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I was thinking of my sister and what a wonderful person she is - always has been, really. When I was still living at home and she was about 14 years old, my mother went to work in a jewelry store. So my sister took on the housework like a little trooper. She could cook the best vegetable soup and roast beef that I�ve ever tasted. Uncharacteristically for the males in my family, I decided to help out by washing the dishes (no dishwasher) and the laundry and some other cleaning chores. I wasn�t being particularly enlightened. I just loved my sister very much. I wouldn�t have done that for anyone else.

She�s always been so active. While she was mothering us guys she was playing hockey, played guitar and sang in a folk group. And she still had hours left over to spend on the telephone.

Years later she married an old friend (acquaintance really) of mine and gave birth to a couple of boys. The first one�s my godson. (Not that he�s ever gained anything by that) He�s almost a man now. Actually, I haven�t seen him in a few months so he might be there already. He was five years old when I first met him. I�ve loved him ever since.

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It was a cloudy day, Sunday was, but there was some sky on the horizon. I was watching the vineyards go by. All those neat rows, seemingly random as you come upon them and slowly the bushy vines morph into long straight lines toward the horizon and then they morph back to green fields again.

The land is so flat around here but in the distance is the Niagara Escarpment. People around here make it sound like a mountain range but it�s really just a rise where this land mass fell away from that one bye a few hundred feet. On Sunday, it was purple. Just on top of it I could see some plumes from factory smokestacks � probably the GM plant.

And there, in the distance, is that ever-present cloud over Niagara Falls. It�s always there, even on the brightest, clearest day. Apparently, there are 600,000 gallons of water hurling over that cliff each second, 173 feet down and when it hits the bottom, it causes a huge cloud of mist over the city. And it�s always there.

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Yeeeoww!! Damn near clipped the mirror off that Oldsmobile. Better focus on my driving, eh?

Arc