Hi all! Well, I am staying at my parents' place during my visit to Saskatoon, and man is it weird to be here. I don't really regard it as "home" (Montreal, somehow, feels more like home to me, now), but I still am surprised at all the things that I was once used to, and now seem so unbelievable. It's so dry here, I have had a cough that's hung on for days, dry and nasty! My nose bled from one sneeze! The people dress differently here -- less stylishly, in a very endearing way. And almost everyone speaks in English! But anyway, something very funny happened today, something that expresses a great deal of what Saskatchewan is as I know it, in several ways, and I wanted to share... So, I was going to the movies (_What Women Want_, which was funny enough) with my sister Marie and her husband, and as we drove down one of the less-main streets, Troy turns to me and says, "Did you see that?" "What?" Marie and I say. "That guy with his pants around his ankles." "Nope. Drunk guy?" "Naw, just old, I think." Well, we agreed that we should probably go back, in Troy's words, "At least to point and laugh, if not to help." That was just bravado from Troy, though, who hopped out of the car wuick as lightning, and went to help the old fellow. He'd been standing there for a few minutes, holding himself up against a bus stop post with his bare hands (in the FREEZING cold, so it was lucky the old fellow had long johns on). Troy walked up and said, "Do you need some help, mister?" "Uhhhh, yup. My pants fell down, and I can't pull 'em up again!" the old codger said, and when Troy pulled them up, he asked the guy to hold onto them with one hand to keep them up. Then, when Troy tried to do up his coat, he unwittingly let the pants drop again, and the guy was worried about getting his gorcery bag (which had a newspaper and two rolls of toilet paper in them, apparently). So, in all, Troy pulled the poor old senile codger's pants up about three times (and, for them to fit, they had to go halfway up his chest!) before he walked him to his apartment building, which was about fifty paces from the bus stop where we found him in the first place. Troy's a good sort, really: he would no more merely point and laugh than he would simply drive on by. But boy did we have a good laugh about that. This . . . this is what Saskatchewan is ALL about for me. Ah, hmm. What a place. I hope you are all well, bright and happy and enjoying your holidays! Gord
