Just the other day, I bumped into one of my acquaintances in the park. Of course, the people I meet in the park generally have a companion with them – of the four-legged variety. Anyway, as often happens among dog walkers, we got talking about breeds, dog compatibility and ages of our pets.
“This Kerry’s a bit older than my last dog,” I said to my dog-walking acquaintance.
“Mine too,” he said. “She’s been with us throughout the lives of our kids.” (more…)
Last Friday, when the tributes, reminiscences and spiritual acknowledgements at our neighbour Ronnie Egan’s funeral came to an end, many of us retired to the basement hall of the church for conversation and, well, refreshments. There was lots of coffee and tea and something to tide everybody over. The banquet tables were laid out with veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, fruits and sweets and, of course, sandwiches.
“What else?” I heard someone say. “Ronnie wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but to have egg-salad sandwiches.” (more…)
The event was coming to its climax. Guests were assembled. Speeches from dignitaries, family and friends were in the books. We had even sung “Happy Birthday” to the birthday girl. All we had left was to present the cake and candles to her, invite her to make a wish and watch her cut the cake. But there was a problem. Nobody had a way to light the candles. No problem, I thought, I’ll ask the audience.
“Anybody got a light?” I asked. And I looked out at a sea of faces expecting a smoker or a boy scout to come forward.
But nobody moved. Not one person had either a lighter or a book of matches to offer. If any group might be expected to have one or the other in its pockets, for sure, I thought, this one would.
About a week ago, a friend up the street visited my next-door neighbour on a mission. With his pickup truck empty, save for his chainsaw and a can of gas, He began a day-long project dissecting the remains of a piece of history. A maple tree that had stood near the street at the corner of Ronnie Egan’s property for nearly a century had dropped too many dead or dying upper limbs to be safe anymore. So the township decided for the benefit of all concerned that the tree should come down.
“I cried the day they took it down,” Ronnie Egan admitted to me. “It was very sad to see it go.”
Just before I delivered a Remembrance talk in the southwestern community of Shedden, Ont., last Sunday morning, I walked along the back wall of the Southwold Township Complex, where I was to speak. There were perhaps 500 people waiting for the township’s annual pre-Remembrance Day observance to begin.
And standing politely along that back wall, so that older citizens – principally veterans and their spouses – could have seats, were about 20 young army and air cadets. I made a point of introducing myself to them and learning who they were before I spoke.
“I’m 18 and in the Elgin Regiment,” one of them announced proudly.
“And why did you offer your part-time service?” I asked.
“I wanted to say something about my generation,” he said.
I’d been planning the demolition of my garage for a long time. Built sometime in the middle of the last century, my fast disintegrating, single-car enclosure – I had come to realize – had outlived its usefulness and had to go. So, over the weekend, I hired a friend and his future son-in-law to help me bring the old building down. But what the destruction of my old garage revealed as it came down was a great deal more than I expected. For example, as we three demolition types took a break last Saturday afternoon, I asked my longtime next-door neighbour, Ronnie Egan, when she thought the garage had been built.