Well here the "little rascals" are all together at that wonderful age of "hellry" that you and I as parents have long forgotten ... conveniently. From left to right is Dale, Terry, my eldest daughter, Bonney, my youngest daughter, Carol and Dale and Terry's "lil" brother, Ricky. Ricky was the youngest and of course was pretty well always dained to be the "fifth wheel" when it came to "important plans" of that age. They pulled all kinds of tricks on him to "get him out of the way" but he always stood his ground with them and could make an account of himself if he had to. I can attest to the fact that today, nobody but nobody would have the nerve to "take him on!" He's as strong as an ox and as tough as a bull today!

I realize that I am hopping all over the place like Captain Kirk going through a "time warp" but as I wasn't into photography then I have to rely on what few snaps I can get my hands on. They are usually of very poor quality, done with little "Brownie Cameras" that Kodak put out at the time but they are better than none. This one on the left jumps way ahead in time to when my son, Harry Jr. was in Cub Scouts. He didn't carry it on through to Scouting but I think he enjoyed it for the time he was in it. We did a lot of moving around when he was young and it was hard for him to have a chance to make friends because of it.

The picture on the right will give you an idea of just how much we did move around in those days as it was taken when we lived in Florida. This is a typical scene of Florida's landscape and I just had to get one of Joyce and Harry among the palms. In later years I went into photography with a vengeance and as they are mostly on slides, I have to find a gadget that lets me scan them in my scanner before I can share them. Harry did start school in Florida but was not really impressed with their system at that early age. You see ... Joyce always read to the kids when they were young and we always insisted they read good books and respect them for the wealth of information they can contain. As a matter of fact when Harry was around five or six I've seen him "freak out" good adult chess players. They couldn't believe how well he planned and made his moves at that young an age! Another thing he would do when we were travelling was to study such books as The Guinness World Book Of Records and stuff like that. It's no wonder he won a complete University Scholarship with room and board included when he was in grade twelve! He was on CBC's "Reach For The Top" with Jan Tennant for two straight years running when he was in High School. I'm bragging? Of course I am!

I'll wind this page up with a picture of us living back in Canada. You know, they say there's nothing better to do with a boy than take him fishing. Joyce, Harry and I have done a good deal of that to be sure. At first, although Joyce wouldn't fish here as she hated worms, etc. but she really took to "Deap Sea Fishing" though! You can never figure a woman! I've seen her help other "helpless" fishermen bring in their fish and even bait their bloody hooks for them in the sea ... but not in a fresh water stream! Go figure. The picture here was probably taken near Huntsville or Burk's Falls up north where I originally hailed from. Fishing has always been excellent up there. The bloody flies are another story.

The little story that goes along with these two pictures of Harry and his Mother and the little sparrow that Harry named "Marlin" is quite different .... at least I think so anyway. We were driving on Highway 69 out of Washago on our way to my brother's place in Gananoque around 1970. It was a nice bright summer day and we were not particularly in any hurry when all of a sudden a sparrow flew right into the front of my car and connected! When I looked in the rear mirror I could see this little guy fluttering helplessly on the side of the highway so I backed up to it and put it in the car. It had a broken wing but otherwise seemed to be quite alert. Harry fixed it up with a small box and we even stopped at a restaurant for water for it. Guess what? It survived and became a rather permanent member of the family for many months.

The little character became such a pet that we even gave it the run of the house most of the time. I even have some old 8 mm movie of him and Harry having a "sparring" session on the kitchen table!! Unfortunately it developed a growth on it and we knew it wouldn't survive too much longer so we reluctantly took it way out into the country knowing full well what its future would be there and released it back to Mother Nature. We figured that was the best thing we could do for it as that's where it came from in the first place. Marlin took a long time to decide he wanted to go but eventually he did and flew into the bush almost like any other bird would .... a little "lop-sided" perhaps but that's they way he flew around our apartment when we had him. Needless to say it wasn't the most happy day when we said goodbye to "Marlin." As you can see by the two pictures above .... Marlin was quite at home with us and we were thankful we had the opportunity to have shared at least a small bit of one of God's wondrous little creatures.

Now this is what a retired person should be doing as much as possible ... in my humble opinion. This is a picture of Joyce's Dad "catching a few winks" in his lawn chair on a drowsy summer day. I just had to drop this one in here as this is the kids' Grandpa Copeland. This of course is the one I've written so much about that did the homesteading out west. He was a hard worker all his life and even after he retired from farming, started building homes. He did however love to play cards or shoot the odd game of pool once in a while but especially loved curling. I can attest to the fact that he was a hard man to beat at cards. As long as I knew him I never heard him utter a "cuss word" but he had a fairly strong stubborn streak in him and was an astute businessman, especially when it came to the dollar. He died in his sleep one night, which was a shock but I guess that's a fair way to go when you think of it.

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