Friday, March 28, 2008

Snow!

We've had a solid week of cold, grey, wet, cold (did I mention how cold it's been?), miserable weather here in Vancouver.  Leavened only occasionally by rare moments of sunshine as the sun struggles to find an opening in leaden, overcast skies.  I have been hailed on twice this week!  And this morning it has snowed for nearly two hours.  Huge wet flakes are drifting past my window.

Already suffering through stiff legs, it has been a real effort to get out and run in such weather, as it seems to take miles to get warmed up.

And now I'd like some cheese to go with that whine...  

Only 23K this Sunday.  Thank God!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

My Aching...

My ass is dragging on the ground this morning.  I did ten hill repeats (800 metres) with the Marathon Clinic last night, only except I didn't.  I only managed to do nine and a half.  I think that my 47 minute 10K on Friday, 32K on Sunday and a hard, fast 8K on Tuesday finally caught up with me.  My legs felt like wooden pegs...

Exacerbating the situation was the rather bizarre weather we had yesterday afternoon in Vancouver.  We had a great clapping thunderstorm with lots of lightning and thunder and buckets and buckets of pea-sized hail.  In lots of areas it looked like it had snowed.  And the temperature dropped to 42 degrees - 6 degrees Celsius.  You could see your breath with every gasp and after a few laps of the hill, every runner was giving off steam like a racehorse.  It took me two or three hills to get warmed up.

My heart rate was in the 166-168 range and by the end of the last few repeats I was popping up to 172-175.  On repeat number 9 I saw 182....  

....gasp*

So far this clinic I hadn't managed a single hill work-out, although my Friday long run almost always takes in a long hill, well over a mile in length, with a six to eight percent grade all the way.

My stamina and endurance were actually pretty good although I was sucking wind by the end, but on the last repetition I started to cramp up.  Shades of the last few miles in a marathon!

Afterwards I got to hang out with my running buddies for what seemed like the first time in months.  Which I guess it has been.   Where does the time go?  There is nothing quite as satisfying as a few beers and slices of pizza amongst friends after having busted your butt for something like a ten hill workout.   I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the camaraderie of the people I run with.  

It was a nice way to end the day.  And I slept like a baby last night.  Even with a sore ass.

** As I write this, my scone is badly undercooked and my coffee is burnt.  F@@K!



Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Long Way Home

Ratcheted up the mileage a notch on Sunday and eked out the first twenty miler since January. The run wasn't difficult on Sunday, a little on the cool side at 43 degrees, and a light drizzle, but the mileage felt all right.  And the sun actually peeked out in a few places by Noon.  I did have to remind a few in the pace crew that nutrition was crucial to getting through the Sunday long runs.  A bag of Sharkies is just not going to do it for twenty miles over four hours...

I should have been listening to my own advice...  I didn't stop for breakfast, okay - brunch after over four hours of running - and as a result I wasn't quite myself all afternoon.  I had friends over for a Sunday Easter Feast and it took me a few cheese and crackers and a few glasses of wine to get back up to speed.

The food was simply amazing and we washed it all down with a couple of spectacular bottles of wine, including a 1993 Chateau Certan Pomerol that smelled of a tack room redolent with well-worn saddles...  It was an aroma that transported you back to the farm and all things equine.  Topping it off were notes that reminded you of an after dinner Cohiba relished in a book-lined study.  So much so that some guests raided my humidor.

That's the great thing about a twenty mile run.  A hedonist may relish relatively guilt free pleasures for the next twenty hours....

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Playing Catch Up

What with all that's been going on, I've been struggling to re-establish my running routines.

I missed the last two Sunday runs because of my Father's Memorial Service and other obligations.  You make plans and then the realities of life weigh in.

On the positive side, my weight has dropped back down to 203 - all praise sensible eating and a healthy lifestyle.  And fewer bottles of wine!

I had a check up and my blood pressure has dropped down significantly from my stressed out 135/115 in mid-medical crisis, to 118/85 last week, but still a ways from December's 108/68!

This week I ran 23K, 21K and a fast - near race pace for me - 10K in 47:19.  I did the 10K just to get a feel for where I was at and I did feel a little better after the run.  My average heart rate was 162 and I finished with a pant-inducing 172.  Last spring, my best 10K time was around 42 minutes.  Sometime you just have to take what you can get!

Tomorrow I'll be doing my first twenty miler in two months.

Thankfully it will be followed by a Sunday Ham feast!


Thursday, March 13, 2008

Errol Hemingson - A Celebration of Life

I have been very touched by the response we got at my Father's Memorial Service, or as he would have preferred, "nautical-themed party", to the slide show we put together showing different periods and aspects of my Dad's life.  A moving photo album set to music...





Monday, March 10, 2008

A Nautical Party for Errol Hemingson

We had a little shindig for my old man on Sunday.

My Dad never wanted a "Funeral", or to be buried, or anything even remotely funeral-like or formal.  Didn't want a religious Memorial Service, or a Wake, and if you are a non-believer, what they call a Celebration of Life. Stated simply, he wanted a party. With his family and friends.

In fact, he wanted a party with a nautical theme.  So we did.  I say we, because I never could have accomplished the task without the extraordinary efforts and help of many friends.  Some deserve a special thanks. Without the help of Glenys and Justin and Cathy and Patrick and John in particular, I couldn't have pulled it off.  Thank you all. 

My Father was at the party, in both spirit and form. We had his ashes in the corner with his new boat-shaped urn, which is a rather beautiful ship's model of a gaff-rigged schooner capable of carrying ten pounds of cargo.

We put together a slide show of my Father's life, mostly of the early and later years, set to music and then recitations of Sea Fever; The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls; and Crossing the Bar.  I think people enjoyed it.  I spent the better part of two weeks with it, with Justin and Pat, and relived my childhood scanning photos.  I say this because one would think that you would get a little distance from the photos after spending so much time with them.  But I didn't.  I was often brought to tears.  When it was all assembled and put together and we ran it on the computer, I was brought to tears. When we did a dress rehearsal and sound check early Sunday morning, I was brought to tears. When we ran the film during the party I had to turn away, and when people asked to see it again, I watched it and shed a tear again.

Mondays, usually because of my long distance Sunday runs, have always been recovery days for me.

I didn't run yesterday, although my heart raced, but this Monday will be a recovery day as usual.

This is what I had to say about my Dad:

Some Thoughts on my Father.

Often times the hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most.

It's hard to describe someone like my Father unless you met him in person.  I have lost count of the numbers of times over the years that, after introducing my friends to my Father for the first time, they would turn to me and say, "You really weren't kidding".

I can never remember a time in my life where my Father doesn't loom large, a figure to me often times more mythic than human.  

Meeting Errol Hemingson for the first time was for many people an experience that they still haven't forgotten. It was, to put it mildly, often a shock.  An eye-opening encounter with a force of nature. A little like falling off a boat unexpectedly.  Which actually happened a few times.  

My Father was not only physically imposing, but at times it seemed his body was not even large enough to contain his personality, character, dreams, ambitions and especially his voice.  They all kind of just spilled over the top.  And if you were standing too close, you might get Errol C Hemingson all over you.

My Dad didn't so much enter a room, as take it over.  Like the Vikings coming ashore in Ireland.  He was a complex man, who embraced and embodied all the glories and frailties, all the virtues and vices that make up the human condition.  He was often exhilarating to be around, sometimes exasperating to be around, and occasionally exhausting.  He was unique.

He marched to his own drummer and kept his own time.  He did what he wanted, when he wanted and where he wanted.  Heaven help the obstacles in his path.

Even if you didn't see him, you could probably hear him.  And much as many of us often wished that he had come with a volume control knob, if you didn't hear from him, his voice was a sound that you missed.

The constant in my Father's life was his love of movement, adventure and what lay around the next bend in the road.  He was his happiest when in a car, truck, RV, motorcycle, airplane or boat going somewhere.  

He was someone who lived in more places than I can recall, who called wherever he hung his hat home.  And if said home had wheels or could pull up anchor, so much the better.

My father was a gypsy, rover, traveler, cowboy and a rambling man.  He was a restless spirit and could not stay in any one place for too long before the road beckoned him.

But my Father was not a loner, and wherever he went he sought out company.  He made a friend in every place he stopped.

I think that nearly every pet and animal that we had growing up was a stray that Errol had picked up along the way.  My Father had a soft spot and a weakness for the abandoned.

And in the company of others, my Father's appetites for a good story, a good meal and a good bottle of wine were as outsized as he was.

Over the years I lost track of the times I took him into the Emergency Room of a Hospital.  If it could be said that Dad was often hard on men and equipment, he was even harder on himself.

And even when Doctor's said that Dad was at "Death's Door", I lost track of the number of times he bounced back.   His powers of recuperation were nothing short of astonishing, right up until the end of his life.

Even last month, my Father was surprised that he wasn't going to confound the doctor's one last time.  And when it was clear that his heart condition was going to restrict him in a way he could not accept, he once again did what he wanted to do.

A restless spirit, I hope that on his next journey my Father finds what he was searching for in this one.

Serenity, contentment, and peace of mind.

God speed, Dad and a safe harbor.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Sailing

My Dad loved this song.  

Sailing - by Christopher Cross

It's not far down to paradise
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away
And find tranquility
The canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

It's not far to never never land
No reason to pretend
And if the wind is right you can find the joy
Of innocence again
The canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing
Takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Fantasy
It gets the best of me
When I'm sailing
All caught up in the reverie
Every word is a symphony
Won't you believe me

It's not far back to sanity
At least it's not for me
And when the wind is right you can sail away
And find serenity
The canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMkIuKXwmlU

Dad's Ashes

My Dad came home yesterday.  His ashes, that is.

The Funeral Home had called me last Thursday to say they were ready and it took me a full week to gather up whatever it was that I needed to gather up before I could get them.

What is left of my father now resides in a nondescript rectangular cardboard box about the size of a loaf of bread.

The box came in a plastic bag inscribed with the Funeral Home's name and insignia.   They seem like nice people.  They were the only place I called that did not try to sell me a long list of additional items at exorbitant, some might even say emotionally extortion-al prices.  They were number five on the list.

Why, for instance would you want to cremate someone in a ten thousand dollar casket?  That seems less like a show of "respect" and more like an expression of something I hesitate to hang a tag-line on.

Still, carrying your Father home in a cardboard box inside a plastic bag is an unsettling experience.

Putting him out on the table was something else entirely different.  I was transfixed.  I couldn't take my eyes off the box.  If I left the room, I would find myself coming back just to look at it.

I had to leave the house and have dinner with a close friend because I couldn't be alone in the apartment with the box of Dad's ashes any longer.

Now I just have to find a boat-shaped urn.

But that's a whole other story.


Thursday, March 06, 2008

I Believe in You

I Believe in You - by Don Williams

I don't believe in superstars,
Organic food and foreign cars.
I don't believe the price of gold;
The certainty of growing old.
That right is right and left is wrong,
That north and south can't get along.
That east is east and west is west.
And being first is always best.

But I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in Mom and Dad.
And I believe in you.

Well, I don't believe that heaven waits,
For only those who congregate.
I like to think of God as love:
He's down below, He's up above.
He's watching people everywhere.
He knows who does and doesn't care.
And I'm an ordinary man,
Sometimes I wonder who I am.

But I believe in love.
I believe in music.
I believe in magic.
And I believe in you.

Well, I know with all my certainty, 
What's going on with you and me, 
Is a good thing.
It's true, I believe in you. 

I don't believe virginity,
Is as common as it used to be. 
In working days and sleeping nights,
That black is black and white is white. 
That Superman and Robin Hood,
Are still alive in Hollywood.
That gasoline's in short supply,
The rising cost of getting by.

But I believe in love.
I believe in old folks. 
I believe in children.
I believe in you.

But I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in Mom and Dad.
And I believe in you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9xbE60HJg

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Actual Stuff About Marathon Training and Running

Since January I guess it has not been that surprising that my Father and his health, ill-health and eventual death on February 16 for all intents and purposes, pretty much took over my Blog.

My training for the Vancouver Marathon with my friend Paul, who is flying in all the way from Paris for the event, has been spotty at best.

But as I have advised hundreds of runners over the years in various clinics, I have tried to treat the Sunday Long Slow Distance runs as sacrosanct.  I have only missed one Sunday run since the start of the clinic, and that was when I was in the Bahamas.  But even there, I made a point of walking for at least sixty or ninety minutes per day at as brisk a pace as I could manage - when we were ashore that is.

I did the Pacific Road Runners "20th" Annual First Half Marathon three weeks ago in a time of 2:21:12 at an average heart rate of 118 beats per minute.

I have been the five hour pace group leader during this particular Marathon Clinic and that may well be my saving grace.

Our 26 K run took over three and a half hours, but my average heart rate was 114.

There have been a bunch of weeks where I have only found time to run once or twice during the week.  Last week, I didn't get in any runs at all, but have been able to walk my dogs at least a couple of times per day for thirty minutes.  That's if I have been in town at all...

I think I have only been to two Tuesday night clinic sessions.  One Wednesday night run.  It is now March 1!

Trying to juggle work, being Executor of my Father's estate (which makes it sound way more organized than it really is), my friends and relationships, plan a Memorial Service on March 9, and the daily routine of life has almost been more than I can handle.

And truthfully, it has.  Ain't no house-keeping or laundry being done at Vince's house lately...

I went well over a month without a day off, not enough sleep,  and I have tried to find solace and comfort in too much food accompanied by too many glasses of wine.

At two hundred and twelve pounds, I am the heaviest I can remember being in at least three, maybe even four years.  Maybe even before the start of this Blog!

This morning we dropped back to 19 K - two hours and forty minutes - and at least my average heart rate was 114.

Back in December, my blood pressure and resting heart rate during a medical check up were 108/65 and 54 (after two cups of coffee and climbing several flights of stairs I might add).  Usually, first thing in the morning lying in bed, I am 44-48 bpm.

In February, after visiting my Dad in the Palliative Care Ward, a similar medical examination produced a blood pressure reading of 135/95 and a resting heart rate of 74.   I thought I might have a heart attack right there.

Hopefully by the middle of March, and once my Father's Memorial Service - Wake has been taken care of, I can go back to taking care of myself.

Run a little more, sleep a little easier, and pay much closer attention to a healthier diet and lifestyle.

Come the Vancouver Marathon, anything close to a five hour finishing time will seem like a huge victory.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Butler Mountain's Errol Hemingson dies at 69

Butler Mountain's Hemingson dies at 69

2008-02-28 14:43 ET - Street Wire

by Stockwatch Business Reporter - www.stockwatch.com

Errol Hemingson, the prototypical Vancouver stock promoter 

with the booming voice and the nickname Foghorn, died of 

congestive heart failure on Feb. 16, 2008, at 69. He was a 

week shy of his 70th birthday.

The larger-than-life Mr. Hemingson joined the Howe Street 

mining scene in the 1980s. His best-remembered company 

was Butler Mountain Minerals Corp., which won the 

Vancouver Stock Exchange's annual volume contest more 

than 25 years ago. There were many others, including 

Toodoggone Gold Inc., which also never made a mine, but 

did provide a motherlode of interest at the B.C. Securities 

Commission and a 20-year hiatus from public companies for

 Mr. Hemingson.

Growing up

Errol Cecil Hemingson was born on Feb. 23, 1938, in Portage

 La Prairie, Man. He was the second child of Norman and Ivy 

Hemingson, arriving between his brother Vincent and his sister

 Delores.

He grew up on a farm, which meant a lot of hard work. His friend

 Bob Swenarchuck remembers him talking about the wheat harvest:

 building stooks and working the threshing machine.

The farm boy quit school after Grade 9 and joined the Hudson's 

Bay Company in Churchill, Man., heading north as a fur trader.

At 20, Mr. Hemingson followed his uncle Alfred into the navy, 

serving from 1958-1959, allegedly becoming the Pacific Fleet's 

heavyweight boxing champion. He was stationed in Esquimalt, B.C.,

 working as a radioman on a submarine.

His first marriage

As the sailor's brief naval stint was ending, he attended a 

Christmas dance, where he found himself enchanted with

 a fetching young lady named Sally Furneaux. She was 

getting her teaching certificate at the newly opened University

 of Victoria. Life with her looked much better than life on a 

submarine, and Mr. Hemingson got an honourable discharge 

from the navy. The couple was married almost immediately, 

and moved back to Manitoba where their first child, Vincent,

 was born in 1960. Bradley arrived in 1961 and a third son,

 Kent, in 1965. The Hemingsons adopted their daughter 

Charlene in 1966. "After three boys, my mother wanted a 

daughter," says Mr. Hemingson's son Vincent.

In Manitoba, Mr. Hemingson worked for Allis-Chalmers Rumley

 Ltd., selling tractors and heavy machinery. In sales he found his

 calling, rising to vice-president of Western Canada. Prompted

 perhaps by his wife's experience at the University of Victoria,

 Mr. Hemingson started classes at night school. He completed

 his high school equivalency and then took undergraduate courses

 in agriculture and mining.

A move west

In the early 1970s, the family moved to Vancouver Island and

 Mr. Hemingson started Hemingson's Water Services, a pumping

 company. Sally also started teaching at French Creek Elementary

 School. Mr. Hemingson took up sailing with Gerry Thompson,

 a friend he met through his pumping business. Sailing, along with

 mining, became his passion. His boat, a CT-37 called the Stone Raven,

 is a fixture in many of the best stories about him.

The good salesman got his start in mining promotion through Leif

 Ostensoe, a geologist with many connections to penny stocks

 and the Vancouver Stock Exchange. Mr. Hemingson's son

 Vincent remembers seeing Mr. Ostensoe at their farm on

 Vancouver Island in the mid-1970s. At the time, Mr. Ostensoe

 was looking for copper in the Highland Valley with his company

 named Lawrence Mining Corp. "Like all good promoters, Leif

 got some of my dad's money, and he had so much into it that

 he started helping Leif raise money," Bradley Hemingson says.

To the mainland

Mr. Hemingson set sail for Vancouver in 1979. Two things

 prompted the move: his promoting required it, and his 

marriage to Sally was ending (they divorced in 1980).

 "Like most larger-than-life characters who are used to getting

 their own way ... [my dad] didn't always have the world's best

 conflict-resolution skills," Vincent explains. "If he didn't ge

t what he wanted the first time, he might just turn up the volume."

 Bradley, now a broker at Leede Financial Markets Inc., 

remembers his father's penchant for speaking loudly as well.

 "My dad would phone me up, 'You know, I got this idea' and

 I'd say 'I'm not interested.' He'd yell and scream and jump up 

and down. Some times you'd hold the phone about two feet from

 your ear. Then he'd get over it."

After arriving in Vancouver, Mr. Hemingson started promoting

 Butler Mountain. It had a polymetallic property in the Yukon and

 some good drilling results, but it never became a mine.

Mr. Hemingson promoted Butler enthusiastically. With good drill

 results, and as one of the VSE's volume leaders in the early 1980s,

 the promoter fancied a listing on the prestigious Toronto Stock 

Exchange. The Butler never quite made it to that pinnacle of 

Canadian stock prestige, but one business associate from those

 days, who wishes to remain nameless, remembers entertaining a 

delegation from Toronto on the Stone Raven. After a long night 

of partying, the gentle rocking action of a Coal Harbour dock 

proved too much for the anonymous associate's novice sea legs. 

Walking down the gangplank, "One foot went one way and the other 

foot went the other," he says of the dunking. Mr. Hemingson 

never could lure him onto the water after that mishap.

Mr. Hemingson often partied: with friends, without friends; 

on his boat, off his boat. "My father had a love affair with the grape 

that was never unrequited. No meal was complete without a bottle

 of wine," Vincent says. Mr. Hemingson's drinking was not good

 for his health; he had his first heart attack when he was 46 and

 was a frequent patron of the Canadian health system in the 

following years.

His second marriage

In 1988, after a string of young, attractive girlfriends,

 the promoter married Alexa Gilbert. He met her at 

his friend Bob Swenarchuck's wedding in 1986. "I said,

 'Errol, you've got to come and meet this gorgeous lady...

' and they sat down together and they didn't move for 

three hours," Mr. Swenarchuck remembers.

Toodoggone Gold

Around the same time he married Ms. Gilbert, Mr. Hemingson

 was busy with his latest venture, Toodoggone Gold. 

The company had incorporated in 1987, with three directors:

 Mr. Hemingson, Howard Andersen and Gordon Steblin.

 Mr. Hemingson's son Vincent joined the board in May, 1988. 

It listed on the VSE on Sept. 19, 1988.

Mr. Anderson and Mr. Steblin resigned in December, 1988,

the result of a squabble with Mr. Hemingson that had started

as the company was working on its $300,000 initial public 

offering in August. Ms. Gilbert and James Regan joined the 

board in their place.

By then, Mr. Hemingson's custodianship had left the company

 with $32,000 in its bank account and he and his new wife were

 on a sailing trip in Mexico.

The BCSC was not amused and held a hearing into

 Mr. Hemingson's casual management practices in 1990. 

The result was a 20-year ban from trading and acting as an

 officer or director of a public issuer. At the time, it was the

 longest ban the commission had ever handed out.

Sailing in Mexico

Mr. Hemingson and Ms. Gilbert did not attend their BCSC

 hearing; they were busy sailing the Stone Raven on the

 Sea of Cortez.

It was an exciting trip, missed hearings aside. Ms. Gilbert

 remembers an eventful few days at the start of the trip. 

They were cruising along when a freak summer storm 

forced them to put in at Embarcadero, a small Oregon port

 near Newport. It is a tricky passage. Compounding matters,

 the pilot Mr. Hemingson hired did not have the right charts,

 and the Stone Raven got stuck on a sandbar.

She started taking on water, and the Coast Guard showed

 up to rescue the passengers. Ms. Gilbert and four tourists

 the Hemingsons had acquired for the trip were taken off the

 boat; Mr. Hemingson and the pilot stayed on to save what 

they could of the ship's electronics and papers.

When the tide rose, Mr. Hemingson managed to sail into port. 

He was drying the ship's papers on the dock when the Coast 

Guard approached him.

"Stone Raven?" asked the white-clad officer, his sidearm clearly

 resting on his hip.

"Yes," Mr. Hemingson answered.

"You're under arrest."

It turned out the Coast Guard was looking for the Stoned Raven,

 a boat it suspected of smuggling drugs. To clear up the 

confusion, Mr. Hemingson went to show the officer the 

Stone Raven's registration, which was drying on the dock.

 Whoosh! along came a gust of wind and away went the

 precious papers.

The Coast Guard confined Mr. Hemingson and his fellow 

sailors to the Stone Raven for two days before Vincent

 faxed the ship's papers from Vancouver and proved his

 father was not a drug runner.

Mr. Hemingson's second marriage lasted two years.

Life after Toodoggone

"There's lots of guys out there who'll put together a shell,

 ... and their goal is to get as much five-cent stock as they

 can, tell a story and sell ... at the highest price they possibly

 can and fill their pockets. The only time my dad ever made 

money is when the drill hole succeeded," says Bradley. 

"If he didn't have something real to promote, he was doomed.

 More than once I know he blew himself up buying his own 

paper ... he just wanted to find a mine."

Working under the BCSC's cloud was hard, but not impossible.

 Mr. Hemingson just had to go farther afield and settle for a 

regular job. After Toodoggone, the irrepressible promoter began

 splitting his time between Canada and the United States, where

 he promoted stocks under the radar. He did some work for his 

close friend, the late Arthur Fisher, on his deal in Vietnam, which

 became Olympus Pacific Minerals Inc. The last company where

 he helped out was Inspiration Mining Corp., a potential nickel 

miner in Ontario.

Randy Miller, the president of Inspiration, says Mr. Hemingson 

drove his 45-foot motorhome to the property in Timmins. He lined

 up drillers and set up the core shack. He got the results that

 started the company moving and helped with the first financing.

 "There's not a lot to do in Timmins, so we'd sit around and shoot

 the shit and discuss the deal. I will miss him, that's for sure," 

Mr. Miller says.

"He was closer in style to Murray Pezim, I think, than today's 

promoters," says Reg Ogden, a Canaccord broker of many years

 who knew Mr. Hemingson well. "He had an extremely high energy

 level." Mr. Ogden chuckles when he tells a story about 

Mr. Hemingson and the equally hefty Mr. Fisher falling from the 

moped they had to share on the poor roads of Vietnam.

Mr. Hemingson is survived by his four children, his brother

 and sister, his three grandchildren, and his two ex-wives. 

His family will hold a wake on March 9 at the False Creek 

Yacht Club, starting at 3:30 p.m. Stories are welcome.

Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even with someone they love

Cowboys ain't easy to love and they're harder to hold
And they'd rather give you a song then diamonds or gold
Lonestar belt buckles and old faded Levi's each night begins a new day
And if you don't understand him and he don't die young
He'll probly just ride away

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even with someone they love

Cowboys like smokey old pool rooms and clear mountian moringin's
Little warm puppies and children and girls of the night
And them that don't know him won't like him 
And them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong he's just different 
but his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even with someone they love

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngbcsxFET68