Barbara and I courted in 1972 under painful circumstances – my body was healing from a fall down a mountain. Bone knitting and affection were helped by us being kindred spirits and we became close quickly. She wanted adventure, and I was an adventurer. So, in early 1973 we set off for a several-month wander in Europe…
Category: Olde History
scribbles form my past, some of a very long time ago.
Tea Break (Gimme Some Lovin’)
Yesterday afternoon we drove 90 miles to a surprise party Brunch for a friend’s 65th Birthday. Despite it being well over 100 degrees in Modesto, we old folk boogied and danced the early hours of the afternoon. (Most of us don’t do the early hours of the morning any more.) I am an occasionallyenergetic, frantic dancer and…
Free Balloon
Many years ago, we were walking along a miserable stretch of the Pennine Way. Once a cobbled Roman road it had become a rutted farm track; bounded by low, gray, wet rock walls. Clag was down to the ground – so some would say it was foggy. But we were in the mountains, and it was wet, chilling, gray clouds…
Good Soil, Bad Dirt
In 1978 and 1979 I worked at the Syncrude oil sands mine at Fort McMurray, Alberta. I was part of a Dames & Moore team mapping the characteristics of the overburden, the non- or poorly-bituminous near-surface soils above the economic oil sands deposits underlying the future expansion areas of the deep open pit.