Mom, Dean & Brenda 

Happy Birthday Dad 

54 is a long road 

The Winners 

Dinner at a Japanese Restaurant 

News from Vancouver

It's been a quiet week in Vancouver, my home town on the edge of the Pacific ocean. We heard the news that Catherine, Oma's grandaughter is expecting her first child. This is quite a step in the Camfferman family as it is or will be Oma's first great-grandchild. While this is not earth shattering news it does portend well for the continuation of the species for at least one of the lines of descendants. And Cor Camfferman married Leigh Kamper and they begot 1 son and 5 daughters. The first, Annalies, the second Cora, the third Daniel who was also called Dean, the fourth, Leigh Jane, the fifth, Julia, and the sixth Marian. And lo, Leigh Jane married George Noble after much deliberation and they begot two children, Lance and Catherine. And Lance was too busy to get married but Catherine married Adam Shore a couple of years ago and now they are beginning to beget. The child is due to arrive in September, Lord willing. So, you see, it is quite an event. A lot of begetees go on to accomplish great and wonderful things after being born. Who knows what this one will do? Of course the Camfferman people have been mostly farmers, tillers of the land and milkers of cows for the past few centuries. No kings or nobles have come out yet, but who knows when it will start? At least the mother is a daughter of the Nobles, a very noble name from which surely only good can come. We await the outcome with great optimism.

Dean celebrated the passing of another year of his life. On May 17 he reached his 54th year in good health and better spirits. The family came over for dinner. As he looked around the table at his three sons and wife he realized that there would probably be no more beggeting on his part and that it was up to his offspring to continue the tradition. So, offering a silent prayer that they would all find good wives in good time he left the matter in the Maker's hands and proceeded to enjoy a delicious meal prepared by his loving wife and son. Although he has reached middle age, he hasn't yet reconciled himself to it. As far as he's concerned, he's still around 27 years of age, so when he read one of his cards which said, You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely, he smiled and agreed that the sentiments expressed in the card were not far off from his own. He looked back at the past year and realized that although he knows what he wants to do when he grows up, he still hasn't grown up - two job changes in the past year and another possible one in the near future, a one-month trip to India - these are not things that a man in his fifties does. While his contemporaries are planning their retirement he is planning his next career. So he dreams of moving to the country and building an energy efficient home out of used lumber and growing vegetables and herbs much like his generation did in the 60's. He would have done it then, but he ended up moving to the city and getting married and having children and so the dream of self-sufficiency and a slowed-down life just came a few decades late. But that's what happens when you live on the edge of the ocean with the wilderness never more than a few kilometers away. The dream is always there just over the horizon, waiting for the right set of circumstances to bring it to fruition. So, we leave him in that state. Who knows when it will happen. Stay tuned.

Brenda C. received a call from her brother, Richard. He had won a considerable sum of money in the lottery and was coming down for the weekend to collect his winnings. He's had his share of misfortune so everyone was happy to hear of this turn of events. He arrived with his wife and daughter on Friday. Meanwhile her mother and sisters came over from the island to join the celebration with the result that the Camfferman house experienced a sudden increase in population. A lot of celebrating went on for the next few days. There was dinner at a Japanese restaurant where Richard generously shared some of his newly found wealth with the family. The women were ready to shop and shop they did. By the end of the weekend Richard was looking rather the worse for wear. It's not easy when wealth is suddenly thrust upon you. But they handled it very well although by the end of the weekend he looked relieved to be heading back home again.

And so another week goes by in the life of a few members of the human race in a corner of the world where life is bitter and sweet but mostly sweet. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem like much and it probably isn't, but then, who knows? We go about our little lives wherever we are and we hope that we've brought sunshine into somebody's life. That's about all we can do - just take care of things where we are and leave the rest of the world to others to do their part.

That's the news from Vancouver where people are mostly about average and some are good looking.

Conversation with a camel, Ludhiana, India, Oct. 04 

Golden Temple wall Oct. 04 

Closeup of temple wall Oct. 04 

Golden Temple, Amritsar, India, Oct. 04 

View of Stanley Park, Vancouver 

North Vancouver from Downtown Vancouver 

The Camfferman boys, October, 2004 

Golden Ears Mountains rising out of the morning mist 

Meena fetching a stick 

News from Vancouver

It's been a quiet week in Vancouver, my hometown, on the edge of the ocean. The weather took a slight turn for the worse with clouds and occasional rain arriving. It was as if God were reminding us that we weren't quite out of the forest yet, that there was still a little pride there that He was working on. So we went around on tip toes looking over our shoulders occasionally in case a large bus was headed our way with a crazed driver bent on destruction. We started checking our cars in the morning for tell-tale burn marks from lightning strikes that might have happened while we were sleeping and other signs of impending doom, but for the most part we seem to have survived the week unscathed. This behavior may seem somewhat strange to people who haven't lived here. The weather can get gloomy from time to time and we mirror that gloominess occasionally with sudden urges to jump off bridges or steer into oncoming traffic for no apparent reason. And more of us would give in to these urges were it not for the fact that we know that if we'll just wait a day or two streams of glorious sunshine will come pouring out of the heavens. When that happens we can get downright giddy and even silly. We might stop someone on the street and tell them our life story or stop in front of a flowering cherry tree and weep at the sheer beauty of it all. But that's what happens when you live on the edge of the ocean nestled in amongst the coastal mountains. Anything can happen to the weather and our personalities tend to reflect that.

Sister Annalies left for Holland a few days ago. She called from the airport to her brother to say goodbye. She's off to visit the relatives and participate in the VE day celebrations. A good part of Holland was liberated by Canadian soldiers during WWII and so she's going there for a month to bask in the limelight. The people of Holland are very appreciative of what was done and treat any Canadian with honor whenever they visit. In fact things got so bad during the war that the Dutch royal family came to Canada in order to escape and while they were here the queen who was then a princess gave birth to one of her offspring. It appears that the royal couple were quite busy while they were here. The Dutch are very practical you know. You can't let a war interfere with God's injunction to go forth and multiply, so they did. And Canadians did their best to accomodate the situation. You can't have a member of the royal family be born in a foreign land, so the Canadian government graciously declared the hospital where the new child was born to be Dutch soil thereby avoiding the necessity of having to send the mother back to Holland to give birth and perhaps be captured. That would never do. So, ever since, as a token of their appreciation the Dutch government has been sending Canada tulips and those tulips are planted all around the parliament buildings so that if you go there you might think you're in Holland, at least that's what I imagine it might look like. I haven't been there for a long time so I'm only imagining what it might look like. Which begs the question, what if every country would start sending tulips to each other. Suppose Britain had sent Hitler tulips every week. He probably would have gotten confused and forgotten what his plans were and delayed attacking his neighbors. A lot of wars might have been avoided that way. Just imagine it, an evil ruler somewhere causing mayhem and grief.... gentlemen, it's time to load up the tulip train..... and when the tulips arrive and they are planted in the gardens around the ruler's palace......at first you see nothing because it's just a plain brown bulb and it's buried in the ground.....but all of a sudden, one bright spring morning the millions of tulips start poking their green shoots out of the ground and then suddenly without a word of warning masses of brilliantly colored tulips, red, yellow appear everywhere. It would be almost impossible for anyone to be thinking about starting a war. Instead, you'd be thinking about where else you could plant tulips. There's always a corner somewhere that you'd say, You know dear, that spot would look a lot better if there were a few tulips there. Come to think of it, the Dutch stopped starting wars back in the 1600's when they discovered tulips and they've been shipping them all over the world to this day. I wonder if there's a connection. It reminds me of an old judge in the deep south of the US who once remarked, You know, I've never had a juvenile delinquent in my court who loved fishing. There's got to be a lesson there somewhere. But I digress. Anyways, sister Annalies couldn't speak for long as she had to run to the toilet before boarding her plane so she said good bye. Perhaps she felt the need to leave a small gift in Canada in case she didn't make it back. Her mother Leigh checks the nightly news report to see if she can catch a glimpse of her daughter in the crowds over there. So far she hasn't seen her, but you never know.
That's the news from Vancouver, where people are mostly good looking and the children above average.