The Children’s Mother has returned from Tanzania which means, besides the addition of some fresh flowers in the house, I can focus anew on what it is that I do. When you discover what this is, please tell me. Ah, yes, it’s answering questions. From the kids. Interesting questions. A full-time job, for sure, but […]
Answering the tough questions Read More »
So, it’s that time, Single Daddin’ It, again. As you might recall, this is when the children’s mother is out of country and I am left to look at my dinner plate and ask it certain existential questions, like, if I were an animal (I mean, in the furry or feathery sense), just what restaurant
Talking to my dinner plate again 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 »
We’re back in Africa (with the cats and dog and everyone else). So is this blog. They, the Ugandans, always call it a holiday. “So how was your holiday?” they’ll ask. It gets too complicated to explain in any great detail that we actually aren’t really holidaying during our annual stretch in Canada, not in
(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 »
