(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, November 12, 2016)
KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It started with a skipping rope, a plain green skipping rope, the kind you’d find at any dollar store.
It was a simple investment. You’d be forgiven for opting to instead spend the money on your morning double-double.
How a simple skipping rope changed lives Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, October 22, 2016)
KAMPALA, UGANDA – It’s hard to know what to make of it somedays, what to make of these remarkable matters like belief and truth and monsters.
I mean, when I was a young reporter I wrote about a monster that nobody believed in, and even that caused a stir. It was the so-called Lake Erie Monster, affectionately known as LEM.
Belief, truth and monsters who are all too real Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, October 8, 2016)
MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ Someone (a writer, naturally) once said that writing is like prayer. Prayer, it seems to me, is like gardening. I’ve struggled with all three.
The small garden behind our African home is testament to this. Many seasons it’s been a disappointing annoyance. Nearby trees steal valuable sunlight and nutrients. I suppose the space should never have been chosen to start.
On gardening, grace and writing Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, September 17, 2016)
ABOARD KLM FLIGHT 535 TO UGANDA ✦ I’ve always envied people who could watch their mothers grow old.
My mother, I’ve shared previously, passed on when I was in kindergarten. I hadn’t seen her for two years prior to that.
Funny to think of it here, half asleep at 40,000 feet.
We live with our parents, even when we don’t Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 27, 2016)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It was a different time and place on the day I watched another human being die in my father’s arms. I was just a boy.
Bert had epileptic seizures, medically uncontrollable then. Tall and lanky, he’d crumple and fall hard on the floor in the house, or outside under the apple tree, or in places between, shaking, convulsing, rigid as a board. I’d watch. All the time. Bert lived with us.
In honour of my father and his well-lived life Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 20, 2016)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It’s funny how you can give a torch to someone and he’ll light up the world, and give the same torch to someone else and he’ll burn the place down.
It’s like love and hate. They’re both consuming fires, but with different ends. (The ultimate difference is that hate is all-consuming, and, like evil, will eventually consume itself.)
The good news about the bad news Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, July 29, 2016)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ It’s a warm and ordinary day, warm and ordinary enough to run around in shorts and bare feet.
The children’s mother, your babe, that is your bride, is playing your song. The cats are in front and the dog’s in back and the kids are doing homework and nothing much is happening, except this song from the piano in the other room, the piece that makes your blood jump every time.
An anniversary wish to the music of my life Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, July 13, 2016)
SEWICKLEY, PA ✦ Gordie Howe died on the day we played hockey in front of Mario Lemieux’s house. It was one of those things.
Playing hockey with Gordie and Mario — sort of Read More »
