A weekend saved

A5

By Lisa Keough

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Wow, what a crazy weekend I had! (Not Thanksgiving weekend, the one before. Remember I'm writing this last week)

On Wednesday I was told that I had to go to a leadership course at CFB Gagetown for the weekend, and that I had better get Saturday off from work. Or else my head would be somewhere other than on my shoulders. Well, I got Saturday off, much to my boss' annoyance, and rushed Thursday night to pack my stuff for Friday, and still do some fundraising for graduation.

Friday came and I got to the armouries early. Well, the other two cadets and our escort officer, as well as our CO and her husband, waited around for the bus to come to pick us up. It was supposed to be there at 8. Well, the bus is NEVER on time so when at 8:30 it wasn't there yet, we weren't too worried. Big deal eh? Well, nine o'clock comes around, still no bus, now we are starting to wonder if the weekend was cancelled on us. Lt. Wheaton, our escort officer, is taking random walks around the building to see if the bus was out there waiting. No bus.

Now we are all starting to get impatient. Capt. Ruel is trying to find the number of some other officer to see if the weekend was cancelled and somehow she just wasn't notified. No luck. She can't find the number. Well, we'll wait for a while longer, see if anything happens.

The bus finally arrives an hour and 10 minutes late. The bus driver had got lost in Perth-Andover when picking up some Air Cadets.

After we got to Gagetown the weekend got better, I suppose. The barracks we were sleeping in were freezing cold, but whatever, we're cadets! We're tough! We can deal with the cold, right? Right?

Although getting up at 6 a.m. on a weekend is not my cup of tea – and apparently not that of the others from 318 – I can deal with it.

One person, who knows who they are, kept falling asleep during the lectures. They were rather boring, I will admit to that, minus those that were taught by Lt. Wheaton, and those on the drill floor, but falling asleep during them!

In the words of one of my favorite teachers, SERIOUSLY! I was tired too, but my conscience wouldn't allow me to fall asleep when someone was teaching. No matter how bored I was, or how much I disliked the class.

On Saturday night there was a dance, and a couple of other girls from my room and I had plans to skip the dance and stay back at the barracks and catch up on our sleep.

Yes, that's how tired we were, three teenage girls would rather skip a dance to sleep. So, about half an hour before we were to be formed up to march over to the dance, the Major pops his head in the room and asks if we were going to the dance,

"Is it mandatory?" we asked him, because if it was mandatory he wouldn't ask, right?

WRONG! "Yes." Well, Sir, with all due respect, there's your answer! Yes we're going to the dance! Why would you even ask if we had no choice in whether or not we were going?

The dance would have been better, I guess, had it been WARM in the building!! Instead it was freezing cold, and in my opinion, the music was crappy. Except near the end. I was sitting in the back, half asleep, when I heard the DJ announce "This song goes out to the Islanders in the room." Well, having tons of relatives from the island, and being an Islander at heart, I perked up. Then, I heard the introduction to what I believe to be the best song ever written and sung by a Canadian artist, and an islander himself at that!

Bud The Spud by the great Stompin' Tom Connors! I think my voice was louder at that time than all the "other" Islanders in the room. Not caring what other people would think about me, I bellowed out the words to the song like I was the only person for miles and there was no chance anyone else could hear me. I'm sure people thought I was crazy, but who cares? Certainly not me!

After hearing Bud the Spud – and soon after – The Night that Patty Murphy Died, my mood increased dramatically.

I got into the spirit of the dance a little bit more and even got on my feet for a bit, but I think that was mainly because I was going numb from the waist down.

When the weekend was finally over, I wasn't sorry. I was going to miss the people I had met, and the friends that I had seen again, but I was glad to go home.

I was especially glad to have Monday off from school, because man was I tired! I had a good time, but I was ready to sleep in my own, WARM, bed.