The Mill of Kintail

When I arrived in Almonte in June of 1976 – after having been hired “on the spot” by Messrs. Galligan & Sheffield, Barrs. &c. over dinner one evening at the Mississippi Golf Club in the Village of Appleton – two of the first people whom I met in Almonte (perhaps a spin-off from my attendance at St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Clyde Street beside the former Land Registry Office) were Maj. Jamie and Mrs. Irene Leys who lived in a small house on Country Street. They had invited me to dine with them one summer evening.  At the time I was somewhat alarmed and overwhelmed by the gusto of Maj. and Mrs. Leys for R. Tait McKenzie and Dr. James Naismith – names which of course were to become fundamental to my life in Almonte. Though I further confess that, at the time, I succeeded only to lodge the preliminary references to Tait McKenzie and Naismith to a corner of my mind – which was, as I trust you’ll forgive me, then already overtaken with what I felt to be the more pressing details related to the practice of law, including for example the necessary and very fruitful communion with Raymond A. Jamieson QC in whose office chair at 74 Mill Street I ended being seated for the first two years of my practice in the Town of Almonte.

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River reflections

The river is placid today. A mirror stretches throughout as though poured like a shining liquid then frozen in place. The 44°NE wind of 3 km/h is unnoticeable. There is a subdued reflection of the lush growth along the southern shore of the river. In the adjacent corn fields the stalks tower to the heavens. Their preponderance blankets the horizon. Everywhere is green.

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The synthetic connection

Synthetic: Logic (of a proposition) having truth or falsity determinable by recourse to experience; eg., snow is white. Compare with analytic; eg., all bachelors are unmarried.

Synthesizing means combining different elements, ideas, or information to create something new and coherent. It’s a higher-level thinking skill that involves more than just summarizing or restating information from various sources. Instead, it requires identifying connections, relationships, and patterns among those sources to form a new understanding or perspective.

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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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