Irish Time, Bastian Square, Victoria – Acrylic on Canvas

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age-1441″ />peg”>>Wife number two we would sit in her hot tub in Union Bay and watch the cruise ships to Alaska sail bye. She hated cruising, she was a high end tomato and liked exclusive expensive resort for scuba diving. In 2003 she went to Costa Rico with her girl friend, I stayed home to run the business which was booming, had my best year $225,000 in sales! (where did all the cash go, money like water). I spent my time cruising porn sites, which was new to me. Not being a techy I did not erase my trail of lovely porn stars! Upon her return she followed my trail of debauchery and stated catagorically I have to move out of her house! I said where do I go? She says a hotel!

Fortunately one of my patrons who was also a friend had a large property on Hornby Island. She had her garage renovated as a studio/ art gallery and the couch made into a bed. By that summer we were in each others arms on the beach. She came from a large family and was not properly breast fed as a baby and loved to suck on the little guy, the big guy had a smile on his face. The wife saw the glow on my face and the game was up!

I was awash in cash at the time and bought the Black Creek property and moved out of Union Bay. Meanwhile the high end tomato changes her mind wants me back! She paints on the war paint, go go boots and mini skirt and goes after me expecting me to move back in to her house! The little guy hasn’t had this much attention for awhile and says no way. The big guy agrees. The moral of the story is never marry an Anglican Priest’s Daughter.

The next fall I’m on a cruise ship to Alaska, as we pass Union Bay I wave at Lovely Linda as I know she will be in her hot tub watching the cruise ships go by. Barbara also turned out to be tyrant but I put up with pushing her in a wheel chair around a cruise ship as she tried to drink all the Scotch on board; her eye balls rolling around in her head!

However we did 26 cruises in 10 years, tax deductible, I sold many paintings of the places we visited, St Petersburg, Jerusalem, Venice etc. The first Alaska cruise we went to Sitka but missed Skagway and the White Pass RR which went up to the Yukon. I went on my second Alaska Cruise with the Red Hot Tomato from Toronto, a retired pharmacist and did the White Pass Railway. I had read Pierre Burtons book on the Klondyke, he grew up in Dawson. I also taught Outreach for the Provincial Art School and had to fly into White Horse to take get to Atlin and Cassiar in BC. The only place where I had seen a layer of ice in the toilet with the phrase, “If its yellow let it mellow’ If its Brown Flush it Down.

Juneau and Sitka had evidence of the old Russian Empire in Alaska, the Russian Orthodox churches. The Czar, in 1867 sold Alaska to the Americans for $15 million. He probably wanted to buy more Fabrijay Eggs for the Empress, I loved the Onion Ring Domes on the churches which I had painted in St. Petersburg, the Church of the Spilled Blood, where the Czar was a assassinated. You could see his blood on the cobble stones. The Communists stored potatoes in the Church, they were not church goers.