New heights

Pilots with the flight performing group Tora, Tora, Tora are shown flying in formation during a media flight over the Lethbridge area. The group is the headline performance July 24 and 25 at the Alberta International AirShow in Lethbridge.

Scott Schmidt
For the Sun Times
When the 19th annual Alberta International AirShow takes flight on the July 24 weekend in Lethbridge, one pilot will be bringing a whole new meaning to the term “experienced.”
Bud Granley, formerly of Edmonton and now of Bellevue, Wash., first got his pilot’s licence when he was 18 after gaining an interest while a member of his local air cadets club. That would all sound absolutely fine and normal if the year he got it wasn’t 1955 and he wasn’t now a 73-year-old acrobatic pilot entering his 50th year of performing at air shows.
But it isn’t normal, well, not for most people anyway; for Granley it’s actually kind of a little too normal. His father flew. His brother flew. His kids fly.
Getting in a plane and twirling around doing various ridiculous feats a plane was never meant to do is so normal for Granley it’s almost mundane.
“When I was first practising in the (acrobatic planes), it would give me good shots of adrenaline because I was doing new things to see what the plane could do,” says Granley, who will arrive in Lethbridge with his son, Ross, and three planes for the show. “But now, I actually don’t get any. My body doesn’t feed me adrenaline because I don’t have any concerns about what the outcome is going to be.
“It’s all pretty much academic at this point.”
When you consider that on top of 50 years flying about a dozen air shows each summer he also has extensive experience in the Canadian Air Force and was a career commercial pilot for United Airlines, where he had began during the Vietnam War, “academic” doesn’t seem that hard to believe.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Granley is silly about what he is so passionate. It’s not as if he doesn’t understand the benefit of being a little afraid each time he goes up.
“Fear is definitely your best friend up there,” says Granley, who has had his share of in-flight scares. “You remember all those times and you approach everything with fear being a good teacher.
“When I fly with my son, we just stick to what we practiced and try not to do anything unpredictable. You can adjust to the conditions but you don’t want to do too much improvising.”
It seems a decent strategy while doing a triple loop with another plane mere feet from your wing.
Aside from Granley, who easily comes in as the most senior act of the show, there are plenty of performers coming to this year’s event that are worth the $15 price weekend pass ($25 at the gate). More than a dozen pilots and double that count in aircraft will on hand both in the air and on the ground during the weekend, including such acts as the A-10 West Demonstration Team, the Northern Aeros, Hawk One, a CF-18 Hornet and plenty more.
“The attendance for this weekend is usually around 30,000 for the entire weekend,” says president Robb Engen. “It’s just a really great event for southern Alberta and Lethbridge, probably the biggest (event) in southern Alberta as well.”
The headline act of the show just might be the return of Tora Tora Tora, which is a spectacular recreation of the Pearl Harbor attack.
The gates open at 9 a.m. July 24 and July 25, and there will be a $2 breakfast available.
Main flight showtimes start at noon. Gates close at 6 p.m. each day.
Tickets can be purchased online at www.albertaairshow.com, or they can be picked up at Safeway, Gas King, London Drugs and Scotiabank.

Dance festival returns

Scott Schmidt
For the Sun Times
For the seventh-straight year, Galt Gardens will play host to an elegant display of Japanese culture, as the Buddhist Temple of Southern Alberta celebrates Bon Odori once again.
This year’s dance festival takes place July 17 at 6:30 p.m. and will include performances from several local artists.
The exact meaning of Bon Odori has some dispute.
While Westernized culture has dubbed the ancient Japanese custom as the “Good Dance,” the actual term ‘Bon’ comes from the word ‘Obon,’ which is a three-day festival during the heat of the summer.
Odori does mean dance but the direct translation is simply Bon Dance, as ‘Bon’ has no actual meaning.
“This is a time to honour, respect and remember those who have gone before us,” says Rev. Yasuo Izumi, minister at the Lethbridge temple. “Secondly, this is a time of reflection; to reflect on ourselves.”
The self-reflection, Izumi says, is a way to evaluate one’s selfishness and to look at how well we share our abundances with others around us.
The entire festival comes from an old Buddhist teaching, where an only child of a deceased mother attempts to rescue her when he learns she has been trapped in the realm of the Hungry Ghosts. Buddhist beliefs say there are six Realms where you can end up and Hungry Ghosts is one of particular suffering in the form of hunger and thirst.
Buddha tells the man in order to save his mother, he must make offerings of food and drink to fellow monks at the end of their summer retreat, or in other words, learn the value of sharing. The man does so and his mother is released.
The Bon Odori is a dance performed during the Obon festival, where dancers move softly in a circle around a special drum called a taiko on a raised platform called a yagura. It is a dance of joy and all who attend the event are invited to join in.
This year’s taiko drummer is David Tanaka, who will be assisted by Rev. Izumi. Deanna Jones will emcee the event. Global Drums from the University of Lethbridge will also be performing taiko entertainment during the intermission. Charlotte Ikuta and Katie Nakagawa have something special planned, while Roland Ikuta will be leading a sing-along.
There will also be plenty of delicious foods available, including Dharma Dogs (Japanese-style hotdogs). Yakitori (grilled chicken and beef skewers), nigiri (rice balls) and traditional kori (snow cones) will also be ready for eating.
Handmade rice-sack aprons and tea towels will be on sale and plenty of fun for the kids will be on hand, including yoyo balloon fishing, a popular Japanese children’s game.
“This Obon event is beyond the Japanese or American-Canadian culture,” says Izumi “This is a place to (bring) East and West together beyond the race.”
 

At first it was really just boredom.
After several years of entrepreneurship, Barb Whitelaw had started a family and after three children decided to become a stay-at-home mom. But after her youngest had gone off to school, a serious case of thumb twiddling led her to the kitchen.
Canning various foods had been a practice used in her family for a few generations and so Whitelaw began following suit.
And let’s just say she must have initially been pretty bored because she canned goods that started finding their way into the hands of friends and family, who immediately started egging her to go public.
“I was just doing asparagus, beets, carrots and salsa,” says Whitelaw. “And I started going to farmers’ markets all over. I was doing it out of the house but pretty much just giving it away. “The family all said (my food) was too good for that and said I should start a business. So that’s what I did.”

Just as the glorious feeling of summer freedom reaches its peak among high school and post-secondary students, the toppling reality of a temporary full-time job soon follows close behind.
But while snagging something for a few months used to be a simple pick of your pleasure, changing economies have brought tighter budgets and a fair bit less to choose from. The good news, even for those who haven’t thought about work until now, is there are plenty of sources available to assist in the search.