Each of these movies say something to me, or meant something to me at the time I saw them and the memory stays with me. Some of these titles will always be on the top ten list while others might slip to 11 or 19, depending on what other titles might come to mind at any given time. But for now, let’s accept these as my top ten.
I’m not a natural gardener, but over a 35+ years span I became one, and even saw the psychological and therapeutical merits in the hobby, possibly even the fitness benefits.
But when the really critical moments come, it’s more than advice that you need. You also need a hand; an introduction, a recommendation; real help. Without that help, an opportunity that might make a significant difference may not become manifest. At times like these it isn’t the advice we need from a mentor, it’s his connections.
My inquiring mind began to be stretched in University through some of the optional courses I took in pursuit of my Bachelor of Arts degree. I wasn’t on some troubled quest to challenge and betray my earlier religious education, I was just curious to know.
Science now explains thunder and lightning, and even how life began, but the fundamental questions remained. But because the mind abhors uncertainly it prefers magical thinking to the horror of the abyss. Religion gives people comfort, and who can blame them for that.
Even though only a 15-year-old self-absorbed teenager, I had become politically interested and got caught up in this national debate. My instinctive preference was the Red Ensign, mostly because, as Canadian of anglo heritage[3], indoctrinated with British history and pageantry, I liked the Union Jack and its inclusion in the Ensign. In any event, I liked this new Pearson Pennant and I urged my mother to make my/our preferred variant of the blue borders flag so we could fly it and thus show our preference.
Jeffrey Mason, whose book ‘Dad, I Want to Know Your Story’ which has inspired the writing of my auto-biography, invites the journalist to list the critical events of the year of one’s birth, in my case 1947, but I think this is a bit empty because in 1947 I was pretty much oblivious to what was going on at the time. It may have been a significant year to my parents but are just entries in a history book for me. More significant I think would be my formative teen years, 1962 perhaps. I would have turned 15 that year.
[Dad] used to watch the ponies running at Fort Erie Racetrack of a sunny summer afternoon in the early 1960s when we lived in Welland Ontario. A few times he took me with him. No doubt for him an afternoon at the track represented a business expense entertaining a customer, but to me it was pure excitement, especially to stand by the rail and see those thoroughbreds thunder by.
I was born on August 27, 1947; at 5:00 pm, I was told, just in time for dinner. The source, of course, was my mom – I’m not sure my dad ever told me anything about my birthday, nor much else about my life, as we shall soon see.
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