Some Might Say…

Some might say it was a lucky coincidence, others might say fate, I have decided it just may very well have been a miracle.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sun splashed summer morning – perfect for a walk. As I walked by Empire School on South Hill I began to think forward to the Optimist Safety Patrol Wind-up scheduled for later in the week. As Deputy Mayor it would be my job to bring Greetings to the Safety Patrollers on behalf of the City, so as I walked past the school and through the school zone ideas of what I would say began to formulate. In the back of my mind were also thoughts of Jenn New and all that she has experienced since she was hit by that car 20 some years ago in that very area. As all these thoughts were mingling about in my mind I noticed two little girls walking to school on the other side of Coteau Street. Their blonde pony tails bouncing with every step, their orange summer dresses testament to the summer day. They reminded me of what Jenn and her sisters may very well have looked like that fateful day all those years ago. Quickly those little girls stopped at the corner of 5^th and Coteau, looked both ways and crossed 5^th. There they stopped again. During those moments I quietly began to pray for them, for their safety, and for Jenn and her family and all that has happened in these years following her accident. As the girls stepped off the curb to cross Coteau Street I was walking backwards watching them to be sure they were safe to cross, then I turned and saw a City Bus making its way down Coteau towards the cross walk. I knew the bus would stop and exactly on cue it slowed down and began to stop. Just then a larger car came quickly up behind the bus, apparently not seeing that the bus had slowed down. The car braked at the very last second but not in time to keep it from slamming into the back of the bus. Oblivious to what had just happened; those beautiful little girls continued to skip through the intersection and made it safely and uneventfully to the other side of the street. 

Perhaps that car would have stopped in time even if the bus hadn’t been there. Thank goodness we will never know. I don’t even know if the bus driver saw the drama unfold the way that I did – it really doesn’t matter if he did or not. The Transit driver and his bus protected those tiny, innocent pedestrians. The girls heard the crash, but really had no idea what had just happened, or that it could have ended very differently. 

We often lament at the cost of subsidizing City Transit and that’s understandable. But yesterday I saw something happen that involved Moose Jaw Transit that had an ending that was priceless. Now I really do have a story to tell at the Safety Patrol Wind-up! Our safety patrollers are not as big as a City Bus, but they stop traffic and keep kids safe every day they are on duty. We will all be forever grateful for that and for everyone that keeps our children safe.

Re-post from June 27, 2010….(Also was published in MJVE)

And this afternoon was my final official greetings as Deputy Mayor for 2010. It was ValleyView Centres Annual Family Picnic and Memorial Service. As you can see I have attended many events over the course of 2 months, but the one at ValleyView really touched my heart. Of course the setting is so beautiful, but the atmosphere and the people are the most precious of all. During the memorial service a story was read and ended with this thought – “‘  ‘Blue Roses’  are very rare and should be appreciated for their beauty and distinctiveness. If you don’t stop and smell that rose with your heart and touch that rose with your kindness, then you’ve missed a blessing from God.” The Blue Rose of the story was a mentally challenged young man. From what I have seen in the past and saw again today, I know from the depths of my soul that ValleyView Centre has the most beautiful Blue Rose Garden in Moose Jaw. There is the employment and revenue story of ValleyView but the more valuable story is the one of family, love and care that has been played out there every day of of every year since 1955. Let’s not take ValleyView, it’s staff or it’s residents for granted, they are vital threads of the fabric of our community.

Think before you speak (or write)

Have you ever said something you wish you could take back? I have. Even worse is writing something quickly and sending it into cyberspace to be published, or worse yet sending it to print. I am guilty of all of the above and am very, very sorry for offending those who have taken such great offence with my carelessly written words. What I wrote was never meant to offend anyone, or any group of people, but it has. Please accept my most sincere apology.

Heather Eby

Trashing Litter

  At the age of 7 my class had a poster contest about not littering. Low and behold I won two bucks for the best poster and gained a life long disdain for litter! Spring seems to be the worst time of year for it, however litter is always lurking around in one way shape or form every season of every year. Yuck! Last spring it was my hope to lead the way in getting a new City By-law enacted to combat “litterers”. The wheels of such things move slowly and although it is in the works, it is not ready yet. But so what? We shouldn’t need a by-law to encourage us to do what should come naturally. Throw our trash in the garbage!! If there isn’t a garbage can nearby, take your trash home, and dispose of it there. We have a garbage can in our garage so when we drive into the garage, we just empty the vehicle trash bag and it’s done.

 Two springs ago a friend and I cleaned the ditches along 7^th South West on the way out to the Wild Animal Park. Normally that is a half hour walk round trip. That Sunday afternoon it took us 5 hours and 7 huge garbage bags! The number of Tim Horton cups along that stretch of road was awful. We must watch too much CSI though or something as we soon saw patterns. Along the road there would be clusters of cups with DD on the lids. It didn’t take long to figure out that people are creatures of habit. Go through the drive thru on the way to the valley, finish the double-double half way down 7^th, roll down the window, throw out the cup. Day in and day out. Roll up the rim turns into roll down  the window. The City has put a garbage can at the gate blocking entrance to the old Wild Animal Park, gratefully people are beginning to use that, maybe soon everyone will.

There were many other habits to be discovered along that stretch of road, all leaving behind a disgusting tale (and trail!) of habitual littering.

I loathe litter. Can you tell?

 Earlier this year it was my intent to get the high schools of Moose Jaw in some type of promotion or competition to combat this ever-present problem. Riverview Collegiate was the only school to answer the call and this week (May 7^th – 11^th) they have 5 days of Green events planned. This includes Wednesday May 9^th, which will find them cleaning up litter in their South Hill neighborhood. I will be joining them from 11 a.m. until noon and encourage you to join us too! 

As well on Wednesday May 9^th my soul mate in this war on litter, Crystal Froese, and I will be downtown at 8 a.m. in front of City Hall with garbage bags and brooms, encouraging business owners to do a little clean up in front of their stores. This has been successfully done in, with great participation from the business community and we are hoping to get it going in the Friendly City now too! 

So my personal challenge to you is this…each and every day, while you are out and about, where ever you are…pick up at least 3 pieces of litter and dispose of them. If one picks up three…we will make a difference! Please join us either in front of City Hall on Wednesday morning, or at Riverview at 11 a.m..  Or get your own thing going and let me know! In the meantime check out www.beautif-i-moosejaw.blogspot.com. It’s an inspiring and challenging page that will get you thinking about this beautiful city of ours…and about how much more beautiful we can all make it! Send us your ideas, be creative and let’s do it!

Trash litter – it will make you feel great!!

 

Revolutionary Revelation

Going through my journal this morning something that I wrote back in August of 2010 caught my eye. I want to share it here today, as it’s a place where I am at again…and I am wondering if you might not be too.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Last night during the movie “Eat, Pray, Love” an idea began to take shape in my mind. Such a radically, simple idea that to me it feels like a revelation.

It revolves around those three words ~ Eat ~ Pray ~ Love. It begins for me with Social Media and how the time that I spend trying to keep up with it has robbed me, and is robbing me of Real Time. Real time to Eat (cook & enjoy), Pray (my time with the Lord through His word, prayer and study) and Love (time spent not only with my husband, but Real Time spent, physically, in person, with my friends and the people in my life).

Today I will begin a journey to try to regain what is missing. My time and intimacy with the Lord – I will do this by going to His Word or to prayer instead of to my computer for the latest status updates.

I will make a list of those people I care enough about to be Facebook friends with or a Twitter follower of – with their phone numbers – and if I get the Social urge with not enough time for an in-person visit I will call someone on my list or send a note.

And it is time to start cooking again. Not just because hockey season is upon us but for Ebb and for me. We deserve to eat and enjoy delicious food daily.

I commit my Pray-Love-Eat journey (that is in the order of my own priorities) to the Lord and pray for His guidance and presence in it. 

That was almost 18 months ago and I really did manage to make some lasting changes, however some of the old habits have crept back in. The whole texting, blogging, facebooking, tweeting thing takes a lot of time away from face to face, eye to eye time with everyone in my physical world. And honestly, it drives me crazy. When I’m with someone who is more interested in their phone than in me, I lose interest in a hurry. And I’m sure that works both ways. I don’t want to be that person. As a society we are gaining technical skills but losing people skills. I don’t want to be that person either. So here I go again…committing to being more engaged WITH people in person not through cyber-space. I’m not quitting Social Media – but I am starting to pay more attention to people. People like you. Give me a call – maybe we could do lunch!

Glorious and Free

This week was flanked with two events that are undeniably connected to each other. The Election and Remembrance Day. And this year I couldn’t help but feel the connection ever so deeply.

The son of two of my high school friends was killed in Afghanistan less than 2 weeks ago. He was there on a military tour, representing our country when he became the victim in a Suicide Bombing. Byron was 28 years old.

I will not pretend to understand the strategies and tactics of war, or even how a country ends up being war-torn when to me it seems there must be a better way.

Very honestly for many, many years the words “war veteran” conjured up images in my mind of old soldiers. Not young men and women. I know that is a totally wrong image as every soldier begins as a young person. But as a kid living in small town Saskatchewan, a place where the military was far removed, war seemed awfully distant and old. My hometown bears streets named after boys who went to war and never came home. But I had never known those boys, my parents had never even known those boys, so the true significance of that gesture never hit me ~ until many years later. Maybe not until now.

This week as we went to the polls to elect our new Provincial Government the reality of what a privilege we have to vote resonated deeply with me. There are men and women dying every day in the battle for such freedoms as voting, freedoms that we living in comfortable Canada have come to take for granted. So much so that a high percentage of our citizens don’t bother to vote. Some saying “It doesn’t make a difference anyway.” Maybe it doesn’t make a difference if one person votes, but it sure makes a difference if they don’t. And can you imagine what we would do if someone came into our country and threatened to take that vote away from us?

My friend’s son died last week. He was working to help another country as they long to have what we have never been without. Freedom and peace.

May God keep our land glorious and free. And may we never take that glory and freedom so much for granted that we don’t notice when we lose it, or worse when we give it up.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

It’s almost that time of year again…the first day of school looms. Oh, how we remember those days! A bittersweet ending and a nervous beginning all in one day.

 Even with those “first” days long gone as a student and as a parent, it is still nice to be able to look back on summer and reminisce about those sun soaked Saskatchewan days.

 After an extremely busy Council summer last year with the formation of the Downtown Facility and Field House Board of Directors and all the groundwork and meetings that entailed, this summer has seemed much more low-key. We were able to spend some wonderful time at Lake Diefenbaker family and friends enjoying the lake and all it has to offer. In the middle of those holiday days I had the opportunity to take part in The South Saskatchewan River Basin Showcase Tour hosted by SIPA (Saskatchewan Irrigation Projects Association). It was a 13 hour tour that began in Saskatoon, headed down to Outlook and then back to the city. The tour was filled with tons of information and several very interesting stops along the way.

 We get so wrapped up in our own City and our own little world that often times we forget that there is a much bigger picture in our province, our nation and our world. The tour initially piqued my interest because of the history of the Lake Diefenbaker and Gardiner Dam project from the 1960’s. However what I learned throughout the day was much more than just a history lesson. The South Saskatchewan River is a vital resource within our province, historically, currently and far into the future. The economic spin offs along the River Basin are amazing and diverse. From the Saskatoon Berry Farm, to Boots Dairy near Outlook, Keg Farms (which grows and exports pinto seed beans and much, much more), to Barrich Farms home of True North Seed Potato Company and even the Canada Saskatchewan Irrigation Diversification Centre in Outlook, the prosperity is evident. These operations employ dozens and dozens of people and create spin-off industry in their respective trading areas.

 The damming of the South Saskatchewan River was talked about as early as 1920, but did not come to complete fruition until over 40 years later. The province went through the Dirty Thirties, all the while the mighty South Saskatchewan River was flowing right through the dry and dusty prairie. I can’t help but wonder if the project had proceeded in the 20’s would the story of the 1930’s have been any different for anyone? We will never know.

 The moral of the story for me is that big dreams take big risks and usually lots of opposition. But that just means they are truly worth pursuing! What do you think John Diefenbaker and James G. Gardiner would think of their namesake projects today? Their dreams were big, but it’s hard to imagine that they could have really envisioned all that would come to be, all that we just take for granted in this province today. About 45% of Saskatchewan’s population receives its drinking water directly or indirectly from Lake Diefenbaker. The lake boasts nearly 800 kilometers of shoreline. And the construction cost for Gardiner and Qu’Appelle River Dams was about $120 million 3 decades ago, today’s price tag would be a whopping $1billion!

 I challenge you this week to think outside of your box…explore something you haven’t explored before. Learn something new, do something different. It will do your mind and your attitude good. It will be like the first day of school all over again…except better because there won’t be a test!