To know Bushy is to know a free spirit. Unquestionably, more than your average, ho-hum book-balancing, travel-vending, disc-jockeying, car-collecting, chicken-raising, hockey player, he has the makings of a legend.

Bushy's services:
103 Traver Road
Mansonville
QC J0E 1X0
e-mail:taxman@lincsat.com


• R.B. Financial Services
  Personal Income Tax Returns;
  Computerized Bookkeeping;
  Payroll services;
  GST-TVQ Reports;
  Cash Flows and Budgets;
  Estate Returns;
  Year-end Financial Statements For All Businesses;
  Corporate Tax Returns;
  Incorporation of Businesses
  Tel.:450 292-5835
  Tel.:450 292-4113
  Fax: 450 292-3797
  


• Voyages Estrie Travel
  Travel agent services
  Tel.:450 292-4408
  


• Bushy's Chikens
  Grain-fed chickens
  


• Bushy's Blues
  Listen to my latest slip

Listen to Ralf Bushembaum's voice-mail message and know you've got an original. Bushy, his familiar name, or "the Bush," if you are talking hockey, is the professional behind R.B. Financial Services, the pundit behind Voyages Estrie Travel, the farmer behind Bushy's Chickens, and the sportsman who's available for "stonewall goal tending."

Indeed, Bushy's expertise runs the gamut, from arranging finances and trips to managing his Rolling Yolk Farm and his (quite featherless!) Bushy's Birds. The latter is the name of an old-timers hockey team composed of about a dozen guys, ages 45 and up, from all over the Townships. They've been together since the early 80s. "It's the same people," he says. "It's kinda neat."

A skier, golfer, sports gambler (mostly in the pools and "fantasy leagues"), dancer (anything), traveller (everywhere), and music lover (he DJ's "Bushy's Blues" for Sunnymead Internet Radio Blues, and was MC for Sunnymead Festival in 1999), the Bush is also a skilled and wiry goaltender. It's a calling he's enjoyed since his pee wee and bantam days in Quebec City. Born and raised there, he left to study at Wayne State University (Detroit) and Concordia, where he played hockey, helping Concordia win the championship in 1966.

His love of the sport is unabashed. Check out his own at-home hockey "walls-of-fame" with assorted hockey-related memorabilia

and pictures, including one of himself with Gordie Howe (a childhood idol) taken in 1984 at a fantasy hockey camp at Lake Placid.People sign up for a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to play with a "dozen or so professionals," explains the Bush. In this case, the lineup included Howe, but also Bobby Hull and Henri Richard and a string of other hockey greats, as well. Even Bushy's business card, a picture of himself in nets, proclaims his hockey zeal.

Since 1977, the colourful Pottoneer (lives in Potton County) has lived in his 1899-built farmhouse, using a 1950s addition - with fireplace and a panoramic view of Jay Peak and the Sutton Mountain range - as his main office. Located atop Traver Road, some 10 km from the centre of Mansonville, the site features 50 acres of rolling hills and semi-woods - mostly maple, poplar and birch - plus outbuildings, some decoratively covered with a near-complete collection (1939-1979) of Quebec license plates.

The venue is also home to grain-fed chickens (depending on the season, either dead or alive), and numerous vehicles - a Harley Davidson motorcycle (used for "nice Sunday drives" as well as a couple of few-hundred-mile trips a year) and any number of cars, presently six.