The Google Van was Here, The Google Van Was HERE!!!

Oh my God!  The Google van came through Eyebrow!  I can't believe it!  By the look of the street views, it must have been about a year ago but it was here! - and I missed it!

OK, I admit to being a bit of a techno-geek - I suppose that's probably a bit obvious at this point, from my excitement above.  I'm almost a little sheepish about the excited outburst I just wrote....

BUT THE GOOGLE VAN WAS HERE!!!

Ok, sorry!  I won't let it happen again.  It's just that Eyebrow is tiny, in the middle of bald, flat, Saskatchewan prairie, almost an hour's drive from the nearest city, and really on a highway that doesn't go anywhere and....

I can't believe that the Google van took street views of eyebrow!

Thank God the house looked OK and the grass was freshly cut!

Eyebrow, Saskatchewan? Is that a real place? Really?

Sure!  
Google it.  You do have Google, don’t you?  Even here in the middle of the bald, flat Saskatchewan prairie, 80 kilometers (that’s 45 miles for those of you still measuring THAT way) from the nearest city, we have internet – mind you, our comes by dial up, or at very best it’s beamed to our houses with a wireless connection from the top of the town’s grain terminal.  I kid you not.

So why write about Eyebrow – what could ever possibly happen in someplace called Eyebrow that would be interesting?  Well you might be surprised…

True, we don’t have the excitement and night life of larger, wilder places, like New York or Toronto or Swift Current, but it all depends on what you’re looking for.  Why just this past weekend a trio of events converged in a “Perfect Storm” of ecitement… by Eyebrow Standards.  Let me explain:

The “May Long”, The “Lost Finale” and “Garage Sale Day” all came together in one weekend!

Now I probably don’t have to explain the “Lost Finale.”  From what I can gather from television and the internet, it was generating comments and excitement all over the place. The “May Long” might be a little more confusing.  Especially if you’re not from western Canada or at least from Canada somewhere.

The “May Long” is properly known as “Victoria day Long Weekend” though most people just call it the May Long and it’s a big deal – especially out here!  See, here in the west, we’ve just survived six months of winter.  I’m not talking about 3 inches of snow – call out the national guard – shut down the city kind of winters that you hear about some places without mentioning any names like Toronto or Vancouver.  I’m talking about real winter – 40 below for days at a time; blizzards with sideways blowing snow, piling up four feet deep in drifts across the highway, that we somehow manage to navigate through to work, and work in – for six months!

The May Long signals the end of that. It’s viewed as the kick-off to summer (though usually the weather doesn’t agree)  which is celebrated by people - especially cabin fever afflicted teenagers - by heading out to provincial park campsites (which open for the season this weekend) with copious amounts of alcohol, to party (read: huddle in the cold and/or rain drinking themselves senseless before running home with hypothermia and huge stories of how much fun they had.)

“Garage Sale Day,” what the heck is that?  Well, if you’re a jaded city dweller who can drive down any residential street all summer long and be inundated with garage sale signs you might not get it.  Garage sale DAY?  WTF?  Did I mention that it’s a 45 minute drive to the nearest city?  Constant, easy, access to garage sales may have lulled you.  Perhaps you’ve grown tired of the thrill of sifting through someone else’s junk for that perfect treasure - lost the excitement of bargain hunting and the joy of dickering over prices.  Well…. Too bad for you.

In small towns, there aren’t enough people to make holding a garage sale worthwhile.  So someone, in their wisdom, created a day where everyone in town with treasures to part with (and everyone’s junk is SOMEONE’s treasure) can do it all at the same time – Garage Sale Day!  The excitement caused by Garage Sale day rivals the excitement of a major rock concert in the city and attracts hordes of people from every small town within an hour’s drive. 

So - this year, Eyebrow’s Garage Sale Day was held on Monday, May 24^th – Victoria Day! With the Lost Finale on TV in the evening!  See what I mean: excitement’s Perfect Storm!  And you thought that nothing exciting happened in a small town.