I loved summer camp as a kid. Horseback riding. Cavorting in the lake. Fashioning tacky crafts from macaroni and matchsticks, paper plates and plaster of Paris. Gathering round campfires singing Clementine, Kumbaya and my favourite, Dat’s vut I learned at da school, yuh, yuh! That one began (hand on head) …
“Two raspberry smoothies coming right up. Time for the berries now, little man.” “I not a widow man,” said the tyke on the tall stool beside me, dumping them in the blender. “I’s Ezwa! I WIKE kitchens!” He’s towheaded, three and unstoppable, our youngest grandbean, Ezra. And he just had …
I once interviewed a Canadian who had twice summited Mount Everest. “I wasn’t trying to get to the top,” Dave Rodney said, remembering the most perilous portions of the climb—crossing ladders placed as bridges over almost bottomless crevasses. “…Just to the next rung on the ladder.” Everest climbers surround us. …
Neil Thom, former Publisher and General Manager of Yorkton This Week, died two days before Christmas of 2018. I’d expected the news, but it shocked me anyway. I knew Neil had cancer. At his funeral I learned that he’d dueled with the beast for over three years, endured surgery after …
Something frightening recently took place in a private garden in South Texas. While gardening in her backyard, a nurse named Jennifer spotted a rattler near her hand. An instant later it rose to striking position. “SNAKE!” she screamed. Her husband, Jeremy, working nearby, grabbed a shovel and ran over. First, …
I entered the church, turned and found my old friend standing just a few feet from me. Until she smiled, I didn’t recognize her. But only one person smiles like that. We hugged, opened our mouths, and started in, just like old times in another church foyer. Back then, we almost …
My favourite childhood Christmas gift showed up beside our scrawny tree on Christmas morning, unwrapped. To Beverly and Kathy. Love, Mommy and Daddy. My father spent part of his adult life as a construction worker. He built churches – a prelude to the later decades when he and Mom propped …
Scene 1. OutsideWal-Mart. December, years ago. A loaded buggy rolls down a slight incline towards me. We collide. “Whoa!” I grab its side to stay upright. A cherubic face peers from among piles of bags and boxes. Wide eyes meet mine. They belong to an infant. “I just got run …
“A woman is born. A lifetime later, she dies. And between those two moments, that woman shops.” Not this woman, though. At least not in stores, though I can easily fill an online cart at Amazon.ca. Thankfully, the Preacher does most of our household shopping. He enjoys visiting in the …
“Uh, oh. Little horse, big trouble,” I thought. But it made sense that seven-year-old Sherah (the smallest of our three-person team) would choose the Shetland pony from the line-up of horses. The others towered over her. When Amanda had called to see if I’d accompany her and the eldest four …
