That's the thing...we were and still are the first generation of the Satellite Towns. That grand idea to bring settlers into the interior of a seemingly hostile land to reap the mineral wealth. The youngsters of my day are now the parents (and ever increasingly the grandparents!). I still feel kind of in awe of what our parents actually did... to bring their lives from wherever they were to that frozen wilderness. People came from all over the planet in search of opportunity for their families. It was not handed to them. There was no 'entitlement'...they worked hard and to some extent were rewarded. The greatest reward I believe was having a fantastic place, safe in the hinterland, in which to bring up children in a pristine environment...except for all the tailings and dust and stuff...

And on another note...YIPPEE! This marks the first month of my experiment! One twelfth of the way...

Maybe I've figured out how to scale up the scans! I'll know in a few moments...hope so.
Yeah, Bob Dylan came to stay at our house, in spirit anyways. So on any given day I might have been listening to Jim Reeves, Wilf Carter and Bob. Rock 'n Roll was accepted into the family, as was poetry and literature. One of the great things about Bob is that he made it possible for all of us to sing! Next to him we were all songbirds (or so we thought). Rock on!

Ahem...I'm told that some guys actually went into the houses that were under fabrication and made off with certain gauges of electrical wire to make slingshot ammunition from! I'm also told that the method was to cut the wire off at lengths of about  1-2 inches and bend the pieces over in a horseshoe shape. This made the perfect projectile for slinging at 'targets' using a slingshot made from a wire coat hanger, some tape for the handle and a few good strong rubber bands...or neoprene gasket material if one was lucky enough to stumble upon it. All this I'm told!

I don't know what's up with the size difference between these drawing scans and the ones before I switched to the laptop! I didn't change any settings and it's the same scanner! Oh well, more technology aggravaton to come to grips with...or ignore.
Yes, we had plenty of construction going on around when we were little. I'm told that these days there's a lot as well, but I'm willing to bet that security at the sites is much tighter now. The worst we had to contend with was probably an old drunk guy spending the night soaking up whiskey in a shack next to the site...and he sure as hell wasn't gonna chase us very far!

In those days we knew nothing about cancer causing agents and cared less! I sometimes lie awake at night wondering if particular aches and pains are the blooming of some awful sickness brought about by childhood games played with deadly fly dope! Anyone else remember that stuff?

It's true! Some of the fellows were fantastic at doing wheelies on those old clunker CCMs. The guys doing the trick bikes nowdays would probably bow down in unworthiness at the sight of Mr T or C riding on those big red and white bikes of steel!

Thanks be to Jaysus...I'm back up and running...For how long we don't know! The modem is working and the laptop is working. I've got cables stretched across the room but it works. 'nuff said.

Still having those damned problems with my home computer set up...I suspect it's due to the age and 'clunker' status of my system. I've managed to make a successful test run with my laptop so give it a day or so and I'll be up to date! In the meantime, again, my apologies.
s.

Sorry about this but I had a new internet service hooked up on Friday and have been having computer problems ever since...good ol' computers! I will have drawings for all days lost eventually. Thanks for your patience.
s.

Yes, those were heady days to be sure! I remember the curbs had been put in and the streets were graded with what looked to be like blades of rock, sparkling in the daylight. But danger lurked behind all that glitter! All over town the blood of the newly arrived immigrants from Sculpin Tickle and every other out of the way place on this planet, was flowing into the gravel and everywhere else there was a bashed up bike! Even the crowd from overseas who had those funny looking compact models had difficulty, although they were kinda nimble on those things...all fancy. Still, skin was shed, and in the fullness of a short length of time we were all travelling around the wilds of town and country on our bicycles...wearing our bandaids like badges of honour! It brings tears to think about it.