Posted on November 29, 2015 under News & Updates with no comments yet

Today 2:00 P.M.

Please join us today at the Schwartz Auditorium on the campus of St.F.X. for an afternoon of laughter, music and story telling.

Come and see the amazing Park Bench Players, hear some stories from Phil and Len and some great tunes from Betsy MacDonald and Jamie Benoit. All this plus a silent auction… an opportunity to pick up some real unique Christmas gifts. The doors open at 1:00 for the silent auction and the show gets under way at 2:00.

All proceeds go to “A Partnership in Caring.” Every dollar raised goes directly towards projects in Rwanda.

Hope you can make it.

Posted on November 25, 2015 under Storytelling with one comment

The “Grassy Knoll,” Texas School Book Depository and the exact spot JFK died where I’m standing

Peter MacDonald photo

 

 

I can remember, with absolute clarity and certainty, the day that my world changed.  Let me be more precise.  I know the exact time of the day fifty-two years ago that I became a certified news junkie.

I was twelve years old at the time and like most young boys of my era, I was a sports fanatic. When I wasn’t playing hockey, I was watching it on television or listening to the mellifluous voices of Danny Gallivan or Foster Hewitt over the radio waves.  I golfed in the summer and played pickup football and baseball with other neighborhood guys.

Life was very simple until shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on November 22, 1963.    They felled the president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  It was 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, just before school ended for the day.

When you are young, all you know is that there are good guys and bad guys in this world.  Every spaghetti western that we ever watched at the theatre had one cowboy with a black hat.  The good guy always wore a white Stetson.  Our school curriculum was heavily influenced by our neighbors to the south, especially when it came to history, so it wasn’t surprising that even at a young age we believed that Russians wore the black hats.

We didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle back then.  We got the nightly summaries on a couple of channels.  I had heard of the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba but when the Habs were on a roll, nothing else mattered to me.  The Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba.  It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.  It quickly became a very scary time, even to youngsters.  We thought the world might end.  Especially if you were a kid, you had these thoughts.

So, when JFK was gunned down, my first reaction, as I walked home through the field from school to our house on Hillcrest Street, was that the Russians did this and that World War 3 was going to break out any day.  It sounds silly, but history bears out that the combatants came perilously close to the brink.

My mom was standing in the kitchen, ironing.  She was always ironing something for the 10 of us.  She was visibly shaken.  We turned on the television. It stayed on pretty well nonstop for the next five days, as more drama ensued.

Walter Cronkite was the dean of television news anchors at the time.   “As The World Turns,” a soap opera, was airing at the time of the assassination.   Remarkably, the news started to filter out during scheduled commercial breaks.  When it was confirmed that Kennedy had died, Cronkite removed his glasses and uttered the famous line, “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”

The story unfolded over the next several days with the apprehension of the assailant, Lee Harvey Oswald; his death at the hands of Jack Ruby; the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side in her blood stained pink suit; and the funeral of President Kennedy.  It was riveting television.

There is no one thing that marks the passage of time more bluntly for most baby boomers than the anniversary of JFK’s assassination.  Every year, without fail, I think about the events.  The images are burned into my memory bank.  It is a cliché to say that it “just seems like yesterday”, but for me and many others, it does seem that way.  We were so young and so innocent.  And in an instant, everything changed.

And I became a serious news junkie, an affliction that remains with me to this day.  Standing on this hallowed ground a few weeks ago may not have brought closure or made it more real for me.

But it filled me with a sense of awe … undiminished … unsurpassed.

Posted on November 23, 2015 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

An awesome mango salad at a Thai restaurant in Washington State

 

 

Well, after nearly three weeks on the road, I’m back to the real world of work and Nova Scotia weather. I don’t mind work. Actually, I love it. The piece I wrote last week called “A Seismic Shift” paid tribute to my new colleagues at the hospital where I now spend working a few days a week. I have a much deeper appreciation for the work that nurses do and the strains of shift work.

Those of you who have been frequent visitors to my site over the years know that I am pretty much a “glass half full” kind of person. I feel very blessed and grateful with my lot in life and try to keep the whining to a minimum. Let’s face it. We all whine from time to time. It’s human nature. I am not going to complain about the weather but I must confess that last winter was a killer and has caused me to ponder future winters. I think that I could easily adapt to a climate that doesn’t require shovelling snow . I lived in Victoria back in the 1970’s and after my recent travels to that city, I am now pondering spending some of the winter there. Victoria is a wonderful place especially if you like the outdoors. Their spring typically starts in January but you can walk , bike or hike 365 days of the year without risk of falling on the ice! It may not happen this winter but I’m definitely thinking about it.

Yes, I know, I promised that I wouldn’t talk about my own journey of discovery with good nutrition ever again. But remember back in the school yard as a kid, when you made a promise but had your fingers crossed behind your back, rendering the promise meaningless? The following is not boastful. It is simply the facts. As we all know, being on the road, it’s very difficult to maintain any semblance of balance when it comes to eating, especially in the United States where restaurant meals are… well, gargantuan! After working extremely hard all fall to eat sensibly, I thought that it would be impossible to sustain my regime while on the road. Wrong! I realized that I just had to look at different pages of the menus. I am more than happy to report that despite spending 10 hour days in the car, I didn’t gain an ounce on the trip. I still managed to walk an hour every day of the trip but the fuel we consume is absolutely the key to keeping the weight off.

Coming up this week, I will be publishing my story about my trip to Dallas to see the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It will appear here and in The Casket on Wednesday. The story has a bit of historical information but it is mostly about how that event shaped a generation of people like myself. The story is called, “My Dallas Addiction: How I Became a News Junkie.” And later in the week, I will be publishing the story “Snake Bitten” which is about our surprising detour off the beaten path in Idaho and finding the most amazing place.

Some of you know that I have a brother who lives in Victoria. Tom and his long suffering wife (!) Catherine, are two of the most amazing people that I know. They raised their own family, all the while taking in foreign students. They have been lifelong volunteers and have taken this to a new level in retirement. They are fantastic cooks and routinely host friends… and anyone else who happens to be within shouting distance. If there is such a thing as “model retirees” then they have my vote. Even their dog, Oslo, volunteers at the Cancer Clinic. I am going to do a story about them in the next few weeks. Even if you don’t know them, I think you will be very inspired by how they live their lives. Stay tuned for “An Incurable Case of Optimism.

This coming Sunday, grab a friend and come to the fundraiser that I’m hosting on Sunday the 29^th. at the Schwartz Auditorium at 2:00 p.m. Story telling ( Len and Phil ) plus music ( Betsy and Jamie ), the Park Bench Players and much more. All proceeds go to “A Partnership in Caring.” A fun afternoon for a great cause.

And don’t forget my book launch coming Saturday, December 5^th. at 2:00 p.m. at People’s Place.

Have a great week.