A snowy PD day

 

Friday was a PD day, a personal development day, for my granddaughter's teacher. With no school and little to do, even a light snowfall beckoned with a promise of winter fun: making a snowman with grandpa.

But the snow was not only light but dry and powdery. It wouldn't roll. It refused to even pile. But stuff like that may stop some but not a dedicated kid. She decided to make a melted snowman. A snowman past his prime. And so she put her Frosty hat on her creation and sure enough, just like the song says, the hat was magic. The almost formless large lump of snow became a snowman.

Cities should not be built on flood plain

 If you have been following the news out of British Columbia, Canada's western most province, and also the news out of Nova Scotia, the province on Canada's Atlantic coast, you would know both these areas are receiving extreme amounts of precipitation. In B.C. one area got an average month's worth of rain in 24 hours. The Trans Canada highway has suffered washouts as have the railways linking B.C. to the rest of the country.

Although rain has not posed a serious threat in London in decades, a record breaking rainfall could wreck real havoc on certain areas of this city. Most of the city, like Springbank Park, would be safe but there are areas built on flood plain. These areas are protected by a system of dikes and a large dam in the north end of the city. But in the event of a truly extreme amount of precipitation, the Thames River could easily break free of its restraints and flood the homes built on the flood plain.

Black apartment pops viewed against blue sky

Scanning London from a spot in the south end of town, near Wharncliffe Rd. and Base Line, a black-painted apartment building immediately catches one's eye. It is big, black and dramatic today but one must wonder what it will look like in a few years hence. Black paint has a reputation for fading.

Automobile Dealers Short on New Cars

 

It was time for the annual fall tire change. Summer tires off and snow tires on. While the service department makes the switch, folk usually stroll about the showroom looking at the new cars, sitting in them and dreaming not of a seasonal tire change but of a complete change of cars.

But there was no dreaming today as the dealership showroom was completely devoid of new cars. There's a chip shortage, you know. And new cars need numerous electronic chips to function. 

The floor was not totally bare, the dealer had a 1960s era VW Beetle on display. Today it was memories wandering the showroom conjured up and then only in the oldest, most senior of clients. I had a robin-egg blue memory haunt me while I was there.

Art, not brown paper, covers windows of empty store

When businesses go under, brown paper often goes up on all the exterior windows. It looks as if this company has found a more attractive answer: art. The empty store offers a leasing opportunity and I, or one, like the positive approach.

Memories of Hyde Park are fading

Some time ago, the village of Hyde Park sat at the corner of Hyde Park Road and Gainsborough Rd. Not today. The village was annexed by London and very few of the original structures remain.

One building that dodged the demolition bullet, a white, wood frame farm home with a large, front port, has found that its luck has run out. It sits empty, its windows boarded up, patiently awaiting the arrival of the demolition crew.

Voting still out on value of pulse oximeters

In early October, The New York Times carried an article headlined "Do I Still Need a Pulse Oximeter?" It went on to report that a study done in South Africa showed home monitoring of oxygen levels can be a true lifesaver.

My youngest granddaughter has not been vaccinated. Up until a few days ago children her age were not even offered the opportunity of getting vaccinated against COVID-19. This left me feeling uneasy whenever my 84-year-old sister and my granddaughter both paid me visits at the same time. How to feel comfortable having a non-vaccinated person in the same house as my double-vaccinated oh-so-senior sister?

The truth is there is no truly safe way this can be done. None. But a pulse oximeter can provide a little assurance that the child is unlikely to be an asymptomatic person quietly fighting the COVID-19 virus. 

 

It is not a perfect COVID-19 screening device but it does work in a statistically important number of cases. A perfectly healthy child often has a reading as high as 98 or 99. My granddaughter always hits 99. If she hit lesser number, I'd ask why.