I was skimming the newspaper recently and arrived at the book section. I usually quickly check out the reviews, reading first the headline, title of the book, and perhaps a cutline, if there is one. I don’t have time to do everything, so I am careful to pick and choose where I spend my time…

I know that time is marching on. Those ahead of me were right. It goes by so quickly. I compare it to a roll of toilet paper – the closer to the end, the fast it goes. So planning is more important to me than ever before. The two best times to plan are twenty…

I try to listen carefully to what is written or said. I try to pause and think about what wasn’t written or spoken. During the past NHL play-off rounds, I was caught up in the excitement of critical games and specific shifts on the ice. I heard the announcer call the play that led to…

I was listening to a radio program that started with a mystery and travelled down a fascinating Sherlockian rabbit hole. Come on in, and let’s journey together. I couldn’t retain the details sufficiently, so I Googled the keywords and found the original eight-page scientific abstract. Off we go. Some researchers in the USA were banding…

I watched a YouTube video the other day about a draft dodger I knew. It is a story worth telling and reading about. I’ll call him Claude. This young fellow was struggling to make a living. He had been conscripted into the military and sent to a foreign land to fight for the cause. His…

I was reading an article about cars, or rather automobiles, in the very early days in Canada. What a hoot. The rhetoric I hear today is still the same. Let’s take a walk or, rather, a ride down memory lane. Alberta had its first automobile in 1901. The province joined Confederation just four years later….

I don’t want to get my hopes up too much as I realize hope is not certain. But it is hope, and I can use some of that. After less than a year of the pandemic, I thought it would last a long time, measured in the year(s) looking through a global lens. I wanted…

I committed myself to be engaged in life, not just busy. That is one of my bumper stickers for my retirement. I try to find a balance that works for me. One way I can tell the difference is by what I share with others. Usually, when I’m engaged, I want to talk with others…

I was helping out a neighbour get to his medical appointment recently. While sitting in the car at the clinic, I caught some of the words of a song on the radio. It was about a love affair and a breakup. The phrase that caught my interest was the young gentleman wanting to delete his…

I have been procrastinating. I had time on my hands, so I dug out four framed prints of a Montreal artist that belonged to my parents, who have been gone but not forgotten for a few years now. They were sketches of well-known landmarks in my hometown of Montreal. I didn’t have much of an…