Posted on November 30, 2015 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

Santa looks like he’s been into the Christmas spirits already.

 

 

You can feel the pace accelerating. It’s November 30^th. but with Christmas Eve only 24 days away, there’s definitely something in the air. The first dead giveaway is the omnipresent Christmas music. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas carols and Christmas hymns… in moderation,  but by Christmas day, I’ve had about enough. Part of this is my own doing. I usually visit a few of the senior’s residences during December for a singalong and sing at several masses… and at various and sundry parties. And of course, our Vince Gill Christmas CD will get its usual workout. I am NOT “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” I just suffer a bit from the feast/famine syndrome.

I think the tree lighting ceremony that was held on the weekend is one of my favorite functions of the holiday season. It brings large crowds of families and extended families together for the unofficial kickoff of Christmas in the community. The parade is always a big hit and “The Festival of Trees” at People’s Place is a wonderful fundraiser for our friends at CACL. Try and get down to see the trees and maybe  buy some tickets. You’re supporting a worthy cause and you might win a prize.

Despite incredibly stiff competition from Santa ( the Christmas parade ), the Grey Cup and the March for Climate Change, we managed to get a very nice crowd at the Schwartz Auditorium yesterday for the fundraiser for “A Partnership in Caring.” If you ever get a chance to see The Park Bench Players, please go! They are an amazing group of men and women who suffer from mental illness and tell their story in a thoughtful, poignant and humorous manner. They were definitely the show stoppers. We raised quite a bit of money. Take that, Santa!!!

Tomorrow, I will be posting the story “Snake Bitten.” As mentioned in previous posts, Peter and I were driving through endless miles of potato fields in Idaho when we inadvertently came upon the Snake River Canyon, made famous by Evel Knievel. For sheer surprise factor, this topped the list on our trip. If you’re ever traveling through Idaho, take the exit to Twin Falls. The Snake River Canyon is simply breathtaking.

I’m putting the finishing touches on the story about my amazing brother Tom and his talented ( and patient! ) wife Catherine. They are not your typical retirees Coming soon, “ A Case of Incurable Optimism.”

Have a great week.

 

Posted on November 29, 2015 under News & Updates with no comments yet

Today 2:00 P.M.

Please join us today at the Schwartz Auditorium on the campus of St.F.X. for an afternoon of laughter, music and story telling.

Come and see the amazing Park Bench Players, hear some stories from Phil and Len and some great tunes from Betsy MacDonald and Jamie Benoit. All this plus a silent auction… an opportunity to pick up some real unique Christmas gifts. The doors open at 1:00 for the silent auction and the show gets under way at 2:00.

All proceeds go to “A Partnership in Caring.” Every dollar raised goes directly towards projects in Rwanda.

Hope you can make it.

Posted on November 25, 2015 under Storytelling with one comment

The “Grassy Knoll,” Texas School Book Depository and the exact spot JFK died where I’m standing

Peter MacDonald photo

 

 

I can remember, with absolute clarity and certainty, the day that my world changed.  Let me be more precise.  I know the exact time of the day fifty-two years ago that I became a certified news junkie.

I was twelve years old at the time and like most young boys of my era, I was a sports fanatic. When I wasn’t playing hockey, I was watching it on television or listening to the mellifluous voices of Danny Gallivan or Foster Hewitt over the radio waves.  I golfed in the summer and played pickup football and baseball with other neighborhood guys.

Life was very simple until shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on November 22, 1963.    They felled the president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  It was 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, just before school ended for the day.

When you are young, all you know is that there are good guys and bad guys in this world.  Every spaghetti western that we ever watched at the theatre had one cowboy with a black hat.  The good guy always wore a white Stetson.  Our school curriculum was heavily influenced by our neighbors to the south, especially when it came to history, so it wasn’t surprising that even at a young age we believed that Russians wore the black hats.

We didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle back then.  We got the nightly summaries on a couple of channels.  I had heard of the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba but when the Habs were on a roll, nothing else mattered to me.  The Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba.  It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.  It quickly became a very scary time, even to youngsters.  We thought the world might end.  Especially if you were a kid, you had these thoughts.

So, when JFK was gunned down, my first reaction, as I walked home through the field from school to our house on Hillcrest Street, was that the Russians did this and that World War 3 was going to break out any day.  It sounds silly, but history bears out that the combatants came perilously close to the brink.

My mom was standing in the kitchen, ironing.  She was always ironing something for the 10 of us.  She was visibly shaken.  We turned on the television. It stayed on pretty well nonstop for the next five days, as more drama ensued.

Walter Cronkite was the dean of television news anchors at the time.   “As The World Turns,” a soap opera, was airing at the time of the assassination.   Remarkably, the news started to filter out during scheduled commercial breaks.  When it was confirmed that Kennedy had died, Cronkite removed his glasses and uttered the famous line, “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”

The story unfolded over the next several days with the apprehension of the assailant, Lee Harvey Oswald; his death at the hands of Jack Ruby; the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side in her blood stained pink suit; and the funeral of President Kennedy.  It was riveting television.

There is no one thing that marks the passage of time more bluntly for most baby boomers than the anniversary of JFK’s assassination.  Every year, without fail, I think about the events.  The images are burned into my memory bank.  It is a cliché to say that it “just seems like yesterday”, but for me and many others, it does seem that way.  We were so young and so innocent.  And in an instant, everything changed.

And I became a serious news junkie, an affliction that remains with me to this day.  Standing on this hallowed ground a few weeks ago may not have brought closure or made it more real for me.

But it filled me with a sense of awe … undiminished … unsurpassed.