Category Archives: General

Back then,,,

It was in the evening after dinner and a day’s work at the law office on Little Bridge Street. There were no meetings to attend or social conventions. It was a performance repeated often and with identical prescription. I was alone at my desk in my upstairs study. It was a time before my French bulldog Monroe had been recommended to me by Marilyn Harris. What it was that then preoccupied me at my IBM computer I do not know for certain. Computers were new. No doubt then – not unlike now – I was typing an account of my daily thoughts (as I have been doing since I was 14 years of age), probably using WordPerfect as the platform for an expanding collection of entries which replaced my former typewritten or handwritten entries in tiny plastic covered diaries and legal size hardcover lined paper or blank typed paper in leather bound and gold embossed 3-ring binders. The cathartic accounts – whatever their vernacular – were forever proscribed by immediacy and irrelevancy. I was constantly overwhelmed by the present.  And while the daily account altered immeasurably – like watching the mounting corn stalks – things nonetheless unfolded.

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Conviction

In theology the interval is small indeed between Aristotle and a child, between Archimedes and a naked savage. It is not strange, therefore, that wise men, weary of investigation, tormented by uncertainty, longing to believe something, and yet seeing objections to every thing, should submit themselves absolutely to teachers who, with firm and undoubting faith, lay claim to a supernatural commission. Thus we frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits take refuge from their own scepticism in the bosom of a church which pretends to infallibility, and, after questioning the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship a wafer. And thus it was that Fox made some converts to whom he was immeasurably inferior in every thing except the energy of his convictions.

Thomas Babington Macaulay
writing of George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers. He was a 17th-century English Dissenter who challenged the religious and political norms of his time. Fox emphasized the “inner light” as a direct connection with God, rejecting the need for intermediaries like priests or elaborate rituals.

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Bracing for a sultry day in the cornfields

Between the in and out of morning sunshine, spherical particles of rainfall glisten on the balcony chairs and railing. The humidity is rising while the cornstalks urgently fill the last vestige of space among them. The tanned grounds keepers – with intermittent pauses for chatter – loudly hum and buzz along the grassland boundary of the property restoring it to manicured perfection – though it, like the difference between a good and bad haircut, is two days. It is a sultry summer day in July.

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Lac Mont Tremblant, QC

Le Fairmont Tremblant est un hôtel de luxe situé au pied de la montagne Mont-Tremblant, offrant un accès direct au village piétonnier et aux activités principales. Il propose 312 chambres et suites, dont certaines avec vue sur la montagne ou le village. L’hôtel dispose de piscines intérieures et extérieures chauffées, de bains à remous, d’un spa complet, d’un centre de remise en forme et de plusieurs restaurants.

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Canada Day July 1st, 2025

Ironically perhaps the focus of my attention today has been upon the renewal of my Canadian passport. I say that the red tape inspires wry amusement because presently we have no intention of travelling. Our erstwhile mutuality of international domicile has dissolved. We are still reeling from the perceived unwelcome mat in the United States of America. Instead of seeking bookings on Hilton Head Island, Longboat Key or Key Largo we are inclined to be sardonic.

My first passport – which I believe I may still have stashed in my lower desk drawer – was a diplomatic passport reflective of my father’s assignment to Canadian Embassies. We (that is, my family and I) always felt the vague privilege of diplomatic immunity when traveling although to my knowledge we never abused the entitlement. If I recall correctly the ancient diplomatic passports were regularly stamped with the ink of the name of the places we visited. At the moment our travel plans have evaporated – though tomorrow morning we venture to Lac Mont Tremblant, QC on an investigative run just to keep the fires smouldering.

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28º Sunny

The town laments the recent death of a 9 year old boy who – as I understand it – collided on his bicycle with a school bus driven immediately nearby the school. The tragedy is an unparalleled misfortune and isolation at the end of the school year and at the beginning of the summer.  It is too a lingering heartbreak for the family, the school children and the community. Everything by comparison is trivial, vaguely irrelevant and confusing, forcing disparate philosophical conclusions – all impossible to reason.

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Breakfast at the country kitchen

A cathartic spume spread upon the terrestrial environment today. Everything appeared calculated to render a freeing nature to the day. The morning grey cosmic masses incrementally dissolved beneath a light blue sky and fleeting white billows. The corn stalks continued their upward surge, shimmering green in the light wind and mounting brilliant sunshine.

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I got up,,,

When asked how his day was going, my late dear friend Johnnie – an inveterate achiever – routinely responded, “Well, I got up…”. Then followed a summary review of whatever he had done to that point during the day including the less mundane details of any estimated accomplishment. Johnnie was an unabashed alcoholic. He died devotedly addlepated. Yet even in his latest stage of confusion, he remained succinct and polite. His existential existence – in spite of its incontrovertible loneliness – commanded a credit of achievement.

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We all have a past

On a whim about ten days ago I ordered three handmade bracelets from a young woman who was our server for lunch at the golf club.  She is a student and runs a small local business. The bracelets (which recently arrived for pickup at the golf club) are an impromptu gift for my two nieces and one of their close friends. I delivered the bracelets to my sister today.

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