The View From Where?

I received a message this morning that my yahoo briefcase is shutting down forever on March 31, 2009.
What the heck is a yahoo briefcase? I honestly had no recollection of using anything like this.
So, I went to the link in the email to investigate.
It turns out the Briefcase was something that Yahoo! added several years ago to their services for members to save files and documents. I had signed up for it in the Friends of the Railway account and forgot all about it.
The only thing I have in there is a copy of the September 2004 newsletter which I composed to send out to our members and supporters.
It was quite interesting to read what was going on with the poor old York Street Station at that time.
It wasn't even 5 years ago but feels like it was decades.
At that time Bill Thorpe was our President and was healthy. One amazing thing about Bill was that he always seemed so upbeat and confident that things were progressing well and the station repairs were going to begin very soon.
We had a full board of directors. I was (and guess I still am) the Membership Director.
I was signing up members like crazy.

The newsletters had old and new pictures of the station as well as opinions and thoughts of anyone who wanted to give them to me.

At the end of the newsletter I had my own section to put my thoughts and observations.
Oddly enough, I titled it "The View From Here". Sound familiar?
In all honesty I don't recall thinking about the newsletter section when I named my blog. Quite a coincidence though.

This is what I wrote at that time. Check out the confidence and enthusiasm!

The View from Here

By Tim Scammell, CET - Membership Director

Well folks, you have now seen some opinions and memories from a few of us on the Board of Directors of the Fredericton Friends of the Railway Inc. John Leroux has said again that even though the station looks sad and past the point of no return this isn’t the case. The consultants have taken a good hard look and this is what they have said. I wish it was the music to our ears that we are listening for but the cold hard fact remains that there is much work and many dollars ahead of us to get this done.
The Irvings have worked hard and have shown that they aren’t going to abandon us now. But nothing is ever given on a silver platter without effort and a show of motivation on the part of the recipient. Irving has made it clear that they have an open mind when it comes to the station. Everyone is working hard to determine the best way to get any repairs done and turn the station back into a useful, active building while maintaining its historical feel and atmosphere.
If I personally had the money I would love to pay whatever the cost to have the station fixed up. What a wonderful building to have an office or restaurant in! But, the fact remains that it’s going to take more money than I have in my bank account. Irving will work with a good idea that we find and contribute towards the repairs if they deem it to be feasible. I would expect the same if it were me.
One thought that occurs to me is that if the Exhibition grounds to the west of the station were developed it could only be positive for our cause. There is talk of this development presently. It would raise the profile of the entire west side of the city and positive attention would be directed to the area. That’s only my opinion however and I realize that there are those who would disagree with it.
All the years of growing up my family visited Fredericton from Ontario to visit my grandmother on Hanson Street and other family and friends in the city. I don’t know why it is but for the life of me I can’t remember what the station looked like back then. I don’t even remember what it looked like when there were trains and tracks in the area. I know that they were here though. Gary Scott has shown me some great pictures that he took. I’m positive that I was coming here back then. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention until I came to live here and the trains were long gone. It’s so true that we don’t miss something and we take it for granted until it is gone. It makes me sad that the former grandeur of the station as shown in the pictures is nowhere to be seen except in our hopes and memories. But at least these hopes and memories exist to serve as a catalyst for what we are striving for. It is for this reason that I am staying the course and doing what I can. We all are.
Every time I drive by the station I force myself to look past the battered exterior and deeper into the heart of a building which served as a vital part of Fredericton and the province not so long ago.
Please remember that if you have a memory or comment that you would like to share please contact me and I will be happy to include it in the next newsletter.
I want to thank you all so much again for showing us that you care by joining us and supporting us. It is deeply appreciated.

Take care,
Tim Scammell, CET

Bill always kept our spirits up. I sure do miss him.

This is an article written by another one of the directors. I liked it very much so I'm putting it here.

For me the train station is like so many older buildings in Fredericton that stimulate feelings of a different time and way of life. Like the front steps and doors to UNB's oldest building and the chapel within. You can't be in that setting without feeling the presence of those that have come before.
Watching the building deteriorate over the last several years is like watching the place that holds the history of the site disappear. When I have been on site I don't just see the dilapidated state, I can feel the many nights when people were stranded in the building waiting to be picked up during a storm, or the site of people sleeping on a bench waiting for their train to arrive, the excitement of children waiting to go on their first train ride or greet relatives as they arrived from away. The ticket master, the pocket watch, the excitement of visiting royalty, the simplicity of the day. In it's day that was the center of modern transportation, the way in which the country was linked, that was the modern day way to travel.
It may be my age but it seems to me that even though we have advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few decades we could never reproduce the architecture, setting and history that this building offers as it would not be considered financially feasible. The station has a lot of stories hidden within the space. It would be a shame to let these stories deteriorate with the physical presence of the building.

There is a good writeup about the station on Wikipedia. Check it out. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Street_Railway_Station

I'm not going to go into all of the various newspaper articles and interviews here. Those who know me know everything already.

Is this thing over? Is there any hope for the station anymore?
To tell you the honest truth, the future looks pretty grim. If I had a recent picture I would hesitate to attach it to this blog.
When Steve took over the presidency from me he was as eager and pumped up as I was a few years ago.
Now that he has seen the garbage and passing back and forth of responsibility he is wearied.
In the beginning I drove by that beautiful little building every chance I got and often took pictures.
As time has gone by with no progress it's at the point that I try to avoid York Street so that I don't have to see it. When I do I get that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Steve is feeling this too and that makes me sad.
For those who don't know him Steve is one of the nicest guys I have ever met.
He's an amazing family man and hard worker.
He doesn't say much or say it very loudly. I believe he comes from the "speak softly and carry a big stick" school of thinking.
His passion is everything railway. His blog is the best I have seen focused on a specific topic. It's here www.traingeek.ca/blog.
I have a heck of a lot of respect for him and he knows this.
When I first moved to New Brunswick and sought out information about the rails here (lack of), Steve's web site was the first one I discovered.
He became a member of the Friends as soon as we took memberships.
Since then he has been along for every step.
In my mind when someone as passionate and dedicated as Steve loses the spark, the cause is lost.
Or very close to it.

It would be very nice if some ray of hope could suddenly shine down on us and rev us up again.
It hurts me more than anything to confess that I'm not holding my breath.
However, if it does Steve knows that I'm here to stand beside him again to give it another shot.

Tim

Your Majesty!

I'm not sure if anyone remembers the 1991 movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" with Kevin Costner.
It was actually a pretty lousy movie in my opinion.
I don't think Kevin Costner even tried to learn how to do a proper English accent for the part.
There was one really good part which just happened to be at the end.
The movie consists of the crazy goings on of Robin Hood against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John with the usual good guy who breaks the law for the good of the poor, bad guys try to squash good guy but good guy is clever and defeats them theme.
After the dust settles we suddenly see Sean Connery as King Richard who rides in from the Crusades in time to tell Robin and his Merry Lads that he's cool with what they are doing.
He gives them the typical royal high five and the partying begins in earnest.

I don't know if anyone caught this but the reason I mention this one scene is that a very similar thing happened to me on these very pages recently.

Blogging royalty swooped in, gave me the proverbial high five and blessed this blog.

I'm talking about the soon to be legendary Mike Morrison. Blogging newbies like me strive to be what Mike has become.
(Charles, you are still wonderful and a good friend so don't get upset, okay?)

Mike is so good at what he does that he actually gets PAID to write his stuff! Real money!

Currently living in Calgary, Mike pops in and out of Fredericton when he wishes to keep his fans (and his mom) happy.

Seriously, the first time I saw Mike was in an article in the paper which told all about his amazing life. Since then I have made a point to check his blog on a fairly regular basis.
You can also check him out at http://www.blogger.com/profile/16535296577432392528.
You'll enjoy it. I guarantee it.
Last Friday night I was invited to the annual banquet and awards for the professional engineers association of New Brunswick. Being president of NBSCETT does get me invited to a free meal once in a while.
Cheryl and I had a very nice time chatting with the other people at our table.
One of the ladies mentioned that her daughter is friends with a blogger.
I asked her who it was and she told me it is Mike.
THE Mike?? I asked her, to ensure that I heard correctly. It was indeed our young lad Mike.
I'm assuming the lovely lady looked at this little blog and mentioned it to her daughter to tell Mike.

I was very happy to see a friendly encouraging comment from Mike on my last blog.
He's quite a guy.
Oh, he also has a stunning hair style. If I do say so myself. And I do.
Hair is overrated anyway isn't it Mike?

A couple of weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to see an article discussing the future of the York Street Station and what should be done with it.
This article was written by Mike, Duncan Noble and fellow New Marylander Jennifer Major.
Happily, all three were in support of repairing it.
Have a look.
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/search/article/559429

I sent in a letter to the editor telling that if there was enough support out there like that of Mike, Duncan and Jennifer then Steve Boyko and I would do our best to get fired up again for one last run and saving the station.
Without the support I'm afraid we are just becoming too tired of smashing our heads against the wall.
It just becomes too emotionally draining being so passionate about something that is slipping away before your eyes.
I felt it for so long and was really hoping that Steve wouldn't. Sadly I was wrong and it has taken a toll on him too.

Fear not Steven! It appears that the king may have a quest for us.
To continue the fight for the Station.

Our holy grail.

Tim

Thank-you for holding. Your visit is important to me...

I have had a few ideas in my head of things that I want to write about but I'm just having some difficulty focusing them to put here.
Sorry.
Bear with me. I'll have something soon.

Thanks,

Tim
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Shhh! It's a secret!

I'm going to share one of the biggest secrets of New Maryland. I'm doing this because I trust you not to tell the whole world.
I don't want everyone from Fredericton, Oromocto or anywhere else hearing this or they'll want to come and use it.
Most of the people who live in New Maryland seem to be unaware of this little gem as well.

Not a problem.
It gives the boys and I more room to play.
You see, in winter the Village floods the basketball and tennis courts to turn into skating rinks.
The basketball courts are for those who want to play hockey and the tennis courts are for skating only.

You can see from the two pictures with this blog that this seems to be such a secret that nobody uses them!
Except for my boys and I that is.
One of the pictures shows the ice when it was brand new a couple of weeks ago. We were the first ones to use it.
The other picture was taken just a short while ago. It's flippin cold and windy today but it's better than it was.

In both pictures we are alone.
Don't get me wrong. Many times we come here and there are people skating and hockey players everywhere.

Most of the time it's just us though.
I don't understand.
Another thing about the rinks which the pictures may not quite get across is that the ice surface is amazing!

In the years we have been here this is the best I have ever seen.
I think this is perhaps suitable for curling.

Well, maybe not that good but darn close.

We love it here.
It's close to our house and centrally located in the Village.

But it's a secret so don't tell anyone, okay?

Hidden in plain sight.

Tim

The Greatest Doctor Who Ever Lived - Part 3

I know that we have all done this. Many of us do it more than we will admit.

Have you ever seen someone that you didn't know but thought "Wow! That is one strange/scary/odd/wild/funny looking dude/gal/boy/girl/creature!" when you knew absolutely nothing at all about them?

Perhaps you are absolutely correct in what your visual observation tells you.
Maybe you never see them again and never get a chance to find out if you were right or wrong.
But maybe we get to know these people a little better and one day discover that what our eyes told us was sadly off the mark.
I would never criticize anyone for this. It's human nature that we do.
I think that this is another part of our self preservation unit's function.
Our mind takes what the eye sees and processes it in order for us to react as we think is appropriate.
Things that appear normal and non-threatening just pass on through and we carry along.
There are other things which our eyes see and the mind catches as different or not what we have become accustomed to.
These people or things are what triggers the prejudgement in our minds.
Did everyone see "Home Alone"?
Do you remember what a wonderful man the creepy looking old guy next door turned out to be?

Even better than that example is one of a couple of guys I knew a long long time ago in high school.

The first guy was a big dude with fairly long light hair and a couple of earrings. He always had a lumberjack jacket on and Greb Kodiak boots on.
He didn't look like the type of guy I would like to have in my circle of friends.
The second guy was pretty interesting looking too. He was almost the opposite of the big dude.
He was tall too but he was pretty slim. His hair was black and really curly.
He had this little goatee which made him look like Snidely Whiplash or any of those other typical movie or cartoon villains.
The big guy was scary but the slim guy was too.
At least this is what they thought of each other.
These two guys saw each other all the time in the school but kept a distance.
Both of them thought "That guy sort of scares me!"
One day the big guy was wearing a tshirt that he bought at a Mike Oldfield concert. He loved the show and loved the shirt.
Mike Oldfield is not a household name in entertainment but those who know him, totally love him.
There aren't a huge number of followers but they certainly are faithful.
The slim guy walked over to the big dude and said "You saw Mike Oldfield? I was there too. I'm a huge fan!"

Guess what? Those two guys became very close friends and remain so to this day.
They were in Rover Scouts together.
Each was always welcome in the other's home at any time.
They hung around every day for the rest of the school year.
They didn't hear from each other for a while as they live very far apart now.
Yet, now that they've reconnected they have shared each others happiness and sadness at the things that have gone on in each other's lives.
One was very very saddened at the other's loss of his sister and his mother since he knew them both well.

I am the big dude and my good pal Al is the slim guy.
Al lives in Europe now and has met a wonderful woman who he married and has a child.
Al may not realize just how happy I am that he found me again after all these years. Until he reads this.

Most of us will only have a handful a people that we will call our true friends.
I am one of the really lucky ones who has two handfuls of them.
And I love each of them dearly.
Al is one of them.
If I had gone by my mind's first impression I would likely never have known what a great guy he is.

We really should be a little more careful that way, shouldn't we?

Dr. Seuss knew all about this and in his usual wonderful way sought to reduce this.
This is another of our favourite stories of all time in our house.
It comes as one of the stories in the Sneetches book. (one that I promise to talk about sometime).
We had not seen the book for quite a while until one of the boys found it the other day.
So we read it that very night.

Enjoy.

"What Was I Scared Of?"  by Dr. Seuss 
Well . . .
I was walking in the night And I saw nothing scary.
For I have never been afraid Of anything. Not very. 
Then I was deep within the woods
When, suddenly, I spied them.
I saw a pair of pale green pants
With nobody inside them! I wasn't scared.
But, yet, I stopped
What could those pants be there for?
What could a pair of pants at night
Be standing in the air for? 
And then they moved? Those empty pants!
They kind of started jumping.
And then my heart, I must admit,
It kind of started thumping. 
So I got out.
I got out fast
As fast as I could go, sir.
I wasn't scared.
But pants like that I did not care for.
No, sir. 
After that a week went by.
Then one dark night in Grin-itch (I had to do an errand there
And fetch some Grin-itch spinach)...... 
Well, I had fetched the spinach.
I was starting back through town
When those pants raced around a corner
And they almost knocked me down! 
I lost my Grin-itch spinach
But I didn't even care.
I ran for home!
Believe me, I had really had a scare! 
Now, bicycles were never made
For pale green pants to ride 'em,
Especially spooky pale green pants
With nobody inside 'em! 
And the NEXT night, I was fishing
For Doubt-trout on Roover River
When those pants came rowing toward me!
Well, I started in to shiver. 
And by now I was SO frightened
That, I'll tell you, but I hate to....
I screamed and rowed away and lost my hook and line and bait, too! 
I ran and found a Brickle bush I hid myself away.
I got brickles in my britches
But I stayed there anyway. 
I stayed all night.
The next night, too I'd be there still, no doubt,
But I had to do an errand
So, the next night, I went out. 
I had to do an errand,
Had to pick a peck of Snide In a dark and gloomy Snide-field
That was almost nine miles wide. I said, "I do not fear those pants
With nobody inside them." I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them.
But I lied them. 
Then I reached inside a Snide bush
And the next thing that I knew, I felt my hand touch someone!
And I'll bet that you know who. 
And there I was!
Caught in the Snide!
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky, empty pants and I were standing face to face! 
I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried,
"OH, SAVE ME FROM THESE PALE GREEN PANTS WITH NOBODY INSIDE!" 
But then a strange thing happened.
Why, those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I! 
I never heard such whimpering
And I began to see
That I was just as strange to them
As they were strange to me! 
So... I put my arm around their waist
And sat right down beside them.
I calmed them down.
Poor empty pants
With nobody inside them. 
And now, we meet quite often,
Those empty pants and I,
And we never shake or tremble,
We both smile and we say..."Hi!"

Every time we read the last line the boys and I wave at each other and say "hi!" together.

I agree that pale green pants with nobody inside them are quite unusual but I'm going to say "Hi!" the next time I see some coming my way.
You should too.
You never know, they may become one of your best friends.

Tim.


Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Engage

I contacted a friend the other day to get his opinion.

You see, this friend is quite knowledgeable on all things political as he has been around the track several times and doesn't have any interest in slowing down.

His opinion is certainly one that I trust.

I wanted his thoughts of the way I approach issues and show the world what I think about the way things are handled.

I'm pretty sure that most people seeing this know what I mean.

I have had a lot of support from friends and family. Amazingly, I heard from a total stranger who told me that my approach is all right.

However I have also been told that I AM heading down a path of self destruction and political suicide when I write about Council issues and those involved in my blogs.

I'm not a samarai performing hari kari.

My Blackberry and PC are not katanas.

It's not the same. Not at all.

Samarai killed themselves following defeat out of shame in order to restore honour in death.

I do what I do out of the desire to see things which I don't think are fair put right.

Many politicians at various levels imagine themselves climbing to the next level above where they are.

For me that would be becoming a provincial MLA and federal MP and perhaps Prime Minister of Canada.

Political suicide on my part would involve the elimination of any possibility of becoming an MLA along with the loss of my current Councillor status.



My friend is above the municipal level and knows of these things.

I asked if a party was looking for an individual to stand for them in a provincial election to become an MLA, would they look for a Tim Scammell or someone who is quieter and laid back on issues.

My friend told me that in his opinion Tim Scammell would be an excellent MLA.

He told me that I am "engaging" and that I don't sit and watch things happen.

I speak my mind and have the interests of the voters at heart.



Engaging.



I like that.



Tim

Do You Think?

The human mind is a very wonderful, fragile and sometimes very dark place.
It's like a fingerprint really.
Each of us is different in what makes us work, how we work or even why we think we are working.
The way we deal with that which comes at us relies on how our little electrical impulses are wired together.
All of the chemicals in us get mixed up in various combinations which will cause each of us to look, act and deal with aspects of the outside world in different ways.
I stop short of saying that we can't be held responsible for our actions since we can't control how we are put together.
I think that if the reactive part of our brain is pushing us in one direction there should be the reasoning part which keeps it in check and tries to prevent us from heading down a path of self destruction. There should be anyway.
Having said that, there is the small matter that what one person's self-preservation unit may be emitting as good advice will most likely differ from another person's. Hopefully not too much though.

It is no secret that my life has been under attack over the past few months. Some very important things have been torn away from me long before I was ready to let them go.

My sister and mother always believed in me no matter how stupid or irresponsible I could happen to be at times.
I would like to think that their little reasoning units jumped in and kicked mine out of the way sometimes and stopped me from making a bigger fool of myself than I already had.
I was able to admit to them when I had screwed something up. Again.

Mom would shake her head sometimes and read the riot act but she would help me find a way to dig out of the hole I had dug and jumped into.
Hayley was always so darn smart. She was always level headed and often protected me from my reactive and emotional side. I can think of the situations that she was with me by how well they turned out.
I can also recall situations that she was not with me by the fact that the end result wasn't so good.
I don't have enough space to go into details about it here.
She protected me from myself more times than anyone could ever know. Looking at us you know that I am 2 ½ years older than her but talking to us would lead you to think that she was older by her maturity and common sense.
She was so beautiful and so intelligent. It was easy to underestimate her brilliance.
Fortunately, for a few years I was able to protect her.
I did stand up and watch out for her.
One of my best friends probably won't admit to this story but I swear it's true.

I am proud of my surname Scammell. I always have been and always will be.
It's unfortunate that so many other words rhyme with it that are less than flattering.
One of these is "scrambled eggs".
I was tormented with this one in childhood. It felt worse than it may sound here.
One day Hayley came in the door upset that someone had called her this name.
I had put up with it for years but would be damned if my baby sister would ever suffer this.
I took off out the door and up the road. The boy (now one of my closest friends) was still heading up the street to his house.
He saw me running his way and must have realized that I wasn't coming to ask him to play street hockey.
He ran as fast as he could for the safety of his house.
My mind's eye probably exaggerates my memory but he made it into his front door with a fraction of a second to spare.
He thought that he had survived that day in victory.
I had other ideas. I rang the doorbell and his mother came out.
"He called my sister scrambled eggs!" I told her.
As the door closed I could see the terror in his eyes from what was to come. It would have been more humane if I had opened the door and let him out to let me beat him up.
 
Not on my watch. Not my baby sister.
 
As in every brother sister relationship there were the times that we had scraps and times that I was not nice.
There were a couple of situations that often came up at times of humour and storytelling in our adult years.
Thinking back on them didn't seem so funny to me as I grew older.
When she was just a tiny little thing she had these little boots that barely came up above her ankles. My friend and I were playing in the forest that used to be behind our house.
There was this huge puddle. It was almost a lake in my memory.
Hayley asked how deep it was. I told her it wasn't as high as her boots. I knew how deep it was.
She walked into it and became submerged up to her waist.
My friend and I took her out and took her home. She was crying.
I know that kids are kids but why did I do that?
 
Some kids around the corner from us got a brand new trampoline one day. All of the neighbourhood kids went there.
Hayley was bouncing on it and wanted to get off. I told her to just jump off.
She landed hard on the ground and broke her arm.
 
Just before Hayley passed away she was in a coma-like state. The nurses and doctors told us that she could hear everything we were saying.
I was alone with her one day.
I told her that I was saying goodbye not because I wanted to but because I had been told that I have to.
 
I said that even though she probably would never want to hear it I was sorry for some of the things I had done.
I was sorry about the time with the big puddle.
I was sorry for telling her to jump off the trampoline.

A minute later the nurse came in to check on her.
I moved out of the way and went to the other corner of the room.
 
"Oh look! She's crying!" the nurse said.
There were tears in Hayley's eyes. It was like she wanted desperately to say something to me but couldn't.
 
If she could have spoken perhaps she would have told me to not be so silly. I had redeemed myself.
Maybe she just wanted to say that she forgave me for that and every other stupid thing I did.
That's what brothers and sisters do.
 
The most difficult part of losing Hayley was that no matter how bad things looked or how I wondered what could be done, she had all of us totally convinced that she was going to be fine and that she would win the war. I'm afraid we all lost that battle.
 
The week before Hayley passed she called me to discuss mom's condition. She talked on about what treatments mom was going to have and everything that was going on.
I interrupted her and asked "but what's going on with you?"
Hayley told me that she was not feeling so great but it was just a temporary thing and she would be fine. Then she went back to talking about mom.
 
I'm going to stop talking about this here. It's difficult to write about for too long.
 
There are likely many people who ask why do I do this to myself then? Why am I putting my soul on display for the world to see and judge?
 
The answer is simple.

I'm not sure.
 
Cheryl asked me a while ago if writing about this stuff on a blog was helping me get over it.

I'm not sure. I'm really not.

It has become clear that talking about these things isn't helping me.

Cheryl almost didn't go to Ontario for mom's funeral. She wanted to be there for me in my time of grief and sadness.
The problem is that it hasn't been a time of sadness and I haven't wanted any shoulder to cry on.

I want something to hit very hard.
 
I am so freaking angry at what has happened I can't describe it.
I'm not so angry and feeling sorry for myself as that I am furious for them being cheated!
Hayley had so much to offer the world and did so much for everyone who knew her.
Mom was so young for her age. She was so busy doing fun things which made her feel good as well as those around her.
We were robbed. And I am angrier than I have ever been in my life.
 
Sadly, those little extra self-preservation boosts that mom and Hayley always had available for me aren't there anymore.
And that just leaves me with me. We all know how well that works for me.
 
Cheryl and the boys feel this pain as well as everyone who loves and cares for us.
Cheryl wants to help me and the boys do too. In the best way they can.
 
Why is it so hard for me to talk to her about this?

Why do I insist on coming on here and writing things that I know are going to lead to trouble?
 
I'm not sure.
 
One thing I do know is that I expect to be treated fairly and respected as a human being. That is, unless I have done something so vile and offensive that this is not deserved.

The catalyst for my composing the deleted blog the other day was the fact that I had been humiliated when I did not deserve it.

I won't rehash it here but it boils down to a situation where I was being punished for speaking my mind.
It's irrelevant now whether the punishment was justified or not.
I was ready to accept my punishment and move forward.
What I was not prepared for or expecting was the humiliation that sprang from the way the punishment was done.

So I reacted.
I blogged the whole situation and added my opinions of what I thought.

I upset someone whom I love and who loves me, even when I do these things.
For that reason I took the blog down.

Do I regret posting the blog?
I'm not sure.

I do regret upsetting someone I love, yes.

I do not regret speaking my mind about my feelings and opinions.

Until my dying day I will fight for anyone's right to say what they feel unless it is threatens the safety or security of another.

There are people that we have been aware of at some point in time or have had a direct impact on ours lives who society has labelled different, strange or eccentric. (I will be watching for comments here and will delete any I don't like.)

If they want to stand on a soapbox and tell the world how blue pigs in tutus threaten the paper clip supply of North America they will be able to say it.

No matter how strange something may seem to the rest of us the fact is that this person's reality is just as important and real to them as ours is to us.

Our wiring may be different but they are no less a human being than another.
It's not our right to judge what is right or wrong unless it threatens safety or security.

I may not care to hear about the blue pigs myself but I will make damn sure that nobody stops them from speaking of it.

Why do I bother with this aggravation and grief? Don't I have enough on my mind dealing with day to day functioning?

The answer to this I AM sure .
I want to do what I can to assure that those who follow will always have the same rights as we do today.

I see that there are not too many of us that are so outspoken and take these matters to such a level. But I'm thankful that we are not alone.
The world may never fully appreciate or realize what people like Charles LeBlanc have done for us.
I do.

Many are uncomfortable with Charles and myself telling things as they are.

That's okay. I'll do it anyway.
I guess I'm just wired differently.

Tim

 
 

Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Official announcement of change in Chairpersons

It seems that whenever I speak my mind those closest to me feel that I am wrong.
If it was anyone else, the blog would stay as is.
Because it is the ones I love, I will remove it.
This has been removed.