Posts with the COVID tag

Barris Beat

Are you glad “it’s happening here”?

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Instead TV hockey, I’m watching dogs hanging out of car windows.

There I was, a few weeks ago, settling into my TV easy chair on a Saturday night, prepared to watch the Leafs play somebody. And suddenly the screen was awash with picturesque images of rural Ontario. Next, there was a guy in a tractor cab.

“Is this a trailer for a CBC series I haven’t seen?” I asked myself.

Then the same guy was offloading sacks from a flatbed near his barn. And there was a lush soundtrack of orchestral music rising behind him. And I realized this was an advertisement.

“It’s gotta be a beer commercial,” I thought, “because they’re the only sponsors who can afford commercial spots on Hockey Night in Canada.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Ford’s foxes in our hen house

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Choosing expediency over experience. Pinterest

We had considered many options. People. Places. Past knowledge. We knew the subject – youth violence and alienation – required some very specific understanding of the causes and effects of the problem. We had plenty of college and university experts on hand because we worked among them. But somehow we sensed to get to the root of the problem, we had to get closer to the ground. There was a vital element missing in our approach.

It was experience. (more…)

Barris Beat

Drinking, more or less

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My wife queued up at the grocery store the other day, she told me. The cashier began tallying her purchases, but then hesitated. She said she wasn’t qualified to process the purchase of beer and had to call on another cashier qualified to check through beer and wine.

“Does it matter that the beer is zero alcohol?” my wife asked.

“Oh, I see,” the cashier said.

And the person next in line at the cash behind my wife piped up, “Mine are zero-alcohol too,” he said.

Is it just our imagination, or has all this talk about the link between alcohol and cancer sparked a sea change in the habits of casual drinkers? (more…)

Barris Beat

Home is where the work is

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Alex Barris – my father and mentor – had a sign over his desk to inspire him to write.

The sign always hung in my father’s office, right over the spot where he worked. That happened to be just above his typewriter (in a time before computers) where Dad pumped out many millions of words in a life-long writing career. But Dad had installed this sign over his work space for those days at his office in the basement of our house when maybe the spirit to actually put fingers on keys occasionally eluded him or when he periodically felt unmotivated.

“There’s only one way to become a writer,” the sign read, “by applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”

My father, Alex Barris, wrote probably a thousand radio, television and movie scripts, hundreds of columns for newspapers and periodicals, scores of screenplays and at least half a dozen books at that typewriter in his basement office. And I frankly doubt that he ever needed encouragement, coaxing or cajoling to put the seat of his pants on the seat of his chair. (more…)

Barris Beat

Bed blockers are not the problem

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Public health kept a lid on SARS at Scarborough Grace Hospital in 2003, despite Health Ministry incompetence. Global News.

The news nearly killed my mother. I believe that it hastened my father’s death. In February 2003, my father suffered a debilitating stroke that stole his two most precious faculties – speech and memory. Because my parents lived in Agincourt, paramedics rushed him to Scarborough Grace Hospital.

Days later SARS struck the same floor of the hospital where my father was recovering. Nevertheless, nurses told us they could isolate Dad sufficiently so that Mom could still suit up with PPE and see him. But then the Conservative provincial government, thinking it knew better than the health-care specialists, intervened.

“For his safety,” they told my mother, “we’re isolating your father in the new PPP (public-private partnership) hospital in Brampton.”

“How is my mother, living in Agincourt, going to be able to see my father in Brampton?” I asked the office of then health minister Tony Clement.

“She can communicate with him by fax,” they recommended. (more…)

Barris Beat

Only as strong as the weakest link

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Tool hooks salvaged from May 21 tornado that hit Uxbridge.

In our quest for some normalcy around the house, my wife and I are still trying to sort and reorganize stuff after the windstorm on May 21. As a consequence, our back porch (whose screened-in space we normally enjoy on summer evenings) has become a repository for salvage from the garage, tool shed and dishevelled yard. The other day, for example, I came across a bunch of short 2X4s with tool holders attached. They’d bounced loose when the garage was crushed. So, I began prying the holders from the wood.

“If I salvage the tool holders now, I won’t have to track them down when we restore the garage at some point,” I thought. “Who knows whether they’ll even be available down the road?” (more…)

Barris Beat

Mind the gap

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A Boston cream donut helps reveal what’s needed to return to normalcy.

It’s been a ritual for years. Generally, on Saturdays, I convene adults and kids in the family Donut Club. I rustle up the donuts. They readily eat them. And through most of those years, the orders for the kids have been the same – chocolate-glazed or sprinkled donuts from Bredin’s Bakery in town. Well, the pandemic and the closure of the bakery changed all that. The Donut Club hasn’t met as regularly as it used to. But last Saturday morning, I put out the call for the donut orders anyway.

“Boston Cream, please,” came back one order.

“Boston Cream? Since when?” I asked.

Well, because everything’s been turned upside down for these past two years. And the donut delivery guy (me) has been separated from the donut eaters (them) for quite a while. (more…)

Barris Beat

What were they thinking?

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SickKids doesn’t care who’s naught and nice… just who’s brave!

First, the pages of the big book flipping in the wind caught my attention. Then, the curtain flapping in the breeze at the open window. It looked a bit haunting in the murky darkness of the room. Then, as the camera zoomed to the book of flipping pages of lists, the voice of the announcer intrigued even more.

“Tradition says there are always two lists,” she said. “A list for the nice. And a list for the naughty. Every year, children all over the world are scribbled down on one side or the other.”

The voiceover went on to say there was one place nearby, however, where children were neither good nor bad. “But rather brave. Courageous children who face the unimaginable. Theirs are the names etched on the brave list!” (more…)

Barris Beat

Why giving does us good

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Tom Stormonth and Alison Dunn go to any length to support authors and readers. 1000 Islands Book Festival.

That Sunday afternoon just before Christmas, I arrived at the community centre in Mallorytown, in eastern Ontario, for a history talk. Members of the Mallory Coach House heritage group had decorated the hall, set out chairs and prepared refreshments for visitors.

It turned out to be a (pre-COVID) capacity audience. Only I was without an important ingredient for the event. I had none of my books to sell at the end of my talk. Then suddenly, out of the blue, this guy arrived with his car trunk full of my books.

“Tom Stormonth,” he said, “Beggar’s Banquet Books, in Gananoque.”

“That’s a fair hike to here, isn’t it? I asked.

Tom nodded. “Hey, it’s about getting your books out there, right?” And he added, “Merry Christmas.” (more…)