Archived Columns

A few things...

Mary Jamieson

I read Jane Janes’ wonderful story in last month’s First Monday about Mary Jamieson and wanted to add my two cents worth. In 1959, when I was 15 years old, my dad helped me start a business called Brian’s TV Rentals. The mission was to rent televisions to patients in the two hospitals: St Joe’s and the General. Since I was going to St. Pat’s which was then located on the corner of Essex and Russell, (about halfway point between both hospitals), it was an easy gig; do one at lunchtime and the other after school.

Smoke signals

I got a call from Glen Maddison in early March: “I’ve got an idea for a great story you could write for your First Monday column.”

“Fire away,” I told him.

“Have you ever meet a guy named Harley Searson?” he asked.

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Well this guy is a great story for your quit smoking campaign.”

“How so?”

Sailing With The King - Part II Or “The Ship Hits The Foam”

Last month I told you about Sojana: the 115 foot Farr sailboat I had talked my way onto as crew for the Voiles de St. Tropez regatta in France. Now we are at the start of the last race in the regatta: a start that involves at least fifteen sailboats in the hundred foot plus range with the regatta championship on the line. In our class for that race there were two J-Class sailboats. There were built in the 30s - to be raced in the America’s Cup - for people with names like Vanderbilt and Lipton; in other words, the ultra-rich.

Sailing with the King

I met Marc Fitzgerald in the bar at the Sube Hotel in St. Tropez, France during the Voiles de St. Tropez: the last sailing regatta of the racing season in the Med. After that, the boats all go and get prettied up before heading across the Atlantic to the Caribbean for the Caribbean racing season. The Sube Hotel is where all the sailors from the British Commonwealth gather after the races: Australians, Kiwis, Brits, Irish and Canadians etc. It’s a very lively and boisterous crowd.

Revenge of the Canadians

It’s been a rough start for me this year sports-wise: Team Canada lost that heartbreaker to Team USA in a shootout. This while watching the Lions lose their last three games of the season to the Giants, the Cowboys and the Packers to go from first place in their division to a wild card berth against Seattle, which they then lost.

I was on a losing streak. Good thing I’m not a betting man eh?

A fast metabolic start to a new year

The latest item added to my bucket list this year is one I got from Warren Buffet who, when asked what his number one priority in life was stated, “To become the oldest living person in history.” That thought wouldn’t have resonated with me when I was in my twenties and thirties because in those days, I thought I would live forever. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t live forever.

Sadly, these days my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that simply ain’t gonna happen.

The Rockypoo

I got an audio text message the other day from my daughter Jaime. It starred my 7-year-old granddaughter Ella singing, “Silent Night,” with Jaime accompanying her on guitar.

Now I know most people would think, “Awww… isn’t that cute?” And they would be right. It was wonderful. But there was a lot more going on with that than just a sweet, little Christmas message. It was Jaime’s sly, cunning way of delivering a message to me. The message was, “You’re too late grampa!”

The thing about vaping

I am sure you are all aware of the new term, “vaping.” It refers to the act of “smoking,” an e-cigarette—the ‘e’ stands for electronic. It is now being marketed as the newest, safest way for smokers to quit smoking… cigarettes that is. But since cigarettes are really just a “nicotine delivery system,” and e-cigarettes are also a nicotine delivery system, all smokers are really doing by switching to the e-cigarette is substituting one nicotine delivery system for another.

Do You Smell Fish?

One of my all-time favourite films is a 1975 “B” movie directed by Arthur Hill called: Hard Times. It stars Charles Bronson, one of my favourite action stars who emerged during the glory days of action movies with The Dirty Dozen, The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. He was a guy’s movie actor in the tradition of Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin and James Coburn. In other words, Charles Bronson didn’t make chick flicks. He made movies that cause women to ask us things like, “What do you guys see in those stupid movies!”

It’s a matter of manners

Two of the nicest people it has been my pleasure to know in this life have been my own mother, Virginia Keelan and a man named Lowry McKegney. As I watched and read about the recent goings on at City Hall, they both came to mind.

Lowry McKegney was one of those people that everybody loved and respected. Born and raised right here in Sarnia, he worked at Imperial Oil as a chemist. He raised a wonderful family: six kids—three with his wife Kathy and three kids that they adopted.