When invited to a luncheon sponsored by a wine company, one might expect a predictable event – a variety of wine samples and an extended commercial for the company’s product.

Last week, a travel agent friend invited me to a 75th anniversary tribute to an Australian winemaker. The sample tasting was pretty straightforward. But when it came time for the guest of honour to be interviewed in front of the guests, a stout gentleman in a dazzling bow tie leapt onto the podium.

Simultaneously, someone at the back of the dining room cracked a joke about the man’s diminutive height. The vintner immediately stood on his chair and came back with a crack of his own.

“I used to be this tall,” he said, “but the wine industry cut me down to size.”

(more…)

About 5 o’clock last Saturday night, I stepped into 1962.

I didn’t feel any different at that moment. I don’t think I looked any different. Neither did my wife. Except that for her, last Saturday night brought together alumni of Ancaster High School (in Ontario). And for her it was a chance to see and hear the impact of nearly 50 years on some of her former classmates, as more than 400 ex-students and faculty gathered to celebrate the school’s golden anniversary. At one point, one of her former classmates summed up the general feeling of the reunion.

“Too little time,” she said, “to remember so much.”

(more…)

A student of mine sent me a distressing e-mail this week.

In it, Caroline George apologized for her absence. She said she’d been distracted. She explained that her sister had been vacationing in Mexico where she was stricken with an asthmatic attack. But because of the apparent outbreak of the so-called swine flu there, the family couldn’t get her sister, Victoria George-Pazzano, onto an air ambulance to fly her home to Canada.

“I was hoping you might be able to help,” Caroline George said.

(more…)

There’s a spot on the calendar that belongs to a friend of mine.

Every year, on a day late in the summer, he and I usually get together to remember how he once spent that day. I remember out of homage. He recalls the horrors of August 19, 1942, the day he landed on the chert-rock beach of a seaport in France during the Second World War. One year, I phoned ahead to his home to make sure he was up for my visit. When he remembered it was the anniversary of the Dieppe raid, he said:

“That’s right. By this time on that day I had about 23 chunks of shrapnel in me and I was the unexpected guest of the Fuhrer.”

(more…)

The line between teaching and learning grew more blurry this week.

On Monday, I read a story in the National Post about the University of Ottawa firing a controversial professor. The report recounted the stormy relationship between advanced physics instructor Denis Rancourt and the U. of O. Board of Governors.

The two sides had collided over Prof. Rancourt’s controversial grading system. Instead of evaluating each student’s work individually, he chose to award all of them an A+. He said by giving them all an A+, his fourth-year students would stop worrying about grades and concentrate on learning the concepts of advanced physics.

During a discussion of the day’s news in a college reporting class, this week, I put the question to my first-year journalism students.

“If I gave everybody an A+ would that inspire you to greater learning?” I asked.

(more…)

On Monday afternoon, I met members of the Imperial Oil Annuitant Club for the first time.

About 70 of them had invited me to speak about the significance of remembrance during this the 90th anniversary of the signing of the 1919 Peace Treaty following the Great War. Among the retirees were no fewer than eight Second World War veterans and the widow of a ninth. Over lunch I spoke with one of the vets – 85-year-old Gerry O’Neill – who had left work and school in 1943 to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“No questions asked,” he said at one point. “Britain and Europe needed us.”

(more…)

I’ve never really understood the significance or relevance of this so-called “March Break” week.

It’s not quite the end of winter. It’s not quite the beginning of spring. It rarely coincides with any religious holiday – Easter, Passover, etc. Parents with school-aged kids get excited about it – especially if they have access to a sun-belt or ski resort time-share condominium. And of course, college and university students think it’s the highlight of the school year. They all dream of escaping to the Florida beaches for sun, fun and libation, etc. I remember one of the campus slogans invented during the time I was at university:

“Come on down to Fort ‘Liquordale’ for fun in the sun,” it said.

(more…)

It was getting down to the wire.

I was running out of time and options. I had to get that special something – a small gift – and my search was yielding nothing. At the time – the middle of last month – I happened to be travelling out of Toronto en route to my small home town and I sensed my gift-search mission was going to fail. Within the hour, I reached town and turned onto the main street. That’s when it hit me. Stores in town were still open. I dashed into one shop and bought some flowers, then into another for my card. Mission accomplished.

And I thought of Dorothy’s epilogue in The Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.”

(more…)

A few weeks ago, in a letter to the editor a woman in my community took the township council to task over budget accountability. Another reader of the local newspaper commented that a story about the war in Gaza lacked fairness and balance.

On Monday, I met a journalist from Afghanistan. As recently as 2001, if he had criticized his government or commented on any current events, he might not have lived to see another day. Today, Ahmad Zia is editor of international news for Kabul Weekly, a newspaper based in the Afghan capital with a circulation of 10,000.

“Even today you have to put your life on the line to criticize,” he said.

(more…)