SENSE AND NONSENSE

History- telling it like it was

I have been re-reading some of my favourite non-fiction books this past while. I love the stories told by those who were there, who personally experienced the happenings. The ones that others in later years gloss over, too often re-telling those same tales, tainted by their own predudices, experiences and misinformation.

Local history books are great and i am especially proud of our own “Deeper Roots and Greener Valleys” Right now I am emersed in Chapter 9 “Stories From The Past.” Those particular stories were collected and compiled by Dianne Lewis and Gina Baker in June 1978 and included in the book published by our historical society in 1986.

George Seymour’s contribution which begins on page 303, is interesting and enlightening. He worked at the Lejac Residential School Farm and described how the children were put to work digging potatoes etc. Well told stories told by an intelligent and hard working man who lived a hard life back in the day.

Early Morning Blurbs

Well, my arm still hurts a bit but feels better than it did last night. I have none of the other possible side effects mentioned by the nurses who arrived at Silver Birch Lodge yesterday morning to provide us “oldies” with our second shot of the coronavirus 19 vaccine.

We are good to go. But now I’ve learned that there’s been a few cases of people not being totally immunized by even the second shot? Covid 19 is a nasty bug. Possibly those same people would have died if they had not received those two shots of the preventative.

It was on the News yesterday that our province is almost up to the stage where the population has reached herd immunity. That apparently means our collective immune systems have the arnament – so to speak – to ward off future invasions by the virus.

Now that I’ve the age of maturity healthwise and have nowhere to go except downhill, I have become very aware of almost daily attacks on my immune system. Some days I can almost visualize the battle lines being drawn up. So far the enemy has been blocked and beaten by my heroic soldiers. The big thing is to know the enemy and it’s weaknesses.

And in some unhappy cases there happens to be what is known in military terms as “Friendly Fire.” That would relate to diseases where our immune systems attack themselves. There seems to be more and more of these quite debilitating diseases developing in unsuspecting people lately. All that can be done medically is to treat the symptons. We need to eat healthier, exercise more and sleep longer. We need to build up the strength and intelligence in our immune systems.

Another thing that affects us (me anyway) is the weather. My parents used to talk about aches and pains when the barometric pressure and weather changed. I remember snorting derisively to myself. But I am finding that it’s true. It’s not the sunshine, rain, snow or forty below that makes the bones ache. It’s the abrupt changes in climate. Lately there has been weather changes reminescent of all four seasons almost every day. The only thing constant is the wind.