Word Prisms

  My wife and I met in Shanghai China in 1984. She likes to say that we met at the airport in Vancouver and we did have a short conversation on the flight from Tokyo and she told me that she was from Sexsmith and I asked why and she said, it’s not so bad. I’ve got a boyfriend. I figured enough said. Fortunately, for me and maybe Nicola and certainly our kids, I hadn’t realized the full gravity of my charm. After all, she became my wife, an honour she treasures to this day. You wonder how I did it. Well, first of all, I had a ride, and if you want to get a lady you gotta have a ride. Mine was a dark green glider bike with a book rack on the back, perfect for a young lady to side-saddle. And my ride attracted a lot of attention. First of all, no one except communist officials and taxi drivers owned a car so there were only bikes and mine was brand spanking new. And the brand? Phoenix, only the best.   We attracted a lot of attention being a couple of the few white people in the...

Lately, there's been a lot of talk about freedom, freedom to not wear a mask, freedom to socialize in large groups without social distancing, freedom to believe or not believe in the existence of a COVID 19 virus. But, what is freedom? After all, there are freedoms to and freedoms from. There's the freedom to wear a mask or not but there's also freedom from the danger of the spread of a deadly virus. For better or worse, the focus of freedoms in the West have focused on the freedoms to. Freedoms to speak freely, freedoms to move about freely, freedoms to practice a particular religion. But, what about the freedoms from?  These have particularly come into focus with the COVID 19 pandemic. In the spring, here in Canada, we focused with some success on the freedom from the spread of the covid virus. All but essential services were closed as well as in-person schooling. The government of Canada worked to provide those who could not work from home with freedom from poverty, hung...

As an almost lifelong Albertan who is somewhat left of centre, one would think I would be accustomed to contrary points of view. Yet, recent events have left me perplexed. The election of Donald Trump and then, after his COVID ignorance, the closeness of the 2020 election. And now, the no-masker movement. What gives?  Lately, I've been listening to Fareed Zakaria's book, "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World." Basically, his thesis is that the pandemic has highlighted many problems with the American system of government. In Chapter 3, "People Should Listen to the Experts - and Experts Should Listen to the People," Fareed talks about the power held by experts and lack thereof left to the plebeian masses.  Fareed calls experts the new ruling class. He quotes Michael Lind in his book, "The New Class War." On one side, we have the experts. On the other, the general public. Fareed says that "Advice by experts is part of the domination of the new r...

Certain events recently have made me “take stock.” Taking stock being “to think carefully about a situation or event and form an opinion about it, so that you can decide what to do.” The COVID 19 pandemic made me take stock like many other people on the planet. Those who refused to take stock have caused harm to both themselves and others. Part of taking stock is wearing a mask, social distancing, washing your hands and avoiding crowds and by extension, not travelling abroad as has been recommended by the Canadian government. With these warnings in mind, my wife and I took stock but we still decided to visit our daughter and her husband in Greece. Not impressive, right?   You may wonder, why Greece? You see, my daughter and her husband live in the U.K. If we were to visit them there, we would have to quarantine for 2 weeks which was about the length of time we planned to be away. A visit in their apartment for a few days would have been nice but two weeks? Maybe not. Greece is also...

We have two dogs, a West Highland Terrier and a Cairn Terrier. They look the same and act somewhat the same. That is, they’re terriers and they’ll bark at anything, a dog, a person, a deer, a bear (that can be helpful), and a black garbage bag waiting for pickup which can be of particular concern because it can’t be identified, like a creak in the night. They’ll chase anything and, upon threat of death, will not return. Squirrels and rabbits are favourites, other dogs, even large scary dogs. They especially like to put the run on a dog. It’s like the killer instinct has taken over their beings and I’m left yelling like a banshee while simultaneously apologizing to the other dog owner. They’ve chased deer which really isn’t a good idea because a buck will toss a dog with its antlers. Pippa and Baby Finian They’re the same but also different. Pippa, the Cairn Terrier likes to cuddle and lie on the backs of the couch and chairs. Finian, the Westie, doesn’t cuddle and only sits beside you ...

Guys stand on the steps of the Michigan State Legislature touting AR 15s with clips and bowie knives hanging off their belts yammering on about a COVID conspiracy and one world government but I didn't expect to meet someone like them, especially in a small B.C. town at a barbershop. But, that’s exactly what happened to me when I went for my first post-COVID-isolation haircut.    I had just helped my wife start the laundry next door and entered the barber shop about five minutes after the local bait salesman. Waiting my turn, I was privy to a most bizarre conversation. Fearing that I would be invited for an opinion, I instead concentrated my efforts on using my phone to record the proceedings. As a consequence of my fumbling to find an application for recording, my offering of the conversation begins some time after it started.   Our two characters in this play are the barber wearing a full-face shield for protection and a large, sixtyish white man with a long beard and a ...

Leaving a community where I’ve spent almost half my life was extremely difficult. Leaving a house where we’d really enjoyed living for the last 14 years is also difficult. As I sat for one final time on the couch in the basement and, to be honest, had a little cry, my wife told me that we would always have the memories. However, like music and smells, memory is attached to places and by leaving places, we lose a bit of memory. Our eldest’s paintings of tropical fish in the downstairs basement, the stockings hung by the fireplace on Christmas eve in the upstairs family room. Opening those stockings on Christmas morning. Our ridiculously huge Christmas trees harvested along access roads, our backyard where we’d planted trees around the perimeter to provide a screen from the neighbours and a connection to the forest beyond. The woodpeckers that would come every year to feed their young at our feeder. The bounty of apples provided by the tree in the front yard we’d planted the first ...