Guess what?

Religion and racism are fabrications born of the same cloth. Nor should the observation cause the slightest doubt for it is but an assimilation of every human characteristic united with power and wealth; namely, control and cupidity. Certainly there those kind-hearted and well-intentioned clergy and parishioners who are conspicuously driven by the more digestible features of religion bearing upon benevolence and some dissolving view of eternity. Likewise there are those politicians and electors whose legislative objectives are spirited by equality. But for the most part religion and racism – like any other sustainable corporate undertaking or successful candidacy – are dependent upon business acumen not mystical entertainment or vaporous allusions to unsubstantiated and unproductive egalitarianism.

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Morning ride

It shouldn’t of course astonish me – though naturally it does – that my morning habits here in Canada or there in the United States of America are identical. For example within minutes of having arisen from the lair this morning and after having completed my ritual ablutions and trifling breakfast of sliced apple and cheddar morsels I yearned as always – wherever – to get onto my tricycle and pedal my way to Eternity. The air was clear and bright; a regular prospect for perpetuity and the perfect day for cycling about the neighbourhood.  Nor was I disappointed in the shadowing of either my athletic or spiritual endeavours.

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By what authority?

It is a palpable deceit to submit to or overtake the authority of another without proof of entitlement to do so. The thesis is fundamental to democracy; namely, the consensual definition to be governed by the rule of law.  In Canada, the recognizable legal authority and root of competency derives from the British North America Act, 1867. This is the stuff that kept Sir John A. Macdonald our first prime minister awake at night and likely occasionally intoxicated.

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By the river

My late father Cecil George William Chapman DSO was born in Hillsborough, NB in 1918. He attended University of New Brunswick (“Up the Hill”) in Fredericton, NB for undergraduate studies (electrical engineering) from which he graduated at the end of the Great Depression when he was 21 years of age. Having lived through that entire era naturally explains a great deal about my father whatever its reverberations may have been.

The Great Depression (1929–1939) was an economic shock that affected most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.

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In the late afternoon

It is, as you might justifiably concur, my eternal ignominy to arise late in the morning. The tardiness violates every prescription for health and advancement advanced by Benjamin Franklin to modern day Naturalists.  I might also include Immanuel Kant and his doctrine of transcendental idealism. In any event it really doesn’t matter the day of the week, whether a business day, Saturday or a religious day.  I haven’t any longer a commanding perception of the day of the week particularly now that retail is unabated and I am an infidel. More rudimentary no longer have I the blaring alarms of prep school or the exigencies of a law practice to preserve me from Protestant disgrace. Even the awareness (or at least the well-founded suspicion) that my long-standing friend MIchael Tweedie JD (an avowed and published jurisprude late of the Superior Court of Justice) arises regularly before dawn hasn’t as yet had a persuasive effect upon my progressive indolence.

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Deck the halls!

Already Sirius XM has converted its ’40s popular hits channel to Christmas music, everything from Bing Crosby singing “Winter Wonderland” to Willie Nelson adding his signal voice to whatever.

“Winter Wonderland” is a song written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard Bernhard Smith. Due to its seasonal theme, it is often regarded as a Christmas song in the Northern Hemisphere. Since its original recording by Richard Himber, it has been covered by over 200 different artists. The song’s lyrics were about a couple’s romance during the winter season. A later version of “Winter Wonderland” (which was printed in 1947) included a “new children’s lyric” that transformed it “from a romantic winter interlude to a seasonal song about playing in the snow.” The snowman mentioned in the song’s bridge was changed from a minister to a circus clown, and the promises the couple made in the final verse were replaced with lyrics about frolicking.

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Enduring the inevitable

Old age, so I have unwittingly and a shade reluctantly lately smoked out, is unqualified and uncompromising.  I had previously attempted to bend the branch.  But I was up against a powerful grip. The inflexibility of old age isn’t poetic; it isn’t a dreamy world in the verdant pasture of life. Its defeat of willingness is harsh and relentless. Its unconditional nature is utter and outright. The most workable resort, I have concluded, is the one guided by accommodation. This I think you’ll agree is not a preferred recipe; it is distasteful medicine especially for those of us who are keen upon independence and latitude. The prescription ensures instead unparalleled limitation. We cannot do all the things we used to do. And more exacting is the growing narrowness of our performance in spite of our willingness to cooperate. We are repeatedly alerted to the impending necessity to make compensatory decisions about where we’ll go and what we’ll do when we get there.

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Catching up with adventure

It is infrequently that we have such an animated confab as we did late this afternoon with old friends at a local beanery.  Our dining partners, a married couple each younger than us by about two decades, live nearby but hail from Northern Ontario where the Trans-Canada Highway precipitously turns west towards the distant prairies. They have from the moment we met – which at table today we speculated to be about 2012 – characterized what I have since come to observe from acquaintance with others from Northern Ontario the outstanding features of intelligence, devotion, assiduity, skill and spirit. And they as we adore their pets (a cat and 2 dogs).  Our commonality is otherwise impossible to distinguish except as fortuitous for we met entirely by accident on the beach of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina when I asked to pat their French bulldog Max, little then knowing they too were Canadians who likewise resided in the Ottawa Valley. We’ve been munching and conversing together ever since.

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