Posted on November 18, 2013 under Monday Morning Musings with 2 comments

I was hard up for a picture for this post so I put this one up for your early Monday morning viewing pleasure!

We’re in the home stretch of our vacation. It seems that our vehicle is permanently pointed in the direction of a mall. We are taking a little road trip up to Orlando today to drop off Peter at the airport. And speaking of Peter, he and his buddy Ryan played two gigs here on the Gulf Coast. They did an awesome job and had the two bars in which they performed rocking pretty good. Some of you have heard them before and if you haven’t, check out their website at www.macandhawes.com. They are a great wedding band and do a lot of corporate functions including private house parties.

So,  I’m innocently scrolling through Facebook the other day and came upon a funny story about a woman who was scheduling a mammography… not that that’s a laughing matter, I’ve been told. As you know, I am not afraid to wade into shark infested waters so I thought I would take a stab at a story. It’s called ” Manography.” I’ll have to be careful with my choice of pictures for this one.

And just so you know, I haven’t forgotten about the story that happened at the bank in Port Hawkesbury a few weeks ago where I was escorted to the “senior’s chair” to take care of some business. Coming soon, ” The Eve of Destruction.”

I was gassing up the vehicle the other day and when I went inside to pay ( they don’t always accept credit cards at the pump if you’re from Canada) I encountered a lady by the name of Becky. She was having a bad day but it seemed more likely that she wasn’t having a very good life. She was misery personified and that’s is being incredibly charitable. I immediately dubbed her ” Becky the Bitch. ” Ooooh. I know that that is going to offend someone but once in a while, you just have to call it what it is. It was a Shell station and the story is called ” Shell Lacking.” Say that three times quickly and you’ll get the gist of it.

I know it’s Monday but looks at it this way, it’s almost Friday again.

Have a good one.

Posted on November 4, 2013 under Monday Morning Musings with 2 comments

Don’t you just hate it when someone sends you a picture like this? Just wanted you to know that we arrived safely in Florida.

I wrote two stories yesterday and both of them have a coffee theme. Our society’s addiction to caffeine is quite stunning. Most people simply can’t function without it…. especially in the morning. I saw a great t-shirt which said the following: ” I’ve had my coffee. You may now speak.” Just about sums it up, wouldn’t you say? The first story is called “Grinding to a Halt.” My son in law is involved in this one. The other one is called ” In Flight Safety.” Hands up, and be honest… how many of you actually listen to the safety feature speech on an airplane? One of us listens to every word as if it was Moses on the mountain with the tablets. Hint. It’s not me.

I also have two others waiting to be edited. I told you last week about my visit to one of the national banks in a neighboring community. The lady who waited on me will forever regret seating me in the “senior’s chair” at the end of the counter. I didn’t mention her last name in the story. It’s called “The Eve of Destruction.” Those of you of a certain vintage ( 60+ ) will remember the song of the same title back in the mid ’60’s by Barry MacGuire. It was one of the many protest songs popular back then. If you are too young to remember, look it up on Youtube just to get you into the spirit of it.

The other story is a description of “student discount day” at the grocery store. If you haven’t experienced this then you haven’t lived. The only worse experience is being at the pub on a Saturday night with hundreds of first and second year university students. How would I know this? Because I was one of those students forty years ago. The story is called ” Pub and Grub.”

My book is selling very well and is available at these fine purveyors of outstanding literature: Brendan’s, Brosha’s Short Stoppe, the 5 to $1.00 and in Port Hawkesbury at the Fleur de Lis restaurant. ( I was tempted to say restroom but caught myself ). There will be two official launches: Dec.5th. at 7:00 p.m. at the library in Antigonish and Dec.12th. at the Shannon Studio in the Civic Center in Port Hawkesbury at 7:00 p.m.

Have a good week.

Posted on October 28, 2013 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

As you saw from the picture I posted yesterday on Facebook, I had a lot of fun at the TOPS conference on the weekend. There were over 100 delegates and all but one of them were female. I was the guest presenter and, in addition to a few serious thoughts , I read three of my stories…. two from my book which I had received from the printers the day before. The third was “Heat Wave” which I saved for the very end. I thought that this was an ideal venue to test drive my story on menopause. Just in case things didn’t pan out, I parked my car at the entrance of the parking lot ,close to the main road, in order to make a quick getaway. I am happy to report that I managed to escape unscathed and sold close to two dozen books to boot. This was a warm and wonderful group of people. They obviously know how to have fun.

And, yes, “Heat Wave” will appear in tomorrow’s Casket and will be up on my website around suppertime.

Did you know that I played football for St.F.X. back in the early ’70’s? And did you see my grad photo on this page a few weeks ago? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a helmet that will fit over an afro? By a quirk of fate, I found myself doing the punting chores for the football team one fateful year. I was actually the equipment manager at the time but somehow I ended up playing for one year. I believe that this was the year that X started a long slide in that sport. In any event, I wrote a story about all the sports being played in the Fall along with my 10 seconds of fame ( actually it was 10 seconds of terror! ) . The story is called ” A Fall to Remember” and will be coming soon.

We’re still tinkering with the new website, including some video footage of the Len and Phil show from a few weeks ago. Hope to have this up and running in the not too distant future.

If you just can’t wait for my book launch ( Dec.5th. )  and need to purchase some books right away ( to send overseas to your loved ones ), they are available at Brendan’s Fairway and  Brosha’s Short Stoppe. You can also contact my editor, Clare Lazzuri at 735-2443.