Another Day In Paradise

Hello there and wel­come to the Jan­u­ary 30th entry of Hangin’ in the Ham­mer; where we treat every day like Canada Day.

Well, yes, it is Mon­day once more and the big, bad world looms just out­side your door but, have no need to fear because the Corn­for­sale Gang is here with another bag full of Cana­dian good­ies for you to gnosh on with your morn­ing coffee.

And all set to extol to one and all the daily details is our own Mr Mon­day, Gordie Cornforsale.

On this day in 1815, John Stra­chan of York, Upper Canada, writes a let­ter to the ex-President of the United States, Thomas Jef­fer­son, protest­ing the actions of US forces in the War of 1812. In par­tic­u­lar the prac­tice of tak­ing the war to the civil­ian pop­u­la­tions in a scorched earth approach to forc­ing Cana­di­ans to their will.  Strachan had been respon­si­ble for mit­i­gat­ing the dam­age to York, when the Amer­i­cans invaded in 1813 but, was sim­ply appalled by the actions that left so many Cana­di­ans home­less dur­ing a very harsh winter.

On this day in 1839, back home in Lon­don, John Lambton (Lord Durham) fin­ished his review of the sit­u­a­tion in Canada at the time of his depar­ture. Lambton had resigned his posi­tion and returned home to deliver his ‘Report on the Affairs of British North Amer­ica’ to par­lia­ment, which he will do the fol­low­ing day.

On this day in 1930, Toronto Police arrest 9 mem­bers of the Stan­dard Stock and Min­ing Exchange for fraud. As the scan­dal grows it includes mem­bers of the 5 biggest min­ing com­pa­nies in the coun­try.  A total of 27 per­sons are even­tu­ally sent to jail and the bat­tered com­pany if forced to merge with their only com­peti­tors to cre­ate the TSX.  (Some­how while thou­sands of bro­ker­age firms went bust in the US dur­ing the Great Depres­sion, there were very few such issues in Canada.)

On this day in 1966, the Cana­dian Gov­ern­ment announces that over 100,000 Cana­di­ans aged 69 are now eli­gi­ble for the $75 a month Old Age Secu­rity pen­sion cheques.

On this day in 1990, Finance Min­is­ter Michael Wil­son gets the 7% Goods and Ser­vices Tax bill through the first read­ing in the Com­mons on its way to becom­ing the dreaded GST on Jan­u­ary 1st 1991.

On this day in 1991, after 321 years in the busi­ness, The Hudson’s Bay Com­pany announces it will sell its fur busi­ness due to declin­ing sales. The HBC was orig­i­nally founded as a fur trad­ing com­pany in 1670, run by the nephew of the Scottish/English King Charles I.

On this day in 1948, Cana­dian ath­letes attend the open­ing cer­e­monies of the Win­ter Olympics in St Moritz, Switzer­land.  Canada sent a total of twenty-eight ath­letes and they came home with three medals, includ­ing two golds.  Canada’s hockey hopes rode on the shoul­ders of the RCAF Fly­ers, led by George Mara.

Some notable Cana­di­ans born on this date include early screen actor Wil­fred Lucas; Ken Lauf­man, who was part of Canada’s 1956 and 1960 Olympic hockey team, win­ning a sil­ver and a bronze medal; actor John Ire­land (Oscar nom­i­na­tion for his role in All The King’s Men , who was in TV’s Rawhide and Spar­ta­cus; for­mer Hamil­ton Tiger-Cat and CFHoF mem­ber since 1997, Rocky Dip­i­etro and a win­ner of two golds and a sil­ver in women’s Olympic hockey, Danielle Goyette.

Today’s Juno Moldy Oldy comes from a group that was around before we had Junos. The Orginal Caste were known pri­mar­ily for their chart-topping sin­gle One Tin Sol­dier; here’s another of their lesser hits, Mr Monday.

Born on this day in 1942, Marty Balin, who was a found­ing mem­ber of Jef­fer­son Air­plane. When was the last time you heard White Rab­bit? (The intro to this video is a lit­tle long but, the video is worth the wait.)

Our musi­cal title today, Another Day In Par­adise took a lit­tle inspi­ra­tion from the fact that, Phil Collins was born on this day in 1951.

And this is where I will bow out today and Puck shall con­clude the day’s business.

Ol’ Gordie’s a lit­tle bummed because we won’t be doing any tourist stuff on our trip to New York this week.

All week­end long he kept say­ing, ‘All work and no play makes Puck a dull boy.’

The final leg of the Puck­Dat World Inva­sion Tour hits the New York City area this week for a few days and for once we don’t have to worry about the time dif­fer­ence catch­ing up with us so we will be right here every day.

It was on this day in 1647, that the Scots sold King Charles I back to the Eng­lish, in exchange for 400K Pounds and the Eng­lish would exe­cute Charles on this day in 1649. The man who was seen as the head of the Eng­lish revolt, Oliver Cromwell, had his corpse exhumed and cer­e­mo­ni­ally hung for regi­cide on this day in 1661.

Sort of looks like the fifth Mon­day of the month may be a bad day for the boss. (Gee, that would be tough to see; although I am not advo­cat­ing an exe­cu­tion, but a return of the pil­lory is well within reason.)

We hope you enjoyed your visit with us today and look for­ward to see­ing you back again soon.

Have your­self a safe and won­der­ful Mon­day (if that’s at all possible.)

Oh, think twice, It’s another day for you and me in paradise…