So I’m in the middle of Africa dining with a colleague and he declares, “That’s great news about Jean. Congratulations!”
Out comes his phone and all the details and I’m in the dark and feeling rather sheepish about it. My bride, the children’s mother, in her natural humility, hadn’t told me of her recent recognition as a Canadian
The fragrance of (my) life Read More »
“I see you’re aging gracefully.” This is what he, an old Canadian friend, now overseas, said after seeing my photo complete with beard and glasses. Oh, come on. Already? Now? So soon? Aging gracefully? Really? In truth, the beard comes and goes like pages of a calendar. I shave. I don’t shave. My bride, that is my young
Seeing some things half clearly Read More »
Today let’s talk about selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. This was me sometime between boyhood and manhood, a time when the gray matter and the white matter in my brain was still developing, still coming together. I was leaving one place to arrive in another, me and my suitcase and my first car. I’d just left home for the
Coming and going and growing up Read More »
Long before the children’s mother came along, I wanted to marry Queen Elizabeth. Or Mrs. Clark. Or Dianne Blouin. Dianne was an angelic presence and the sister of my classmate Michael. She was 12, older by two full years and clearly out of reach. The best I could do was get a photo of Dianne.
What if I had married the Queen? Read More »
I will miss the light of Africa as much as I will miss anything. I will miss the water too.
This, even as I’ll miss Africa itself, the birthplace of our youngest daughter, the place where the light shines so beautifully on her skin.
Returning to Hamilton, Ugandan treasure beside us Read More »
Sixteen years ago today, The Children’s Mother and I got engaged. Of course, at the time she was not The Children’s Mother. She was My Babe.
I thought the world should know of the good news, so I blasted it all on the front page …
(Sixteen years ago today) she said ‘Yes!’ 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 »
