Posted on September 6, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

“Only 194 more days of making lunches”, thought the harried mother of three on the eve of the first day of school.  She tucked them in the fridge and headed to bed anticipating an uneasy sleep.  She wasn’t disappointed.

She awoke, distracted and distraught knowing that the youngest was starting school for the first time, which represented a passage of sorts.  It is always bittersweet watching the youngest head towards freedom.  And, for the first time, the three children would all be attending different institutions but luckily within a stone’s throw of each other.

She walked the youngest to the bus stop and shed a tear as he climbed on the bus.  She couldn’t resist the urge to see how things would unfold at the other end so she and her husband jumped in the car and surreptitiously made their way to the elementary school, hoping that they wouldn’t meet any of their neighbors.  When they arrived, they counted 19 other parents who lived in the same subdivision.

The buses pulled in and sure enough bus number 402 was amongst them.  The toddlers disembarked and the anxiety level crept up a few notches.  This turned into full blown panic when their son failed to emerge.  One of the children indicated that their son had somehow managed to pass himself off as a junior high student and was over at the junior school about 100 yards away.  She ran at a speed that would have left Usain Bolt in awe.  She nearly steamrolled a bulky male physical education teacher in her quest to save her son from the perils of junior high.  That would have to wait another 6 years or so.

The crisis avoided, she dropped her husband at work and returned home to pull herself together after a stressful few hours.  Not even a double-double at Tim Horton’s could salvage the start of this day.

She drove into the yard and returned the composter to its rightful place, this being garbage day, another minor inconvenience.   She looked at her tear stained blouse in the hall mirror and walked into the kitchen.

It was at this point that she noticed the three lunch kits lined up like little soldiers on the counter.  “There goes my Mother of the Year award”, she thought, momentarily.

She hurriedly dressed and made her way to three schools.  Do you have any idea what it is like on the first day of school?  Finding your child would be akin to seeking and finding the Dead Sea Scrolls.

She arrived at work, twenty minutes late, looking very much like someone who had just survived a twister.  The receptionist, a good friend and parent as well, casually asked how the send-off went.  She couldn’t even muster a smile or a grunt but merely gave a subtle raise of the eyebrow.  It was one of those gestures that say “Don’t ask”.

She sat at her desk and exhaled.  She flipped on the radio which happened to be playing oldies.  She heard the familiar strains of Gloria Gaynor, a disco queen her parents played often back in the ‘70’s.  The song she was singing … “I Will Survive”.

Posted on September 5, 2013 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Do they teach “shameless self promotion ” at school? If there were such a course then I should be the first instructor as I again draw your attention to our big fundraiser coming up three weeks from today. The word is starting to get out. The combination of posters, ads in the paper and radio spots is building up awareness for the “Phil and Len” show at the magnificent Schwartz auditorium on September 26th. Grab some friends and come out for an evening of storytelling with all proceeds going to charity.

Thankfully my editor has returned from Montreal and she put the finishing touches on the story called ” Of Vice and Men”. Many of you may have not seen the first promo of this story last Saturday while you were busy stuffing your face with cotton candy at the Fall Fair. This is a story about standing in a lineup waiting for someone who is getting their lottery tickets checked. Doesn’t sound like a complicated plot until you factor in the lineup that continues to build as this person painstakingly goes through ticket by ticket in molasses like fashion. Me and lineups. You will see me revisit this topic on more than one occasion.

The other reason you may not have checked in on Saturday ( shame on you ) is that you may have been getting things ready for the first day of school. I read one post on Facebook that had just a hint of sarcasm that alluded to the fact that today was the first of 195 days to prepare something interesting for your child’s lunch. I suspect that a story, or several for that matter, could be written about this subject.

A colleague at work was recounting a story about a friend’s daughter who was heading off to university in Halifax. That, in and of itself, is hardly worthy of a story. It is what she said next that got my undivided attention. Apparently the apartment that she was moving into had not been cleaned. Is there anything more soul destroying than cleaning someone else’s squalor? Well, if you are an experienced parent, then you know that there is a hierarchy of dirt. Cleaning up your own house or apartment is one matter. Doing it for your children after a “summer sublet” ratchets up the disgust level but the ultimate gross out, is cleaning a perfect stranger’s  ( asshole’s…oops, I mean arsehole’s ) dump. I had to pay homage to filth so I wrote a little piece called “Down and Dirty”. Coming soon.

Hopefully you are all settling back in the groove that is September.

Have a great day.

Posted on September 3, 2013 under Storytelling with no comments yet

You can feel it in the air. There is coolness in the early morning and late evening breeze that is a harbinger of fall.  Some leaves have already fallen off of the trees although this can be attributed to some disease affecting the maples in our neighborhood.  The days are getting shorter and you can almost feel the angst as teachers gird themselves for another year of reining in children for whom September has come too soon.  Summer is drawing to a close, which also means it’s time for the Fall Fair.

It seems like nothing stays the same any more.  The world is moving at warp speed.  Everything happens quickly and it seems that even what you had for breakfast can be transmitted to your breathless friends on Facebook.  Might I suggest you just chill out for a moment and hop on the Merry Go ‘Round.

The local Fall Fair, otherwise known as The Eastern Nova Scotia Exhibition, has been going on for an eternity.  Some records place the beginning sometime in the late 1800’s and early on, the Exhibition grounds were located at what is now Columbus Field.

Earlier this year there were some doubts as to whether the community would have the Exhibition at all.   My favorite event at the Fair is the tug of war…. no, not the one waged recently between the Town and County at considerable expense over unpaid taxes.  Talk about a Merry Go Round.  We should have just asked the carnies to sort that one out.

All of these Exhibitions have their roots in the agricultural community so it is no surprise that one of the most important days of the Exhibition is 4H day.  I never truly appreciated this until some of our children took part in 4H.  The chickens and rabbits got better care by exhibitors and judges alike than many human beings do.  Including the poor parents who fed and housed the menagerie in the off season.  Did I mention that some things never change?

With all due respect to agriculture, the Midway is the centrepiece of the four day spectacle if you are a child or still young at heart.  The adrenalin starts pumping the moment the Ferris Wheel appears above the tree line on Fairview Street.  For those with the stomach for it, the Tilt a Whirl is a staple.  My personal preference is the Caterpillar ride.

When it comes to food, it can be pretty well summed up with two words: French fries and cotton candy.  The fries are generally soggy and constitute “heart attack on a plate”.  And when it comes to cotton candy, it is an all-out territorial war between small children and the wasps that inevitably hover close by.

And carefully orchestrating the entire spectacle, like the Wizard of Oz, is Donald who quietly and efficiently masterminds the Exhibition.  He has been doing this for a very long time, although I doubt even he remembers the Ex at Columbus Field.

Don’t expect the find any cronuts at the Exhibition.  These tasty morsels have garnered a lot of media attention lately, most of it bad.  You see, the Exhibition is about tradition and Donald isn’t likely to have an appetite for exotic grub.

Fare is fair.