Half Way There from guest blogger, D.J. McGowan
I was going to continue my theme about movies/stories/ entertainment
this week but I saw a post from my son that I liked very much and asked if I
could post it here. He agreed.
Despite all the lock-downs, deaths and over-loaded hospitals the world
has been experiencing over the last few months we still hear/see statements
made that this is all a conspiracy of the “one world government”.
Give your head a shake; at government meetings even allies can’t even
agree on what coffee will be served. If they do agree it’s because they made
some concession on another subject.
As a result I found the following post by Douglas J. McGowan to be interesting,
entertaining and timely.
Doug worked in retail for a couple of years before joining the Canadian
Army. He was with the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, the R.C.A.F.
as a meteorologist, and retired from the Royal Engineers as a Master Corporal.
He presently traverses Western Canada as a Commercial Driver.
Below his picture is his “half way there” post.
Ok friends, we’re
about half way there. I spent a lot of time with my grandpa when I was little,
he never spoke much, but one thing he did let me know was when we were half way
there.
Grandpa Royal watched his dad die of a heart attack on the
kitchen table when he was 11. To support his mother and two sisters he went to
work running the horse teams skidding logs to clear all those beautiful back
roads in the Blue Mountains of Ontario we all take for granted. Then he’d come
home to the farm and do chores.
Mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was 7, and I lost her
at 9. She spent a lot of that time in hospital, and I spent a lot of that time
with my grandpa.
Now 50 years after he himself was that young boy working in
the bush, I was there, and grandpa had left the horse teams for an antique JD
caterpillar that he always kept well painted and clean.
When my age was still in the single digits, I had learned to
stand well away from that steel cable under tension when he was winching out a
log. It was a good thick cable that would most likely never snap in another 50
years, and I don’t think it ever did, but he taught me to stand back and
knowing an 8 year old child probably had about the same patience as a young
colt, he’d always tell me when we were half way to getting the log out, and
half way to the total time I needed to remain in the safe area. I was also
always told which field had the bull in it. It’s not that I ever was afraid of
anything, it was just that obeying grandpa was the right thing to do.
Ten years later when I went to the Infantry, I learned not
to step over a log when scouting, and not to put a mag on or a round in the
chamber until the RSO told me to, and I checked my fire when the Umpire Staff
told me to. It was made clear to me some decisions weren’t mine to make. The
probability of anything happening was negligible, but to obey was the right
thing to do.
Now I wear my H2S monitor on lease sites and at loading
Plants. I sit in my cab and fill out my Last Minute Risk Assessment, and if the
site boss tells me to walk around in my sock feet, well, I walk around in my
sock feet.
We’re about half way there folks - we still have to get the
work done. The firewood has to be got, our level of capability has to be
maintained, and productivity needs to be supported, but let’s do all we can as
individuals to control our environment and keep others safe, because it’s the
right thing to do.
