It鈥檚 good news to have my old type writing machine working again. It鈥檚 like me, it鈥檚 hard to get parts anymore. Thanks to Spee Dee Stationery in Smithers and 亚洲天堂 Lake printers, they are very helpful to me. A big thanks.

Music fest

We had a Grassy Plains music summer festival. This is good news for all the music lovers. This will be great news and should be good. I just phoned Renay of the very popular June Bug singers from Calgary. They are busy at the time doing more recordings. They will miss Grassy Plains and hope next year they may come up. I sure would like them to come up again.

Special day

Yesterday was my late wife鈥檚 birthday. So as a family we went to our 亚洲天堂 Lake cemetery with flowers for Josephine Marie a wonderful wife and mother. The grounds are so well cared for it鈥檚 a pleasure to visit. And all in all what a scenic location. It鈥檚 a pride to the town.

Renos

There are some more renovations at the Francois Lake Hall. There have always been extra chairs, tables, benches and other things taking up floor space so it was decided to put up an addition on the main building to safely store these things. It鈥檚 needed in the worst way. Now there will be more floor space. The hall has come along way through the many years. A man stopped to visit today and he had just been in the hall and he said the whole interior is lovely, bright and what a pleasure to visit. Lots of work has gone into it but it鈥檚 been well worth it. We are all very proud of it. This summer there is going to be a complete sound system installed in the hall. This will make it a lot easier for visiting bands and also music groups that may come through to entertain. Up to now they have had to supply their own sound system and this makes it more difficult to set up. This had been needed for many years and now it鈥檚 coming. This will also make it much easier to rent the hall out.

Hay

The ranchers need the hot weather for haying but sometimes it鈥檚 a little too hot. Last week some hay makers have had to work night shifts as the hay is just too dry to bale, it blows away. There is not as heavy a hay crop as they had expected so every bale counts. Remember it鈥檚 their living. How well I think of those many years haying with horses. It was hard work from start to finish. Granted the cost was down but the hard work sure make up for it. Those 100 pound wire bales sure used to get heavy at the end of the day. Those big round bales have pretty well taken over.

Warm water

This is something to record and that鈥檚 folks are swimming in Francois Lake. It鈥檚 been a long time since this came about. Years ago we always used to swim right beside the ferry dock. They report the water is very comfortable once you get in.

Looking back in my memory bank a little story. We had a steal gray saddle horse, he was pretty as a picture. Our daughter Marie used to ride him a lot and she found out Smoky liked to swim. So she would put on her bathing suit and jumped on him bare back and they would swim around the ferry dock. I think Smoky would swim the lake if he had the chance. Marie鈥檚 mother used to worry that Smoky just might take the bit in his mouth and swim the lake with Marie on him. That never happened thank heavens.

During the many years we were in the tourist trade we met some wonderful folks that remained our friends for many years.

A number of them came from Prince Rupert. The roads were far from good. Friends would still come year after year. We had boats and saddle horses for trail rides which went over big time.

I well remember a couple from Rupert who came up to the lake for many years. The lady wanted to swim the lake so one morning when the lake was calm she took off.

Her husband followed her in a row boat. She not only swam to the Southside she swam back to the landing. She said that in the middle of the lake there was a very strong current which made swimming a bit difficult. As far as I know this lady was the only one to swim Francois Lake. We always figured the lake as two and a third miles from dock to dock so over and back was a long swim.

Fire & smoke

On Tuesday late afternoon some smoke drifted into town and then on Francois Lake they really had the smoke drift in. One lady from the Southside told me you could not see across the lake, the smoke was so heavy. My son Mark on the Brown Road said the ash from the park fire just covered his pickup. This park fire must be huge by all reports. It鈥檚 very distressing when you think of the terrible damage of a fire this huge. Not only the trees but the little animals that can鈥檛 get away. A question what is the worst fires or floods? A good question.

I hope with my  next weeks viewpoint we have some good news on the fires.

A little joke

It was a labour day weekend and a guy was roasting a chicken on his rotisserie. He began to hand crank it to make sure it would be evenly done. It was getting golden brown on the juices had begun to run and some flames began to lick the chicken as he turned it. Just then a drunk stumbled into the yard and looked at the scene and explained 鈥渉ey buddy not only is your music box not making any music but your monkey is on fire.鈥�

A thought for the day

To make this world a happy place to live you had better change yourself, your heart, not the world.

Take care, have a safe and happy day and remember always God loves you a lot and so do I.

The highlight of my week was to watch the Calgary Stampede on the TV. Although we were not that far from Calgary we never got there to see it.