Come fishing with me

It's a lovely day. A bit of ice still clings to the banks of the creek but the sun is shining and it's a few degrees above freezing. Hopefully, we'll make the acquaintance of a rainbow trout (steelhead) or two. Some have already been upstream and spawned but most are on their way.

This area is only a couple of miles from my house. It's a slow, meandering stretch of creek that threads it's way through a tangle of hoary old willow trees, into an open, marshy area with a marina and condominiums, before emptying into Lake Ontario. There is a lot of birdlife in the area, primarily Canada geese, ducks of many species, swans, hawks and gulls.

Today I'm fishing at my 2nd-favourite spot. If you look at the pic, you'll see it's at the confluence of two creeks. The intermingling of scents give fish pause while they decide which one they'll enter. While they're pondering, I like to offer them something to eat.

I see no signs at all of fish movement. Luckily, other happenings divert my attention.

Three geese wander by. Yes, that's a chair on the opposite bank for the convenience of a weary angler.

Behind where I'm fishing is a marshy area which teems with birdlife at times. It's a favoured nesting area for ducks, geese, swans and redwing blackbirds.

Speaking of swans.... Can't really tell from the photo but these guys can really scoot. They often leave a wake when paddling.

"What the heck is this?" you ask. Well, it's some of the leavings from previous anglers. The pink, green and yellow bits near the top are torn pieces of light mesh which once held a few fish eggs (the gold/amber blob near the bottom) in dime-sized sacks/snacks. Trout and other salmonids like eating eggs that drift downstream from spawning couples. So anglers use eggs for bait.

The gander taking a gander on the right held that pose for a good 10 minutes. He was listening to another goose calling from the marsh behind me and, I'm sure, prepping himself for battle if the need arose. He spent a goodly chunk of the day harassing other males who came too near his lady friends.

What was it we were doing here again?

Oh yeah.

After four+ hours of fruitless drifting with roe, flies and artificials, I hooked on a small worm. On the 3rd pass my float dipped and stayed down. I set the hook and felt a sluggish resistance. "Sucker" I thought. I didn't mind. Homely suckers provide at least a bit of excitement. This one felt fairly heavy, perhaps four pounds or so.

A minute later, as I worked the fish closer I caught a glimpse of silver.

Suckers are bronze.

Woohoo! A minute or so later, I eased a nice, dinner-sized rainbow (about 2 1/2 lbs) out of the water.

You can see in the pic that her anal fin (closest to the tail) and the bottom half of her tail are worn. That's from digging a nest (redd) out of the stream bottom.

Fresh air, sunshine, wildlife and a fish - not too shabby a day. Glad you could come along. Let's do it again sometime.

Edited to add: Q sent me a link which is cute and relates to this post - sorta. Click the end of this sentence, wait a minute or two and you'll see the fish's revenge.

I love animals too but...

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog, an elderly couple in southern India committed suicide by hanging themselves, police said on Monday.

The bodies of 67-year-old retired soldier C.N. Madanraj and his wife, Tarabai, 63, were found on Sunday in their home in a suburb of Hyderabad.

Police said the childless couple had held a burial ceremony for their dog of 13 years, called "Puppy," and hosted a feast for friends before hanging themselves in their bedroom.

"The couple described the grief over their pet dog in the suicide note they left on March 29," said police inspector V. Anantaiah.

Discuss. (Whilst I work on a real blog post....)

The Art of War, Cribbage & Halloween

I came across a quote from The Art of War, a book written 2500 years ago by Chinese military general and tactician Sun Tzu that has been rattling around in my brain. It’s this:

One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements.

One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes meet with defeat.

One who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably be defeated in every engagement.

There’s a heck of a lot of wisdom in those three sentences and although he was speaking about war, the words are applicable to most any situation involving conflict - relationships, schooling, work, and, my focus at the moment - games.

All games, whether chess, cribbage or football are substitutes for war. There are winners and losers (although the consequences of landing in either category are neither as glorious nor as dire as in war). If you underestimate your opponent’s or overestimate your own abilities, things are not likely to go well. Luck certainly has a part to play in any outcome but its importance diminishes proportionately with the players’ increased levels of skill, knowledge and preparation.

How to know an opponent? That’s easy. As my guru, Yogi Berra once said: “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Do as Yogi says. Watch them. Pay attention to what they do in certain situations, especially stressful ones. Before too-too long, their behaviour will become predictable, at least to a certain extent. Foreknowledge of an opponent’s behaviour is a terrific advantage in any situation.

Knowing yourself now - that’s a toughie and I know of no pat formula or short cut. I do know however, that it involves stripping oneself of pretense and delusion, those kissin’ cousins of deceit. It can be a painful process, glumly observing one’s psyche laid bare in a full-length mental mirror.

On the plus side, once you DO know yourself, you can then re-don whatever delusional duds you want to wear, since you know you’re kidding.

Kinda like Halloween.

Thinking Is A Waste Of Time

One of the freebies you can get from Google is a yellow, sticky-note thingy for your desktop. I use it to jot notes to myself about appointments, shopping reminders and, occasionally, ideas for a column or blog post.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this note:

A great writer doesn't let truth, facts, or heck, even reality, interfere with formulating and expressing an opinion.

For those who don't know me, the above was written tongue-in-cheek. Pretty much.

I mean, I know I'm not a great writer but I'm pretty good. The note would lack a certain panache though if it was: "A pretty good writer doesn't let ..." etc. It's hyperbole which, if you remember your Grade 10 English, is a literary device by which pretty good writers pretend to be great ones. Or something. I might be a bit fuzzy on the definition. I think I was away that day.

Anyway, like improvisational acting, off-the-top-of-the-head writing isn't for everyone. Most, (dare I say "lesser?") writers prefer to think before writing. I've always considered thinking to be a waste of time. I mean, why bother thinking when you could be accomplishing something instead?

It's a no-brainer.

New Blogger

Yesterday it looked like I was locked out of the old Blogger and would, finally, be forced to switch over to the new version.

I don't do well with change, especially if said change involves technology. I've only recently gotten over my suspicion of matches, preferring for decades to rub two sticks together whenever I wanted to burn something.

Today, lo and behold! I am being allowed into the old Blogger dashboard thingy and am writing this there. However, I've decided to go ahead with the switch anyway. The tension is getting to me. Other folks who've made the change have assured me it isn't overly painful. They have hardly any reason to lie to me.

Stay tuned....

...Well I'll be darned.

It's now a mere 10 minutes later and I do believe I've made the switch! And...and...there's no blood on my keyboard! My fingernails are intact and my gibbering idiocy is no more pronounced than usual!

Woohoo!

In your FACE Technology! I ain't askeered of you no more!

This is the most ept I've felt since I learned to make folders last year.

A Few Oscar Thoughts

I love movies, always have, just not enough to actually go out and see one. Well, nowadays, anyway. Don't get me started on the cramped seating, too-loud and too-long commercials, the overpriced tickets and food, and the loudmouthed dullards who insist on delivering a running commentary to anyone within fifty feet.

Therefore, I rarely go out to see one, preferring instead to wait a few months or years and catch it on tape or dvd.

So, last night's movies were all unknown to me, except for what I'd read about them here and there. I came to the Oscars telecast a blank slate. I had no vested interest in anyone's winning or losing.

Therefore, what follows is a few observations by a guy who was reading a newspaper or surfing the net during most of the telecast but glanced at the tv semi-regularly:

1- Ellen Degeneres was fine. I wasn't a fan of hers going in but she was comfortably low-key, warm and funny. I'd like to see her join Billy Crystal as one of the regulars in the host rotation.

2- Peter O'Toole looks like a desiccated marionette. He wouldn't be out of place guest-starring on the Thunderbirds.
I saw him interviewed on the Daily Show a couple of weeks ago and am sad to say he seemed to have slipped from being a charming, eccentric, somewhat-sloshed raconteur to an addled sot. I hope I'm wrong because I loved him in a lot of movies, most notably in What's New Pussycat and The Stunt Man and he certainly is overdue for Oscar recognition. Anyway, I was afraid he'd win and trip on the way to the stage or do something else to embarrass himself.

3- Alan Arkin is great too so I was just as happy to see him win instead.

4- The women were lovely, especially Helen Mirren and Penelope Cruz. The dresses were elegant rather than sexy which was nice I suppose. But made me a bit wistful for the 70s when plunging necklines and peekaboo nipples were de rigueur.

5- As usual, one of my favourite bits was the Dead People Montage. I'm always surprised by some whose demise flew under my radar. (Red Buttons? Really?)

6- Maybe I missed it (I did leave the house for 20 minutes at one point) but I don't recall a Horribly Contrived Desperately Overwrought Garishly Tasteless production number. Bonus.

7- Everybody except the other four nominees (and maybe even them a little bit) seemed happy with Martin Scorsese's win as Best Director. The standing O appeared spontaneous and heartfelt - two qualities rarely espied during an Oscar telecast.

Through A Lens Icily

A few winter photos from southern Ontario - most taken at my beloved creek a hundred yards from my house:












That little dark blob you almost see is what I call a snow bug. On sunny, not-too-frigid days, you can see them crawling along the top of the snow or ice. What we have here are actually two of the little critters doing, um...what comes naturally to all species who want to leave some DNA behind.



This one was taken near a friend's house. It's a lovely pond nestled in the midst of a big city. The willow tree is a magnificent specimen. Too bad they're so short-lived.



Added this one and the following two today (the 22nd). We had a very heavy snowfall for an hour or so early this morning. This pic of part of my backyard was taken through glass which emphasizes the ghostly aspect of the scene.





These two were taken from my front steps (no glass intervening). Yes, I still have my wee Christmas lights up.

Christmas is a state of mind - not a season!

The Power Of Passion

I read a short news bit today from Reuters which I'll quote in full below:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

A police spokesman said the female driver and her male passenger gave in to their passions without pulling over to the side of the road, causing congestion and leaving other motorists having to swerve to dodge their stationary vehicle.

A patrolman gave the woman a ticket for holding up traffic.

I've been swayed, even carried away, by passion. But not so carried away, even in my youth, that I would have stopped my car in the fast lane of a major highway in order to deal with it.

I'm 99.9% sure that even in my most lust-inspired moments, I would have pulled over to the side of the road.

The fact that the driver was female makes me shake my head all the more. Not that women are immune to lust - thank God - but they're supposed to be the more level-headed of the sexes when it comes to this sort of thing.

Anyway, it could have been way worse. They might have not bothered stopping the car at all.

How cold WAS it?

Because I've become a tad portly lately (non-smoking don'tcha know - 8+ months now) I decided to go for a walk today.

I knew it was going to be cold, so, as a savvy Canucklehead, I dressed for it. I put on my warmest coat (in lieu of my leather jacket) for the first time this winter. Wisely, I grabbed my ear-flapped fishing hat instead of my usual ball cap and plopped it on my noggin.

I was ready.



It didn't take too long, even going with the wind, for me to make a slight wardrobe adjustment.



Then I turned into the wind. Sheesh. Maybe it's better I should stay fat?



Anyway. Tonight I'm going to sit near this and sip a Scotch. Scotch is low in calories, right?

Lisa Nowak, Jon Stewart & the Media - Shame All Around

The lady astronaut who snapped. Jeepers! Such a fuss. Every news station was in overdrive. Headline writers were salivating. Jon Stewart milked the story mercilessly until it was udderly spent.

Certainly the details were newsworthy: the mallet, the Mace, the rubber tubing and yes, the diapers. The haggard appearance of Ms Nowak that appeared on front pages everywhere contrasted sharply with that of someone supposedly possessed of the Right Stuff.

Jon Stewart is a father. I wonder if he considered Mr. Nowak, or the Nowaks' three children? Seems to me not many have. They have to be hurting to see their wife and mother's meltdown splashed across every newspaper, radio, television and computer on the planet.

I don't think it's funny. I think it's really very sad. Luckily, the media has the attention span of a gnat and will soon move on.

Hang in there Nowak family. Not everyone is taking pleasure in your pain.

Leaving Tracks

The other day, I was washing dishes and looking out the window into the backyard. I own a dishwasher but it broke about 6 or 7 years ago. At first I couldn’t afford to fix it or buy a new one and then I could but other priorities kept/keep rearing their heads so...I keep doing them by hand.

Actually, I sort of enjoy it. Busywork occupies the body while freeing the mind. About the only time it’s necessary to re-engage my brain is when pain or pink soap suds tells me to be more careful with the knives.

I was looking at the snow-covered yard and trying to identify the various tracks I could see. The rabbit’s were easy, as were the squirrel’s. Farthest back in the yard were what might have been a small dog’s or, more likely, a cat’s. Those tracks were older and a slight melt and re-freeze had distorted their shape. Plus, to tell you true, the kitchen window is none too clean. And further to the truth-telling thing, my eyes aren’t what they used to be.

I got to thinking about tracks and leaving marks and how Spring would obliterate those outside my window. But for a few weeks at least, my yard would be an historical testament to critters’ activities.

Which, I’m thinking, is why some of us write, some of us paint, some of us play music, some of us build bridges and most of us have children: we want to leave our mark.

Now, this internet thing, and more specifically, blogs, have made it easy for everybody to leave their tracks. As long as the net, and Google caches exist, so will the tracks of many millions of people.

Right now, my sons have very little interest in what I write. It’s understandable. At their age, I wasn’t all that interested in what my father did either.

But I have a feeling that sometime after I’m gone, they’ll become curious about the marks I left behind and may even enjoy following my trail.

Emma Faust Tillman

Emma, of East Hartford, Connecticut, was an amazing woman.

For four days, she was the oldest known living person. She inherited the crown last Wednesday when 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro of Puerto Rico died. Emma, at 114, died on Sunday.

But that's not the most amazing part of her story.

Emma had two siblings who lived until they were 102.

But that's not the most amazing part of her story either.

Another of Emma's sisters lived to 105.

Wait. There's more.

One of Emma's brothers hung around the planet until he was 108.

I sure hope someone had the foresight to sneak a bit of Emma's DNA for research purposes.

Blogs = Brain Porn

What are blogs if not splayed frontal lobes, offering a free peek to every passer-by?

Battlestar Galactica

A few months ago, the son of a friend gave me the url for a website that was a storehouse of tv shows - some old, some pretty new. (I'll pass along that link at the end of this.)

Initially, I amused myself in off-hours by watching every episode of The Trailer Park Boys. The picture quality isn't great at this site but I enjoyed watching episodes I'd missed and re-watching some faves.

I'd heard some buzz about Battlestar Galactica over the last year or three but too late (I thought) to hop on the bandwagon. The series was well along by the time it flitted across my radar. (I know. I'm so darn hep. Anybody see that moving episode of Dobie Gillis last night?)

Anyway, this site has the first three seasons of BG and I started watching them a couple of weeks ago. I'm hooked. Despite the fact I never like Edward James Olmos, who plays the taciturn Captain; despite the fact some episodes lapse into melodrama; I'm well and truly caught.

The basic premise is a grabber: Humans created robot-like creatures called Cylons which eventually turned on their makers and all-but destroyed them. Only 50,000 humans are left, housed in a rag-tag flotilla of space ships, under the aegis of a single, beat up old battleship. The surviving humans are being hunted down relentlessly by Cylons, many of which have adopted human forms and infiltrated some of the ships.

The plot device that gives this series some extra pizzaz is the indication that some Cylons are becoming more human - are exhibiting signs of conscience. Is it possible they'll eventually find some common ground? Tune in next week....

Other random pluses: Mary McDonnell is terrific as the fragile, but tough-as-nails President. Donnelly Rhodes, a fine Canuck character actor, has a recurring role as a cigarette-smoking doctor. (Yeah, really!) The music is excellent, from the theme, to the insistent, throbbing drums that inject adrenaline into many of the chase and battle scenes.

If you liked Star Trek in any of its incarnations, you'll enjoy Battlestar Galactica - a terrific space opera with good and bad good guys and bad and good bad guys.

Check out lots of tv shows at TV Links.

It was inevitable

It took until mid-January but winter has arrived. It's arrived in the form of freezing rain and school closures. Which, of course, means that my basement wreck-room is infested with teenagers at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday.

This is SO wrong.

9:00 a.m. on a Monday is supposed to be a quiet time. Just me and my parrot, Lucy. Although Lucy isn't always quiet. But at least her silence can be bought with a peanut or pumpkin seed. Albeit temporarily. Try tossing food at a herd of teens and the volume level only rises.

I can't get too upset though. I remember the joy of an unexpected day off school. The commotion and disruption of my usual schedule gives me an excuse to slack off as well. I think I'll play some Dragon Warrior VIII. I finally got my own PS2 for Christmas. Son #1 bought it for me. He's a good boy. I think I'll keep him.

Then maybe I'll watch an episode or two of Battlestar Galactica. I was going to write about that show today as a blog entry. Guess it'll wait a day or three.

If the freezing rain lets up enough and the salt trucks come by to do their thing, I might just go out to eat. A new joint opened up in town with a terrific special: a Donair (spiced beef/onion/tomatoes/yummy sauce served in a wrap), plus an order of fries and a can of pop for $3.99. And the fries are good too - real taters, not reheated, previously-frozen sludge sticks.

The trick may be to ease out the door without any of those urchins downstairs noticing. Four bucks for a big lunch is a great deal but even Simple Math says that $4 X Umpteen Urchins = a Big Dent in my wallet.

I know. I'll withhold Lucy's lunchtime peanut. Her squawking will cover the sound the front door opening and closing.

Wish me luck.

2006: Britney's Smile, Global Warming, There Ain't No Heaven and Much, Much More!

Holy moley! I know it’s partly a factor of aging but 2006 zipped by like I was standing still!

Hmmm...judging by my waistline, there might be something to that. Right now though, it’s time to gaze into my rearview mirror and mull the year past - to offer insight and explanation to those confused by world events as well as opining about the weird, the wonderful and the wacky. And yes, I’m doing my Top 5 Songs of the year again. You’re very welcome.

Things in the Middle East are still bad. People want what they don’t have and don’t want what they do. Outsiders meddled, fuelling resentment which, for some misguided souls, took the form of blowing themselves, and others, up. Prediction for 2007: More of the same.

It’s January 2nd as I write this in southern Ontario, Canada. The usual high temperature for these parts in early January is about -3 Celsius. Ski resorts should be in full swing. Today is 6 C, the creeks, rivers and lakes are ice-free and there’s not a flake of snow in sight. I’m beginning to suspect there just might be something to this global warming stuff. In my own wee, selfish speck of the planet though, as I fish for steelhead instead of huddling around the fireplace, it’s hard to see it as a Bad Thing.

Okay, we’ve covered the dry stuff. Let’s move along to what matters: Entertainment.

Britney Spears wins the Twit(ette) of the Year award not just for her parental, um, skills but also for text-messaging her divorce plans to her hubby and then having her vertical smile photographed and displayed across the net.

A word or two about links before we go any further. I don’t know how to make a clickable link that opens a new page in your browser. That’s partly why I don’t often embed them in my posts. However, there’s going to be a few of them coming up and I want to apologize in advance. Just remember that you can use the back button on your browser to return to this page.

I didn’t read a lot of books last year but the best of those I did was Victoria Strauss’ The Awakened City. If you like, you can read a review I wrote of it.

TV worth watching: The Trailer Park Boys, The Office, The Colbert Report and I’m beginning to get hooked on Battlestar Galactica.

I dislike music videos unless they're a straight-ahead filming of the artists playing the song. I have no desire to have someone else’s interpretation of the song inflicted upon my brain. My brain suffers too darn much inflicting as it is in this multi-media universe. Therefore I never watch MTV or MuchMusic. So why Frank, you ask, are you about to link to a bunch of YouTube music videos?

I’ll tell you. I don’t how to link to just audio files even if I could find them. The videos are easier to find. So if you want to just hear my top 5 pop songs of 2006, click the link and then close your eyes.

I’m cheating from the get-go. Two of Pink’s tunes are tied for my #5 spot: Who Knew because it’s a fine song and Stupid Girls because of its important message to young girls.

For mindless, feel-good fun and a harkening back to the disco days of the Bee Gees, check out the #4 song by the Scissor Sisters, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing. (If you’re not already heartily sick of it, that is. Yeah, it’s one of “those.”)

The last three picks were very tough. A good case could be made for each as #1. Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars is as simple, dramatic and fresh a love song as these old ears have heard in a long, long time. And I'll be darned if I didn't stumble over a video montage from Grey's Anatomy highlighting the song. It's very well done and moved me to tears which says a lot about how good the song is and probably the show too (which I haven't seen) but even more about stupid male menopause.

Song #2 defies categorization. Chances are you haven’t heard this one and I strongly urge you to check it out. The video is lame but I'd be interested in what you think of the tune. Initially I didn’t like it but its insistent rhythm and eerie vocals grew compelling. It’s a somewhat bizarre mix of gospel and techno-trance called No Heaven by talented Montrealer DJ Champion.

Song #1 has been played everywhere and is no doubt familiar to all. Except for its superb production values it wouldn’t be out of place if it came from Detroit in the 60s. Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy is pure pop perfection.

Everybody dance and bring on 2007!

Merry-Merry

Don't think I'm going to have time to post anything closer to Christmas than now. So ....

Whether it's Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or Christmas, whatever you celebrate, I hope you do so with gusto tempered by common sense. I hope you have family and/or friends with whom you can spend some time and share some laughs. I hope there are multiple hugs in your future, that you are favoured by the smiles of children and that there's an elderly person or three in your life from whom you can learn.

I wish you the richness of maturity and the energy of youth. I wish you insight and time. I wish you the peace of mind that invites restful sleep.

I wish you a fulfilling and safe holiday season.

T'is the season...

...for a lot of things, especially procrastination and overeating. The former is no darn good when it comes to Christmas shopping and the latter is no darn good when one is already wrestling with one's jeans every morning.

I'll write more some other time but right now I'm hungry.

Christmas Pre-Shopping

Thought I'd try something new this year. Instead of actually shopping, I went pre-shopping today. I strolled around a giant mall with absolutely no intention of buying anything. It was liberating.

Rather than burdening myself with parcels and bags and jostling with sharp-elbowed shoppers, I ambled from store to store, making mental notes: "Oh, that fluffy steering wheel cover would be great for Son #1 if he ever gets a car. Ha! That lipstick shaped like a penis would be terrific for all the women on my list! Well, maybe not Sister Marcella at Our Lady of Peace. But if she drives she'd probably appreciate a fluffy steering wheel cover."

My mental notes included the whereabouts of each store of course. Luckily, most of the ones with spiffy stuff were on the basement floor, in a kind of darkened part of the mall, near the back loading doors. Rents were probably cheaper. Which would explain how that nifty lipstick could be sold for only 6 bucks. The stores should be pretty easy to find when I actually do decide to shop. Which will be pretty soon. I've learned my lesson. No more Dec.23rd frenzies. I'll probably conduct one more pre-shop, downtown this time, on Monday. Let's see, that would be the 18th.

Then, on the 19th, if the pre-shop hasn't taken too much out of me, I'll do all my shopping in one swell foop. If I am too pooped after the pre-shop, I'll take the 19th off to rest and tackle the stores on the 20th.

It makes sense you know. Getting the lay of the land. Saving time and energy when the crunch comes.

I'll let you know how it all works out.

Van Morrison

I've been a huge Van fan since the early 60s when he was the lead singer and front man for the band Them. I don't know of another singer with the talent to not only write terrific songs but to interpret others' so wonderfully. To listen to his music over the decades is to explore popular music itself - from R&B to pure blues, to jazz, to soul to country. Van can take a song and make it his own while still remaining faithful to the spirit of the original.

For 30-some years now my answer to the question, "What one record would you take with you if stranded on a desert island?" has remained the same: Van's 1974 double-live album It's Too Late To Stop Now.

If you've never heard it you're in for a treat. Go buy it. Right now. I'll wait.

Okay.

When you have a quiet couple of hours to yourself, pour your favourite belly-warmer and put on the first side. Listen to them in order. You'll hear familiar songs that you've never heard before.

And the previous sentence will make sense.

What brought this particular musing to the fore was my recent discovery of a blog devoted to Van and his music. The blogger, John Gilligan, has dug up news, information and best of all, video clips, of Van over the years. I was sorry to read some of the stories that indicate Van can be a rather unpleasant person. Over the years I'd learned he could be a difficult interview, prickly and unwilling to open up but wanted to believe that he was just shy. Apparently there's more to it than that.

What matters to me though, and his many fans, is the music. Van has always been about the music.

Go visit Mr. Gilligan's blog and see/hear for yourself.

Remembering Nat

Readers of my column will recall Nat, 11-year-old nephew of Times of London writer James Doran. We were asked, through James, to keep Nat in our thoughts and prayers as he battled Osteosarcoma, a particularly nasty cancer. Sadly, Nat didn't win the war. Below is the mail I received from James, posted with his permission. (Thanks to Hilary for sharpening and resizing the photos.)

Hi Frank,

I enjoyed reading your column about charity today. A lovely little vignette. But I write with sad news. Nat died a couple of months back. I have almost written to tell you a few times, but each time I procrastinated. It's a hard letter to write, I'm sure you understand.

Osteosarcoma is a tough one to beat. The doctors and the collective consciousness of Nat, the family, and the thousands of friends we all made through him, beat the cancer in his leg. It was too much for his little lungs though.

I wanted to thank you and your many readers who gave Nat encouragement and good wishes during his fight. You all taught him and me a very important lesson. Kindness and love are the most powerful forces in the universe. Only through them can life have meaning. Nat learned this important fact in his short life because of the kindness and love of so many people. Because of you, and the many others like you, he looked upon the world and everyone he encountered in it with equal amounts of both.

On behalf of Nat, thank you all for such a generous gift.

We held a wonderful service at the Demelza House Hospice, which is in a beautiful Kentish village called Sittingbourne. You can read about Demelza and make a donation here.

Teachers, school friends, hospital chums, aunts, uncles, mums and dads got up to speak. For a boy of 11 there were so many hilarious stories to tell. It was a joyous memorial.

I wrote a short eulogy and a poem, which I read with the help of my wife Alida – we got married just last month. If you would like to share them, and this letter, with your readers please feel free. I'm a reporter and no kind of poet, but thought it might give those who have read about Nat in your columns a glimpse of him they might otherwise not have seen.

I have also attached a couple of photos I took of Nat in his last weeks at home. His lovely red hair grew back all curly once he stopped the chemo. It was straight before! My favourite picture shows him doing what he liked to do best – simultaneously sorting his YuGiOh cards and playing Nintendo on the couch. The pics look very grainy because I have not yet mastered the use of my scanner. Feel free to post them too.

All the best Frank,

James

I was pushing Nat on the swings down at Rye one afternoon a few years ago and for some reason I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Grown ups can ask the most boring questions sometimes. He didn't think so, though, and replied in a flash: "A professor".

He was only three years old.

A year or so later Nat was in the back of the car as we drove up to Dad's in the Lake District and he proudly informed me that numbers not only go up for ever and ever from nought, but that they also go down for ever and ever from nought as well. Out of the blue. He had just discovered negative numbers all by himself at the age of 5.

So with that unique and often hilarious aspect of Nat's life in mind, I wrote a poem, which I will first explain.

In the Universe there are stars that burn with such intensity that they cannot be contained. An Indian mathematician and astrophysicist named Chandrasekhar worked out that when a star burned at a certain rate much greater than our Sun it would lose containment and fold in upon itself leaving behind a pinpoint of light so immensely bright that it seems to us on earth visible for eternity.

This poem is about that phenomenon, and it is dedicated to Nat, who, like Chandrasekhar was an inspired mathematician.

For us there should be always just one more turn around the floor.
If only you would fall back into these arms my love,
You wished to the stars.
For a moment as a lash touched your cheek,
A star pulsed its brightest
Last light that will be for eternity.

A life does not expand to fill the time it should be allowed.
Instead it folds back on itself, restricted from flight,
Like a paper crane.
It is not diminished by this lack,
But becomes a singular beauty
One that it and nothing else can become.

Physicists call this cruelty the Chandrasekhar limit.
When a star burns 1.4 times brighter than the sun,
It must find a new form
And we must look for its light
In the farthest reaches of the Universe.

James Doran





Nat and his dad, Chris.

God bless Nat. There's no greater pain than losing a child. May Mom, Dad, family and friends find the strength and faith they need to bear this burden.

Honorifics

I was working on a story and mentioned within it an uncle who wasn't really an uncle. He was unrelated to the family but was a close friend of my father's. We referred to him as "Uncle" and his wife as "Aunt." We also had within our family some distant cousins, 2nd or 3rd or even further removed, whom we referred to as Aunt or Uncle.

I was wondering if bestowing familial honorifics was a common practice within many other cultures. I come from an Eastern European (Ukrainian) background. I know that in some Asian cultures it is (or at least was) polite to refer to elders, even strangers, as "Uncle" or "Grandmother."

My own sons refer to my best friend and his wife as Uncle Mike and Aunt Virginia. I like the idea of conferring honourary uncleships and auntships to special friends. It carries the respect of a "Mr." or "Mrs." or "Sir" but with a special, affectionate component.

Any honourary aunts, uncles or grandparents in your family?

Five (5) Things

Amy tagged me to write five things most people don't know about me. This won't be easy because much of my writing the last few years has been about my life. I spill my guts at the drop of a memory! But I'll try.

1 - I threw up nearly every day of high school. It was caused by anxiety that I might be called upon to read aloud to the class. What was a mild phobia for most of us was a major one for me. I might have enjoyed school otherwise. Or become a politician or actor instead of a writer. Life's weird. Plus you pay taxes, then you die.

2 - I pick up every earthworm or caterpillar I see crossing a road or sidewalk and carry it across lest it fall victim to a car tire or carelessly-placed shoe.

3 - I make faces at babies and very young children in stores, especially grocery stores. I love engaging them in a rousing, smile-inducing session of Peek-A-Boo. Usually their Moms don't mind.

4 - I hate fishing.

5 - I usually lie at least once when drafted to do a list-type meme thing. See if you can spot today's.

The Michael Richards Thing

The media's all atwitter about Richards' epithet-filled diatribe directed at a black heckler at a comedy club. Condemnation has been pretty universal from what I've seen and heard so far. Can't argue with that. His language matched his mood. It was ugly.

I'm not going focus on dancing on the grave of his career though. What interests me about this whole thing is how technology has turned what once would have been a fart in a windstorm into a nuclear mushroom cloud.

15 years ago - heck, make that 10 - it's highly unlikely that Richards' verbal venom would have been caught on tape. Even if it had, it wouldn't have gotten national airplay except as a series of bleeps. Most likely, some few folks from the audience would have complained to the proprietor of the club and maybe fired off a letter or two to a newspaper.

The ripple effect would have been indiscernible.

Instead, a video camera, now as ubiquitous as a pack of cigarettes used to be, captures the event and within hours it's available for world-wide viewing via the internet. As a result, Richards is obliged to appear on national tv and apologize. And apologize. And apologize.

Nobody and nothing is private anymore.

I find that to be a lot scarier than a closet racist outing himself.

Techno-wary

Blogger (read "Google" since they own it now) wants me to switch over to the "new, improved" format/thingy. At this point it's voluntary. They're trying to induce me by saying it's got spiffier features and it's more reliable. If I continue to resist those blandishments, they'll up the ante.

It won't be long before they sadly inform me that I'm among the 4% of "blosers" who stubbornly resist changing over. They'll do their best to make me feel like that gawky, pimply kid watching all the other kids dance and have a great time.

I don't care. So I resist change? Big whoop. For every leading edge there's gotta be a blunt backside. That's me. Let other people blaze trails. Some of us like well-trodden paths. That way we're more likely to see what's lurking around the bend, hoping to ambush us. Like glitches. I hate glitches. And I didn't just tumble off the techno-turnip truck yesterday: new versions are chockful of glitches.

So, I'm gonna stick with the old version of Blogger until Google won't support it anymore. I figger that won't happen for at least another six months, maybe longer. By then they'll be touting Version 3.02 or something and I'll ease my way into Version 2. Most of the glitches should be fixed by then and there still might be a cute girl or two around that I can ask to dance.

Chicken Soup

I have a head cold. I do not like having a head cold. I mostly haven't liked having a head cold since I became an adult. You know, since Mom wasn't around to make chicken soup and fuss over me and I could take a day or two off school. Wives and girlfriends, God bless 'em, bring a lot to the table but I've not found one who fusses like a Mom.

I also haven't found one who makes good chicken soup so I had to learn by myself. My first few attempts weren't so hot. Possibly because I refused to look up a recipe or ask anyone how they made theirs. As my great-grandmother used to say, when she read my cards or tea leaves, "you're too hendy-dependy." She meant "independent" of course. Some might say "mule-headed." One or two might shorten that last one.

Anyway, I'm gonna make a pot of chicken soup today as well as take extra garlic and vitamin C tablets. In two or three days I'll be cured. Or desperately looking for a mother substitute.

Here's how I make my soup:

Put a whole chicken or chicken parts (usually leg quarters or thighs) in a large pot and fill the pot three-quarters full with cold water. Bring to a boil and then turn down heat to simmer for a while - usually about an hour. Remove chicken and put on a plate to cool. Chop up an onion and a few cloves of garlic and add it to the de-chickened water. Also add some veggies like bits of carrots. (Do NOT add celery as celery is God's revenge on us for everything bad we have ever done.) You may add some peas. I usually dump in some frozen ones. Canned ones are too mushy. Frozen corn is also okay as are green beans but not too many of those because I don't like them all that much.

Add several tablespoons of the powdered chicken broth/soup fixings or several cubes if you prefer them. I like the powdered stuff. It dissolves quickly and you can taste as you go until it gets that good chickeny flavour.

Now peel off all the skin from your chicken and separate the meat from the bones. It should just about tumble off because of the previous simmering. Break the chicken meat into bits and plop them back into the pot. Nibble on some as you go. It's okay. Nobody is watching.

Now you've just got to add some egg noodles. I usually dump them right into the pot and let them cook via simmering along with everything else. However, I recently received one complaint that my soup was too starchy. I may, or may not, cook the next batch of noodles in a separate pot and then add them to the soup. Depends on whose turn it is to do the dishes. (HAHAHAHA! That might have been a joke!)

I've started adding dumplings to my last few batches of soup too. I like the meal-ish quality they add. Plus they taste good. My sister Theresa told me how to make them. I was not too hendy-dependy to ask. Just add a little water to salted and peppered flour and stir it around until it's thick and gloppy. Then, using a spoon, dribble the glop bit by bit into the simmering soup. The blobs cook through in a few minutes.

Now it's just a matter of adding salt and pepper and maybe a bit more of the powdered stuff and waiting a decent interval for everything to cook through and the flavours to marry - maybe another hour or so.

Soon, you can enjoy, in a miserable, head-coldish kind of a way, a delicious bowl of hearty chicken soup.

Almost as good as Mom used to make.

Now if only someone would bring me a bowl of it, murmur "poor darling" while placing a cool hand against my forehead and pick up my discarded kleenexes, life would be fairly bearable.

I think he's got it backwards....

It's municipal elections time here in Ontario. (Oh crap - 74% of you have nodded off already!) These are the elections that nobody bothers to vote in. Okay, that I don't bother to vote in.

They are the eyesore elections. What with councillors and mayors and trustees and alderpersons on the ballot, every swatch of green space in the town is covered with signs. Anywhere and everywhere that a car might pause, let alone come to a complete stop, is awash in garish pleas to vote for so n' so. Most signs are professional-looking but it's pretty obvious that some were hatched in someone's garage or basement.

One such is a hand-lettered, black on white beauty protected from the elements by being wrapped in a clear plastic garbage bag. On it, it says (paraphrased): "I've earned your vote. Vote ____ for mayor and let me earn your respect."

Hmmm...Shouldn't we respect him before we vote for him? I mean, in theory.

It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But then again, not much about politics does.

Betwixt & Between

It's that awkward time of year for me. Summer fishing, primarily for walleye, bass, muskie and pike, is over. Chinook and coho salmon are clogging up the streams near me right now.

"Clogging!?" you gasp.

Yeah, clogging. I don't like fishing for them when they're on their doomed spawning runs. Their bodies are breaking down, they're no good for the table, they aren't actively feeding and I don't like the idea of provoking them into a strike.

So I'm waiting. Waiting for the salmon run to be over. Waiting for the first couple of hard frosts that rid the trees of those colourful leaves you can see in the post below. Waiting for the grey days of November and its cold, wind-driven rains to call my lovely steelhead from Lake Ontario to my local streams.

I'll be there, sipping on a thermos of tea and stomping my feet to keep warm, waiting to greet them.

Oh, how happy we'll be to see each other! They'll dance and cartwheel across the top of the water. My heart, despite its daily dose of slow-down medication, will pound. After our wild fandango, as we rest alongside the bank, I'll admire the sleek, silver beauty with the rose blush along her side. Then, with a quick caress and a murmurred "thank you," I'll watch her slip back into the depths. And hope we'll meet again one day.

Autumn Leaves

The first song I ever learned in school (kindergarten) went like this:

Autumn leaves are now falling,
Red and yellow and brown.
Autumn leaves are now falling,
See them tumbling down.

There followed a lot of la-la-ing that won't translate well in type but if we ever meet in person, or talk on the phone, and you ask nicely, I'll sing it for you.

One of the reasons I love living where I do (southern Ontario) is the fact that we enjoy four distinct seasons here. All have their merits and drawbacks. All have identifiers that set them apart from each other.

Autumn, the season we're entering now, is noted for its lovely days, cool nights and riotous colours.

Here's a few pics to show you what I mean:













Eat your hearts out all you folks living in sunny California, balmy Brazil or awesome Australia.

Toronto, Coining A New Word & An Internet Phenomenon

I'm going to post some pics to illustrate a current column about a recent trip my sons and I took to Toronto.




Here's the lads sitting outside someplace semi-famous. I forget what it is though.




Here they are on a street corner. Colourful eh?




This is a citified pond. There are no fish in it.




Toronto's new City Hall.




Some guys working on sidewalk *artvertising.



Son #1 posing as if the CN Tower is growing out of his head! Pretty nifty eh? I bet everybody will start doing clever stuff like this with photos of other famous objects, like the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa etc. It'll be an internet phenomenon! But remember where you saw it first!


*Dibbs on the new word!

Cottage Night

I used to be a photography buff and in the early 80s was a partner in a photographic restoration business. Our primary source of income was retouching old or damaged photos and doing black and white developing. We also did custom developing for artists who didn't want the push-button, cookie-cutter developing being offered by most photo shops. So I spent a lot of time in a darkroom inhaling and playing with chemicals.

Oh stop with the knowing nods already!

The business went kaput after a year or two. A couple of years later, my beloved Konica and nearly-beloved Canon developed problems I was too poor to get fixed. My interest in photography ebbed.

When I was shooting a lot, I focused on nightime photography. I loved the ambience provided by streetlights and car headlights. Add gently falling snow, people walking and kids skating, and you end up with some nifty pics reflecting my preferred reality: blurred around the edges.

Like most of you, I bought a digital camera a couple of years ago but never used it for more than snapshots. I disliked the lag when the shutter was depressed. I wasn't thrilled that the flash came on whenever it felt like and I missed not having that B- setting which left the lens open as long as I wished.

A couple of weeks ago while at the cottage I decided to try some night shots with the digital. I didn't expect much good to come of it, given the limitations I expressed above.

When I got home and uploaded the images I was thrilled! Somehow, that wonky flash and hesitating shutter combined to produce some interesting pics - pics with an impressionistic quality, adding colours and dots that my eyes missed.

Reality, blurred around the edges.

Although the photos lose much of their pixelated charm when downsized I invite you to take a peek anyway.

Come. Visit my cottage with me:



Here's the entrance to the driveway.



Here's the view from the left as you go down the driveway. Or is it the right? Yeah, the view is the same pretty much wherever you look. We're back in the bush.



Getting dark. Might be a nice night for a fire.



Brother-in-law Ches selects a worthy hunk of wood.



Nephew Zach avoids chopping off his left hand while cleverly making his right disappear.



Meanwhile, two Samurai spar in the gathering gloom.



It'll soon be hot dog and marshmallow-worthy.



An overturned aluminum boat and nose-planted wheelbarrow frame a poplar.



Nephew Eli cuts down on the glare while toasting his mallow.



An iron goose points permanently north and watches a night fisherman.




Sister Lisa bidding adieu to the day from the dock. The red nose is not a result of chugging that wine. It's a vagary of the light and the camera. Probably.

She's also relieved that I didn't post the picture of her butt.



Oh, what the heck.

It's summertime...

and the livin' is laaaaaaaazy.

I bet I'm not the only blogger whose output has diminished in the last month or so. Okay, I hope I'm not the only blogger whose...etc. I've been too darn lazy to look at other blogs to test my theory.

I wrote in my last column about the heatwave affecting much of the northern hemisphere. That's gotta be a factor too. Any and all effort has a consequence -- sweat. One must be judicious in selecting one's actions to ensure they be sweat-worthy. There have been times in the last couple of weeks when the only effort I wanted to expend was tipping a cool beverage in the general vicinity of my face. I even confessed to not fishing during the hours of 9-5 when I was (briefly) up at my cottage.

My Australian friends, (who are weather weinies, allatime bitching about how hot it is Down Under) have been crowing about their pleasant temperatures while I roast. My Brazilian buddy, who shall remain nameless (Oh hi Van!) bragged recently about the single-digit (Celsius) temperatures he experienced there.

My comfort lies in history of course. I know that this too, shall pass. In a month, this searing heat will be a distant memory and another cool, lovely Canadian autumn will be underway.

Hmmm...what excuse will I use to explain my sporadic musings then?

Oh well, I have a month to come up with something. Right now it's too darn hot.

PETA - What Word Doesn't Belong In That Acronym?

If you said "ethical" - go to the head of the class.

I addressed PETA's concerns about fishing in my book. I was respectful and polite. I acknowledged their concerns while disagreeing with some of them.

Recently I came upon their anti-fishing comic book. (You'll need Adobe to see it.)

How can I put this politely? Hmmm...I know!

It's bullshit. It packages half-truths with lies and mixes in some heavy-handed, sickening, emotional child abuse. (I especially like the line about kittens and puppies being "next" on Daddy's hit list.)

What it is not is "ethical."

I've lost the remaining vestiges of respect I once had for that organization and will, from this day forward, work actively against it.

Gee, I feel a slight chill. I think I'll club a baby seal and make a new tuque. Oh nevermind. There's a kitten.

Bye-Bye Stevie Y

22 years in the NHL, all with the same team - the Detroit Red Wings. 20 of those years as its captain. He was a scorer when his team needed goals and a checker when they needed defense.

He won three Stanley cups and an Olympic Gold medal with the Canadian team in 2002. He won without gloating and lost without being defeated. He played hurt. He played hard. He showed up every night.

At 41 his heart wanted to go on but he could no longer will his battered body to do what his mind envisaged doing. So yesterday Steve Yzerman hung up his skates.

The record books will show a guy who left as the NHL's sixth leading scorer all-time. He'll be a no-brainer, first ballot inductee to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I'll remember him as one of the greats, a credit to the game he loved.

Thanks Stevie.

When Stephen Hawking Talks....

I've always been a bit of a smartass. My school teachers throughout the years would attest to that, as would my reddened palms from all the times I got the strap. Part of my problem was learning at a fairly early age that teachers weren't infallible, that indeed, they were sometimes wrong. The rest of the problem was telling them so, sometimes obliquely, like laughing when they made some serious point.

Over time though, I got a few teachers I respected very much. What I liked about them was the fact they were intelligent and they listened. When they disagreed, they did so respectfully. They didn't laugh at me when I said something dumb. I learned from them, not just about English, or Latin, but about life and relating to people. I felt shame when recalling some of those earlier teachers I'd laughed at.

As I aged, I learned I had a lot to be humble about. I wasn't nearly as bright as I'd once thought. My wattage was as a candle to some folks' high beams. And then there's the halogen brilliance of Stephen Hawking....

I spend very little time thinking about what he posits because it's way beyond my ken. Most of my thinking is admiration for his tenacity in staying alive despite struggling with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a fatal wasting disease. I don't know the record for the length of time staying alive after diagnosis but he's got to be approaching it.

Anyway. I rely on other smart people who purport to understand what Hawking theorizes about to attest to his smartness. I concede it.

So when he says something that I can understand, I listen and I think about it.

Last week, in a news conference in Hong Kong, Hawking warned that the human race's survival as a species was dependent upon it seeking out other worlds to colonize. He believes the chances are that mankind will wipe itself out on earth within a hundred years.

He believes we could have a permanent colony on the moon within 20 years and on Mars within 40 - and that we should.

I think we gotta listen to the guy. I believe the US, Canada, Britain, France, Australia and other interested countries should get together, pool their resources, both scientific and monetary, and start making this happen.

Even if Hawking is wrong about earth's and mankind's demise, it's still the right thing to do. The pursuit of knowledge and exploration into the unknown brings out the best in us - it's at the heart of who we are.

Hawking is wheelchair-bound. He speaks with the help of a computer. His disease renders him totally immobile. Nobody is more earthbound than he.

Yet his mind and imagination are not tethered by the law of gravity. They are not encased by dimensional walls. I honestly believe that in a very real way, Stephen Hawking already lives "out there" and is beckoning the rest of us to follow.

I hope there's a few smartasses out there listening, nodding and preparing to do just that.

Oh Crap. Writer's Block.

Okay. Two weeks and a day but who's counting?

I'm sleeping a little better but can't seem to concentrate long enough to write a lick. You know, although sympathetic, I've never truly related to other writers who complained about being blocked. I'd be temporarily stuck, like, for as long as it took for me to wander into the garage and have a couple of puffs of my pipe, then get right back to writing.

I never understood how someone could just NOT be able to write for an extended period of time.

Until now.

Brain betrayal. Muse mutiny.

Crap.

Still Not Smoking

Okay, it's been a week. No patch. No gum. No homocides. Yet.

The physical aspects of withdrawal have been easier to deal with than I'd expected: no case of the shakes or screaming meemies. My sunny disposition remains intact and if you don't believe me you can just stop reading, go outside, close your eyes and run around until you get by a truck and see if I care. Loser.

I have two semi-major issues: I can't seem to sleep for more than four hours at a stretch and I'm having trouble focusing for extended periods (such as might be required if a person was to, oh, I don't know, write something longer than one sentence.)

Otherwise, things are just peachy. Really.

Go away now.

Barbara Bauer Ph.D - Pretend (and profane) Agent

Once upon a time - actually, for the last 20 years, right up until today - there was a pretend literary agent named Barbara Bauer Ph.D. Now, in the book publishing world, real agents make their money by selling real books written by real writers to real publishers. They then take a percentage of what the writer is paid as their fee. It’s a system that has worked well for a long time.

We know that Barbara Bauer Ph.D. was and is a pretend agent because, well, she didn’t sell any of her client’s books. She did, however, charge them fees - sometimes reading fees, sometimes marketing fees and sometimes representation fees.

One day, Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, real writers who advocate on behalf of other real writers, assembled a list of the 20 Worst Agents. These agents are commonly known as “scam” agents. They’re not interested in earning money by selling books to publishers. They’re interested in “pretending” to sell books but in reality, make their money by charging fees.

Well, Barbara Bauer Ph.D. (who, by the way, seems extraordinarily proud of those letters after her name - you can tell because the only pictures of her on her website are of her graduation - be-capped and be-gowned, by golly) was very annoyed to see that her agency was listed as one of the 20 Worst. She became ultra-annoyed when other websites picked on the list and republished it.

She huffed and she puffed and she threatened to blow their houses down! And she did so profanely! (Maybe the Ph.D. stands for “profane huffer doc.”)

But everyone’s house stayed up.

Until one day she saw her listing on a bulletin board called the AbsoluteWrite forums. Those forums were created by a writer named Jenna Glatzer as a place for other writers to gather and learn from each other. Over 7,000 of them did so. It was a happy and educational place for all writers, from hobbyists to professionals.

Barbara Bauer Ph.D. knew profane huffing wouldn’t work on Jenna, so she huffed and she puffed at the hosts of that forum (JC-Hosting - TotalWeb International Net Consulting) and guess what?

They closed the forums! And over 7,000 formerly-happy writers had no place to gather!

Barbara Bauer Ph.D. and JC-Hosting had made very many writers very angry. Angry writers are a fearsome lot. They dip their keyboards in acid and wield words as daggers.

Guess who’s bleeding now?

Links: Making Light - NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES - Miss Snark - Writer Beware - BarbaraBauer - More blogs about Barbara Bauer.

Gonna Quit Smoking

I wrote in my column last week that I intend to quit smoking on May 30th, my 55th birthday. That only leaves me six more days of smoking but who's counting?

As of now, I plan to go cold turkey: no gum or patches or hypnosis or acupuncture - just crying and tantrums. I'm not anal about aids though. (Wicked wits could have fun with that sentence but I'm not that kind of a guy.) If it turns out I'm having a horrible go of it, I'll try whatever I need to in order to stay away from my beloved pipes.

I received a lot of wonderful mail after that column, chockful of stories and tips and cautionary tales from readers who've been there and done that. They were inspiring and I'm very grateful to those folks for taking the time to tell of their experiences.

I'm pretty sure I won't turn into one of "those" reformed smokers; you know, the ones who cough ostentatiously when within 100 yards of someone puffing. They bug me. I plan on exercising more to burn off some of those extra calories I'll probably be ingesting in place of nicotine and to exorcise the heebie jeebies of withdrawal. I just want to feel healthier and look good in a Speedo again. Is that so wrong?

Anyway, I'll be whining about my progress here semi-regularly.

You've been warned.

Making A Difference

When the last page is turned in your life’s book and the reviews start to come in, what do you want them to say?

Good parent? Fine son? Great worker? Pillar of society? Excellent writer? Told great jokes?

Worthy accolades, all. But rendered down, I believe the essence of a life well-lived is knowing you made a difference - that the ripples of your passage affected others in a positive way.

Never pass up an opportunity to comfort someone in pain. Keep compliments handy and don’t be shy about doling them out. Layer a slice of honesty with the icing of tact. Gift the lonely with your presence. Listen.

Risk opening your heart - the potential gain is worth the possibility of pain. Keep your mind open too - something good might build a nest in there and the crap will eventually find its way out.

Pay attention to children and the elderly - the former know what you’ve forgotten and the latter know what you’ve yet to learn.

Help someone feel better about themself today. Repeat every day.

That’s all that really matters.

Psychic Stuff

Call it spring fever. Call it laziness. But I'm going to plagiarize myself and reproduce one of my columns: Baron It All Issue #72. All rights reserved etc.

Read an interesting article the other day about a Toronto-area woman who helps police all over North America solve crimes via her psychic ability. We’ve all read similar stories. This one was neither more, nor less credible than others I’ve read. I have a pretty open mind. Some might even say its doors are permanently ajar. They can hear the wind blowing.

Hahaha. I made a self-deprecating joke.

What was kind of neat about this particular woman, aside from the obvious, was her husband. He met her when she was called in on one of her earliest cases, some 20-odd years ago. He was a Homicide cop assigned to the case and highly skeptical of her abilities. Guess she convinced him. And then some.

The story got me thinking about psychic or paranormal stuff. I’ve mentioned in an earlier column about my great-grandmother, Big Baba, being a card and tea-leaf reader. During my teens I was fascinated by all things paranormal; devouring books by Hans Holzer (the ghost hunter), Edgar Cayce, Ruth Montgomery and others. I exhausted the local library’s store of books about astrology, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, telekinesis, telepathy, psychometry and spiritualism.

My then-future-ex-wife and I had our charts done by an astrologer. We got his phone number from an ad. The only information he wanted was our place and times of birth. No names or other identifying info. He gave us an appointment about a week later. Each of us received a long, detailed reading. I recall being amazed when he recounted a near-drowning experience I had when I was 10. At that time, only about three people on the planet knew about it. I hadn’t even told my parents.

I began to read books by Herman Hesse, Kahlil Gibran and Carlos Castaneda. Along about this time I was also experimenting with mind-altering compounds. (Hay! It was the late 60s - early 70s.) Finally, one nasty night I learned that thinking about paranormal stuff while under the influence of certain substances was a Very Bad Thing.

So I pretty much stopped doing both, or either, for a very long time.

In the intervening decades I’ve had the occasional, outside-the-norm experience. I expect many of you have as well. Here’s a couple that, although not overly dramatic, stand out:

1 - I was in my early 20s and a recent university graduate, living in London, Ontario. I was (and still am) an inveterate people-watcher. It’s part of the writer-thing to observe and speculate; to mentally file quirks and tidbits of conversation, tone of voice and mannerisms.

I was sitting at the back of a bus (from where one can see everybody), on my way downtown. At a stop a girl of about six or seven, a woman, and a man got on board. I glanced at each in turn and almost physically recoiled when I saw the man. I felt the blood drain from my face. I felt sick.

There was nothing obviously loathsome about his features necessarily. He was of medium height, dark-haired and had a sallow, slightly waxy complexion. I realized that I just very, very strongly felt evil emanating from him. That’s not a word I use a lot but it was the only one that fit.

The woman and girl sat in one seat, the man opposite them. None of them exchanged a word. They got off one stop before me and I was struck by how passive the little girl was, as was the woman I assumed to be her mother. Both walked, eyes lowered, to the exit. I glanced away as the man neared, not wanting to make eye contact, however briefly, with him.

I’ve never felt such a strong, negative visceral reaction before or since and hope I never do. I’ve often wondered about that woman and girl.

2 - For several years my ex and I lived in an old house built in the early 1900s. We lived on the main floor and basement, another couple on the two upper floors.

The basement had cold spots; well-known to ghost story readers. The temperature could change dramatically one step away from wherever you were. The spots were not constant and they existed all four seasons of the year. I grew used to them for the most part, although every now and then, when alone down there at 2:00 a.m. watching a late show, I would get creeped out. Once or twice, I actually ran upstairs when I felt a cold spot starting to surround my chair.

Our main floor kitchen had a door added to separate it from the front entrance, used by the upstairs couple. We were friends and visited often. When in the kitchen, we could hear them come downstairs, or enter their front door from outside. Practically every day we’d hear their footsteps approach that kitchen door as they visited.

Late one night, three or four of us were sitting around our kitchen table talking when three very loud knocks suddenly rattled that door. We all started because nobody had heard approaching footsteps, either from the neighbour’s stairs or front door.

I took three steps and opened the door. Nobody there. Nobody going upstairs. Nobody going outside from the front door. We hadn’t been playing music, just quietly talking. It was late and we would most certainly have heard someone approaching and leaving that door.

As the wise sage Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

But you can’t always explain what you observe.

Serendipity: Part Deux

Last week in my column I wrote about serendipitous stuff that has happened to me over the years. I then related my fortuitous online meeting with a pro tarpon fisherman and budding writer named Dino Ramaciere. I urged everyone to check out the latest (April) issue of Field & Stream magazine, wherein they could find Dino’s first published story - Beauty and the Tarpon.

One of my readers, who I think lives in Australia, wrote to ask if any of Dino’s writing appeared online as he had no access to the magazine. I knew Dino hadn’t posted or published anything except for his F&S story, so I wrote back saying I’d ask Dino’s permission to send the draft of the story that he had sent me some months before.

Dino did me one better and sent me the galley from the magazine which included one of the spiffy illustrations used to accompany the piece. I forwarded the galley and made a note to offer to do so in my next column to anyone who had problems finding the mag.

Now a bit of back story:

About a month ago I came across a reference to Google Alerts on the Absolute Write boards. Many of you probably know about it but for those of you who don’t - it’s a service provided by Google wherein you input keywords and they’ll email you any search results containing those keywords. I thought it might be a fun way to track my book so I entered “what fish don’t want you to know” (without the quotation marks).

Every 24 hours I received an email from Google Alerts which contained links using my keywords. Unfortunately, probably because I didn’t use quotation marks, I got mostly inappropriate results - stuff like:

Trout season tips to live by Trout are safe, healthy meal Rules ...
Scranton Times-Tribune - PA, USA
... have broken or unusable straps, or that don’t fit are ... Also, if you catch fish, like perch or sunfish, that have no minimum size and you want to clean ...

The first line would be a clickable link. The second was the source. The rest was a snippet from the linked page highlighting the “appropriate” keywords.

Usually among the 10-15 results there would be one or two that actually related to my book’s listing on Barnes & Noble, or Amazon or elsewhere but most weren’t at all germane. I tended to delete the mail after a five-second scan and each time would make a mental note to alter the listing to include quotation marks to winnow out the inappropriate links. But as we all know, mental notes aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on and I kept putting it off.

Anyway...

This morning, the first listing in my Google Alerts was:

Beauty and the Tarpon
Field and Stream - USA
... I went fishing one morning with my wife and my sister. Initially, my sister didn’t want to make the trip. ... You know I don’t like to fish....

Yep. Dino’s story is online. Now you don’t have to shell out bucks or visit your library to read a fine story by a fine writer. Go read it right now. You won't be sorry. I'll wait.

I suppose sooner or later Dino, or someone, would have tripped over the online listing and let me know. But it was a hoot to come across it this way.

Might even call it serendipitous.

Pamela Anderson (both of her) and a nice story

Unique seems to have taken on the task of being my Muse. She's hinted rather broadly that it's past time for another entry. So blame this one on her.

I read a nice story in the newspaper this morning. A young woman from New Jersey, Lindsay Scharzwaelder, (you can't make those up) was vacationing in Ontario in January. She and her boyfriend were returning from a ski trip when they lost control of their car on a very snowy road. The car rolled over and ended up in a ditch. Luckily, both Lindsay and her boyfriend were unhurt and walked away.

Later, she discovered that two rings she'd removed while skiiing and placed in the car door's armrest were gone. They'd must have fallen out into the snow when they opened the door after the accident.

Lindsay was distraught at the loss of the rings and tried to call the 1-800 number the attending police officer had given her. But it didn't work from the States so she wrote a letter to the Ontario Provincial Police, asking if it would be possible for an officer to look for the rings after the snow melted.

Last Sunday, OPP Constable Russell Elliott walked along the ditch near where the accident had occurred months before. He didn't have much hope of finding the rings but figured he'd give it a shot. He shone a flashlight around the muddy area and something gleamed.

Uh-huh. It was one of the rings. He dug around in the mud nearby and found the other one too.

They are now back where they belong, on Lindsay's fingers in New Jersey. She's happy. Constable Elliott is happy. I'm happy I read it.

Also last Sunday, I watched the Juno Awards, Canada's equivalent to the Grammys. The show was hosted by two of Canada's most famous expatriates, Pamela Anderson.

(Ba-da-bing!)

I hadn't watched the Junos in decades, since back in the days when Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfooot, Count Basie and the Guess Who copped all the hardware. The show was boring and predictable. (Those words should be synonyms.)

But I was drawn to it this year because the Canadian music industry is booming, with lots of individuals and bands worth a listen. Michael Buble, a crooner in the Tony Bennett tradition, was the big winner, with several awards. But The Arcade Fire, Bedouin Sound Clash and Nickelback didn't go home empty handed. Bryan Adams was deservedly elected to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. (I forgive him his recent obsession with power ballads because Summer of 69 is one of the great rock anthems.)

Coldplay and the Black Eyed Peas also performed and help present awards. All in all, it was an enjoyable show and Pamela and Pamela had nothing to do with it. Hardly anything. Much.

You know, if some of you would like to read more of my stuff you're allowed to subscribe to my (mostly) weekly, (mostly) humourous, free, emailed column/newsletter. (Hello? Unique!?) The column is BCC-d. Nobody will get your address (except me - and I keep it safe in my underwear drawer). Just drop me a line at baronitall(at)rogers.com. You know what to do with that (at).

Gone Fishing

It had been much too long since the last time I’d gone fishing. My spirits were as bedraggled as a soaked kitten’s.

The fact there was a bunch of cars parked at the bridge didn’t really faze me. I knew most of the guys would be fishing north of it - where most of the fish were. I was headed several hundred yards downstream, towards the lake. I’d druther fish where there weren’t many fish as long as I had some space to myself.

Only one guy was working “my” spot when I got there. I set up a respectful 50 or so yards away and proceeded to get my first professional overrun (“backlash” or “tangled line” for you fin-impaired folks) on my 2nd cast.

Five minutes of cursing and working out the tangles later, I made my 3rd cast, and this time there was no unravelling that mass of monofilament spaghetti. I cut the line, sat on the bank, dug out some new line and started refilling my reel. And promised never to use line more than six months old, ever again.

While I was in the midst of that little chore, the other guy packed up and started walking back towards the bridge. As he passed, I asked if he’d had any luck. He replied in the negative, saying it had been dead for the three hours he was there.

Fuelled by my usual mixture of faith and foolishness, I was undaunted. I moved to his vacated spot and began drifting a small worm under a float.

The sun was warm - though the wind found gaps in my clothes and reminded me it was very early spring. The worm wasn’t working so I switched to an artificial grub. Nothing doing there either. Time to use the tried-and-true roe bag.

An hour and a half meandered by without a sign of a fish. My shoulders and arm began to hurt - in that good, fishing-caused way. The water looked perfect - high and slightly dingy. There had to be a fish or two around. They couldn’t all have moved up to the off-limits spawning areas yet.

I was watching two gulls squabble over something when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my float slip under the surface. I belatedly, but not too belatedly, set the hook and was overjoyed to feel throbbing resistance. My 11 ½' rod (it’s not the size - it’s the tricks you can do with it) bent into that oh-so-lovely C-shape.

After a 2 or 3-minute spirited tussle, I eased a 4lb. steelhead to the bank.

Usually I like to release my first decent fish of the year but I was pretty sure it would be the only one I’d catch today. As I dispatched it, I mentally promised to release the next one, whenever it might come along.

It came along about an hour later. This time a 5-6 pounder, a fine male already sporting his spawning colours.

A fishless hour after that, I packed up and trudged back to my car. My hip waders had somehow gained 10 pounds each. My back had joined my shoulders and arm in the pain department.

And my spirit soared. I felt renewed - as happy as I’ve been in months.

Tomorrow I’m gonna do it again.


The above post was written for the layperson, the non-anglerphile. For those of you who consider fish slime to be a cologne and who feel naked without at least a couple of scales clinging to your clothes - read on....

I use two rods: a 9' light-action for bottom-fishing and for casting the occasional piece of hardware, and an 11 ½' noodle rod for drifting under a float. Water clarity was only about 16" so I decided not to bother with a lighter leader and just fished straight 8lb. with each outfit. (Trilene XL, by the way - still my favourite all-round line after all these years.)

The first fish hit a drifted roe bag, tied with white mesh, tipped with a bit of a teaser - a single Berkley Power Egg in fluorescent orange.

The second came during a lull in the current flow when I used the 9-footer to lob out a small, air-injected worm weighted only with a couple of BB shot about 14" above the hook.

This is not a new entry

It's more like a promise of one to come. I'm going to get my line wet tomorrow for the first time in ages and will likely yak about that.

Be still your beating hearts!

Odds n' Ends

Canada has 2100 personnel in Afghanistan, most of them soldiers. The allied forces there are now headed by Canadian General Rick Hillier. Our troops’ role has been expanded to include hunting down Taliban insurgents. As a result, some of our people have been injured and killed recently.

Leader of the New Democrat Party Jack Layton thinks Parliament should debate whether or not we should be there at all. Some Liberals (the folks who sent our men and women there in the first place) agree. Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded by staging an ultra-secret visit to Afghanistan to visit with our troops. He slept on a cot in their encampment. He lined up with the soldiers to eat at the canteen. He told them how important the job they’re doing is and how proud he is of them.

Finally! A leader who does more than grin and mouth empty rhetoric while picking the taxpayer’s pocket.

“But we’re a nation of peacekeepers, not soldiers,” some hand-wringing left-libs cry.

Policemen are charged with keeping the peace too. That means more than helping little old ladies across the street, directing traffic and manning a radar gun. Sometimes it means protecting us from bad guys. Sometimes it means acting instead of reacting. Sometimes it means doing scary, dangerous work far from home.


I’ve done it before and sworn I wouldn’t again but I have. And will.

I’m reading the first book in a series and the next won’t be out ‘til godknowswhen. It’s Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch and it’s terrific. I only have about 50 pages to go and I’m trying to read them very, very s-l-o-w-l-y. My lips aren’t even tired.

Hurry up Tad! Get Shadowplay on the shelves tomorrow!


We just had an enjoyable, albeit brief, flirtation with Spring here in southern Ontario. For a couple of days we had sweater/light jacket weather. Today the temperature is hovering around freezing again and gale-force winds make it feel much colder.

It’s depressing. Like eyeing a pretty girl for a moment, wiping the crumbs off your shirt while rehearsing what you’ll say to her, then watching her climb into some rich dude’s sports car and drive away.


Late breaking news! The Trailer Park Boys are coming to a theatre near you! Watch the teaser and get a glimpse of the most intelligentest and more smarter tv show that probably could ever be! (Thanks to Adam on the AW board for the heads-up.)

Opinin' on the Oscars

I sort of watched the Oscars last night for the first time since Dave ("Uma-Oprah") Letterman hosted. I was semi-interested this time in seeing how Jon Stewart would do in that role. I haven't been a regular Oscars watcher in over 20 years. Maybe 30. The production numbers annoyed me. The insincerity of the glitterati and their exaggerated sense of importance rankled. I also pretty much stopped going out to movies during that time, content to wait until they were released on video. Hence I often hadn't seen any nominated movies until well after the Oscars were presented.

What I tended to do over the last couple of decades was tune in to see the host's opening bits and then let my attention drift. Thinking back, Johnny Carson was pretty good. Steve Martin - ditto. Whoopi Goldberg - not so much. Billy Crystal was probably my favourite. Being part of the Hollywood crowd, he knew how and where to insert a playful needle.

I figured Stewart would be well-received by the audience in the theatre, being as they largely shared his left-leaning politics. His early jokes got a lukewarm response though. I got the impression the crowd was nervous. They seemed to come around when he delivered the Cheney-shot-Bjork joke.

If there was a production number this year I must have dozed off and missed it. I confess to picking up my newspaper now and again and I was on the phone for a while too. Ben Stiller's bit was funny. I liked how genuinely gobsmacked the large cast of Crash appeared when they learned it had won Best Picture. I guess Brokeback Mountain was considered the fave.

Despite the fact one woman in the crowd's breasts kept threatening to escape the confines of her dress as she bounced with delight when her movie won something, it was a ho-hum affair. Perhaps if they had managed to escape I'd feel differently.

Letterman's stint as host was largely panned by the critics. I have a hunch they won't be too kind to Stewart either. Both men have a cool, dry, cerebral wit that serves them well in a smaller, more intimate setting. A great Oscar host needs that wit but also needs to be part clown. And it would help if s/he knew, truly knew, the intimate workings of the movie business.

In other words - I vote to bring back Billy Crystal and tell him the job is his as long as he wants it.

Stephen Colbert

Do I write about the Man? Or the Legend?

Toughie.

They are as one.

Stephen Colbert is the host of The Colbert Report ("report" is pronounced "reh-pore" - as if en francais) seen Monday-Thursday on the Comedy Channel at 11:30 pm, EST, following Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

Stephen reports (pronounced "re-ports") on the day's events (primarily USA-based) from a hard right perspective.

Supposedly.

But it doesn't take too-too much reading between the lines to see where his sympathies lie.

His, (or rather, his character's) ego is as big as all outdoors, vaguely reminiscent of Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau. There's no indignity of his hero, George Bush's, that he, Colbert, can't rise above.

The show is wickedly funny. Kudos to the writers and kudos to Colbert for pulling it off in the first place, and sustaining it night after night.

And kudos to Son #1 for getting me to watch it in the first place.

Here's a link to a site devoted to Colbert. Watch some clips if you want a chuckle.