Kipling, who made comments about big guns and so many other politically inappropriate things it would be impossible to include them here, once visited Medicine Hat and declared that it had all hell for a basement.  It does have natural gas, and a flame is constantly lit in the coulees to mark the spot.  Some say it is a waste of gas, but at least you can actually tell the whisperer by his flame.  Harder to pin down is the wind.  In southern Alberta they say the cows sleep standing up because of the wind.  And you only know there isn't a breeze when you get bit by a sand fly. Here I met Danusia, the daughter of Polish combatant, who, along with her childhood girlfriend Bogusia, sold Toni home perms and L'Oreal hair colour to fellow children of displaced persons, who cut hair and did it up just so in the Flats, where it flooded every Spring, or thereabouts. Danka and Bugsy were married, as was the custom, to strapping Polish lads who worked at the IXL brickw...

Everybody was crazy about Mrs. Brisbin, who taught Grade 2 at Malmo Elementary School in Edmonton.  The fact that we kids from Michener Park--what our parents called Married Student Housing--and were all estranged from somewhere and someone was also a factor.  Mrs. Brisbin was a nice sequel to Beatrice Kelly, who was the school principal and also taught First Grade.  Otherwise we were typical "elementos", or squirts as my 9 year old used to call them.  Elementos suggested some sort of imbecility, as if we were all mental, and maybe we were. Mrs. Brisbin's fiancée was an opthamologist and had donated a poster on the parts of the eye to our class after he was guest at an assembly devoted to eye hygiene and eye safety.  Don't rub your eyes, he said, which was comparable to other advice we were given (e.g., don't put anything bigger (they always said bigger when the word was smaller) than your elbows in your ears.  So why were Q-Tips on wooden sticks still u...