Maureen Bush

Road Trip

I’ve done my part for Alberta Arts Days. I drove up to Sundre and read to 70 kids in the Sundre Municipal Library. The staff were welcoming and the kids were great. They had brilliant ideas, including an underground city of candy that transformed into a dark forest, an evil villain determined to get rid of all Stampeders fans, and a monster made of candy defeated by the kids eating it.

The drive was gorgeous – it’s a beautiful fall day, warm with a whispy cloud cover, so it felt very gentle. I drove up Highway 2, then came home down 22 past Cremona and Cochrane. The mountains are completely without snow, just a dark ragged line along the horizon. Aspen are turning golden, but not much else yet – it’s a remarkably mild fall so far.

I took a short side trip past Water Valley, and admired the town (one intersection), and the Water Valley Saloon, complete with bikers at noon. It reminded me of the Last Chance Saloon near Drumheller.The road past Water Valley appears to head straight into the mountains, but I gave up once it turned to washboarded gravel. I cranked up K D Lang’s Hymns of the 49th Parallel and loved the whole day.

Thanks to the WGA for setting this up and giving me a great road trip.

Maureen

Writing Camp

Lia came home all jazzed up from a week at writing camp. The camp is Wordsworth, run by the Young Alberta Book Society (YABS), the successor to Youthwrite, run by the Writer’s Guild of Alberta (WGA). In spite of the organizational change, to the kids it was a continuation of 14 years of brilliant camps.

I recommend it highly for teens who love to write (and act and sing and play and joke and improvise and hang out with an incredibly supportive and creative bunch of kids, supervisors and instructors).

They put on a show for parents, entertaining us with their writing, body rhythm, acting and drumming. After the show, the kids won my heart when they gathered on the lawn and sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallalujah.

Maureen