I started this blog at a controversial time during the 2019 federal election campaign, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s judgement called into question over a black-face incident when he taught in a Vancouver private school. The picture above, or variations of it, appeared in several Canadian newspapers at the time. And this canoe image too has sparked interpretive comments, as though the image says something about his character, his upbringing, his social status etc. What I instantly discerned from Trudeau’s canoe image was a kinship. Justin is sitting in the tumblehome of the canoe, paddling and manoeuvering it with a J-stroke, steering technique. Both his seated position in the canoe…

Games. The allure of playing anything is timeless, universal. Play, in the game or activity sense (as compared to a theatre play), is indefinable – there are no synonyms. We can play cards, monopoly, a piano, sports, lotteries, and so forth; however, one cannot point to something, as you would a fork or a tree, and say, “there, that’s play.” Play, as I see it, is an attitude. In an earlier blog – Jeu…what if… I discussed the more esoteric and perhaps academic-oriented meanings attached to play/games/sport. What I seek to do in this blog is to ruminate about my new-found fascination with a rapidly growing and very popular game/sport…

11 November 2019. I want to re-member (literally, put back together) or bring back into my memory and honour two war veterans, my grandfather, Private Lorance Thomas Morrow (World War I), and my father, Flight Lieutenant Lawrence (Larry) Donald Morrow (World War II). My desire and choice is to relate, narratively and with images for my grandfather, pictorially for my father, what few, scant stories exist about each man regarding his/their service to Canada and, combined with all veterans’ sacrifices, the resultant Canadian freedoms we are privileged to enjoy today. Lorance was born on the 25th of June 1893 in Charlotteville, Ontario. He died 9 April 1917 at 23 years…

Boston, as I have noted in another blog, is a magical city to me. And not merely because I have run its famed marathon several times – 3, to be exact, a number significant to this blog – but more because it exudes history, charm, and a magnetism that defies description until you have walked its streets, eaten its [sea] food, driven in its traffic, ambled through venues and locales such as Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, and Quincy Market. Boston is replete with sport stories, teams, individual athletes, and special theatres, the latter termed ‘complex landscape ensembles‘ by Karl Raitz. Fenway Park with its green monster wall springs to mind…

Marnie Elizabeth Morrow was born just over 2 months after Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England (1953) and my best guess is my parents gave her the middle name out of profound respect for the monarchy. In elementary school, we had to sing God Save the Queen as each day started and I often smirked, staring at the Queen’s picture, centred on the front wall above the blackboards, and thinking of Marnie’s middle name – for my sister was regal, royal-regal. Had she lived to this year, she would be 66 on 5 August 2019. Sadly, very sadly, my sister died 10 years ago from a long-standing blood disorder. On…