I can’t find too much going on to commemorate World AIDS Day in Toronto this year but it just so happens to be the day my Beyond Surviving group meets, so I guess that’s something. With ACT’s shift away from surviving AIDS to living with HIV, and the promise of
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My journey with AIDS…and more!: National Coming Out Day 2017
It’s October 11. In the United States, at least, it’s National Coming Out Day. I know of no such celebration in Canada but we’ve been ahead of the pack inn most ways having to do with lgbt-2 liberation. For me, Coming Out Day was sometime in February of 1981. I
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: 24 April 2007 – 24 April 2017
I’m feeling some anticipatory trauma, if there is such a thing, as we approach the tenth anniversary of the mishap which would, soon thereafter, take the life of my brother Craig. Maybe it’s a heightened sense of awareness that this sad anniversary is upon us. It was April 24, 2007,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Connecting with ‘The War To End All Wars’ – Pte. Thomas Butler
Originally posted on My journey with AIDS…and more!: There is tragic irony with the news that Canada has suffered our greatest single-day loss of troops in Afghanistan with the deaths of six soldiers in a roadside bombing. A seventh Canadian suffered serious injuries. Regardless of our views on Canada’s role
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Stuart McLean in a serious moment
I once met Stuart McLean, the legendary Canadian broadcaster who died yesterday. It was both my brush with fame and utter modesty. The occasion was the aftermath of a very tragic time, in the 1980s, in St. Catharines, Ontario where I worked in private radio. Several men had been arrested
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Thank you Rosemary Barton and MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes
Celina Caesar-Chavannes appeared tonight on CBC Power and Politics with host Rosemary Barton. She was there to discuss her experiences with depression, before and since becoming MP for Whitby and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Parliamentary Secretary. Rosemary’s thorough, careful questions brought out responses I could relate to in my own experience
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: This.
http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/aids-survivors/portraits/
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: I’m back, breaking my blogging fast
Facebook, with its at-best superficial ways of linking me to my world, has taken me away from greater reflection possible in this blog so…I’m back – on my journey here. The past few weeks I have been involved with the Youth/Elders Project, a joint effort of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Walking the walk – with assistance
First there was the pre-Christmas illness. Then, while in Perth, I went for only one walk – to the pharmacy – in a town which normally calls out for long walks. I even felt unsteady on my feet roaming around Mom’s big old house. Mom…
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: May 9, 2007
The assignment for this week (Sept. 28, 2015) at the Mount Sinai Narrative Writing Group was “Write a story about a decision you have observed or experienced.” May 9, 2007 The indicators of Craig’s brain activity were not at all promising more than two weeks after his fall. He
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: ‘Times Have Changed’ at 40 Wellesley St.E. #HIVnow
The latest ambitious awareness campaign by the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT), #HIVnow, “asks big questions, puts forward honest answers and issues clear calls to action”. The “Times have changed” theme comes to mind as I watch the slow demolition of 40 Wellesley Street East, a medical offices building where
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: On “The God Article” with Mark Sandlin: I Want My Religion Back – You Can Keep the Ugly Baggage
This post is a work in progress. Please join in with your comments! Please read this article first: I Want My Religion Back – You Can Keep the Ugly Baggage. When my friend and, to the point, Facebook friend, Lori Knight-Whitehouse posted this I replied: Kenn George Chaplin Let me
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Post #1031: My latest ‘Aha!’ moment
I’m very close to finishing the book Survivor – Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom by Sam Pivnik and some two-thirds of the way through I was jolted by this passage: We could have run, could have made it, could have reached the welcoming arms of the
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Review (and a personal retrospective) – Behind the Candelabra
With only the most scant help from Google I have been trying to remember more about my personal, professional meeting with Liberace (“Please, call me Lee.”) It was some time in the mid-1980s, while I was working at a St. Catharines, Ontario radio station, when the subject of last night’s
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Lunch with Vito Russo
Disclaimer: My memories have been assisted by Google and a piece of paper, 8-1/2″ x 11″ divided in half, on which is written the following: After signing up for The Movie Network again recently, I came upon the film “Vito: A Man For All Seasons”. I was immediately transported back to
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: I’m sure that Craig would be proud of his United Church of Canada electing a gay man as Moderator
The criteria my brother Craig set out for the United Theological College award in his name reads in part: To recognize the powerful and passionate ministries of gay and lesbian persons and to honour one whose life’s work has been particularly distinguished in its clear commitment to such central Gospel
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: AccolAIDS much appreciated!
Healthline editors recently published the final list of their favorite HIV & STD blogs and I’m pleased to let you know that this blog made the list, which can be found here (in no particular order). I am very appreciative of this vote of confidence! Kenn Chaplin is no defeatist;
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Ashley Berges to link with My Journey with AIDS
Not one to scan this blog’s activity logs too often, much less understand them, I was quite chuffed to be contacted by Michelle Lamont, representative of Ashley Berges – author, life coach and radio host in Dallas. She/they apparently find me inspiring! That being Ashley’s stock-and-trade, we are in discussions
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: A school trip to London with a Kodak Instamatic camera
I think I’ve posted these scanned photos before, but today’s festivities along the River Thames brought back wonderful memories of a class trip to London which took place during March Break in 1976. The camera was a Kodak Instamatic – not very sophisticated – and the prints have not fared
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Reading today (when I’m not writing)
When I read it’s a bit like grazing in front of the dessert table (minus the diabetic considerations). So it is that I am currently reading, roughly a chapter or section at a time: The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada, 1784-1855: Glengarry and Beyond by Lucille H. Campey Robert
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