Senior Situation by Dawn Ford – Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah 2015!

Christmas lights are going up on houses. As the song says, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Restaurants are decorating also. I was in the Cornwall BBQ the other day and they were trimming the restaurant with beautiful red poinsettias. Very pretty.

It seems the Family Corner Restaurant at 9th. and Pitt Streets is ready for Christmas. There are snowmen, candy canes, beautiful Christmas wreaths and lots of lovely decorations. Sorry guys, I didn’t see any mistletoe.

There is a great big life sized Santa. I pushed a little button on the Santa display and he began to sing and dance around. It is wonderful and made me laugh. He is quite tall and big in his red and white furry suit and has a jolly smiling face. The kids will love it. We older kids will also. I did.

I went on Google to see how long it took Mary and Joseph in the Biblical Christmas story to get to Bethlehem. According to the experts, probably weeks, maybe a month or two. Here is a very pregnant lady in her 8th. and 9th. months, riding on a donkey all that distance. Must have been exhausting. It is a miracle that the Baby didn’t arrive along the way. Joseph had to walk, it seems. Must have had a few foot blisters. According to the traditional calendar for our Advent celebrations in the Christian churches, Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus, at this time, are ‘on their way’. So are the Magi following the star in the East.

And, according to our Bibles, soon shepherds will be on the hillside tending their sheep. Angels will appear to them announcing a Baby born in a Manger and they will be singing and praising God. I would like to have been there.

I once asked my friend Elaine, on that last Christmas she had with us on this earth, what would she have done if she had been there with the shepherds on that Holy Night with Angels singing. She said she would be so full of awe and wonder that she would probably have passed out. To her, it would have been truly a Holy Night.

DF 1 26Some of us older kids who went to the old CCVS were again talking about our days in high school. It seems like we had a lot of fun and sometimes got into some mischief. I don’t remember hearing of any bad stuff going on when I was in school although sometimes some kids (boys, of course) would throw some ‘spit balls’ in class and I do remember hearing that some guys made a ‘stink bomb’ in a science class once.

It wasn’t just boys who acted up though. One time in a morning French class, another girl and I were caught talking. The teacher said we would have to stay at noon as a punishment. We had to go home for lunch so we didn’t want to stay. We asked him if we didn’t talk anymore and behaved could we go home for lunch? He said yes. We were like little angels for the rest of the class, believe it or not. At noon, thought, he told us we would have to stay. We argued with him that he had said we could go if we behaved. He just laughed and told us to stay in our seats. We were really mad at him. When he was out in the hall a few minutes, we jumped out the first storey window falling onto the grass on Fourth Street and ran home for lunch. We could have broken our necks.

My mother wasn’t mad at me, just concerned that I might have hurt myself. She was feeding us, her four kids, lunch and was a little busy..luckily. She did talk to me later about it. She told me that I had to stop and think about things before I do them and told me not to do stupid things again. Lesson learned.

When we got back to school at one o’clock, our home room teacher told my friend and I to report to the Principal’s office. He was waiting for us and told us we had to sit in his waiting room for one hour every day after school for one week. No after school activities. It was embarrassing because lots of people went through that waiting room. No after school fun or cadet training either. We didn’t jump out of a window again but I can’t really say we whispered in class again..well, once in a while, maybe.

Bereaved Families of Ontario will have the Memory Tree lighting at the Cornwall Square on Sunday, Nov. 29th. It will run through December until the 23rd. For a donation, you can put a little snowball or a tag on the tree with your loved one’s name. I usually do it for my Mom who passed away the year of the ice storm, 1998. Each year I have a few more people to add. Somehow it is a warm feeling when you put it on the tree…a nice way of honouring them and saying that I am still thinking of you. Call 613-936-1455 for more information or visit their office at 216 Montreal Road.

In less than three years , I have lost five close friends and six family members. Soon I will have more loved ones up in heaven than down here. A few more ‘angel-helpers’ up there to watch over us.

Tiger doesn’t like me exercising to music..without him, that is. I like to do dance exercise, especially to ‘The Drifters’ music. I especially like ‘Up on the Roof’. Whenever I play that song, Tiger thinks I will be exercising and comes running and pokes my leg. I have to lift him up and dance around with him. He loves it.

Whenever I want him to come to be groomed I just sing ‘Mull of Kintyre’ out loud and he appears on the bed, all ready to be brushed .I think he likes the rhythm of that song. He is ok with the brush, especially the rubber-tipped one. He doesn’t particularly like the comb but if I sing to him when I am combing his very thick long fur, I can comb him longer.

He also likes to be massaged. One of my friends does a great job with him and as soon as Tiger sees the friend coming through the door, he jumps up on the chair ready for a massage. Then a good brushing gets lots of fur off of his coat. He leaves, eats and goes back to bed. Big big baby. Cute, though.

To all our wonderful Jewish friends who will be starting to celebrate Hanukkah on the evening of Dec. 6th. until the evening of Dec. 14th. , Happy Hanukkah.

Here is a cute little Christmas joke:

A Sign of the Times:

As a little girl climbed onto Santa’s lap, he asked the usual, “And what do you want for Christmas?”

The girl stared at him open mouthed and horrified for a minute, the gasped: “Didn’t you get my e-mail?”

Have a good week, Dawn

6 Comments

  1. Dawn I remember the old part of CCVS the one in the middle with the auditorium and I first went there back in 65/66 and I remember the old tile floor. My home room was next to Mrs. Phillips who used to teach Latin and I know that you remember her from way back when in your day since she taught back in your time. That floor used to squeek because thre was an earthquake that hit back in 1942 and Sydney Street sidewalk was a mess and most likely the street itself – that was before my time but in the days of my much older sisters. Now the old part of CCVS is all gone and all we have are memories. It is good to see what CCVS looked like in past years – quite a lot of historty.

    Dawn Merry Christmas to you and many more to come.

  2. Happy Hanukka to the Jewish people in Cornwall and surrounding areas and to all Jewish people elsewhere reading CFN. You are great people.

  3. Author

    Happy Christmas to you Jules, but there are good and bad people in every religion and group on the planet.

  4. Jamie you are a mighty good man with a heart that is more precious than gold and diamonds and any precious metal combined but my dear man you have absolutely no idea what these people are like (the Arabs). I just came off a news piece on Yahoo where a doctor in Munich Germany is treating the Syrian refugees for TB, AIDS, Syphillis and other diseases and the Syrians do not want to be treated by a female doctor at all. The patients will scream out abuse to the doctors and staff and even shout out about them to treat their children. Jamie speaking about shouting, cursing and swearing, bitching and complaining I get enough of that at home and I sure don’t need it from those refugees or anyone. You my dear man are Canadian and have absolutely no idea of the mindset of these people. The doctor in Germany called them “animals” and believe me the animals are a great deal more civilized than those people and that I guarantee you my dear man. Yes there is good and bad among all faiths but I guarantee you and all if you had a taste of these people you would literally throw them to the wolves. Jamie I live among this human garbage and I know what goes on and how they think and how they feel about we the westerners. The Chrsitians are bad enough but Islam – Holy Toledo – No Tanks. We know of a few good Islamic people but we do not associate on a personal level and only in a business sense. In the Middle East Christians do not live among the Islamic people – only in certain villages but very few. Religion plays a huge part and Islam is not only a religion but it is a way of life. Looking at these people is like looking at the third world and even a fourth one. Jamie you have a heart that is so mighty precious and that is the truth and it is hard enough dealing with Canadians of our own kind of English and French backgrounds let alone these “animals” like the German doctor called them.

  5. Author

    Jules you can’t paint all people in a group with the same brush. It just doesn’t work.

  6. I don’t know about that, Jamie. I’ve never met a bad Pastafarian or Dudeist. Not yet, anyway.

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