Introduction:

I am not a hoarder.  Yet like many geriatrics, I have accumulated more than my share of junk. Also, like many of this age, I have been beset by nightmares of my children sorting through that junk in my permanent absence.

Upon retirement in early 2015, I began to clean up. Much of my junk was paper: materials from decades of teaching as well as reams of personal notes. I started off ruthlessly––but when I came to my old journals–– at the open recycling bin, I wavered.  

Probably like most old English teachers, I once imagined that my diaries could be raw material for short stories or novels. In my early forties, I was disabused of that conceit. That was after the last SAE (self-addressed envelope) sent forth was returned along with the novel within which too much vanity had been invested.

In sober post-facto reassessment, I had no doubt that my attempted work of fiction was shit. But after wound-licking–– that no longer mattered. The truth remained that I had lived in interesting places at interesting times and had known interesting people. Over the decades, I had kept a record of that history. Some of that might be useful to some future grandchild for a family history project. A sliver of it might even be worthy of a wider audience.

Why bother with the artifice of fiction? That was the question I asked myself in February 2015 at the edge of the recycling bin. Thereupon, I gave the old notebooks a temporary reprieve.

Slowly, I burrowed into that musty midden. There was much ordure to be unpleasantly sifted through for usable nuggets. Yet after a few years of diligent worming, I dredged up several ‘coprolites’… Initially, the most promising material was in notes and sketches from sojourns in Africa (1977-1988). Later in digging through latter-day journals in the digital format, I found more nuggets worthy of burnishing–– even sharing outside of print form. But where and how?

In mid-2019, I discovered WordPress.  My site began to take shape in early 2020…

Under twenty-six thematic categories, I have posted a series of essays/vignettes in PDF format. All these pieces are in the genre of creative non-fiction––entirely faithful to personal history. I do use the ethnographic convention of shielding the potentially identifiable with fictitious names or initials. Some of my portrayals may be a little harsh–– but none are as severe as depictions of my own foibles…

I have no naivete about the preponderance of writers over readers on WordPress.com. Yet I take some consolation in a cosmic analogy:

The unimaginable vastness of our galaxy makes alien life on at least one exoplanet herein a near certainty.  Similarly, given the billions of daily internet browsings–– every month, a few random searchers will probably land on this site. Among those, a tiny subset may be of curious readers. For such a random discoverer, this site could be like a distant exoplanet whose faint chemical signature shows the possibility of non-terrestrial life….

I can not deny some pride in my hoard of little nuggets. Old fingers have worked diligently in readying them for display. Should any be held for a moment in another mind, turned over and be found to modestly gleam–– I will be delighted. Meanwhile, I take some consolation that few carbon emissions have been squandered or trees sacrificed in this late-life pitch for a little audience…

As a final point–– I have chosen to keep this site anonymous. That decision is largely in respect for my family–– not all of whom may agree with my airing of certain personal info and/or political views. However, I will reveal a little of my background:

I hail from the eastern province of New Brunswick, Canada, but ’emigrated’ to the farthest west province of British Columbia in my early twenties. Apart from twelve years abroad (treated extensively herein) “beautiful B.C.” has since been my adopted home.

Anonymously Yours,

FWT (‘lefthook51’)

A note on the format:

The thematic postings often comprise two pages: an introductory page followed by a second page with PDF files of essays/vignettes on the same theme. Some themes have both the introduction and the PDF files on a single page.

By clicking the emojis at the bottom of every page, a potential reader can move chronologically through the postings.

Update:

Having posted more than one hundred and fifty vignettes/essays (A-Z) under thematic categories, I have exhausted the raw material from my old notes. Henceforward, I will be posting single essays on new topics under a new format. 

Not all these posts will be ‘sardonic’. However, in acknowledging the gradual dominance of that tone in my geriatric voice, I have adopted sardonic.ca for my new site name.

A final point to emphasize: there is no plagiarism here. A few stock/open-source images appear along with my own photos–– but none clearly identified as “licensable” are used. Further, I have no intention to monetize (even if that were possible) any of this content. The desire is only to freely share.

Meanwhile, I take consolation that few carbon emissions have been squandered or trees sacrificed in this late-life pitch for a little audience…

– 2024 April, FWT (‘lefthook51’)

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