May I express my " Happy Birthday wishes too!" Always a great time to send well wishes to great people and friends !! Thank you James for being a good friend to Bill and " Moi" ;-) I did see a post on FB , not sure of the actual day, I'm guessing the 27 th? We will toast to you, James!!! Promise... We will miss you at dinner! The countdown to Cali has begun... I'm so excited!!! Cheers!! Many happy birthday wishes to you, Bill!!! You were my mentor from the start and I'll always be grateful for all of the help and advise .. You are a special person! Mahalo!!!! Laura

Ty for the birthday wishes. We never did anything special. We had gone out on New Year's Eve and tomorrow night we are going out for Steak.

I told of some of mine over on the welcome to AMY365 thread. Not much of great moment on the Friday ... but son and partner took me to a country and western band on Sat night. They're cousins - John P. Allen is the M.C. and gets his body and movements into it, and his face moves a good deal related to what he's doing. He played fiddle with the "Prairie Oyster" band for several years and recently has done a number of his own gigs. His sister, a doc, plays string bass and brother, fiddle, mandolin and trumpet were involved, and the young ones of the first two: the main female singer is taking nursing and quite vivacious - adds a good deal to the presentation. They attend one church where I go - the one which I went to as a child. The men's group in the other church had a tour of Labatt's Brewery on Monday night, so it's been an interesting weekend. ole joyful

Again - thanks for your good wishes on my birthday. Waldie, a cousin, and I were friends in our small high school, where he often played the piano at noon hour. He liked horses, rode one to school and parked it in my Dad's Mom's brother-in-law's barn. He helped his Dad, who was a member of our provincial legislature for several years, operate a timber business, and later began an auction business, from which he retired several years ago. He and his family loved music, and often performed. His son told me, when I spoke of their nobility in having performed while their father and grandfather was dying, that his last verbal communication with his father was that when he told his Dad that they were going to play at the gathering that night, his Dad sat part way up, said, "Good" and smiled. The show must go on. He was a jolly, friendly man, of integrity, who built many friendships, so there was a large crowd in attendance at the visitation and the church was nearly filled this morning for his funeral which included a number of stories about him, the family playing their fiddles, bass, mandolin, autoharp, etc. and singing, and a good deal of laughter, and applause - Waldie wouldn't have wanted it otherwise - and we sang, "What a friend we have in Jesus" and "The battle hymn of the republic". How much happier world ours would be were it peopled by more like he was. We'll miss Waldie at the Old Farts' club ... as we miss others on their departure. I've said sometimes that one of the best tributes that we can pay at the death of someone whom we admire is to examine the things about them that pleased us, tweak one or two of the good things so that they'd fit our lifestyle, and emulate those qualities within our own lives. I had just started down the lunch line ... when I remembered that, having skipped breakfast, and about to have a blood test that required fasting, I was about to misbehave ... so abandoned the line. Haven't et - yet: filled with expectations .... but the belly says, "I don't find them nearly that full-filling" ole joyfuelled