You see that date? Not only is it very nearly one year after the beginning of this letter, but the previous stencil was not even put over the duplicator until just the other week ago. What's more I'm not even going to apologise for the delay in completing this effort The reason, for the delay, is simply that events take place faster then I can record them. Most people I dare say never attempt a record in the first piece, so that's it.

That phrase, "that's it" had one of my customers highly amused recently for he had noticed that my Father said it rather frequently. Of course Father being very very deaf, can hardly hear anything and so has recourse to the finality of "that's it" in response to a conversation thought that he may have lost track of completely. The customer was amused when he discovered that I used the phrase quite unconsciously to terminate a statement. So we "that's it-ed" one another for the I remainder of the visit.

There's no use trying to recount the events of the past year in any kind of order, 'cause that would mean a much too long a letter. Last Sunday I was still on "vacation", meaning that I was alone at Home as I had been since my sister Alice took Father up to Islington after Christmas, relieving me of the strain of housekeeping for a stubborn though precious old man. We had spent Christmas at Home in the Bush House just the two of us this season. There has been no time for decorating the place and all that, nor even any special cookery, though I had put in some different kinds of desserts for a change. However one neighbour gave us a mince pie, (they owe me only 13 dollars) and another customer gave us a fine apple pie (he only owes me 100 odd dollars) so we had special eating for quite some time. You will forgive me mixing business with pleasure in my recounting, but I can't help wondering if these two were friends in spite of their debts to me, or because of them. There are so many who completely disappear once a debt has piled up against them. Anyway Christmas Day was a rare good chance to finish up a lot of book work,- eleven hours of it in fact. The facts from which, were that in the year '60-'61 that ended last May, my business cost me some 700 dollars, far from paying me any- thing. I surely won't have to pay any income tax for that year, nor for this one either since I've gained only less than 500 dollars this ½ year so far. So that's why it was a real vacation to have the extra time it takes to care for Father, to myself.---why ? --well, just this,--- The latter part of '60 saw me build the Bush house, using all my time, since Father was not my charge then, and I wound up in the hole with a new house on my hands, that's an utter liability, more taxes, more upkeep, and most of my savings gone into it besides what Father paid to it.

The fact that Father has the money to finish paying for the place, and woodenly refuses to pay up, (the house was built for him) is beside the question, for this year besides earning my keep, a high percent of my time has gone to caring for WML (my Father's initials) and the Bush House, while the means of my own livelihood, the Bush Shop, for which I obtained the ground in the first place, remained on the blueprint (only it was not a blue print but black on white paper).

So its been a pretty grim year, caring for a precious stubborn old man who wouldn't honour his gentleman's agreement, and when the lumber for the Bush Shop finally arrived (in September but early enough to avoid having to pay the new Ontario sales Tax), to all but drop customers' business while building the place. There were no funds to hire help, and though I did trade help for a few days, I gave away more actual hours and more special skills than what I got, so its been a real one man job. But to cut down on the size and style of the building was easy but unethical and all that, so the problems were tackled and solved as they came. It was a matter of compulsion therefore to finish the Jeep winch, and to build the 28 foot high tripod to carry the cable high enough to raise the 40 foot span arches, three of them, My word what precarious fragile things they seemed yawing as much as ten or twelve feet off the straight as they creaked and twisted on their cable, as they went up one at a time. The first gable and hip and ridge stringers and the purloons all the rest too went up by the Jeep winch cable in bundles, 22 feet to the ridge 20 feet to the hip and 14 feet, up to the eaves. The wind was never absent and often it screamed in at 35 or 40 miles and hour funneled as it was through the bush clearing from the open farm lands to the West. Often after a day on top, it was the exact if faint copy of the roll a sailor experiences when first on shore after a blow at sea. But the drunken swaying changed progressively as the purloons were nailed on the main and upper arches, and the cable bracing programe was warped through, 'till finally after weeks of tightening and adjusting the main braces, the hip, and peak, and cross braces, (any of you ever study up on ships shrouds terminology, I have back in school and model ship building days and these names are similar),--- it was like jumping on the side of a barrel to bounce ones way across the slender 2X4 timbers up aloft, and the whole roof vibrated as one piece.

The roof went on first, the aluminum sheet metal that is, and that part of the job was finished in an increasingly bitter wind, with only one 12X4 sheet getting away from me,--in the high wind it would have liked to take me with it as it floated so smoothly 60 feet away in the lee of the bldg. About that time grim as my relation to WML were, it seemed best to make special note of the 23rd of October which was Father's NINETIETH birthday. So I worked the night through once and cut and copied and sent off 43 letters to every one in the family address book, asking them all to come, phone, wire or write to WML on the 23rd of October, or to the Open House I held in the Bush House. With the help of the local newspaper (rural) neighbour reporter, Father's story, all of it from Ireland, to Scotland, to South Africa, to the Canadian West, to the Orient and beck, that I wrote, appeared in four weekly and daily newspapers as far away as 50 miles from here. The neighbours and then the church folk, all joined to make the (turkey, and huge birthday cake etc etc) Birthday Dinner and the Open House afternoon, a real success. WML was amazed when the 1st Birthday cards came some weeks before the Day, but by the time 70 or more of them arrived he was flabergasted. Then finally as old friends dropped in his amazement was complete. Of course most of his real old friends have passed on. At least three of the folks died within the short time when I wrote them, and the actual day. Truly time runs fast as it ebbs out of one's life. Notable in the celebration was a phone call from Father's nephew, a clear 2000 miles or more all the way from Edmonton Alberta, to our Home in Port Rowan on the Bush Lot. The transmission was faultless, and even Father could hear him, though unfortunately he could not remember that particular nephew on the spur of the moment, it being 36 years since (35 that is) WML had seen him, only a boy then a teen ager.

So as I was saying last Sunday the 7th, was snowy and blowy, but I was discusted [sic] that the congregation cancelled the church services, chicken hearted and yellow livered as they must be. I'd gone to church as usual, roads were clear, it was only 30 deg temp. --thought nothing of it, thought the radio weather forecasts and warnings were crazy. After all I'd spent that "vacation" week working 8, 10 and 11 hours a day out in the open Bush Shop, getting thc big 14X14 foot door to operate (overhead) and then covering and glassing it in, all through the snow and wind and 10 to 20 degree temperatures, that at times really were blinding, and chilling. Especially so because there were so many problems involved in getting the big jointed door to roll smoothly up the wood (white oak) tracks I'd made, on the maple pulley block sheaves that were used as rollers. Just now the Jeep is tied up to raise the door with its winch cable, but I shall rig up an electric powered winch using (I hope--if I can get it) an aircraft starter motor from a war surplus co'y. It will be 6 volt battery powered independant of the hydro electric supply, though the battery will be kept charged with a hydro trickle charger. Then I'll have a real "push-button" operated door, and later a second or more doors. Just now the shop is closed except for the cornering and door frame metal strips. I have done at least one complete though small repair job in there, since the door was closable. The small side door to the 40X30 bldg has a lock so I can keep any valuable equipment in the place too without having to move it back to the little store bldg. that I bought and moved up from a summer cottager's property last spring. It was just a one car garage l0X2O, which I promptly filled to overflowing with equipment and shelves for stock. The floor is just soft sand and gravel, which may pack down but come spring or a real warm spell, I shall pour a proper concrete floor, a good 6 inches thick to carry any heavy vehicle or machine that may rumble in. In or under the concrete I have a whole bunch of tile and big piping second hand stuff, that will form a network of air ducts, through which I shall circulate hot air from a hot air furnace, by a compressor blower, (a "Roots type" blower such as are used on superchargers for Diesel engines etc.) An oil burner furnace with thermostatic controls, for both the fire and the blower, is the best bet, and come summer, this equipment should be available quite economically from various house wrecking Co'ys. By maintaining the floor heat at a moderate 40 or 50 degrees, it seems logical that thc shop can be heated most economically considering that any kind of convection air heating, loses all its value the instant the 14X14 door is opened, complete with the cost of warming all that air, since the floor never warms at all, under such conditions. The bldg is quite strikingly handsome, being bright shining silvery like to reflect the green, or blue or brown or gray of nature in any of its moods. The windows form a complete band clear around the bldg, in two strips of 15 inches, (30 inches high (wide)) with no window frames at all. At the eleven foot height a 25 foot similar band of window glasses acts as a sky light in the west wall, that faces the clearing between the shop and the roadside bushed area. The aluminum sheets have the ribbed lines horizontal (ribbed every six inches) which with the horizontal windows (the windows in the doors are an exact continuation of those in the walls). Inside therefore, it is almost like working in broad outdoor day light. Because of the braced arch construction, there is no interior wall or post what ever, the work area is a clear 29X40. (Out side dimensions are 30X41 actually though I usually say 30x4O.)

That job is not done as you may well imagine, though I've kept track of my time on it I really haven't taken time to add it all up. Materials cost is still under $2000 though it may be more when more nearly finished. But still a similar "professionally" built bldg. this size and character might well cost 10, or even 20,000 dollars. I'm beginning to see the end of the job however, and I find that I can work even in the worst winter weather here, at it. I was a little despairing of getting it closed in at all but some of the worst winter weather has not stopped me, so may be I can ease off that job, and consider the heart pains (physical not just emotional or romantic) that this year has brought for the first time. I have had to slow up of course, but that meant cutting out my hobbies, such as writing , and the Barbershop chorous singing practices, and even the Social Credit writing I was going at.

The Church Choir is very poor here, so though I wouldn't cut that, I can't spend much time at it anyway, there are such poor attendances and short practices. I must get back into S Cr even though I am most unhappy with the "steam-roller" type of propagandizing that the Leaders have apparently adopted here. They are all out to win a substantial slice of the next government election which should come this year sometime. But in their "steam rollering" it is money plower that drives them, and little fellows like me (financially) are attracted to the Movement not by its appetite for money, but by its policy principles which if truly followed would insulate the Movement from the dictatorship of money, and tap that greater and more trustworthy source of power, "man-power" that lies over and beyond mere money power. I can't help the Movement with money, and after this past year of work, worry and heart-ache, I find that I can't help much with time either. I'm like the tortoise in the race, not with the hare, but with a herd of wild horses. The horses may well appreciate that the tortoise is making progress, but in their wild impatience to leap at or off the cliff (to victory or destruction), they may well trample the sturdy tortoise under the mud. Having done that it may well be years later that the tortoise will struggle out to carry on in a field made rougher and more difficult than ever by the steeds, whether the steeds won their race or not. I submit that the most of us are but tortoises and no amount of wild horse blood will ever swell us up to leap rough shod over our fellows. However tortoise like, I hear that the Leader of the Movement, Dr Thompson has broadcast over all the News media that the S Cr will have 265 or is it 275 candidates in this next election. It is a powerful campaign call, and more real knowledge will be spread by such a drive, than by any race among tortoises only. Still it seems we are all tortoises here in this Norfolk County, wallowing in a sea of muddy yielding apathy, only ten of us members, none of whom will start anything, being green to the Movement, except me, and I'm so poor and so involved in trying to get out from under my business programe that should let me free finally, that there's little I can do. I did begin duplicated circular last November, and got one side of a sheet done, but it is so out of date that I may just leave off the date and write a new addition on its reverse, regarding this new "every constituency" call. ----and so on and so forth, "that's it".

Now I must call a recess to prepare tomorrows meals, it being ll.l0pm now, on this mild and calm night---hope it remains so tomorrow, to make it easy to carry on with my shop building, maybe I'll hear from the company about the air- craft starter I inquired about.

Monday the 15th January '62---and while the stencil is still in the machine I may as well use this little time while the pressure cooker does its job on the dinner, at this letter. Raining this morning, typical change in the weather, first heavy cold with snow maybe then a thaw and maybe rain. However the mildness is welcome at least, though I didn't appreciate the rain when I was out on a service call this morning. Then the trip wasn't really necessary, the hired trucker's driver had the three way fuel line valve set the wrong way 'cause he didn't know which way it should have been. Oh well such is life.

The 21st January now and herewith some more typing before dinner. Father is sitting next the radio while listening to a church service, with the volume turned so high that even I with my poor hearing could hear it 100 feet away. I don't particularly agree with the preacher's attitude for he is preaching that since man is God's creation he has no right to take the attitude that he deserves anything from God. On the face of it the above is quite acceptable, but this preacher drew comparison between man and the lesser created creatures, who really cannot control their environment, whereas man is the unique creation of all creation, in that he was given the ability to decide, to say "no" or "yes" to his Creator, as well as to understand and carry out the Eternal Principles of God's Creation, in all the programes which man creates himself. I'm sure this preacher would have said amen to this idea, but by failing to clearly point it out, all his eloquency was in vain.

I heard from my English pen-pal with whom I had made tentative plans to join in a "caravan" (cabin trailer as we say) trip across Canada one of these years. He was just leaving last summer for a trip down under to Australia. I had written him a letter on general principles, this bigger effort having been stalled for so long, and in his "instant" reply, (leaving in a few days) he'd been afraid that I'd been browned off on his attitude to religion. Quite apart from the real reason for my not having written him, (my building programe etc) his position which he describes as favouring the "Humanist" philosophy, would never repel me. I've met many people who have been disillusioned by the apparent inconsistancies of life, who have tried one philosophy or another or one made from others. Where there has been time, conversations have always confirmed what my pondering has taught me, namely that there is no basic conflict between Christianity and the goals that would satisfy followers of any of the world's philosophies or religions. Because philosophies are man made, they are inconsistant, as are the various religions that man has made, yet all are evidence of the stiring of men's minds and souls, toward the ideal state wherein man, unique in all creation, will finally understand the meaning of creation. What a vague term that is for sure, but using a phrase I heard only this morning as a fellow spoke of the "revealed" religions (denominations) of the world, we who know Christianity to be the one "revealed" religion have in our grasp an understanding that makes unnecessary all the laborious processes of scientific "proof". It is similar to the understanding we now have of the generation and means of conduction (one neutron displacing another endlessly) of electricity. To a child it is a mystery, to us it is an understandable mystery. Similarly, all our scientific discoveries are just that, discoveries of marvels that have always been there waiting for our understanding. Social Credit in any of its phases, is but another discovery, or re-discovery of facts which have always been present. Man is not creative in all such endeavour, but rather merely exercising the abilities created in him. However the programes to which man applies his discoveries, are indeed man's creation or re-creation. I have a beef against the supporters of "Churchianity" who apparently largely fill our Churches, like that preacher on the radio this morning, who carried on no end glorifying the seeming fact that man is a created animal, who should give his Creator praise, but never never accuse the Lord of not coming across with the better life. But what stupidity made the preacher stop there, didn't he believe that our Creator has given us all the means of the better Life, so that in saying we can't blame the Lord for our ills, also say that we have only ourselves to blame for these same ills. It is commonly said that there is only a step between Saint and sinner, so, by failing to make clear that man is the child of God rather than another created animal, Churchianites put men into an ethical or rather a theological strait-jacket. Satan himself could not strike a neater and more effectual blow against Christianity, and yet this passes for the true religion. Here it is true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Our older generations clung their Faith in Christianity, purely on faith, not even wanting to understand perhaps, (certainly in much of certain sorry phases of church history) and thus by default, by rote rather than reason, passed this on as being a Faith to live by, that "Old Time Religion" as the song says. Their lack of understanding led them to fear all scientific thought and progress, typified by the Darwinian Theory of Evolution (which even Darwin disproved before his death). All too slowly understanding Christians are beginning to see how all sciences are but proving to be true, the Christian Faith which their ancesters believed without understanding. That lack of understanding is the oldest and yet the newest SIN against Christendom. It has led to the failure of the succeeding generations to pass along with their Faith, the very defenses of the Faith. Faith like a diamond is everlasting, but is precious easy to lose, and must be guarded and cherished, meaning that it must be used, and applied to every problem.

My English pen-pal claimed that he disliked nothing so much as someone preaching Christianity to him. I am risking his displeasure in the above no doubt, but I feel that he objects not so much to what I've described here as Christianity, but rather to the unreasoning, and straight jacket type of religion that barely has any resemblance to the real thing. I would like nothing more than to learn his reasoned portrayal of his beliefs.

The cabin-trailer building plans that I had, have never been acted upon apart from some hardware (wheels and axles etc) that I bought, side tracked by my more important buildings. Now however I may look forward to the day when I can fabricate a vacationing vehicle of some unique design, to have just as much fun building it as well as to use it. On the neighbour's TV recently I saw advertised a trailer boat, a cabin cruiser that could be backed right into the water, and driven away. But it seems a waste of motor power and weight to have to trail a full sized power plant unusable on land, while the amphibious vehicles one sees about are so awfully square and unwieldy as water craft. The most stable water craft are the sharp- ended life boat design with deep keel and flaring free board, none of which lend themselves readily to road vehicle design. Still it should be possible to find a happy medium, which would result in a sleek land vehicle not over five or six feet high with a reasonable 6 inches ground clearance, about 20 feet long, with the legal 8 foot width, though 7 ft. would be in better beam to length proportion, (3 to 1). On land passengers ride about the same height as the power plant, while on water, the power plant is part of the balast, and below water level. Therefore the deck would be the roof of the land vehicle and the windshield and windows therefore would be below the roof and deck and just above the water line. Above this line the lines could be rounded at front and back, but underwater lines must be sharp and clean for and aft, graceful therefore. The wheels must be pretty well amidships, the steering wheels retractable on telescopic spring units, to a stored position above the water line. The driving wheels likewise can be retractable into a water intake port on each side, where the wheels could be replaced with rotors of that little known propulsion system, by which water admitted on each side is driven in a stream through "jet" ports to the rear. The British Navy scrapped this propulsion system for its P T boats in the twenty's, yet for cruising in obstructed waters it had many advantages. Meanwhile I guess I could always borrow a caravan to tour with.

Now to bed, laundry tomorrow and more at my shop door lift winch drive. I'll try to get this duplicated and finally away certainly this year if not in a month or so. Cheerio everybody and So Long from Yours truly;     Wesley W Leonard