POSTING # 37

Signs of Fall; Some Yorkshire Stories; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Signs of Fall

There doesn’t seem to be any justice.

First we have a summerless summer and now there are signs of autumn all around us:

• The electronic sign in front of the arena announces: “Ice Available September 12”;
• Boys and girls, well back-packed, were lined up at the school bus stops on Tuesday for their first day of school, accompanied by their Moms and assorted sad younger siblings and dogs;
• Canada Geese are stuffing themselves out in the park on this year’s especially succulent grass, getting ready for the trip south; and,
• The new Consumer Reports edition has a review of snow blowers.

After I wrote the above, Environment Canada came out with a forecast saying that the temperature for the next 2 to 3 months is likely to be above normal for eastern Canada.

Do you suppose they are serious?

Or is the Federal Government just trying to keep our dollars in Canada, to stimulate the economy. You will recall that I suggested last week that we might have to go to the Kingdom of Jordan to get some decent tomatoes (and some warm weather). Perhaps the government has heard that a lot of Canadians are planning trips to places where they can dry out and warm their bones.

Some Yorkshire Stories

My work in the Canadian Immigration in Leeds, Yorkshire in the early 1960s involved, among other things, attending receptions to promote immigration to our country.

At one of my first receptions, I was having a pleasant discussion with a Yorkshireman when he reached over and started fingering the lapel of my suit coat.

“Hmmm, interesting material”, he said. “Canadian?”

I said it was---at that time we had wool weaving mills.

At the next several receptions, at least one Yorkshireman would stroke my lapels.

Finally I asked a Yorkshire friend about this custom.

He laughed, “So Canadians don’t finger your fabric?”

No.

He laughed again. “You know there is a saying that Yorkshiremen aren’t backward in coming forward.”

He explained that almost everyone in the Leeds area had some connection to a wool weaving mill through a grandfather, a father, brother, cousin or friends. They grew up hearing about and feeling material produced by the different mills.

“Obviously, some of them just can’t resist getting a feel of Canadian material. Let me tell you a story.”

After the outbreak of the Second World War, the British Ministry of Defense asked 6 or 7 Yorkshire mills to bid on the production of thousands of yards of khaki material for army uniforms. The Ministry set out detailed and rigid specifications about the quality and weight of the wool, the tightness of the weave, colour and so on.

The Ministry scientists found that each of the samples submitted by the mills met the specifications. They then checked for wearability using abrasion, chemical and other tests. All the results were similar.

The financial aspects of the bids were also very similar.

The Ministry experts were puzzled. How should they decide the winner?

One of the experts heard that mill managers could, by simply feeling material, often tell things about its quality that couldn’t be picked up by tests.

He went to Leeds and showing the coded samples to a manager of one of the mills that had submitted a bid. He asked him to rank them by quality. The expert pointed out that the samples were all woven to exactly the same specifications and requirements and the Ministry’s tests had shown them to be indistinguishable.

The manager said he could rank them but it wouldn’t be fair because he could tell by feeling the samples which came from his mill and which from his competitors’ mills.

Seeing that the expert didn’t believe him, he asked to feel the samples. He correctly identified the mill that each came from.

The story doesn’t tell us how the Ministry finally made a decision.

I think of that story when some experts, for example in education or health care, seem to be relying too much on ‘objective and standardized’ tests.

There is a clearly a place for an experienced and knowledgeable teacher, nurse or doctor to supplement the ‘objective’ data with factors that exist but can’t yet be measured.

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One of the Canadians in the Leeds office was down in Sheffield interviewing prospective immigrants. During his lunch break he dropped into a large butcher’s shop.

Along with pork chops and roasts he saw a tray piled high with something that was called ‘Pork Bones’ with a price of 6 pence a pound (about 10 cents at the time). He decided they looked a lot like spareribs, only there was more meat left on the bones.

He asked for a few pounds to take home to his wife.

The butcher said it was an odd purchase. The only people who bought the pork bones were Jamaicans.

The pork bones were delicious---meatier and juicer than Canadian spareribs. After that anyone going to Sheffield came back with 50 or 60 pounds that were shared among the Canadians.

There were some negatives to living in Yorkshire in the 1960s such as cold, damp homes, but the pork bones were a definite plus.

Later on, the British discovered barbequed spareribs. The price this week at Tesco (one of the large British supermarket chains) for spareribs is about CDN$3.70.



Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

There has been a debate in the media about whether animals have emotions similar to our own.

You didn’t have to live very long with Cassidy, our family dog, to become convinced that he, at least, had all our emotions and perhaps a few more for good measure.

Once someone left a door open and Cassidy took off. He never went outside without a leash and a boy or girl.

The alarm went up as soon as he was missed (probably when someone opened the fridge and Cassidy didn’t appear to see what was on offer).

Pat and I and the kids were out checking our own and our neighbours yards when we saw him trotting down the street. He had obviously gone around a rather large block.

As he came closer, we could tell that he expected to catch heck. He had that look about him.

But as he reached us, his demeanour changed.

And he growled.

The best defence is an offense.

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As he got older, he had trouble with his bladder. If he were left alone too long without a walk he might have an accident.

If he did, we would find him sitting with his head in a corner, his shoulders sagging.

That was the signal to go around and find the puddle.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #38 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.