Those who live on acreage in the townships may look down their noses at those who live in the town and village enclaves of Almonte, Appleton or Pakenham. Admittedly those who live in Blakeney or Clayton boast ambivalence upon this particular point. I think it is nonetheless fair to say that we all fashion ourselves “rural” as compared to city dwellers.  And I would even go so far as to suggest that we as a corporate lot practice a collective condescension respecting the city inhabitants (the rivalry between the Country Mouse and the City Mouse has ever been so).

Apart from that facetiousness, rather than promote any disparity among us, I am more anxious to advance the theory that we who live in what is currently called the Town of Mississippi Mills (unless and until Council expropriates that traditional terminology and replaces it with what I personally consider the saccharin idiom “Municipality”) are blessed both to endure the labours and to relish the pleasures of rural life.  Following are some examples.

The country fair positively effuses the rich tradition of all that is rustic –  crates of exotic birds and fowl, the exhibition of handsome and endearing farm animals by proud owners, mouth-watering homemade jams and goodies, superb examples of harvested crops, glorious flowers, aromatic honey and endless stands of local artistic commodities from soaps to pottery to jewellery.  A generous luncheon or dinner table can always be relied upon for succulent comfort food and homemade pies for dessert.  Equally reliable is the likelihood of a chinwag with friends and acquaintances.  If one is favoured with a warm autumn day of sunshine there is nothing that surpasses an outing at the fair and its innocent pleasures!

Breakfast at the Mississippi Golf Club is a much anticipated weekend routine for us. In the charming Club House on the grassy banks of the meandering Mississippi River Chef Wendy MacDonald serves up what I can report with considerable authority is one of the most satisfying breakfasts around!  No need to be shy on the weekend!  We treat ourselves to a varying combination of eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, home fries, sliced tomatoes, whole wheat toast and beans. There is no heartier repast! Here too you can be assured of camaraderie with many familiar faces not to mention the blissful panorama.

Before I raise the worrisome hackles of my health-conscious physician (at whose stone home I can visit for a cup of tea and cake) let me assure both him and you that we expiate the guilt of our protein breakfast by cycling upon the countryside roads.  It is an unqualified rapture to wander aimlessly upon the byways of our County. The Arcadian scenery lends itself to even the most amateur photographer, whether an expansive view of a pasture, a cool clear stream of water or sheep and cattle lying about.

My most recent affection is for the Sunday matinée sponsored by the HUB at the Old Town Hall. These tireless volunteers have reinvented the lost delight of the former O’Brien Theatre (which coincidentally is the very building now owned by the HUB at the corner of Mill and Bridge Streets in Almonte).  These world class films provided in association with the Toronto International Film Festival afford a splendid way to wile away a Sunday afternoon.  We make a point of going for a drink or a bite to eat afterwards in one of the nearby eateries, perhaps toddling along the Riverwalk adjacent the roaring waterfalls.

If one feels compelled to travel further abroad from time to time there are endless opportunities in the country.  To protract a friendly reunion at almost no expense other than the time it takes to get there, I regularly go to Burnstown in neighbouring Renfrew County for a tasty coffee and sweet at Neat Café located near the Madawaska River which can be seen to incredible advantage from the bridge in the centre of the village. As always the back roads to this destination through Pakenham, Waba and White Lake provide a picturesque and relieving adventure for anyone whose soul requires some ventilation. White Lake (which itself offers tasty homemade meals) is the hub to Arnprior and Cedar Cove Resort. I mention these places not to diminish the many attractions at our own front door but rather to illustrate that the knee-jerk target for discovery need not be the City.

Though I won’t risk the embarrassment of others by referring to them by name, allow me merely to say that we are the home to many people who are celebrated for their accomplishments. What however is the most singular element of their notoriety is that they happily mix with local people from every walk of life.  Quite frankly it was this feature of society I appreciated in the Atlantic provinces where members of parliament, professionals, judges, famous artists and well-to-do denizens were your neighbours and they related one-on-one without pretence or reservation.  We can be proud of our esteemed citizens and of their mutual admiration and appreciation of the people with whom they associate.  It is an idiosyncrasy of rural society that we have the privilege of meeting one another on the level.

I began this rumination by referring to both the labours and pleasures of rural life.  I believe you will grant me that I have but touched upon the many pleasures of rural life and that there are so many more upon which one could liberally dilate.  Oddly I am not so readily inclined to delineate the labours of rural life.  Certainly one acknowledges the assiduity of the farming community; the challenges of the sole proprietor in a small town; the exigencies of the private medical practitioner as a country doctor; the high expectations we have of our clergy, teachers and funeral directors who at one time or another care for those dearest to us; the sometimes treacherous distances to be travelled.  Yet one would be unfair to attribute these burdens only to rural as opposed to urban people even if the stressful demands upon one group is different for another.

With tongue-in-cheek there are I confess certain labours which are peculiar to rural life.  It is for example axiomatic that if you hear a rumour it’s likely true (a variation upon the observation, “No one suspects. They know!).  Some object to the perception that “everybody knows your business” (which I have always characterized as a familial trait having no greater import than knowing the balance of your chequing account).  It isn’t long before any newcomer of quality is conscripted for membership in one charity or another. You may actually feel obliged to get to know your neighbours. You care to know your local history. Your voice matters on a political level and you have at least the inclination to participate with a sense of purpose. Your conduct may reflect upon more than yourself; it may insinuate an entire clan which has resided here for hundreds of years.  There is a good chance you are related to the person you just maligned.

All that said, in a complicated way the labours and pleasures of rural life define our robust community!  I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

I know of no sagacious soul who is ambivalent when pronouncing upon the subject of debt though most condemn it.  Even if one acknowledges the temporary utility of debt as a device for capital enlargement, it is normally something from which we are encouraged to distance ourselves. Debt is regularly maligned in everything from Biblical references to parental words of advice.  It is even asserted that the etymology of the word “debt” is connected to sin: A duty neglected or violated; a fault; a sin; a trespass. “Forgive us our debts .”

As someone who has the rare privilege of having maintained a Line of Credit with every chartered bank in Canada – contemporaneously – I can tell you that I have many favourable things to say about debt.  While I certainly wouldn’t be hand-picked as a textbook example of fiscal restraint and planning, it would be deceitful of me to suggest that debt hasn’t afforded many pleasures I would not otherwise have savoured. Admittedly everything I possessed was encumbered. I mockingly quipped that I owned only the front wheels of my car! I am however bound to observe that at this advanced stage of life I no longer suffer the burden of any debt whatsoever but this doesn’t diminish its bygone appeal and instrumentality.

For people like I who are accustomed to debt the world is a different place than it is for those who abhor it.  I find for example that it is the very people who can most easily sustain the pinch of debt who most revolt against it and who are inclined to adopt thoroughly dampening and miserly habits.  This of course explains why they have so much money.  I on the other hand viewed debt not as a handicap (though a temporary drawback) to my larger scheme but rather as a tool to its casual implementation. It is safe to say that the magnanimity of the banks contributed in no small part to my own comparative liberality in the expenditure of money.  Easy come, easy go I suppose!

When I graduated from law school I had virtually nothing in my chequing account (and I certainly cannot recall having had a savings account).  The only bargaining chip was a law degree.  My first loan application was to the Royal Bank of Canada on Spring Garden Road in Halifax, NS across from Robbie Burns’ statue in Victoria Park.  I had received an enthusiastic promotional letter in the mail from the President of the Royal Bank of Canada inviting me to speak to the Bank about all my loan requirements.  This I did one sunny Friday afternoon.  When I met with the banker I asked for $250.  He replied that it would be no problem at all. “Just ask your father to sign here”, he said.

Having declined the banker’s familial invitation, I trod up the street to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  There I asked the banker for $500 to which he responded, “Cash or cheque?” As you might imagine this petty episode nonetheless established an important precedent.  Indeed when I subsequently decided to open my own business in Almonte and needed $10,000 I was astounded when the banker at Bank of Montreal asked, “Are you certain that is enough?  Wouldn’t you like to borrow more?”  Well!  I mean to say!  Who can resist such forceful insight!  It wasn’t long before I was hardened in my ways.

People who juggle a lot of debt seldom have a compensating reserve of liquid assets (or what is lyrically called “cash”).  It would be misleading to dismiss this concern as frivolous and I certainly haven’t any intention of challenging its prudence. The only thing that motivated me to perpetuate my indebtedness was the hope that the capital upon which I had expended it would one day amount to something. Furthermore as I awoke to the concept of amortization it appeared to have the persuasive strength of wisdom and my entire life became geared to a corresponding 25-year plan.

The object of my indebtedness was real estate.  The first venture was a surprisingly modest home purchase on St. George Street for $24,500. Granted the place was so small I had to back into it, but not insignificantly I could still afford the luxuries of passable Scotch whiskey and cigarettes!  I subsequently traded up to a larger house for $76,900.  This was a fortunate move because in those days – believe it or not – banks were reluctant to lend money other than upon the security of an owner-occupied residence.  So when an office building later caught my eye I was only able to leverage the purchase by using my new house as additional collateral.  Parenthetically the $80,500 purchase price for the office building was entirely floated by debt.

As you can see, even though I still had no money, I had succeeded to enlarge upon my possessions, most of which had the appearance at least of being rational and useful.  This however was a trend destined to change.  Through committed expenditure upon capital improvement of my real estate (which by then included an urban condominium and a rural 25-acre parcel of land) I learned to employ it in turn for further loans.  This time though the dalliances took a turn for more personal indulgences, things like cars, a grand piano, furniture and complicated watches.  It was at this stage of economic evolution that banks gratuitously began tossing in unsecured lines of credit with regular secured loans.  This of course was the bank’s answer to the decline of interest rates; namely, increase the capital owed so the resulting product of return on funds was the same.  As an unsuspecting and eager consumer I cheerfully misinterpreted this extension of credit as an acknowledgement of my growing capacity and business acumen.

Eventually my appetite for things was exhausted.  I had succeeded not only to go up to the trough but to get into it.  I was saturated. I then resolved to reverse years of profligacy. Without going into the dreary details of my financial catharsis, permit me simply to rejoin that one cannot have money and things.  I have subsequently adopted an entirely different mantra regarding the meaning and pleasures of life.  Let me assure you that this abrupt modification was not in the least dissatisfying. I have ever been a visceral person. Yet having sated my appetite, there was no feeling of deprivation.  In retrospect I prefer to dignify this spotty financial career as a philosophical choice along the lines of carpe diem but I recognize there may have been more luck than design in what I did.  Besides how impossible it is to erase the stain of one’s past conduct!  In the end it may only be the prayer for forgiveness of one’s debts that counts.

While I have regularly remarked upon the peculiar customs and habits of people who lived before me, I never considered my own conventions particularly unusual.  This of course is an absurdity promoted by the arrogant conviction that I am both modern and enlightened.  We mock our ancestors for burning poor souls as witches but we seldom imagine our current philosophies to be so utterly distorted and cruel.

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When I look at a calendar showing an entire year at a glance I am reminded of two things: 1) how succinct our time is; and, 2) how condensed are the days, weeks and months. One would have to be especially creative to infuse even a year with anything resembling expanse. The moment one restates the minutes of the days in packages of weeks or months it becomes an Alice in Wonderland world of bizarre diminishing sizes.

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Whenever things go wrong in my inconsiderable universe at the hands of others I remind myself that my trifling misadventures are hardly devastating. However neither this nor the admission that “We all make mistakes” is sufficient to dissolve what are otherwise unforgivable miscalculations.  Allow me to illustrate.

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I quite surprised myself this morning. I vented about five decades of aggregate seething frustration. This unusually prolonged bottleneck of dissatisfaction was quirky for another reason – it was directed at my mother. This may at least explain my prior disinclination.  There are after all not many who take particular delight in what is normally considered egregious conduct toward one’s mother (and I imagine less so when she is too old and frail to make it really count).  I can however tell you that for me the deferred experience was nonetheless relieving and inspirational.

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The major of my undergraduate liberal arts degree was philosophy, the study of convictions and ideology but perhaps more importantly the study of thought and reasoning.  These latter two key elements have their historical origin:

The liberal arts (Latin: artes liberales) are those subjects or skills that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person (Latin: liberal, “worthy of a free person”) to know in order to take an active part in civic life, something that (for Ancient Greece) included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were the core liberal arts.

While it is easy to see the connection between rhetoric and language (particularly in the context of debate and public speaking) one mustn’t neglect the importance of logic.  This principle became especially apparent when I subsequently studied law; a mere entertaining presentation was doomed without the substance of argument and rationality.

What frequently detaches the mind from the desirable and sometimes clinical persuasion of a logical argument is emotion.  There are few concepts which are so characteristically opposed as instinct and rationality.  And heightening the difference is that both are important and often of equal significance.  The trick therefore is to bridge the gap with a combination of each.

Emotion being a visceral (and often sentimental) response is fraught with features which frequently defy logic and therefore are only open to attack upon an emotional scale, which in many instances means replacing one passion for another. Certain appetites are well known to trump others.  For example, the appetite for material possessions can normally be outranked by the instinctive yearning for family; health usually outdistances wealth; prestige and position frequently defeat mere convenience.  As a result the persuasive argument is by design targeted at the basic (and sometimes baser) fixations of humanity.  The going can however become thick when expenditure of money (even if for utterly pragmatic purposes) and austerity collide.  Here it is necessary to call upon the so-called “higher” appeal of entitlement as a rationalization, admittedly sometimes a cheap shot or dirty pool, appealing as it does to one’s vanity and sense of privilege.

Characterizing an argument as a battle between gut and brain does not of course tell the whole story.  A further sticky element in any persuasive argument is nothing more glamorous than inertia.  The tendency to remain unchanged is in turn strengthened by fear, a close relative of transformation. Even when the most cogent theses are advanced, couched in entirely palatable terms, the success of the persuasion is ultimately at the whim of the intellect that absorbs it.  Remember, there are two classes of people who won’t try new food: children and the uneducated. The struggle can quickly become the equivalent of blasting rock to make any headway with about as much expectation of mere fragments.  In the result the intransigence of some people’s minds can only be overcome by side-stepping the issue entirely and deliberately moving forward in spite of the resounding opposition.  The negotiation then reduces to a power struggle which, if the logic is not mere rhetoric, is not a bad thing.

I like to think that the success of even a well-reasoned power struggle will ultimately appeal to the most inflexible mind. This speaks to the predictable plausibility of good sense.  In the meantime however it may be necessary to dance around the idea being advanced, to cajole, to implore and perhaps even push a little.  And maybe like most things it will only be persistence that in the end wins the day.  So much for the power of persuasion!

Once the countdown has begun there is little that arrests the initial purpose. We have lift-off! Even more important however than the initiation of the proceeding is its irrevocable trajectory.  It is further not only the constancy of the path which is introduced but the very destination of the track.  In short the path is set in motion and the consequence is predictable.

There is something strangely alarming about setting the wheels in motion; one is never fully prepared for the change that ensues, the inertia of change no doubt. The resulting modification should however never come as a surprise because it is the sum of many coordinated factors. The sequel to the trigger is a solution and often a very pleasant ride.

Like the plunge of a roller coaster ride, there is no turning back when beyond the crest.  It is equally scientific that the rapid change will eventually flatten and come to rest though where one lands is exponentially related to the effort that went into getting there.  The thrust of those efforts is the combination of a great deal of planning, thought, cooperation and a degree of luck as always.  The speed at which events unfold after lift-off is quite incredible.  Hang onto your hat!  The thrill of the momentum contributes to the delight.  As fond as we are of the status quo we nonetheless derive exhilaration from seeing our future unfold.  We launch into a new world and awaken to exciting prospects we hadn’t predicted.

Leaving the familiar behind may be daunting yet we mustn’t diminish our appetite for novelty. The capacity we have for accommodation is virtually boundless.  Precedent to such ingenuity is the application of reasoning to what are inevitably the changing circumstances of life.  The allure of the past becomes as a sinking ship from which we must separate to survive.  But oh the indescribable enchantment of once distant horizons!

Today was Victoria Day, a distinctly Canadian observance going back to 1845 long before Confederation. It is now celebrated on the Monday prior to May 25th the “official” day of birth of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).  Queen Victoria’s actual day of birth was April 21st.

Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, May 24 was made by law to be known as Victoria Day, a date to remember the late queen, who was deemed the “Mother of Confederation”, and, in 1904, the same date was by imperial decree made Empire Day throughout the British Empire. Over the ensuing decades, the official date in Canada of the reigning sovereign’s birthday changed through various royal proclamations until the haphazard format was abandoned in 1952. That year, both Empire Day and Victoria Day were, by order-in-council and statutory amendment, respectively, moved to the Monday before May 25 and the monarch’s official birthday in Canada was by regular viceregal proclamations made to fall on this same date every year between 1953 and January 31, 1957, when the link was made permanent by royal proclamation. The following year, Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day and in 1977 it was moved to the second Monday in March, leaving the Monday before May 25 only as both Victoria Day and the Queen’s Birthday.

As with any federal statutory holiday, Victoria Day marks a day of greatly reduced commercial activity.  The grocery stores and liquor stores are closed (I have this on the authority of a friend in Vancouver to whom I spoke mid-afternoon – he was “fresh out” as he put it). I was however able to secure for my mother her favourite “mocha frappuccino”® and an iced espresso coffee for me from Starbucks.  This small gratification constituted the footing of our private celebration of Her Majesty’s memory.

We capitalized upon the festive air of the long weekend by going to the Golf Club for breakfast this morning.  As always we were not disappointed by the caterer’s succulent and generous serving of eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, toast and home fries. The only blight upon the outing was a gratuitous comment in the parking lot by a golfer who spiritedly said it was the first time she had seen me at the Club, a comment to which I retorted that it was indeed odd as I have been attending the Club for about the past forty years!  I didn’t add that it was only in recent years that I have noticed her appearance there. The gulf between the entitled golfers and the long-time social members such as myself has sadly ever existed!  My very existence in this region began at the Golf Club because it was over dinner in the original clubhouse (since destroyed by fire) that I was hired by the law firm partners.  In subsequent visits to the Club I entertained the late-night drinkers by tinkling the ivories of the old upright piano (now also gone) next to the fieldstone fireplace in the common room.  It was further my privilege to have acted as Counsel for the Club when the second nine-holes were purchased from the Lowry family.

Upon our return from the Golf Club in the eternally quaint Village of Appleton we hopped onto our bicycles and directed ourselves to our alternate route along Concession 11A, the long dead end country road from the roundabout at the Town’s entrance.  While I eventually made it there, “we” did not because my companion’s bicycle tires had deflated.  We attempted to fill the tires with air at a local gas station but the mechanism of the pump wasn’t working properly.  Our second try at a nearby station proved equally fruitless as there was a $1 charge and neither of us had any change.  I later thought I should have had the gumption to ask the attendant for a $1 loan but by that time the opportunity was lost as the entire project had been abandoned.  It turns out for other reasons not to have been without serendipity but I shall not go into further details.  I shall merely say that satisfaction ensued in spite of the initial disruption.

The flow of traffic into the City early afternoon was lighter than I had anticipated. If anything there was a proliferation of old fogeys on the road, people who were driving considerably below the speed limit and who were clearly in no hurry to get anywhere. One old doll was obviously lost in thought as she sat stranded at a green light for some fifteen seconds before whizzing off at an incredible rate to camouflage her idleness.  It was just one of those dreamy summer-like days, mounting warm winds and temperatures, which lent itself to absentmindedness and lack of premeditation.