Doug VA7DP

Shirley VE7SLP

We met while both of us were in the RCAF. We got married in 1954, and had three children, Anita, Teresa & John. Shirley worked at various times but her biggest and most important accomplishment was taking care of our family. She is a devoted wife & mother and is still taking care of me.

I served in the Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineers as a Weapons Technician for 20 years and retired in 1972. During my 20 years of service I was posted to Vancouver, Montreal, Egypt, Camp Borden, Cyprus, and finished my career in Victoria BC. My service in Egypt and Cyprus was with the United Nations peacekeeping forces. While in Egypt I had the privilege of visiting Jerusalem and really enjoyed that experience. I also visited Cairo and Alexandria. There are many other happy memories that I cherish deeply.

I had the honour of being one of only five weapons technicians from throughout the Canadian Forces to be sent to Bisley, England, with the Canadian Rifle Team. One of the team members won the Queen's medal for his ability as a shooter. I did lots of work on his weapons and feel I contributed to this unique accomplishment.

After working hours and in my spare time I refereed hockey in the winter and umpired baseball & softball in the summer. I stopped refereeing hockey when we moved to where there was no ice and stopped umpiring ball in 1990.

Upon retirement from the Army I took up drilling and blasting rock and did that for ten years. Then I was involved in running various types of road building equipment. I did a lot of training of young operators in this line of work. I took early retirement in 1997 when my knee failed me. I had a knee replacement operation and my knee is working just like the original equipment.

We have moved to Penticton, BC, where Shirley's 96 year old mother lives. This will also put us closer to my sister who lives in Vernon, BC.

I am a recently licensed (1991) ham radio operator and enjoy various aspects of this hobby. Shirley got her license in 1992 to check on me while I was out sports fishing. She does not get on the radio very much.

We both enjoy camping and traveling and hope to do some of that now that we are retired.
In May 1999 we left Penticton, picked up my sister and the three of us headed to Alberta where we visited with first cousins and took in the sights at the Zoo, Military Museum and then on to Drumheller where we spent three days in the area checking out prehistoric sites and a marvelous museum with life size replicas of dinosaurs.

We then traveled to the Battleford area of Saskatchewan were all us kids were born. We visited with all sorts of relatives, many of whom I had never met.

We found the old family homestead with the house still standing and the barn fallen down. We also
went to the original cemetery and found MANY of our ancestors buried there. As a matter of
fact we were related to all but ONE of the people in the graveyard. I got a creepy feeling in my
stomach seeing all these headstones. One of the problems that plagued us was RAIN, I thought
we were back in Ucluelet. We could not get to the cemetery where our father is buried because
of the prairie GUMBO and are sorry we missed that.

While in Battleford we also found my Grandfather's house where we stayed after my father died
in 1939. The school we went to is still standing but it is now used as a museum.

Our next significant stop was Prince Albert, SK, where we spent four years as young kids. We
found the house we lived in back about 1946-47. It is still in use today but has been upgraded.

After Prince Albert we traveled to Saskatoon where we witnessed a tornado touching down about
five miles from where we were and three miles from where our fifth wheel was parked.
We spent time in the museum in Saskatoon and then traveled on to Regina.

In Regina we visited the RCMP museum which we all found very interesting. There is a lot of
Canadian history recorded there.

On May 24th we buried our youngest sister's ashes at Montemarte SK. This is where her husbands
family is from and where she wanted to be laid to rest. We miss her very much but we know she is in better hands where she is.

After the funeral service, we left my sister Joyce to fend for herself, and Shirley & I headed south
to Tennessee to visit our youngest daughter, Teresa. While in TN we toured all over the place including Gatlinburg, Dollywood and Chatanooga. Lots of US history in this part of the country.

We took in three days of Fan Fair in Nashville and afterwards spent four days in Branson Missouri where we went to live entertainment at least twice a day. If you are a country music fan I highly recommend Branson. Lots to do and see there. Heading west we visited overnight with a ham
radio friend, W0FP, Frosty & his wife Cheri, in Liberty MO. Had a marvelous supper with them and
parked in their yard overnight. Our thanks to Frosty & Cheri.

We then proceeded to the Rapid City SD area where we visited Mt Rushmore National Monument,
Custer State Park, Sturgis, and the Air & Space Museum at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City. We spent a night in Cody, Wyoming and had a short visit with another ham friend, K7KD, Carol, this visit was too short but our time was running out. Then on to Yellowstone National Park where we spent a few days including the 4th July. We saw all of the park we could and thought the roads were the absolute worst we had seen on the whole trip. They were VERY narrow and rough, a shame in a National Park. On the prositive side we did see a lot of wild animals while in Yellowstone.

We left Yellowstone and headed for home. It was two days driving and we finally got back to BC
on the 7th July.

Our next project was finding a house, which was not very hard as we had an excellent real estate
agent who knew exactly what we wanted. It took her less than a day to find what we wanted but
we could not take possession until the 1 Sep. So another month and a half in the fifth wheel.

On the 26th July we took a trip to Vancouver Island to clear up whatever business remained there
and also took in a family reunion where we met a cousin & his wife from England. They made a
special trip for this occasion. There were about 300 relatives at the reunion.

We are integrating Penticton very well. We participate in a number of ham radio activities including Ironman Canada which runs in August every year. Swim, run 28k & bike 125k, with a maximum time limit of 17 hours. I really do not understand why they put themselves through that kind of torture. The oldest participant last year was in his 70's. I spend some time teaching seniors MS Word at the local seniors center, the oldest student was 92 years old, . I also do some home tutoring in various computer programs. Shirley reads a lot, as she has all her life, and helps me when the ham & other functions are happening.

I have put up a crank-up fold-over tower with a Hy-gain Explorer14 tri-bander on it. It also has the 40 meter dipole and works very well for me. My 40 - 80 meter dipole is 40 feet at the apex and oriented for East - West propagation

On May 1, 2000, we were blessed with a great grand son and he is just a great little boy.

This page contains lots of pictures, please be patient, I tried to get them to load as fast as I could.

Thank you for checking my page and I hope to hear you on the air.

© 2003 Doug Pichette