I adore a summer thunderstorm! My iPhone is alive with lightning and pouring rainfall. The view from the drawing room windows is the same. And suddenly there is thunder! Cracks and rumbles of thunder! Then the distant repeat as the storm hurriedly passes to the horizon dragging its mournful chain of contradiction with an occasional flash of lightning. I count the seconds before the thunder repeats.
A trip to the country is forever a passion of mine. It is not only an escape; it is an enlightenment, an indulgence in the bounty of nature, inspiring wistful moments of dreamlike fancy. First thing this morning I made it a point of mine to captivate that specific objective; namely, a day at the cottage. Initiating the modest but nonetheless delightful pleasure this morning at the cottage were freshly cooked farm eggs, grâce à Jeff who lives in a rural home nearby. In spite of the diverse strong points of real estate, this morning we suffered the sobering annoyance of what is as yet an unresolved matter with the refrigerator. Luckily we had decided upon a visit to the cottage toda – thus, forcing us to address the technical matter at hand. We had already packed our belongings in preparation for the adventure. Thankfully the preparatory work was minimal (which means unpacking is effortless). In this extraordinary heat one wears only the simplest of outfits. As for food, we took what was in the freezer and placed it into the refrigerator – yet another fortuity because it was the freezer that our Superintendent analyzed as the source of mechanical difficulty (for which he has subscribed a Service Ticket for Monday following).
Though if pressed I would never contaminate or compromise my pervasive indolence, secretly I bemoan having nothing to do. Certainly I have my little daily routines – tricycling and a car wash – but they amount to mere cathartic endeavours, exorcising my overall ennui. By chance today a number of events arose which succeed to enable me to devote at least the appearance of activity to my otherwise listless conduct. Following is a summary:
As we approach the middle of July the overwhelming sensibilities of summer are perpetually evoked. Bordering the residential lawns – seen this morning during my neighbourhood tricycle jaunt – are rampant breadths of tiny white and lemon coloured daisies. Along the country roadside are congregations of orange and black Tiger lilies. The lush green ribbons of corn stalk compete with Olympic greed for dominion of entire fields rolling to the edge of the river. Everywhere being hauled are modern trailers and motorized boats hitched to the backs of pick-up trucks all shiny and new.
When I arrived in Almonte in June of 1976 – after having been hired “on the spot” by Messrs. Galligan & Sheffield, Barrs. &c. over dinner one evening at the Mississippi Golf Club in the Village of Appleton – two of the first people whom I met in Almonte (perhaps a spin-off from my attendance at St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Clyde Street beside the former Land Registry Office) were Maj. Jamie and Mrs. Irene Leys who lived in a small house on Country Street. They had invited me to dine with them one summer evening. At the time I was somewhat alarmed and overwhelmed by the gusto of Maj. and Mrs. Leys for R. Tait McKenzie and Dr. James Naismith – names which of course were to become fundamental to my life in Almonte. Though I further confess that, at the time, I succeeded only to lodge the preliminary references to Tait McKenzie and Naismith to a corner of my mind – which was, as I trust you’ll forgive me, then already overtaken with what I felt to be the more pressing details related to the practice of law, including for example the necessary and very fruitful communion with Raymond A. Jamieson QC in whose office chair at 74 Mill Street I ended being seated for the first two years of my practice in the Town of Almonte.
Many years ago when studying law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia I heard a vibrant chap from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design whimsically observe, “There’s nothing hard about law; you just need to know where to find it!”
The river is placid today. A mirror stretches throughout as though poured like a shining liquid then frozen in place. The 44°NE wind of 3 km/h is unnoticeable. There is a subdued reflection of the lush growth along the southern shore of the river. In the adjacent corn fields the stalks tower to the heavens. Their preponderance blankets the horizon. Everywhere is green.
Synthetic: Logic (of a proposition) having truth or falsity determinable by recourse to experience; eg., snow is white. Compare with analytic; eg., all bachelors are unmarried.
Synthesizing means combining different elements, ideas, or information to create something new and coherent. It’s a higher-level thinking skill that involves more than just summarizing or restating information from various sources. Instead, it requires identifying connections, relationships, and patterns among those sources to form a new understanding or perspective.
It was in the evening after dinner and a day’s work at the law office on Little Bridge Street. There were no meetings to attend or social conventions. It was a performance repeated often and with identical prescription. I was alone at my desk in my upstairs study. It was a time before my French bulldog Monroe had been recommended to me by Marilyn Harris. What it was that then preoccupied me at my IBM computer I do not know for certain. Computers were new. No doubt then – not unlike now – I was typing an account of my daily thoughts (as I have been doing since I was 14 years of age), probably using WordPerfect as the platform for an expanding collection of entries which replaced my former typewritten or handwritten entries in tiny plastic covered diaries and legal size hardcover lined paper or blank typed paper in leather bound and gold embossed 3-ring binders. The cathartic accounts – whatever their vernacular – were forever proscribed by immediacy and irrelevancy. I was constantly overwhelmed by the present. And while the daily account altered immeasurably – like watching the mounting corn stalks – things nonetheless unfolded.
I’ll come right out and say it: I failed the on-line exam of l’Institut National de Sécurité Nautique. The course offered by National Boating Safety School © 2025 is accredited by Transport Canada. Here’s the email I received.