This Newsletter is published quarterly, March, June, September and December by the B.C. Ground Water Association. For more information please contact: Executive Secretary, Joan Perry, 1708 – 197 A Street, Langley, B. C. V2Z 1K2. Phone or Fax: 604-530-8934. BCGWA Website address: www.bcgwa.org BCGWA e.mail address: secretary.bcgwa@shaw.ca ____________________________________________________________________________ President’s Address Merry Christmas Everyone! Gosh, where has the year gone?!! Well, I am happy to report that your association is doing very well and plans are in motion for the Annual General Meeting and trade show in early March. I am hoping that all of our members will make every effort to attend. This will be a very important meeting and feature valuable seminars, training sessions and trade show. The meeting is to be held in Langley’s new trade and convention centre which has a beautiful casino attached. I would like to thank all of the executive, regional directors and members who volunteered to help with projects over this year. Without your efforts we could not make the positive advances we have made in promoting our association and its cause. Thank you all! There are many other duties and tasks that need attention and if anyone has some free time or a particular interest and would like to get more involved, just send us an e:mail. We would welcome the help. As you know, the first phase of the new regulations is in effect and phase two is almost complete. All people drilling wells and installing pumps in wells are required to be certified (or grandfathered) and registered with the provincial government. If you have any further questions, please contact myself or Joan and we will try to help you. Last but not least, I would like to personally thank Joan Perry for her tireless work throughout the year in keeping the association’s wheels turning. Merry Christmas Everyone and have a Happy New Year!! B.C. Ground Water Association Convention and Trade Show Plans are coming together for the B. C. Ground Water Association convention and trade show being held at the Cascade Casino/Coast Hotel & Convention Centre in Langley City. Dates for this event are from March 1 – 4th, 2006. Registrations will be mailed out in early January. Outline of events: March 1 – Pump installers course March 1- Evening Meet & Greet March 2 – Meetings/Trade Show March 3 – Meetings/Trade Show March 3 – Banquet and Entertainment March 4 – BCGWA – Annual General Meeting 9:00 am – 12:00 pm DRILLERS AND THE NATIONAL SAFETY CODE Just when you thought you had all of the paperwork and bureaucracy you could handle, along comes a visit from the Ministry of Transportation wanting to do a review of your policies and procedures in regards to the National Safety Code. We had a visit from a Mr. George Blogg, a Carrier Safety Inspector, who told us we were doing just about everything wrong!! This was just a review, so there were no fines, but we were given a month to get our Policies and Plans in place. If we had been audited we would have faced fines of several thousand dollars, and if we were to have had a serious accident, we could lose our ability to license commercial vehicles. Here is a summary of some of what we learned. - A Carrier is anyone with a licensed commercial vehicle over 5,500 kg. - All Carriers must have policies and plans in place for training of drivers, maintenance of vehicles, and filing of documents. - You must have Drivers Abstract N-Print on file for each driver. Must be renewed yearly. - You must fill out daily inspection sheets for every vehicle over 14,600 kg. Must have pre and post trip information, be signed, dated, include a statement of defects, or no defects, and must be turned in to office within 20 days, and be retained for 3 months. - You must have a separate file for every vehicle over 8,200 kg., and a separate file for every driver. Records of repairs, inspections, tickets, fines and accidents must be retained for 3 years. (Some vehicle records must be retained for 5 years). Driver’s records must be retained for five years. - A driver of a drill rig, or any other tandem vehicle, or single axle vehicle over 14,600 kg, requires hours of service logs and records if they travel more than 160 km from their home base, or if they stay away overnight. Hours of service records must be filled out completely for each day driving, and must show the previous 6 days hours of service. - No one can drive a commercial vehicle after 13 hours of driving, or after 15 hours of on duty time (unless you are oil and gas drilling, or hauling poles or logs). And no one can drive a commercial vehicle if they have worked more than 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days. So if you are working out of town for 6 days or more, and working 10 hour days, you cannot drive the rig home without taking one, or possibly 2 days off. I would recommend that all Contractors (Carriers) get a copy of “The Carrier Safety Guide”, and do their best to comply BEFORE they get an audit. I would be happy to try to answer any questions anyone might have about our experience, and to share our policy and plan once we have it finalized. On a related topic. All members should check their ICBC rate class. We have received a ruling that all of our rigs and equipment were improperly insured. The correct rate class is 151 Artisan, for all drill rigs and support equipment other that pickups. Check with your ICBC agent. Best Regards, David Slade Kootenay Regional Meeting Dennis Thompson, the B. C. Ground Water Director for the Kootenays’ has arranged a regional meeting for January 12, 2006 at 1:30. The meeting will be held at the Hacienda Inn at 800 Northwest Blvd in Creston. Another reminder will be going out later in the month. Dennis Thompson News from Gilles Wendling, Director of the Professional and Technical Division So we entered in a new era in BC. Any well has now to be drilled and completed by registered well drillers and pump installers following specifications provided in the Groundwater Protection Regulations (GPR). A series of workshops organized by the BCGWA were delivered across the province and were well attended. It was the opportunity to pass information on the new regulations and to receive comments. There were discussions, among others, questioning the validity of having wells drilled for geotechnical investigations excluded from several specifications and how some specifications regarding the sealing of wells could be modified to be more field-friendly and to reflect local conditions (i.e., installation of surface seal with a pitless adapter in regions with deep ground freezing conditions). Comments were compiled and passed to the Ministry of Environment. Please, if you still have comments or points that you think should be brought to the regulators or adjustments that should be made to the regulations, please write to me or directly to the Deputy Comptroller, Mike Wei (addresses are listed at the end of this article). As you are aware, the GPR came almost at the same time as the Drinking Water Protection Act and Regulations. This creates a new set of guidelines, rules and regulations that the regulators need to learn and apply, and that in many cases resulted in the appointment of new regulatory staff. This requires also good communication between the Ministry of Health, responsible for the implementation and application of the Drinking Protection Act and Regulations and the Ministry of Environment (MOE), responsible for the GPR. A workshop was held in Sun Peaks in October where staff from both ministries were invited to receive information, discuss the GPR and how the two ministries could and should work together. A new document titled “GROUND WATER PROTECTION POLICY & PROCEDURES MANUAL” (presently in draft but it should be available to the public very soon) which presents in details and in layman terms the various elements of the regulations was presented. Several members of the association were present: Dave Mellis, president, Dennis Thompson, the regional director for the Kootenays, Al Dakin , Advisory Board member, and myself. I believe that the effort to promote communication between the two ministries is bearing fruits, and that in concert with the BCGWA, we can move towards a real groundwater stewardship. A handbook on the GPR is being developed by the BCGWA and MOE. The handbook will present the regulations and specifications of the GPR in a practical way. It is being designed to be used as a practical resource/tool that well drillers and pump installers can refer to without having to go through 4 years of Law School. Hopefully, the handbook will be available in the spring, at the time of the annual convention. I also want to invite you to our next convention. Technical sessions will take place on Thursday morning and Friday afternoon (March 2nd and 3rd). We will have a keynote speaker from Montana University who will present very interesting information on how groundwater can be impacted by pharmaceutical products and hormone disruptors (a relatively new topic that is going to become very important). We will also have presentations on wells under the direct influence of surface water (an issue which is becoming more and more important as it relates to the costly requirements of having to treat water). If you have topics you would like to present or speakers you would recommend, please contact me. Thank you. Gilles Wendling, Ph.D., P.Eng. GW Solutions Inc. 3591 Ranch Point Road, Nanaimo, BC, V9R 6W9 phone: (250) 713-4538 gwsolutions@shaw.ca Mike Wei, P. Eng. Section Head, Groundwater and Aquifer Science Ministry of Environment P.O. Box 9341 Stn Prov Govt Victoria, BC, V8W 9M1 Tel: 250-356-5062 Fax: 250-356-8298 e-mail: Mike.Wei@gov.bc.ca Coming Events December 13 – 16, 2005 NGWA Ground Water Expo Cobb County, Georgia Ph: 800-551-7379 Fax: 614-898-7786 Web site: www.ngwa.org March 1-4, 2006 B. C. Ground Water Association Convention & Trade Show, Langley, B. C. Ph/Fax: 604-530-8934 Email: secretary.bcgwa@shaw.ca May 17-20, 2006 CanWell 2006 Convention Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Don’t forget to mark your calendars for this Canadian Ground Water Convention! More information can be found on the CGWA website at www.cgwa.org. Membership Changes New Members & Changes: Contractors: Address change: A & H Pumps & Supplies Ltd. 684 McCallum Road Abbotsford, B. C. V2S 8A2 J.R. Drilling As of July 2005, Richard & Jan Bombardier sold their interest in J.R. Drilling Ltd. In Cranbrook, B. C. J.R. Drilling Ltd was bought by Darrin Parnell and Harvey Bombardier. Richard is now working for J.R. Drilling Central Limited Partnership in Kamloops. Richard & Jan Bombardier Lingo Pump Services 706 Mount Paul Way Kamloops, B. C. V2H 1B5 Ph: 250-372-9126 Fax: 250-851-8953 Rep: Robert J. McFadden M&S: Multi-Power Products Ltd. 975 Crowley Avenue Kelowna, B. C. V1Y 9R6 Ph: 250-860-6969 Fax: 250-860-3340 Rep: Noel McAuley Prof & Tech: Gartner Lee New Rep: Ryan Mills GW Solutions Inc. 3591 Ranch Point Road Nanaimo, B. C. V9R 6W9 Ph: 250-713-4538 Cell: 250-713-4538 e.mail: gwsolutions@shaw.ca Rep: Dr.Gilles Wendling, P.Eng., Gilles Wendling, Ph.D., P.Eng. is pleased to announce that he started GW Solutions Inc., a consulting firm specializing in: · Water well design and testing · Water well maintenance and rehabilitation · Water supply systems relying on groundwater; and · Aquifer and watershed characterization and protection Hy-Geo Consulting (Formerly A.P. Kohut) 1041 Laburnum Road Victoria, B. C. V8Z 2M9 Ph/Fax: 250-658-1701 e:mail: apkohut@telus.net www.hy-geo.com Rep: Alan Kohut Rutland Waterworks District 160 Highway 33W Kelowna, B. C. V1X 1X7 Ph: 250-765-5218 Rep: Bruce G. Wilson Summit Environmental Consultants Ltd. #17 A 100 Kalamalka Lake Road Vernon, B. C. V1T 7M3 Ph: 250-545-3672 Fax: 250-545-3654 Rep: Doug Geller Regional Meetings Okanagan Region – This has been a busy season for drillers, pump installers and consultants in the Okanagan. Development is everywhere and demand is high. This is shown by the standard lead times to get a drill of 3 weeks or more. This level of work is good for the industry and all that benefit from it. We have had several member events in our region including a BCGWA-hosted training seminar in Kelowna on June 6 on the Groundwater Protection Regulations, presented by EBA Engineering. This was well attended, and lead to lots of good discussion and thought provoking comments. There’s no better way to test a new regulation than to get a room full of people on the front lines talking about it. Part of the Phase 1 GWPR became active on November 1, 2005. In response to a number of questions and comments I’ve received from drillers and pump installers, the BCGWA organized a Regulations Forum for December 7 in Penticton. This event brought together BCGWA members (and some prospective new members) to hear the latest on the GWPR from Des Anderson (Senior Groundwater Engineer for the Ministry of Environment) and requirements for Construction Permits for water well supplies from Ron Johnston (Senior Public Health Engineer from Interior Health). This informal session helped people get to know each other, and bring out key questions for consideration by the Moe and IHA. Lastly, the BCGWA was contacted in November to place a representative on the Okanagan Water Stewardship Council, a technical advisory body reporting to the Okanagan Basin Water Board. The OBWB is currently being retooled to enhance its effectiveness and to branch out into a much wider field of basin-scale water conservation and management in the Okanagan Valley. This invitation is a good recognition of the importance of groundwater in thoughtful management of water supplies, and of the BCGWA as a leading group in the groundwater industry. As your representative for the Okanagan region, I invite you to contact me anytime with thoughts and comments on our industry (Ph: 250-862-4832; e:mail: sschillereff@eba.ca). I also would like to wish all our members a happy and peaceful holiday season. Scott Schillereff Director, Okanagan Region Advertising prices ¼ page ad - $25.00 ½ page ad - $45.00 full page ad - $90.00 Information Media Bulletin The Ministry’s strategy to inform the public about the new Groundwater Protection Regulations is to publish articles in local newspapers. The following article was issued to all media outlets in B. C. DRILLING IN THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS Picture this drill site. The sun shining down from a clear tropical sky, the Caribbean Sea lapping at the beach 20 ft. away, and the coconut palms swaying in the warm breeze. Young dark skinned maidens bringing iced drinks, and rubbing sunscreen on your pale exposed skin. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well it’s not exactly true. There were no maidens at the site, and we had to bring our own iced drinks, and put on our own sunscreen. But the rest is pretty accurate. Early in the summer we got an email out of the blue, asking if we had a BE 28-L cable tool drill rig, and if so did we have anyone able and willing to go to the British Virgin Islands and drill some wells with a 28-L that was already there. It seems that they had bought a rig, and hired a fellow from Trinidad to drill 5 salt water intake wells at a beach near Fat Hogs Bay, on the Island of Tortolla. They made the mistake of paying him before the work was done, and he took the money and disappeared. He left with one well finished to 70ft. and one half drilled using 18 inch casing. Apparently they found us by going on the internet, and did a search for 28-L. Since we have one, and it is listed on our web site, our name came up. We sent a crew down in the summer consisting of Calvin Slade and Lou Brancato. They found the rig in good shape, and the drilling quite easy, but a lack of tooling and oppressive heat and humidity, made the work quite challenging. They managed to finish off the second well, and test it successfully before returning home. We then sent a list of materials needed to make the operation more efficient, including casing beveling machine, and heavy block for the casing line. They wanted us back sooner, but due to heavy workload at home, and the high temperature, and risk of hurricanes in the Caribbean, we stalled them off until the fall. Calvin went down again in Oct. with Scott Burrows, and was relieved after 3 weeks by Kelly McGarry, and then I went down on the First of Oct. to relieve Scott. The aim of the project was to complete 5 wells, to approx. 75 ft. Each well had to deliver at least 300 gpm of filtered salt water to a new desalination plant. Wells were drilled through sand, shells, loose coral and silt, using 18” steel casing, and finished in a competent porous coral layer, which started at around 50 ft. and was up to 20 ft. thick. Wells were completed using 8 inch “V-Wire” plastic screens, sandpacked in 14 inch open hole, with 10 inch PVC riser pipe to surface. It took a lot of sweat, a lot of sunscreen, a lot of beer, and a few Pina Coladas, but we wrapped up on the 18th of Nov. and had a day and a half off for Scuba Diving and sight seeing. It was tough, leaving BC in November to go and work on a Caribbean beach, but somebody had to do it. Hope to see everyone at the convention, so I can show off my tan, and rub it in some more. Best Regards, David Slade GPS To continue our discussion of Global Positioning Systems from the last newsletter, we left off at the use of WAAS or Wide Area Augmentation System, which allows our GPS units to more accurately calculate our position. Use of the WAAS system by our GPS will give us an accuracy down to within 3 meters as opposed to 15 meters or more without use of the WAAS signal. Please keep in mind that WAAS covers most of B. C. except the North Eastern corner. Accuracy for a GPS unit depends on many other factors such as atmospheric disturbances (Ionosphere), satellite positioning; how many satellites are we accessing and their relative position overhead, and reflected signals which are satellite signals bounced or reflected off mountains and buildings. Users must be aware of signal strength from the satellites. Most GPS units have a visual display of satellite signal strength and having strong signals on at least 4 satellites is necessary for accurate plotting. In addition you should try to keep in mind any nearby terrain features such as cliffs, mountains or buildings that will probably introduce a measure of inaccuracy. More expensive GPS units can tell the difference between direct and reflected signals but the inexpensive handheld units can not. The new regulations require well and pump reports to plot the position of the well as accurately as possible using address, legal description, latitude and longitude or Universal Transverse Mercator coordinates (UTM). If you can imagine the surface of the world crisscrossed by an infinite number of lines arranged in a grid pattern, you can accurately plot where you are by the intersection of a vertical and horizontal line. UTM as well as latitude and longitude use this principal to plot where features are on the world’s surface. You should not purchase a GPS unit that does not support these two methods of plotting. Most of the world has been recorded on paper maps and these units can be found on most of them, so it makes sense to use a GPS that one can accurately show on a map where your or a wells position is. At the coming Annual General Meeting there will be a seminar which will give you an introduction to using a GPS unit and will familiarize you on how it is used. In addition, your association is applying to both the provincial and federal government for assistance in training and purchasing a selected GPS to be used with the new reporting requirements. This is one big reason for all members to attend the AGM and take advantage of this offer. Dave Mellis Merry Christmas If you see a fat man… Who’s jolly and cute, Wearing a beard And a red flannel suit, And if he is chuckling And laughing away, While flying around In a miniature sleigh With eight tiny reindeer To pull him along, Then lets face it… Your eggnog’s too strong! Ground Water Wells in the Okanagan Valley The project I am working on is called The North Okanagan Ground Water Characterization and Assessment (NOGWCA) Project. Part of the project, which includes developing a detailed computer model of the aquifers in the Deep Creek watershed basin and developing hard copy maps of well characteristics and water quality parameters for both the Deep Creek and BX Creek watersheds, is to develop a suitable database by collecting well logs for wells drilled in the North Okanagan Basin. The project is a component of the larger Groundwater Assessment of the larger Okanagan Basin Project (GAOB) spearheaded by Vicki Carmichael (Ministry of Environment, Victoria) which examines ground water in the Okanagan Basin as a whole. Information in the form of well logs for the entire Okanagan Basin, not already submitted to the Ministry of Environment, would be very much appreciated. If there are such well logs that drillers would be willing to share they can be sent to: Tom Webber 3rd Floor 2975 Jutland Road Box 9340, Stn. Prov. Govt Victoria, B. C. V8W 9M1 If anyone has any questions regarding the project they can contact me at the Ministry of Environment office in Penticton at 250-490-8276 and I will do my best to address them. Thank you. Trina Koch North Okanagan Ground Water Characterization and Assessment Project Co-ordinator B.C Ministry of Environment Ph: 250-490-8276 Fax: 250-490-2231 Drilling in Outer Space? As all water well contractors know, ground water is a vital resource. But while it is a necessity to life on Earth, it also could be important to life on other planets as well. Engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, have been working to develop a drilling technology for use on the moon and Mars. The drill will primarily be used for scientific research, but NASA also wants to use it to search for resources, such as water, says Mars Drill Project Manager Jeffery A. George. “If we can access water, it does a couple of different things for us.” George says. “If there is life anywhere on Mars, it may well reside in wet layers that may be deep underground. In terms of sustaining human exploration, water would be an invaluable resource and it would make human exploration vastly more achievable.” For example, ground water on Mars could be used for drinking water, hydrating food, and electrolyzing hydrogen into oxygen that can be used for rocket propellant, fuel cell reactants, or breathing oxygen. Drilling on Mars is not a simple task. Engineers face a number of challenges that are not present when drilling on Earth. First of all, the drill must be extremely light and power efficient. Limitations exist on allowable mass and power, George says, because it’s very expensive to get payloads to the surface of Mars. Power limitations on the design are about 100 electrical watts – about the amount of electricity it takes to light a lightbulb. “Low mass and low power also means that there is no use of drilling fluids or mud. That drives us to a different solution to what (water well contractors) use in the field,” George adds. The drill, which largely has been designed and integrated at NASA, has a wire-line, bottom-hole assembly that possesses all of the required functionality to perform drilling. The bottom-hole assembly is lowered into the borehole, anchor pads at the top of the assembly are extended to anchor the assembly into the bore, and a dry rotary coring bit is used to drill an approximately 1-inch-diameter core. As internal mechanism is used to advance and apply force to the bit. The cuttings are augered from the cutting service into a temporary storage reservoir, and after a 5- to 10-inch stroke, the anchor pads are retracted and the bottom-hole assembly core and cuttings are raised to the surface and emptied. The bore is drilled through a succession of 5- to 10-inch core bites. The wire-line, bottom-hole assembly has many advantages. The coring approach provides a continuous record of cores and cuttings for scientific analysis, and also enables the low-power operating needed to drill on Mars. The dry drilling approach minimizes sample contamination and the wire line and bailing approach leads to a low mass system. “We feel the approach will eventually be able to achieve great depths. We can’t afford to send large quantities of drilling pipe to Mars. (This system) has the potential for drilling deep without the mass and the complexity of sending and assembling lots of drill pipe,” George says. However, there are some drawbacks. Only modest penetration rates can be achieved with the low power drill. Typical penetration rates were 4 to 8 inches an hour in consolidated rock, though much higher rates have been demonstrated in ice and sand. The approach also is sensitive to formation stability due to bore wall anchoring. “Our first-generation prototype was demonstrated in the laboratory in sandstone and sand to depths of two metres. It weighed 15 pounds and operated at 50 watts of electrical power,” George explains. The point of the first generation was to demonstrate proof of their concept. Since laboratory testing, NASA has developed a second-generation prototype that incorporates all of the lessons learned from the first generation. The second generation – the most-current prototype – was also designed to be tested in the field, in order to simulate the dry, cold environment on Mars, the drill was recently used at the Eurela Weather Station in the Canadian Arctic. “The Arctic is a good analog both geologically and drilling-wise because it’s cold and dry,” George says. “In general, it performed very well in the field. In terms of rate of penetration and energy, it was very similar to what we see in the lab.” However, engineers found one hardware issue that was not present in lab situations. In very cold temperatures (as low as –22 degrees C or -8 degrees F) the extension rates were slowed. When drilling through ice, the drill had a much higher penetration rate of 100 inches an hour and the thrust mechanism was not able to advance the bit fast enough. The problem was fixed, though, with a simple switch of material. All in all, NASA provided researchers at the Eureka Weather Station with 15 sandstone cores at three elevations along a sandstone outcrop. The drill also drilled a 2.2-metre-deep bore in an iceberg nearby. George says NASA wants to build another generation of the drill that can operate in vacuum chambers. This would simulate what it would be like to drill on Mars where the atmosphere is very thin. “If the drill is successful in a near vacuum environment, then we think we would be ready to fly,” George says. In reality, though, the drill most likely won’t be ready for a Mars mission for many years. George estimates NASA could have a shallow depth version of the drill ready to launch sometime early in the next decade. And if all goes well, NASA could be drilling for science – and eventually, a water well on Mars. Water Well Journal, NGWA Press Australasian Drilling Inner Peace I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me, and we all could use a little more calmness in our lives. By following the simple advice I heard on the Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed “The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you’ve started and never finished.” So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn’t finished, and before leaving this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey’s Bristol Cream, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some saltines and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel. Please pass this on to those you feel might be in need of inner peace. Merry Christmas to all of you from the B. C. Ground Water office! A Christmas Poem ‘Twas the night before Christmas and Santa’s a wreck…How to live in a world that’s politically correct? His workers no longer would answer to “Elves”. “Vertically Challenged” they were calling themselves. And labour conditions at the North Pole Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul. Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety, Released to the wilds by the Humane Society. And equal employment had made it quite clear That Santa had better not use just reindeer. So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid, Were replaced with 4 pigs, and you know that looked stupid! The runners had been removed from his sleigh; The ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A. And people had started to call for the cops When they heard sled noises coming from their roof-tops. Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened. His fur trimmed red suit was called “Unenlightened.” And to show you the strangeness of life’s ebbs and flows, Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose. And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation, Demanding millions in over-due compensation. So, half of the reindeer were gone, and his wife, Who suddenly said she had enough of this life, Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz, Demanding from now on her title was Ms. And as for the gifts, why he’d ne’er had a notion That making a choice could cause so much commotion. Nothing of leather, nothing of fur, Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her. Nothing that might be construed to pollute. Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot. Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise. Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys. Nothing that claimed to be gender specific. Nothing that’s warlike or non-pacific. No candy or sweets..they were bad for the tooth. Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth. And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden, Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden. For they raised the hackles of those psychological Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological. No baseball, no football..someone could get hurt; Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt. Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passé; And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away. So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed; He just could not figure out what to do next. He tried to be merry, tried to be gay, But you’ve got to be careful with that word today. His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground; Nothing fully acceptable was to be found. Something special was needed, a gift that he might Give to all without angering the left or the right. A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision, Each group of people, from every religion; Every ethnicity, every hue, Everyone, everywhere..even you. So here is that gift, it’s price beyond worth.. “May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth.”