Ray and Katie
Ray and Willa
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Father of two, Charlie and Katie, healthy, as is their Mum, Nancy, life long friend. Partnered up for the last quarter century with Penny Dewar, co-author of such hits as Homesteading with axe and froe, Sheep as an alternative to industrial herbicides and Alternative district energy. Experience is a wonderful teacher.

At the urging of amazing artist Yvonne Boyd, I told a little story, now on Amazon, Willy the Crab.

Education beyond high school started out formal and then took on a flavour of deep woods and wild coasts that continues to this day.

SFState in the mid sixties! Economic Geography of British Columbia

Berkeley – High altitude physiology, sharks of Tomales Bay, ecology, riots featuring the National Guard.

Rachael Carson, A. Leopold's Sand County Almanac as well as the writings of Lorne Eisley, E.O. Wilson and Wendell Berry, had huge effects.

Back in the day, Manpower Canada subsidized training in heavy equipment operation. /The thrill of operating a road grader!!

Prince George School District & beyond as teacher and instructor.

Logger with a difference. Select cutting just makes so much sense if you think generations.

Log and Timber Construction, Remote Site Specialist with 6 ton 6 wheel drive crane, support barge, boats. The full ring dang doo.

Currently CEO, NakuspEnergyCorp.com see pic here

Hello & Happy Happy,

For a while, back in the late seventies, nestled into the forests of north Vancouver Island, there was an outfit called, Screaming Buddha Sawmill. I never had the chance to meet up with them but I had a pretty good idea how much haywire would be involved. They inspired me though to sketch this happy Buddha. Answering the age olde question, What to wear tween forest and bath??”

This note is to those known for a while, so long ago.

A chance to say seemingly silly things. Or, perhaps, really silly things.

Or, share words of regret

sorrow for loved ones lost

joy for goals achieved through amazing grit

or luck

and that strange thing called serendipity.

In our case, the sharing of time and space

in mid 20 th century Japan.

I could not imagine Japan. A fourteen year old US Navy Brat, headed in that direction from the U.S. west coast by SLOW plane to first Hawaii then Mid-Way. Sitting in a HOT machine while we refueled, thinking, So MUCH ocean already and we're only Mid Way? We had already been stationed in North Africa, Tehran in the days of the Shah. This huge world. The lessons of travel.

Then, who can forget living and learning at PS201, Brooklyn, NY while Dad did a tour at the Yard. A third grader being subjected to a nasty teacher. She wanted me to quit holding pen or pencil with my left hand. And she wouldn't let me use my hooves to count out the alphabet and have the other kids put it up on the board.

Transferred to San Francisco. To get there we chose to travel the 54 Ford cross country. Allowed to eat cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes every meal. “What the hell Honey, we're on leave. It'll probably cure him of ever needing to over inflate when he's older.” By now my kid sister, Deb, had become a serious pain in the butt, constantly putting her leg or her hand on my side of the back seat.

Mum and Dad smoked. They smoked a lot. It killed them both, more or less. We grew up in an atmosphere of tobacco around the house. Never wanted to try it myself but that didn't stop me from getting throat cancer in 2012. The cure is a bitch but well worth the fight. And I am ever grateful for the care I have received through the years.

Back in San Francisco and the Hunter's Point Yard. We started out in one end of a Quanset Hut, like what we had lived in in Port Lyautey, French Moracco. My Mother, Betty, as she was known, was an amazing parent under quite often trying conditions. I can see where the smoking came from. Dad was in on the build and commissioning of the USS Thetis Bay, helicopter carrier. Getting ready for what would unfold over the next two decades with U.S. Adventures into SE Asia, where the Chinese and French, before them, had already met a certain resolve.

We lived for a spell near Long Beach, California, after the Thetis Bay was commissioned. Home ported there, we were reminded of what it's like to be a sailors kid. No dad, in our case, for six months at a time. We watched as orange groves were bull dozed to make way for sub-divisions of single story dwellings reaching as far as the eye could see. I am still amazed by the scale of car culture and how it helped shape most of North America's current batch of dwellings. No more corner stores. We're gonna get on a freeway and drive like stink for ten minutes to get some milk.

I watched Sputnik pass overhead one night at a Scout meeting. Our scout master was totally enthused and made sure we caught a glimpse. Science started to take on a different feel for me. I had really thick glasses and stumbled a lot. Maybe I could be a geek? In any event, at another scout meeting we had our regular mayhem in a simple game of MarcoPolo. My turn. Blind folded and getting walloped, I ran. The troop gathered round are supposed to keep you in the circle, so you can be properly pummeled. The line gave way to my rush and I crashed, still blindfolded, crotch high, into the corner of a table. Retching, I stumbled out into the corridor, happy scouts laughing their guts out at my moves as the door swung shut. Alone, I ripped off the bandana blindfold. I caught my breath and pushed my merit badge sash out of the way and undid my pants as I slid down the wall, figuring I was going to die from this. The pain was non-trivial. As I started to inspect what was left of my trigger, two girls from my grade six class emerged from a room just down the hall. It's funny now.

Some clouds are moving in. Time to get back at er. I had to stop hammering. It was getting too hot, here on the eastern shore of Graham Island, Haida Gwaii. A chance to get in the shade, sit down at the key board and remember. Hopefully to share with others, these words. Sunlight here off the coast of northern British Columbia is uncommon. Usually there is fog or cloud.

So too, our time together in Japan, uncommon, all those years and lives ago.

There were moments so precious,

friendships forged so deep,

so many lessons to learn, yet,

so full our promise.

Peace.

 

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