It was almost a year ago – June 3rd, 2023 – that Johnnie departed forever. I learned of his failing health and pneumonic death from his longtime friend and childhood schoolmate Lynn. Since then I have had the opportunity to converse via email with Lynn on several occasions as she resolvedly prepares to fulfill Johnnie’s last wish foregathering; and, during the same period my partner and I have reflected upon the times we and Johnnie spent together.  Today I was again prompted to think upon the past by the unusual circumstance of seeing a new model vehicle at my car dealership.  I was there to have routine maintenance done on my vehicle; and, while sitting in the showroom fiddling on my iPhone I was obliged to confront what had the appearance of a remake of the erstwhile Hummer.

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Some time ago, I can’t remember quite when exactly, my erstwhile physician asked if we might collect him at the airport upon his return to Canada. He had been away for a very extensive period of time, first crossing over South America and Tierra del Fuego all the way down to Antarctica. Then he returned through South America en route to Australia where he lingered for some time with his daughter, her husband and two grandchildren. Thereafter it was a skip over the South Pacific to Cape Town, South Africa. And it is most recently from that exotic venue that he has arrived back on terra firma in Canada through Newark, United States of America.

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Arranging an appointment at Reid Bros Motor Sales in response to a manufacturer’s recall notice was for me equivalent to accepting an invitation to a welcome social event. While I won’t pretend to cherish the receipt of a recall notice, the overwhelming dissatisfaction is to endure mechanical impurity. Knowing that absolution awaits is by far the more desirable peril! For days I had lived in anticipation of fulfillment of the purgation and deliverance. Last evening for example I tactfully ensured that my alarm was set well in advance of the predicted departure time to guarantee arrival when scheduled.  So enthused was I by the possibilities that I had already formulated in my mind discussing with the Service Advisor (Alex or Phil) whether it were opportune to change the oil in addition to the customary ceremony of checking the tire air pressure. The prospects positively abounded!

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Considering the panoply of distractions at hand at almost any moment of the day, and acknowledging the coincidental acquaintance of the word with a set of arms or suit of armour or even the less formidable association with trappings, regalia and apparatus, I am moved to comment upon the strength of two features of my own life; namely, my lineage and my preferences.  I suspect there is nothing but the most remote connection between them – and it is certainly not for that reason that I mention them – but I am prompted to my past and my present circumstances by the innate vital stimulation which these two singular resources afford me whatever I may conjecture about their bond and howsoever I might wish to characterize their hallmarks. It is, to speak candidly and again without intending to elicit any creative appeal, not unlike staring at a work of art and capturing what it is about it that appeals to one.

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Since it is incontrovertibly and contemporaneously a dreadful and a delicate subject, deciding what to do in the face of imminent death is not for the pusillanimous.  There is a further caution. The event is indiscriminate; by which I mean, it could happen to you!  Just to be clear, death is thoughtless, random, confused, uncritical, aimless, chaotic, casual and haphazard. One might even say desultory. Or capricious.

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The wind is pressing the water upriver creating tiny uncommon markings of shadowy waves upon what is normally a placid undercurrent downriver in the opposite direction.  Above the blemished reflection there is not a cloud in the sky.  It is a cold, clear day beneath a dome of dry, blue stratosphere. The aspect from our second-storey windows is dynamic and heartening like the projection from the bow of a great ship. The distant tawny furrows glisten in the angled auburn sunlight.

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It has lately occurred to me that I have failed to fulfill a purpose of monumental acclaim; and that reason, to speak frankly, is the perpetuation of the species.

The idea is that despite the fact that an individual’s lifespan is short and organisms die, they reproduce offspring for the next generations to come; life is therefore perpetuated as long as organisms reproduce.

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Nothing illuminates a room more definably than the yellow light of a proper lamp. The manufacture may be of endless material and varied expression but whatever it is made of and however it is exhibited it is certain to lend its dynamic to the room. My preference is the subdued color of yellow light. It perhaps reflects a waning era of book reading and instead allegiance to the iPad or other technological wonder for transporting electronic copies of literature upon a whim to the visible computer screens of diverse range.

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I’ve got a lot of favourites.  But I hadn’t counted on relishing so many of them at once. Within the past 24 hours I have been unexpectedly overtaken by a collection of everything imaginable, things which by coincidence I happen to include in my list of personal favourites.  Now I don’t really have a list of favourites.  Well, actually I do, but the formalized list is limited to what I have fulfilled as my favourite music. Upon examination of that particular list I discovered this small insertion:

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A chronicle of the present turns almost instantly into a record of the past. The narrative soon becomes an archive.  Yet whatever the account, it is always a description of a person, object or event; and more frequently than not, a description of moderate amusement and as regularly of forgotten detail. It is partly for this reason alone that I hesitate to erase any of the written past; there is a risk of removing a diary of what might one day prove to be both entertaining and even valuable. The little I recall of the past has taught me as well that the evolution of amendment is far greater than we’re inclined to credit other than casually or superciliously. That is, there persists an unspecified value in the record of the past.

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