Butting in and butting out: Childhood, adulthood, and cigarette smoke (Georgetown, Ontario and beyond) (38) smoke smoke smoke that cigarette Tex Williams with Lyrics – YouTube From earliest childhood, I was constantly engulfed in a toxic cloud of cigarette smoke, and growing up in Georgetown, Ontario in the 1950s, I was mad keen to butt..
La version française de ce texte suit la version anglaise. Excremental vision By her own admission, my mom began toilet training my sister and me when we reached about six months of age. Her fervent desire to get us out of diapers was a rather extreme reflection of the prevailing zeitgeist of the 1950s where..
Georgetown, Ontario, 1962, Chapel Street School: Skipping Grade 5…a crippling blow My grade skipping saga began oh so long ago, in 1961, when I was in 4th grade. Back in the day, kids were routinely “skipped” if deemed academically meritorious by some individual or board. This fate was my social undoing. During first term in..
ET C’EST L’HIVER F. Hamelin – Marie-Claire Séguin Une belle chanson poétique pour l’hiver *English translation below the French Nous marchons si près de la terre Sous le vent de minuit Sous la blancheur du givre Et comme au temps du très vieux temps Le long d’un grand pays de neige Les arbres se..
Reigning cats…and dogs When I was a small child, I had the gooiest of soft spots for all animal creatures, fictional or otherwise. Every night before bed, my dad would read me a story featuring the little forest and meadow people of Thornton W. Burgess, including Grandfather Frog, Jimmy Skunk, Johnny Chuck, Jerry Muskrat, Paddy..
We never got to mourn our friend: A tribute to Dr. Robbie Mahood on the third anniversary of his death on December 26, 2021 We were living far away from Canada when we learned of the death of our good friend Robbie Mahood on December 26, 2021. We never had the opportunity to mourn his..
She’s dreaming of a Weetabix Christmas My wife Anne cannot live without Weetabix. This is a serious addiction. On Christmas morning, she will devour a delicious bowl of Weetabix as always. She has wolfed down Weetabix in many countries and on several continents and can provide a detailed, granular analysis of Weetabix variants world wide…
Thailand: Kitsch at Christmas…Revisited Last year, we spent the Christmas season in Thailand, mainly in Bangkok. Our younger son lives in Thailand, a world chock full of all things tacky, of corniness, of kitsch. Tongue -in-cheek, he suggests that I move to Thailand where my broken foot would never impede shopping, since little red cars..
Alternatives to Ottawa Public Transit (Part Two): Bring back hitchhiking Given the abysmal service offered by OC Transpo, hereafter known as Octopus Transit, and the 19% hike in the cost of a monthly pass for seniors (albeit down from the 120% increase originally floated by the Octopi commission), it is high time to seek alternatives..
Indians: A controversial play in 1980 As my exit from the theatre of life is imminent, I remember so fondly the many student actors with whom I had the privilege to work over a 35-year teaching career at Champlain St. Lawrence College in Quebec City. The first play that I directed at St. Lawrence took..