Indian Tadpole

[Tom from Rubicon]

Now I really get Steve's war with rust.
My shop runs a dehumidifier in the warm months and a Modine natural gas furnace in the cold months set at 60F.

Even so, I wax all carbon,low carbon steel, and all cast iron with Johnson carnauba wax. Especially steel parts I give the black oxide treatment to.
White stuff comes on tonight with freezing rain. I would like to call in and not go to work but I am building a John Deere weld fixture that is badly needed. And a manager who has been pushing completion on a unrealistic schedule.
Tom

 

[fasteddy]

Hi Pete,

Thank you for reading through the whole thread and I'm glad you enjoyed it. It sounds like you were visiting North Vancouver or North Van as we refer to it on the other side of Burrard inlet which is where the ocean going ships come into dock to load and unload.
Burrard inlet is in downtown Vancouver.

Most likely you were in the appropriately named British Properties. So named because the Guinness Beer owners bought a huge tract of land to develop and they built the Lions Gate bridge to get to it. Lions are on the bridge abutments either side on both ends of the bridge hence the name.
It may be worth the Goggle to see it.


September is a good month usually to visit. Our summer temperatures are usually 70F to 75F in the summer in Vancouver. We do have a monsoon winter in my corner of British Columbia. Most of the rest of the province isn't so fortunate. They see a lot of Arctic type weather. The area where your friends lived is one area that suffers the worst weather we get due to the elevation and people pay millions of dollars for houses to live there. They most likely taught at the University of British Columbia or U.B.C.

You can literally be in short sleeved shirts in downtown Vancouver in March and look across Burrard Inlet and watch people skiing on Grouse Mountain at the ski resort.

Monsoon season starts in October and runs into late March. It starts and ends slowly but at the moment we are in the thick of it. It's warming up enough for a fella to venture out to the garage and work with the heater turned on. It was 46F and supposed to reach 50F by the weekend. Working outside it still wet and nasty.

The odd part of the province is while we have rain in abundance about a 6 hour drive East will have you in high desert and it gets hot there. The Coastal Mountain Range causes the rain to fall on our side before it travels over the mountains. When I go East this summer I plan to travel through Canada and I'll make a thread up to show what I see as I travel.

Steve.

 

[curtisfox]

What hwy will you take? see if it will jar a memory.........Curt

 

[fasteddy]

Hi Curt,

I'll use the Trans Canada highway. In that part of Ontario it's Highway 17.

Steve.

 

[Ralph hop]

Was at the diner awhile ago and a Vietnam vet overheard our conversation poking fun at #44 U.S. president. He came and set at our table and insisted that he pay for breakfast. We had a good listen about his hitch hiking adventures in the north west when he first arrived back from war. He said he had a lot of help out on the road and wanted to pay it forward. We didn't discuss politics or any hype, just talked about adventures. I'm still young and have a lot left to go out and see. Thank you for reminding me of this guys.

 

[indian22]

Obviously I'm a fan of long reads and bikes and the Tadpole thread is worthy! I've been along for seven of the 10 years and have read all but the last 40 or fifty pages several times during the time frame mentioned...worthwhile.

Forums are about building a community around a common interest and meeting people. Sharing life along the way and getting to know and understand one another despite being different in some ways. Old, young, citizenship etc., Long threads are useful that way, not so superficial. I believe this is such a thread. Thanks to Fast Eddie & Silver bear for starting it and keeping it going....I'd not mind it being twice as long!

Rick C.

 

[PeteMcP]

Steve,
I'm thinking you're guessing correct about the location of the house Jen and I visited in Vancouver. We were way up the hill and I recall one entire wall of the home's lounge was a huge picture window to take advantage of the impressive harbour view. After a tour of the home's basement train layout, we sipped beer watching squirrels leap amongst the huge evergreens in the garden, enjoying nibbles laid on for us by the lady of the house, from where we could also see the ski lift further uphill above the tree line. I recall being very envious of that house and its hillside location - and wondering how a university lecturer's pay scale stretched that far in Canada. lol! My brother-in-law was a uni lecturer here in the UK and he never lived in anything more upscale than a suburban two bed semi! After hailing from Cullercoats, that Vancouver couple sure did well for themselves, attaining their slice of Canada's version of the 'American Dream'.

 

[curtisfox]

Hi Curt,

I'll use the Trans Canada highway. In that part of Ontario it's Highway 17.

Steve.

Hi Steve.
Have not been on that hwy, usually go up to Winnipeg 16 and across to Jasper. Then down through the 5 national parks, if we go again will have to try that route. Such beauty to be had especially on #1 from lake Louise down and over towards you. That's were i chickened out motor home and big cities don't mix to well.........Curt

 

[fasteddy]

Ralph, The Canadian West Coast in the Vietnam era would be a perfect place to go and relax and collect one's thoughts. More commercial and trendy today. Oregon and Washington state were a haven for returning vets also. Sitting on a beach helped heal many souls.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

Rick, this is indeed a community isn't it and a fine one at that. I have met so many wonderful people on here. Hopefully the next 50 pages will be spent on another build.

Steve.

 

[indian22]

Ralph, The Canadian West Coast in the Vietnam era would be a perfect place to go and relax and collect one's thoughts. More commercial and trendy today. Oregon and Washington state were a haven for returning vets also. Sitting on a beach helped heal many souls.

Steve.

Amen to both your last posts Steve.

Rick C.

 

[fasteddy]

That's North Van, Pete. U.B.C. is a top quality University recognized world wide. Depending on what they were teaching the pay scale is impressive and even more impressive.

One of my dad's cousins was a professor there. She taught Counselling and Psychology. She went to the University of Minnesota and when she wrote her paper for her Master Degree they awarded her with a PHD instead. Her fiance was killed during WW2 and she never married. She had a building named after her at U.B.C. Her fiance had a public school named after him.

I'm glad you both were able to see Vancouver. Truly a wonderful place to live.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

Hi Curt.

You came to the fork in the road and went to the left and headed West. Highway 17 Starts at the Manitoba/Ontario border and goes East but is part of the Trans Canada Highway which is highway #1. It runs from coast to coast and is usually just referred to as the Trans Canada. Very much our Route 66 without the excitement.

Winnipeg is referred to here as Winterpeg. The intersection of Portage and Main is considered to be one of the coldest places in Canada. The strong winds blow through there and with temperatures at -40F it isn't a joy filled place to be.
They finally put the sidewalk and the store entrances underground to protect the people from the cold. With people opening and closing the store doors they found it hard to heat the buildings. Being on the prairies the wind always blows year around.

Old joke in Canada is that the coldest winter I ever saw was 20 minutes at the corner of Portage and Main.

Steve.

 

[curtisfox]

LOL. Believe it the same belt that comes down through the Dakotas and over to us. Really get cold sometimes, and windy. We are planing another trip, and may go to Thunder bay and pick it up and then go across...........Curt

 

[PeteMcP]

Military experience, specifically Vietnam, was something I never envied the majority of the US pals (and their wives) Jen and I used to team up with during 3 trips a year to the US between 1996-2012. During this time, our US friends also came over to the UK to stay with us on many occasions.
Two of my best US pals had been pilots (F105 and Huey) later becoming Delta and Continental Airlines captains respectively. One pal was ex-B52 crew. Another was a tank crewman and the other had been undercover CIA, ostensibly USAF.. well, he said he'd tell us but he'd have to kill us. Old joke, lol. During one of our late night drinking sessions he revealed that he watched while his wounded buddy was shot in the head by NVA whilst strapped upside down in their 'copter after it was downed into jungle. Dressed in civilian Dept of Agriculture clothing and carrying appropriate papers, he was 'interrogated' and later released. Often, our late night drinking sessions unearthed some real horror stories like these - which more often than not left me wondering how my pals turned out as well adjusted as they seemed. For us folks here in the UK, 'Nam seemed something so far away; something we watched on the six o'clock news everyday. I learned nearly every one of my US friends and contemporaries weren't so lucky. Respect.

 

[fasteddy]

Curt, it is the same weather that you folks see. Only difference is we get to see it first. That gives you about a 30 minute warning that it's on it's way given the speed that it travels.

Steve.

 

[curtisfox]

Ya makes for big mess in Dakotas, they shut down I 94 a lot, have one son that lives in Jamestown ND, so get info first hand. .......Curt

 

[fasteddy]

Pete, My cousin who lived in Florida was the first Vietnam vet I met when he came to Canada right after he was discharged from the Army in 1969. We were close and he told me what it was like. His war ended ended many years later with a 38 pistol in his front hall.

I had to rewrite this while I looked up military grades and it published it's self. I had it partially typed.

One chap I did a lot of work for joined the Marine Corp right out of high school. As he said he and John Wayne. After he was off the bus and lined up the the Drill Instructor told them that if they had joined up to be like John Wayne they should know that he was never in the Marine Corp and in fact he was never in the military. Bob said that was the first of many oh,oh moments.

His first patrol he was the sole survivor. He managed to crawl back into a mortar crater dragging someone else who didn't make it. He had a shrapnel wound to his face.

The next day he was sent out to leading another patrol to retrieve everyone from the night before. He had three Purple Hearts and was slated to go back home when two officers came into the hospital looking for walking wounded to be sent back out and they couldn't find his paperwork so he went back and received his fourth Purple Heart after being caught in an ambush and being one of the few survivors.

Another time he walked through a mine field. He saw his foot prints on all sides of the little hills in the sand when he looked back. He said the sun had to be just right so you could see the hills.

Another friend of mine who was Canadian living in New Hampshire volunteered right out of high school but was sent to Germany because he was not a U.S. citizen and couldn't be sent to a theatre of war without signing off. He eventually did sign and went to Vietnam and served on an armour personal carrier for two tours.

He had a long list of close calls and near misses like everyone who was there did. Anyone who came home and restarted their live deserves absolute respect.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

During my travels I have met a lot of interesting people. One of them was the Army Colonel in charge of assigning officers to their duty stations. His office was in the Pentagon.

He resigned after over thirty years in the Army because the guilt he felt for sending so many men to their deaths in Vietnam. If he had stayed for another three months he would have been promoted to Brigadier General. As he said other than the pension he was happy to be out of it.

Another person I met in the late 1970's was the Colonel who was the head of intelligence in Vietnam. He started out in WW2 attached to General Eisenhower's staff in Europe.

He was straight out of a good movie. We never discussed Vietnam but he had a bunch of stories about WW2. He was interested in antiques. Really fine antiques and he used his travels in the military to secure them.

When he was in Iran he was asked by someone on the Generals staff if he could use his knowledge of antiques to pick out some really nice rugs for the General since he been asked by Mrs. Eisenhower to see if he could send some home.

He of course used his knowledge to purchase the best he could find and he also picked out a nice amount of rugs for himself since he was to accompany the rugs home to make sure they were delivered. When the plane landed he went with the soldiers and the truck to the Eisenhower home and saw to it that they were placed where the rugs were supposed to go in the house and then they delivered his rugs to his house.

Another time he was returning from Vietnam and there was a Canadian Colonel on the flight who he talked shop with. The U.S. Colonel was met by his wife on the tarmac and he didn't go through customs. Many months later he saw the same Canadian Colonel on another flight and the Colonel told him that just after the U.S. Colonel had gotten off the plane U.S. Military Police had boarded the plane before it took off looking for an American Colonel who was supposed to be on the flight who was rumoured to have had one of the dispatch brief cases he was carrying full of gems.

The smile he had told it all.

Steve.

 

[Ralph hop]

I've shed some tears reading through this and I didn't mean to bring up any hard emotions. The feeling I had from the Man that day was that he wanted us to forget politics and just be strong men and get out and experience the beauty out there. And I think his main goal was to get a good tip for our waitress that day. His wife by his side and haven't seen them since. We did indeed pay it forward. Also, a Total.., that's capital letter T, Respect.. capital R ! to all who served.