Thousand Islands summer fun
A summer luncheon
It’s funny how often when you meet people, you enjoy their company but sometimes know very little about them (or only superficially) for the longest time. It’s easy to miss out on knowing some really interesting history or accomplishments in their past by keeping the conversation light or just current. The few times I accidentally came across what I found out were fascinating people or experiences I have cherished it and felt quite privileged.
Like the time I in avertedly met and chatted with a Billionaire. Yes he is a man like the rest of us but a conversation with him was like no other. A real one off for me, even if I had stars in my eyes. I wrote about it HERE in The Epistle. Just scroll down to “Welcome to our modest abode”
Another time we were invited to an undisclosed location for dinner where we met another couple where one of them was a Supreme Court justice. (Am I sounding vague?) Don’t think that would not have been a great story for The Epistle but I was asked not to write about it so I didn’t. I would love to tell you much more, but then, I would have to kill you.
This month, we had friends visit. She is the editor or our local Thousand Island Life magazine, and has humored me by publishing a few articles I have written in the past. Her husband, Marceli, a real gentleman’s gentleman always shows up dressed in a dinner jacket, his idea of river casual. Not a prolific conversationalist, he comments when it counts and sets an example for the rest of us that perhaps we should listen more and talk less. I had a feeling that there was much more to this fellow than I knew and later found out that yes, indeed there was.
Turns out that he was four years old when World War II started. He was a Jewish-born ‘hidden child’ who was handed over to an unknown Catholic family before the Krakow ghetto (in Poland) was eliminated in 1943. His 14 year old brother was shot by the Nazis but his father survived the Auschwitz death camp as number 5 on Schindler’s List 👈. His mother did not survive.
Marceli retired in 1985 from the National Research Council of Canada. He received his Ph.D. degree in physics from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He wrote about light hearted dinner conversation topics like “Facsimile and areal integration for weather radar”. 😏
· 👉Schindler’s list. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist, credited with saving 1200 of his Jewish employees during the Second World War, keeping them from ending up in the gas chambers in Auschwitz and Dachau. We have visited both sites as well as have gone the Schindler factory which still exists. In 23 years of writing the Epistle, I have never recommended a movie before now. “Schindler’s List” is a must see. If you do see it, remember that one of the little boys handed off portrays Marceli, and # 5 on Schindler’s list was his dad. They both survived and were accepted as Canadian refugees in 1952.
Potty talk
You know it has to be a slow month around here when we have to resort to write about our toilet. Really. Well you would have a thing or two to say about it if you went without one for 10 days also.
One of the unique things about island life is that some systems run differently than what you have in town. Like waste management. And I am not talking about your kitchen sink food disposer either. For years, we had a holding tank that we had pumped out twice a season. When it started to rust out we had to replace it with a composting system. Without getting into the weeds, it has a vacuum pump just like on the big cruisers that macerates the waste into a tank for it to turn into compost. Fair enough. Until like all mechanical devices, when it doesn't anymore.
Call the vacuum pump repairman, right? Good luck with that. It took us a week to find one locally, and 3 days to get him out to do the deed. Janice was a rock star putting up with it all. So seriously, what do you do for 10 days when your toilet is on the fritz? Don't invite anyone over and pretend you are camping.
Not getting deployed?
I have been asked by a few folks if I was going to get deployed to Hawaii after the big fires. While I am ready to go on a moment's notice, I suspect it is unlikely to happen. Team Rubicon is set up to help after a disaster. But there has to be something productive and helpful we can do. Are there any trees blocking the roads preventing first responder's access that we could make short work of? No they are all burned down. Any homes we can patch up to get people back in? No, they are all burned down to the ground. Any roofs we can cover to keep the rain out? What roofs? You get the idea. We have nothing to work with so we don't want to get in the way.
