of the day (about six o’clock) and through the most wildlife-intensive spot (gap from Walsh to Maple Creek) at dusk did I make Herbert by sundown.
Followers of my Loco Log—that’s you Uncle Pete and Aunt Rose—would have enjoyed passing CP locomotives 3061 and 9713 eastbound just east of Swift Current then, after checking into the Lone Eagle, sitting down at the desk in #7 just as 3061 and 9713, hauling fifty-some cars, came rolling through, a mosquito-swat away.
I was born here, so I must have faced heat like today’s which, modulated by sunset and air-con and a sheen of mozzies, remains alive at seven past 10. The thermo touched +38 at The Hat (or vice versa).
I was more of a daytime kid. I didn’t get outside much after dark.

Monday 11 July 2011

Help Wanted

I walk Debbie north
into Hillsdale Sunday
I wonder how long to.








(this photo not related to
the three lines above)