Discovered during a morning walk around the lake house.
Galaxy or What?
Sometimes it is just fun to see what can be seen at a different level of view. Can you guess what it is? Galaxy, night sky with a filter?
or is it just a closer look at something interesting? Beets from the garden.
Impact My Life
Kids; There are many times in our lives that have meaning that can only be realized years later. Gary Bolstad is one of those people who may have little to no realization of just how important he was in my life.
It all started one summer night in downtown Berlin, Germany in 1968. I was getting off a bus near my Kudam apartment when I spotted a hitchhiker with a guitar case in one hand and his thumb pointing towards traffic. I noticed that he had a small American flag on the shoulder of his jean jacket. His hair was long, which signaled that he was not military. I found myself blurting out; hey, are you an American, living in Berlin. He quickly chirped, Ya! Without much thought, I said will you teach me how to play guitar? He said sure.
I invited him to my small, efficiency apt and we began a relationship that has spanned nearly 45 years. Gary, and later, his to-be wife, Kristie, came into my life at a most impressionable place and time. I was living in a foreign country for the first time in my life. By being in the military meant that I was experimenting and experiencing everything twice, just to make sure.
Gary helped me buy my first guitar in Berlin. He simultaneously helped me create an interest in photography. I bought my first Pentax in Berlin, cost $132 in 1969. The military base had a darkroom lab. I would go there many times to learn darkroom techniques from a very interesting Berliner who had been separated from his mother when the wall was erected.
When I moved from Virginia back to Ohio, Gary introduced me to Ralph Leesburg. Ralph, Gary, and I have remained long distant friends for many years.
Santa Monica Beach
On the way to New Zealand we had the opportunity to stay ovenight near Santa Monica Beach. While walking along the promonade, I discoved this incredible musician.
I Give You An Idea!
When I was in the giftware industry, along with two other investors, Molly McGregor and Barbara MacNeil, we purchased the equipment from a bankrupt company in order to gold plate metal. (Sprites and other giftware is a different story) I am not sure exactly how the bankrupt company came into my universe, however, it appeared at a time when gold plating was a valuable asset to Lambda Crystal.
I knew very little about the mechanics of plating anything, however, I understood the chemistry of plating, ions moving to an oppositely charged surface. What I needed was an expert on the mechanics to impart their knowledge to me at minimal cost.
Manifest into my life, an expert in more than just gold plating. I wish I could remember his name. All I know is that he was the grandfather of the owner of a company called Elmira Stove Works. He had developed the production line for gold plating the door fronts for wood burning stoves. He was 83 years old when I met him.
Each week, he would drive from Elmira to Fergus, Ontario, where I had built a new factory for Lambda Crystal on Dixon drive. I repeatedly offered to drive him over, pay for his fuel, reimburse him in any way, and his response stuck with me my entire life.
He finally said to me: If I give you a dollar and you give me a dollar, what do we have? Knowing that I was going to sound stupid no matter what I said, and totally realizing in my soul that I was about to hear a shred of wisdom from a person whom I kinshiply acknowledged as a soul mate, I uttered, “I guess a dollar”. He wisely looked through my eyes, and asked, “Now if I give you an idea, and you give me an idea, now what do we have?”.
I know, profound, eh?
That has stuck with me ever since. It is a lesson in more than humanity, it is universal. Think Universal!
The Beauty After A Storm
As I was growing up in semi-rural Ohio, I was often drawn to older folk, mainly due to their stories. I was memorized by tales of their youth, many in far off places, like Chicago,or New York.
As I grew older I looked to older wiser parents and grandparent-types to learn how to deal with middle life. Suddenly, I am supposed to be one of those older wiser elders! Well, what if I don’t want to take on that responsibility of having the right answers? It’s just a lot of added stress that I did not even want as a parent. There are no rule books on life, and frankly (I am allowed to say Frankly all I want), I have tried many times to ask for forgiveness over permission anyway.
So many times in my life, I thought things looked really bleak and melancholy, then only to discover that things were not even remotely as bad as I thought. That’s what I have come to call the Beauty After A Storm. You know, when the air feels so clean and charged with positive energy. There is just such a rejuvenating feeling, like walking through a wheat field, in the full moonlight, with just the right amount of dew on the wheat to make you laugh as you walk because it is just too silly to be doing that.
Life needs to be a song in every moment.
Newspaper Articles About Lambda Crystal
Lambda Early Ads and Product Brochures
When I started Lambda, I was a novice to business and product promotion. I was adventurous and committed. Here are some of the first product promotion tools that I had done. The first printers were Ampersand of Guelph and photographer by the name of Lewis in Guelph.
The first company was a numbered company, which was cheaper to establish. The name Lambda came as a result of me taking physics at UofG. The Greek letter Lambda is used in the formula denoting wavelength of light. Because leaded crystal breaks up white light into its component wavelengths – colours, that is how the rainbows are created. White light strikes the lead and bounces off. As it does, the colour traveling the fastest, that is, the shortest wavelength, reflects first, followed by the next shortest wavelength. That is how lead crystal can take while light, which we don’t see, and turns it into colours. It is magical to me. It is also the first things babies see; flashes of colour. Hand a crystal over a babies crib and watch the baby become mesmerized by the lights.
I have not lost the ability and guts to try new things in my life and hope I hold onto that adventurous side into the next existence. I came up with the first figurines while preparing orders for basic crystal prisms. I put a couple of pieces together and thought, that looks like a little mouse. I remember using a black felt tip pen to mark the eyes and nose. I used some crazy glue to put the first one together. I needed some whiskers so I found a jeweler in Elora, ON who sold me silver wire, drawn to a smaller diameter in order to glue three pieces together through the hole to look like whiskers. Once I had one creation, I needed more to create a line of figurines. I shortly came up with City Mouse, Country Mouse, Church Mouse, Dormouse, Castle Cat, Crusader Rabbit, Flying Crusader Rabbit. These became the first crystal figurines manufactured in N. America. Later on, Swarovski sued a company in the US saying they had copied their idea. I was summoned to fly to Washington DC to provide an affidavit which proved that I was the first in N. America. Swarovski had to pay the US company damages and apologize. That company had actually stolen my designs and admitted it. Very interesting history. This would have been in 1978-79 that I created them.
Eden Mills, ON
I moved to an Eden Mills farm while attending the University of Guelph in about 1977. Liz Marusic and I, along with Rick Paine rented a century farmhouse from a company to which Bill McDonald sold the farm. Bill lived next door with his daughter, so when we needed help getting the well-pump to work or the furnace, Bill would gladly come over and shows how to get things back to working again.
I really had space for the expansion of Lambda Crystal there. I also built a sauna, of course, from wood milled at the Ferguson’s mill down the road. Beautiful cedar board, that I used on the walls and seats. I bought the heater and installed myself. Awesome experience, waking up, passing by the coffee pot to grab a java, head to the sauna, which was on a timer to be just hot enough by the time I got inside to wake up in quiet solitude, heat and coffee. Just does not get much better than that.
Because I like to cook, and Liz did as well, we would create Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at the farm for all the stragglers who did not make it home for the holidays. We would feed upwards of 25 people, turkey, duck ham and all the fixings. Here are a few pictures from those days.
Me, Liz, Penney Kome, Dillon Kome, Andrew Smith, Rick Paine, Dogs (Sam, Bouke, Bouke and Sam’s mom, Penney’s dog.
Penney Kome
Me with Bouke and Sammy
Liz with Sam, in front, Bouke in Liz’s arms.
Liz with Tramp, Kim Boggild’s dog. Tramp was a great dog as well.
Tim Todd, who single-handedly toppled the hydro pole in front of the house when he drove a rental moving truck into the line to the house and pulled the pole down. Thank somebody it was covered by insurance. Notice the VW in the background. I drove that to Toronto to sell crystal with my anatomy book on the passenger seat while reciting, there are five branches of the Iliac artery….
The kitchen area of Eden Mills. You can see the structure holding up the vent on our home made wood stove. The support was from the first Lambda Crystal gift show display. I had a wrought iron welder in Toronto create it to my design. It worked well. The stove was a hot water heater that I had a door welded onto and a hole for the vent. It was the best stove ever, and practically free. We heated the whole end of the house with that stove.
Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner
This is a special event. My mother would send OK potato chips from Ohio to me. In my opinion, OK and Old Grand Dads chips are the best. In this picture, we had all agreed that the chips were “OK”. Front left is Catherine, a small person from Elora (Barry?), Tim Todd, Rich Paine, Kate, Liz (who worked for Lambda Crystal), myself, Kent Griffin of Magic Mountain, Rob Young and Tyler of Magic Mountain.
The garden Rick, Liz and I grew. Lots of fun.
This is a frisbee day. Rick, myself, and Tim played hours of frisbee. I have held onto that belt buckle ever since. That is a story all by itself.
Liz and me in the Eden Mills kitchen.
Machu Picchu
One of the most amazing trips of my life was backpacking through Ecuador and Peru in 1978. I flew into Quito, Ecuador, experienced my first earthquake, bused my way south into Peru. Flew from Tumbes, Peru to Lima, Peru then flew to Cusco, took an early morning train to Machu Picchu to spend the day.To sit quietly on a terrace where farmers had planted corn in 2000 BC, was truly life changing. Here are some pictures of that trip.
Train, leaving Cusco
Funny story, I got up early to go to the train station to make sure I got a ticket for what they call the “local train”. There was also a Gringo train, however, the cost was higher and did not allow much time at the summit. As I was leaving the station, I overheard a local say that the train was leaving in an hour, not the 2 hours as written on a plaque on the station wall. When I ask the local, in Spanish, why the plaque said an hour later, they said, that sign has been there for years. All the local people know it leaves an hour earlier. So, imagine, running in the thin air at 10,000 feet, back to the hotel, crawling over the hotel guards sleeping on the floor in front of the door, so nobody can leave without paying, grabbing packs, and getting back to the station in an hour. My lungs felt like they were on fire.
The flight into Cusco is interesting. The plane has to fly directly at a mountain, before turning 180 degrees to descend sharply on the runway. Pretty scary.
When I was leaving, I got the airport, exchanged all my local currency and got in line to get my boarding pass. When I got to the front, the agent asked if I had reconfirmed my ticket. I said I had not known I needed to, however, I could reconfirm at the counter. She said, oh no, you must reconfirm at their office in downtown Cusco. Good grief! So I had to give the cab driver $20US because that is all the currency I had – no change, of course, to get back into town. I arrive at the airline office to meet hundreds of travelers trying to get tickets, etc. All of a sudden the guards start ushering everyone out of the office into the street. When I asked why, the guard said, we are too busy, so we are closing the office. I questioned the logic in this and was told, most people will go away and not come back, so that when they reopen in 45 minutes, there will be fewer people to deal with. Amazing logic.
When I arrived in Lima, I rented a car to sightsee for the day. After inspecting the VW bug, I went back to the car rental counter and explained that there was no gas in the car and the windshield wipers were missing. The girl explained to me that the cars are rented with an empty tank and are to be returned with an empty tank. I questioned the logic on that as I had rented cars around the world and never rented one with an empty tank, to begin with. She explained that there was a gas station at the entrance to the airport. It took me a second to figure this out as I asked, does you cousin own the station. She looked pleasantly surprised and retorted, oh yes!. So what happens is the cousin siphons the gas out when the car is returned and sells it again to the next gringo. Actually, pretty creative.
Here are some other pictures of that adventure.
Arrived in Otavalo, Ecuador with Rob Young. He had this rented this penthouse (haha) for trips to Ecuador to buy sweaters for Magic Mountain. He and Kent Griffin would trade off buying in S. America and operating the retail/wholesale business in Canada.
I can still smell the fragrance from the many flowering plants. The outside shower overlooked the countryside.
This is what is called an Ecuadorian wedding shirt. I really enjoyed that shirt for many years.
Local market
Cuenca street corner with local courier service. These guys carry hundreds of pounds at a time. I saw a carrier with an oak desk, plus an oak chair on his back. Unbelievable!
Local construction techniques
Lots of decorated, carved doors.
This disabled musician was carried by friends, maybe he paid, not sure, to this location outside my hotel window near the market. Every morning I would wake up to his pan pipe serenade. Most amazing!
Local merchant of toffee. They stand in the doorway and pull the toffee. I watched as a fly landed on the toffee and was immediately incorporated into the pulled toffee. Interesting added protein, yuck!
What are called Panama hats are actually made in Cuenca, Ecuador. Many times you can see women carrying dozens of hats on their heads through town. All handmade and quite beautiful.
I bought the strap that the lady is weaving in this picture. I have used it on cameras and guitars for many years.
This is my room in Tumbes, Peru, on the border with Ecuador. When I rented the room, I asked for a room with running, hot water. When I got to the room, the toilet had not been used in forever and there was no water, let alone hot water. When I complained to the desk, they said, well, you might get water today, and you can heat it yourself. Might get water meant that a truck came into town each evening and if one was fast, one could get a bucket of water. No chance of a gringo beating out a local.
Funny story. I arrived at the border at the same time as several Peace Corp young adults. I figured they spoke better Spanish to get us through the border crossing so I let them lead the way into the guard house at the edge of a dried up ravine that separates Ecuador from Peru. Very interesting. The border was guarded by a little shack on one side of a bridge over the dry ravine. On one side were local merchants, sitting in the dirt, selling items that are illegal in Ecuador, and on the other, merchants selling products illegal in Peru. It had not rained in Tumbes for years. Even the cactus was dying. One Peace Corp guy really angered the border guard after being told that we needed a Visa to cross the border. He said to him in Spanish, so what is the bribe I have to pay to avoid walking back a mile to the town to get a visa? The guard went nuts and screamed at all of us to go back for the visa. I agreed to stay and guard the backpacks while Liz Marusic, and the Peace Corp group went back to get the paperwork.
I was waiting inside the guardhouse, a small one-room building with a desk, a couple of chairs and several windows with bars over them. As I was sitting there, the guard went outside for a moment. The wind came up and blew the door shut and it locked closed. The guard ran to one of the grated windows and started yelling at me to open the door. As I was walking towards the door, it struck me as so funny, and I couldn’t help but blurt out, in Spanish, how much to open the door for you, with a smile on my face. He initially turned red, then started to laugh as I opened the door. He came in and said, I like you, and proceeded to open his desk and take out a bottle of some kind of alcohol along with two glasses and started pouring. By the time the group got back and looked at me in aghast, we were the best of friends and he had already stamped my passport before getting the visa.
This is the airport in Tumbes to take a flight to Lima, some 3000 miles down the coast of nothing at all going on except dry desert. I had some concern that the cab driver was going to execute us on the way to the airport since I could not see anything that looked like civilization on the way. When we got there, the airport was not open yet. When the plane arrived, the pilot loaded the baggage. As we started to taxis down the runway, the plane turned around and came back. We were told that plane had a flat tire, and we had to wait until another plane had to arrive with a spare tire before we could take off. Needless to say, I was nervous the whole flight over a deserted desert coastline. Too funny.