Toronto Pictures

Following are a few pictures from Evie and my trip to Toronto a week ago. The first picture is made up of three pictures.

Surprise Delivered

This weekend, to the surprise of my parents, Evie and I have been in Toronto. They did not know we were going to be in town until they arrived for dinner at the Royal York's Epic Restaurant.

The surprise started in May when we received a letter from Sue, Ron Sears’ wife, informing us of a surprise birthday for Ron who was turning 70 this weekend. With Dad’s birthday being one day removed from his baby brother we decided to do something for Dad. The last time I was able to do anything special for my father’s birthday was in 1984 when I took him to a Blue Jay game. Since then we have not been around for his birthday. Attending Ron’s party and surprising dad seemed to be a great idea.

Cathy hosts each year after Christmas a family reunion. The last one we attended was in December 1999 when my position allowed me to be away between Christmas and New Years. With Evie having a job where she cannot take a day off between Christmas and New Year, and with my office having to be staffed from December 26 through New Years, I not able to get away for more than a day. Henbce we cannot attend the reunion.

With sufficient notice and the date is free of other events, attending summer events are possible. This past May’s event was not possible as it fell on the weekend Josh was flying to Texas and the weekend of Jonathan’s engagement party. This particular weekend was free of all conflicts and we would not have to be concerned about snow across the Penn Turnpike or along the shore of Lake Erie as we do in winter.

Evie and I offered to pay for Mom and Dad to stay Friday night at a hotel in Toronto so as to allow them to travel from up from London the Friday before Ron’s birthday instead of traveling both ways on the same day. We booked them into the Royal York, the grand dame of Toronto’s high end hotels, and where the Queen stays when she is in town. We also told them that we had arranged for them to have dinner at Epic, a classy restaurant in the hotel.

We withheld from them that we planned to be there too. I explained to a Royal York official what I was doing and why, that it was a surprise for my parents and that they would not know that we were there until dinner. The hotel not only assigned them to a room on the 15th floor, one of the premium floors with its own elevator, and a room with a lake view, but they also sent them a fruit and cheese basket. The staff of the Royal York was wonderful.

Evie and I took Friday as a personal day. We left Washington at 3:30 Thursday and traveled party way that night. We arrived at the Royal York early Friday afternoon, just an hour or so before Dad and Mom, and made sure their room was on our card. For us, the rest of the afternoon was spent touring the waterfront. We learned later that when Dad and Mom arrived they spent time walking around the area where Dad spent about 40 years of his professional life. Apparently on the way into town they went looking for the homes where Mom lived, and they took a picture of the home in which she was born. I think it was great for them to reconnect and recall their past.

For Evie and I it was a gratifying surprise to deliver. We shared a lovely quiet dinner with Mom and Day. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast together before heading to Cheryl’s home for Ron’s surprise party. It was also great to see my uncle and aunt Eva, and a host of cousins. Between Saturday and the trip in July I have been able to visit with each of my siblings.

As I write this it is Saturday night and Evie and I are in North East PA. In the morning we will to travel home and hope to get to Maryland before the heavy home bound traffic coming out of the mountains of Maryland. No doubt by the time we get home we will be an exhausted from the long and quick trip, but it will be a satisfying exhaustion.

Public Education Is Not A Republican Priority

Falling housing prices, lower tax revenues are forcing state, local governments and school boards to cut expenses. Towns are turning off the neighborhood street lights, closing pools, playgrounds, parks, and libraries, limiting the distance a police car can drive in a day or sit idling. Fire stations are being closed, or rotating fire department station closing from day to day which Philadelphia is doing (three different stations in the day and three in the evening). Roads badly needing repaving are not only not being repaved, but towns and counties are taking the cheaper option of removing the asphalt and turning the road back into a low cost maintenance gravel road.

With schools across the country opening this month, 116,000+ teachers who were in the classroom last year have been told that their positions were eliminated as if there were not funding. Today the Democrats House of Representatives with the support of a handful of Republicans passed a bill which the President signed three hours later to save teachers jobs.

The same bill provides four months of Medicaid expenses for medical expenses of those who are low-income and the unemployed. States would be funding Medicaid without federal funding but in the process states would be laying off tens of thousands of fire fighters and police officers. The funding allows States to provide medical care without laying-off public safety personnel.

It would seem that the bill would have strong Republican support. Instead the Republican leadership said keeping teachers employed was a waste of money. One Republican leader pontificated that schools, local and state governments have been blotted for decades and it is time to downsize them all and thereby once again demonstrating that the Republican championing that they are compassionate conservatives is disingenuous and empty marketing. The Republicans politicians and their dominant deep pocket contributors are more than happy to substantially increase public school class sizes while sending their own children to private schools. For a party that boasts to be the party of Lincoln, this position is a far cry from where Lincoln stood on education...though he was self educated he advocated for a strong public education system for all citizens.

To keep police on the street, the majority of the Republicans in the House would have been happier to remove the expectation that States are required to fund Medicare and care for their poor citizens so are not concerned about healthcare of the common worker.

The costs of the bill are being paid by closing loop-holes that have allowed American based companies not to have to pay taxes on money earned oversees which the average citizen is not allowed to do and which have encouraged them to move jobs to other countries. By calling this bill a wasteful special interest bill the Republicans are indicating that they lack of interest in the needs and priorities of the middle class.

I am one independent voter who is quickly seeing that the Republican Party party is not fit to govern, that regardless of what their slogans and soundbits may claim, they lacks compassion for the blight of the avearage citizen and undermining the value and strength of the middle class.

2010 Crossmen Show

Following is the link to the 2010 Allenton Crossmen show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErnhxJZ96Vo

Pre-Performance Work

Following is a clip that gives you an idea of what takes place ahead of each performance a DCI Corps undertakes. The caravan here is representative...for the Crossmen to vehicles are missing, the souveneir truck and trailer, and the volunteer van.

Josh is seen several times in this clip, once early as he walks towards the camera in yellow/gold shorts.

After the show, all the equipment is packed up, they change, they hang out and eat, take in the remainder of the show and then leave for the area of the next show...and sleeping on the bus and then on a gymn floor when they arrive between 2 and 6 AM in the morning.