I was busy teaching web marketing classes last month at BCIT in Vancouver and also Brighton College right in my backyard at Central City in Surrey. Brighton’s campus is located right above my favourite hangout, the Central City Brew Pub.
Read The Brighton College Surrey Campus blog post about my class
Jessica Hurford, who writes for the Brighton College Blog sat in on one of my classes and we had lots of fun that day looking at Viral Videos and taking about Hootsuite. She took some photos of me teaching and I’m excited to share Jessica’s Brighton College blog post with you here… Check it out!
Looking for some Hawai’i travel/adventure advice for the islands of Oahu and Kauai!
Next month Fatima and I are heading to Hawai’i for the first time! We’ve got 10 days and will spend half the time in Oahu and half in Kauai. We’re up for just about anything. We want to do some exploring out in the rural areas as well as beaches / resorts.
We’re open to staying at some Bed & Breakfasts and unconventional places, in other words ADVENTURE! So if you have any stories or suggestions on awesome things, people or places to visit please let me know by commenting below!
Dad tells the story of his 1952 high school grad road trip across the USA in a 1936 Chevy Straight-6 with his buddy Doug. One of their first stops was New Orleans for an experience they could never forget!
He says their visit to Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans was the first time he and Doug (a couple of small town country bumpkins) had seen a nude ‘girlie show’ but it turns out they weren’t exactly girls but in fact New Orleans drag queens! They had no idea what that was at the time!
Listen to his hilarious account… keep in mind he’s telling it from the perspective of a 1950′s country boy, so please forgive some of the language he uses.
The Story Continues!
After I showed him this video, Dad’s youngest brother told me the part of the story Dad left out: Dad brought back some girlie photos (of topless women) from New Orleans but when he was moving out to get married he gave them to this younger brother (11 years old at the time! LOL). Their father later found them and boy was he pissed at Dad! Too funny! Reminds me of The Wonder Years!
(Here’s a photo of Dad [right] and his youngest brother on the family farm circa 1952.)
By the way, during Dad’s trip across the USA with Doug they wrote letters home to the local newspaper, The Williamston Enterprise. I plan to publish them all here so stay tuned. Lots more interviews with Dad as well!
My father was born in 1933 and grew up on a farm in Williamston, Michigan during the Great Depression. His family didn’t have much money, but nobody did back then. His mother died when he was 13. He was the eldest of two brothers. Since his father was busy as a probate judge in town, he was responsible for most of the parental and farming duties. These had him getting up before sunrise to milk the cows and such before school.
For most of his childhood they had no electricity or running water. This meant putting on your jacket in the middle of the night to go outside and take a whizz, or much worse. They used Sears catalogs because they couldn’t afford toilet paper.
Dad talks about this life in the video above. It was filmed in his hospital room on my iPhone, which has a decent camera but it’s not perfect, and a little shaky.
References
I’ve provided some references below to some of the things he talks about.
(Crystal Set Radio Ad from Sears Catalog. Image Source. A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set or cat’s whisker receiver, is a very simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It needs no battery or power source and runs on the power received from radio waves by a long wire antenna. It gets its name from its most important component, known as a crystal detector, originally made with a piece of crystalline mineral such as galena. This component is now called a diode. More…)
Early Television
(A family sitting around the glowing television in 1951. This is how I picture Dad’s family back then, except with his step mother crying in the adjacent bedroom. Image Source. )
(Jan Sterling, this stunning actress from the 1950s is just the type of blasphemous harlot that Dad’s stepmom must have lost many a night’s sleep over consumed with rage while the boys gathered ’round the Boob Tube. Now I know why it’s called the “Boob Tube” LOL! Image Source.)
Update:
I looked up this ‘Maranatha’ where he mentions his mother went and it turns out to be a place in Muskegon, Michigan which hosts the Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference. This is how it is described:
“Maranatha provides spiritual renewal in a recreational setting emphasizing Bible teaching and worldwide missions. Maranatha is an 88+ acre vacation spot and retreat center located on Lake Michigan.
We are a conservative, evangelical vacation destination, conference center and resident community where guests and residents Vacation and Retreat with Purpose.” – so probably the worst place for her to be at the time of his television purchase.
