Merry Christmas 2016

Time is moving more quickly ... I am sure of it.  Not only is it moving faster, but it is harder to remember what has happened, as it whisked past.  The countdown to Christmas is just a couple days away – my apologies to those who used to get a Christmas card or letter from us at the beginning of December.  Our pastor commented on Christmas letters that can rob us of our joy, because we compare our lives to others and become dissatisfied.  We in the Bouchard household have not travelled the world, won the Nobel Prize, or become lottery millionaires this year. But we are in reasonable health and coping with the situations that come our way in life.

At home on Middleton Way, Marcel, Karen, Bronson and Snowball the cat carried on with “life as usual.”  Marcel still works at Tolko as a millwright at White Valley (Lumby) on the weekend shift.  He is beginning to think that retirement sounds like a good idea, but has no date set.  He repainted the interior of the house this year, and found time for fishing trips in the summer.

Karen continues to juggle working as a teacher on call in the Vernon School District with a part-time office job at New Hope for Widow/ers.  From May through September, she is the school program coordinator for the Historic O’Keefe Ranch, scheduling field trips for young students  between Kamloops and West Kelowna, and in July and August, she is a historical interpreter (aka: tour guide).  In her non-work life, she continues to quilt, knit, crochet, read, and keep up with friends on social media.

Bronson is in his final year at UBC Okanagan, taking Computer Studies, and looking forward to a Bachelor of Science degree in 2017. He works at Tolko on weekends as well, doing clean up, and did a summer computer project for one of his professors. Snowball had an adventurous summer, as his long white fur had so many fur-balls and knots that he had to be shaved – he ended up looking like a white lion.

Anthony is still living in Terrace and working for Lakelse Air as an apprentice helicopter mechanic.  He bought a used Toyota Tacoma truck this spring, then needed a dirtbike ... so it is safe to say that he enjoys the great outdoors up north.  He had a lot of work in various industry camps during the summer months, maintaining the helicopters when they were not in the air.  It also was a great vantage point for photography and several of his photos were published in Vertical magazine.

Katrina and Tyler are still in Surrey, but life is beginning to change for them.  Katrina is finishing her BA in French this month and plans to do more tutoring in the New Year before entering Teachers’ Training at Simon Fraser University.  Tyler was working full-time for Virgin Mobile but has cut back his hours to go back to school toward his goal of being a worship pastor.  They will also be moving, as the couple with whom they shared a 3 bedroom apartment has found a place of their own.

Marcel’s mom and sister still seem comfortable in their downtown apartment.  They both were baptised by immersion at Thanksgiving, by Tyler’s grandfather, and we held our family Thanksgiving dinner at our church.  Karen’s mother listed her house for sale in spring, sold in July, and bought a townhouse (that she fell in love with) in October.  She is happy with having everything she needs on the main floor, with a sewing room and spare bedrooms and bathroom on her upper floor.

We had our house listed as well, but it didn’t sell, so we will take a break for the winter, fix up a few things, and try again in 2017. There’s no pressure to move, just the desire to downsize a bit.  December was a whirl of work plus Christmas events, and we are looking forward to a quiet Christmas with all of our kids home this year.

Merry Christmas to all from the Bouchard family 

Happy birthday, Dad

It's been 28 years since my dad celebrated his last birthday (his 60th).  He had been hospitalized a number of times in 1988, and between heart attacks and strokes, we weren't sure how long he would last.  Thinking back on it now, as the pain of loss has faded, there were so many bittersweet yet funny moments ...

My mother was called up to the hospital every afternoon to be with him, as his vitals were so low that they thought he wouldn't make it ... yet, he consistently woke up the next morning and shocked the nurses singing "God Bless America."  In hospital, with the curtain pulled around his bed, Dad was convinced he was in a tent.  I think he may have thought he was in a firefighting camp with his brother, who used to work for Forestry in BC.  He spent Father's Day in hospital but came home on a day pass for his birthday.  His brother, Ted, called to chat and Dad said "I don't know why I'm in hospital. I'm not sick. I'm just weak."  A week later, he was sent home ... the doctor said they had no clue if he was going to die or to live for weeks, months, or years.  I came over to supervise him at lunch, and he was eating pudding ... sort of. He was definitely spooning pudding into his mouth, but he wasn't swallowing -- and when his mouth was full, he decided maybe a drink of water would help the pudding go down.

Even at the funeral home, there were moments of humour.  The funeral director had parted his hair on the wrong side, and we thought it should be the way he usually wore it.  Resting the water glass on Dad's chest, the man combed his hair to the correct side, and we broke into giggles picturing what Dad would do if the water spilled!  The funeral director also asked how Dad would have felt about having a hair clip holding his hair until it dried.  Mom related a few incidents about Dad's hair-dressing experiences ... this was not the first time there had been a clip in his hair, apparently.

I should have more memories of my father, but I was quite young when I was born, and didn't have a chance to record my thoughts.  We have pictures of him in my crib because I wasn't sleepy and he was.  We moved every few years ... Mom's conclusion was that he was a gypsy.  Those were the days when employment was readily available, and if he didn't like his job, he got a new one, and another one, and so it went ... and we went with him.

I know that we have a lot of similarities ... the dark eyes and eyebrows from the McRae family are only the beginning.  He loved jokes and puns ... and this has come down to me ... and my children get a double dose if this is passed on genetically, because my husband has the same crazy sense of humour as well.  My mother just shakes her head when I come out with some of the same kinds of puns that he would have used.  He had thick hair, and in photos, he looked like Elvis ... yet he said he wanted to be bald so he could wash his face and head all at once in the morning.

He loved his uniform.  He was too young for the military in World War II, but years later, he had fun trying on his younger brother's RCMP uniform for a photo. When he was hired to work at the weigh scales, I think he must have hit a high point on his bucket list and wore that government uniform with pride each day.  I have the same feeling about going to work at O'Keefe Ranch in costume, with an official name badge.

He wasn't afraid to try things, even if some would have said he wasn't qualified. (He said his reason for not finishing school was that his dad was in the grade above him and he couldn't go further.)  When asked if he wanted to join the choir, the question was whether he was a tenor.  Dad's response: "Tenor eleven."

Because of his underlying illness (tumour of the pituitary gland), his hair went grey very early.  When I was hospitalized in Alberta to have my tonsils out, Dad had left a crossword puzzle book at the nurses' station for me.  The nurse who brought it to me informed my that my grandpa had left it for me.  Even at age 7 or 8, I was laughing inside because both of my grandfathers had already passed away, and the "grandpa" was my dad (probably only 40 at the time).

My sister and I were rivals for his attention.  She had very short hair and (before she went to school), got to go places with him, so he called her his "little boy Charley."  One day, I decided I was going to get to him first, so I walked by myself to the main avenue he would turn off to get to our street. Even a half block ride with him was worth it, if I could get to him first.  Yet I'm sure he loved us equally ... just differently.

Our lives would have been different if he had lived past 60.  There were physical and mental health issues that would not have allowed him to be the grandfather he would have wanted to be.  But. my children missed his presence and influence (whether for good or bad) ... when we would go to the playground, they would see a grey-haired man pushing little ones on the swing, and they would ask "why don't we have a grandpa?"

Random rambling as Dad's birthday closes ... his first grandson (my sister's oldest) shares the same birthday and turned 22 today. My older son bears Dad's name as his middle name. Whenever Facebook tells me whose birthday is on June 25, I remember that this was Dad's day ... and now there are 6 months until Christmas!!

Unearthing buried treasure

What to do on a rainy Saturday?  Well, my mother is de-cluttering and so am I. Our houses are across the street from each other, so we alternate whose house gets de-cluttered every weekend or so.

Today was my mom's turn, so after examining a couple of boxes of books in the garage and only taking a few books out, we adjourned to her storage room, where she informed me that "these boxes are yours."  Apparently, today my address has changed to Memory Lane (which also happens to be the name of my Royal Albert china pattern).

Books:  well, that's easy. Either I love them, in which case I keep them, or I can't remember them, deny they are mine, and put them in the garage sale/giveaway box.  Some books have to be kept ... like the Tonka Trucks book I read over and over to my sons when they were small.  Others I look at and wonder why I still have this.  Some things have been packed away since I finished university and got married.  I guess I didn't have room for all my odds and sods, so Mom boxed them up for the day when I would have a house of my own.  32 years and a number of residences later (3 houses of my own), these things are still in her storage room ... and they've sat there since her last move 17 years ago.

What kind of treasure did I find?  Mostly paper -- which doesn't sound interesting until you realize what is on it.  Some of it goes back to grade 5, when I did a project on Mealworms & Earthworms in Science. There were compositions from grade 9, my Kangaroo Rats project from grade 6, algebra and chemistry notebooks (those headed speedily to the recycling bag).  There were projects I did for Pioneer Girls, which must have been from the early 1970s, for my Travel Badge ... complete with postcards from Stanley Park, Vancouver Aquarium, the Vancouver Airport, and Barkerville (yes, I lived in Terrace, BC and no, I didn't travel much) and narrative describing the places I'd been.  There were pieces of paper where I had labelled all the first and last names of all of the dolls and stuffies my sister and I owned, along with their occupations! (They lived on an island community self-sufficient from the outside world).

There were letters ... and oh, my goodness, if I sat down and read them all, I would never be seen again.  I ditched the ones from the kids from summer camp ... both the camps I attended and the ones where I worked as camp counselor. Wow, back in the day, we apologized for the length of time it had taken us to write a letter, said it was the other person's turn to write, and then proceeded to write about nothing at all.  There were letters from boys!! I looked at a few and consigned them to the recycling as well.

After a couple of hours, my mother decided we needed to surface from the basement for some lunch. Lipton's chicken noodle soup and a slightly charred grilled cheese sandwich fueled our enthusiasm for the "olden days."  Mom was finding equally entertaining relics of her youth ... and I collected a few specimens of her schoolbooks, but I have a new hiding place that is not my house.

I hit the box with my university years ... souvenirs from my Literary London trip that didn't make it to my photo album.  School newspapers, programs from concerts I don't remember attending, course outlines and random notes from classes, and a booklet (9 sheets of paper, some double-sided) explaining how to register for my 4th year classes.  Yes, children, this is long before the Internet was invented and on-line registration would become possible.  Another brochure, explaining in very simple instructions with diagrams how to use an ATM ... "Personal Touch Banking. -- How It Works!"  And there was a four page skit that my roommates and I performed at our home church Christmas talent show explaining all the trials and tribulations of our second year of university.

Even without being a hoarder, it is amazing how much I have accumulated over the years and years and years.  There's still a lot of reading and purging to go, but we got a good start and had an excellent adventure travelling back and forth through time.

My whirlwind weeks

I really don't know where time goes.  Maybe it's like an hourglass, or one of the medieval images of a flat earth with the oceans pouring over the edges.  It does seem to go more quickly as my age increases.  And, between naps, I have been very busy!

Teaching on call has been an up and down road over the years. Sometimes the road was all uphill and I got very little work.  Now that I am nearer the end of the career road, our school district seems to have a shortage of teachers on call, and I can work as much as I want, and sometimes more than I would like (when this happens, I definitely need a nap after school).  In the past few months, unless I have booked off days, I've had 2, 3, 4 and even 5 days a week.  My most recent adventure was 5 days with grade 3s at the school my kids used to attend. It was good to be with the same class for several days, getting to know all their names and more about their personalities and learning styles.  Coming up with an art project for Friday afternoon was fun as well.

I did take a week off for a personal adventure the first week of March, combining a doctor's appointment in Vancouver with some time away from home.  I visited my son in Terrace and enjoyed seeing how he has found his place in the workplace, church, and community.  Two days later, I was at my daughter's home, experiencing student life with her and her husband. (Strangely, I have also become income tax adviser to my kids). The last two days were with one of my long-standing friends in Vancouver.  I have learned much from her, navigating SkyTrain, buses, and taxis, as well as occupying her futon and checking out her favorite restaurants.

I was supposed to leave for home on Thursday at noon, and arrived at the airport in plenty of time, only to find that all of the self-check-in terminals in the airport were not working.  Line-ups to check in, even without baggage, became exponentially long ... and as I neared the front of the line, the agents were calling out "12 o'clock? 12 o'clock?"  When I got to an agent, she told me that check-in was closed for my flight. I'm not sure what kind of look my face produced (I try not to say the first thing that comes out of my mouth), but the last few of us did get through that checkpoint, security, and scooted down to our gate to wait. And wait. And wait.  Bad weather.  When they finally got word that they could fly, we had to wait for the crew to arrive (I was taking no chances, as it was already much later ... so I grabbed some lunch from Tim Horton's). Once the crew was there, the weather had gone from fair to bad to worse, and we all got e-mails saying our flight was cancelled, just as it was announced over the PA system. Passengers looked at each other with disbelief (especially those of us who had just made it through check-in by the skin of our teeth), and wandered off to make arrangements for the rest of the day and night.  Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7 am Friday morning.

Off on an unexpected adventure ... rode the SkyTrain back into Vancouver, phoned transit to find out where to connect with the appropriate bus, wandered the opposite direction for several blocks uphill dragging my wheeled carry-on bag ... and finally asked a bus driver at one of the stops where the correct intersection was.  (Well, transit had said "go up to Hastings and something else" -- I forget now what the other street was -- I just assumed that "up" and "uphill" meant the same thing.)  I did find the street where I had caught the bus on previous trips, but there was construction there, so I know that couldn't have been where they were sending me.  Hopped on the bus, rode out to the Stanley Park loop, and occupied time in the volunteer office until my friend was done for the day.  We had just been commenting that morning how our visits are always too short, so it was nice to have another evening together.

What wasn't as nice was leaving at 5:30 am to get to the airport ... going through the line because I had no check-in number for the nice terminals that were now working, and getting to the agents who were calling out 7:00! 7:00! and being told yet again that they thought the flight was now closed.  I'm sure the atmosphere inside the airport must have chilled a few degrees or perhaps heated up, as those of us who had been rescheduled eyed the agents with looks that said "fix this."  Once again, we trotted briskly down to security and off to our gate, where there was no waiting at all ... we lifted off, and were back in the Okanagan in no time flat.  Adventure over ... and back to reality.

So my carefree week was followed by the busy week with the grade 3 class, and then "hurray! Spring break!"  I'm still trying to figure out where my break is, as I've been de-cluttering at home, fitting in a few hours of work at New Hope, teaching Sunday School for Palm Sunday and Easter, and doing more preparation for the school program at O'Keefe Ranch.  I discovered how expensive it is to mail 26 envelopes of information to that many schools (almost $50!), and vowed that next year, I will have everything on computer and able to be sent by e-mail. I am not the most tech-savvy person of my generation (as my children will attest), but I am dragging the school program into the 21st Century (at least, in terms of scheduling), with a Gmail address and a Google calendar so that I can schedule and check dates and communicate with teachers wherever I am.  It's so much easier than trying to catch other teachers on their recess and lunch breaks, between supervision and meetings, when I am in schools myself, following the same crazy schedule. If only all schools had breaks at the same hour of the day ... well, there would be less telephone tag. And I really don't like getting "work" phone calls at the end of the day when I get home.

I am even more excited about the school program and summer day-camps at the Ranch as the time draws nearer.  I love being in a place where the work is fun, and where I can wear a costume, tell stories, and go behind the ropes in the displays.  I like having a nametag that says "Historic O'Keefe Ranch" and "Karen Bouchard" underneath it. "My" ranch is, for me, the very best place to work ... where the best part is doing the job (and not merely getting the paycheck).

And just in case you were left wondering, my doctor in Vancouver was pleased with my health and just advised that I also see a local respirologist about my pulmonary fibrosis annually as well.

That's it for this month's episode of "life in the fast lane!"

Something New, Somewhere Old

For the past 4 or 5 years, I have been a member of the staff of the Historic O'Keefe Ranch, located just outside of Vernon, in the rural municipality of Spallumcheen.  This all began when I read through the Help Wanted ads at the end of the summer of 2011, and noticed that O'Keefe Ranch was looking for "mature interpreters."  Since it was more than 25 years since I finished university, I thought that perhaps I might be approaching maturity, so I applied for the job.  Much to my surprise, I started working a few days later.  The first day I shadowed the university students who would be leaving soon; the second day, I was beginning to share the stories on the O'Keefe mansion tours, and by the third day, I was doing tours on my own (shaking in my shoes under my long Victorian skirt).

I quickly grew to love the ranch, the history, and the people.  I happily rejoined the staff the following spring, and cleaned bathrooms, dusted and swept behind the scenes, and cleaned a lot of windows ... all of that made giving tours even more special. I learned the ropes of the General Store tour and could tell about the artifacts for the many school field trips that visited, while selling great quantities of old-fashioned candy. At times I could also be found at the front desk, ringing admissions and purchases into the cash register.

As the years continued, I also began doing the occasional Victorian school lesson, in the little Balmoral schoolhouse, brought to the ranch in the later 20th century to preserve it with other historic buildings.  On their field trips, students visit the school, sit in old desks, learn "the 3 Rs" and practice using a slate and manners from days gone by.  Each part of the ranch added more to my experience and knowledge of its history.

So we come to 2016, as I take up the reins of the School Program and begin to coordinate the field trip visits. The previous school program coordinator had been with the ranch for over 25 years, and her retirement left some big shoes to fill. My "biography" is now on the O'Keefe Ranch website, and since I wrote it myself, I'll share it here as well.

Karen BouchardSchool Program Coordinator 

Karen Bouchard has worked as a historical interpreter at O'Keefe Ranch since 2011, fulfilling childhood dreams of being a historian, linguist, teacher, and writer.  She was born in Vernon, moved around with her parents for 14 years, and returned to live in the Vernon area in 1981. Karen brings her 30+ years of experience as a teacher-on-call in School District 22 to the school program in the Balmoral Schoolhouse.  She has also worked in clerical positions for several non-profit organizations, and sneaks around the ranch offices, trying to proofread materials before they are published.  "Mrs. B" looks forward to the challenge of coordinating the school program, which she knows she will enjoy. "Working at O'Keefe Ranch is my favourite job ever, because I get to dress up in costume and tell stories."

 I began today with enthusiasm, replying to emails from teachers planning their pioneer lessons in the months of May and June.  I've also set up my school program email address, and put all the school tours into a Google calendar, so I can answer emails and set up field trips in the calendar from home, or wherever else I may be.  The next big job will be sending out all the pre-visit materials by mail, but I will take some time to do thisduring the Vernon School District's spring break in March (when I won't be on-call to teach). There are slates and slate pencils to order, souvenir pencils to sharpen, photocopies to make, and contacts to strengthen, both with teachers and with the new BC curriculum.  

I am excited about the next few months and the adventures that will happen along the way.

2015

 2011 - The story begins for a "mature interpreter"

 2012 - Work is never done, for a Victorian housewife.

2014 - Taking part in one of the O'Keefe Ranch famous Murder Mysteries ... as the schoolteacher.