By Peter Landry
TOC
Chapter Forty-Six: Kegi & Sandy Bottom, 1995
On April 19th, 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing took place at a large building, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A fellow by the name of Timothy McVeigh loaded up a large covered truck with explosives and parked it in front of the building. McVeigh set the timer and walked away. There were 168 people killed, including 19 children (there was a day care center on the second floor); 680 wounded. They eventually tracked McVeigh down; he was tried and put to death on June 11, 2001, at age 33. McVeigh was to explain he did the dastardly and perfidious act on account of what the federal government had done at Ruby Ridge (1992) and Waco (1993).
Another event, also in April: the United States government stopped funding the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET), making the Internet a wholly privatize system; with the government out of it, the Internet took off changing the world of communications. In August, Microsoft released Windows 95; "Windows 95 merged Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products, and featured significant improvements over its predecessor, most notably in the graphical user interface (GUI) ..." (Wikipedia). And in Canada, that October, the long simmering French and English divide came to a head. A referendum was held and those for Quebec independence narrowly lost in the question put to the vote for the independence of Quebec from Canada.
And in July of 1995, a new intern signed on; Monica Lewinsky started working at the White House. As it turned out she became a provocateur and caused a lot of trouble for the then president, Bill Clinton, who notoriously dallied with young women.
On a personal note, as can be demonstrated from the Pictures, January started out with our traditional New Year's eve lobsters. In the morning we would set out to go along the Bedford Highway where the fresh fish stores are located; though more often than not there would be a lobster fisherman on the side of the road and we would buy from him. Sometimes if the weather was right and the roads clear we would travel out to St. Margaret's Bay, Indian Harbour, Ryer's lobster pound and get our lobsters from Mr Ryer who we employed to pick the best ones for us. We bought them live and cooked them at home. We like buying live as we could tell the good ones to eat; ready to fight with claws outstretched and ready to bite, if the claws are droopy then the lobster is half dead.
Our Camping Days continued. One of our favourite places to camp was Kejimkujik National Park, affectionately referred to as Kegi. We did not use the large and open camping ground, but rather we rented a canoe at Jake's Landing, pile our gear in the canoe and paddled off for a few days, from lake to lake, from reserved wilderness camp site to the next, often making portages from lake to lake. (See Pictures.)
Two places that we visited are Haden Hall and Canso (Pictures). Haden Hall is a fancy Inn at Chester. We took Margo's mother, Nat for an overnighter. Canso has an interesting history, which I have set out in my writings (history). It was in 1995 that we we rented a cottage at Sandy Bottom Lake. I think we rented that cottage for a week or so, and for a couple of days we were joined by Marty, Lisa and the kids. Our experience there was one of that set us up for our eventual desire to buy for ourselves a cottage within an hour of two of Halifax (as we will see, we did so three years later.)
AS FOR THE TOP MOVIES OF 1995
The first movie of 1995, that comes to mind is, Braveheart, a movie particularly interesting to those who are into Scottish history. Then there was, Apollo 13. This mainly because of the direction of Ron Howard, and, how can you go wrong with Tom Hanks in the lead role. The soundtrack alone was, well, memorable, with such pieces as, for example:
"Spirit in the Sky" - Norman Greenbaum (1970),
"Somebody to Love" - Jefferson Airplane (1967) &
"Groovin" - The Young Rascals (1967).
Given these songs in the background of Apollo 13, it should be no surprise that the work won an Academy award for "Best Sound."
THE TOP SONGS FOR 1995
The songs in the movie, Apollo were of an earlier age. As for the year 1995: I have review the list on Wikipedia and none of the songs listed registered with me.
CLASSICAL
As for classical music, which I have now made one of the features of my chapters: I give you The Planets By Holst:
Venus, the Bringer of Peace (8:12)
Mars, the Bringer of War (7:26)
Mercury, the Winged Messenger (4:06)
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (7:45)
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (9:38)
Uranus, the Magician (6:28)
Neptune, the Mystic (7:23)
The Whole (49:14)