by Ruth Griffiths

Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you lose things?

I bought some colourful Band-Aids and fruit-flavoured toothpaste for my granddaughter. She was so happy, she hugged them to her chest and danced around the kitchen. The next day, they had disappeared. She denies hiding them and I have looked everywhere, including the freezer. (Grandma does strange things sometimes.)

When I did my grandson’s laundry, the dryer returned just one grey sock. Where do those little socks go? Humorist Peg Bracken had a suggestion in her book “I Hate Housework.” She thinks the rotations of the clothes dryer spin socks into a parallel universe.
Sounds about as good as anything else I can think up.

Of course the surest way to find something is to go out and find a replacement. Then you have two!

Sometimes I do find things, but in the strangest places! When I brought out the grandchildren’s bubble wands and beach toys for the first time this spring, I discovered my favourite funnel. I had struggled all winter with filling the salt shaker. Somehow the orange plastic funnel had morphed into a sand toy and was hiding out with the shovels and pails.

Of course this proves the maxim: A place for everything and everything in its place.

You’ve seen those organized workshops where the tool is outlined in paint on the peg board. All you have to do is train everyone to put it back where they found it. (But training a puppy might be easier.)

How much time to we spend looking for our keys and wallet? To create a place for your most important things, take a test run. Walk into the house carrying your things, and look for a place you’ll be able to put them every single time you get home. And then do it.

Another trick that works for me, is to tell someone else or even myself where I am going to store something. “I’m putting Nana’s birthday card on top of the refrigerator,” I announce to an empty room. But the foolishness of it really seems to help me remember where to look.

Getting out the door in the morning can be a nightmare if you have to remember four or five things to take with you. If I think I might forget something, I put the item in the car the night before. That doesn’t prevent me from running around the house looking for it, but it sometimes prevents me from having to make a special trip back home to pick it up.

I notice that I lose things more often if I am tired, distracted or stressed. We have to be intentional about putting things away so they can be found later. Hunting for Easter eggs might be fun, but searching for the remote gets old fast.

by Ruth Griffiths

On this day in 1866, the Parliament of the Province of Canada began its fifth session in the still unfinished Parliament buildings in Ottawa. It was the last session as the Province of Canada before Confederation.

The Parliament Buildings are so much a part of the culture and character of Canada that it is hard to imagine them not being there. But renovations underway on Parliament Hill underscore the evolving nature of our nation’s capital buildings.

The original construction on the first Canadian Parliament buildings took 20 years, beginning in 1857. According to a Government of Canada website: “The West Block is being rehabilitated to meet the current and future needs of Parliamentarians, while respecting its heritage character. Rehabilitation work began in 2011, and building occupancy is planned for the opening session of Parliament in fall 2018.”

The West Block was built to house the federal public service. Before it was emptied in 2011, it housed the offices of the Prime Minister, Cabinet, members of Parliament and their staff. It also housed committee rooms and the Confederation Room.

When we picture the Parliament Buildings we usually think of the Centre Block. It contains meeting spaces for the House of Commons and the Senate Chambers with the Hall of Honour separating them. Some parliamentarians also have offices in the Centre Block. A rehabilitation project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and continue for 10 years. While the Centre Block is closed, the newly built West Block courtyard will serve as the home of the interim House of Commons Chamber.

 The Centre Block was destroyed by fire in 1916. All that remains of the original building is the Parliamentary Library at the rear of the Centre Block.

While the Centre Block is closed, the newly built West Block courtyard will serve as the home of the interim House of Commons Chamber. The Senate chamber will be housed in the former Union Station.

Renovations to the interior and exterior of the East Block have been ongoing for several decades. The rehabilitation of the northwest tower, which was completed in 2013, served as a pilot project for the upcoming masonry repairs within the East Block’s original wing. Further rehabilitation of the exterior is scheduled for this year.

Renovations to the Parliament buildings are budgeted to cost taxpayers $3 billion.

by Ruth Griffiths

Several Canadian banks use the piggy bank as a prominent image in their advertising. The piggy bank is a traditional coin container, usually used by children. So I wondered, why is that little coin container in the shape of a pig? Why not a dog or a cat?

I checked the Internet for clues and came up with these suggestions.

According to Wikipedia, pygg is an orange-coloured clay commonly used during the Middle Ages as a cheap material for pots to store money, called pygg pots or pygg jars. Perhaps “pygg” was simply a dialectal variant of “pig.” By the 18th century, the term “pig jar” had evolved to “pig bank”. Other materials, such as glass, plaster, and plastic, eventually supplanted earthenware but the name gradually began to refer specifically to the shape of the bank, instead of the material that was used to make it.

The oldest Western find of a moneybox dates from 2nd century BC Greek colony Priene, Asia Minor, and features the shape of a miniature Greek temple with a slit in the pediment. Moneyboxes of various forms were also excavated in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and appear quite frequently on late ancient sites, particularly in Roman Britain and along the Rhine.

Wikipedia also says, the Javanese and Indonesian term cèlèngan (literally “likeness of a wild boar”, but used to mean both “savings” and “piggy bank”) is also used in the context of domestic banks. A pig-shaped money container was excavated at Majapahit and dates to the 15th century. Several boar-shaped piggy banks have been discovered at the large archaeological site in East Java, the possible site of the capital of the ancient Majapahit Empire. These are probably the source of the Javanese-Indonesian word referring to savings or money containers.

One important Majapahit piggy bank specimen is housed at the National Museum of Indonesia. It has been reconstructed, as this large piggy bank was found broken into pieces. Majapahit terracotta coin containers have been found in a variety of shapes, including tubes, jars and boxes, each with a slit into which to insert coins.

The Financial Brand website says that in Europe, early piggy banks had no hole in the bottom, so the pig had to be broken to get money out. Perhaps that is where we get the expression “breaking the bank.”

by Ruth Griffiths

Nature has the power to heal us, connect us and build community. Nature is awesome.

Nature is a prescription for good health. Studies have shown that as little as 20 minutes in a green space can help children with attention deficit disorder cope better with the challenges of everyday living. A walk in the park can soothe your mind, lower your stress levels and aid digestion.

Our bodies were made for movement. It feels good to get outdoors in the fresh air and feel the sun and the wind on the skin. Getting away from artificial lights, noise and technology creates an oasis of peace in a crowded day.

After my husband retired, he occasionally picked me up from work at noon and we took a picnic lunch to Little Red River Park. After eating our sandwiches, we took a short walk to admire the new growth that was always in abundance. That 45-minute picnic in the middle of the day was a relaxing as a vacation.

The beauty and grandeur of nature inspire awe. Awe is defined as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.” Standing before a waterfall, you can’t help but feel inspired by the power of the falling water. The waterfall is awesome in its extreme beauty and potential for harm.

Nature can also be awesome when it connects us with others. Looking out from the top of the ski hill at Big River, I felt small in comparison to the vastness of the valley spread out before me. But I felt connected to the people who were standing with me to view that wonderful panorama.

Some of my most memorable days have been spent in outdoor activities with others: picking berries, searching for wildflowers, identifying birds. Picking berries helps me feel connected to the thousands of generations of women who have foraged for their families. Looking for wildflowers and birds is an intellectual pursuit that never fails to enrich me.

When my grandmother was 95 she still had her bird books spread out in front of her living room window, ready to identify the feathered friends who flew into her farm yard. Learning about our natural world is a hobby I hope to pursue as long as I live.
I believe that if we want our lives to be awesome, we need only to acknowledge our place in nature. As a community, we are interconnected in our awesome world.

by Ruth Griffiths

As my mother and I get older, our roles are reversing in some ways. Being a daughter has quietly morphed into a mothering role with my own mother. Gradually my sister and I are assuming more responsibility for our mother.

My mother took care of everything at home and allowed me to grow up mostly carefree. When I produced children of my own, she was there to support me, but not smother me. She did what she could from a distance to help me learn how to be a mother myself.

But gradually, as she enters her 10th decade, I am taking on more of the caregiver roles: remembering the birthdays, organizing family gatherings, arranging her medical care, assuming financial responsibilities, shopping for her clothes. As my mother has become less mobile and less energetic, I have taken on the necessary role of mothering the one who gave me life.

We enjoy each other’s company, but it is difficult to discuss deeper issues with my mother, now. Her world has become smaller and her memory of recent events is short. So we chat about the things she remembers well… laughable moments from my childhood, such as the time we fed watermelon seeds to a mouse who lived under the bureau in the hall of our farmhouse. My mother seems to come alive when she discusses the events of her youth, so that has become a welcome topic during our visits. I love to hear about her growing up years and she seems to enjoy telling me her stories.

When I take my mother for a medical appointment, for example, I zip up her coat, remind her to wear her gloves and steady her as she gets into the car. I don’t mind going slowly with her because she was the one who held both my hands when I was taking my first steps. It’s my turn to be the helper.

Sometimes I miss being just the daughter. Sometimes I want to cry on her shoulder and have her tell me it will be all right. But I know that, as we get older, it is more difficult to handle stressful emotions, so I try to keep our conversations light. It’s my time to be the mother and I can reassure her that it will be all right.

by Ruth Griffiths

Mother’s Day is the 20th anniversary of my column in Rural Roots.

Rural Roots used to be published on Sundays, but switched to Thursday publication to accommodate production and distribution schedules. Rural Roots is published by Prince Albert Daily Herald and distributed free to homes in North Central Saskatchewan. It’s an area that I know well, having grown up in Tisdale.

I moved to Prince Albert as a bride in 1969 and worked for a year in the lab at Victoria Union Hospital, before returning to classes in Saskatoon to finish a Bachelor of Science degree. I interned at the Prince Albert hospital and became a Registered Laboratory Technologist. My first job was in the lab at Prince Albert Medical Clinic. In 1975 left behind my science career to become a stay-at-home parent.

I started work in 1981 as the Women’s Editor for the Daily Herald. I thought it would be for just a year or two, but I ended up working 29 years for the Herald. I moved to being Assistant City Editor, then City Editor and finally Rural Roots Editor in 1997. I was laid off in May 2010, along with eight other people, when editorial and composing functions were centralized in Moose Jaw. I returned to the newsroom part-time and was laid off again in December.

After my husband died in 2006, I became a certified fitness instructor. My first regular class was with seniors at the Heritage Centre. It’s an age group with whom I feel a special kinship.

Since 2009, I have been the instructor for the Easy Adult Fitness program offered by the City of Prince Albert at the Margo Fournier Centre. I also teach chair-assisted yoga for the Acquired Brain Injury group, Abbeyfield House and Calvary United Church.

You can see that the continuous thread through the last 20 years has been writing this column, which I continue to do from home. Writing this column has been a special privilege. I hope to be able to continue it for years to come.

by Ruth Griffiths

People often ask me how I come up with the topics I write about in this column. Today we will explore that at length.

I usually write about the things that I have recently discussed with my family and friends. I share my ideas with them first and get some feedback. That process helps me to form an opinion. Usually some research is required too, but my personal experiences usually colour my opinions more than facts do.

Often I write for a specific date such as Valentine’s Day, Easter or Mother’s Day. But other times I write for a date that is not well known because it is the anniversary of something in history. Usually I look for an item that has some personal meaning for me so that the topic can be a vehicle for expressing my opinion.

For example on April 27, 1810, Beethoven composed Für Elise. Almost anyone who has taken piano lessons will have learned to pick out this tune. You might also have heard it on a music box. Such was the case for a black jewelry box that belonged to my maternal grandmother.

I visited her one summer during my teens and admired the black lacquered box in her bedroom. It was decorated with paintings of flowers in an Oriental style. She gave me the box and I have treasured it for its function and my memories of her.

When the lid was opened the box used to play Für Elise. Alas, the mechanism has become damaged and it no longer plays a tune.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized the irony of the tune. My grandmother’s name was Elizabeth, but most called her Elsie. The music box played its tune “For Elsie.”

Sometimes the thoughts I share with you are as insignificant as an heirloom music box, but your positive responses to my columns encourage me to continue to write them.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to tell me what they have liked (or sometimes disliked!) about what I have written. For me, writing a column is like chatting with family or friends. I hope you enjoy our chats as much as I do.

by Ruth Griffiths

This winter I have enjoyed helping to produce practical quilts for men and women in Prince Albert shelters. So far this season we have delivered 76 quilts. Margaret Ferguson runs the program out of her well-equipped basement sewing room. Helpers are mainly from her church and Girl Guides. Over the past several years the volunteers have produced 298 quilts.

Good coffee and conversation fuel the fingers that piece together tops for the quilts. A commercial batting is sandwiched between the top and a plain backing (often a repurposed sheet). All three layers are tied together at four-inch intervals so the layers won’t shift around with use and laundering. Tying the quilts by hand takes some time, but is the most social part of the process.

At home, while I was sewing together squares of fabric for a quilt top, I wondered about the history of the domestic sewing machine. It seemed that the basic working mechanism has changed little in my lifetime.

According to Wikipedia, the English inventor Thomas Saint designed the first sewing machine in 1790. It used a single-thread chain stitch and was used for sewing leather into saddles and canvas into ship sails.

Chain stitch rips out easily. You might have ripped it out of the top of a potato sack. Today the lockstitch is more common. It uses two threads to produce an interlocking stitch and mechanisms to hold and move the fabric along as it is sewn together. Several types of lockstitch sewing machines appeared in North America around 1832. According to Wikipedia, Isaac Merritt Singer pulled together ideas from several machines to produce the first Singer sewing machine in 1851… and the sewing machine wars were off! It was a typical American business story. There were legal disputes over patents and mergers to starve the competition. Machines were sold on credit plans.

Clothing manufacturers were the first sewing machine customers and used them to produce the first ready-to-wear clothing and shoes. But by the 1860s, sewing machines became common in middle-class homes.

Before sewing machines became common, women spent much of their time maintaining their family’s clothing. Middle-class housewives, even with the aid of a hired seamstress, would devote several days of each month to this task. According to Wikipedia, it took an experienced seamstress at least 14 hours to make a dress shirt for a man; a woman’s dress took 10 hours; and a pair of summer pants took three hours. Most individuals would have only two sets of clothing: a work outfit and a Sunday outfit.

Sewing machines reduced the time for making a dress shirt to an hour and 15 minutes; the time to make a dress to an hour; and the time for a pair of summer pants to 38 minutes. Women were freed from the long hours spent stitching clothing by hand. Factory produced clothing further reduced the amount of time women spent sewing at home.

Very few people sew their own clothing today, either by hand or by machine. But when I help to produce quilts for the homeless, I can appreciate the long hours that inventors spent perfecting the sewing machine.

by Ruth Griffiths

For the first time in many, many years Christians from both the Eastern and Western traditions will celebrate Easter together on April 16.

Easter is the most important Christian feast, and the proper date of its celebration has been the subject of controversy as early as the meeting of Anicetus and Polycarp around 154.

In 325CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox.

In 1583, the Catholic Church began using March 21under the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date of Easter, while the Eastern Churches have continued to use March 21 under the Julian calendar.

The earliest and latest dates for “Western” Easter are  March 22 and April 25. However, in the Orthodox/Eastern Churches, while those dates are the same, they are reckoned using the Julian calendar; therefore, on the Gregorian calendar those dates are April 4 and May 8.

According to the Bible, Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples on the night of the Jewish festival of Passover, died the next day (Good Friday) and rose again on the third day (the following Sunday). Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus on that Sunday.

The beginning of Passover is determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which can occur on any day of the week. To ensure that Easter occurs on a Sunday, the Council of Nicaea therefore ruled in 325AD that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. But there’s a twist: if the full moon falls on a Sunday, then Passover begins on a Sunday, so Easter is then delayed by a week to ensure that it still occurs after Passover.

To confuse matters further, the council fixed the date of the vernal equinox at March 21, the date on which it occurred in 325AD (though it now occurs on March 20), and introduced a set of tables to define when the full moon occurs that do not quite align with the actual astronomical full moon (which means that, in practice, Easter can actually occur before Passover).

We celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25, why couldn’t Easter be on a fixed date? In 1928 Britain’s parliament passed a law, which has not been implemented, that would define Easter as the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Another proposal would define Easter as the second Sunday in April. Several churches, including the Catholic church, say they are open to the idea of setting the date of Easter in this way, but until there is widespread agreement, its date will continue to jump around within a five-week window. Hoppy Easter!

By Ruth Griffiths

North Americans spend billions every day fighting the inevitability of aging. We are all getting older and it doesn’t look pretty but, as Woody Allen said, “Consider the alternative.”

Of all the forms of discrimination in our society, “ageism” is the most prevalent. Ageism is defined as discrimination against persons of a certain age group. In general, we have “a tendency to regard older persons as debilitated, unworthy of attention, or unsuitable for employment.”

Ask an actor to portray an old person and they will shuffle along, complaining about their lumbago and shouting “speak up Sonny.” It’s not an image that we strive to achieve. Most older people agree with Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect.”

We have painted an ugly picture of aging, but if you scratch beneath the surface, you will find that there are proven benefits to getting older.

As you get older you tend to care less about what other people think. I see this every day in my fitness classes for older adults. Younger women tend to be more competitive during a workout, but the older women are there to maintain health and have fun. They support and encourage each other, rather than trying to be the strongest and fastest in the exercise class.

Similarly, as you age you tend to get to know yourself better and focus more on what you want for yourself. Of course not everyone over 55 is totally satisfied with their life.

But those who age successfully learn to love themselves. We look in the mirror and proclaim, “You’ve come a long way, baby!”

After a certain age we stop trying to be someone else just to make others happy while ignoring our needs. We embrace the freedom to be ourselves.

We may come to realize that our true value and worth has little to do with how we look or what we do in the world, and everything to do with who we are at the centre of our being.

Contrary to the stereotype of the grouchy old man, studies have shown that we can expect to be happier in our early 80s than we were in our 20s. We actually experience less stress, possibly because we learn to “let go of the small stuff… and everything is small stuff.”

As we age we leave behind the emotional rollercoaster of our younger years and learn to enjoy life for the treasure that it is.
One of the stereotypes of aging might actually be true. We become wiser with age, possibly because we have more life experience.

A University of Michigan study found that older people are better at reasoning when it comes to social dilemmas and conflicts.

When presented with various stories about conflict, they specifically are more adept at understanding different perspectives, suggesting compromises and coming up with several reasonable resolutions.

When it comes to aging, “resistance is futile.”

But resisting ageism is worthwhile and necessary.

Start with yourself; tell yourself each day that it is not just OK but desirable to become older.

Stop thinking of aging as a disease and see it as a natural progression of life.

Embrace change and the wonderful things that are going to happen in your life.

Ruth Griffiths is the former editor for Rural Roots and a long-time resident of Prince Albert.