We had to pee in the bottle the other day, all of us for our annual check-up and vaccinations against death in Africa. I mean we did this one at a time, in privacy in different bottles, of course, and it wouldn’t even matter that much except for the fact that the doctor soon after […]
The joke’s on us. We’re all living to die. In the meantime … the miracles Read More »
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, May 17, 2014)
HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ There was a time when a neighbourhood school was a place that nourished your soul. It wasn’t that long ago. I’m not that old.
You’d go to play, say, baseball on Saturday morning or, in winter, hockey on the rink that your Grade 6 teacher lovingly flooded outside the row of windows where even the good students looked out to daydream.
It was a time when you’d walk to school every morning. By yourself. Even when the school bully – her last name was, fittingly, Greenall – went the same way. It somehow even brought out courage that you never knew you had.
Boogeyman paranoia where shadows lurk at every corner Read More »
This is about a boy who loved to play hockey. He played in rinks, sure, when he could, even outdoor rinks, but more so just on the road, hour after hour, with or without his buddies, often until dark, calling the play-by-play, shooting, scoring, winning with the crowd going wild, of course, at least until
A Canadian boy and his game. (And by the way, I’m going to @#$%^& kill you.) Read More »
Liz: Dad, I have a riddle for you. Okay. Liz: You have to guess what it is. Uhuh. Liz: This is a job. It’s a job where you work all the time. You can never get any rest from it. You just keep going all the time. Right. Liz: Yeah, it’s 24-7. Especially at first. You have to work
A job that’s not for the faint of heart Read More »
The two neighbour boys are 8 and 5 and it looks like their father is about to die. It’s this morning. My kids and I walk to school with them and the boys’ mother. The 8-year-old is in Hannah’s class. What can you say? + It’s yesterday evening and we, Mother and I, that is Jean
The valley of the shadow of death Read More »
There was a time when a neighbourhood school was more than a place you simply went for classes and drudgery, when it was more than a place of fear. My own boyhood experience was that we kids would go to school after hours and on weekends to – imagine – play, say, baseball on a
Hey, let’s lock the fun out of school! Read More »
There was Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, of course. We biked through the heart of Paris on Day One, four hours in the morning, anther four in the evening, enough to give the kids a few blisters before we finally got back to our Montmartre flat just past midnight. That was
Even on this side of Easter, forgiveness is no easy thing. Christ said so much during a beachside breakfast with his friends on a lake not long after the remarkable events of Easter weekend. He did this during that rather poignant exchange with Peter, that friend of urgency and largeness who, just days earlier, while
