- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,179
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Sliding into winter – and life
Re: The Great snowstorm of 1947, Feb. 18.
I had to smile as I read this paragraph in Bruce Deachman’s article on the great snowstorm of 1947:
“It took a taxicab, a toboggan, two police officers and her husband to get Mrs. H.W. Carruthers, pregnant and expecting a ‘blessed event’ at any moment, from her home on Fairmont Avenue to the Grace Hospital, normally a seven-minute walk. ‘The toboggan,’ it was reported, ‘beat the stork.’ “
Mrs. H.W. Carruthers is my mom. I remember my dad retelling this story many times. After every “great” snowfall, he would smile and say “What? What snow – you should have been there in 1947!”
The blessed event was the birth of my eldest brother. My dad is no longer with us, but I do know that tucked away somewhere in a box is an original copy of the 1947 article. Mom lives in a retirement home in the Ottawa area and I will be sure to show her this most recent article about the great snowstorm. Thanks for the memories!
Donna Frank (nee Carruthers), Carp
Canadians take it all in stride
This Citizen article was delightful. I ran across it quite by accident when I was searching for something else.
Canadians tend to take everything in stride; getting on with the job is simply what they do best. I raised my children on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, and snow, as well as dealing with it, was taken for granted.
Three or four years ago, I came across an account in the United States of the winter of 1881. That was the first year that official weather records were kept in the U.S., and it was a catastrophic year. Our lakes in Madison froze in mid-October; snow came almost immediately and just kept coming, piling up foot on foot, for the rest of the winter. Crops could not be taken off the fields, farmers could not feed their livestock, communities were cut off, and food supplies were problematic as was medical care.
The book Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder is thought to be an excellent account of how one family got through it. But when I went to look for official information on how that winter affected Canada, I found nothing. I was certain that Canada could not have been spared, so I was doubly glad to find this article.
Nancy Homes, Library Assistant, Madison, Wisconsin
Recalling snowstorm memories
I was really glad to see this article. I was three years old on March 2, 1947. Birthdays were very special occasions for an only daughter. My mom had her parents and sisters at our house for the special dinner. No one could leave that night. I cannot remember if my father’s sisters were also here, but I do remember we had a full house. I think my mom noted it in my baby book.
The other major snowstorm I remember was around Feb. 15, 1954, the day of my grandfather’s funeral. All the cars got stuck at the vault in Smiths Falls on Hwy. 29. Because of the bad day, I was left with a neighbour. It was the only snow day we ever had from school and I missed it because of the funeral. Thank you again for republishing the article from March 1947.
Georgia Allan, Smiths Falls
Wynne, wine and whine!
Re: Wynne pairs wine and confusion, Feb. 19.
I can’t stop laughing at the huge Ontario leap forward in selling wine in grocery stores.
On Thursday in my local Florida supermarket, I almost got lost wandering through the three complete aisles (not just a couple of shelves) displaying beer and wine, domestic and foreign. We can actually pay for everything we buy at any checkout counter! Clearly, Florida and the United States are going to hell in a handbasket – or maybe that should be a grocery basket.
I am still laughing at our wonderful Ontario progress.
Nicole Beggs, Florida
The cost of a new hospital
Re: New hospital to cost $2B: CEO, Feb. 18.
The Ottawa Hospital is taking another look at a site for its beleaguered Civic Campus. As it moves forward, the hospital should also look back to its 2007 site selection process to identify weaknesses that may cause delays in the future. Chief among these lessons should be to hold an open and engaged process, especially if the hospital is committed to building on publicly owned land obtained for a nominal fee rather than purchasing new land, as the McGill University Health Centre did to build its new 25 acre super-hospital on the former Glen Yards in Montreal.
It could also ask the federal, provincial, and municipal governments what land might actually be available before setting its heart on a parcel that is already being put to productive use. It cannot, as it did in 2014, turn away from the experts, whose advice would have rung alarm bells and helped them avoid the controversy its bid for 60 acres of internationally significant research land at the Central Experimental Farm.
Peter Anderson, Ottawa
Focus on ISIL mission, not spin
Re: How to confront ISIL, Feb. 18.
I find the current preoccupation in debating whether our mission in against ISIL is a “combat or non-combat” mission unnecessary and condescending.
Canadians are not stupid. We understand that we are going to a war zone where our troops are risking their lives. Focus on the mission, not on the spin.
Alan Williams, Ottawa, former assistant deputy minister of materiel at DND, President, The Williams Group
Classical music is alive and well
Re: The music of our spheres, Feb. 18.
Is classical music dead? Certainly, many of us classical music fans have developed a propensity for listening mostly to dead composers. But where can this lead us? Is there a limit to how many times we can enjoy a “fresh” new interpretation of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, for example? And have pity on the living classical music composers who struggle so mightily to have their music played.
The long-term trends are not good, with one significant exception. Here in Ottawa, and indeed across Canada, there is a thriving community of musicians who combine a love for both living and dead composers to create a classical musical landscape that will never die.
I speak of the vast network dedicated to the human voice in choral settings. Children’s choirs, community choirs, school choirs, church choirs, gospel choirs, professional choirs – it runs the whole gamut. Some of the most beautiful, inspiring classical music that will be performed is being composed in Ottawa today.
Head to any choral concert and you’ll see that classical music is alive and very well.
David Rain, Ottawa, Tenor, The Stairwell Carollers
Hire best and brightest. Period
Re: Should government hire the best people or best bilingual people?, Feb. 18.
A fact often ignored is that Canada is primarily an English-speaking country; it is only artificially and arbitrarily officially bilingual. Outside Quebec, less than five per cent of the population is francophone.
Columnist Randall Denley is absolutely correct: public servants should be selected from the best and the brightest, period – not from the bilingual best and brightest, which is a substantially smaller and less-qualified pool of candidates filled largely with questionably “bilingual” people. The mantra of “Just learn French” is not the point.
Chris Kelly, Ottawa
It’s simple: Learn French
The Official Languages Act came into force in 1969, almost 47 years ago. You would think this is long enough for people to learn a second official language in Canada, whether or not they choose to work in the Public Service.
Bilingualism for some positions is only one requirement among others. If 20 unilingual English positions opened to Canadians require a Master’s degree in Engineering (which I do not have), does that mean these positions are not open to all Canadians?
It’s simple: Learn the second official language of this country.
Isabelle Leclerc, Aylmer, Que., worked 32 years for the Public Service
Don’t neglect hospice care
There are good and bad ways to wrap up a life, whether you are single or surrounded by family and friends. Most would prefer to die at home, yet 70 per cent of Canadians do not have access to hospice palliative care and are likely to die in an emergency room or an acute care hospital bed better suited to treating and releasing a patient.
Hospice palliative care provides an alternative that focuses on comfort and quality of life. The care is provided by trained professionals and volunteers either in a hospice, which provides a home-like environment; a palliative care unit in hospital; or at home.
The financial benefits to the already strained health system are clear.
While an acute care hospital bed costs upwards of $1,200 a day, Hospice Care Ottawa spends $476 a day for each resident at our May Court Hospice and at our Central West Hospice. Hospice Care Ottawa and its 19 residential beds already save the public purse $4.4 million a year.
The provincial government does not fund new capital costs and only funds about 60 per cent of our operational costs. We must fundraise $1.8 million annually in order to continue to provide our services free of charge. We need to fundraise 100 per cent of our new Ruddy-Shenkman Hospice in Kanata.
Various levels of government support the idea of good end-of-life care so we try to remind them that investing public funds can result in more appropriate and cost-effective care and support for patients and their families.
While we are having an essential discussion in Canada about physician-assisted death, it’s clear that Canadians need access to hospice palliative care with its focus on quality of life, care and compassion. It makes a world of difference.
Janet Dunbrack, Board Chair, Hospice Care Ottawa
Earlier mental-health intervention
News stories have recently identified the welcome impact of reduced stigma and effective campaigns encouraging us to talk about mental health. They’ve also led to the growing realization that we don’t have adequate services to respond to that need.
Much of the support that people experiencing mental health challenges have comes from a good friend or other caring individual. But these conversations can lead to a need for more serious intervention and the services of a professional. Our hospitals report rapidly increasing calls for help and the need for more resources.
However desirable this might be, for the majority of people seeking hospitalization in an overcrowded system, earlier intervention outside of the hospital is the preferred service. The inability of community-based mental health agencies to provide those services (because our resources are even more limited than those of our institutions) is a failure that can lead people to see the hospital as their only or best recourse because the situation has deteriorated so severely.
Sadly, the message people often get when they contact mental health agencies is that “we can’t serve you because there are already hundreds on our waiting lists”; or “your problems need to get worse before you can qualify for help”; or “you’re ineligible for whatever reason.” That’s not good enough.
We need investments in mental health services across the board but particularly in community based services. We need coordinated and integrated services sufficient to meet the needs of our community. It’s important that people “talk” but let’s make sure we have good people on the other side ready to “listen” – and provide needed services.
Tim Simboli, Executive Director, Canadian Mental Health Association, Ottawa Branch
查看原文...
Re: The Great snowstorm of 1947, Feb. 18.
I had to smile as I read this paragraph in Bruce Deachman’s article on the great snowstorm of 1947:
“It took a taxicab, a toboggan, two police officers and her husband to get Mrs. H.W. Carruthers, pregnant and expecting a ‘blessed event’ at any moment, from her home on Fairmont Avenue to the Grace Hospital, normally a seven-minute walk. ‘The toboggan,’ it was reported, ‘beat the stork.’ “
Mrs. H.W. Carruthers is my mom. I remember my dad retelling this story many times. After every “great” snowfall, he would smile and say “What? What snow – you should have been there in 1947!”
The blessed event was the birth of my eldest brother. My dad is no longer with us, but I do know that tucked away somewhere in a box is an original copy of the 1947 article. Mom lives in a retirement home in the Ottawa area and I will be sure to show her this most recent article about the great snowstorm. Thanks for the memories!
Donna Frank (nee Carruthers), Carp
Canadians take it all in stride
This Citizen article was delightful. I ran across it quite by accident when I was searching for something else.
Canadians tend to take everything in stride; getting on with the job is simply what they do best. I raised my children on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, and snow, as well as dealing with it, was taken for granted.
Three or four years ago, I came across an account in the United States of the winter of 1881. That was the first year that official weather records were kept in the U.S., and it was a catastrophic year. Our lakes in Madison froze in mid-October; snow came almost immediately and just kept coming, piling up foot on foot, for the rest of the winter. Crops could not be taken off the fields, farmers could not feed their livestock, communities were cut off, and food supplies were problematic as was medical care.
The book Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder is thought to be an excellent account of how one family got through it. But when I went to look for official information on how that winter affected Canada, I found nothing. I was certain that Canada could not have been spared, so I was doubly glad to find this article.
Nancy Homes, Library Assistant, Madison, Wisconsin
Recalling snowstorm memories
I was really glad to see this article. I was three years old on March 2, 1947. Birthdays were very special occasions for an only daughter. My mom had her parents and sisters at our house for the special dinner. No one could leave that night. I cannot remember if my father’s sisters were also here, but I do remember we had a full house. I think my mom noted it in my baby book.
The other major snowstorm I remember was around Feb. 15, 1954, the day of my grandfather’s funeral. All the cars got stuck at the vault in Smiths Falls on Hwy. 29. Because of the bad day, I was left with a neighbour. It was the only snow day we ever had from school and I missed it because of the funeral. Thank you again for republishing the article from March 1947.
Georgia Allan, Smiths Falls
Wynne, wine and whine!
Re: Wynne pairs wine and confusion, Feb. 19.
I can’t stop laughing at the huge Ontario leap forward in selling wine in grocery stores.
On Thursday in my local Florida supermarket, I almost got lost wandering through the three complete aisles (not just a couple of shelves) displaying beer and wine, domestic and foreign. We can actually pay for everything we buy at any checkout counter! Clearly, Florida and the United States are going to hell in a handbasket – or maybe that should be a grocery basket.
I am still laughing at our wonderful Ontario progress.
Nicole Beggs, Florida
The cost of a new hospital
Re: New hospital to cost $2B: CEO, Feb. 18.
The Ottawa Hospital is taking another look at a site for its beleaguered Civic Campus. As it moves forward, the hospital should also look back to its 2007 site selection process to identify weaknesses that may cause delays in the future. Chief among these lessons should be to hold an open and engaged process, especially if the hospital is committed to building on publicly owned land obtained for a nominal fee rather than purchasing new land, as the McGill University Health Centre did to build its new 25 acre super-hospital on the former Glen Yards in Montreal.
It could also ask the federal, provincial, and municipal governments what land might actually be available before setting its heart on a parcel that is already being put to productive use. It cannot, as it did in 2014, turn away from the experts, whose advice would have rung alarm bells and helped them avoid the controversy its bid for 60 acres of internationally significant research land at the Central Experimental Farm.
Peter Anderson, Ottawa
Focus on ISIL mission, not spin
Re: How to confront ISIL, Feb. 18.
I find the current preoccupation in debating whether our mission in against ISIL is a “combat or non-combat” mission unnecessary and condescending.
Canadians are not stupid. We understand that we are going to a war zone where our troops are risking their lives. Focus on the mission, not on the spin.
Alan Williams, Ottawa, former assistant deputy minister of materiel at DND, President, The Williams Group
Classical music is alive and well
Re: The music of our spheres, Feb. 18.
Is classical music dead? Certainly, many of us classical music fans have developed a propensity for listening mostly to dead composers. But where can this lead us? Is there a limit to how many times we can enjoy a “fresh” new interpretation of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, for example? And have pity on the living classical music composers who struggle so mightily to have their music played.
The long-term trends are not good, with one significant exception. Here in Ottawa, and indeed across Canada, there is a thriving community of musicians who combine a love for both living and dead composers to create a classical musical landscape that will never die.
I speak of the vast network dedicated to the human voice in choral settings. Children’s choirs, community choirs, school choirs, church choirs, gospel choirs, professional choirs – it runs the whole gamut. Some of the most beautiful, inspiring classical music that will be performed is being composed in Ottawa today.
Head to any choral concert and you’ll see that classical music is alive and very well.
David Rain, Ottawa, Tenor, The Stairwell Carollers
Hire best and brightest. Period
Re: Should government hire the best people or best bilingual people?, Feb. 18.
A fact often ignored is that Canada is primarily an English-speaking country; it is only artificially and arbitrarily officially bilingual. Outside Quebec, less than five per cent of the population is francophone.
Columnist Randall Denley is absolutely correct: public servants should be selected from the best and the brightest, period – not from the bilingual best and brightest, which is a substantially smaller and less-qualified pool of candidates filled largely with questionably “bilingual” people. The mantra of “Just learn French” is not the point.
Chris Kelly, Ottawa
It’s simple: Learn French
The Official Languages Act came into force in 1969, almost 47 years ago. You would think this is long enough for people to learn a second official language in Canada, whether or not they choose to work in the Public Service.
Bilingualism for some positions is only one requirement among others. If 20 unilingual English positions opened to Canadians require a Master’s degree in Engineering (which I do not have), does that mean these positions are not open to all Canadians?
It’s simple: Learn the second official language of this country.
Isabelle Leclerc, Aylmer, Que., worked 32 years for the Public Service
Don’t neglect hospice care
There are good and bad ways to wrap up a life, whether you are single or surrounded by family and friends. Most would prefer to die at home, yet 70 per cent of Canadians do not have access to hospice palliative care and are likely to die in an emergency room or an acute care hospital bed better suited to treating and releasing a patient.
Hospice palliative care provides an alternative that focuses on comfort and quality of life. The care is provided by trained professionals and volunteers either in a hospice, which provides a home-like environment; a palliative care unit in hospital; or at home.
The financial benefits to the already strained health system are clear.
While an acute care hospital bed costs upwards of $1,200 a day, Hospice Care Ottawa spends $476 a day for each resident at our May Court Hospice and at our Central West Hospice. Hospice Care Ottawa and its 19 residential beds already save the public purse $4.4 million a year.
The provincial government does not fund new capital costs and only funds about 60 per cent of our operational costs. We must fundraise $1.8 million annually in order to continue to provide our services free of charge. We need to fundraise 100 per cent of our new Ruddy-Shenkman Hospice in Kanata.
Various levels of government support the idea of good end-of-life care so we try to remind them that investing public funds can result in more appropriate and cost-effective care and support for patients and their families.
While we are having an essential discussion in Canada about physician-assisted death, it’s clear that Canadians need access to hospice palliative care with its focus on quality of life, care and compassion. It makes a world of difference.
Janet Dunbrack, Board Chair, Hospice Care Ottawa
Earlier mental-health intervention
News stories have recently identified the welcome impact of reduced stigma and effective campaigns encouraging us to talk about mental health. They’ve also led to the growing realization that we don’t have adequate services to respond to that need.
Much of the support that people experiencing mental health challenges have comes from a good friend or other caring individual. But these conversations can lead to a need for more serious intervention and the services of a professional. Our hospitals report rapidly increasing calls for help and the need for more resources.
However desirable this might be, for the majority of people seeking hospitalization in an overcrowded system, earlier intervention outside of the hospital is the preferred service. The inability of community-based mental health agencies to provide those services (because our resources are even more limited than those of our institutions) is a failure that can lead people to see the hospital as their only or best recourse because the situation has deteriorated so severely.
Sadly, the message people often get when they contact mental health agencies is that “we can’t serve you because there are already hundreds on our waiting lists”; or “your problems need to get worse before you can qualify for help”; or “you’re ineligible for whatever reason.” That’s not good enough.
We need investments in mental health services across the board but particularly in community based services. We need coordinated and integrated services sufficient to meet the needs of our community. It’s important that people “talk” but let’s make sure we have good people on the other side ready to “listen” – and provide needed services.
Tim Simboli, Executive Director, Canadian Mental Health Association, Ottawa Branch
查看原文...
