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9. What Grounding for Poetry?
GMJ, a Professor of Education whom I had the pleasure of knowing in the 1980s-1990s, was a gifted raconteur. An immigrant from Wales, he had a sonorous voice and a sharp wit. A couple of times over “pints” (he preferred Britishisms) at the university pub, I heard his tales of teaching high school English in…
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8. Take #1 on the New Reality
From the mid-morning of November 6th 2024, I was on a long-distance bus on the Yucatan peninsula travelling between Campeche and Palenque, in eastern Chiapas. Even though I had purchased 5 Gs of cellular data for emergency use, I promised myself a news blackout through the day. In fact, I had timed my Mexican getaway…
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7. Blackness Ten Times Black?
In the growing ominousness of the upcoming US election, I can’t resist checking the polls at least twice a day. While Trump’s abominations have smashed through every threshold of decency, the loyalty of his supporters has grown fiercer. Still, polls suggests that Trump and Harris are in a statistical dead heat. I seize upon every…
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6. The First and Last McTour
Notes on an old traveler’s first ever guided tour (April-May 2022) 1 In the approach of my wife’s seventieth birthday in 2020, I proposed a trip of her choice. In her footloose mid-sixties, she’d joined me in a couple of ‘Rough Guide’ style trips to South America. But at three score and ten, she…
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5. Painting it Black
News last fall that Vancouver would be the only Canadian venue for the 2024 Rolling Stores tour was rather like hearing around the same time, about the upcoming eclipse of the sun. Both events seemed like last-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I am not a devoted Stones fan and only the rarest attendee of concerts. But I was…
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4. The Ghost of Franklin de Soiree
Ghosts sometimes perch at my shoulder as I take notes for my journals. However disquieting their whispers–– they are never to be ignored. Notable among such ghosts are those of a few characters briefly encountered nearly half a century ago: In 1975, I worked on a social service project in the Vancouver Fairview neighbourhood. Our…
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