yesterday -growing up in the crowsnest pass

I was born in 1959 and remember vividly about growing up in Coleman. At that time most kids came from large families their were eleven in ours. However in our neighborhood their was a "small" family of three boys and another that only had one child, that was unusual for the time.To this day i still dont think we realize how hard our parents worked to maintain a household. Our mothers had none of the modern conveniencises or appliances of today. Today i see they have these little gift cards in the drugstore that show you the price of things and what was happening the year you were born. I cannot say they are entirely accurate because a chocolate bar was only 10 cents and a saturday movie with a chocolate bar was under 50 cents well into the sixtys. One of my favourite recollections is the old Toppanos grocery store on what was second street downtown coleman (the building is still there). Our parents would buy our groceries there and then spend the day in town, the groceries would be delivered to the house in that old truck i believe it was a red ford but maybe someone can help me with that. Anyway our parents would send a chocolate bar home with the groceries for each of us. That was very good planning they knew someone would be around to put the groceries away. I would also go into Topanos just before school in the morning to get my hockey cards anxiously hoping he had brought in a new batch of cards. I believe they came in on a certain day of the week maybe someone can help me with that one. Anyway i plan on writing a lot more about this, hope it brings back some good memories for you too.

times they are a changing -bob dylan

This blogging is relatively new to me but like the title you either adapt or become a dinosaur. What i have realized over the last few years is the power that the internet has become for politicians. For those who have capitalized on it are reaping success as a result. You could probably go back to the presicential election in the USA and Barack Obama with his rapid popularity. Here in Canada we can probably look at the recent election results in Toronto and even more-so Calgary. Of course this medium of blogging as well as  Facebook have probably helped many candidates get more exposure to their constituants. They have managed to capture a whole new generation of voters that were previously not interested in politics. This is a good thing because we have to keep the next generation  active in politics. If they get too apethetic in thinking their vote doesn't count and do not exercise their rights one day they might just loose them. I am still not certain what happened here in the Crowsnest Pass with our recent election. I know the people wanted change"they always want change" but what is the final cost of change. They have already decided to do their advertising in both local papers once again, i see this as buying silence or putting a positive spin on things . In all fairness we are still old fashioned down here and to get to the voters it is the best medium for now. By not communicating with the public probably cost the previous council their seats. They were beginning to act like a dictatorship instead of communicating their message. I know Dean  Ward put several articles in the local papers explaining his position but the public wasn't buying the message and he came across as more of an axeman. I know the municipality should be run more like a busines but its hard to put your foot down when everybody knows the employees they are either family or friends. I feel it will not take long for the voters to wake up and realize that "change" is just a nice theme for another tax increase. Unfortunately some of the biggest proponents of "change" have no problem asking council for more money when it comes to their own agenda. Lets hope this new council is smart enough to see through this and can make the tough decisions that will have to be made. The locals have punished previous councils before and there are hypocrites who will come out of the woodwork to condemm them every time they make a tough decision. I am in full support of this council lets give them a chance and get behind them even when they make some unpopular decisions.