Rural Routes, Blog Version

At an auction sale in Hamiota, MB, we looked out the windows to see fat snowflakes floating down. By the end of the sale, the ground was covered.

The flowers in the hanging pots and planters around town were still blooming, but they were covered in snow.

We drove out of it as we went south, but it followed us. It was snowing in Brandon when we left there and the snow was our landscape as we travelled to Minnedosa, then Neepawa, and even on to Gladstone. At home, though, things were just wet, not white.

The day before, we had spoken with relatives in Alberta; they reported three inches of snow on the ground. If we felt complacent then, we shouldn’t have.

TIME CAPSULE

“Watergate reporting praised by former editor” ran the headline in a piece I wrote for The Ryersonian (Ryerson’s School of Journalism newspaper) back in the mid 1970s.

I recently came across the clipped article as I sifted through boxes and boxes of records and memorabilia in our basement.

“The investigative reporting involved in the American Watergate affair greatly stimulated and enhanced the role of the press, Harrison Salisbury, former associate editor of the New York Times, told journalism students yesterday,” I wrote.

Salisbury, at Ryerson to speak in the Atkinson Lecture Series on the role of the press in world affairs, expressed the hope that reporters would continue to “look under the rugs” of the nation.

Given that Woodward and Bernstein continue to play a role in American history, most recently with the release of Woodward’s latest book “Fear”, it was interesting to take a look back at the time when they were young heroes of the journalism world.

But it was another quote from Salisbury that gave me the most pause.

“Print is not doomed, because it is the most convenient technical device for the communication of ideas. Television and radio communication is attractive and easy, but viewer usually only gets one chance at it. He does not have the opportunity to go over it again and again to get the most out of it,” he said.

“Television does tend to substitute for the lost elements of human society. The viewer relates to the fellow on the tube, perhaps because he has no one else to relate to. In this way, television provides for closer human contact,” he said.

We hadn’t heard of the Internet yet. Or twenty-four hour news stations, seven days a week.

DINNERWARE

Immersed as I am in cleaning out and preparing for a move, I am faced with The Great Dinnerware Dilemma.

I have 10 place settings of the china I selected a very long time ago, when every bride-to-be chose china, crystal and flatware as a matter of course.

I use this china once or twice a year at family gatherings. But we are not as likely to host such gatherings in the new home which has less space.

Perhaps we should start using the china every day, I thought. It sounded like a fine idea to me, until I remembered the dishwashing.

I have never put my china in the dishwasher, erring on the side of caution rather than relying on real information. Could I put my china in the dishwasher?

The answer is no, unfortunately. My pattern is an older one that was discontinued more than a decade ago. Although more recent patterns are dishwasher safe, mine is not.

Fine china versus dishwasher convenience. Decisions, decisions.

NEW TRICKS

K and the dog recently spent a night at the new place, while I stayed at home to work. We have a bed there now, so K could sleep in comfort. We wondered, though, how our dog would handle its new surroundings.

“How did it go?” I asked when they returned.

“Well, it is a lot easier to let the dog out at 4 a.m. and go back to bed, than it is to get dressed and take him outside,” he said.

We can always hope that we will be able to train him to forego that 4 a.m. trip outside. He’s not an old dog, so perhaps we can still teach him some new tricks.

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