Grant McConachie was born in 1909 in Hamilton, Ontario, but early in his life his family moved to Alberta where Grant completed high school and went off to study at the University of Alberta. He didn’t even finish first year, because the books bored him. His mind was always in the sky. In those early…
I had many wonderful profs in law school, and had the honour of two of them becoming clients after I was called to the Bar. I think they took pity on my struggling practice. But the most important lesson was from a fellow student who wasn’t even there. Here’s how it goes. Back in the…
As humans, we hide behind euphemisms. Nobody dies, they “pass away”. Nobody fails, they’re just “differently successful”. The same is true of dropouts. Nobody wants to say the word. During my research of dropouts, one thing was most consistent. Not a single research source simply came out and said that the subject was a dropout,…
My most cherished wardrobe item is an old, beat-up, oil-stained work coat bearing the classic Carhartt label. When I really want to be the full measure of a country boy, my Carhartt jacket and my work boots tell everyone I belong on my tractor in Lanark County. I’m sure there are advertisements for Carhartt’s full…
A beautiful, graceful, and highly accurate long range rifle, the Canadian designed and manufactured Ross was a work of art and a joy to use. In some circumstances. Sadly, though, the Ross was a disaster in the muddy trenches of World War One. Its precisely machined parts were highly susceptible to jamming by mud and…
Some years ago I crossed from Canada into northern New York State, and just a very few minutes after the border crossing stopped at a coffee shop. Everything seemed familiar enough, the coffee smelled good, so I ordered a cup. The sweet young thing at the cash took my order cheerfully and said, “Blick?” I…
Recently I heard a country lady use a grand old rural expression: All a steer can do is try. She was speaking of sincere but futile efforts. (For you city folk, let me explain. A “steer” is a creature who was born a bull calf, but who early encountered surgical intervention as a result of…
“What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate of Jesus, just before he made the politically expedient decision to throw Jesus under the bus. In our justice system we try to be less nonchalant. Do we always really discover the truth? No, but much, much more often than not, and our system is better than all the…
Jeff was one of the best tech guys I’ve ever known, and he was also the most diplomatic. More than once, after he had diagnosed and solved a computer problem for me, I would ask him what the glitch was. With a gentle smile, he would answer quietly, “It was located between the chair and…
My friend Dave spent most of his career as a lawyer with the Department of Justice, but in his free time threw himself into the cause of Restorative Justice. Everybody loved Dave and it was my privilege to meet him for lunch or breakfast every three or four months. We would often talk of his…