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Dan and I are feeling a bit lonely here so far so I hope some of you lurkers will roll up your sleeves and start spouting your BC-tinged thoughts. We have contacted a number of you directly to become contributors and I half expected to see something by Chuck Davis here this morning but I guess he's still mulling. In order to contribute you have to set up a Google Account if you don't have one, fit yourself out with a likely Nom-de-Blog, and fire away. Just provide a summary of the latest work you've been doing if you can't think of anything else. I myself am doing family history. I know that's all I ever do, but this time I mean my own family. Practically the first thing I ever wrote in Raincoast Chronicles was a little oral history about my dad, Frank White (above left, with great grandson Sam Plant,) driving logging trucks and I had so much fun with it (it won several prizes and really got me started on that line of writing) I resolved to get back to him and record the rest of his (extra) ordinary life. He was born at Aldergrove in the opening year of WWI and remembers his father taking him outside during the Great Silver Thaw of 1919 and directing his attention to the fusillade of tree limbs popping and cracking, saying it was "the Germans coming." Well, it's only taken 34 years to resume that thread. Fortunately he has been very patient, keeping himself alive until the age of 94 but it occurs to me if I'm ever going to do more with him I better do it NOW. So I have been visiting him on weekends and taping him and it is just amazing how much I am learning about this man I thought I knew everything about. He and his logger buddies used to hunt basking sharks for sport off Nanaimo, using a speedboat and homemade spear, during the bad old days when basking sharks were considered a nuisance best exterminated. He avoided being sent off to WWII by accosting A. M. Manson "the hanging judge" on the street and making a special plea to be allowed to continue operating his log-hauling business at Palmer Bay. The judge (who was serving on the draft board) at first thought he was being attacked by one of his numerous legal victims, but recovered and told Dad to get back to work and not worry about the callup, he'd see to it he got a deferral. The old curmudgeon was as good as his word and dad kept busily producing war materials for the duration. Once I get some of his stories into finished form I will post an excerpt or two here. Hopefully we will get him into print while he is still around and able to appreciate it. Luckily I have a pretty good in with a publisher.

Labels: HISTORY, PEOPLE

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