A Hotline To Treatment: Getting Through and Feeling Blue In the summer of 1964, when I was 12 years old, our family move to London, Ontario, coinciding in my case with the sudden onslaught of puberty, a ferocious hormonal maelstrom that transformed me into an obsessive pop music listener. My favourite DJ in those days..
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..
Spring 1969: Pierre Berton visits London, Ontario, and high school authorities go ballistic For Maria Van der Velden By 1969, even in conservative, homogenous London, Ontario, seismic changes were rumbling through the corridors of power. In those halcyon days, I attended Oakridge High School where the 1960s zeitgeist had begun infiltrating, albeit on little cat..
Valentines Day Audiobook Book Launch: Attach your antlers and have a listen La description française suit la description anglaise. I’m excited to announce that the English version of my audiobook is available on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books, meaning listeners can purchase it outright, use an Audible credit, or get a discount if they own..
Anne and Angelina It was around 9 a.m. on the morning of May 15, 2013, in Quebec City, with spring barely having sprung, as is typical in that chilly Nordic provincial capital. Our phone jangled, and a familiar, mellifluous voice purred at the other end of the line. The caller was Jacquie Czernin, the host..
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..
Speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall November 25,2024 Here are a few excerpts from my speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall yesterday. Anne and I were protesting the proposed 120% hike for a monthly seniors’ bus pass slated for 2025. The entire five-minute speech is on YouTube at 3:09:25..
Noisy neighbours “Good fences make good neighbours” – Robert Frost “Hell is other people” – Jean-Paul Sartre We had been living in Paradise…until the new neighbours moved in. Before coming to France in the fall of 2021, we had never resided in a dwelling without at least one adjoining wall. And we paid the price..
Moses de Boswell…learning to curse and swear the Québécois way for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day – Quebec’s national holiday Having been raised in a repressive Protestant community, I have always loved to curse and swear. (As small child, I was led to believe that I would roast in hell for eternity as punishment for this proclivity.) ..