Not many people know about Ed Kennedy today, but on May 7, 1945, his name was on a dispatch from France announcing Germany's unconditional surrender.

     It was the biggest scoop of the Second World War, and it got Kennedy turfed out of Europe and fired… Read full post »

     One of the few vivid memories I have of high school is sitting in a hot crowded gym listening to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker give one of his characteristically bombastic speeches.
     I retain nothing of what he said. I do remember his reaction when a… Read full post »

 

 

 

"It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade. I thought then ... that in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation."

    It's not… Read full post »

 

 

     I almost lost it. Just the one time.
     It was when the trumpeter blew "The Last Post", the traditional bugle call that marks the end of the military day and which is now played during Remembrance services. But he wouldn't have appro…

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     When I decided last summer to take up motorcycling again, the first book I pulled from my depleted reference shelf was Melissa Holbrook Pierson's  The Perfect Vehicle.
     I'd read the book several times and was invar/… Read full post »

 

 

     The cold has seeped into my felt-lined boots, winkled its way around my ears and down my neck. My fingers are stupid with it, and I'm shivering. Mostly it's the temperature and wind chill.
     I'm wearing a scarf, watchcap and army… Read full post »

     I usually refrain from commenting on U.S. politics. After all, I'm not an American, and even though I'm a regular on Fark.com's politics tab, I have only a vague idea about how presidents are elected (except evil scads of money are involved).

     And anyw… Read full post »

      It was 97 years ago tonight, Christmas Eve, that two armies faced each other in hastily dug trenches in the mud of France and Flanders. The opening salvos of the First World War had been fired, and the race to outflank each other had ended in stalemate.… Read full post »

 

 

 

 "... 124, 126, 128 ... The dotted white lines are almost a solid streak a few inches below my left foot. ... A great surge of sheer joy electrifies me, adrenaline a wire in my blood, a 560-pound flesh-and-blood, steel-and-alloy, fire-spitting arrow shafting through… Read full post »

 

 

     Let's see now. Mickey's big hand is on the 11 and his little hand on the 5, so it must be ... ahhhhh ... three years since I joined Open Salon. More or less. I think it was today, anyway.

     Someone (it's Scarlett Sumac's fault) cal… Read full post »

     Every year, a number of Canadians, most of them ex-service personnel, are awarded a Veterans Affairs Minister's Commendation for their efforts to honour or help or commemorate our veterans.

     This year, one of a handful of civilian recipients is my frie… Read full post »

     Snowmageddon it wasn't. At least, not for us.

     OK, I mean we got maybe eight inches, all told, around here (not counting two-to-three-foot high drifts) – not nearly as much as predicted, and probably a lot less than other parts of the region.

&nb… Read full post »

 

“It was the 28^th of October, 1830, in the morning,
when my feet first touched the Canada shore.
I threw myself on the ground, rolled in the sand,
seized handfuls of it and kissed them...."

– Rev. Josiah Henson

 

     England abolished slavery acros… Read full post »

     It's a late fall evening on the depressing field where two semi-pro teams are squaring off. I've had to sign a waiver both to be on the sidelines and in the dangerously decrepit press box on the roof of the rickety stadium. Smoke from a foundry across the road belches… Read full post »

    It was 96 years ago tonight, Christmas Eve, that two armies faced each other in hastily dug trenches in the mud of France and Flanders. The opening salvos of the First World War had been fired, and the race to outflank each other had ended in stalemate.…

Read full post »

 

     My God, but we were a disreputable bunch of gibbering, ink-stained hacks. Well hell, we were expected to be, and we worked very hard at it.

      That tradition is long gone, of course, along with a lot of other newspaper eccentri… Read full post »

     On or about Dec. 6, 2008, as they say in court, I stumbled across OpenSalon.

     I'd been a regular reader of Salon, thanks to links from Fark.com and other aggregators, and it was via the tab at the top of the page that I first encountered this bewilder… Read full post »

Those of you who have read my (mercifully infrequent) ramblings know that I have done remarkably stupid things on two wheels and four.

That I survived was a combination of good fortune and a semi-demented skill.

Sometimes, those things were done in a state of altered consciousness; I won't… Read full post »

      It's late winter, a few months before I am to retire, and we're about to go for a walk along the still-frozen shoreline of Lake Erie. The pack ice has retreated, but there are overlapping thin plates, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick and a couple of feet… Read full post »

There are strange things done 'neath the wint'ring sun

By those who moil with words

Meandering roads have their secret codes

That sometimes seem absurd

The big city lights have seen strange sights

But the strangest they ever once knew

Was that night on the marge of utter farkage

When they… Read full post »

      I'm so angry I could spit.

      As some of you know, I'm something of a military history maven, particularly Canadian military history, and a supporter of the good works of the Royal Canadian Legion and our service men and women, especially th… Read full post »

     Today is the 92nd anniversary of the end of the Great War. Normally, I'd try to write something meaningful about it, like I did last year here.

     But Nov. 11, Armistice Day, is also our anniversary -- and yes, the date was chosen deliberately. 

&… Read full post »

     He's 87 today, and I know there are times he's surprised he made it to 20.

     We had our rows when I was young (and stupid), but I grew up with the knowledge that he, like most of the men in the neighbourhood -- and like most of… Read full post »

I was chagrined to learn that some of my friends on Open Salon seem to think I'm a veteran.

I'm not.

Yes, I have an abiding interest in and have written extensively about things military, whether it's the lore and traditions of various branches of the service or the impact of certain battles… Read full post »

     It's amazing how the past can come back to unsettle you, even if in a good way.
     This week, I got an e-mail from the editor of a classic motorcycle magazine who's been contacted by someone writing a book. That person had seen a feature I'd written two y… Read full post »