Posts with the cellphone tag

Barris Beat

Cellphone ban? Try discipline in sips.

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Breaking cellphone addition. Photo – Business Insider.

When I was about 12, I had my first taste of alcohol. I guess my parents were breaking the law by allowing a minor to consume booze, but one Christmas when our extended family got together to celebrate at our house, my mother and father made a point of giving me a wine glass for what amounted to a couple of sips of the stuff.

“Merry Christmas!” we all toasted, and like the adults around the table, I was invited to clink my glass with theirs and enjoyed that first taste of alcohol.

From then on, it turned out, if I wanted a bit of wine with our family dinners, my parents always set the glass out for me. (more…)

Barris Beat

Strangers in the blight

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Col. Dr. Ian Anderson, though retired, continues to serve Canadians in a time of pandemic.

We met because of COVID. Having retired from a surgical practice just before the pandemic struck, Dr. Ian Anderson found that he had a bit more time on his hands. Consequently, he began to read more of the non-fiction books on his shelf, in particular writings about Canadian military medical personnel. During the Alberta lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, he found time to read my book Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire. That’s when he corresponded.

“I read history and biography,” Anderson wrote in a letter to me in 2020. “The truth is always better than the imagination.”

Thus began a correspondence that has continued through the pandemic. (more…)