‘Hey man, where are the sticks, the sticks, the sticks …?’
When I die, I want my obituary to read as follows: “Thomas Froese is dead. Mr. Froese’s biggest accomplishment was bringing hockey to Africa, where it’s now enjoyed by pretty well everyone.” Today, here’s my progress report. In short, I can’t die any time soon.
If nothing else, be kind to yourself in 2021 – not everyone else will
I’d like to take a minute here to talk about something I know nothing about, namely your brain. But you’ll be happy to know that on this January day we’ll consider other exciting things too, like, let’s say, oh, I don’t know. The beach? Sure, let’s talk about the beach too.
On 2020, the God of Christmas, and paying attention
It’s been a year of sadness. Not to bum you out. I’m just saying. And a year of vulnerability. Vulnerable. This was the man outside my house. His name is Victor. He’d walked across the city for some hours, pushing a cart of bottles collected along the way for money.
And what about the vulnerable among us?
Today is a good day to talk about the vulnerable among us – the mentally ill and the disabled – and doctor-assisted death. Worldwide, only about five per cent of 195 nations allow what’s known in Canada as MAiD, or Medical Assistance in Dying. The World Medical Association also
If women ruled the world
You have to wonder what life would be like if women ruled the world. Or at least America. Consider the planet and all of its shades. Would it be a kinder, gentler place? One with more peace? A world with easier, more gracious, transitions of power? You have to wonder, too, how little Ruby Bridges felt on that November
America votes. Again. What would Lincoln say?
Of course, the party would not be complete without Abraham Lincoln. And it’s a good day to ask America’s 16th president what he thinks of it all, Tuesday’s big vote. As I write, on a window sill behind my desk sits a bust of Lincoln, otherwise known as Honest Abe.
A letter to Thomas Edison
So, Mr. Edison, (can I call you Thomas?), it was at the Westdale Theatre, and I was washing my hands, and this gentleman in the men’s room declared, “That’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen.” I actually thought it was a good show. Character driven. A bit dark, yes, but don’t we all, from the very womb, know darkness?
Running for Rachael
My friend Sid is a runner. Not that kind of runner, although he’s that kind of runner too. He’s run a half dozen marathons. So it’s not surprising that we’re talking about running, even as we’re talking of other things. Healing. Faith. Death. The face of mental illness. We’re in a graveyard at an ordinary
Finding Grace (and grace) in our lives
Grace, the Sheepadoodle, is a small dog with big feet who’s happiest when she’s running full-throttle, wild and wide-eyed, tripping over herself down some hill. She’s a dog who knows that life, even in dog years, is so short that there’s no time to waste, even if there’s no place to go
Childlike wonder in the summer that never was
It was a sign for summer break and summer thought, there at the front of a public school near the park where we had our wedding photos taken. The children’s mother and I passed it. This is what it said: “There are only 18 summers
I got a hole-in-one! (Or did I?)
It was the first stroke on the first hole of the day, a chintzy Par 3 just under 100 yards, with a 7-iron. This is how I recently got a hole-in-one. It’s why I ran round and round, arms raised – hat, sunglasses and club thrown high – celebrating with everybody and nobody in particular.
Freedom is a frame of mind
You can tell some kids just about anything, so if you’re bored this summer tell them that people couldn’t see colour until the 1960s. Before this, everything in the world looked black-and-white. I once told this to my own kids, which is probably one reason why their mother never asked me
Flying the plane of Daily Dadness
Today’s news from the Daily Dad is that if you stick around this fatherhood business long enough, you’ll feel a bit inadequate, if not like some flying villain. But don’t let it get you down because it means that you’re in the game, so to speak, and maybe even its hero.
Taking stock of the world through life’s log book
Today is a good day to think of war, especially the one we often simply call “the war,” the war of our forebearers, that is our parents and grandparents and great grandparents. One man in it was Sid James Stacey. Some decades later,
Are we losing faith in fatherhood?
It’s a happy-enough moment of me and the children in this photo from Father’s Day 10 years ago. But today’s thoughts are about grieving as much as anything. Because it was just another morning with the sun established in the sky when the children’s mother, leaving the house, said what she did. “All our fathers,” is all she said. Her eyes welled up while she hugged me. Her broken
Recalling the lost art of hitchhiking
The sunny news from around here is that I recently drove up a regional road with the three Chumbuckets, that is my three teens, to get their COVID jabs. We didn’t see any hitchhikers. Yeah, yeah, who hitchhikes anymore? Still, I like to keep an eye, you know? One summer day – Child No. 1 was with me – we did help one, a middle-aged woman who clamoured into our vehicle with her
The north and south of who we are
Today let’s imagine you’re a Wall Street lawyer. Your towering New York office overlooks the Statue of Liberty. You’re high powered, enjoy your colleagues, and like asking those lawyer-like “what if” questions. You’re successful. What would ever make you leave? While you think about that, let’s travel to the Liverpool bar where thousands of Brits recently celebrated without masks or care in the name of pandemic science.
Mothers and their babies living in risky times
So Darling Doctor Wife, otherwise known as Dr. Jean, recently came home from an off-duty visit to labour and delivery to see Hosanna Froese, a preemie who arrived in this world eight weeks early. Hosanna’s mother, with COVID-19, isolated at home while tiny Hosanna, all 4.1 pounds of her, started life not at her mother’s breast, but in neonatal intensive care at St. Joe’s Hospital.