Posts with the Windsor tag

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

Waging war on a virus

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Sgt. Bill Wilson on deployment in Afghanistan 2002.

I don’t think I’d ever encountered a more driven medical professional in my life. When I met Bill Wilson back in 2004, to me he epitomized the ultimate first-responder. He was young, fit, even-tempered and well-informed; in fact, when I interviewed him, he’d already served as a front-line medic in Canada’s military operations to Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan.

Yet, there he was, a veteran from all those military hotspots, back studying at Canadian Forces Base Borden.

“I enjoy the role of responsibility,” he told me. “I love the challenge.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Would it fit in Santa’s bag?

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Nova Scotia’s famous pond where hockey was born. Globe and Mail.

The big day is less than three weeks away. We’ve had plenty of snow (if a bit tamped down by this week’s rain) to keep things reasonably white until Dec. 25. All over town, homes have sparkled with flashing or cascading lights (and some with gaudy decorations) since we switched back to Eastern Standard Time in early November. And yet I’m still having trouble coming up with the right gift for some of my friends and family.

Me? I’ve found what I want for Christmas. I learned about it in the Globe and Mail a couple of weeks ago.

“A pond at the heart of hockey,” the story was headlined. “Nova Scotia property claims a historic tie to Canada’s game.”

And it’s for sale! (more…)

Barris Beat

Add water and stir imagination

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Flooding a backyard ice rink the old-fashioned way.
Flooding a backyard ice rink the old-fashioned way.

It was like that 1981 movie, “Cannonball Run,” in which a bunch of fast-car addicts get a telephone call and immediately drop what they’re doing to join a cross-country auto race. Well, even if you don’t know the movie, suffice to say a couple of Saturdays ago I got a phone call from one of my hockey pals to assemble a work party.

“My house,” Mike MacDonald texted, “about 10 a.m.”

When I first arrived at Mike’s place, just after 10, nobody was there. But within seconds several of Mike’s neighbours, Kirk Buchanan, Scott Clayworth, Jamie Steele and Jim Sproxton emerged from their homes and converged on Mike’s garage. In seconds, they’d rolled up the door and were rifling through a pile of wood in the garage. Since this was my first time, I just offered to assist. (more…)

Barris Beat

With my $1 million…

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Game of recreational hockey (c.1800s) from Art Gallery of Nova Scotia photo collection.
Game of recreational hockey (c.1800s) from Art Gallery of Nova Scotia photo collection.

About 25 years ago, I travelled to the town of Windsor, in the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia. I’d read about a local personality, a 19th century judge and member of the provincial legislature, Thomas Chandler Haliburton. Among other things, I’d learned that Haliburton had studied and grown up there, written local history and published under the nom de plume “Sam Slick.” But Haliburton had also kept a factual diary, which around 1803 had solved the great Canadian riddle: Where was the game of hockey first played in Canada?

“And boys let out racin’, yelpin’ hollerin’ and whoopin’ like mad with pleasure (on) the playground,” Haliburton had written as a student at King’s College, Windsor, “and (played) the game of hurley … on the ice.”

(more…)