An alcoholic does by nature welcome the fortuity of an occasion to drink.  This does not however mean that the employment is without restriction. Being one myself – that is, a “recovering alcoholic” – I am able to blather with some credibility upon the subject of drinking. The last time I had a drink (of anything alcoholic) was December, 2013 on the occasion of my 65th birthday. I don’t recall getting hopelessly drunk or anything persuasive like that. I think I was just fed up with alcohol and its mirage – much for the same reason I had abruptly quit cigarette smoking when I was turning 50 in 1998 (actually we were on a plane coming back from the Caribbean and I was having difficulty breathing). In both cases the abandonment was precipitous and the so-called pleasures have never been repeated.

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Each day brings news of the pandemic, some encouraging, some discouraging, little that is conclusive. There seems always to be the threat of a new strain.  Whether it is merely a caution to avoid lapsing from the usual detail of social distancing and wearing a mask, there are also warnings about renewed contamination. Will it ever end?

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No Room for a Bed
by Rocci Fisch, American Political Commentator

The stimulus checks, they’re in the mail
Americans who need the dough can now exhale
Real cash money on the way
Giving it to people who need some pay

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In a world wrought with grievance and setback it hardly seems proper that one should become so buoyant as I now am.  Certainly I have my concerns, my paltry issues, my own complaints about what appears to be a decided evolution.  But uplifted by our early morning constitutional in the clear, frosty air and afterwards breakfast of MaraNatha organic crunchy peanut butter and St. Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach, I am indisputably aflutter! And silly me, I carelessly overlooked the Canada Grade A maple syrup! The Sacrament of Heaven!

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Living in a small town in rural Ontario it is easy to overlook the talent. The relevance is often closer than you’d imagine.  Granted we of Ramsay Township and Almonte are familiar with our celebrated heroes James Naismith (inventor of basketball), R. Tait McKenzie (sculptor) and James Mackintosh Bell (famed geologist).

James Abbott Mackintosh Bell was born at St Andrews, Quebec, Canada, on 23 September 1877, the son of Andrew Bell, a civil engineer and architect, and his wife, Marianne Rosamond. The family moved to Almonte, Ontario, when James was a child, and he received his early education there. He studied at Queen’s College, Kingston, graduating MA in 1899, then went to Harvard University in 1903 to study for his PhD, which he received in 1904. His field work included pioneer exploration in Arctic Canada for the Geological Survey of Canada with his uncle, Robert Bell. He also worked for several companies as a mining expert.

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A cowboy singer who I believe is no longer whinnying among us – perhaps its was John Denver – wrote a song called “Rocky Mountain High”.

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

The ’70s song was briefly controversial for promoting drug abuse. It never affected me that way.  I fully accept the intended meaning of high one gets upon seeing the Rockies and from the concurrent atmospheric pressure on those superb days of clear blue sky and thin dry air.

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Sometimes things just click!  Maybe it’s no more than the fruit of a sound sleep. Or the triumph of figuring how to make your iPhone work properly. Maybe being able to transfer the organic peanut butter out of the jar onto the baguette bagel without making a mess. Or changing the bed and starting the laundry. The overnight skiff of snow having evaporated from the roadway, beaconing a refreshing bicycle ride in the strapping northerly wind. The unparalleled appeasement of a complete evacuation! Whatever it is, it’s the same world but with a new look, a state of the art feeling, a sudden proximity of views and insights. The sedentary glow of long ago memories in Montréal Est.

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I have difficulty naming a favourite place.  While I know the choice doesn’t depend upon having seen the entire world, I am nonetheless aware of having confined my voyages to North America and Europe (and a bit of what is in between, including the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and two voyages by sea across the Atlantic Ocean). I say this not with remorse but rather as acknowledgement of the divine views which I have no doubt are otherwise attainable. We have friends living in New Zealand who have invited us to visit. There is little in my mind more exotic than the South Pacific. But it is not likely to happen.  Of greater likelihood – and of equal attraction – is a return jaunt to Sardegna where I have already frequented the north and south parts of the island. It has for me the allure of being remote (or perhaps I should say infrequent). There is as well – at least on the south coast – a Bohemian character which I like. Plus there is something staid about lingering in the airport in Rome just long enough to leave!

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The casualty of clean living is an early awakening. We saw the sunrise today at 6:20 am.  Following a violent wind last evening we were rewarded this morning with clear skies; and the temperature pointed to a high of 7°C. The air was dry. Though I am recovering from the disturbance of two flat tyres in as many days we mounted our bicycles and filtered onto our regular pathway.The early morning travellers included a parked rumbling truck, a dedicated young female jogger, an F-150 Ford truck and a gentleman walking his French bulldog Zoey. Portions of the road were finely glazed with ice but predominantly the pavement was dry.

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It is prescriptive that things will change. For some the transition is regrettable, essentially one from good to bad. There are naturally special circumstances surrounding such misfortune; and often others presume to tell you how to improve your life or even worse, how to return to the way things were. Rewinding the clock is one thing; going backwards in time is another. The only thing phelgmatic is the step ahead. In some respects every one of us has had to endure complication and crisis, things beyond mere ineluctability like old age.  Life is never a breeze. Hearkening back to what was and comparing it to what now is can be staggering – on either count, up or down. How did we get from there to here? What enchanting process is it by which we threaded the detail of the past to get to the woven fabric that is the present?

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