Posted on March 5, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

 

 

Every once in a while we need to shake things up, to find something to snap us out of our lethargy.  A new beginning or a fresh start.  We may be unhappy with how we look and feel.  We may have developed some bad habits that we would like to reverse or eliminate.  Sometimes it’s an attitude adjustment that is in order.   At least that’s what the Ivany report on the Nova Scotian economy is saying.

I am a strong proponent of setting goals, writing them down and monitoring them.  The best way I have found to do this is with something called “The 30 Day Challenge”.  You determine the behaviour to be modified, like reducing your alcohol intake by half, and then chart your progress for thirty days, keeping a daily log using a blank calendar page.  I’ll drink to that.

If you are a Catholic, you can take this one step further and take the 40 day challenge known as Lent.  For those of you not familiar with this tradition, it is a call to action for the forty days leading up to Easter.  One of the hallmarks of Lent is that it is a time of denying yourself one or more of life’s pleasures.  It is a time of fasting and abstinence.

Our parents’ generation didn’t have a lot of things to give up.  In our home town, not listening to “Scottish strings” on Friendly 58 for forty days would be a real hardship.  Some of us young whipper snappers would swear off listening to fiddle music during Lent … hardly difficult when we couldn’t stand hearing it in the first place.  Now, as adults, we can’t get enough of it.

When I was a child, it was a no brainer.  Almost invariably we were expected to give up sweets during Lent.  In our house, that was like asking us to live without water or oxygen.  We were a horde of sugar craving fanatics.   And heaven forbid that you cheat on your promise, for then you had to deal with your parents first, followed by confessing your weakness to a priest, along with all of your other transgressions.

And when Easter Sunday finally arrived and you could legitimately “come off the wagon”, you ate so many chocolate Easter eggs that you never wanted to eat sweets again … until the next day.

Another Lenten abstention that we had great difficulty with was the promise of being nice to our siblings.  No name calling, no snide remarks, no comments about appearances.  You know, all those things that brothers and sisters do to each other with impunity when they’re young.  I am sad to say that this particular promise had no chance of success.  Forget about being nice for forty days and forty nights.  The period of civility often lasted less than forty minutes, especially when you had to do dishes with an annoying sibling.

When we got older we gave up booze and smokes during Lent and even tried to avoid cursing, with varying degrees of success.

Many of our young people today march to their own drummer when it comes to religion, so the notion of fasting during Lent is as foreign to them as a rotary dial phone.  This is not to suggest that they aren’t spiritual.  They are building churches of their own.

What would today’s youth do if pressed into Lenten service?

How about giving up social media for forty days in a row?  Or for four hours per day?  Or for forty minutes each hour?

Stop the presses.  Are you serious?  Do you expect a young person to put down his smart phone and iPad?  Do you have the audacity to suggest that our youth forego Facebook and Twitter?   Just like giving up candy in the sixties, there would certainly be benefits, spiritual and otherwise.  They don’t have to call it Lent.

Lent, then and now.  Would it have been harder to take a pass on Scottish Strings back in the day, or social media in modern times?

I’m not sure.

I give up.

Posted on March 1, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

 

 

As the winter of our discontent grinds on, I am threatening to buy stocks in companies that manufacture salt and sand.  We have been averaging about two storms a week, causing havoc and interruptions in our daily routines.  There has been only one full week of school since Christmas.  A present from Santa, perhaps?   Businesses have been forced to close, and many important events like bingos and crib games have had to be cancelled.   And, shovelling snow has become the new national pastime.

This winter has been particularly challenging for my wife, as I suffer from arthritis in my back and can’t help with the shovelling.  Early on in the winter, she approached the task with vigor, possibly even enthusiasm, but lately, even she is getting annoyed with Mother Nature.

She was outside the other day, ministering to the driveway, as rain overnight had turned it into a miniature skating rink.  She was applying liberal amounts of sand to protect us and our tenant from the possibility of a spill.  She refuses to use salt as it might harm the flower patch, if spring ever arrives.

The sand was applied in the usual high traffic areas, but when I saw her start to sprinkle sand in an obscure part of the driveway where no person could possibly set foot, I scratched my head.  “Don’t go there”, I quietly thought to myself.  But being the fool that I am, I went there and received a terse reply … and “the look”.

Later in the day, on my morning walk downtown, I saw runners going by, slip sliding on the sidewalks.  Despite the valiant efforts of the town’s public works crew, ice continues to be a constant enemy this winter.   The crew doesn’t worry about flora and fauna and pours liberal amounts of salt on the sidewalks and roads.  It would be hard to imagine surviving winter in a northern climate without salt.

Quite frankly, it would be hard to live anywhere without salt.  For centuries our forefathers used salt to preserve fish and meat, before the advent of refrigeration.  And what is better than a feed of salt cod … as long as you make sure you let it sit in water for several hours before cooking.

We are constantly warned about the evils of salt in our diet.  Of course, these days, it seems that everything is bad for us.  Despite this, I choose to sprinkle a bit on most things, even though I am routinely chastised for applying it without first seeing how much salt is already in the food I am eating.  Men do so many things that are wrong in the eyes of their beloved.

And of course, there is potassium nitrate, the clinical name for saltpeter.  For decades there was a rumour that injecting saltpeter into the food chain for the military would suppress male ardor during long periods of time away from their loved ones.  It seems to me that the lousy military food alone would do the trick.

Despite my wife’s protestations, I will continue to champion the merits of salt.  How else could I proclaim that she is the “salt of the earth”?

Recently, on Groundhog Day, it was determined that there would be twelve more weeks of winter.  Now that’s what I call “throwing salt on the wound”.

Posted on February 25, 2014 under Storytelling with 3 comments

Do you like playing games of chance?  Have you ever bought a ticket on the Lotto 649 or, its equivalent in the United States, Powerball?  How about bingo or do you like to try your hand at the slot machines in Vegas?  Personally I’m not much for games of chance.  My track record is deplorable.

Some days I feel as though I should just go to a manhole cover and throw a few coins in, to be flushed out to sea.

But I do believe in supporting charities and local sports and culture groups, so I don’t mind throwing a few bucks into a 50/50 draw, a fundraising tool that seems to be increasing in popularity.  The local Minor Hockey Association runs a very successful 50/50 draw every week, and the winner’s take is usually in the neighborhood of $15,000 … enough to pay off a few bills and a bit left over for a large pizza.

I recently attended a dinner theatre in support of our wonderful new library, which has become a real hub in the community.  I am on the Board that raises money for the library.  I had agreed to be in charge of the 50/50 draw.  I did not volunteer to de-bone the “hot out of the oven” turkeys.  The organizers must have known that I have desecrated more than one unsuspecting fowl over my culinary career.

These kinds of draws are a pretty easy sell, and I nabbed most people before they even had a chance to get to the bar.  I continued to sell during the three course meal, when the actors weren’t doing their thing.

When I wasn’t flogging tickets I was sharing a table with four lovely ladies, a few of them fellow Board members.  I quickly discovered that I was sitting with a bunch of self-proclaimed losers.  No, not those kinds of losers.  Let’s just call them “non-winners”.   There’s a difference, you know.  No one at our table had ever enjoyed much luck when it came to entering a draw.  Collectively, we won 50 pounds of lobster, a quilt, a leather chair and, for one lucky soul, $500.  Our total ages probably came to about 300 years so our results, on an annual percentage basis, were pretty miniscule.

As I made the rounds with my roll of tickets, I had some laughs and good natured ribbing at a big table occupied by the “red hat ladies”.  I wondered aloud if maybe I should open a kissing booth and charge $5.00, seeing that it was Valentine’s Day and all.  An old friend, Sheila, scoffed at the idea and thought I had a better chance of getting hit by lightning than making any smooch sales.

At the conclusion of the event, I was asked to present $225, the winner’s share of the 50/50 draw.  And wouldn’t you know it, the winner was Sheila.  This is the same Sheila that I nearly knee capped forty five years ago at my one and only attempt at square dancing.

Before I would hand over the money, I asked her to give me a peck on the cheek. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to guess which cheek I meant.

What are the odds of selling one kiss for $225?  I’ll never tell!