Posts with the Saskatchewan tag

Barris Beat

Just give it time

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

WATCHFACE-smallWe played the part of the cavalry last Friday night. You know, charging in at the last moment to save the day. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite that dramatic. But my wife and I provided our tag-team babysitting service to our daughter and son-in-law that evening. Of course, for us, the assignment was anything but a hardship. We revelled in the chance for quality time with our two-year-old granddaughter and nine-month-old grandson. And it turns out that’s exactly what our adult kids needed too.

“It was nice to have some time to ourselves,” our daughter has said on occasions such as that.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Dot.coms bearing gifts

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

There’s a story I learned back at school. It tells the tale of an extraordinary deception. Two civilizations, the story goes, were at war – one inside a fortified area, the other outside it. The siege between the two had gone for years, without a victor. Then, those outside the walls withdrew, leaving behind a relic of war – a wooden horse. Rejoicing at their apparent victory, the people inside the walls, pulled the relic into their midst. That night, spies hidden inside the wooden horse crept out, opened the gates and allowed the outside army inside the walls.

“Trust not their presents,” the Trojan priest Laocoon had cried. “Is surely designed by fraud.” But his countrymen had ignored him. And victory belonged to the Greek outsiders.

(more…)