It isn’t often lately we’ve had a rainy day. This afternoon as I motored along the Appleton Side Road and onto the 4-lane ribbon of highway leading to Stittsville – my customary outing for a drive and a car wash – I marvelled at the unique features of the drizzly day. The mist had settled like a vignette upon the surrounding landscape. The roads glistened in the gentle rain forming a mirrored pathway before me. The adjacent grass and corn fields were uncommonly green and lush. The inspirational music of German classical pianist Florian Christl corresponded appropriately to my lingering consumption of mandatory Sunday music. Even the cars behind me held back a discrete distance and, like I, appeared to be in no hurry. Escaping the urgent traffic of the business week afforded a welcome privacy and calm.

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The closest assembly I know to a spartan sentience is that acquainted from time to time with an abstemious lifestyle. In my case this rare crusade is invariably a calculated translation from past indulgences to future deprivation with an eye to purifying recovery, indeed one resembling nascent sanctity. Granted the underlying theme of such alteration is normally ascetic compared to the historic or current framework which is more suitable I suppose in the minds of some to that of a philistine. It is nonetheless a qualified familiarity with the stark and uncomfortable mode of dispossession.  In point of fact, I oddly adopt the rigid conformity as a form of opulence even though it may carry the hallmarks of simplicity and plainness. Rather like the lucidity of a fine Cognac. There is admittedly a degree of rigour involved but nothing approaching what I would call discomfort or hair-shirt. It is predominantly a stern disposition – though plainly humble. Indeed the settlement upon this posture is one which by its element of frugality succeeds to filter life’s myriad of choices, rather akin to reduction of a vinaigrette to unsullied ingredients characterized by freshness like raw basil, extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

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The native attraction to one’s children or grandchildren – or, in our case, to one’s nieces and nephews – has an ineffable allure.  Obviously the salient feature of notice is youth.  This artistic conglomerate of springtime and salad days in turn invites a limitless capital of imagination and possibility. And there’s the ubiquitous question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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I’ve heard it said that we’re the last to see ourselves as we truly are – or as others do – or words to that effect. Something about confusing appearances and underlying intention, as though we operate on two levels, one being a suggestive or intellectual level of preferred character while underneath in the undisguised realm and reign of animal instinct things are different. I am not saying there is anything deliberately iniquitous about one’s conduct, just that supposedly what we imagine we’re projecting and what we’re actually doing are often different – at least from the perspective of others.

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Reassessing everything, putting the leaden sculpture of midnight sleeplessness in order. Rearranging the sequence. Rewriting the imperatives. Establishing new boundaries reflecting elemental change, childhood to orphan. Withdrawing so as to permit orbital abstraction, a diminished summary of decades. Percolating pictures of the past, clarity touching mere passing moments which yet purvey brilliant memories. Like a polished vase it contains the inexpressible history of a second of time.

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August 17, 2018

Grandad would have been 100 today. He died in 2014 in an awful hospital style bed at a veterans care facility with me and Charlotte by his side. He was a very special man with a unique outlook on the world. He went through WWII including being shot down and spending hours clinging to a dingy in the North sea. Despite that, he was always cheerful but with a “no nonsense” attitude. He once told me there are too many depressed people in the world and also that the “world is in chaos” when he’d watch the news much later in life. He had great integrity and practicality that seems lacking today. Aside from all his Air Force accolades, he was a great Grandparent, teaching us about vegetable gardening (he had a plot of land that is now an underpass in Bells Corners) and we sold pumpkins in our neighborhood every year. He always drove me to riding lessons and shows, always ready to help sweep or carry tack. His speeches around the dinner table during holidays we came to expect are missed. As is his sense of humour and little sayings and sage advice about life. One thing that stuck with me was “not all flowers bloom at the same time” in response to me feeling down about being at a certain place in my life. If you still have your grandparents and are on good terms make sure you sit down with them and listen. They have everything to teach you.

Jennifer C Hladkowicz
Orange Horse Studio
(613) 371-0614
site: www.orangehorsestudio.com

It is testimony to the alacrity and pertinacity of the membership of Mississippi Golf Club that when we arrived there before 9 o’clock this morning, in spite of the parking lot being already filled to capacity, we were the only ones sitting on the flagstone patio awaiting the arrival of our breakfast. Presumably all the others were hard at it on the links. Meanwhile as we nestled in and prepared to put on the nose bag, the view from the patio adjacent the first tee was divine! The greens had just been manicured. The river sparkled in the distance sedately wending its way ’round Glen Isle and through the Village of Appleton.

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L. G. William Chapman, B.A., LL.B.
Jamieson Mills
Almonte, ON K0A 1A0

August 16th, 2022

My dearest Fi,

Given the nature of your most recent correspondence, involving as it did grandchildren and sterling silver, I thought it most appropriate to reply in kind; that is, embracing the gravity of familial matters and inheritance.

Allow me first to say that you have – perhaps unwittingly – flattered me exponentially to suggest I have any especial acquaintance with these delicate matters. They are heady subjects with which frankly I have had but little confluence other than professionally as in estate administration generally, representing executors and dealing with banks. Upon reflection however it appears that I am entitled to some authority upon the very subject. When we effected our downsizing about a decade ago we auctioned everything. We dealt with auctioneers in Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal. I recognize that auctioneers do not necessarily address biological and related testamentary issues but as you clearly esteem their services may be or become apt.

The singular consequence of dealing with auctioneers is that nothing sells for what you think it is worth.  Indeed my experience is that some of them go so far as to investigate popular prices which they then reduce by 25%, insinuating it could probably be had for less (unless of course there is a reserve bid feature attached). And when it does sell, the auction fee of between 35 and 50% is deducted. What remains is yours or your grandchildren’s. Also, you have the memories of seemingly ephemeral ownership and/or possession. Remember those special dinners when it was such gasping delight to lay out the sterling silver flatware which you had so gleefully polished.  Best not to recall what I am guessing were the subsequent instances when the identical flatware lay in the lower drawer of the sideboard, perhaps wrapped in soft cotton swabs, becoming in any event appallingly tarnished.

Jumping ahead – since I realize I needn’t persist in this mournful account – I spoke today with Dupuis Jewellers who in turn directed me to Waddington’s. If I am to adjudge by my dealings with Dupuis, you will find Waddington’s helpful.

Best wishes to you and His Lordship! Looking forward to our rally in September!

Billy
Hugs & Kisses

https://www.waddingtons.ca/

If I had my druthers an ideal evening meal would be a compound of simplicity and traditional fare (as I have outlined below). And because this is entirely phantasmal and I no longer drink alcohol, I have added my former tipple choices as well.

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Though I don’t typically adjudge myself superstitious, the mythical inclination is on occasion oddly spirited by effervescence, a contradiction which I can only relate to some broader vermin in one’s life. It’s almost a chastisement reminiscent of religious training. To be blunt, the chilling illusion of despondency is by peculiar irrationality never far removed from affecting moments of cheerfulness. Nonetheless I resist the putative elevation of hesitancy and so-called worldliness to contaminate a perfectly desirable circumstance.

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