Last year there were more Canadians hospitalized due to alcohol than for heart attacks. Let that sink in for a while. According to a recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, there were about 77,000 hospitalizations in Canada that were caused entirely by alcohol. During the same period of time about 75,000 Canadians…
Love Keeps No Record of being wronged
2017 is an year of anniversaries. the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant reformation, the 150th anniversary of Confederation, it was a 100 years ago the survivors of the Shackleton expedition were rescued from Antartica. 2017 is the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars and The 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love. Last week Deborah mentioned…
It’ Not Who, It’s How Many?
I wonder if Stephen Harper feels vindicated? He should! In 2005 when he suggested that same sex marriage was a slippery slope that could led to the further redefinition of marriage, including the possibility of polygamy, the media and government ridiculed the suggestion. When I mentioned polygamy to our MP he couldn’t understand how I…
Summer of Love: Love is not Jealous
Fifty years ago this summer I was a 7 year old living in Germany. So I didn’t make it to the summer of love. But others were there. George Harrison was there, as were The Who, Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia. They had joined the so called hippies and flower children who had…
You Can’t Change History
I hope you enjoyed the Canada Day Celebrations and took some time to be thankful for what we enjoy as Canadians. It was interesting to note this year the number of people who wanted to focus on some of the more unsavory aspects of our past. And there are certainly any number of things that…
Summer of Love: # 2
How many people remember the “Love is” comic strips? You are really showing your age. The comic was a collection of single panel strips that began as a kind of private love story told by New Zealand artist Kim Casali to her future husband Roberto. It started with private little notes with a small drawing…
Alive!
“My son was dead, but now he is alive.” You might know the words from the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, but they were spoken more recently. This storey began on May 6th when 82 year old Frank J. Kerrigan received the call that every parent dreads, even at 82. The call…
Summer of Love, Intro
The year was 1967, I had just turned seven years old, Canada was celebrating its centennial and two events happened that would mark and define the United States for years to come. The first one took place mostly along the East Coast of the US and was referred to as “The Long hot summer of…
Right Place, Wrong time
I rolled over and looked at the clock, in ten minutes my alarm would go off, so I decided to get an early start. My Sundays usually begin at 4:34 a.m. but it hardly seemed worthwhile to go back to sleep for ten minutes, so I got up.As I headed for the bathroom to get…
The Silent Minion
When I was a kid I thought being a butler would be kind of cool. The problem was, growing up in a trailer in New Brunswick there weren’t a lot of folks around who needed butlers. And my favourite butler has been “Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth” you know him, he was Batman’s butler. And my…