In the hurtle that is life it is not uncommon to overlook what we owe to those whom we’ve met along this sometimes uncontrollable passage. While driving home this wintry day today on my customary route in the country, my mind was unaccountably overtaken by memories in the snow many years ago at Mont Tremblant, Québec with my friends Ian and Pierre.
The word oligarch derives from early 17th century: from Greek oligarkhēs, from oligoi ‘few’ + arkhein ‘to rule’. It is frequently acquainted with “a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence”. On the eve of the inauguration of the next president of the United States of America, the prospect of an oligarchical rule is far from unimaginable. As such there are those who delight in deriding the upcoming government much in the way portrayed in the featured image. H. L. Mencken gave little credit to democracy (a subject which lately has been a theme of current American affairs).
Talk about encroachment upon boundaries! As if it weren’t already bad enough that TikTok is being defamed and flayed in the Supreme Court of the United States as China’s usurper of American teenage passwords for future surreptitious purposes, I learned today that my erstwhile favourite corner store sweet Cherry Blossom is imperilled. Even more disheartening is the company officials offered no reason for the evacuation. It resonates with all the platitudes surrounding the condemnation of tobacco smoking! Yet another cause for a freedom march.
Cherry Blossom, a mainstay of Canadian candy store shelves for decades, will soon disappear as Hershey Canada has decided to no halt production.
Never having been an habitual candy buyer, whenever I succumbed to the toxic temptation in the field house tuck shop at boarding school following afternoon football practice, Cherry Blossom was the sweet I counted on for delivery. It was unrepentant sugar.
Cherry Blossom was first produced in the 1890s by the Lowney Company’s Canadian subsidiary before a series of acquisitions eventually landed it in the hands of Hershey Canada in the late 1980s.
“Known for its signature combination of maraschino cherry, roasted peanuts, and chocolate coating, this Canadian confectionery icon has created sweet memories for generations of fans,” a spokesperson tells CityNews.
The Walter M. Lowney Company, an American candy and chocolate manufacturer, created the Cherry Blossom in the 1890s and eventually opened a factory in Quebec.
Operations were eventually taken over by Hershey Canada in the 1980s, with the candies being manufactured in one of its plants in Smiths Falls, near Kingston, until it closed in 2008.
It is for me yet one more instance of serendipity in my life that the syrupy sweet was manufactured in the little known Town of Smiths Falls in the same County of Lanark where I ended practicing law for my entire career.
After an apprenticeship to a Lancaster confectioner in 1873, Milton S. Hershey opened a candy shop in Philadelphia. The venture failed, and so did a subsequent one in Chicago. After a third failed business attempt in New York City, Hershey returned to Pennsylvania, where he founded the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1883. The Hershey Chocolate Company was founded in 1894 as a subsidiary of Lancaster Caramel Company.
Hershey’s chocolate is available in 60 countries. In 1903, Hershey began construction of a chocolate plant in his hometown of Derry Church, Pennsylvania, later known as Hershey, Pennsylvania.
By coincidence many years ago when driving through Pennsylvania en route home from a winter sojourn we passed through the town of Hershey which inspired our curiosity. We stopped there for lunch in a mountain top hotel by the same name. It has forever left a haunting impression, testament to an age of grandeur long since past.
The success of Hershey is uncommon and quite unanticipated. It is as much a definition of American entrepreneurial achievement as that of Henry Ford and one more example of the lingering appeal of life in the United States of America. Clearly it pays to be sweet!
In 2024, after 61 years of stock splits, the original 666,316 shares of Hershey common stock received by the Reese family represent 16 million Hershey shares valued at more than $4.4 billion, paying annual cash dividends of $87.6 million.
Having lately wiped that slate clean of all outstanding bureaucratic matters, I find myself this bright sunny morning attired in comfortable freshly laundered clothing, satisfied after a nutritious and delicious breakfast, staring at the narrow, winding and unfrozen surface of the shadowy river. The slanting southwesterly sunshine contrasts the dark river with the blinding white snow on the shoreline and adjacent fields. As my eyes wander northward into the agricultural fields beyond the glassy river trail, it is universally a subdued image of static denuded trees and faint parallel lines beneath the snow in the harrowed rolling hills beyond.
Once again this morning I promptly arose from my overnight lair at 8:30 am. This early morning repeat activity has become a ritual only of late as I prepare to address various outstanding coincidental and planned commitments or undertakings, all of which have thankfully concluded as of today. Until today the focus has been upon fulfilling whatever might arise or possibly be required of a general nature before we abandon our roost for a barrier island along the North Atlantic coast.
“We find this great precept often repeated in Plato, “Do thine own work, and know thyself.” Of which two parts, both the one and the other generally, comprehend our whole duty, and do each of them in like manner involve the other; for who will do his own work aright will find that his first lesson is to know what he is, and that which is proper to himself; and who rightly understands himself will never mistake another man’s work for his own, but will love and improve himself above all other things, will refuse superfluous employments, and reject all unprofitable thoughts and propositions. As folly, on the one side, though it should enjoy all it desire, would notwithstanding never be content, so, on the other, wisdom, acquiescing in the present, is never dissatisfied with itself. —[Cicero, Tusc. Quae., 57, v. 18.]—Epicurus dispenses his sages from all foresight and care of the future.”
Excerpt From
The Essays of Montaigne — Complete
Michel de Montaigne
In spite of having done very little of consequence today, for some inexplicable reason I feel as though I have accomplished a great deal. This, by the way, includes an afternoon snooze during which I slept uncommonly soundly for at least an hour. But when I awoke, it was without reluctance that I immediately re-engaged in my day of indolence and irrelevance.
As a student of philosophy (it was my undergraduate major) I am conditioned to an immediate interest in “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence” or what some people feel disposed to call bullshit. And, who knows, they might be correct. On balance however I find there is a confusion arising between the two poles of characterization. What on the one hand is misinterpreted as flamboyant language and impossible projections is on the other hand (my hand, for example) regarded not so much as insight or truths; rather the exercise is, firstly, purely cathartic (in which case the outcome is irrelevant) and, secondly, an exercise in logic (in which case the outcome is no more determinative than winning a high-school debate). Recognizing that so much of logic depends upon the major and minor premises assures that whatever ensues, the outcome will depend upon the quality and nature of the input.
Email to Daniel Laprès
January 12, 2025
Salut, Daniel!
Thank-you for your email, much appreciated as always.
Normally I am ambitious to address the communications you send to me. As for this particular subject of “homophobia”, I think there are some matters I should clarify. First, I “came out” when I was about 3 years old. I was having an affair with an older man; he was 5. I remember this because my mother had seen us in the back yard lying on top of one another. Pointedly she asked me what we had been doing. Of course I hadn’t any answer. At 3 years of age, it amounted to being asked, “Why do you exist?” As a result, I got accustomed to the continuing curiosity of my being. Subsequent existential inquiries related to the same matter, no matter the vernacular or the particularity, have been dismissed as repetitive. I won’t say I’ve become like those offended by so-called “woke” thinking, but close. Second, my experience with others (by which I include all those whom I have known over the past 76 years) is simply this, when it comes to personal commentary on others, we invariably see in others what we see in ourselves. It is, if you’ll forgive me for rushing this philosophic harangue, axiomatic.
In conclusion, girl talk is not my favourite. I gave up drinking alcohol over ten years ago (though I confess on occasion I still remove the top from the sherry decanter for a whiff). It is for example the reason earlier today that I absorbed myself instead in the advice of another old guy, Mr. Jean Chrétien. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for your sharing. But I wanted you to know that the trifling investiture of some writers hasn’t a guaranteed allure from every audience.
Cheers!
Bill
On Jan 12, 2025, at 2:21 PM, Daniel Laprès wrote:
Is there any discussion about the homophobic nature of Musks’s addressing JT as “Girl”.
Daniel
If you are not the intended party, please discard this message. We would be grateful to be informed of any error in transmission.
Si vous n’êtes pas le destinataire de ce message, nous vous prions de le supprimer et nous vous remercions de nous informer de toute erreur de transmission.
Daniel Arthur Laprès
Avocat au Barreau de Paris
Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society (Life member)
11 boulevard Sébastopol
Email from Fiona St. Clair
January 12, 2025
When I read this letter written yesterday by Jean Chretien, I felt it was worth passing on, in case you missed it. Personally, he’s always been one of my favourite PMs and he’s had experience in standing up to our neighbours in the past, as he notes below, and on so many levels, reflects the best in us as Canadians, regardless of our political stripes. And, I love the irony of the unforeseen consequence of bullying us Canuks and threatening our sovereignty, that is starting to bring us together. Yes, we are in a place of political weakness and the timing couldn’t be worse, but look at some of the Liberal ministers who were considering a run for the leadership but have decided to put Canada before their political ambitions and focus on their jobs to help deal with the coming storm (and I’m not talking about those who are dropping out because they can’t foot the ridiculous financial commitment). Plus, and I never, ever thought I’d say this as I’m so not a fan of Doug Ford, but when he started standing up to DJT regardless of how reckless or unrealistic his threats might be, he showed some spine. So, is this going to be bad? – yes. Will there be harsh, economic consequences if those tariffs are levied? – without a doubt. Will we eventually be forced to become the 51st State? – do I even need to dignify that question with an answer!
Enough from me. This is a good read and one I urge people to pass on to others. Chretien encourages us to remember who we are in the true north strong and free.
With love, Fiona