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IN THIS ISSUE

• Zvonko Springer concludes his story about working on the railroad
• Peter Weatherby comments on Dixie Augusteijn´s last letter
• Dick Monaghan is surprised to find he has a very high IQ
• Geoff Goodship proposes a step towards avoiding climate change
• Kinga de Muinck and Bruce Galway forward a story about a concert
• Tom Kyle sends the story of the pastor´s new teeth
• Betty Audet, Bill McNair, and Jack Peaker recommend sites

Zvonko Springer comes to the end of his story about his part in

BUILDING A NEW NATION

The camp was hit by a storm and rain downpour on a night late in August. The old US army tent material was not impermeable and it rained through in a fine spray everywhere. This was a perfect chance to have a shower so I filled the rucksack with dry clothes and ran out in the summer downpour for a shower. Several others took this opportunity to wash thoroughly for the first and only time.

Next morning we noticed that the rain had washed out the compacted earth fill at some places and there were several gullies that had drained the overflow. It became obvious to us that drains would be needed to keep the earthwork safe in the future. The intense heat had gone with this first rain after 50 days of our stay here and there was not so much dust as before.

A few days after this downpour, the rumour that we would be leaving soon coincided with fresh greenery sprouting on the parched soil. The proof of the rumours came up to with the bundles of blue uniforms and sacks full of boots that were brought to the camp´s stores. A day after, the commander announced during morning roll call that it would be our last day of work at the site and we should collect tools and bring them to the camp. Tomorrow the camp has to be cleaned and everything put in order prior to our leaving. Also we should collect new uniforms and boots that were presented by the Government for our selfless and voluntary work on the construction of the railway Brcko Banovici.

On my way to stores to pick up the uniform and boots, Djuka Vilovic asked me to step aside for a talk. Djuka was the brigade´s political commissar, alias "Politico", and an old-time Partisan who was also the chief of political education during the war. Djuka was a colleague of mine, but he never talked to us in public and I had not seen him working with us.

When we were alone, Djuka said: "Do you know why I want to talk to you?" I replied negatively but felt that it must be something of importance to me if a politico wanted to talk to me in private. Djuka told me he was watching since the beginning of work here and he knew I was trying hard to fulfill my tasks day by day. My performance was a very good one, and in particular, I never did stop working, which could not be said for most of the other comrades.

Djuka continued, saying that many of them were praised for their performances but I was never mentioned individually for my good work. "Do you know why?" I answered: "Yes, I was an officer of the Croatian Army that fought against the Partisans. I surrendered to the Yugoslav Army on May 15, 1945. After the Amnesty I was released from a POW´s camp to become a loyal citizen of the new state."

Djuka was a little bit taken aback by my answer but smiled and said: "Zvonko, I know everything about you as well as about your survival in the march from Slovenj Gradec to Osijek. Let´s forget it now. I would like you to continue your study without hindrance in the future." He explained that the Party Committee originally wanted me to be expelled from the brigade, thus preventing the continuation of my studies. However, Djuka had convinced them that I should be proclaimed a "spear worker" due to my exceptional performance, but as this was not "practical," I should be named a "praised worker" at least. So it happened at the evening roll call that I got the "Blue Badge" and my name was read aloud in the list of praised workers.

The last campfire lasted long into the night and there were speeches by the brigade commander and few more charges, as well as lot of singing and dancing. I stood in the fire´s shadow when Pavel, a co- worker, approached me, congratulating me on the blue badge pinned to the new blouse. He was not envious of me because he did not get one, nor was he mentioned in the list of other comrades. He also was an officer of the former Croatian Army, but he got into the brigade only to be dismissed as a dishonored student who would not be allowed to continue his studies. He also said that I was supposed to be the other one of the two that were chosen for this purpose when the Brigade was set up in Zagreb three months ago. I knew that Pavel was telling me the truth and we continued talking about our futures under our different circumstances.

Next morning, trucks arrived and drove us back to Zivinice and to the railway station at Lukavac, where we were supposed to board any train to bring us back to our homes. Unfortunately, there was no train due to Brcko and to Vinkovci until the coming night. So we had to wait several hours when a passenger train arrived at 10 p.m. We tried to board this train but the conductors refused to let us in as it was full, and because of us looking "wild and unkempt", they said. Nevertheless, we forced entry to several wagons (wild bunch!) where the passengers were pleased to help and to talk to these wild-looking students - heroes of voluntary work of building the new nation. I was back home next morning again walking slowly the same path as the one a year ago after I was released from the POW camp on August 14, 1945.

A lot of changes had happened since then, but I had a good feeling now that I would finish my studies after all. I was greeted enthusiastically by my family, except for our Doberman "Peggy", flashing her teeth and barking viciously at this strange-smelling person dressed in a uniform. It did not last long as Peggy was appeased after I cuddled her and she recognized my voice at last. After a leisurely bath and mother´s breakfast, I went to my waiting bed for a long sleep. The next day a barber made me a good-looking young man despite being lean and tanned again. Soon I would be going to Zagreb to enrol the second year of CE study of year 1946/7.

CORRESPONDENCE

Peter Weatherby comments on a letter in last week´s issue:

Reading Dixie Augustjein´s "The Christmas Concert" and Jean´s comments made me think of WHY the Christmas season holds little joy for this "oldie" anymore. I think there are at least two reasons:

(1) The furious onslaught of commercial interests that demand we spend spend spend ever more on "stuff". Christmas has become a materialistic feeding frenzy instead of the season of peace and goodwill it was meant to be.

(2) We have become a society of mobility - nobody stays in the same place anymore. Families have broken up into smaller enclaves that are strewn all over North America, with many divorces and remarriages and in-laws. As a result, many of us oldies find ourselves alone at Christmas.

Unfortunately I don´t have an answer to Jean´s question: how to recapture some of the lost joys of Christmas past? For myself, I will pour me a stiff Scotch and soda, read about the Christmas trip of Mr. Pickwick and friends to Dingley Dell in Dickens´ "Pickwick Papers", and listen to some old and well-loved carols sung by the choir of Christ College, Cambridge.

ED. NOTE: Speaking of acquiring even more "stuff", have you considered giving a different kind of gift to the person who has everything? World Vision and CHF (Canadian Hunger Foundation) have gift catalogues online from which you can choose items to be sent to less-fortunate people. Not only do you get Christmas cards to send to your recipients, but you get tax credits for those gifts. This year I gave away two goats and stocked a medical clinic, and I am sure my family will be just as happy knowing that these have been given in their name as they would have been with what I would otherwise have sent them.

Dick Monaghan reacts to his high score in

AN IQ TEST

Did you know I have an IQ of 160? I didn´t know it either, until I got an IQ test from the internet, which means it must be reliable.

The test consisted of the rotating silhouette of a ballet dancer. I saw it initially as rotating clockwise, and was informed that meant I was using the right side of my brain; if it had been going around the other way, it would mean my left brain was dominant. Then it said that if I could see it going both ways, I had an IQ of 160. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them, it was going counter-clockwise!

Hot damn! I figure if I take that information and $3.50 to Starbucks, I can get a caramel latte! Actually, I´m wondering when the bounties of nature will ever stop - I also have naturally curly hair and both of my thumbs are double jointed! (I can entertain people for minutes making my thumbs do funny things.)

I wish I´d known about the IQ thing earlier. I would have asked for higher wages. (My real IQ was established many years ago. My parents were assured I would probably learn to tie my own shoes, unless the other high school students laughed at me.)

Maybe it´s just sour grapes, but I don´t think IQ numbers tell us very much. If all you know about two containers is that one is bigger than the other, you don´t have enough information to say which is better.

I´m not going to complain, though. I´ll use the ballerina test outcome to brag it up at the coffee house I walk to most mornings. I´m tired of being outclassed by guys who won WWII single-handed, or were on the short list for a Nobel prize.

Geoff Goodship is overwhelmed by

THE GLOBAL WARMING BLUES

"84% of Seniors still drive their own cars and most use their cars 5-6 times a week."

That´s the headline in the local paper some weeks ago, the result of an extensive survey in the 55+ community. I´m in that 84%. These figures were sloshing around in my brain as I listened to a CBC story about efforts of a young lady in Uganda do her part to reduce global warming. With a beautiful rich African accent, she explained that she turned off her radio unless she was listening to a special program, and to save her personal energy she carried two pails instead of one to the community water pump.

My daughter phoned while I was thinking about the Ugandan lady. She wanted to know how we managed without an electric dryer when I was a child. I explained that when I was growing up I didn´t pay much attention to how or if my clothes were dried. She then announced that her contribution to our greener world was that she was going to learn how to manage her household and family without a dryer. By this time I´m starting to feel like a power- water- and gas-wasting global warming denyer. I´m not about to fetch water in pails, do without a dryer or give up my car, but what can I do beside turning off the light as I leave a room?

The questions stayed with me until the day I dropped in to see the local newspaper publisher about that survey in her paper. "When is the last time you rode a city bus?" I started. "Never," she replied. It was then that the IDEA popped out.

Right there in her office, the Ride a Bus Once a Month Club was born. Now, two bus rides and two months later, I´m committed. This has become one of my small personal contributions to the problem of global warming. So far the Once a Month Bus Club only has one member, but I thought I might find a few new members among the Tale Spinner´s readers. I´ve had an attractive Club Membership Card designed. It´s yours (via email) for the asking.

Now think about it for a moment. If 84% of us begin to ride the bus, even once a month, it´s likely the bus service will improve. There will be more free parking spaces downtown and less need to create new ones. It´s doing our part, something we can do. Perhaps our small demonstrative effort will spill over to our more idealistic younger generation, who have more to fear and more to lose from global warming and greenhouse gases.

I realize I shall find few new members from big city dwellers who normally ride the bus. Nevertheless, we all know someone who could join the Ride a Bus Once a Month Club. Are there any Club Members among Tale Spinner readers?

Sheila Laidlaw writes: After reading Dixie´s comments about Christmas concerts, I thought that you and she would enjoy this message I just received from a friend in Saskatchewan. Here´s a good laugh as we enter the Christmas pageant season!

THE CHRISTMAS CONCERT

My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn´t been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.

God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, He blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.

My husband thought we´d been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old. I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."

I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn´t want to disappoint Him.

I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs. When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.

In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal, and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children. While I couldn´t keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn´t even come close - I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.

I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus too. Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."

My proudest moment came during the children´s Christmas pageant.

My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds, and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.

My five-year-old shepherd had practised his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."

My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That´s not ´wrinkled clothes´, silly. That´s dirty, rotten clothes."

A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.

I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama- mama." Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.

My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense, and fur."

The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation. "I´ve never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes. "For the rest of my life, I´ll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense, and fur."

"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

Tom Kyle tells the story of

THE PASTOR´S NEW TEETH

The minister just had all of his teeth pulled and had new dentures made.

The first Sunday, he preached 10 minutes.

The second Sunday, he preached only 20 minutes.

But on the third Sunday, he preached one hour and 25 minutes.

When asked about this by some of the congregation, he replied: "The first Sunday, my gums were so sore it hurt to talk. The second Sunday, my new dentures were hurting me a lot. The third Sunday, I accidentally grabbed my wife´s dentures ... and I couldn´t shut up."

THIS WEEK´S RECOMMENDED SITES

Betty Audet first heard of this site on CBC´s Ontario Morning and was very impressed:

http://www.quiltofbelonging.ca/

Bill McNair recommends this site where you can see the space outside and the worlds within:

http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/ index.html

Bruce Galway forwards this site that challenges your knowledge of geography:

http://minijuegos.com/juegos/html/index.php?id=5974

Jack Peaker has been taking dancing lessons:

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1142793114

Anyone interested in the CBC or the program "Intelligence" should read this:

http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2007/12/03/NoIntelligence/

If you believe that talk, not war, is the solution to the possibility of Iran´s developing nuclear weapons, see http://www.avaaz.org/en/talk_with_iran/3.php

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion. - Winston Churchill