Just returned from a Costco run for supplies for the arriving horde later
today ... Ever conscious person I am, after having driven a few miles, I
noticed a business card fixed beneath the driver's side windshield wiper
....

On the back of his card, the guy has referred me to www.limbobus.org ...

Sam Conant
----- Original Message -----
From: "neil" <musomuso@gmail.com>
To: "vt" <samcvt@comcast.net>
Cc: <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: About Busfusion.... (read that you lazy American)

> That's a cool story Sam. (No pun intended!)
>
> And Ben you are correct sir!
>
> My travelling (in Vanagon. VC!) has not been extensive, but my
> experiences with Americans has been quite positive.
>
> In Bay City OR, while looking for public library, I stumbled upon the
> local Arts Centre. In it were some women who had just finished baking
> bread for a fund raiser for a neighbouring towns' womens' shelter.
> IMHO, they should have been suspicious of the "lone dude". But no,
> they invited me in to sample their bread. We chatted and I got
> directions to the library. Nice folks!
>
> Too bad i can't make time to get to BusFusion. I have to play my
> trombone 8 shows a week. My day.5  off is just not enough time to get
> there and back (to B.C.)
>
> And isn't "trombone" French for paper clip? Ben?
>
> ;^)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Neil.
>
>
> --
> Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia.
>
> http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
>
> On 5/13/07, vt <samcvt@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Bon Jour, Ben.
>>
>> I've had similar postive experiences in the Canadian provinces I've
>> visited
>> on both "edges" of your wonderful country, certainly including
>> Francophile
>> PQ.
>>
>> I recall the infamous Ice Storm of 1998.  I was sent north to Alburg,
>> Vermont to establish a primary shelter and three smaller ones in what we,
>> in
>> Vermont, call "The Islands."  I believe it was the 2nd or 3rd early
>> morning
>> (1-2 AM).  Most of the shelter residents had finally bedded down.  I was
>> holding a critique of the day completed and planning for how we would
>> staff
>> the shelters and feed the 1000 folks in the shelters, the several hundred
>> who had not been brought to the shelter, and the hundred+ power line
>> workers, military reservists and law enforcement personnel and other
>> volunteers.
>>
>> At that time, we were using food stores from the local elementary school
>> and
>> home freezers which people brought to the shelters - the roads to the
>> south
>> were not passable.
>>
>> All of a sudden the door to the parking lot slammed open and a fellow who
>> looked like a walking snow or ice man walked in, carrying his snow shoes.
>> He was shivering and literally covered with ice.  Our army reserve medic
>> and
>> I rushed over and caught him as he was falling to the floor.  We carried
>> him
>> into our blanket-walled "infirmary" and removed his outer clothes ... He
>> was
>> speaking to us in French with a few english words thrown in ...
>>
>> After he was warmed up, fed some soup and calmed down, and we had
>> identified
>> an old-timer who spoke fluent Quebecois, we learned he was from a small
>> town
>> just south of St. Jean, and had come looking for help for his village.
>> He
>> had been unable to travel north because of all the downed trees and power
>> lines that Quebec suffered, so had turned his snow-machine toward the
>> border.  It broke down on the way, and he had walked nearly 5 miles
>> before
>> he heard our generator and saw our lights....
>
> SNIP
>
>
>
>> Sam Conant
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "benoit" <huotb@VIDEOTRON.CA>
>> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 9:22 AM
>> Subject: Re: About Busfusion.... (read that you lazy American)
>>
>
> SNIP
>
>
>> >
>> > I have so many more stories, but the conclusion is that:
>> > Be nice with folks, listen to what they have to say, don't be a prick,
>> > and folks will be nice to you. People are people.
>> > Everything is a question of behavior!
>> >