I got celiac disease many years ago. I guess when you're that age of a man, you're spending far too much time in the washroom, and you can't control your bowels.... you better go find out why. We have wonderful doctors and hospitalization in this country, and so you might as well go find out. Because there's many other diseases when your bowels aren't working correctly. So you have to go get checked out. Especially since two of my friends went and had to get operations on their bowels. So I went to see what was goin’ on and I ended up with this Celiac disease. So I had to get on a special diet, and take care of yourself. It was a big change in life, but you gotta get on with it, deal with it. That's life. You gotta get mature and deal with whatever isn't working. ‘Cuz you got people to meet and places to go.

 

When I found out I had Celiac disease, it was tough. There wasn't all these fancy things on the shelves of the grocery store. So I found some places where I could get a few things, then it got better and better and fortunately I have a very good wife who knows how to cook. And I couldn't ask for better, in being a cook, but I don't wanna blow her bubble too hard. She's very good at what she does and she takes care of me. At home there's always snacks and treats and she makes me lovely little cakes and we eat good. On the positive side of all this people say to me oh sorry to hear you have that!. I say well, my family eats better now, plain and simple. People also say oh, you have to do this and you have to do that, and I say hold it hold it... You got this all wrong. What are you supposed to be eating? Fresh meat, fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables, and then you're on the diet. All this other stuff you don't have to have. But that's what we all eat unfortunately. ...except for me.

 

It's hard, but if I had to pick one, this isn't so bad. Some people are diabetic and others are this and that. You just gotta pick yourself up and carry on. Leave the crying til later, or for somebody else.

 

I'm kind of a nut when it comes to my equipment. For example whenever I use my chainsaw, I bring it home and service it before I take it out again, so it's always ready to go. Ya know,, just in case of tornados. Cuz we lived through one in our neighborhood, and I needed it to cut my way out of the driveway to go and see if there was something wrong over at the neighbors house. Which there was, with lots of neighbors houses. But we survived.

 

I'm kind of a maintenance man when I do things I guess because I've been a mechanic for so many years. I take care of my stuff, and that little bit of maintenance does help a lot. I've fixed things for all the neighbors, but it's a labour of love because people don't listen to me cuz I tell them they gotta fix things properly. Some neighbors just like to butcher things and make them run, then it breaks again and again. The best neighbors that I fix things for owe me money, and I've never collected, and so they never come back again. Works real good that way. Some of the neighbors are good, especially the neighbors with the big equipment cuz they appreciate you a little more. There are 3 or 4 big, big field tractors that are running around this neighborhood that I overhauled their engines for them, and they're still runnin’. So I must have learned a little bit of something along the way to be able to do that job. It's just machinery, we make it happen and keep on fixin’ things. Everybody knows when their car breaks down or their furnace breaks down or their plumbing breaks down how much it costs to actually get it goin’ again. Cuz you'll give your first born to have your toilet flushing. That's what they say... I don't worry about it, I just go outside.

 

I was also the fix it guy for the Lord Selkirk School Division. For 10 years I was the caretaker. I learned a lot, had a wonderful time. Learned to appreciate things and learned to see that our society is kinda lacking on parenting skills for some of these kids. Kids that don't have two parents or they're foster kids. I've seen a lot of those and it's pretty frightening to say that when I worked with 130 children and 80 of them were foster care or one parent. Why in the world would I end up being 20 kids' dad, kind of a sad part of our world.

 

But we laughed and we had fun, and when I had the chance to discipline them, I took them around the corner where the security cameras couldn't see us and I kicked their ass. Well the next day they said good morning and smiled at me. So in my simple way, they did appreciate some discipline. And I did get called to the principal's office twice in my career for screwing up. But hey, I'm a screw up what can I say. But those kids, to this day how many years later, when I go visit those schools, they attack me in the hallway. Pretty nice.

 

There's how many things in my shop that those kids build for me to let me go away. Just an incredible bunch of children. They did appreciate me, and I appreciated them too. They were a fun bunch of kids from hard knocks schools, and we made life bearable. We did all the things we could like built skating rinks and curling rinks and all sorts of other stuff for the school. All these crazy kids come from hard times.

 

Some of the jobs I had to do as a caretaker were pretty scary. One job, every year in particular. The first time it froze up at night after school there was this bandit that I never caught. He would go back to the school when all the other kids went home. And I knew on the next day, first thing in the morning I'd get the call from the principal: "Go de-ice the slide!" The little bugger would piss on the slide and it would be all yellow all the way down. So Garth had to keep de-icer around for de-icing time of the slide. You gotta laugh. As bad as this sounds, you gotta laugh. Every year I had to de-ice the slide. And that little bastard I didn't catch. But I caught some of them pretty good though.

 

When I used to catch them, before taking them to the principal’s office I'd take them around the school and show them all of the cameras that they could get busted on. I'd take them around to all the cameras and say "ok guys, don't get caught in the school yard screwing up, ‘cuz the principal is gonna get ya!" I had good luck with that tactic. Those little bandits were just dear souls without enough parenting that's all. They weren't gonna turn into axe murderers I don't think.

 

But when I retired all those kids didn't want to go home, they just laid there and cried. Not sure what that meant but we all had a good time there and I was in charge of making people smile and laugh, even if they didn't want to.

 

I used to make all the kids sing, and I used to sing to them. We only had one song, but that was alright. It was the song that went: “I don't want a pickle, I just wanna ride my motorsickle. And I don't wanna die, I just wanna ride my motor cy...... cle.”  In the winter time I used to make them sing if they didn't put their boots in place, or I'd throw them out the door. Then they'd have to go get them in their socky feet. Wasn't nice was it.

 

Anyway, then I retired, and they did have an assembly for me. But at the time I didn't even know it was for me. Somehow they all had this big secret, and when I got to the gym they all stood up and sang that song to me. I just cried.

 

Those little kids see me on the street in Selkirk or in Wal-Mart, and they're with their mom who is shocked to see their kid hanging onto the side of this old bugger. There was this one young fella who came up to me and instead of hugging he'd shake my hand. It was Christmas time and I said "what are you doing for Christmas?" "we don't have Christmas, we're Muslims" I'm like "Oh, how interesting, tell me all about it" So he told me and we had a good story. I learned something. It's amazing what you can learn from these children.

 

I have a T-shirt with every kids name on it. And all the stuff in my shop on the walls of all the things these kids made me. They spent months doing some of this stuff.

 

All those things I learned in that school from all those kids…what a learning thing in life, holy mackerel.

 

I sure appreciate that I have a family, and everybody's loved, and taken care of. You do the best you can and wish for the rest of them.

 

 

Chapter 10

Takin' Care

I got celiac disease many years ago. I guess when you're that age of a man, you're spending far too much time in the washroom, and you can't control your bowels.... you better go find out why. We have wonderful doctors and hospitalization in this country, and so you might as well go find out. Because there's many other diseases when your bowels aren't working correctly. So you have to go get checked out. Especially since two of my friends went and had to get operations on their bowels. So I went to see what was goin’ on and I ended up with this Celiac disease. So I had to get on a special diet, and take care of yourself. It was a big change in life, but you gotta get on with it, deal with it. That's life. You gotta get mature and deal with whatever isn't working. ‘Cuz you got people to meet and places to go.

 

When I found out I had Celiac disease, it was tough. There wasn't all these fancy things on the shelves of the grocery store. So I found some places where I could get a few things, then it got better and better and fortunately I have a very good wife who knows how to cook. And I couldn't ask for better, in being a cook, but I don't wanna blow her bubble too hard. She's very good at what she does and she takes care of me. At home there's always snacks and treats and she makes me lovely little cakes and we eat good. On the positive side of all this people say to me oh sorry to hear you have that!. I say well, my family eats better now, plain and simple. People also say oh, you have to do this and you have to do that, and I say hold it hold it... You got this all wrong. What are you supposed to be eating? Fresh meat, fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables, and then you're on the diet. All this other stuff you don't have to have. But that's what we all eat unfortunately. ...except for me.

 

It's hard, but if I had to pick one, this isn't so bad. Some people are diabetic and others are this and that. You just gotta pick yourself up and carry on. Leave the crying til later, or for somebody else.

 

I'm kind of a nut when it comes to my equipment. For example whenever I use my chainsaw, I bring it home and service it before I take it out again, so it's always ready to go. Ya know,, just in case of tornados. Cuz we lived through one in our neighborhood, and I needed it to cut my way out of the driveway to go and see if there was something wrong over at the neighbors house. Which there was, with lots of neighbors houses. But we survived.

 

I'm kind of a maintenance man when I do things I guess because I've been a mechanic for so many years. I take care of my stuff, and that little bit of maintenance does help a lot. I've fixed things for all the neighbors, but it's a labour of love because people don't listen to me cuz I tell them they gotta fix things properly. Some neighbors just like to butcher things and make them run, then it breaks again and again. The best neighbors that I fix things for owe me money, and I've never collected, and so they never come back again. Works real good that way. Some of the neighbors are good, especially the neighbors with the big equipment cuz they appreciate you a little more. There are 3 or 4 big, big field tractors that are running around this neighborhood that I overhauled their engines for them, and they're still runnin’. So I must have learned a little bit of something along the way to be able to do that job. It's just machinery, we make it happen and keep on fixin’ things. Everybody knows when their car breaks down or their furnace breaks down or their plumbing breaks down how much it costs to actually get it goin’ again. Cuz you'll give your first born to have your toilet flushing. That's what they say... I don't worry about it, I just go outside.

 

I was also the fix it guy for the Lord Selkirk School Division. For 10 years I was the caretaker. I learned a lot, had a wonderful time. Learned to appreciate things and learned to see that our society is kinda lacking on parenting skills for some of these kids. Kids that don't have two parents or they're foster kids. I've seen a lot of those and it's pretty frightening to say that when I worked with 130 children and 80 of them were foster care or one parent. Why in the world would I end up being 20 kids' dad, kind of a sad part of our world.

 

But we laughed and we had fun, and when I had the chance to discipline them, I took them around the corner where the security cameras couldn't see us and I kicked their ass. Well the next day they said good morning and smiled at me. So in my simple way, they did appreciate some discipline. And I did get called to the principal's office twice in my career for screwing up. But hey, I'm a screw up what can I say. But those kids, to this day how many years later, when I go visit those schools, they attack me in the hallway. Pretty nice.

 

There's how many things in my shop that those kids build for me to let me go away. Just an incredible bunch of children. They did appreciate me, and I appreciated them too. They were a fun bunch of kids from hard knocks schools, and we made life bearable. We did all the things we could like built skating rinks and curling rinks and all sorts of other stuff for the school. All these crazy kids come from hard times.

 

Some of the jobs I had to do as a caretaker were pretty scary. One job, every year in particular. The first time it froze up at night after school there was this bandit that I never caught. He would go back to the school when all the other kids went home. And I knew on the next day, first thing in the morning I'd get the call from the principal: "Go de-ice the slide!" The little bugger would piss on the slide and it would be all yellow all the way down. So Garth had to keep de-icer around for de-icing time of the slide. You gotta laugh. As bad as this sounds, you gotta laugh. Every year I had to de-ice the slide. And that little bastard I didn't catch. But I caught some of them pretty good though.

 

When I used to catch them, before taking them to the principal’s office I'd take them around the school and show them all of the cameras that they could get busted on. I'd take them around to all the cameras and say "ok guys, don't get caught in the school yard screwing up, ‘cuz the principal is gonna get ya!" I had good luck with that tactic. Those little bandits were just dear souls without enough parenting that's all. They weren't gonna turn into axe murderers I don't think.

 

But when I retired all those kids didn't want to go home, they just laid there and cried. Not sure what that meant but we all had a good time there and I was in charge of making people smile and laugh, even if they didn't want to.

 

I used to make all the kids sing, and I used to sing to them. We only had one song, but that was alright. It was the song that went: “I don't want a pickle, I just wanna ride my motorsickle. And I don't wanna die, I just wanna ride my motor cy...... cle.”  In the winter time I used to make them sing if they didn't put their boots in place, or I'd throw them out the door. Then they'd have to go get them in their socky feet. Wasn't nice was it.

 

Anyway, then I retired, and they did have an assembly for me. But at the time I didn't even know it was for me. Somehow they all had this big secret, and when I got to the gym they all stood up and sang that song to me. I just cried.

 

Those little kids see me on the street in Selkirk or in Wal-Mart, and they're with their mom who is shocked to see their kid hanging onto the side of this old bugger. There was this one young fella who came up to me and instead of hugging he'd shake my hand. It was Christmas time and I said "what are you doing for Christmas?" "we don't have Christmas, we're Muslims" I'm like "Oh, how interesting, tell me all about it" So he told me and we had a good story. I learned something. It's amazing what you can learn from these children.

 

I have a T-shirt with every kids name on it. And all the stuff in my shop on the walls of all the things these kids made me. They spent months doing some of this stuff.

 

All those things I learned in that school from all those kids…what a learning thing in life, holy mackerel.

 

I sure appreciate that I have a family, and everybody's loved, and taken care of. You do the best you can and wish for the rest of them.

 

Chapter 10

Takin' Care