ingwe; Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully you folks are as prepared for Christmas as you'd hoped to be and all else is acceptably well at your house.
Once upon a time we used to get a custom combine crew from South Dakota come up and harvest for us - this would be '82 or '83 I'd think - before both of our governments decided that sort of entrepreneurship was bad.....
Anyway these boys would start every fall at Ogallala, NB with a half dozen Massey 760's and work their way north until they hit us which was about the end of season for them as I recall.
Back then the big grain elevator companies along with the fuel suppliers used to give out promo toques by the handful, so we'd always have a good stock of green Cargill or black and red Esso ones stashed in the office. They all came with at least a tennis ball sized tassel on the top too back then.
One particularly frigid night we were finishing up and the South Dakota folks were not enjoying our temperatures much at all, so I suggested that I could go back to the office and supply each of them with a toque - which brought 6 of the blankest stares I'd seen in some time.
I asked the boss Mark just what they called a knitted woolen head covering and he replied - "watch cap or wool cap" Then he added, "As hungry as I am right now Dwayne, if you brought us a half dozen toques I'd likely try to eat them!"
Being the curious sort I asked Mark what they'd call the headgear I always wore then and he replied "ball cap or trucker cap"
They all got a good chuckle when I asked, "So then John Wayne wears a cowboy cap then?"
Anyway ingwe you might be sad to know that the tassel top is getting more rare up here these days and the regular plain top watch cap style is the most commonly seen in our part of BC anyway.
You folks do have some interesting things that aren't common up here however and they do catch the traveling Canuck by surprise.
There was the time I was having breakfast in one of the Dakotas and was asked if I wanted chips with the bacon and eggs. Being a Canuck and mistakenly equating "chips = fries" I said yes please.
Of course I got potato chips with my bacon and eggs - which while confusing my stomach somewhat wasn't half bad....
Then there's the whole sausage gravy on biscuits some of you folks do at every meal.
Here's a fashion trend on the west coast...little too metrosexual for me...
sse; Good morning to you sir, hopefully you folks are well and warm enough.
I'm with you on some of the styles we see young men wearing out here. The baggy toque along with skinny jeans and pink Converse on a guy still gives me pause.
That being said, there's few enough of us who wear cowboy hats, boots and jeans hereabouts that when I don't wear my hat the folks in the grocery store question where the hat went.
Our eldest daughter is a collector/wearer of toques year round, but then she's a she and that wasn't what we were talking about.
Anyway sir, regardless of your current choice of headwear, Merry Christmas to you all.
Good foggy morning Dwayne, I hope all is well in beautiful B.C.?
Food wise, the gravy, or mayonnaise on French fries throws a lot of Yanks.
I don't mind a tassel, but they fit poorly under a helmet.
wabigoon; We're doing well so far thanks sir, though its too warm for the ski hill operators I suppose as we're getting our precipitation in the form of rain lately.
You folks don't do gravy on fries? Somehow I didn't know that....
Mayonnaise is an abomination suitable for food applications only to make potato salad in my view - but as you know I'm in a minority in that regard.
Some folks will put it on good steak up here for heaven's sake and no, there is utterly no help for that ailment.
I've converted to flat top toques these days mostly because they fit folded into a jacket pocket easier and since my natural head insulation has long since exited, I need all the artificial block heaters I can get.
Every fall and winter coat I own has a toque tucked into a pocket and spares are stuffed into the consoles of vehicles too.
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours my friend.
When traveling in Canada I sometimes feel like capt. Kirk of the starship Enterprise, lost in a parallel universe.
Everything is familiar, but out if wack. Just when I start feeling comfortable something comes out of left field and throws me off course and I have to get on coms to engineering and see if Mr. Scott has been messing with the dilithium crystals again.
Never the less, always an enjoyable experience.
Last edited by SBTCO; 12/21/14.
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” ― G. Orwell
"Why can't men kill big game with the same cartridges women and kids use?" _Eileen Clarke
"Unjust authority confers no obligation of obedience." - Alexander Hamilton