Month: August 2021

During the war, my Mother lived near Camp Barriefield (now McNaughton Barracks) and that is where she met a handsome Sergeant Major, my Dad.

My grandfather gave Mom a cocker spaniel to keep her company as she was often alone on the farm. That dog was under the bed at the least sign of trouble, except when the sound of an old two seater motorcycle, the kind with a side carriage came rumbling up the road. That was my Dad coming to visit. He loved my Dad. Not because my Dad was so nice. It was the motorcycle.

After Dad’s visit, as soon as he fired up the old cycle and was on his way, that devil may care cocker spaniel could squirm free of any constraint and was in hot pursuit, tongue hanging out, ears flying, all the way back to Barriefield.

And with tongue hanging out, ears flying, that clever dog would get a joyous ride in the side cab all the way back home.

My Mom’s birthday was last week. I have some good memories.

During the depression, my Mother and her Dad lived on a farm near Kingston, that the 401 highway now ungraciously divides in half.

Fortunately, my Mother had interesting stories to tell of such a miserable time. She managed to make the humourless a bit entertaining.

Like when she told me they ate turnips for an entire year. I couldn’t eat turnips until I was a junior senior.

Perhaps the story I like best is Psalm 121.

Many hobos would come to their farm and my Mother and Grandfather would feed them and help them out for a short spell. She never thought much of it. One of them gifted her a metal tin with roses on it, which I still have.

When the person was about to leave, my Mom would recite Psalm 121 to them.

I just think that is so neat.

The highway in front of my apartment building has become a drag strip for motorcycles. Their high pitched whines like nails on chalkboard.

Every weekend there are over a hundred stunt driving arrests.

I’ve seen vehicles drive over the lawn instead of going a few feet more to the entrance of the shopping mall.

Cars speed up when they see pedestrians crossing the road, or refuse to apply brakes to at least slow their trajectory.

Bicyclists ignore traffic lights, I’ve almost been hit twice now, and they swear at me and give me the finger.

In Providence they have a colossal problem with ATV drivers who go through red lights and gang up on car drivers and beat them up.

The Greek Church next door blatantly disregarded the law (both lockdown and noise regulations) and had a huge outdoor party in August and kept the entire neighbourhood up, blasting music and shouting until 2 a.m. They still adamantly have their festival and lure hundreds to eat and drink and dance and shout past midnight for 14 days running (though they think they are clever and for covid reasons have reduced it to two-3 day weekends in a row instead, for now.) My opinion is this: If you are stupid enough to be in a crowd of hundreds of people and whoop it up for hours during a pandemic, well…)

In our stores we have anti maskers who scream in your face and can’t mind their own business, and anti-vaxxers who storm buildings (even the wrong ones) in protest.

Our pandemic world looks a lot like Mad Max’s world, post apocalypse.

I am hoping it is just backlash to being confined so long, albeit a very immature and selfish backlash. Go out and expend your energies cleaning up the trash instead of being trash. Instead of wild parties that destroy everything in their wake, including lives, use that energy to help someone fix up their house, go shopping for them, do something useful. Like, I need even say this?

I like the British Royal family.

Oh, yes, I know, they are humans and have their fair share of scandals. Not pretty.

I just like the look of them. I like beautiful things. They have so much class. The way they walk, talk, dress. The veneer may be thin, but I don’t care. I like all that pomp and circumstance. It is a fairy tale.

I don’t expect anything from them. They are celebrities. But unlike some actors, billionaires and certainly most musicians, they have class.

It is good they don’t currently have much power or say in the political realm or we would have dictators. It seems to be a common human flaw. A little bit of power and zoom! We are going to oppress the masses. Off with their heads!

Disenfranchised royals however, that whine and complain about how difficult life is, is another matter entirely. It is like a bad smell to go on Oprah and whine when you live a privileged life for no reason other than it was gifted you by default of your birth and genetics. Where is the dignity and class in that? And we all have problems. Get over it. Grow up. Live with your choices. No one gives a shit about my choices. Friends would slap me in the head, and rightly so, or desert me completely, if I became a snivelling rat over my problems. I know because I have done it (cringe, cringe). Now I have one person pity parties. I don’t invite the whole world to feel sorry for me.

I do not envy royals at all. It would be like living under a microscope. Must be very hard work and tiring to maintain that outward perfection. But for me, I get to enjoy the end product. They look so good!