Canada Day Weekend & Dale’s Standard

Fyd-L-Styx was in the annual Canada Day Parade in Peterborough on Saturday. The float slowly made its way down George Street while the band members played traditional Old Tyme Fiddle music in a kitchen constructed in the middle of the float. After playing Maple Sugar, and other annoying songs a hundred times over, the float finally made it Roger Nielson Way and we could get off and head to play on stage at the Multi-cultural Canada Day Celebration at Del Crary Park. We were to get 15 minutes of fame playing on the stage, but we played until they kicked us off, giving us more like 25 minutes, enough time to play all of the songs we wanted to play. It was a very successful day; people loved our music on the float and on stage, and it got our name out in the community even more. Fyd-L-Styx even won “Best Overall Entry” in the parade, thanks to all the hard work of the volunteers in the band and their families and friends. It looked great!

After the celebrations I Peterborough, and receiving the approval from my parents, it was off to the cottage with Dale and his daughter. There were lots of people there, most of them not doing a lot of anything, which I was glad to see. After a bottle of Dale’s precious Australian beer, Victoria Bitter, which you can only get in Calgary or Australia, and a quick swim it was time to go tubing with Bobby. Bobby has one speed only and that’s full out, so I had to hang on for dear life. After that we watched a part of Jaws, then switched to a very Canadian movie “Canadian Bacon”, I found it strange and I didn’t watch the rest of it. The fireworks that night came out way too early, before dark, and when there’s a package of fireworks laying around you have to play with them. So some “Dancing Devils” and firecrackers from Bobby’s own collection were “tested”. Before the testing session was done, fireworks and firecrackers had before thrown at tents, the cottage, the fire, and even the boat’s cans of gas. The fireworks went off without a hitch, and were really cool. After the firework’s Mother Nature’s fireworks could be seen in the distance, and I was happy that I was going to be sleeping in the tent that didn’t leak. By the middle of the night the storm had made its way to us, with lots of lightning thunder, and rain.

By morning the storm was gone, but there was still some wind of clouds left behind. We had a choice of cereal for breakfast, Cheerio’s, or Gay Cheerio’s (Fruit Loops), and I picked Cheerio’s even though the gay ones were more popular. We didn’t do too much of anything that day, went for a couple of boat rides, I got a lesson in Cribbage, and had a pre-dinner drink over a game of euchre. We were doing really good in the first game, I’m sure we won, but I’m told that we lost 10-9, the second game I finished the drink that Dale made which was a little strong, and he got someone to make the second, which was even more strong, and we lost that game too. We tried to redeem ourselves during the third one, but dinner was ready. It was the best game of cards that I’ve ever played, I claimed at one point the cards were “colourful”, and the disconnected phone beside me served as my “phone a friend phone” when I didn’t know what to do. After dinner it was decided that the “boys playing cards” would do the dishes, only Dale and I did them though, the other two ran away. We packed up all of our stuff and packed it in to Dale’s Jetta, I was amazed we got it all in, but it was Dale’s skills acquired from his old job in Cargo at Air Canada that did it. Dale then decided that I should learn to drive standard on the way home. It was quite disastrous, I stalled at pretty much ever intersection on the way home. I also seemed to have trouble finding the right gears, when accelerating I would go 1^st to 4^th, or 2^nd to 5^th. I guess I’m not going to be a racecar driver anymore. It was a good lesson though, good practice for me and for Dale when his daughter starts to drive this fall, and a pretty good end to an awesome weekend.