We don’t get out a lot. It’s apparently not an uncommon affliction of aging. Or maybe it’s just a preference for doing otherwise.  But today’s congregation was much anticipated.  And it proved to have been equally rewarding.

Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, 72 kilometres (45 mi) southwest of Ottawa. As of the 2021 census it has a population of 9,254. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is separated from the county. The Rideau Canal waterway passes through the town, with four separate locks in three locations and a combined lift of over 15 metres (49.2 ft).

Continue reading →

It was a Seagram’s bottle bag which I used to store my marbles when I was a child. Not surprisingly (to those who know me well) it was not the game of marbles which attracted me; rather, the marbles themselves. I liked the variety of colours and sizes, their universality, weight, endurance, singularity and ambivalence. Some were exceptionally beautiful. They were perhaps my first noticeable introduction to art. Storing them in the bottle bag may also have been my initiation to a developing need or desire for accumulation and its corollaries of segregation and demonstration. It amuses me that to this day I haven’t a single marble.  I’ve literally lost my marbles.

Continue reading →

Reading a family history, while certainly not as great a task as writing one, is nonetheless overwhelming especially in this instance when there are so many favourable details to be said of it. Foremost the medium; viz., paper.  This particular history (for the record called, “Who we are: a family history” by Joan G. Fairweather) was printed and bound in Canada.  The binding though not hard cover is conveniently of spiral binding.

Continue reading →

The tantalizing smell of toast wafted into the bedroom early this morning.  There was something different about it though.  A purity, a cleanliness, an effervescence.  Later I learned it was cinnamon, a sign of things to follow.  This was to be a complicated day.

Continue reading →

This morning’s invitational breakfast at the golf club distinguishes itself for having been a communion strictly of family; viz.,  my brother-in-law, his younger brother, my partner and I. We sat on the outside patio overlooking the 10th tee and the distant hole. The Mississippi River dreamily passed nearby with the shoreline trees languishing in the mounting heat. We were the first to champion the deck and thus luckily secured an ideal table in the shade sufficiently withdrawn from the limit of the overhang to escape even the angle of the glistening sunshine. We sat one at each end of the table, the other two looking directly upon the fairway.

Continue reading →

After seventy-five years it occurred to me this afternoon as I breezily motored along the Appleton Side Road that life is a one way passage. This may initially resound as uninventive and unnecessarily restrictive but my inspiration is in fact quite the opposite. Contrary to the diminutive nature of the projection, the synthesis is the coalescence of both ambition and reality which I trust you’ll agree are less than trifling ingredients for philosophic reflection.

Continue reading →

I have no idea where the expression “No worries!” comes from but I despise it. For me it generates even greater revulsion than, “That’s between you and I” because it transcends the purely technical realm of grammar and descends to some kind of yucky emotional presumption. To my utter surprise this morning, after receiving a message on my Apple Watch, one of the automatic suggested responses was, “No worries!” which I mockingly employed but which was completely useless and irrelevant to the original message I had sent about contact with a tradesman. More relevantly it was only last evening at table that we had discussed the offensive use of the phrase.

Continue reading →

I just watched a red winged blackbird attach itself to the pointy end of the stem of a bush in the field directly in front of my sight. And only seconds later a rather hefty tractor happened along in the same field, apparently cultivating the soil for crops. We’ve often wondered what was to become of the open field which separates us from the Mississippi River.  Until now – that is, since our arrival here on November 1st, 2022 – the land (perhaps 5 acres) has been lying dormant adjacent the distant farm house and outbuildings. All the other farmlands as far as the eye can see are demonstrably prepared for corn or wheat crops. The idle speculation of the apartment building residents is that residential development is not unforeseen on the immediate property though the proximity to the river is felt to ensure preservation of the flood plain and thus a respectable distance from expansion along the shoreline. Meanwhile however it appears that the owner of the farmland (or his tenant) is intent upon farming the land.

Continue reading →

Many complications arise in the conduct of one’s daily ambitions. The least of them at this time of year may be, What to wear? The forecast today (Monday) is endless sunshine and glaring heat, up to 27°C and climbing progressively to Wednesday when it is anticipated to be 29°C under a cloudless iron hot sky. In fairness it dips thereafter to equal chance of sun and rain, 19°C for four days before regaining a medium expression.  For now however it is a subtropical aspect.  And I am dressed accordingly. I extracted from my universal XXL costumes a decidedly festive Hawaiian-style shirt meant to be worn untucked (an accommodation which I have always “fashioned” spares me ten pounds minimum). The inurement is naturally a deceit but the two combined speak comfort.

Continue reading →

Mr. Macko’s latest reply (which by the way causes me considerable suspicion though I cannot say exactly why). I have not pursued this line of conversation further as I do not see any profit in doing so.

Continue reading →