Time for another story? Ok, here we go.

When I was about six years old, living in a small village in Russia, times were tough for my mother, but not I. I did not know the difference. Sure we could have meat (pork) only once a month, if that, but I did not suffer because of it. I was having too much fun as a young boy. Only later on did I find out that she held down three jobs to just make ends meet.

In any case, on several occasions myself and my best friend Misha (Michael), would be just a bit hungry around lunch time, so off we would go to the railroad tracks, about 2 Km out. We knew from experience that the folks on the trains would for some odd reason drop their trash near our village. Usually we could find quite a few wooden boards (plywood I would guess), in small sizes, the type we could pull back on and use as sleighs (like the plastic ones kids use these days) to barrel down a hill in all abandon!

So, in any case, we would gather up a few of these and bring them to Masha, my 80 year old (? not sure of her age at that time) landlady. She would use them as tops/covers for large pails of... stuff. Don't know what was in them. Could have been dead body parts. (Just joking). Pickled stuff mostly. As a reward she would give us some soup, and on occasion even some sour cream to go with that. And boy were we overjoyed!

I guess today's kids in Canada and the USA are spoiled. We had great fun, good teeth, and good health, for the most part. One day I'll tell you about burning tires. js

Monday March 2nd:

Just got the below award from Jim (Hermit Jim). See his blog for an explanation. Thank you Jim! I am going to follow the rules but some of the bloggers I follow have aleady received the reward from Jim directly.



Ok, this is in progress so am going to start with:

1. Blondie's Blog.

2. Serenity (already awarded and I agree).

3. Gord's Blog.

4. Essence of Life Blog.