Researching family history is seldom dull. Sometimes though a surprise comes out of nowhere. This week it came from a cousin on my father's side that I hadn't talked to in decades. She emailed me a copy of a 1936 SECRET RCMP Report on Revolutionary Organizations
A video blogger named Dan Overes just contacted me with a video visit to the grave site of my father Ralph's first wife, Madge. What I didn't anticipate was the stone above. No mention that Madge had been married, no mention of Ralph, or his last
Living in France for a couple of years you slowly realise that every French politician carries one image in the back of their mind: La guillotine. Knowing that your actions might have a real personal consequence does tend to temper some of the untrammelled pro-Capitalist goals of Western political
Finally, my column for the Globe and Mail, about driving in England, has gone live. Read the entire column here. “Left lane! Barry. LEFT LANE!” shouts my wife Susan for the tenth time in the first half hour I was behind the wheel of our rented Fiat 500, negotiating the
This is really more of note-taking than anything. Pictured above is the Terrace Road School in Montgomery, now part of Calgary, Alberta. In September of 1962 I entered the doors of that school and began Grade One. The year or so that we lived at 2007 52 St NW
Of late I find myself talking to a lot of people about their family history. You could divide them up in many ways, but I tend to choose between those who have pretty basic memories of their family, and superficial knowledge of their background, and those who have taken on
Some time soon the actual article will show up in the Globe and Mail, describing my first day at the Cambridge Gliding Centre. When that happens I'll be sure to let you know. And yes, I now own the Official Bucket Hat. In the weeks since that introduction
Where my mind is today.
My teen years were spent in our family's new home on Charolais Road in Kelowna, part of a new development near the Guisachan Heritage Park. What is more memorable, for me, is that one road in the subdivision was named after the developer's daughter: Rhondda Crescent.
Icons of Canadian pop music, the Barenaked Ladies are coming to Cambridge, for a show at the Corn Exchange, which I walk past every time I head into town. It's part of a whole Christmas season tour of the UK. Honest to God, there are about a hundred
One of the great irritations about living outside of Canada is realizing how hard so many businesses work to avoid letting you give them money. The image above is from https://www.rew.ca. If you're looking for a house in British Columbia that's 95% likely
Aside from keeping the home-fires burning here in Cambridge, and learning to fly gliders, I've been finding time to focus on the novel that has been an on-again, off-again project for a few years. It began with a never talked about bit of Rueger family
Of late I've been digging into the history of my mother Evelyn's side of the family. Inevitably that leads to records of homesteading in Saskatchewan. Carving up the western territories in Canada was the government of the day's way of blocking the suspected American
Published today in the iPaper (UK): Today in the iPaper I write about being a stay-at-home husband to a Cambridge University scholar. I really like this column, and hope that you do as well. (Note: I don't write the headlines...) I know which brand of Greek
It's been a busy week for more reasons than one. The big one though has been a run of writing gigs, all of which I suspect will pop up in the next few weeks - including one in the UK. So I've been a little quiet here
My first cel phone was around 1990. Big, heavy, short battery life. It was rented for a trip down into the US for Michael Caplan Entertainment, hauling trade show booth stuff for some Toronto area tourism outfit. The phone proved invaluable when the rented van died along highway 400 between
This week, for the first time ever, I stepped out in a tuxedo. Perhaps not quite as well-tailored as Sean Connery's suit, but still very cool, and very confidence building. The occasion was the Alumni Dinner for the Cambridge University Guild of Change Ringers. This year it
Oh, long-suffering subscribers. I haven't forgotten you, really. Last Wednesday I managed to finally do something I've dreamed of since I was a teenager: flying. I visited the Cambridge Gliding Centre and enjoyed an amazing and even sunny day learning the very basics of piloting
This month, I'm finally back to working on the novel. It's loosely based on family history - something that my family is utterly awful at doing. In any event, I started with my mother, growing up near Dorintosh, Saskatchewan. My Grandfather and grandmother were homesteaders in the
Back at the start of this century I was, for about a year and a half, manager of WMMT Radio in Whitesburg, Kentucky. WMMT's signal covers parts of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. In particular, they reach many of the jails and prisons that have been built in the