Dog On A Root

- jim Young “The great thing about the mind is that it mostly forgets the bad things and only remembers the good things.” - George E. Young It’s important to remember that not everything about the proverbial “good old days” was good. It’s usually just more fun to remember the good stuff. But there were bad things about the “good old days” as well. So from time to time, just to keep things in perspective, I’m going to remind you about some of the bad stuff that happened in the “good old days” . A good example of this would be to take a look at today’s attitudes towards Vinyl Records. By the 1990s, following the introduction of CDs and digital music, the production of vinyl records had pretty much ceased to exist. Then, shortly after the turn of the century vinyl started to make a comeback. Why? Because of a common belief that vinyl recordings are superior to digital recordings. While that may be true, another truth is, in the “good old days” vinyl records did not deliver the quali...

  Great North Arrow - Now TWICE a month!  Dog On A Root Too! - jim Young “Double your pleasure, double your fun…” Paul Severson When Jim and Cyndi first announced their intention to publish the Great North Arrow bi-weekly, I panicked. Would I be able to keep up? How would I find enough material to write about? My panic attack increased when I considered the possibility that “bi-weekly” might even mean twice a week! I reached for my bottle of Havana Club Rum that I keep close by to settle my nerves. While I’m sure many of our loyal readers would love to see the GNA published even more often, you’ll have to be satisfied with twice a month for now. Yes, I have sometimes contributed more than one article per month in the past anyway but I’m not sure I could consistently keep up the pace. I am a “retired” racehorse afterall. And while Jim and Cyndi have assured me that I would not be expected to contribute to every edition, I have developed this plan to try to keep up. In the f...

- jim Young, “In my country, they have earned the utmost respect from their compatriots.” - Major Charles Winchester explaining to 3 Korean doctors why he sarcastically refers to them as “Larry, Curly and Moe”. From the tv show M*A*S*H I remember listening to the radio before we had television. I can’t remember the names of the children’s shows I listened to on the radio with my three sisters, but I remember fondly listening to “Hockey Night In Canada” with Foster Hewitt. It was a Saturday night tradition as my sisters and I gathered ‘round the stove watching Dad make popcorn just before the game was about to begin. We would all watch the kernels frying in butter trying to guess which one would pop first. I knew I had a winner picked every time but just before it popped, Dad would gently shake the pot over the stove element to prevent the kernels from burning and I would lose sight of it. Of course once the first kernel popped, the lid went on the pot to keep the popping corn from fly...