Yesterday’s Laughs
It may be a small conceit to say I was brought up watching the Marx Brothers movies on TV, but there’s some truth in that claim. I remember seeing them…
Family History
Is Bigger Better? In TVs, Maybe Not.
I read on several websites that for a distance of about 3.6 m (12 ft) from the screen to the viewer, the optimum size of a television should be 85…
Musings on My Father
That rather handsome, 17-year-old young man to the left was Watts William Chadwick. My father, although he wouldn’t become that for many more years. So serious, so formal looking. A…
Remembrance Day thoughts
An article on the Global News site titled “Fewer Canadians plan to wear poppies this Remembrance Day, poll finds” made me think again about what Remembrance Day is for. The…
The Cancer Diaries, Part 10
My father died of esophageal cancer several years ago. It was a horrible, lingering death, and I watched him shrivel and die, in constant pain towards the end. On one…
The Cancer Diaries, Part 6
I’m sitting here, on my back deck, in the late Friday afternoon, beside Susan, trying to take stock of my life over a glass of wine, and read a bit…
The Cancer Diaries Part 1
I should have started this a while ago. Perhaps when I received the first news something as wrong. But it took a while to really sink in. And then it…
Big G and Me
One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting between my parents on a warm summer night, on the front seat of the family car, watching a movie through the windshield,…
The greening of shaving
But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man. I recall those lines from a Beyond the Fringe sketch first released in 1964 (see below).*…
The House on the Borderland
“But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality would be a classic of the first water.” So said H. P. Lovecraft of the 1908 novel, The House on the Borderland,…
Remembering those who served
It’s at this time of the year, as we approach Remembrance Day, that I think most about my family, especially those who have died. I wish I had known when…
Albert and the Lion
There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool, That’s noted for fresh-air and fun, And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom Went there with young Albert, their son. A grand little lad was…
1914: My Grandfathers’ Year
As I read further into Max Hastings’ book, Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, I wondered, as I have done in the past when reading similar books about that time,…
In Praise of Audio Books
Although I had listened to them in the past, I really discovered the joys of audio books several years ago, when my 92-year-old father entered hospital for his final months.…
Family, a Century Ago
The gentleman in the uniform on the right is William Gordon Pudney, Chief Petty Officer and engineer on the cruiser, Niobe, one of the earliest ship’s in Canada’s fledgling navy.…
Reading Old Family Photos – Did My Nana’s Sister Have a Disability?
My Nana, Christina Mary McLeod, was a strong woman. I remember washing a grey, hooked rug with her at our family cottage on a Quebec lake. She filled the old…
Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair are distant cousins
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Oh, crap! The looming NDP-Liberal battle to replace Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in 2015 is only a family feud. Soon-to-be Liberal leader,…