Shortly after eight o’clock this morning we drove to the St. Lawrence Seaway. Last week Kim, the property manager where we live, had requested residents to remove their vehicles from the garage so that Jeff, the custodian, could clean the floor. We decided to employ the occasion to go for breakfast at Katarina’s Coffee Shop in Prescott on the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Traditionally whenever one asks, “What’s new?” the focus is upon people not upon things. I note however that real estate and retail are prominent seconds for this gossipy mortal absorption. When I arrived with my Yellow Labrador puppy (named Lanark Drummond Beckwith of Rosedale – the latter being the kennel on the east side of Ottawa) in Almonte in June of 1976 I recall having seen a sign outside town showing Population: 4500. While I do not believe the population has remarkably increased since that time (perhaps it may now be as much as 5000) the appearance of the town has nonetheless altered significantly in my estimation. And in what I consider a good way thankfully. Interestingly too the developments have been balanced by having evolved on all sides of town almost equally unlike many cosmopolitan expansions which often for example are unidirectional only. By contrast our local geometric development has been almost circular, both sides of the centre roadway north to south and both sides of the river east to west.
What follows has been lifted from The Millstone electronic magazine (Publisher: Edith Cody-Rice; Proprietors: Edith Cody-Rice, Brent Eades). Given the trifling nature of so much of what I have written, this piece stands out as more significant in my opinion. If I recall correctly it was prompted by another article in The Millstone concerning a truck which hadn’t quite made it beneath the rail line bridge above Little Bridge Street.
by Bill Chapman
The headline of this particular article in the Millstone caught my attention because my former office was on Little Bridge Street.
Though I appreciate the facetious character of the headline in this instance, it reminded me of the intelligence shared with me years ago by one Mr. Michael Dunn. I’ve probably got the detail wrong but it goes something like this.
Bennett Rosamond wanted a rail line to service his burgeoning woollen industry in Almonte. There was already talk of building the B&O (Brockville and Ottawa) railway from the St. Lawrence northward. The most casual and uninitiated look at a map discloses that the ideal route northward from Brockville to Renfrew (which was the real site of the predominant lumber ambition then percolating – they simply used the Ottawa River to float the cut trees downward from Renfrew) was through Smiths Falls and Carleton Place (not Ottawa) then to Arnprior and Renfrew. In those days the territory was wide open.
Except for one thing: rivers and other waterways. Getting a railway to veer towards little Almonte would necessitate building bridges – at a considerable cost. Apparently however Rosamond was not without his connections in Montréal (which we all know was then the seat of money in Canada).
The Board of Directors of Canadian Pacific Railway (or whoever it was that then authorized the building of these extraordinary railways) acquiesced to Rosamond’s request. When the railway went through Almonte it had to cross the Mississippi River (where the Dupuis Flour Mill still stands); and this meant crossing Little Bridge Street (which even then extended off Bridge Street next to the Old Town Hall). And of course they would have to dig underground for the bridge to pass over Little Bridge Street. Looks like they didn’t dig deep enough to avoid the recent rental truck calamity.
My apologies to Michael for inaccuracies.
Editor’s note: I passed this information on to Bill after receiving his letter:
Bennett Rosamond did indeed have ties to the Montreal financial community. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in 1866 he brought George Stephen, of CPR fame, into the business as an investor. This was several years after the railway reached Almonte, but it would certainly suggest a previous connection between the two. It seems quite plausible that Rosamond could have had some influence on the final route of the railway.
While the CPR itself wasn’t established at that time, Stephen and other Montreal financiers were early investors in various railway projects in the mid-19th century.
As diminishing as the observation so often is, there is certainly no unexceptionable need to feel embarrassed about a habit. One of mine of especial note is an afternoon custom. Nor I suppose is it necessary to dignify the regularity by calling it a custom. The relieving feature – howsoever characterized – is that I adore my afternoon ritual. It is a fully anticipated ambition to which I project myself from the moment I set foot upon the floor planks in the morning. It is as much an unwitting though imperative part of the scope of my everyday ablutions.
The US presidential election is Tuesday, November 5th, 2024. Voters in each state and the District of Columbia will choose electors to the Electoral College, who will then elect a president and vice president for a term of four years. By contrast to this impending event of global curiosity and gravity we here at home have to remember to remove our car from the subterranean garage in anticipation of a floor cleaning.
Though it speaks both to my indolence and my industry, doing anything or doing nothing today was but another uncommon late summer wonder. The singular predominance in spite of the stoic or sybaritic posture was without doubt the weather. The temperature climbed to 22°C and the sky was clear. The forceful 213° SSW wind (gusts at 49 km/hr) enlivened the balmy air with a velvety caress. It was only late in the afternoon as tomorrow’s cooler autumn air approached that the cloud formations began to overtake the azure dome.
Things today have gone from good to better to best. I won’t say I awoke early this morning. Traditionally I do not sleep well, never have. While I may have slept well as a teenager (though frankly I haven’t any recollection that far back), I do know with clarity that in my early career it was not uncommon for me to stay up late at night flipping through television channels while lying on the floor in my upstairs den, my head on a pillow, with my French bulldog Monroe cuddled in my right arm. I found that if I stayed awake until 2 o’clock in the morning I had a better chance of falling asleep when I finally blended in with the feather bed under the goose down duvet.
Being as I am inclined to reckless extravagance and perhaps as a result not having made a financial success of myself in the past ¾ of a century, I am reluctant to touch upon the decorous subject of understanding money.
A flat tire? Get it fixed. Keep moving. It doesn’t mean you’ll never have another obstacle. Nor does it matter who is at fault. But neither is it a question of predicting the future. It’s about moving to the next cog, applying a bit of the old oil along the way then slowly but determinedly increasing the gear ratio while keeping your eyes on the road.
Though this paradigm may seem elementary it is pragmatic as well. Dealing with matters other than theoretically is a more reliable way to confront life’s modifications. Its certainty is in fact its paramount attraction.
There are nonetheless alternatives to certainty. I won’t say those postulations are entirely a gamble. If you’re the type of person who can survive without an identifiable result; if you can sleep soundly through days of ambiguity or mere possibility; if you haven’t the need of plausibility or borders, then no doubt you can overcome the hindrance of miscalculation or redirection too. Thus to an extent it’s a question of opinion and options. Perhaps simple forbearance.
Although I have advanced the utility of certainty, it may be the preserve of the obsessive mind to monopolize what is in fact only the demonstrable fiction of regulation. Notwithstanding its validity a putative right turn can just as easily and just as theoretically transform to a wrong one. But there is a limit beyond which the prediction of peril is unwarranted and unhelpful. Once again it isn’t about wagers; it’s about being prepared.
Oddly in spite of the incontrovertible wisdom of these words there is a tendency often to endure or succumb to the inconvenience of the alternative; that is, in the face of pitfalls we mistakenly assume our capacity to leap over or bypass the impediment. What it is that restrains us from adaptability is curious. My experience has led me to conclude that it isn’t overt resistance rather uneducated training or stubborn resolve both of which are characteristic anomalies in any context. And be assured that it is a fault common to those whom you might think were spared the indiscriminate conduct. Indelibility by its nature knows no boundaries.
A hurried look at my MacBook Pro calendar discloses a number of events planned within the upcoming ten days: a Pre-op at the Queensway Carleton hospital, Bose® headphones ear cushions from UPS, my brother-in-law’s 70th birthday, month end deposits from pension plans and our financial advisor, a routine visit from our housekeeper, annual ultrasound imaging of my partner, my erstwhile legal assistant’s 40th birthday, a nuclear injection followed by melanoma, wide local excision and sentinel lymph node surgery for me. And finally somewhere in that bewildering mix, the United States of America presidential election.