Hi.
It has been several weeks since I wrote you. I hope you are well and looking forward to the festive season. As you know, we have been settling into our house in Hanley. There are a lot of fun and interesting stories as we rent this cool house with Mrs. Englehardt’s stuff in it including the 1985 Chrysler NewYorker in the garage where I’ve spent a fair bit of time lately hanging up tools, cleaning out a lot of clutter, and getting ready to have this great space as my own. 
Last night we went to Saskatoon to see a comedy group called Skit Skit. After pushing the envelope on gays, blacks (niggas), fat people, and other sensitivities they got quite clever and funny in the second half. They had a very funny ‘air band’ competition skit and one where surgeons and architects and lawyers can’t find work but actor’s jobs are everywhere.
We hung up outdoor Christmas lights all across the front and some along the little fence at the back. There are four houses now in a row on our street in Hanley which have lights up. It looks very cool as seen in this picture which is worth one thousand and six words exactly. 
We got our tree this afternoon. Ed bought it for us and we cut it down at the Christmas tree farm which is a few kilometers away down a few dirt roads where there are absolutely no trees until you get to the farm. They prune their trees out here so it was hard to find one that wasn’t so perfect it would look artificial. Alas, no amount of shaking it or tossing it on the ground could make it look real. 
Marilyn’s Christmas concert went well and it was a fun couple of weeks when her cousins got together to rehearse. Marilyn did a lot of research on Christmas Traditions from around the world – past and present – with a narrative and songs selected from many different nationalities. Ling, who runs the little Chinese restaurant with her husband played piano (beautifully) but when she arrived she had selected ‘Music Box Dancer” by Canadian composer Frank Mills rather than a Chinese song. 
From left to right: Cousin Ron, Cousin Walter, Cousin Chris, Cousin Marilyn and Cousin Kathy
The weather has been quite nice every day and I’m starting to tease some of the locals about how I used to hear all this whining about how cold it got in Saskatchewan but hey it’s lovely weather here….almost warm. They just look at me and say “You’ll See”
I was cleaning out an old wooden box in the garage and the bottom was lined with a newspaper from 4 January, 1951. I had no idea how close we were to WWIII in Korea with President Harry S. Truman and General McArthur on one side (coincidentally in charge of the free world) and those communists in North Korea on the other, backed by those other communists China and Russia. A few days earlier the Chinese backed North had just captured the city of Seoul.
Here’s a line from an article on page 1 when Mr. Kenneth Sear Harris, Canada’s new Steel Administrator was asked what would happen in the steel industry in the event of all out war. He replied “There will have to be greater curtailment on civilian supply as we go deeper into military preparedness.” In the same issue there is a big picture and the caption “BUSHMAN, world famous gorilla was found dead in his cage at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
Inside there is an ad from the Hudson’s Bay Company showing a lovely “gleaming chrome table so suited to our modern way of living”. Price $39.50. It looks a lot like the one I’m using in my new office.
Marilyn is busy getting ready to decorate our new tree and I’m now finished with my letter to you except to show you the walk in shower that I think is a fantastic invention even if it is surrounded by little cherry wallpaper (soon to be removed and replaced by wallpaper with little blueberries).
…..and a picture of BUSHMAN which makes me very sad that he was caught and lived in a Zoo
BUSHMAN THE GORILLA (Probably not his real name)
