"Happy Birthday Leap-Year Babies!"


" H a p p y    B i r t h d a y    t o   Y o u !!! "

 


" . . . a n d    m a n y    m a n y    m o r e  ~ "



LOOK for William Biddle's Gallery on Talbot Road (Hwy. 3) between The Towpath on The Grand Antiques and The Blacksmith's Garden.

The gallery features the art of William Biddle ~ original and limited prints of "yesterday & today."  Signed and numbered prints, many of which the visitor will recognize.

(Photo is of previous location ~ same sign.)
http://www.towpathonthegrand.com/

Thought for Today ~

"To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship."

~ Sallust, [Gaius Sallustius Crispus] Roman historian, 86 - 34 B.C.
(This quotation is for our friend, "Diane Loves Camping." ~ lw)

"The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession."
~ Sallust.

~ Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, John Bartlett, 16th ed., 1992.

"We must hope that in coming years more people, here and abroad, will realize how dangerous it is to live in a culture with a limited choice of ideas and alternatives, and how essential it is to maintain a wide-ranging debate.  In short, to remember how important books have always been in our lives."

~ Andre Schiffrin, The Business of Books, Verso, 2000.  European-born American writer, publisher, socialist.

"Books Differ In Crucial Ways From Other Media"

"The idea that our society has been fundamentally affected by the importance of money is widely recognized...Not only our belongings but our jobs and, indeed, ourselves have become commodities to be bought and sold to the highest bidder...
"What has happened to the work of publishers is no worse than what has taken place in other liberal professions.  But the change that has occurred in publishing is of paramount importance.


"It is only in books that arguments and inquiries can be conducted at length and in depth.  Books have traditionally been the one medium in which two people, an author and an editor, could agree that something needed to be said, and for a relatively small amount of money, share it with the public.  Books differ in crucial ways from other media.  Unlike magazines, they are not advertiser-driven.  Unlike television and films, they do not have to find a mass audience.  Books can afford to go against the current, to raise new ideas, to challenge the statusquo, in the hope that with time an audience will be found.
"We need to find new ways of maintaining the discourse that used to be considered an essential part of a democratic society."


~ Andre Schiffrin, The Business of Books, Verso, 2001. 

As Albert Einstein was a late talker, his parents were worried.  At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.  Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order."

(Story told by Otto Neugebauer as a "legend," but that seems fairly authentic.)
Source:  The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman, editor.1985.

Haldimand and area recently witnessed the death of the weekly, This Week The Regional News, an independant, family-owned newspaper dependant on advertising dollar.  Whether it be the loss of municipal notices, the withdrawal of O.P.P. reports or a tired owner, the paper that searched for the facts, welcomed the facts and did not shy away from controversy is gone.
"Investigative journalism" as an expression is ridiculous according to Paul Foot* since all journalism worthy of the name carries with it a duty to ask questions, check facts and investigate.  It is almost impossible to separate facts and opinion ~
". . . most opinion worthy of the name is prompted by facts, and facts should lead opinion, not the other way around."

Although we love to get the good news, most of us want the reporting of facts.  Thank you, Christine and Kevin for forty years of reporting and respected opinion.  We wish you all the best. ~ lbwalker

~*The Slow Death of Investigative Journalism, The Penguin Book of Journalism, 2000 edited by Stephen Glover.

DIRTY BUSINESS The Reality of Ontario's Rush to Wind Power* is published by Wind Concerns Ontario.


"While renewable energy project developers are still enjoying the last blush of their gold rush, job-destroying, budget busting electricity rate increases have just begun.  The McGuinty government's massive portfolio of excessively priced, take-or-pay energy contracts will be ripping off ratepayers for 20 years. . .
"Armed with new, sweeping directive powers, McGuinty is gutting the regulatory agencies meant to protect the public interest, shouldering aside their expertise and due process."
~ Tom Adams, former executive director of Energy Probe www.tomadamsenergy.com

"So I ask that the next time you think about industrial wind, consider these points.  Ask yourself why an industry would hide from science if the truth was on their side.  Why would an industry support an end to local democracy if their product was all it was cracked up to be?  People should be fighting for  these projects if these are what the industry claims these projects are.  To those who are involved in this industry, ask yourself just how far you are willing to go, and how much of what you and your company are doing would you like to explain to a judge."
~ John Laforet, President, Wind Concerns Ontario http://www.windconcernsontario.org/

"Seems like the devil is in the details. . .  '"  lbwalker

*Available at The Neat Little Bookshop, Cayuga $12.99.  DIRTY BUSINESS, 2011, is edited by Jane Wilson, contributing editor, Parker Gallant.

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.  May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.  May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.  And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.

~ Traditional Irish Blessing



Melancthon Township, Ontario. Photo: lbwalker



On a Shoestring ~

When the publisher of a struggling American magazine* asked short-story writer, Dorothy Parker, why she had not come in to do a piece she had promised him, she retorted, "Someone else was using the pencil."

Roy Thompson, patriarch of the great Canadian dynasty, multi-billion dollar, Thompson Newspapers, was known for his "count-every-pencil" accounting.

Herb Mardindale, owner/founder of The Neat Little Bookshop, expressed concern that we could "make enough money."  Herb kept his accounting on a pile of stapled scrap paper, using stubs of pencils.  Herb knew, of course, that our goal was not to become a Canadian dynasty, or certainly not The New Yorker magazine.  Herb, we are coming up on our sixth or seventh year ~ depending on which Cayuga Street location you figure!  The Neat Little Bookshop doesn't collect tax on used books;  we don't earn enough to qualify.

Book people seem happy with modest surroundings ~ a round table where great conversations naturally and spontaneously erupt.   Pencils abound, ratty, chipped with long-ago fossilized erasers.  We will never be trail-blazers in The Neat Little Bookshop, but then no one is counting the pencils either.  

*The New Yorker

DIRTY BUSINESS The Reality of Ontario's Rush To Wind Power *

"When you look at how our legislators created an act that removed the democratic process from Ontario's rural municipalities and at the same time, used taxpayer and electricity ratepayer dollars to open the door to large, largely foreign corporations to exploit Ontario, it is simply astonishing." ~ Jane Wilson, July, 2011

Published by Wind Concerns Ontario, 2011.  http://www.windconcernsontario.org/

Although The Neat Little Bookshop is a used/like-new bookshop, there are certain new books that we are pleased to make available.  DIRTY BUSINESS is one of those books.  Having attended numerous meetings, spoken with local administrators, we support the idea of research and open-mindedness.  Please pick up a copy of this collection of articles and essays.

*Edited by Jane Wilson; contributing editor, Parker Gallant.



John A. Turnbull ~ July 1890 - January 1975*

"I have recollections of taking the old horse down to the bush after we came from school and snaking up a tree to cut up to burn that night.  One night we had nothing but a pile of pine logs on the woodpile and they were soggy and wet.  However, we cut a few blocks off them and split and carried them in.  We went to bed with all our clothes on that night."

*My maternal grandfather ~ lbwalker

"In the very early days of bees ~ this district ~ bees were very common, as the pioneers were rather inexperienced.  When they came to the new country the work that faced them first was so unusual to what they were used to at home and as there was no one to turn to for advice or instruction, it was do-it-yourself if it was to be done at all.  The alternative was starve, and so out of necessity a generation of men were produced that were daunted at nothing.
With the bush and starvation on one side and their wives and small families on the other, they buckled right in to the task ahead of them and relying on each others' help and advice, they learned many things that we of this generation have long forgotten if we ever knew them.
When we think of this country as a dense bush, no roads any place, no cleared land, that faced the settlers about 1840, and then remember it as it was about 1890, we wonder how men did so much in fifty short years."


~ John A. Turnbull (1890 - 1975) life-long resident of East Seneca, Haldimand County.


A Bee ~ East Seneca Church

 Photograph:  J. A. Turnbull, second from right.

Found in the Pages of The Early History of Haldimand County ~ by Russell Harper, published May 1950.

Advertisement in The Caledonia Advertiser

NORTH AMERICAN HOTEL
York, Grand River, C. W.*

The undersigned would beg to intimate to his friends, and the travelling public that he has moved into this well-known House, and furnished and fitted it up in style to accomodate (sic) them as well as they can be in any similar establishment on the River.  His TABLE is always supplied with all the substantials and delicacies of the season and his WINES AND LIQORS are of the choicest kinds.  No pains will be spared to make the sojourn of his guests both pleasant and agreeable.

Commodious stables are connected with the Hotel, and an attentive Hostler is always on hand.

The Stages running between Caledonia and Cayuga call at this Hotel daily.

York, Nov. 1856.  Land Hughson
* Canada West

Grant Stengal Peeling Apples

Ross Makey Making Rope

Peeling Apples & Making Rope at Heritage Day Selkirk ~ Early chores in rural Haldimand

Ross Makey is the author of Mills of Walpole and Rainham.

Attending the
Thirty-First Heritage Day, Selkirk, Ontario



Doris Kienitz, Doris' Father, Fred, and family friend Gwen Swart

 


Cheryl MacDonald with Dana and Anne, Haldimand Museum Curators

Josie Penny, author "So Few on Earth"

 

Flowers that bloom in the spring ~  Snowdrops

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flowers ~ but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

[Tennyson:  Flowers in the Crannied wall]

Photo: L. Walker, taken today.

The Fairies ~

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees make a lovely little breeze,
And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there in the middle of the air?
Well, they can.

~ by Rose Fyleman, British poet best known for her fairy stories (1877 - 1957)

"There are fairies at the bottom of our garden."

Note:  Our friend, Sharon Jackson, gave us the Garden-Boy Reading a Book.  She also introduced us to this beautiful poem, The Fairies.  A long time ago, Sharon  painted a sign for the garden bearing the first line, "There are fairies at the bottom of our garden."  Thank you, Sharon.

Josephine, Thank You for All the Cookies

Josephine McMullen of Cayuga and Bill Haartman ~

Members of The York Grand River Historical Society.

This active group meets every third Tuesday of the month.  Please join us next Tuesday at St. Andrew's Masonic Lodge*, Caledonia.  2:00 p.m.
Guest speaker:  Karen Richardson, Curator of the Haldimand County Museum.  Topic:  Our part in the War of 1812.

* Hwy. 6 at the tracks, opposite Tim Horton's.

The York Grand River Historical Society meets next Tuesday, February 21 at 2:00 p.m. in Caledonia at St. Andrews Masonic Lodge.*

For anyone interested in the War of 1812, this is the meeting to attend.  Karen Richardson, Curator of The Haldimand County Museum, is our guest speaker.  Everyone welcome.  (An afternoon with the historians along the Grand is something you don't want to miss!) Coffee and cookies.

Jean Farquharson and Bill Haartman

* Hwy. #6, beside the tracks opposite Tim Horton's.

Collection of Stories from 1783 to 1930

Told by the Folks Whose Families Lived Them

Stories along the Grand ~ The York Grand River Historical Society has published two books.  The latest book, Stories along the Grand, is a collection of historical tales by local writers. Available at The Neat Little Bookshop, this 194 page gem includes articles by people many of you will know ~ including the original owner of The Neat Little Bookshop, Herb Martindale.

(Although the one-room school house depicted on the back cover appears identical to Gypsum Mines school, it is actually Sims Lock school at York.)

Along The Grand River ~ 

Roads Less Travelled ~

Designated as a Heritage Site, Gypsum Mines Schoolhouse is now privately owned.

This stately one-room structure is located on Haldimand Road #17, east of Cayuga.
A flourishing mining industry existed during the 1840s, three miles south of Cayuga.  A post office, about fifteen houses and a school were built to accomodate the company workers.

(Source:  Cayuga - North Cayuga Centennial History 1867 - 1977)
Photos:  L.Walker, Feb., 2012.

Ruthven Park ~ A National Historic Site

Join us for a family hike at Ruthven!  Meet at the Coach House for a hike along the Carolinian Trail. Tour Ruthven Mansion.  Admission by donation.  Mon., Feb., 20,
1:00 p.m.  Two minutes from Cayuga on Hwy #54.
 http://www.ruthvenpark.ca/ Visit our website for details.
Photos: lbwalker

Postcard Dated 1922

Postcard Dated 1924

Don't forget to hug your friends today ~ Today we honour our dear Story-Hour teacher, Yvonne Skrepnechuk.  Thank you, Yvonne.

Around the corner I have a friend
In this great city that has no end;
Yet days go by and weeks rush on
And, before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friend's face,
For life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days I rang his bell
And he rang mine.  We were younger then
And now we are busy, tired old men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow," I say, "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him"
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner, yet miles away,
"Here's a telegram sir." "Jim died today."
And that's what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

Early 1900 Postcard

~ Charles Hansen Towne (1877 - 1949) American poet

If I should stay, I would only be in your way
So I 'll go but I know I'll think of you every step of the way.
And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
You my darling, you ~ mhhh.
Better sweet memories,
That is all I'm taking with me.
So goodbye, please don't cry.
We both know I'm not what you, you need
And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
~ Interlude ~
I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you dreamed of.
And I'm wishing you joy and happiness,
But above all this, I wish you love.
And I will always love you.
I will always love you
I will always love you
I will always love you
You, Darling. I'll always, I'll always love you.

~ written by Dolly Parton , Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard (1992)
Postcard Collection Courtesy John Walker

PICTURES IN GLASS ~ The stained-glass panel displayed in the bookshop window is the work of artist Harold Robertson.

A Myriad of Colours and Texture

Colorful works of art, ranging from one-dimension to full 3-D, adorn Harold's home.  Stained glass became a second profession for Harold after decades in the corporate world.  Enjoy this artist's gallery, visit PICTURES IN GLASS http://www.haroldrobertson.blogspot.com/
Harold's beautiful pieces are also available at Grindstone Creek Gallery on historic King Street, Cayuga (facing the gazebo)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning ~ In A Letter to Her Sisters after privately  marrying Robert Browning.

"Dearest Henrietta and Arabel, ~ how I suffered that day ~ that miserable Saturday. . when I had to act a part to you ~ how I suffered!
Papa thinks that I have sold my soul ~ for genius. . . mere genius." [ Mr. Barrett never forgave or reconciled with his daughter]
". . .[Robert] sate by me for hours, pouring out floods of tenderness and goodness, and promising to win back for me, with God's help, the affection of such of you as were angry.  And he loves me more and more. 'I kissed your feet, my Ba, before I married you ~ but now I would kiss the ground under your feet, I love you with a so much greater love.'  And this is true, I see and feel.  I feel to have the power of making him happy. . I feel to have it in my hands.  It is strange that anyone so brilliant should love me, ~ but true and strange it is."

~ E.B.B. English Poet (1806 - 1861)The WORLD'S GREAT LETTERS, Edited by M. L. Schuster, 1940.
Image:  Wikipedia

Saturday, June 23 ~ Day of A Thousand Canoes

2nd Annual Event on the Grand River, Haldimand.
Launching in Caledonia, paddling to Cayuga.
for more information visit http://www.1000canoes.com/

Photo:  Village of York ~ L. B. Walker

Day of A Thousand Canoes Coming Sat., June 23 ~

Day of 1000 Canoes ~ Watch for updates. http://www.1000canoes.com/

Photos:  Cayuga-on-the-Grand,  L. B. Walker

Robert Browning wrote about love and relationships.
Today we glance at the selected works of R.B. ("Stay a while; read a book!")


"...To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,  well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:


For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavor, ~
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul forever! ~


Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!"

~ from The Lost Mistress.

"Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.  Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage.  They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them.  Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind."
~ Henry D. Thoreau, Walden, Life in The Woods.  American author, poet and philosopher (1817 - 1862)

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from reading a book?  The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.  The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.  These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.  Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality."

~ Henry D. Thoreau (1817 - 1862) Walden, Life In The Woods, Ticknor & Fields,1854.

"It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.  There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us." ~ H. D. T.
Photo:  Rock Glen Falls, Ausable Gorge, Ontario, L. B. Walker

When Catcher in the Rye was chosen as the main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1951, the president of the club expressed anxiety over the book's somewhat ambiguous title.  He asked the author, J. D. Salinger if he would consider a title change, Salinger simply replied, "Holden Caulfield wouldn't like that."
A first edition, signed, of Catcher in the Rye now sells in the vicinity of fifty-five thousand dollars.
~ The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes, Editor, Clifton Fadiman, 1985.

Thought For Today ~

Thomas Edison, famous for inventing the electric light bulb, was asked to sign a guest book that had the usual columns for name and address, as well as one for "Interested In."  In this last column Edison entered the word:  " Everything."

THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, 1985, edited by Clifton Fadiman

Join us today at 1:30 p.m. for a warm-up for Valentine's Day.  Karen Richardson, Curator of Haldimand County Museum, will be at The Neat Little Bookshop.  Round Table discussion on romance!    Do you have any old love letters, tokens of love or maybe a love story?

~ Postcard collection courtesy of John Walker

Familiar with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem, "How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways?"
Following, is an excerpt from an early letter ~ Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett.

"I LOVE your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,  and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write, ~ whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing.
Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me...
"...this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew ~ Oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, and shut up and put away."

~ THE WORLD'S GREAT LETTERS, Edited by M. L. Schuster, Simon & Schuster Inc., 1940.