We went again this year to the Valley Bluegrass Festival in Horton Township, just north of Renfrew.  It was a pleasant evening on the Johnson farm where the event is held each year.  We only stayed for 4 shows, the first 3 being very good.  The last was a little too slow and dated for us.  Each show runs about 45 minutes with a 5 min pause in between.

Rhyme and Reason put on a great show – that’s a dobro on the left

I particularly like banjo music and the harmony of 3 or 4 singing voices.  Marie enjoys the banjo too and also the overall creativity of the music.   It’s lively and humorous with pranks and crowd banter and light-hearted insults flying back and forth.   It can get repetitive so when some of the bands stray into country and folk music, that’s just extra spice.

Bluegrass music is American roots music, related to county music but influenced by the music of Appalachia – that American cultural region from southern New York to northern Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.  It also has Irish, Scottish and English traditional music influences.  One of my favorite bluegrass radio stations is WDVX in Knoxville, TN.

Foot bridge from the campground to the stage area

The Spinney Brothers from Nova Scotia are really excellent

There are more and more bluegrass festivals popping up locally with some really great Canadian talent.  One is held at the Navcan Centre in Cornwall and another in Iroquois that we plan to attend next spring.  This was the 23rd annual Valley Bluegrass Festival, and the profits go to the Renfrew Hospital.  It’s a great way to spend a summer evening!

Another growing event is the Arnprior Dragonboat Festival.  This year there were 15 boats with 20 paddlers in each entered in the day of racing.  They race in the Madawaska River by the marina.

The weather was great and everyone had fun.  It can be quite physically challenging if you have not trained for the big day.  Luckily there are several doctors present on several of the teams, if needed

Reg and Katherine Gatenby, Arnprior Hospital Team

Doug Algier says get your paddles ready!

Perhaps next year Marie and I will make a team for the first time.  A great fun day for sure.  This festival is putting Arnprior on the map.

Liam the Leprechaun brings good luck

For about 8 years we have been attending the Almonte Celtfest held in July each year in beautiful Gemmill Park.  Motivated by a love of Celtic heritage, a friend of mine Terry Currie with 2 others founded this festival as a way of keeping their musical traditions alive and to pass on the legacy of Celtic heritage to the wider community.  Fiddling and step dancing have a strong presence in the Ottawa Valley as Celtic music continues to thrive in kitchens, pubs, churches, backyards and festivals.

The Fiddle Mass

Not to be missed also is the unique “fiddle Mass” held in the Holy Name of Mary Parish on the Sunday morning during the festival.  Our friends Glenn and Betty Clarke first started coming up.  They have a large RV which they park in the church parking lot.  They started inviting us and others and we have have kept up the tradition most years.  The first year, I mistakenly drove from Barrhaven to Smith Falls thinking that was near Almonte.  Betty still laughs about this!  Now living in Arnprior, we know much better where Almonte is.

In the rain in 2016

We attended on Saturday this year expecting more rain and the sun came out, thanks to Liam.  Anna Ludlow, a fiddler, vocalist and guitar player originally from Antigonish, NS was the star performer.  She had everyone up and dancing … in the mud.  We had a good time watching all the kids sliding face first in the mud.  Never have we seen this here before!

Another perennial favorite is Louis Schreyer, world champion fiddler from Chapeau, QC.  He performed with Erin Leahy and 2 others.  I still remember their stunning concert together here last year.  Betty and Glenn are hosting them at a house concert in September.  Last year they hosted Anna Ludlow in a great private concert event in their backyard.

Louis 2nd from left, Erin on right

Anna and husband Jarrod

Glenn enjoys the music in 2012

We are blessed to have the Clarkes as close friends and to get to go to the Celtfest with them each year.  Hopefully the mud will dry up in time for next year’s festival!  Highly recommend (more info.)

Slainte! (cheers)

Happy 150th Anniversary Canada!

I love Canada because we are free to:

• say what we want to say
• be who we want to be
• believe or not believe in God or another deity without persecution and,
  
• we have a great educational and health care system

Furthermore, we are one of the last nations in the world not consumed by hate of others.  We are a safe and peaceful country.  The indigenous peoples have shared this beautiful land with us and we are working on improving our relationship.

150 years ago we were almost invaded by the U.S.  After the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, William Seward, Secretary of State, was incensed at the apparent role Canada had played in harbouring Confederate sympathizers, spies and mercenaries.  The U.S had its eye on annexing Rupert’s Land which included most of  western Canada just as it had annexed millions of square miles of Mexico after invading it in 1848.

In what has to be one of the world’s most delicate diplomatic negotiating acts, our future first Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald with the help of others including the threat of British naval intervention, managed to sooth the high strung Seward.  War with the U.S. was narrowly avoided on several occasions.

This real threat of U.S. imperialism was enough to overcome stiff anti-confederation political views held particularly in Nova Scotia.   So in 1867 Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia circled the wagons and joined in a new nation called Canada for mutual aid and defence.  (“Kanata” means village in Algonquin.)

We were so close to being absorbed by the U.S. and it is still amazing to this day that we somehow avoided it.  So here is another reason to celebrate Canada today:

– Justin Trudeau is our political leader and not Donald Trump!  Go Canada go, eh!

No according to those who advocate the “hermeneutic” of discontinuity with the past. Hermeneutic refers to the lens by which we see, interpret and understand the world.  Those who adhere to this discontinuity interpret the wisdom and actions of previous generations as flawed, erroneous and naive and so forth.  By this logic, the sins of previous generations are theirs and theirs alone.

But, according to the 2013 apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to former students of Indian Residential Schools, it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and seek to “take the Indian out of the child.”

Our colonizing ancestors thought they were doing what God wanted them to do.  Namely, bring Christianity and civilization to the indigenous peoples of Canada.  They  were naive but had the best of intentions.  They were not equipped to deal fairly with the indigenous peoples that Columbus had discovered for Spain and Pedro Cabral had discovered for Portugal.  Their society lacked the sensitivities and tools needed.  The Residential Schools should never have existed, period.  So if there is discontinuity with the past, why should we apologize today?

Because we all have sinned too.  Romans 5:12-14:

¹² Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— ¹³ sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴ Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

We see and interpret the facts of the past – history – through our own personal, cultural and racial lens.  Consequently there are an infinite number of views.  For example the native child who was removed from an alcoholic and abusive family situation who now feels that the Residential school saved her life.  The strong Catholic faith of the Algonquin Nation which they know and cherish.

Today in Canada since we see the past through much more inclusive lens, we may be reluctant to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Canada as reported by the NYT.  However there is indeed something to celebrate here – our willingness to say we are sorry.

Staring in 2002 I worked in the HR department of Industry Canada.  We were responsible for workforce demographic analysis and forecasting.  We produced glossy annual reports that the Deputy Minister enjoyed reading.  It was there that I met Nassr Al-Maflehi (pronounced al-maflayhee).

Nassr was a statistician by training and the heart of our little analytical group.  He was from Yemen and his mother still lived in Sanaa, the capital  He was anxious to apply his knowledge to improve employee departure forecasting based on probability theories that he had studied in the U.S.  He was anxious to raise his family who were in Ottawa and to continue his education at the post graduate level.

We spent many hours discussing statistical theory with Nassr trying to explain it all to me.  He helped everyone in our group and our clients in the same way with his kindness and eagerness to share his skills and knowledge.  He was a very positive person that everyone loved.

He was muslim as were 1 or 2 others in our group.  I had worked with Muslims before and was very impressed with their integrity, friendliness, knowledge and good nature.  Nassr asked me for a recommendation to help him get into a PhD program at Carleton.  I gladly did and I believe that he was ultimately accepted.

Another time we had a golf day at work.  He had never played before.  I remember everyone trying to coach Nassr how to swing the club.  With much perserverance, towards the end he started to hit the ball well and we were all amazed.

He invited Marie and I to dinner at his modest house.  We had a delightful time sampling the delicious foods that he and his wife had selected and prepared.  As we left that night he gave me a gift of a Yemen ceremonial dagger called a jambia.  I did not know what to do other than accept it.  To this day I have no idea if it was a precious family heirloom he gave me or a typical gift that people of Yemen exchange.  I treasure it to this day.

Another time, his uncle from Saudi Arabia came to visit.  Nassr invited my boss and I out for dinner.  We thought this was very generous and thouroughly enjoyed the evening.  However at one point Nassr’s uncle started to insist that we come to Saudi Arabia for a visit and that he would pay for everything.  We felt uncomfortable and politely but firmly declined.

It was shortly after this that Nassr announced that he was moving to Saudi Arabia for a new job at King Saud University and to be nearer his aging mother.  We were all sad to see him go.  There was a luncheon, hugs and tears as he wished us well and we said our goodbyes.  Since than Nassr has gone on to become a professor and teaches biostatistics in the field of dentistry in Riyadh.  I am not surprised at his success.

Hopefully we will see you again Nassr.  Thanks for the wonderful memories and the important lesson that we are all brothers and sisters.

“When she poured the perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.  I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Matt 12:12-13

In 2013 Marie and I visited a small town just east of Marseille, FR called Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.  Our purpose was to explore the grotto of Mary Magdalene.

The little town was transformed by the well-published discovery, 12 December 1279, in the crypt of Saint-Maximin, of a sarcophagus that was proclaimed to be the tomb of Mary Magdalene and by the ensuing pilgrim-drawing cult of Mary Magdalene and St Maximin.

The legend goes that after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, her brother Lazarus and Maximin, (one of the seventy disciples mentioned in Luke 10: 1-24) left the Holy Land by boat to escape persecution.  They landed at Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer further west near Arles, FR.  Mary Magdalene went to Marseille to convert the local people and then retired to a cave in the St. Baume mountains.  She was buried in St. Maximin where her relics are reputed to be.  (Other reputed resting places for her relics are in Vezelay, FR and Ephesus, TR.)

We hiked up a steep path and made our way into an underground grotto buried in the mountain.  There was an altar, statues and water dripping down.  If this is where Mary Magdalene finished her life it was certainly not very fancy.

The panoramic view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking.  We slowly returned down the path stopping to chat with a friend along the way.

We retired to Saint-Maries-de-la-Mer for dinner and caught the Fête Votive Camargue parade going right by our table.  We felt very nourished by the history, beauty and reverence of this pilgrimage outing.  France is a gorgeous place to visit anytime.  For the detailed account of the Marys that came here and how the story has changed over the years, click here.

I have gradually become more interested in genealogy.  It started a few years back when a cousin on my dad’s side sent me the family genealogy (gedcom) file with over 5000 individuals and data that she had sourced.  Sadly she has passed now but I am very grateful for her research.

I signed up in Wikitree (it’s free) and started adding family member profiles and linking them manually to build my family tree.  I had access to my mother’s files and photos which helped on her side.  I split the (too) large Morgan file to include only the Morgans and their spouses data and uploaded this info to Wikitree.

Here is what I have so far:

And even farther back on the Morgan side:

I also uploaded the large file to myheritage.ca and use their tree builder app to explore the family tree data my cousin sent me.  I am still at the free level which limits the research sources I have access to.

I find it fascinating to see the names of direct ancestors going back in time simply identified by date of birth, marriage, kids, death.  Like, did anything else happen? What more is in a life anyway?  Makes me feel connected.  In 200 years will someone ponder over my data in a similar way?

I would like to go even farther back and fill in the gaps.  There is conflicting data whether John Morgan (b 1750) was actually born in the U.S. or came over from Wales.  Any advice or comments from you genealogists out there on how to proceed would be much appreciated.  I guess my next move is to read the manual.

Cheers,

Dave

Went to my parents grave site the other day. The occasion was‎ the celebration of life in the chapel of a childhood acquaintance who had just passed away. It was good to pay a visit.

I found the grave stone intact and added some flowers and took a photo. I noticed their site‎ was in relatively good shape. Some others had the stone tipping over a bit or the lettering was faded. I contrasted this with the glorious condition of grave sites we saw all across Poland last year.

After this visit I found the grave site of my step father and his first wife nearby and spruced it up a bit too. I‎t felt good to be doing this little duty.

I then went to the Celebration of Life for Craig. I first met him in grade school. He was a tall tough guy then who chased me out of the school yard on the last day of school in 1964 or so.

Craig went on the be a larger than life personality. He was a dreamer who achieved his dreams: founding a unisex hair studio (the first ever in Ottawa); living in the Bahamas on his yacht and then operating a large horse riding farm‎ in the Gatineau. He loved life, his family and the hundreds of friends he collected along the way. We loved him back.

There was a lot of humour‎, memories, wild stories and love expressed. One of the speakers pulled a great prank. While he was speaking, he says excuse me my cell phone is buzzing. He answers the phone in front of us and says “Oh hi Craig, I’m kind of busy right now. OK yeah, I won’t tell that story…fine Craig…thanks see ya soon.”

For a moment we all wondered has Craig staged this whole thing including his death as a prank? Never let the kid in you die‎ was his motto. It was a great celebration and seeing my childhood friends. Thanks for the memories Craig. Never let the kid in you die!