When I was 9, Christmas week arrived with a mix of stampeding blizzards and silent nights when…
Life-wise
Got any prodigals in your family?
People in my age bracket have a number of advantages over younger folk. For example, we know…
Any budding authors out there?
Have you written a book? If you have, or know someone who has, read on. You or your acquaintance…
An elegy to snowstorms past
Great mountains of it drifted like white dunes beyond our kitchen window. I pulled on two pairs of…
Quit your griping
Occasionally someone says something so dumb it causes my fingers to twitch and search for a…
Pipes are calling
Most of us, whether or not we have Scottish blood, try to go along with the yearly cultural…
A wise father knows his child
I recently read a column entitled “Dad and the Thingamadodger” in Servant magazine…
Horse Feathers
Remember that expression? Horse feathers, an old euphemism for horse … well, let me just say,…
Often we mirror our parents
I grew up in a town served by one protestant church and one catholic church. We all attended the…
A grandpa remembers New Year’s Eve
When I was 10 on New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t leave the house. I sat in the padded chair…
When a rooster lives next door
Only recently I learned that some urban communities in Ontario actually allow residents to raise…
Lessons from the back of a horse
Our daughter, technically the daughter we never had, works as an equestrian, doing everything from…
India: a world of contradiction
The recent terrorist attack on India took me back to my first visit to that country 15 years ago.…
Time flies
Time and life fly like a steel toboggan. As kids on the farm we had a toboggan made from a steel…
Will you, won’t you?
Anna and I just faced one of those episodes that brings people face-to-face with the uncertainty of…