At this festive time of year, when the mayhem and merriment seem too much to bear and the to-do…
Columns
Silence is bronze
It’s not nice to poke fun at your spouse. Never tease a spouse. Sometimes you have to keep…
Bitchy
I don’t know whether it’s the creeping up of age that is making me a little…
Viewing pleasure
Stop the world, the inevitable has happened. Can I get a witness? I have achieved the unthinkable:…
March update
This is a rather sad and disappointing month for me, as it is the first, I believe, in at least ten…
Peat deposits near Mount Forest considered as a fuel source in 1900
Wellington County, along with adjoining jurisdictions, has a number of large swamps containing…
Looking back: Fergus hosted a big Victoria Day celebration in 1911
Today Victoria Day to most people means a Monday holiday and a display of fireworks. A century ago…
Brazen 1886 theft in Palmerstons rail yard committed by a farmer
Today much of the site of the former rail yard in Palmerston is a largely a vast open area. It is…
Big John
Whenever I hear big and John, lacking separated succession, my mind immediately roves back to…
Drifting snow paralyzed Wellington County in 1918
Over the years this column has carried accounts of some of the major winter storms that have struck…
Silver Sebrights
“Like butterflies,” she said they were, and I could find words not better to describe…
Overvalued dollar
Once again Canada is confronted by the problem of our overvalued dollar as it hovers at or above…
Funeral of Mayor Thomas Goldie was big event in 1892
A characteristic of the late Victorian period was a fondness for staging public events and…
Misallocated capital
One of the most amazing features of our economy nowadays is that interest rates, adjusted for…
First local temperance groups were organized in the 1850s
Over the years this column has dealt with the temperance movement on several occasions. Most of the…