1986-1988 A new beginning

I remember it being very tough to sit around at home waiting to see what would happen,

The first six months I was expecting a recall to the warehouse, but once it was clear the Fingold boys had scammed the federal government in their purchase of the Crown corporation I had to face facts that I had to find something new.

Looking back I know now that I was in a depression and had lost the confidence to carry out a strong job search.

The fact that there was a shortage of work due to a recession made things worse in that there were few help wanted ads in the papers and at the Canada Employment office I visited several times per week.

I sent out hundreds of resumes to businesses I found in the phone book with little feedback.

I did some odd jobs here and there and looked after baby Harley who was born in April of 1987.

I was able to spend lots of time looking after him which was one bright spot in the gloom.

One day in June my friend, Mark Gazolla called to tell me of a vacancy at the plastic bottle factory next to the bleach outfit he was working at.

My friends were all trying to help me and keeping an ear open for any leads.

I went to Richmond for the afternoon shift at Pacific Plastics where orange juice bottles were made on an assembly line.

I was put to work as a "trimmer"and took the new and hot bottles from the molds and put them through a machine that cut off the excess plastic from the neck.

The bottles were so hot I was getting blisters and the young guy acting as foreman was very nasty, pushing me to work harder.

I was near the end of my tether by mid-shift having never been treated badly as well as the drudgery of the repetitive work and told him I'd finish the shift and he could shove his job.

I left there with a sense of relief, but also real disappointment that my first chance in months had turned out this way.

I have avoided anything to do with repetitive work since and will never again consider that type of  enterprise.

I was back to doing small jobs such as gardening for my Mum's friend and little else until that winter when my Mum reported that my Uncle Roy and Aunt Ruth had wondered if I would be interested in joining their son Alan on his 3000 acre cattle ranch located midway between Prince George and Quesnel in the Caribou  area of the province.(Ranch located on map above Punchaw lake where native trail crosses telegraph trail at left corner)

Having visited there a few times on holidays both Shelagh and I loved the area and I jumped right into this idea, talking Shelagh into trying it out.

We would have a comfortable mobile home to live in on one section of the ranch while cousin Al, his wife Lorna and their two teen aged girls lived 1/2 mile up the road in their cozy log house.

We would have fuel and beef provided plus the rate of pay of $6.00 per hour, which was low even then.
I felt a great sense of excitement at the adventure to come and had no second thoughts as we put our house up for sale in the spring of 1988 with the plan of being on the ranch in April when the work began to pile up for Al who was sick of the lazy ranch hand he had used for several years and had not recalled upon knowing we were coming.

We sold our vehicles to get an appropriate rugged off road capable one as there were 50 miles of logging roads between the ranch and either P.G. or Quesnel.

We found a nice '79 Jeep Cherokee that fit the bill perfectly.

I went out to a specialty Jeep wrecking yard in Maple Ridge and bought a huge winch bumper to protect its front that weighed over 200 lbs!
I could push small trees over with it.

The Jeep proved to be ideal and as we didn't have to pay for the fuel it guzzled all the better.
Our house sold quickly and we made a profit enabling paying my Mum back the down payment and leftover cash to help with the many expenses we had.

We began getting things in order for the big move near the end of April.