Quick Trip to Regina

I've just returned from a trip to Regina to see my mom and visit old friends.

Regina hasn't changed all that much except for the extended strip mall that seems to surround the entire city. Yes, there are lots of new office buildings downtown with walkways between them, very nice for those months when the climate is just too inhospitable (basically January through December). There are new neighbourhoods with overpriced new homes. There is the splendid new version of Wascana Lake, replete with fountains, marinas and actual deep water in some places. You can sit outside and have a cold beer on the patio of a restaurant now without the police hauling you off for violating public decency codes.

And of course there's the Grant Devine Memorial Refinery on the north east edge of town. At night it looks like Las Vegas is burning out there. I shot this from the balcony of my mom's apartment 3 blocks south of downtown centre with a 10x optical zoom with my Panasonic Lumix.

Here's the same shot during daylight hours.


A little too close for my liking.

I saw some people I haven't seen for a very long time including two men who were teachers of mine in high school. I graduated in '65 so these men are in their mid and late eighties. One of them began teaching in 1942, basically right after his own graduation from high school. He taught in little, isolated rural schools where the teachers had a residence supplied and the local population paid the teachers in food and supplies. He told me of a time when the local board made him and the two other teachers work on Thanksgiving Day. He couldn't figure out why and resented it. Then he got back to the residence and discovered that while he was teaching the town had come in and filled the residence with food and other supplies. Enough canned goods, preserved foods for the winter, a full root cellar, enough wood and coal for the winter and a huge hot Thanksgiving dinner on the table.

Imagine valuing teachers that highly. What could they have been thinking?

I also needed to find out what had killed one of my oldest friends. Congestive heart failure as it turns out. I may have some more to say about him but for now suffice it to say that mortality is on my mind.