Between 1963 – 1967 while attending St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario one of my classmates and colleagues was Nicholas Glassow. He is the son of the late Dr. and Mrs. Frank Glassow of Thornhill, Ontario where Dr. Glassow was one of the senior (if not in fact the senior) surgeon at Shouldice Hospital, a private clinic.

“The facility was the subject of a 1983 business case by the Harvard Business School. Written by James Heskett, the report is the school’s fourth-best-selling business case, selling over 259,000 copies. The case study focuses on Shouldice’s unique three-day hernia repair process. The popularity of the business case is responsible for the hospital’s process becoming known outside of Canada.“

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The sky over Sarasota Bay is a foggy grey. The palm fronds are twisting in the forceful wind coming from the west across the Gulf of Mexico. The American flag “red-white-and-blue” is fluttering in alternate directions at the top of its pole. We have the front door of the apartment open and the wind is howling through it to the open windows of the drawing room overlooking the boat slip. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, December 24, 2019 on Longboat Key.

I hesitate to record this particular incident. Not because there’s anything either wrong or strange about the detail. But it is nonetheless mildly embarrassing. Here it is in a nutshell. Immediately following brunch with friends on Anna Maria Island, on our way home through Bradenton Beach we detoured across the bridge at Cortez to Tide Tables for lunch!

Casual seafood eatery overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, with a marina & outdoor tiki bar.

Serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

As they leapfrog from South Africa to Singapore in search of local delicacies, the authors prove again and again that serendipity is the traveler’s strongest ally: many of their most memorable meals issue from the hands of generous strangers …— Sarah Karnasiewicz,  Saveur,  June/July 2008

If reporters fail to keep these files, they seldom luck into bigger stories. Their investigative work typically happens only by design—analyzing the news, for instance—not by serendipity.— Michael J. Bugeja,  Editor & Publisher,  13 Jan. 2003

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The giving of gifts at Christmas is an indisputable part of the Christian tradition. Its only competition is the focus on food – a custom shared with many other religions. Reflecting upon past Christmases there is no question that my mother ensured that both conventions – gifts and food – were predominant. The absorption certainly surpassed any religious imperative. Only once do I recall having attended Midnight Mass at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Almonte. It was an odd occasion on which I was home alone on Christmas Eve (probably because my sister, her husband and young children where with my parents instead – likely staying overnight). I as probably gleefully used the opportunity to light the fire and then get lit too before walking to the Church in the snow.

“The winter solstice celebrates the longest hours of darkness or the rebirth of the sun and is believed to hold a powerful energy for regeneration, renewal and self-reflection. In Pagan times the winter solstice was referred to as Yule and was a celebration of the Goddess (Moon) energy.”

Have you ever tried to make another pot of tea with the same tea bag? I suspect not. It’s an economy not even the most niggardly would likely attempt! Yet how often do we demand a similarly endless production of ourselves! Though tea is not my preferred ambrosia – my favourite is coffee, strong black French or Italian roast – I know enough about the ceremony of making tea to grasp that, aside from first heating the pot with some hot water and afterwards allowing the tea to steep, one would never think of re-using the leaves. There are simply limits to what is expected of even the most exotic Darjeeling!

This evening we rallied with friends for dinner at Speaks Clam Bar on Boulevard of the Presidents, St. Armand’s Circle. It was a strictly casual enterprise and ended being thoroughly pleasant. It helped too that each of us applauded our respective meal. Speaking for myself the lobster/shrimp/pasta dish – which incidentally had been recommended to me by Her Ladyship – was divine! I can’t recall having lately hoovered a meal quite so greedily! Nor was it the consequence of an appetite being the best sauce for any meal – though admittedly I had intentionally restrained myself since breakfast to ensure that I sidled up to the trough with befitting gusto. This afternoon I applied further oil to the ensuing culinary wantonness by cycling the constitutional 15 kms in addition to having swum afterwards in the pool.

As I gape across the boat slip and the fluttering American flag toward Sarasota Bay on this chilly, windy morning I cannot but confess the allure of the mounting Christmas spirit. I have enhanced the current emotional bent by listening to a collection of Christmas orchestras, choirs, oratorios and operatic celebrations. Shamefully perhaps we have no intention of insinuating the Christian worship tradition. Indeed I am more intent upon witnessing the passage of the Winter Solstice.

R. A. Jamieson, QC was the lawyer whose swivel office chair on the second floor of 74 Mill Street I filled when I arrived in Almonte at 27 years of age in June of 1976. He was then 82 years of age, having practiced law for 54 years. He had been called to the Bar at Osgoode Hall in Toronto in 1921, previously a graduate of the University of Toronto where he had distinguished himself as a long-distance runner. Appropriately Mr. Jamieson lived until 96 years of age, ill and hospitalized at the Almonte General Hospital only during the last 6 months of his life. Though he like I began his legal career working in a firm of other lawyers, we both similarly soon transitioned as sole practitioners.