As Ian Sees It

  I have been doing this a long time.  You usually don't see or hear a thing from me in therapy sessions in the summer.  Mostly because I enjoy things that don't come with a key board.  I like my back yard.  I like my golf course and I like to walk around our beautiful lake.  I enjoy our Mountains a mere ninety minutes to the west of us.  We have put a great deal of movement into our lives the last four years.  So without a rainy day,  I can't bring myself to sit down with those of you who take the time to act as my online therapists.   Well it isn't raining today......It hasn't for a pretty long time by our standards.  In fact it is hot.  Hot.  Damn it's hot!  But worse yet, I have somehow damaged my back.  I am moving like the old man I have been trying so hard to avoid.  Hunched over, tiny steps to get to a seat where it takes several minutes to get in,  and slightly longer to get out.  You can ...

        I am well aware that I would be considered a lazy writer by many.  My grade four teacher certainly knew it.  When I ran into her some 45 years after she taught me for half a year, she got angry all over again as she told my wife how incredibly lazy I was.  (Gee, I'm still not over that!)  Well I may be lazy.  Or it maybe that I am old enough to realize that the summers here are oh so short and every moment outside counts.  But today is dark, cool, wet, and a good day to babble on for a bit.       I am not a real hockey fan.  I am a Canadian so I know a little bit about hockey.  I know most the rules,  the fundamentals of defence, offence, penalty kill, power play, and Zamboni operation.  But I don't watch a lot of hockey during the regular season.  This year however my team was in it till the very end.....which is the very end of June.   I still have hockey hangover.   Now I reali...

      I joked about it,  made light of the duties and responsibilities.  But being asked to be Chieftain for the day at the regional highland games was truly an honour.  You don't have to do a whole lot:   present some medals to dancers, march in a parade, make an opening address, move from display to display, have a beer and listen to some music,  and eventually close the games.  I wore my kilt of course.  Along with my formal attire, Bonnie Prince Charlie tails, vest and bow tie.  I shone up the Gillie brogues and I inserted my Sgian Dubh (skine dune) in my left sock.  I felt like a hundred bucks.   ( I don't know what a million bucks feels like.)         I was treated like a person of position all day, and I guess I am of that age where such treatment really feels wonderful.   And that brings me to a confession.   For what ever reason, for most of my adult life I have received treatmen...

 The 2024 Highland Games.  Opening I want to thank the Highland Games Committee for the honour of being Chieftain of the day.   I am in the foot steps of many great citizens of this area.  And Area where new Scottish immigrants selected to make home in a new world.   Our Highland Games are New world highland games.   And while they are about recognizing and perpetuating our forefathers Celtic Culture,  they are also about sharing that Culture with those whose land we were to settle on,  and those who joined us from other countries.   John Knox, was founder of the Presbyterian Church.  He was also a man who seemed to believe that joy and celebration were some how cynical behaviours.  Quashing the Scottish need to dance and celebrate was a little harder than he figured,  thank heavens.  But this same man also insisted on education.  The importance of teaching people to read and to write.   I suppose you could say c...

    In these parts of my home and native land,  HOCKEY IS KING.  Hockey is the very definition of who we are.  It is not a sport.  It is a religion.  It is a hall pass.  It is a serious responsibility.  It defines relationships and it can be the end to many.   Hockey.  Not Ice Hockey, as I have often heard it referred by American sports reporters.  Hockey needs no further descriptors,  unless it is ball hockey, street hockey, or table hockey.  Hockey is hockey and anything else is just a childish pastime.     Hockey makes toothless scared men desirable.  And if you think a hockey stars presence would only make women weak kneed,  well I guarantee you see many a rough tough hombre act like a silly school girl in the presence of the Great One, the Next one, Sid the Kid, or the Legend.      Of course being a hockey star at just about any level leaves us two left footed, uncoordinated, AD...

   Golden years?  Don't think so Tim.  Freedom comes with a price, you know.  And as often as not the price you pay for the freedom you worked for and planned for the bulk of you career comes with the health problems associated with the progression of aches and pains.  With parts of the body wearing down and the growing need for medications.  The aggravation of waiting lists for replacements of knees, hips,  and so on.   The realization that your children's adult problems are more stressful than their childhood problems.   (Cause even though they are quite capable of handling them, they are still your children.)   Okay, I'll admit retirement has some definite advantages.  Like not working.....forty to fifty five hours a week.  Like having the time to do things you never dreamed of, like shovelling snow when it falls and is still soft rather than on your day off after you backed over it a hundred times.  Like golfing w...

        While I would like to say "Far be it from me to flog a dead horse"  or that I am redundant, that I repeat myself, that I write things over and over,  I am afraid some things are just too good not to pause and enjoy.  A very short time ago I related to you, my online therapists, that I would be attending a luncheon with members of my troop.  Troop 4 '74 in recognition of our fiftieth anniversary of being sworn in to the R.C.M.P.   Well I attended,  and I spent about three hours with five of those guys..........AND IT WAS FREAKIN AWESOME!!!!!   So allow me if you will, this one last indulgence.            After hearing the boys who were living in British Columbia were planning a luncheon in Merit, B.C.  My better half told me I should be there.  Her reasoning?  Well I suspect she thought she could do her spring cleaning without having to do it around me.   But officially she si...