Traits that bind a town

You know how you sometimes rundown a mental checklist on your way to work or play? Have I called so-and-so? Have I got all my ducks in order?

This week, on my way from Halifax Airport to deliver an audio-visual presentation at a bookstore in LaHave, Nova Scotia, I suddenly wondered if I’d asked the bookstore proprietor to supply a digital projector for my talk.

“No,” said the LaHave bookstore owner. “We don’t have one.” (more…)

Of character and characters

Barry Penhale & Jane Gibson receive lifetime achievement award from Ontario Historical Society. 2019.

Look closely on the walls of their sunlit living room: There’s a framed lifetime achievement certificate, as recognized by the Ontario Historical Society. The citation praises Barry Penhale and Jane Gibson for their many years of professional and volunteer work bringing history and heritage to the attention of Ontarians.

The OHS presented the award to this extraordinary couple in 2019. Seated in his favourite armchair in that living room, Penhale smiled modestly.

“History isn’t something any one person owns,” he told me last week. “It’s about preserving and celebrating what we’ve all experienced.” (more…)

Tunnel vision

Ontario’s premier wants to replicate Boston’s “Big Dig” under Hwy 401

Among our Thanksgiving traditions, particularly when we invite guests to our gatherings over Turkey dinner, our family usually engages in “What if?” talk. Often the Q&As reveal attitudes among family members we didn’t know. Other times, it’s a chance for guests to tell us about themselves and stimulate conversation. Over Monday’s turkey dinner, my granddaughter hit me with this question:

“Twenty years from now, what looming event do you think you’ll have difficulty explaining?”

I thought long and hard about challenges we’re all facing today – democracy threatened by the race for the presidency in the United States, global preparedness for the next pandemic, pushing back xenophobia in Canadian society, ensuring career opportunities are there for our grandchildren and their children.

But I guess, if I’m still around in 2044, I’ll probably find it difficult to rationalize how western civilization, with as much access to information as any society in modern history, didn’t recognize and rise to the challenge of slowing climate change.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to rationalize our incompetency,” I told my granddaughter “for failing to save the planet from greenhouse gases.” (more…)

The Order of things

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon & I right after my appointment as Member of the Order of Canada. Oct 3, 2024.

It generally goes like clockwork. And, since Governors General have officiated at investitures to the Order of Canada at Rideau Hall since 1967, they pretty much all happen with precision. Last Thursday went mostly that way. About halfway through the procession of 56 recipients, Ken McKillop, secretary to the Governor General and ceremony MC, called my name.

As instructed, I walked to the front of the hall, faced the audience and McKillop read a citation about my work preserving military heritage. He finished by turning to the Governor General and said, “Excellency, Dr. Barris.”

I looked back as we both realized the “Doctor” title wasn’t accurate.

Nevertheless, I moved to a spot in front of Gov. Gen. Mary Simon. She stepped forward and began attaching the Order of Canada medal onto a hook pinned to my left lapel. (more…)

“Well aware” isn’t good enough

Volunteer firefighter with dashboard green flashing light.

Down from the 6th Concession I came, driving eastbound on Brock, this week. I slowed into the new 50 kilometre-per-hour zone. Then, I spotted him. A pickup heading the opposite direction with a green light flashing clearly on his dashboard. I pulled to the curb right away.

Then, a white SUV whizzed past me into the centre of Brock Street in a big hurry to make a left turn north onto Quaker Village Drive. An awkward moment followed, as the firefighter dodged the SUV. Finally, he passed en route to the firehall. I pulled up beside the SUV, still sitting in the left-turn lane. I honked my horn. She rolled her window down.

“You know that’s a firefighter trying to get to the hall, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said dismissively. “I’m well aware,” and off she sped into her left-hand turn, visibly ticked off at my scolding. (more…)

In the hands of veterans

Nobody’s idea of travel fun.

Crowded kiosks inside Terminals 1 and 3 at Pearson. Automated luggage processors. Swamped ticket counters. Endless security lines. Chaotic airline gate waiting areas. Scrambling for carry-on space in overhead bins. And lacklustre service in the air.

None of these places has been a welcoming spot for Canadians flying domestically recently. Indeed, when my wife and I went through all those figurative minefields last weekend, I think the overwhelming question we asked ourselves was:

“Why would anyone actually want to attempt air travel right now?” (more…)

Portrait recovered. Story retrieved.

“Roaring Lion” portrait of Winston Churchill by Yousef Karsh.

The famous picture was taken by a photographer in December 1941. It was taken by a thief exactly 80 years later. It was recovered last week when Ottawa police announced they had located the original print in Genoa, Italy.

A contemporary art collector had apparently purchased it, not realizing it had been stolen. He has now begun the process of returning the famous “Roaring Lion” photo of Winston Churchill to its rightful home at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa.

“I didn’t know about the theft in Canada,” art collector Nicola Cassinelli told the media this week.

(more…)

Man of inspiration

Artist Lynne McIlvride and actor Brent Jennings share memories of Kenneth Welsh at the Second Wedge, Sunday.

It was an odd sort of friendship. But in spite of the distance and the time between visits, it endured for 50 years. In 1975, Brent Jennings arrived at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in Waterford, Connecticut to participate in a national playwrights’ conference, developing new plays.

In the workshops he met a brother actor from Canada. They’d both come to meet other theatre people, but Jennings took away memories of a guy with plenty of talent, a good sense of humour and an interesting travelling companion.

“Ken Welsh had a dog with him in the dorm,” Jennings said. “We worked hard, laughed a lot and I never forgot him.” (more…)

Is Ontario premier really listening?

Like the Ontario school children currently banned from using cellphones in class, Premier Ford can’t put it away.

I think it was during the NHL hockey playoffs last spring that they first appeared. The PC television ads. They start with a peek inside somebody’s house, into his den. Then, we hear the voiceover of Ontario’s premier.

“Well, it’s the people,” Doug Ford says as he buttons his shirt and knots his tie. And he continues chatting on his cellphone, saying “Really busy, busy … for the people.” And he’s on his phone going out the front door, climbing into his car, going into businesses and on and on.

Did you ever stop to ask yourself who those people are he’s talking to? (more…)

Betrayal of the tribe

George Maharis and Martin Milne in “Route 66” TV series.

Last weekend, I stopped at one of the service stations in town to gas up my car. As I painfully watched the LED readout of my gas purchase whiz higher and higher, a guy pulled up to the pump across from me. He was in town for the weekend car show, driving a Corvette, an early one, like the one Todd Stiles and Buz Murdock drove in the hit TV series Route 66. As he began filling his car, I caught his eye.

“This must be the least fun part of driving a car like that,” I said to the guy, “filling a gas guzzler like your Vet.”

“Not at all,” he said. “It’s my guilty pleasure.” (more…)