Scrub?

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 29, 2008

My dad used to give me the old responsibility talk -- 'we'd come home from school and straight out to the fields to work, and when it was dark we came in, and before we even got a drink of water or brushed the dirt off our clothes, we watered and brushed and bedded the horses, and then milkded the cows, and then, when everything else was done, we went in to eat and go to bed to do it all again the next day." I was telling my aunt (my dad's older sister) about dad always telling us this and she almost fell off the chair laughing. "That stinker never once milked a cow and probably still doesn't even know how! And the only thing he did was ride back on the horse's necks while his brothers did all the work!! We had tractors by the time he came along!" I'm thinking it might have been all the depression dust that fogged his memory!

KTC · Jan 29, 2008

lol. My parents were the same. The funny part with them was they were so quick to say the whole miles to and from school uphill thing was across the frozen river in the winter. Ummm...rivers aren't usually uphill?

Cows...I've milked myself. And I happily lived with the horses during the summer months...but the parents are always able to make caring for the horses sound like a deadly chore they had to do until midnight on a school night. It's funny. We don't do that, do we?

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 29, 2008

No, absolutely not!! We don't do it, but probably because we'd never get away with it!!

it used to amaze me they had time at all for school!

KTC · Jan 29, 2008

You know...I think I'm going to have to add a shinny scene to my piece? I hemmed and hawed about adding something about the Montreal/Toronto thing. (When I was a kid, I was always either Ken Dryden or Guy Lafleur...or even the Rocket if I was having a good day...during our shinny games.) I had planned on adding a shinny scene during the marathon...but never got around to it. You've reminded me. I know that Sebby is a Montreal fan...I should do that scene.

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 29, 2008

yes, go for it!! It would be awesome!!

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 29, 2008

Waaaaaaay back in the day, I could name every player on every team cause my dad was a fan, but no matter how hard he coached me, Parker MacDonald was always Donald Duck Quack Quack! Bet he'd be thrilled to know THAT!

KTC · Jan 29, 2008

Me too. My son does it now and it boggles my mind...but in the 70s I knew everything about every player. A lot less teams back then...a lot less.

KTC · Jan 29, 2008

OMG...The first minute of Rick Mercer Report is on and he just said SHINNY. Funny!

scribbler1382 · Jan 29, 2008

We also called shinny pick-up hockey.

Habs....grrrr. I was always Jacques Plante or Dave Keon. (I met Dave Keon later in life...he was total asshole...disappointing.) My Dad went to school with Bobby baun (not sure of the spelling). The Leaf who finished a game with a broken leg. <sigh>

DarkLight · Jan 29, 2008

When an author includes an allusion to Greek or Roman myth, he doesn't worry that his reader won't understand. It's called Cultural Literacy and authors don't usually dumb down their writting so that the less educated can understand. I don't understand some of those terms, but I wouldn't want them removed. It ruins the authenticity of the work to do so and, honestly, if you removed them it would make it look like you, the author, is too dumb to do the research and use the appropriate terms. Those who read your novel will understand, and if they don't but are still interested in your work, will look up whatever they don't understand. Its all part of appreciting good literature. You can help the reader, however, by including the terms in good context and indirectly explaining the terms by showing and not telling what is happening.

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 29, 2008

My dad was retired from the military when we moved back to Alberta, and he managed the curling rink and skating rink -- it was a blast, and more than once I can remember him hauling me in with a bleeding nose from getting into the corners and throwing a few elbows. You had to know hockey to survive!

Judg · Jan 30, 2008

I would use the terms, but put in enough description that people get a rough idea of what's going on. They don't really need to know that there are no teams in scrub, for instance.

I never got the hard luck stories. Except about how they were too poor to have toys, but none of the other kids did either, so they didn't even realize they were poor. Trust my father to have happy depression memories.

What I did find out years later is that their public school installed showers because so many of the kids didn't have indoor plumbing. It was their only real chance to get clean. And this was in the city.

I'm quite sure party line is not a Canadian term. It's just fading away in the mists of time...

reigningcatsndogs · Jan 30, 2008

Judg said:
I would use the terms, but put in enough description that people get a rough idea of what's going on. They don't really need to know that there are no teams in scrub, for instance.

I never got the hard luck stories. Except about how they were too poor to have toys, but none of the other kids did either, so they didn't even realize they were poor. Trust my father to have happy depression memories.

What I did find out years later is that their public school installed showers because so many of the kids didn't have indoor plumbing. It was their only real chance to get clean. And this was in the city.

I'm quite sure party line is not a Canadian term. It's just fading away in the mists of time...

LOL -- I guess they deserve to wear surviving the depression as a badge of honor. I have pages of notes that my aunt kept from back then, she wrote them right up until she died a few months ago at 96, and some of the stuff in there is pretty daunting!!

As for party lines -- some days I don't miss them at all, but I really marvel at what our kids would do if we had to go back to them!!

Thanks for the feedback!

Judg · Jan 30, 2008

Go back to them? What is the Wall on Facebook or comments on MySpace, but a party line? That stays up for a long time? My daughter found out the hard way that even mothers can read them...

Scrub?

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

scribbler1382

Write For You, Edit For The Reader

DarkLight

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

Judg

DISENCHANTED coming soon

reigningcatsndogs

Too sad for words.

Judg

DISENCHANTED coming soon