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..
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..
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..
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..
Elegy for My Grandfather: Remembrance Day 2024 My grandfather, Thomas McBryde, physically survived the trench warfare of World War One, including the Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917), when Canadian forces triumphed at the cost of more than 10,600 soldiers killed and wounded. Thomas McBryde screamed in his sleep throughout his long life, a victim of..
The Library saved my life: the chronicles of a brand-new denizen of the Ottawa public library scene Did you know that October is Canadian Library Month? Here’s a little story in honour of Library Month… “A room without books is like a body without a soul” -Marcus Tullius Cicero Growing up in Georgetown, Ontario in..
The Loon on Oak-Head Pond cries for three days, in the gray mist. cries for the north it hopes it can find. plunges, and comes up with a slapping pickerel. blinks its red eye. cries again. you come every afternoon, and wait to hear it. you sit a long time, quiet, under the thick pines,..
Reminding me of why I fear the tomb: Fall 2024 Lac Saint-Joseph Quebec Photo Lac Saint-Joseph Quebec Taken by Lorne Coughlin Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost 1874 –1963 Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So..
Armageddon revisited …The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962 “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” – Hindu Scripture My parents began hoarding industrial quantities of tinned food and cumbersome sacks of powdered milk in October 1962. They spoke in hushed tones about our imminent demise. Nuclear war was all but inevitable. At 10..
Turning into a pumpkin: Canadian Thanksgiving 2024 Awakening from a turbulent dream within a dream, So dreaming still, I found myself for a brief shining moment In a glowing paradise of pumpkins. A disembodied voice whispered portentously, “ Weary pilgrim, you are about to turn into a pumpkin… Eternally.” Meaning and origin of..