Posted on June 18, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with one comment

Write your own story

 

“I will remember you,

Will you remember me?

Don’t let your life pass you by,

Weep not for the memories.”

I Will Remember You – Sarah McLachlan

So, you don’t want to spend 300 or so hours writing 115,000 words about your life.

Another Father’s Day has come and gone. It is one of my favourite days of the year, and not for the reasons you might think. Every year, Father’s Day coincides with the U.S. Open golf tournament. I played golf for almost 5 decades before my back decided that walking in the woods was preferable to looking for golf balls in the woods. This year was no different as I watched the best golfers in the world struggle with what is arguably the hardest golf course in the world.

However, that was not the highlight of “dad’s day”. Last Sunday, we had a “fam jam’. Pete flew in from the west coast and all my children and grandchildren got together for food, music and laughs. These gatherings are precious because life is fleeting. As Sarah McLachlan said, “don’t let your life pass you by”. Any opportunity to get together as a family is time well spent.

I’m not much for gifts. There’s nothing much I need at this time in my life other than extra strength Tylenol. I received one very special gift from a family friend. A book.

Since I retired, I have read hundreds of books. I write down the titles so that I don’t make the mistake of reading the same book twice unless it is done intentionally. Lately, I have been going back to read some of the classics. I’m a big Charles Dickens fan and presently, I am wading through Great Expectations.

When I opened the book that was gifted to me, I was surprised to see mostly empty pages. It was then that I realized that it was up to me to write the script.

The book is called “Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story”. This comes from the bestselling “Hear Your Story” line of books. Substitute the word mom for dad and the book will be much different. This book is the place for a person to tell their life story while creating a legacy.

Instead of you trying to write your autobiography, here is a way to tell your story in a format that is simple. Here is your chance to leave something precious to your heirs.

Even though I recently finished the first draft of my autobiography (long form), I was intrigued enough to start filling in the pages of this book.

Here are a few examples.

“What were the prices of the following things in the year you were born”? (I was born in 1951) A loaf of bread: .12. A dozen eggs: .60. The average price of a new car: $1,362. The average cost of a new home: $12, 179.

“What song was on the top of the Billboard charts?” “Too Young” by Nat King Cole.

“What were a few popular television shows?” “I Love Lucy”, “Dragnet”, “The Lone Ranger”.

“What is your favourite childhood memory?”

“Where was your mother born and where did she grow up?’

I think you get the picture.

All the prompts are there. It’s simply a matter of you taking the time to fill in the blanks. I think many of us regret that we didn’t ask more questions of our parents and grandparents. These people were great record keepers, something I fear is a dying breed. Many of the answers can be found quickly using a search engine but the deep, meaningful stuff can only come from family history.

Here’s your opportunity to create your own story that can be shared. I still believe in having written documentation in hard copy form.

Why not give it a try?

Your ancestors will love you for it.

Your life and your stories matter.

Have a great weekend.

Posted on June 11, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with no comments yet

 

A ramblin’ man

“Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man,

Tryin’ to make a livin’ and doing the best I can.”

Ramblin’ Man – The Allman Brothers Band

I just finished reading a fascinating book by the well-known travel writer, Rick Steves. In 1978 when he was 23, he and a buddy decided to travel the “Hippie Trail”, a trek that started in Istanbul, Turkey and ended up in Kathmandu, Nepal. From Turkey, they had to travel through, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before reaching their destination. I’m not so sure that anyone in their right mind would attempt this in 2025!

Having done a bit of travelling myself, I love reading other people’s accounts of their adventures. It’s a big world out there and much to experience. Many people are too timid to get outside their comfort zone and that is perfectly understandable. We’re all different and there’s nothing wrong with staying close to home.

Here is what Steves has to say about this: “There’s so much fear these days. But the flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding through travel. Travelers learn that fear is for people who don’t get out much; that culture shock is the growing pains of that broadening perspective; that we’re all God’s children- and by traveling, we get to know the family.”

When I speak of traveling, I’m not necessarily talking about going to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean or taking an Alaskan cruise. I’m talking about visiting other cultures and getting your hands dirty, figuratively speaking.

I am one of the lucky ones. I have had the time and the curiosity to go to very diverse places in the world.

Two stand out.

I spent 6 months in India in 2016-2017 volunteering with NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organizations). My work included working with poor and marginalized people. I witnessed incredible poverty in the slums of Delhi and travelled to remote tribal villages. I worshipped with people afflicted with leprosy and celebrated with 500 sari-clad women on International Women’s Day.

And yes, I experienced the horrors of carrying an expired visa which put me under virtual house arrest in New Delhi for almost three weeks. The searing heat (40+) and unbelievable pollution were superseded by my fear.

In my late 60s, I travelled to Northern Quebec and spent the better part of three (Covid) years in a fly-in Inuit community. It is one thing to read about the challenges, struggles and trauma of the Inuit people, but to live it is another thing. Living and conversing with elders who were survivors of residential schools was incredibly humbling. Along with witnessing trauma firsthand, there were many joyous and humorous experiences.

At a dinner hosted by elders, I sampled “country food” which included raw beluga, arctic char (raw or cooked) and one of my favourites, caribou. When the meal was just about done, I was asked to partake in sharing (yes, eating!) the brain of a Canada Goose. I was a bit squeamish but managed to eat it. It was actually very delicious and apparently, a delicacy. I was then offered the eyeballs of a ptarmigan, a medium-sized game bird. The first one I swallowed. The second one I chewed. I can assure you that this is an acquired taste. It was similar to the taste and texture of a cod liver oil pill that many of us consumed in our youth.

I also did a 10km walk with two friends in -50 weather.

I’ve lived and worked in one of the hottest places on earth and one of the coldest.

I came home from these trips with gifts and trinkets but with something more treasured.

Once again, I quote Rick Steves:

“I came home with the most valuable souvenir: a broader perspective.”

Have a great week

Posted on June 4, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 4 comments

It’s good to be back home again!

 

“Our house is a very, very fine house,

With two cats in the yard,

Life used to be so hard.”

Our House – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

I was out for my daily walk last week. There was a time when I would have chosen a walk in the woods but with the infestation of ticks in recent years, I tend to stick to paved and graveled roads. There is one exception. On the campus of St. Francis Xavier University, there is a lovely trail system that was originally designed for cross country running but has become a popular walking trail for locals. The path is well trodden with no high grass where ticks can lurk.

As I exited this trail, I found myself in the backyard of the home where I spent my early childhood. The house has been a rental property for some years. There were three men on the back deck chatting. They were doing some renovations. I walked past the house and then spun around. I asked the men if it would be ok if I took a walk through the house.

And just like that, I found myself in a place I last inhabited 64 years ago. Of course, the memories poured out.

Here is an excerpt from my upcoming autobiography:

Three bedrooms. Nine bodies. You do the math. There was a bedroom for Mom and Dad.  That left two bedrooms for the seven of us. The boys’ room (for 5) had two bunk beds and a single bed while the girls’ luxuriated in a small room with a single set of bunks. No wonder we all became lousy sleepers. At the top of the stairs, leading to the bedrooms, there was a large floor grate to allow heat to travel upstairs from the living room. Of course, this provided an excellent opportunity for me and my siblings to occasionally eavesdrop on our parents’ conversations.

I attribute the punctuality gene to the above-mentioned bathroom. Our mom ruled the house like a sergeant major. If you happened to be playing in the woods behind our house and supper was at 5:00, then 5:00 it was. Nothing stood (knelt) in the way of the rosary. And when it was your turn to use the bathroom on a school morning, pity help the poor child who didn’t march down the hall on time. With so much demand and so little time, you either showed up for your turn in the bathroom or you were shit out of luck.

It is astonishing to think about the workload of our mother and the other mothers on the street. Most of them rose long before the sun made its appearance. With store bought bread expensive, most of these women made homemade bread every day. Arriving home from school, the wonderful smell of bread just out of the oven wafted throughout the house. How discouraging it must have been for Mom to watch several loaves of toil vanish in a heartbeat.

Laundry was another thankless job. Automatic washers and dryers hadn’t appeared in stores yet, so clothes were laboriously processed in a wringer washer and the clothes were hung out to dry in all seasons. The wringer washer served another purpose. When not in use, it was used as a wheelbarrow, as one of the smaller kids were placed in the tub and wheeled around the living room. On bitterly cold days in the winter, the clothes stood stiffly at attention on the clothesline. Trying to match socks must have been a challenge.

Never far away from the washing machine was the diaper pail. There were no such things as disposable diapers back then. Every home had a shelf dedicated to cloth diapers. When one of the children had done their “business”, the soiled diaper had to be rinsed, by hand, in the toilet. The wet, soggy diaper was then tossed into a large pail to be stored in safe keeping for next laundry day. With several little ones in diapers at any one time, the diaper pail was always overflowing. It is a miracle that none of us were asphyxiated with the malodorous smells emanating from the pail.

We weren’t Pampered, literally or figuratively.

Because there were so many of us crammed into such a small space, when an illness struck, it roared through the house like a California wildfire. The small den downstairs was the unofficial sick bay. I can still remember lying there with the smell of Friar’s Balsam emanating from a hot plate to assist with croup. When we had chicken pox, Mom would toss us in the bathtub filled with water and corn starch and pour this itch- reducing potion over our bodies with a plastic measuring cup. And who can possibly forget the cure-all for a bad cold: a large dollop of Vick’s Vapo Rub with a towel wrapped around our necks. The towel was fastened with a large diaper pin. The one Mom used had a pink tip. The smell of the Vicks and the comfort of the towel was offset by the abject terror of the diaper pin. Firstly, considering where that pin was normally fastened, one wondered if the pin might transmit some germs. The bigger fear was that the pin would snap open while we were sleeping, piercing our jugular, bringing us one step closer to God. Anxiety, disease, paranoia, and insomnia wrapped up into one neat package.

After completing my brief tour, the thing that surprised me the most was how small this house was. I simply can’t imagine how 9 people could inhabit such a small space without grievous bodily harm inflicted.

As I was leaving the house, I stopped to chat with one of the workers. He came from a family of 13 and he grew up in a three-bedroom house with no central heating. When winter set in, the children would write their names on a frost covered window. The signature would remain there until spring.

Yes, “Life used to be so hard” but ask any child growing up at that time and they would tell you, “Those were the best days of my life” (Bryan Adams).

Have a great weekend.