Columns
A bit of my history surfaced the other night when I watched the local news on television. The story involved a historical monument in Listowel erected to remember those killed when the Listowel arena collapsed way back in 1959.
Real life comes calling, Money for nothing, Practice, practice, practice
Early in my column-writing career I would hear - not always, but also not infrequently - that my column was always all about sports.
Eagerly, we plunge into the waters of language, where meaning bends, breaks and splashes around in unpredictable ways. Today, let us embark on a most delightfully unimportant journey;
What a strange country we live in. On the same day that television featured many stories on the rush to throw money around pursuing Taylor Swift, I listened on the radio as a woman described how hard it was to get food to feed her children.
On the outskirts of the village of Bluevale lived two families: the Duncan King family at Lot 31 in Turnberry Township and the John Gardner family at Lot 31 in Morris Township. These two locations, though fairly close together, are separated by...
Tradition in jeopardy?, It's time to decide, The dawn of a new day
Every once in a while, for a different reason each time, I take the five minutes to do the math and find out which column in the lineage of my columns you're about to read.
Fancifully foraging through the forest of fully-formed formlessness, we find ourselves at the incredible crossroads of transformation and moonlit mayhem.
Deb and Shawn recently attended the meeting of the independent owners of Ontario Community Newspapers Association (OCNA). Deb reported that there were fewer newspapers than in the past.
A local solution, Why bother asking?, It is happening again
Bob looked around him in the misty morning. It had rained hard again last night and the mud was unbelievable. This part of Belgium was so different from his home in Morris Township on Concession 8 South.
Gather 'round, if you dare, and prepare for a journey so convoluted, so absolutely drenched in centuries-old triviality and tangled lore, that one may ask, "Did anyone actually ask for this?"
Recently, I saw a headline from Sports Illustrated that I found a bit jarring. To say that it didn't quite give me the sports news I've come to expect from Sports Illustrated would be an understatement.
The early Christmas advertising is on TV these days, and the movie channels are already promoting Christmas, while we haven't even marked Nov. 11, Remembrance Day.
Good money after bad, The best of us, The distance between
Finding your community - full of people like you - is an essential part of feeling as though you belong in this world. In this week's issue, I spoke with Emily Bieman about her love for 4-H and all that it has meant to her in her young life.
Huddled beneath the familiar glow of fluorescent lights, one can't help but marvel at the astonishing banality that surrounds us - a veritable smorgasbord of the mundane, begging for a moment's reflection.
With election news dominating the airwaves lately due to the U.S. election next week and the possibility of a Canadian election any day now, I have to remember the quote of the legendary Winston Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government...
There is no easy solution, I'm not leaving, A lasting impact
In every transformation, there is a moment of disbelief, a moment when the extraordinary reveals itself and we're forced to confront a new, unsettling reality.
In June of 2020, two esteemed experts that a lot of unintelligent losers hate, Dr. Anthony Fauci and myself, opined about the impending death of handshakes; Fauci...
Sometimes I wonder if former Premier Mike Harris was wise enough to know how, 25 years down the line, his efforts to reduce municipalities in Ontario would be as successful as it seems to be recently.
Outside the pumpkin, In the people's hands, Buck-a-vote