By the admission of the concierge or maître d’ of almost any 5-star hotel the standard of apparel is now virtually unrestricted. We’ve seen a couple in the main dining room of the Carlyle in matching designer sweat pants and top (and another – Robert Downey, Jr. in fact – wearing a baseball cap at table); people in blue jeans in the main dining room of the Jekyll Island Club; shorts everywhere at the Plaza including the Palm Court. The truth is, if the hotels want the business, they’ll take what they get. Besides I know of no one who travels with black tie. By design the intention of travellers is to wear strictly what is comfortable and easy to launder on the run.  Similarly if a place imposes a dress code it is more likely to be avoided (though possibly the deference persists on upscale charter cruises which cater to an older crowd).

Continue reading →

No doubt you take pride as I do in the possession of certain quality things such as crystal decanters, bronze sculpture, oil paintings, brass lamps, mantle clocks, sticks of mahogany furniture, Persian rugs, sterling silver flatware, bone china, jewellery and even more personal items like spectacles.  Have you, however, considered a toothbrush?

Continue reading →

Not often have I the pleasure of a do-nothing day, a day when my calendar is completely empty and there is nothing remotely urgent or pressing. An unqualified do-nothing day is one when I can’t imagine doing anything at all.  It’s akin to a vacuum, a day which is recognizable for its utter lack of imperative. As an ardent existentialist I find the absence of an agenda slightly unsettling though I balance this knee-jerk paranoia by recalling that too often there is lots going on and nothing happening. Our punishing addiction to activity is at times irresponsible.

Continue reading →

My father was of New Brunswick stock. His ancestors were United Empire Loyalists who fled colonial America and settled in eastern Canada. His family became part of that North American historical network of mercantile traffic up and down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean which embraced even Dalhousie Law School where I later studied in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The insignificance of international boundaries is especially apparent if one drives as we did from Ottawa, Ontario to St. Andrews by the Sea, New Brunswick.  Ottawa, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Bangor (Maine) and St. Andrews by the Sea are on roughly the same latitudinal parallel.  And to capture the true backwoods flavour of the nexus, St. Andrews by the Sea is almost contiguous to Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge which is in Maine directly across a straight from St. Andrews by the Sea.  If, as so many people appear to do, one wishes to travel as the crow flies, the direct route between Ottawa and St. Andrews by the Sea is across the vast northern tree-covered tip of Maine instead of the longer route to Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River.

Continue reading →

Cape Cod is and always has been for me about Provincetown. I have visited many other parts of the Cape including nearby Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard but always felt drawn to Provincetown. As quirky as P-Town is with its “tea” dances at the Boat Slip, drag shows and general rowdiness, the recollection of it nonetheless evokes primarily the customary traditions of Cape Cod. The picture in my mind is of sand dunes, salty air, winding roads, lobster stew, ocean view, sky of blue (though perhaps not so much the “church bells chimin’ on a Sunday morn”).

Continue reading →

In the autumn of 1967 when I studied Philosophy at Gledon Hall in Toronto, I was introduced to Rosalee Matalon, the daughter of a well-to-do family in Kingston, Jamaica. I believe her family owned Appleton Estate Rum. She was a quiet but stunningly beautiful young lady, tall and sylphlike.  I had been asked to connect with her because she was a friend of Alexander Dougall, a former boarding school chum of mine from St. Andrew’s College in Aurora.

Continue reading →

In 1975 after having successfully completed the Bar Admission at Osgoode Hall in Toronto I practiced law at Macdonald, Affleck on Sparks Street in Ottawa. The following year I moved to Almonte where I practiced law for the duration of my career. I am extremely proud to have been a country lawyer and have never considered it a diminishing label (though my urban colleagues routinely taunted me by calling me a “rural conveyancer”). However looking back upon my entire law career I have to say that Macdonald, Affleck at least afforded me my “fifteen minutes of fame”:

Continue reading →

Yesterday I suffered the most disturbing suspicion. Suddenly my complacency reverberated from an unidentified tremor. My entire life in spite of a preferred posture of sometimes flattering proportions abruptly resembled that of a goaded sheep. I saw myself sterilized by commonality and being herded along a predetermined path, railroaded, responding not to enlightened inspiration but rather answering mechanically to superimposed governance which nonetheless revitalized me. The absence of singularity was however overwhelming. My ambition to distinction (though perhaps not dignity) was but a haughty pretence. I felt manipulated by mysterious energy. The culprit was “they”.

Continue reading →

Our downsizing has had noticeable reverberations which were to be expected. For the most part I think we’ve adjusted rather well.  While the exercise is by definition mostly of material proportions only there have nonetheless been certain philosophic alterations such as embracing what is unquestionably for some the stigma of renting property as opposed to owning it (though I hasten to add it is a deprivation we’re happily able to bear).

Continue reading →

Though it would border on misrepresentation to deny we’re easily unbalanced, we two old fogeys nonetheless subscribe to the mitigating theory that all’s well that ends well. Today’s venture was a case in point.

Continue reading →