Mr. Hockey
Among other things, Gordie Howe was perhaps the greatest ambassador for the game of hockey. On the ice, and off the ice, he was hockey personified. As is the case with so many other fans, I have had a couple of opportunities to chat with the late Mr. Howe. Always genial, always most affable, he […]
Open arms
All over Ontario, including here in the County, school boards are either considering or are already amalgamating schools, closing down buildings and selling those capital assets. It’s in response to a province-wide trend of declining enrollment. Fewer young people are around to fill seats in classrooms, making the operating costs for decreasing school populations difficult […]
Summer rosés
Beginning in 1916, the law of the land prohibited the manufacture and distribution of alcohol in Ontario. When prohibition was finally repealed, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) was formed. Since then, it’s been a long road to the more relaxed standards of today. Even though the great sobriety experience had failed, the newly […]
The oldest road
There is but a moment of stillness that holds here: a gap in the intervals when the traffic light stalls vehicle flow on Loyalist Parkway. The corner I am standing on is less than unvarnished. It’s an intersection of rough and tumble sans grace, perhaps more striking on a day like today, as I take […]
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 […]