Taking pride
Life always throws curve balls at us. I figured it out a long time ago. It isn’t because some divine being thinks we can handle an issue or problem or that we need to be reminded of our frailties. It’s just life. Good or bad happens to everyone. Three days after we arrived in Vancouver, […]
One in a million
There is a truth we’ve all known since we were children. We learned it when our parents read Little Red Riding Hood to us, or when we watched the evening news. There are bad people in this world. There are sick people, angry people, violent people. There are people with deep, irrational hatred in their […]
A tribute to Jack Laviolette
Jean-Baptiste Laviolette was born in Belleville in 1879. His father was in the lumber business. At that time, lumbering was important in the city. Logs were floated down the Moira, to be processed in one of the mills located near the area at the mouth of the river. The family moved to Valleyfield, Quebec when […]
Personal grooming: TMI
I have been looking at myself in the mirror with a view to scraping off my facial hair for about 50 years now. And I developed facial hair that has needed scraping off for just a few years shy of that. So you would think there is nothing much new I could learn about shaving. […]
Taste of Vancouver
The server in the cafe shot me an icy glance the first time “the woman” spoke to me. “Any spare change, miss?” The painfully thin woman said she was hungry and she hadn’t eaten in four days. In her shaky hand, she had a paper bag which thinly veiled a can of beer. Her eyes […]
Ali has left the building
Muhammad Ali passed away this week and is being mourned by people he touched throughout the world. No matter where he went, he was surrounded by fans who adored him. Born in 1942 in Louisville Kentucky, he was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay. They were both named after a staunch Republican abolitionist from […]
Extra special
Perhaps the most profound outcome of the Judgment of Paris was the recognition by the French judges that wines from other jurisdictions were as good (if not more so) as their own domestic wines. Since then, with easier access access to wines around the world, we can more readily compare varietals grown in different areas […]
Ketchup, Moose Knuckles and Cheese
Buying or selling a product on the basis of where it is from can lead to a whack of trouble. Take ketchup. Loblaws grocery stores were going to stop carrying French’s ketchup, perhaps because they were eating away at house brand sales. However, the house brand tomatoes came from California and French’s came from Ontario. […]
Passage to a far shore
Nothing makes me appreciate living in the County more than spending two hours on the 401 between Oshawa and the airport. Yup, I’ll take a slow-moving farm vehicle or a big yellow school bus any day over the stop-and-go in Toronto. So, we’re in Vancouver. Our home away from home. The trip from our driveway […]
Food feud
Earlier this week, a Dalhousie University professor wrote an op-ed in The Globe and Mail that sparked a discussion on the fast-rising cost of food, and the unsatisfactory solutions consumers find to manage. The report, based on a survey of 1,000Canadians, showed that a small percent-age of low-income consumers will opt for juice in place […]