Dear Grand-kids:

When going on a bicycle trip from Saskatoon to the west coast, prepare and plan everything very, very thoroughly. That’s a very, very big lesson. Big lessons can be learned beforehand or afterward. Guess which one is better.

There are also important little lessons. For example, on my first day, I left Saskatoon (after sleeping too late) and discovered that the prairies can be a very hot place.

In 1971, I studied Climatology at University. Do you know about the Prevailing Westerlies? They are winds which always blow west to east. They ‘prevail.’ Do you know what direction Vancouver is from Saskatoon? Hint – it’s west. So, do you know what direction I had to peddle through the open prairie, where there are no trees or buildings to block the wind? In other words, do you know what my ‘prevailing’ direction was? Right, I was a ‘prevailing easterlie’ going head-long into the teeth of the prevailing westerlies. Let me tell you, wheat fields are no help. They just wave and mock you as you pass through. Little lesson two - pay attention in class.

What with the hot sun and howling winds, I struggled. But it wasn’t my fault. Until that day, I’d got all my exercise in a pool hall. Do you know what a pool shark is? Not me. I was the seal getting eaten by the shark. After a time, I moved on. In other words I met your grandmother. So kids, I ask you - was there a third little lesson here? Hint - it has to do with something called ‘getting fit before trying something crazy.’

Around two o’clock on day one, lesson four occurred to me. Pack sandwiches.

Despite hunger and hardship, I managed to ride fifty miles. (Kilometres hadn’t been invented yet.) But I hadn’t a clue where to sleep for the night. Lesson five - get a tourist map that shows where the campgrounds are kept.

What to do? One choice was to sleep in the ditch. A better idea was to stand on the side of the road and wait for a beautiful farmer’s daughter to drive by while smiling seductively (Ask Daddy or Mummy what that means).

Unluckily most of the beautiful farmer’s daughters were sitting in the front seat of the cab of their flatbed trucks, between their mother and father, who I found don’t respond to seductive smiles. The rest of the farmers’ daughters were at the big square-dance. (That was an educated guess.)

Luckily, there was a third choice because up ahead I thought, ‘Hey, up there, is that a roadside picnic area?’ Lesson six – the police don’t arrest knuckleheads who embark on a cross-country bicycle trip, without training, food or a change of socks, for the crime of sleeping where they’re not supposed to.

Taking advantage of my lucky break, I erected my tent and fell asleep, which brings me to lesson seven. Which was actually not a little one. It was a big lesson. How to put it… let’s just say, fences are useful things.

To understand my final lesson today I have to ask, do you know what it’s like to hear the cries and moans and snorts of a million beasts of unknown type, trampling about and sniffing at a little red tent pitched in the middle of a picnic area, which has no fence to keep them out?

If you don’t quite get the severity of the situation, here’s another question - have you ever been stepped on by an unknown beast? I’m not one to catastrophize, but the question crossed my mind as I pulled my sleeping bag over my head.

Next morning, I stepped on evidence which suggested a herd of elephants happened by. It was that or buffalo. (My bet - it was buffalo poop I stepped in because the buffalo’s home is the wide prairie which is where I was and which after all is ‘where they roam.’ I learned this from the song. Let’s sing it later. Here are the first words, ‘Home, home on the range’ Etc.) Regardless of beast genre, I managed to get a photo of one of them.

Love, Grandpa.

PS. Feel free to draw pictures that illustrate these lessons. You might tape them on your wall to guide you through life.