Eeehaw and all that crap.

From the Calgary Stampede website:

The very first chuckwagon competition at the Calgary Stampede occurred in 1923. Stampede founder Guy Weadick recruited ranchers to enter their chuckwagon and roundup crews in competition, and the Rangeland Derby was born.

Billed as the No. 10 Event evening competition, the "Cowboy's Chuck-Wagon Race" offered purses and prizes totaling $275. An outfit consisted of four horses, a wagon, a driver and four helpers. The Yukon's Bill Sommers won the first race. For the Official Canadian Championship, each outfit was required to "Cut a figure eight around barrels, out through backstretch into track, run around track back to camp ground, unhook team from wagon, stretch fly. No less than two stakes, and make fire. First smoke decides winner."

Considering the number of accidents on the track as chuckwagon races get faster and faster, let’s consider how the races came to be what they are today. The above bit of research shows that in the beginning the races were much different. In my memory, starting in the 50s, several changes have been made to the chucks to make conditions safer.

The current grandstand and infield replaced an earlier version in the 1970s. If you think the infield is too small for the barrels and turns now, you should have seen it then. Wagons have been refined, stove baskets removed so horses running behind a wagon don’t step in them, tent poles have been shortened so they no longer fall out of the wagon or drag on the track. Drivers and outriders wear safety gear. This year we’re down to two outriders to clear the congestion a little.

Still we have accidents. I see two main reasons for this. As in the accident on Thursday evening, and many other accidents in other years, a horse suffers a fatal medical incident before the accident causing a roller coaster of events. This is not unique to chuck wagon races – it happens in horse racing, harness racing, show jumping, steeplechase etc. With the veterinary care and monitoring chuckwagon horses receive, everything possible to predict this type of danger is in place. But accidents happen. I’ve seen chuckwagon races several times and I’ve seen a horse collapse and die on the track…but not at the Stampede but at one of the many small town rodeos that dot the prairies each summer. Unlike bullfighting, which is an accepted sport in many parts of the world, no one starts out planning how a wagon horse will die.

The second reason places blame on a public that demands extreme excitement, the vicarious thrill of speed and danger at such events. That grandstand is full because the audience is looking for an adrenalin rush. Prime viewing from Scotchman’s Hill is packed because people are looking for a thrill. Everyone who watches races knows there is danger involved – you can smell it. How can it not be dangerous but is it more so because horses who are bred to run have an accident? Race car drivers die, skiers die, mountain climbers die and although I have trouble with the concept, everyone says they died doing what they loved. But that’s not for horses, I guess. I’m not saying the horses make a conscious choice as extreme sports people do, but thoroughbreds do love to run.

And in today’s world, how many people would pay to watch the races as they were originally set out? How many people would have the patience to wait, at the end of each race, for the cowboys to unhitch the horses, set up a lean-to and start a fire? Today’s thrill-seeking crowd would be bored to tears.

But It is no longer about tradition, people. It’s about getting the adrenalin going. So don’t whine when the unexpected happens and you’re brought up short at the fragility of life; don’t whine when you have to console your children who have been devastated because you’ve neglected to explain the danger, or, for that matter, where their hamburger came from when you whine about other aspects of rodeo. And don’t blame the cowboys who make every possible effort to keep their horses – the thoroughbreds, many who have been given a second chance – safe.

More Shameless Promotion

http://www.alexandrawriters.org/what-we-offer/courses

Finding Your Muse

Ellen Kelly

Saturdays

9:30am-12pm

July 14 (6 weeks)

Is there a book hidden somewhere inside you? Do stories dance in your head? Does your personal writing say what you want it to? Are you a poet at heart? Through friendly discussion, in-class writing exercises and sharing your writing, we will address the basics and specific interests of the participants involved. For writers of all levels.

Underwear Sale

This is a survey, or maybe not. But what I want to know is – sometimes do store specials confound you, like how is this a special? Really?

Point in question – panties. Today I found a special in a ladies store, seven pairs of panties for $28. $4 a pair. Great deal except who really needs a week’s worth of panties in one shot? Individually each pair cost $8 which, I guess provides real incentive to stuff one’s drawers, pardon the pun, and may have even been tempting if a) I needed some, and b) the colours weren’t so hideous.

The most interesting part of the encounter was the sales lady, who went to lengths her employer would be proud of, to convince me that I really needed seven new pairs of panties in hideous shades of fushia and lime green and that I didn’t want to buy the one subdued pair I liked for $8 because that would be ripping me off. Really, she wanted to know, why on earth wouldn’t I choose six more pair?

Turns out I put back the ones I liked and didn’t buy any but I left the store with a weird feeling that maybe during the next laundry my panties will all fade, develop holes, over-extended elastic, and ripped seams and that I will forever regret not having seven new pairs of blindingly bright underwear waiting in the wings.

I am happy with replacing my undies as necessary. And besides, it may not matter much what goes on beneath the jeans but I don’t want to be blinded when I get dressed in the morning.

Long overdue

Long overdue, my mom passed away in 1990 but here goes.

To my mom, who I always loved but didn’t always show it because it wasn’t always easy  -

I sometimes wish there was a telephone/chat line/ text messaging system (you would have loved computers) that could reach you now because there are so many questions left unanswered. I am curious about so much but it probably isn’t any more my business now than it was when you told me it wasn’t so I just hope that you’re still keeping an eye on me. I say to myself sometimes, when the going gets rough, I wonder how Mom would have handled that. Most of the time I know the answer and most of the time, it helps.  

There are a few things I should have said to you but didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t – I was blessed with your ability to procrastinate, your elephantine memory and your stubbornness. I wish I had also been blessed with your courage, your tenacity and you sense of purpose. Anyway, here are some of the things I should have told you.

First of all, sorry I was such a brat when I was a kid, especially in high school. That must have been tough. I often wondered why you weren’t more lenient, more understanding, more forgiving. Although it’s taken me 60+ years, I now have to admit your “tough row to hoe” was dead on. So, sorry for the insolence (I know you caught the eye-rolling, the under-the –breath comments, the slammed doors etc.) and thanks for the ultimate understanding that I was just being a kid and would come around eventually.

Secondly, thanks for being there. You were always there to listen, even though I wasn’t always there to talk. I thought that you didn’t understand – you have to admit, you did have a pretty critical eye – but the thing I missed back then was how overextended you were, how stretched to the limit physically, emotionally and financially you were for so many years as you held our strange little family together. I know now that I could never keep up with you, the way you took such good care of Dad during his long illness, gardened like a farmer to can, preserve, and store vegetables and berries from our large garden for food for the winter, made do with next to nothing because many times there was next to nothing, and then how you went out to work at an age when women today are considering retiring because necessity dictated it.

I am amazed, when I look back, at the magic you performed on a regular basis. You devised toys to keep me entertained. You cooked and baked and sewed and dreamed. You taught me the value of imagination. You invented gadgets to save time and energy – who would have guessed that a ringer washer could be turned into the perfect pea-shelling machine. It took a little innovation and a few squashed peas but in the end it worked like a charm. I remember, there were a lot of peas.

There was always baking and tea. We didn’t eat fancy, but we always ate. We were really poor but I didn’t know then how hard you worked to keep me from realizing it. I’m not angry anymore that you made me pay for my school bus fare out of my babysitting money.

Thanks for teaching me to read. Not how to read – I learned that at school – but to read for pleasure, for adventure, for solace, for friendship, for discovery, for information. You took me to the library – actually the Bookmobile on the corner – when I was four. The librarian said I couldn’t have a card unless I could print my name on it so I did. I’ve had a library card ever since.

And thanks for letting me use your sewing machine when I was so small I had to stand up to reach the treadle. You encouraged me to sew and I became good at it. Being able to sew turned out to be both extremely useful and somewhat obsessive.

And thirdly, I want you to know how proud I was/am of you, of how smart you were, how determined you were, how ethical you were and how insightful you were. You were a little older than most of the other kids’ moms when I was little (Dad was a lot older) and sometimes kids asked me if you were my grandma. No, I would say, that’s my mom. I said it somewhat indignantly and always proudly. I was proud of you as you achieved your career goal in your 50s, worked tirelessly as a volunteer throughout your life and I was in awe of you when, at the age I am now, you set out to see the world. I am still in awe.

There were so many things to be proud of, too many and too maudlin to write here. It sometimes took my friends to point that out to me. You always welcomed my friends and many of them loved you too.

And I admired your sense of balance between practicality and frivolity. You were a saver of string, elastic bands, paper clips and plastic bags. When, in your 60s, you received an inheritance that would allow you some luxury for the rest of your life, you went out and bought an electric frying pan and a small crystal chandelier. I liked that a lot.

And last of all, I want you to know that I love you and I miss you. We had our differences and it took years to work through “the stuff”.  When we finally realized that we were both going in the same direction but coming at it from different angles, neither one completely right, neither one completely wrong, we got along better. I miss our long conversations about life in general, our animated discussions about books or politics or how to fix the world, and our shared joys in your grandchildren. You worried about me – a lot –but when you realized I was all grown up and amazingly enough, doing okay, we became friends, really good friends. And who could ask for more than that?

Shameless Promotion

Just a reminder to anyone interested in writing, refining, and submitting personal essays – I’m teaching a course called Our Stories: Personal Essays with Public Appeal at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre in Calgary on Thursday evenings (7:00 – 9:00) beginning on April 26^th.

It’s an 8 week course that will help participants take an idea from being a reflection or snippet, to a piece of writing with much broader appeal. Classes are small, there is lots of time for questions and discussion, and you’ll meet new friends.

The course is geared to help new writers find a starting point and to inspire experienced writers to write their stories. In the class, we discuss how to connect with our readers, learn techniques that make our prose come alive and read and write various types of essays (and learn about their specific characteristics and purposes.) Writing is required and sharing is encouraged but not mandatory.

 If you are interested, please go to www.alexandrawriters.org for information on how to register or, if you have any questions, leave me a message and I will contact you.

Flaws

The first thing a child with special needs learns in school is that he is flawed and that flaw is the most important thing about him – I read this today and thought, after the events of the past few days, how absolutely true this is. But it isn’t the child’s classmates that designate the differences. Especially in the early grades, they barely notice and couldn’t care less.

First please know that this blog/rant isn’t directed at the wonderful, sensitive, compassionate and dedicated teachers/assistants/administrators that work under very trying circumstances to make a positive difference for every student in their care. I know, love and respect them. I trust they know who they are and feel confident that many of them share my harsh feelings about the ones among them who destroy self-esteem and the love of learning in small children for personal and/or selfish reasons.

So, considering my own experience, having raised three fairly normal children who travelled through a fairly average school system, graduated, completed post-secondary education, and went on to become productive citizens, and having worked in schools for 18 years, many of them in special ed. classrooms, and who is now watching a small grandson struggle, I have some observations I’d like to share.

Fact: Some students are harder to teach than others.

Two of my children were easy learners and for the most part, they had fabulous teachers. Parent teacher interviews were pleasant visits; everyone parted smiling. My middle child, bless her heart, was more difficult to teach. Sometimes parent/teacher interviews were hell. I can count the number of nurturing, compassionate teachers in her life on one hand.

Was she just unlucky? Heck no. Teachers like children who learn easily – it makes them feel good, makes them feel successful, that they’re doing a wonderful job. For the most part and for most students, they probably are but, when faced with the challenge of a student who just doesn’t “get it”, their nurturing, compassionate nature often goes out the window.

Fact: If a child isn’t learning from the way the teacher teaches, it’s up to the teacher to change the way he/she is teaching.

Children are, after all, children. It is not up to them to adjust to a rigid teacher. Educators are all aware of different learning styles but some only give lip service to the concept. The really good educators are able to pinpoint the needs of each student and teach to them accordingly. Some teachers will say there isn’t enough time/there are too many students/there aren’t resources to teach this way. Not true. There are dedicated, successful teachers doing it on the same resources with the same amount of time and number of students. They are angels and there are far too few of them.

Fact: Busy children are happy children.

However, that means they have to leave their seats sometimes, work on hands-on projects and get down and dirty. They need the freedom to discover what works and what doesn’t work even if this means the classroom is sometimes chaotic. Some children cause more chaos than others. This is not a crime.

Fact: Children learn better when they are having fun.

See above!

Fact: Educators put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

When a child in kindergarten runs into his teacher at the grocery store/gas station/library etc., he is confused. The teacher is out of context and when the child finally places him/her, he wonders why the teacher isn’t at school, waiting for Monday morning and the children to arrive.  However, students soon come to realize that their teachers are just people with hopes, dreams, sorrows and baggage, just like everyone else.  It takes some teachers longer to come to the same conclusion.

Fact: Asking intelligent questions of educators is not confrontational and if a teacher/administrator sees it that way, he/she/they are likely already feeling vulnerable.

Also Fact: A parent has the right to question her child’s program, especially when it does not seem to be working.

Sometimes, when a parent disagrees with the way things are done, suggests for example, that making a child with numerous difficulties write out, in his agenda in his own shaky writing, that he has changed reading levels (and he understands that he has been demoted from one reading level which he was proud to finally achieve to a lower level even though the difference in books is negligible) is a tad cruel, the teacher takes the note as being confrontational. Are parents required to always agree with the teacher? Are teachers not expected to be accountable?

Can a parent not ask questions when her child cries because he doesn’t want to go to school, when a little boy who left kindergarten full of confidence and joy tells his mom he’s stupid –  that he can’t do anything right, when he refuses to try new tasks and who has anxiety attacks? Parents are allowed, no, obligated, to ask questions, to assure their children are being educated in a safe and nurturing manner. And some educators need to weed their own gardens before telling anyone else why their plants aren’t growing.

March is Epilepsy Awareness Month in Canada

Recently, my second grandson asked me if he could bring the Transformer movie to my house so he could watch it with Grandpa and me. I asked him if it was scary.

 He said, “No but you will cover your eyes, Grandma, because there’s lots of shootin’.”

I said, “I don’t like shooting. I would be scared.”

He said, “Its okay Grandma. Don’t worry. You can sit close to me. I am brave.”

Instantly, I felt a lump in my throat because, in all truth, this grandson is the bravest person I know. Not brave in a flamboyant, jump into the river and save someone drowning kind of brave, although knowing his six-year-old heart, I don’t doubt he’d do that if the occasion arose, but the kind of brave that makes a very young man with a seizure disorder meet each day with optimism and dignity. His condition is known as myoclonic astatic epilepsy or Doose syndrome which is characterized by multiple seizure types and presents him with several other unpleasant physical and mental obstacles to overcome.

As I write this, he is in a good place regarding the seizures – his meds are effective for the most part and have allowed him to be a kid, to grow and to learn and to interact with his brothers and his friends in grade one. However, the meds, the syndrome or a combination of both have left him tired, fragile and unable to concentrate. That’s where bravery comes in.

This little guy doesn’t give up. He doesn’t withdraw or strike out. He does the best he can under really harsh circumstances and faces every situation head on. His peers are racing ahead of him by leaps and bounds and his school experience has been less than nurturing this year, yet his quiet gentle nature has earned him the friendship and respect of the children in his class, many of whom step up to help him if he falls behind .

Our boy doesn’t fit in a box and he’s okay with that. He handles each situation as it comes and although some tasks take longer, or are too complicated for his little hands that shake with a tremor, he does his best. He doesn’t complain. That’s bravery.

He handles the medical encounters the same way. Many of the procedures he has endured are not pleasant but he takes a deep breath and doesn’t object. His beautiful brown eyes may fill to the brim but there is no fuss. That’s bravery.

I don’t know what the future holds for this young man, but whatever the challenges, he will fight to overcome them. There’s a saying, what doesn’t kill us makes us strong, and it’s true. The challenges he faces now are forming strength and resiliency of character. But that can be destroyed by too many harsh words, too many people implying that he’s not good enough, he’s not measuring up, he’s different. It can break a gentle spirit.

Epilepsy doesn’t mean my grandson is not bright or that he can’t learn. It doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to have a successful life when he grows up. It does mean that there are some things he likely won’t able to do, but there are others he will excel at.

Epilepsy is still misunderstood in our society.  People with seizure disorders face an uphill struggle and the key to ending that struggle is education. If you know someone with a seizure disorder, if there is someone in your child’s school that is affected, or, if you just want to be a better informed human being, educate yourself. Understand the facts and dispel the myths. Help children with epilepsy grow up to be accepted, valued and confident. And in getting to know them, they can probably teach you something about patience, perseverance and bravery.

March is epilepsy awareness month in Canada. For further information go to www.epilepsycalgary.com or www.epilepsy.ca