Dog On A Root

“In all our lives, there is a fall from innocence. A time after which, we are never the same.” - Gordie LaChance from the movie “Stand By Me.”  Like most everyone, I have many fond and some not so fond memories of my school days. I leave it to you to decide which category this falls into. Either way, this story that takes me back to the 1960s when I was in Grade 5 or 6, remains one of my favourite stories to tell.  This was of course pre-Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader but there was never a shortage of material to read in our bathroom when I was young. My father would bring home a variety of pocket books from his IGA that would be left behind for the rest of the family to enjoy.  Now inappropriate for ALL ages! They were books like the pocket book versions of MAD magazine, Andy Cap, Riddle-De-Dee by Bennett Cerf, The Strange World of Mr. Mum, Army Cartoons and of course Playboy’s Party Jokes illustrated with sexy drawings of Playboy’s trademark Femlin created by LeRoy Neiman.  But then ca

- jim Young “Remember if you plan to stay, Those who give can take away. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.” - John Kay Last month we had a phone outage in the Argyle area that affected residential homes and businesses alike for a couple of days. Considering the circumstances, Bell did a good job of repairing the severed lines and getting service back as quickly as might be expected. However, the fact remains that Bell customers are charged for services on a monthly basis. So, why should Bell’s customers be expected to pay for services they did not receive? If your Hydro goes out, your meter stops running and you are not billed for electricity you did not receive. (I do have an issue with Hydro’s delivery charges that are still applied, however that is a discussion for another time.) The truth of the matter is, Bell’s customers are in fact eligible for a credit when outages occur, if they take the initiative to call and request it. What I don’t understand is, why isn’t a credit i

- jim Young Prior to Covid the fight for the right to wear a mask in the workplace was primarily limited to the Muslim community. Not so anymore.  While the Government of Canada no longer requires the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of Covid, it is now generally acceptable and even encouraged by the Government to continue the usage of face masks. That’s understandable right? It’s a matter of your health being more important than your religion. Wrong! Religious beliefs are legal justification to refuse blood transfusions and covid (or any ) vaccines for example. Evidently your religious beliefs trump your health beliefs in Canada. The common denominator here is your “beliefs”. (Religion and Health are merely adjectives to further describe the area of your belief.) Your beliefs dictate that how you manage your health will take care of you in this world and how you manage your religion will take care of you in the next.  If you manage the first part well, it will delay the inevitab

- jim Young “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood”. - Fred Rogers It was nice to see Rod (Talk Turkey With Urqey) Urquhart back after a brief hiatus. I look forward to his columns and was pleased to see in the last issue of the GNA, Rod chose a topic along the same theme as “Those Were The Days, My Friend” . When I first approached Cyndi and Jim about writing this column it was, and still is, my intent to encourage my readers to share some of their stories. So, I ask you again to submit some of your fond (or not so fond) memories and pictures of the days gone by to share with us all. Please don’t hold back simply because you feel you’re not a writer. As Cyndi’s father Ab Culbert is always quick to point out, “somewhere, there is always a story” and I hope you will share your story with us. If you’re not comfortable writing your story, all you have to do is tell me ab

- jim Young “I have a green smoothie every day. Oh, wait, the bartender said it's a mojito.” - anon When one of the staff at the LCBO in Port Loring recommends a new drink to me, I listen. In spite of what The Four Seasons might tell you, “Talk is NOT cheap” and it always seems to take its toll in the form of extra purchases at the check out. Many of the good things in life are worth a little extra however, so why not? But when Lisa suggested a canned, pre-mixed mojito, I was very skeptical. That the description read “Rum Mojito” in big bold letters right there on the face of the can, did nothing to alleviate my concerns.  Mojitos give me encourage-mint to get through the week. “As opposed to what?” I wondered, “ What else would a mojito be made with BUT Rum?”  A second look brought my attention to the smaller claim of “mint & lime” above it. If they had added “sugar” and “carbonated water” , this descriptive could have doubled as its ingredient list. But the name “Cutwater”

- jim Young “The great thing about the mind is that it mostly forgets the bad things and only remembers the good things.” - George E. Young It’s important to remember that not everything about the proverbial “good old days” was good. It’s usually just more fun to remember the good stuff. But there were bad things about the “good old days” as well. So from time to time, just to keep things in perspective, I’m going to remind you about some of the bad stuff that happened in the “good old days” . A good example of this would be to take a look at today’s attitudes towards Vinyl Records. By the 1990s, following the introduction of CDs and digital music, the production of vinyl records had pretty much ceased to exist. Then, shortly after the turn of the century vinyl started to make a comeback. Why? Because of a common belief that vinyl recordings are superior to digital recordings. While that may be true, another truth is, in the “good old days” vinyl records did not deliver the quali