Kathi is taking Ed to the Vet this morning. He’s always had a small growth in his ear and occasionally this is ‘earatating’. Apparently this is a common cat complaint and there isn’t much that can be done about it except cleaning regularly. You can’t trust the cat to clean his own ear; when he discovers that his tongue is not long enough he tends to use his paw and the claws soon make a mess. Infection sets in and you have a very sad cat on your hands. Ed has been very good with this ritual and will sit quietly while Kathi probes his ear with swabs. He knows now that his ear will feel better after she’s finished and despite the sad sack look on his face he hops down with renewed vigour. He won’t take this from just anybody; he did bite one young vet and when he clamps down on your arm you know he means business. As he gets older he seems to realize that, although he hates the visit to the doctor, it will soon be over and all he has to so is be patient and he can go home a new cat.
Both cats are showing their age and as winter approaches they tend to spend more time indoors sleeping. For the last couple of years Rose has had trouble keeping her food down. When she was young she would eat anything and everything on her or Ed’s plate. When people picked her up they would remark on how er…chubby she was and Kathi would insist that it was her thick fur that created the illusion. Now, she still eats as much but can’t keep it all down so she is slim and trim and happy
I still needed a job so I went looking for work. Got a job in an iron foundry on Nanaimo street in Vancouver. This was the old fashioned foundry I had learned about. The place was filled with smoke from the hot iron. The metal was carried by two guys. They would position the pot over the mold and slowly pour the iron into it.
Fortunately my background in foundry work allowed me to get the less stressful job of making cores. Cores where the sand innards of a piece. Like the inside of a cup or bottle. They were destroyed after the pour and the sand mold was chopped up. The inside core couldn’t be removed and used again. It had to be broken up. Hence my endless job. It was an early morning job and while driving to work I would pick up a couple of guys who had no cars.
The workers were practically all East Indians which made lunch time lonely as I didn’t know the language. They were a good crowd and tried to tempt me with their food. (Some kind of gruel which they ate with their hands) no thanks.
I had a helper and he would supply me with the sand and took away the finished work. Unfortunately the bosses decided that they needed the cores first thing so moved my sign in time to 6 o’clock. I could do it but regretted missing out on my evening enjoyment. Not good enough they decided 2 o’clock was a better time for me to start. You can guess what happened next. I quit!
The Foundry was non-union and so, when the owner unexpectedly died the workers held a meeting to unionize. They elected the top Bob hater and I knew my time there was disappearing. It didn’t matter. As soon as the new owner found out it was a union shop he fired everybody and closed the place.
One of the guys working there who I became friends with was the general handyman. He knew everything about the foundry and taught me a lot. He had a great hobby. Flying machines towed by cars! I went out to the airport in the valley once to see what it was all about. Fascinating.
A semi-practical use for my 10,000 historical photos
