Finding Home

            On Friday morning I continued memorizing “Le complainte du progres" by Boris Vian.

            I found four versions of the chords for “La noyée” by Serge Gainsbourg and settled on the ones in the key of D but I’m hearing a lot of the chords differently and changing them.  The people that post these chords are probably better musicians than me and may have a better ear but I’ve got to go with the way I hear it.

            I had to do my laundry since I was down to one pair of underwear with a big hole that would not keep my fellas snug.

            I stopped off at the drug store to ask them to call my doctor and renew a skin cream prescription.

            I had a bowl of lentil soup with chips for lunch.

            I didn’t do any exercises or take a bike ride in the afternoon because I had to meet a deadline for a proposal of the “Home” part of my “Finding Places” assignment. I was locating four First nations sites near where I was raised in New Brunswick. Of the four my TA will pick two for me to write about. My preference is the first two. Here are my proposals:

Proposal number one:
            The home where I was raised in the province of New Brunswick is 20 kilometres from the former village of Bristol, which is now called Florenceville-Bristol. The original Wolastoqey word for this location is Shiktehawk and it was important because it was the beginning of the Big Shiktehawk stream, which led from the St John River to a 23.5 km portage to the Miramichi River, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean. Shiktehawk was also the site of a legendary battle and a subsequent peace between the Wolastoqey people and another band that some say were the Mi’kmaq and others say the Mohawk.
            I propose to research and present about the significance of this location as a route and as the site of a peace treaty.

Proposal number two:

            My grandfather had a sawmill near the St John River not far from Edmundston, New Brunswick. Our family history often retells some stories of my grandfather’s violent encounters with one particular “French Indian” who was also working as a logger in that area. The nearest First Nation to that location is the St Basile First Nations 43 km east of my grandfather’s home. This Wolastoqey reserve is mostly French speaking and some of its members are still loggers.

            I propose to research and present about the involvement of the people of the St Basile First nations in the lumber industry in Madawaska County, New Brunswick and hope also to find the source of conflict that existed between settlers like my grandfather and members of the reserve.

Proposal number three:

            Maliseet Woodstock First Nation, 32 km south of the house where I was raised is the second site for this band of Wolastoqey at the meeting of the Meduxnekeag and St John Rivers. The first site was downriver near Meductic. The Meductic Wolastoqey Village was a Maliseet settlement near the Eel River and the St John River 6.5 kilometres up river along the St John from what is now Meductic, New Brunswick. Until the mid 18th Century it was the main Maliseet settlement. The Maliseet built a fort there to defend against Mohawk attacks. It was the first fort in Acadia.

            I propose to research and present about why the Meductic Wolastoqey Village had to move to Woodstock.

Proposal number four:

            Tobique First Nations is the largest of the Wolastoqiyik reserves in New Brunswick with a population of 2,500. The Tobique River is named after the Wolastoqey Chief Noel Tobec (1706 to 1767). It is 25.5 kilometres south of my father's home community of New Denmark.

            I propose to research and present about the history of the Tobique First nations.

            I posted my proposals online just before dinner.

            I had a potato, two drumsticks and gravy while watching the third and fourth episodes of Mr Lucky.

            The third episode was really impossible to follow because it was only a 14% download.

            The second was 89% and it involved a math professor who was trying to work out a system to beat Lucky's roulette wheel. A beautiful rich woman named Prudence always hangs around while the professor plays because she’s interested in whether he’ll ever work it out. Her purpose in the plot seems to be just to serve as eye candy and to be Lucky's romantic involvement in the middle of the intrigue. The police inspector tells Lucky that there’s a counterfeit ring working in fake $50 bills and asks him to be on the lookout. A scuba diver has been putting packages in a net below a porthole and someone inside the ship has been pulling them up. Lucky hears a portal slam and a boat motor. He goes below, sees one of his crewmembers carrying a book up to the deck. He investigates the cabin where he heard the portal slam and finds the wet wrapping of a package the size of a book. The crewmember passes the book to the professor who gets on the boat. Lucky jumps the professor and Andamo takes out the crewmember. The professor isn't really a professor but rather one of the counterfeiters.
            There isn’t much to this show besides visual style.

            Prudence was played by the beautiful Barbara Bain.