Haiku for a beloved friend on her birthday The fog of a dream: Desolation yields a shrine, Your steadfast friendship. A haiku is a type of Japanese poem that always uses the same number of syllables in a three-line format: the first line is five syllables the second line is seven syllables the..
May 5, 2025 marked 80 years since Canadian troops liberated Holland from the Nazis Written by my friend Maria van der Velden Yesterday marked 80 years since Canadian troops liberated Holland from the Nazis. My mother’s family lived in Bakel, Brabant at the time, running a combination cafe/pub/bakery and it’s depicted in the first photo…
The Public Speaking Blues: Childhood and Adolescence in a Performance Anxiety Funk When I was attending Chapel Street elementary school in Georgetown, Ontario, back in the 1960s, public speaking was an integral part of the curriculum in the senior grades. And terror was the order of the day. My public speaking anguish typically..
A life of elections starting with Dief & Mike in Georgetown, Ontario, 1958: reflections in the wake of the general election of April 28, 2025 Some of my earliest memories are of a family life infused with periodic political bile. My father loved to agitate the fecal matter and took no end of delight in..
For the love of sparrows: A feathered nest of memories from childhood and adolescence Sparrows generally don’t get good press. Bird enthusiasts often find them drab and banal, and others label them invasive species and disparage them as scavenger gourmets. But there are so many reasons to adore sparrows. My wife loves..
My mom, door-to-door salespeople, and the clarinet: tooting in the 1950s and 1960s My 1950s and 1960s Georgetown childhood was characterized by cacophony, including rumpus and din on our little subdivision street where a knife sharpener man would ring his bell; where the breadman would dart from home to home distributing succulent baked goods with..
Great Grey Owl Frowning: A Haiku poem for a dark night of the soul Stark, not debonair, This owl, a stern taskmaster, A conscience with wings. Great Grey Owl/ Chouette lapone photo credit Leigh Bateman Great Gray Owl Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology When the owl sings, the night..
Woodland magic in the iconic Des Compagnons Forest of Quebec City, Quebec We raised our two sons in Quebec City, more precisely in a neighbourhood known as La Pointe-de-Sainte-Foy, which was carved out of an old-growth forest, the remnant of which has remained intact behind the local high school, Le Collège des Compagnons. ..
First job and first paycheque: Kmart next to McDonald’s, London Ontario, Spring 1969 In April 1969, the brand-new McDonald’s on Oxford Street, in my hometown of London, Ontario, went on a hiring spree. This august establishment, a source of civic pride for many Londoners since it was the first of its kind in the entire..
A Georgetown Childhood Easter 1955-1964 My Georgetown Easter memories are succulent and sweet. On Easter morning, sausages and scrambled eggs, which my father called “rambled screggs,” were the order of the day. My sister and I were never hungry for this sort of sustenance, and my father’s scrambled eggs were always runny. We were itching..