It proved to be one of those rare moments of enlightenment.

Some time ago, a woman friend, who had no real concept of adult recreational hockey, wondered why I chose to play such a violent sport. She said she considered it ostensibly a game for young people. I agreed, since that’s when must of us learned to play it, but I insisted our brand of the game was gentlemanly and perfectly safe. She said the game was inherently violent. Well, I suggested, for those of us who really loved the game, the real attraction was the skating and stick-handling.

“Oh,” she said, “A game with two blades on your feet and a piece of wood in your hands, doesn’t suggest violence.”

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I lost one of my closest veteran friends, recently. When the Second World War began, Charley Fox left Guelph, Ont., and enlisted in the RCAF. At age 20, he got his wings and then instructed in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan until 1943.

Overseas, he served as a Spitfire pilot from D-Day to V-E Day. He was twice decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Then, in his retirement years, he quietly fought to have fellow veterans recognized for their service. Last month, he died in a car crash. He was 88.

“Canada and its veterans,” I wrote then, “had no greater friend than Charley Fox.”

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Ninety-one years ago this week, the men of Zephyr, Sandford, Sunderland and Uxbridge came away from Passchendaele, Belgium.

In three and a half months of fighting that fall of 1917, Canadian troops – including members of the 116th Battalion from Ontario County – had managed to seize about six kilometres of ground from the occupying German army. Before the battle, the Canadian Corps commander, General Arthur Currie, had forecast to his British superiors that taking Passchendaele would cost 16,000 Canadian casualties. He was almost exactly correct; 15,654 Canadians died, were wounded or captured there.

“Passchendaele!” Currie had exclaimed before the battle. “What’s the good of it? Let the Germans have it – keep it – rot in the mud.”

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Normally, I wouldn’t have to encourage them. Under regular circumstances they would be at each other’s throats. In fact, the conditions of their workplace would have insisted upon it. Their philosophical and political differences would certainly have dictated it. And yet, there I sat among four people so diametrically opposed to each other’s views, I couldn’t believe what wasn’t happening. At one point, I even encouraged their wrath.

“Would you please debate each other?” I asked.

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It was about 8 o’clock last Thursday night, when I made my way to the microphone to begin festivities at this year’s Books and Authors Night in Uxbridge. It was the 23rd edition of interviews with, and readings from, Canadian authors. It is, of course, a cornerstone of the annual Celebration of the Arts festival in our community. Like the Studio Tour, the Art Show, the Gala and countless other Celebration events, the Books and Authors Night was nearly at capacity. The lights dimmed slightly in the Music Hall as I prepared to speak.

“Would anybody, who’s been subsidized to be here, please identify himself?” I asked.

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Returning from a family gathering in the U.S. on Monday morning, I flew into Pearson International Airport, gathered my baggage and headed for the parking facility to pick up my car. As we approached the lot, I was the only person left in the mini-bus. I was refocusing on being back home and asked the bus driver who she thought was winning the federal election.

“I don’t like any of them,” she said.

“OK, but what would you like to see from them?”

“I just want things to be the way they used to be,” she said. “No crime. No high gas prices. No problems. No fear.”

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About a week before Stephen Harper went to visit the Governor General, television stations began running the Conservative Party’s campaign advertisements.

As I recall, the TV ads showed a farmer, a student, a veteran, a homemaker and others. They all had comments about this “straight ahead” guy, who “looked out for our interests.” One said he was “approachable.” And they all seemed to agree on one important asset he possessed above all else.

They told viewers the Prime Minister is a “real family man.”

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Just for fun, try reading this quickly:

“I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rsceearchr at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are. The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. And I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.”

This is part of an e-mail I received from a student in one of my copy editing classes at Centennial College last year. At the time, the exercise of reading this e-mail – in the context of a class to improve grammar, writing style and spelling – seemed hilarious. I have to admit my laughter was restrained. Why? Well, the truth is that all too often I receive e-mails with equally appalling spelling mistakes in them for real. And just because they’re e-mails, somehow I’m supposed to overlook the errors.

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