You can’t tell if they’re out of place or just so weird you made them up.

When I was eight, I was a rebel. I wanted to try new things. I wanted to mix it up.

I loved combinations.

So I got myself a combination blender. You know, those blenders but without buttons.

They have a big old numbered dial onto them.

The world famous combination blenders of East Ship Harbour.

They’re so simple to use:

Three turns to the left, two to the right, then?

Milkshake!

We had great things when we were kids. Robots that happen to be cars and cars that happen to be robots?

Is it a car or is it a robot?

Who could tell?

It was enough to make us all paranoid.

Or is it just me?

The car robots motto? “More than meets the eye”.

The impact on us?

Trust no one. Believe in nothing.

And the TV show? All of was just an ad.

Sure,

It was all just a way for Hasbro to push post apocalyptic Japanese nihilism on un suspecting teen age boys around the globe.

And you wonder why there are so many conspiracy theories these days. The logic is simple:

That car might be a truck and that truck might be a butler who happens to be a robot who’s controlled by an evil ultra secret cabal of baby eating lizard people.

It’s confusing times - especially if you’re just a bit clever. Clever enough to follow seventeen podcasts and to see all of the interconnected fabric between what they’re saying, but not clever enough to realize that you know nothing.

Each period has it’s own label and ethos. There was the age of sail, the Industrial Revolution, the renaissance.

If I had to define the particular epoch we’re living in I’d say that we live in the time of the spork.

That’s such a terrible word. Spork.

Spork. Dork, Sexy+Dork = Spork?

Or

Does Stinky+Pork = Spork?

I’m asking a lot of you right now - this question surrounding sporks is a deeply painful one for some.

We really should just let God decide. It’s only right.

Seriously though,

Could you imagine a talking spork?

He’d be all like: “Look at me. I’m confused”.

I’d be all like bullying him and stuff: “Hey, Short prongs, that’s quite the bowl belly you’ve got.”

They’d have to bring in HR to intervene. I’d get written up for questioning what course of meal you eat it with.

We should give all the weirdos a mark. A spork mark. Like branding cattle but you do it with a spork. It wouldn’t work though. So many sporks are totally plastic.

But if you could, you know, give people the spork mark, It would save a lot of time. Right?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy way to identify those spork people.

The confused and the clueless. You know the kind. The spork people are the kind of folks you invite over to your place for a party and they don’t ever get the hints that it’s time for them to leave and you to sleep.

I had a spork person once a few years ago who came over for an afternoon wine and cheese.

And now, he’s been here so long, we use him as a place to leave the clothes that we’re going to wear just one more time before putting them in the wash.

More and more spork people are becoming fashionable. That’s how you can tell an up an coming spork person. They’re fashionable. They wear a mullet.

Sporks and mullets are natural allies. In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, pairing a spork person with a mullet gives you a +3 defense modifier.

But these are the cynical ranting of a 53 year old man.

As an eight year old boy?

I was mystified by the inventive genius of the spork, thought mullets were the most bossest of hair cuts and the ultimate car was the Chevy El Camino.

The El Camino to be the ultimate car? truck? An El Camino is like having a mullet, face tattoos and those odd stretched ear things all dressed up in a plaid and beige ensemble entirely from the pages of the LL Bean catalogue.

What does the El Camino say about a man?

Rugged woodland urban weirdo?

Hipster, dipstick, wannabe dweebe?

Add a mullet and then all you’d need are a bunch of those hockey puck skin stretcher things.

You remember those people?

You know those people. You know, the ones who would stuff hockey pucks in their earlobes until their lobes are stretched out so bad they resemble what would happen to a sad withered yellow balloon that was passed around in every glory hole in rural Quebec.

Skin stretching isn’t my jam. Piercings aren’t my jam.

I once dated a chick with her belly button pierced. It was awful. She was deranged.

If you have your belly button pierced? You are a sick individual. You are a horrible person. You are deranged.

This deranged monster that I used to date, you know, that one with an abomination on her belly button?

She thought it would be funny if she stretched out that hole with the hockey puck skin stretchers earlobe widening thingies.

You know what I mean…

She was an odd duck. Never before in my lifetime had I ever met a woman who volunteered for the joys of stretching and tearing out her guts for no apparent reason. I mean, it wasn’t like she was becoming a mom. At least as a mom you end up with some cheap labor for the family based influencer sweatshop that’s your side hustle.(Your girls are GREAT little dancers! You must be SO PROUD!)

Could you imagine if the belly button stretching lady dated another sickoo who put those earlobe stretchers in a belly button ring?

Every time they had sex it would be like to little castanettes tapping together.

When they were doin’ it, they’d have to leave the plates in.

Without those spacers, things would become a stringy mess.

It would be like that scene in Lady and the Tramp with the spaghetti, but instead of a meatball, a giant glob of belly button lint would come rolling out like a stringy starched piece of polyester tumbleweed.

If they sized up and found bigger hole stretchers?

Well. Then they’d sound like really loud castanets. The size would make them louder. So they would be louder.

That’s just how she goes.

I’m glad that I was eight at the time I was eight. It was the beginning of the eighties. Regan was about to sweep into the White House.

The best part of Regan? He had no impact on my life at all. I’m Canadian, he was just some guy.

But the 80’s were great.

The 80’s were great because the teenagers?

They didn’t stretch their earlobes.

They had dirt bikes and motor boats.

Teens back then had adventures.

Thinking back to my eight year old self. I dreamt I was another boy. He was the teen in the boat of my dreams.

The teen in the boat of my dreams was my first crush.

I didn’t love his hair, nor the deck of Players Light that he had tucked up the sleeve of his white cotton undershirt.

I was in love with is boat.

I loved his boat because that boat of his, that fourteen foot long aluminum boat with a little 9.9 allowed this young stallion to go ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE on the lake and be able to SEE ALL THE THINGS.

JIMMY SEEING ALL THE THINGS: Oh look, there’s a tree. Oh! And another tree. And oh wow! A tree. Oh look a tree! Oh, and another tree. And oh wow! A tree. Oh look, a tree!

That’s not how I imagined it though. I imagined old hunting logs with muskets and gold mines and trolls!

Not really ‘trolls’ per se, but old stinky guys who basically lived in a swamp.

I wouldn’t live in a swamp though. In my dream, I’d live in my boat. I’d go wherever I wanted - just like that guy.

The lake is twelve miles long. It gets rough in a hurry.

But when you start exploring from a young age, the rough stuff doesn’t upset you that much.

I think what I love best about being a guide and tour director.

People come to me like that eight year old boy that I used to be. They come to me with dreams - dreams to see. Dreams to explore. Dreams to imagine.

They’re here to take a peak at what’s just around the corner.

They’re here to catch a glimpse of something they’ve never seen before .

And me?

I’m that fourteen foot aluminum boat.

Oh look, a tree! Oh look, another tree!

It’s just what you do.

Some dudes though? Some dudes just don’t.

What is wrong with them?

Some humans are a mystery, wrapped in an embellishment holding onto a sausage.

Dear reader, dudes can be glorious, smart and disciplined.

Then?

Then there are the urinal talkers.

Women, you may fear a stalker, but for a dude, there can be nothing worse than a urinal talker.

This plague I first encountered as a child watching hockey games.

As a young boy I encountered horrors at the Metro centre - bald and flush faced men reeking of beer fishing for their penises beneath bulging beer bellies all while belching and beginning the stream with a loogie well horked.

You see dear reader, there’s a ritual, a piss ritual. This piss ritual takes place as dudes shoulder up in hockey rinks: Unzip, hork, produce the sausage, spit, piss, sigh, shake, zip, spit, flush, leave.

Gross eh?

Yeah, the entire procedure of mass public pissing is bad enough - so much so that at hockey games my son and I used to leave the rink, cross the street and piss in behind the Red Cross building.

But, there is one thing that makes pissing worse.

You see, dear reader, I have recently led not one, but two multi day tours of the Maritimes. I’ve loved my guests. They’ve loved me. I love being a tour director.

At the same time, I’m responsible for a lot of people. They want my attention. Whether to know where we’re going next or just to have a chance to swap stories, a tour director’s time is never his own.

Most days, I’d struggle to eat two bites between paperwork, problem-solving, or conversations.

I expected that.

But piss breaks?

C’mon.

There are rules people: Take out your cock, do the rituals. Stare straight ahead against unyielding tiles. Pretend the dude next to you isn’t there. Try to relax and wait for the whole ordeal to end.

It’s just what you do.

Right?

It’s what you’re supposed to do anyway.

Eyes forward, mouth shut. Pretend things smell like spruce trees.

On tour though I encountered some men so excited to share a joke, tell a story or get information, they… they…

They violated this sacred rule.

What’s worse, they even turned to speak with me while… in process.

I mean, they were looking at me, trying to make eye contact.

Dear reader, whether riding bikes and horses or shooting pucks there is one truth to biomechanics: ACTION FOLLOWS THE EYES.

So as soon as dude starts talking to me he’s ignoring the task in his hand and trying to be ‘polite’ and make eye contact.

And he’s asking me tough questions about where supper is going to be and what’s on the menu.

What’s on the menu? All I can think about are my shoes!

I’m trying to be polite. It’s my job to be polite. But how do I do it? How do tell this man, standing there with his drippy dick in his hand what he’s having for dinner?

Do I not deserve just a moments peace?

Or do I go all in and turn to him?

Do I turn to him while trying to keep the apple juice in the can?

Or,

Do I let the action follow the eyes and send him back to the bus with wet feet?

Or,

Do I just stare at the tiles and pretend I can’t hear?

What would you do?

I had to do something, make a choice, open myself to a strange new world of dripping dick discussions or set a boundary.

Attempting to do both at the same time, I turned to him to set a boundary. It landed as expected.

We took soggy steps back to the bus as we left our meeting without saying a word.

It’s just what you do.

Today, was the day.

I wrote this post as a draft on October first of last year.

On Saturday, we made a choice.

In ten minutes the vet is arriving and my first dog will be no more.

It’s so strange. He’s failing quickly now. He’s little more than skin and bones.

Even so, his tail goes up and despite the pain, the little guy just wants to live.

He just wants to please us and to do his job.

He’s a good boy and always will be.

It’s an odd responsibility, knowing when to let go, knowing when keeping an animal alive is more for us than for him.

But?

When he had lepto 8 years ago, Dr. Bev told us we’d be lucky to get five years out of him.

We’ve been lucky.

And so has he.

Farewell Ronin, our bravest little warrior.

Go chase bunnies in the forest just beyond the edge of what we can see.

I always wanted a dog.

As a young boy, I loved them.

When my dad’s mom - big Nanny Too was gifted Alice - a miniature Schnauzer, I fell in love.

My Aunt and Uncle Jane and Ross always had dogs.

Whenever I fell in love with someone, she typically had a dog.

Laura was no different. When we first met, her dog was a great big Great Pyrenees named Hoss. Hoss would follow Laura’s bunnies and eat rabbit turds off the floor as soon as they came out. The bunnies were filled with earthy bounty that was always hot n’ ready.

Given my constant love of and desire to have a dog, it’s difficult to say why it took until I was 41 to finally have a dog of my own.

Even then, I resisted.

Even then I blamed Laura and her friend with a brain tumour.

I’m dying and I want dogs. All he thinks about is the future. Mine is now.

It was a pretty fucking convincing argument eh?

That day I was on Kijiji searching for puppies.

I found one that I fell in love with instantly.

He was white and fluffy.

A mix of poodle, jack russell, Pomeranian and shitz you with all of the worst qualities of each.

His name?

Ronin.

He’s an odd beast.

Long noodle legs and a skinny, skinny body.

He just turned eleven.

He will not make it to be twelve.

In fact, I’m looking at my calendar for a day off - or even a half day to drive down to the cottage to dig a hole.

Work is busy.

That’s great. I love the work.

And?

It’s so busy now that I won’t be able to take the day to be around when Ronin goes.

Eight years ago he had Lepto.

We spent a LOT of money keeping him alive.

But over the last eighteen months, he hasn’t really been pooping.

More just bleeding from his asshole.

That and we can feel a mass in his belly.

I walked him last night. It was late and he was struggling.

His time is almost up.

As we got home I told him that he was a good boy and that his job was done.

He kept each of us alive with his love in some way shape or form.

He’s fierce in his love for us.

But this Ronin, this warrior puppy?

His strides are getting short, his curly tail is hanging low.

He’s less a puppy and now an old dog.

All I ever wanted was a dog to love.

And he was my first.

Now?

Now I know why I put of having a dog so long.

The little fucker.

That little fucker who puked on the bed and has shat on the floor and caused every calamity that his nine pounds could cause?

That little fucker stole my heart.

And now?

Now he’s going to break it.

It might not be today.

It might not be tomorrow.

But time runs out for all of us.

And Ronin?

He’s going soon.

Not likely tomorrow but his time here is short.

I’m grateful that I had the chance to share time here with him.

I was looking into his eyes tonight, crying and I can’t help but wonder if he knows or if he’s afraid.

It was thirty five years ago today that my granddad left us, my nanny’s husband.

Did he know?

Was he afraid?

(edit - now that Nanny’s past, was she afraid?)

As much as dogs are here to teach us about love and loss and grief, there’s one thing they can’t teach us - it’s how to die.

But I guess that’s asking a lot from a little white ball of fluff.

Git boy! Git! Go chase those rabbits in the sky!

I’ve not been able to write.

The next piece had to come out first.

Here’s the text from my Nanny’s eulogy that I delivered yesterday in the little white church on the hill in the best part of the best part of the world:

I’m Jimmy - Ruby’s oldest grandson.

Ruby?

Nanny.

She took that name when she was still young.

I was born when she was only 42.

She said, I’m too young to be called ‘granny’. Call me ‘nanny’.

That name stuck for decades, until Mya arrived.

Ruby was born a Russell in family home at the end of the Russell Road in Clam Harbour.

She was a special woman, a gem really.

In a lot of ways he life is like her namesake: precious, brilliant and timeless.

Her life is a bridge to a different time.

Or as she put it, “It was a different world back then.”

As a youngster, she grew up poor.

Her summers were spent running around barefoot.

They couldn’t afford to waste money on summer shoes in those days.

Ruby no shoes - as no one ever called her, helped her mother around the house with chores and eventually collected and delivered mail for a nickel a week.

Most summers, she’d travel with her mother to visit her mother’s family in Upper Lakeville.

They’d pile into one of the three cars in the whole community - likely the cab driven by old Bob Cook.

Nanny would say: ”You could walk darn near faster than he’d drive”.

It was a different world.

Electricity never arrived at the family home until she was nine.

She spoke with a wide eyed wonder at the miracle of getting an electric pump in the house.

“Before then, the boys would have to put a stone in the bucket to break the ice out of the well in the winter”.

To use her words, and join in if you know them - the cow was in the barn, the pig was in the pen and the chickens were in the henhouse.

Outback, was the outhouse - pretty deluxe for its time - a two seater - the original Eastern Shore side by side.

When the war came, Nanny moved to Eastern Passage. Those were golden years.

She’d say ”There was a rec hall and there were kids everywhere to play with.”

Nanny loved it there. She was none too pleased to move back to Clam Harbour.

It is what it is.

It wasn’t long though before Ruby outgrown that little village.

The school there only went to grade ten. She wanted her grade eleven.

So off she moved to live with Mrs Jennex in Oyster Pond through the week.

Around then when her brother introduced her to a fella a few years her senior.

Ellis was home from serving in Newfoundland and he had himself a car.

He’d frequently drive her from home in Clam Harbour to Mrs. Jennex’s place in Oyster Pond.

I’m not going to speculate what happened on those long car rides.

I’ll leave that to your imagination.

But to light a fire under your imaination, I will say that Granddad had a girlfriend when he first met Nanny.

She didn’t last long after they met though.

They dated for three years then were married.

Six months after the wedding, my mother was born.

When I teased Nanny about her gestational efficiency, she gave me a wink and said: “You don’t think it was your generation that invented parking do ya?”

It is what it is.

Ruby and Ellis moved to town and ran an oil business.

Ellis delivered the oil.

Ruby kept everything running on time.

Supper hit the table every night at five - whether the potatoes were cooked or not.

In town, they lived on Farquarson Street.

At first, they lived in the basement while the rest of the house was built.

Nanny, Grandad, my mom, Al on one side of the basement and Sheila, Percy and the boys living on the other.

Robin seemed to have the good sense to wait until the rest of the house was built before he showed up.

Smart man.

It was a different world.

Nanny loved life in Woodlawn. She made lifelong friends there including the Weeks’.

Bernice was like a sister, Denise and Debbie - she loved you like daughters.

Nanny loved living in town. She even went and got her drivers license all on her own.

That was a big deal back then.

Grandad was not impressed:

”You mean they’re going to let you drive?”

She told this story regularly, bubbling with pride.

Ruby was a woman of fire and an independent spirit.

And that made it even more outrageous when Grandad sold the house out from under her.

“We’re moving home. Building a campground.”

That was that.

Luckily, they led and a lot of their friends from town followed.

Eventually they moved into the big yellow house on the hill.

That’s where I always picture Nanny.

When I spoke to my cousins about this eu goog ley, they talked about the food - the creamed corn in particular.

But mostly?

They describe her as a constant presence.

She’s just always been there in that big yellow house at the end of the road.

Keeping watch,

A silent sentinel peering down from her big bay window.

Her steady presence has always been a comfort.

I lived with her for two summers after Grandad died.

While I flailed with early adulthood, she seemed amused by my antics.

When Laura was sick and no one was sure how long she’d be around, Nanny and I talked about cancer, loss, living, dying and ‘what comes next’.

She seemed to be the only one who could ‘get me’.

Her presence was the ultimate comfort.

And now?

It is what it is.

One thing was always true: She loved her family.

She would always tell me how lucky she was to have such a wonderful family.

Wonderful children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

With God as my witness, she told me regularly how proud she was of each and every one of us.

Ruby no shoes was a woman with a hell of a soul.

And though she grew up with no shoes, her eldest great granddaughter - Mya - gave her the moniker that I think she loved the most:

Two shoes.

In one of our last conversations, Nanny was expressing doubt.

“What does it matter? What is this all for?”

I told her the truth.

”While Grandad was up the lake drinking whisky, you were the glue that kept everything going. He may of started it, but without you, it have fallen apart.

You made a place of joy that’s touched thousands of lives.

I keep meeting people whose best memories are of the campground.

You have no idea of just how impactful and important you’ve been.”

She may be gone, but her steady, enduring presence continues.

So as we gather here in the best part of the best part of the world to celebrate that gem of a woman - Ruby

Nanny

Mother

Sis

Two shoes

She’s always got eyes on all of us.

She’s looking down from her swing on the porch of the big yellow house in the sky

So remember,

Be good.

And if you can’t be good, be careful.

Thank you.

This is a love letter and a rage letter and touches on some of the most sacred cows of our current society - the sexual revolution.

Interested?

Read on.

Scared?

Close this message meow.

One of the smartest people I know is also one of the bravest people I know.

And I must be pretty damn smart too because I chose to marry this woman.

That’s right - Laura.

Laura has a PhD in Education. She’s run an English department in inner city Toronto Schools.

She’s pretty frickin’ amazing.

And?

She quit. She walked away.

And that was a defiant act of bravery.

Women these days are subjected to more pressure than ever before, so much so that the biggest job, the best job and what I believe the most important job has been replaced with wage earning.

That job?

Being a mom.

That’s right.

Being a mom and loving and nurturing your offspring is more important than being President, more impactful than leading an HR department and more influential than teaching other peoples children.

And it’s been undervalued since the 1960’s.

These days, the statements above are likely seen as foolish, heretical even.

Because, hell, natural, biological abilities to feed and millennia of hard wired nurturing can easily be disrupted by pills, choice and bra burning.

And for whom?

Instead of loyalty to the family and for the benefit of the tribe, a woman’s super powers get turned away from the family and towards the functioning of the state and for the benefit of the corporations.

Yay progress?

Laura, facing cancer, had the bravery to walk away from the machine and the insurance support to turn her efforts towards supporting her family.

At work?

She was under incredible pressure to care for a nurture a lot of other people - other parents, other teachers and other peoples children. Hundreds of them per year!

And when middle class women walk away from a career that could have / would have /should have led to even more social status and pressure with a university career, they are silently judged and seen as a failure.

She’s had these unawares judgements passed on her for over a decade and a half now.

And?

She has the bravery to ignore and withstand the girl bullying in our culture that pushes women to perfectionism - Lioness at work, mamma bear at home and a minx in the bedroom.

I’m not sure that the revolution of the 60’s made things easier for women.

I hear the ordinary fools clucking in the media all the time

Men need to be better. Men need to do more.

Why?

We did’t ask for this.

We didn’t lead the revolution.

It used to be such that a two income household could get ahead.

These days?

It takes two and a half incomes to keep a family going.

So, with the revolution, who won, men, women, or the corporations who continue to extract more wealth from our efforts?

Family first is the core of community and shouldn’t be seen as a reactionary point of view.

But that’s the machine for ya, it simplifies narratives, creates good and evils in the world and finds someone to blame for the inadequacies of progressive culture

The biggest person Laura had to battle though was herself.

If I’m not there, they’ll miss me. What will happen to ______

We learned quite soon after she quit that she wasn’t missed.

She was disposable.

She was replaced.

Sure for a while they spoke about her.

These days though, there are few teachers at her old school who even remember she was there.

You are disposable.

You don’t matter.

One day you will be gone.

You will be replaced.

You don’t matter to the system nearly as much as you think.

Family first.

I’m back.

It’s been a couple of days.

Have you missed me?

I have too.

I’ve been stuck.

Not stuck with writing, but stuck figuring out what to say.

Things are a bit cold here lately. The heat pump has been broken for weeks.

We’ve been heating the house with our little wood burner in the living room.

In our cold house, I’ve been numb to a lot.

With Nanny now in a home that you generally walk in then roll out feet first, I think I’m blocking a bunch of anticipatory sadness.

People aren’t dying.

Time is just an arsehole.

It’s limited.

And these days, I can see how precious our time together truly is.

My mother in law reminds me of Nanny.

She’s starting to get really old and she lives really far away - for now.

That’s something we’re working on changing.

I hope she’s much closer soon.

I’m noticing more and more how my parents are aging..

They’re getting older.

They love me so much they’ve put up with so much arrogance, rage and just down right flailing on my behalf, that they’ve never given up entirely on me and for that gift, I’m deeply grateful.

I just wish I would have figured this out sooner.

I guess that’s the gift, the sick and twisted gift of being caught between generations.

My own kids are pushing me away.

They’re rejecting both of their parents.

It’s natural, but it hurts.

Now I know how much I had to push and hurt my own folks.

These days, I really appreciate caring for those older than me - my mother in law and likely in the future my parents, while at the same time caring for my children and helping them become adults.

It’s an odd place that I’m in, it’s a kind of holding on and letting go at the same time.

Holding on to who they are and letting go of what they were.

Life lately feels like eating 70% cacao bars at sunset.

It’s bitter sweet, entirely spectacular and all in all, good for the heart.

We have a little white dog. He had lepto about eight years ago. Dr. Bev told us we’d be lucky to keep him alive for five.

i guess we’re really a lot luckier than we think sometimes.

I was going through my drafts here.

One of the posts I wrote nine months ago.

It’s called My dog is dying.

Only, he’s not.

He’s living.

Sure he’s incontinent.

Sure, he shits blood on puppy pads and sometimes on the floor every day.

And?

He’s been kept alive by his sheer desire to love my wife.

When we weren’t sure about her, he was with her.

Now that he’s coming to the end, she and my daughter are with him - carrying him outside to poop and cleaning up when he doesn’t make it.

The vet told us as long as he wags his tail and shows interest in being alive, the inconvenience of his incontinence is the only reason to put him down.

Many people, we’re told, most people would likely do this.

But?

One day I’ll likely shit all over the place and be a big inconvenience for the world.

And I won’t accept being put down because of a few bloody little shits.

When it’s time, we’ll know.