SOBRIETY

Sobriety is not something you ever take for granted,

I know this because I’m sober, for now anyways, and I hate the influence that alcohol has had on my life. And the pull it maintains upon me today.

Any good time, almost every good time that I’ve had in my life, is associated with drinking. Beer was my glue, my response to everything, the constant, the thing that tied everything else together.

When I drank, I wasn’t a dirty drunk, a falling down drunk, a crash into the Christmas tree kind of drunk. I never drank and then operated a motor vehicle. I didn’t fight or slur my words.

I was happy. I was content. I was funny. I was smart and articulate. I could even work while I was drinking, pounding out policy papers, directing communications for serious enterprises, and playing prominent roles in election campaigns. I taught for over thirty years. My students over that span will attest to my commitment to them.

And I drank through all of it. Maybe not every day, maybe not all day, but often enough. And every time I “quit,” which is the word often employed when we actually mean “stopped,” I came back to it stronger than ever. The cans got bigger and there were more of them.

The way it goes I guess.

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May 14, 2025

DOGS CRAPPING WHERE JAGUARS ROAM

There’s a bit of a problem over at St. Joseph’s High School.

Nothing as dramatic as protestors and counter-protestors separated by police because some kid had his way with school staff over gender-specific washrooms.

No, this is bigger shit than that.

This is about dogs going toidy all over the soccer pitch because people are letting their pets run wild in there, that enclosed space the school has recently created as part of its major overhaul and new construction project.

Principal Pamela Dickerson said in a community letter that people were using the field “as a dog park” without bothering to stop and pick up any of the little treasures that Sparky leaves behind when he plays with his pals or is out for his regular sniff and squat routine.

Those people I described in my Christmas messages? The ones who are caring and decent and thoughtful at their core? Well, it’s tough for them to walk around like that all the time without reverting to their other selves, the careless, lazy and thoughtless ones, perhaps the ones they show by default most every day.

So much for Christmas spirit.

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December 28, 2024

ONTARIO’S BIG CITY MAYORS ASK PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT FOR HELP.

Ontario’s Big City Mayors group got together recently, as thy do, and no surprise, homelessness and the impact that it has on their communities was top-of-mountain when it came to topics under discussion.

When these discussions were completed, the mayors delivered a statement, as they do, but one that was more of a direct public appeal to the provincial government to do something, anything, to lift the onerous pressures homeless persons have on Ontario’s cities.

The folks in Pembroke would be able to appreciate that better than most, I’d say. Far better than places like Renfrew, I’d warrant.

The BIg City Mayors had plenty to say about homelessness, some of it good, much of it the same old tired ideas that have led to nothing but have only shifted the problem onto some other area of society or provincial government responsibility.

One thing brought up, and it’s all the rage now across the country, is the idea of involuntary treatment for people addicted to drugs and who are homeless. There are always segments of every population that are more difficult to manage or service for a myriad number of reasons, and with the topic of homelessness, these are the types that create the most onerous burden in terms of dealing with them from a police, public health, and social services point of view. Throw in mental health and you’ve got one of the primary reasons, aside from bank greed, that there’s a homeless crisis to begin with.

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October 20, 2024

HOMELESS: DOING A BETTER JOB AND SAVING A WHACK OF CASH WHILE DOING IT.

I did a video story earlier in the week regarding homelessness in Renfrew and the surrounding area, a story that had elements of criticism, as well as praise, within it. I followed that up with an article giving credit and encouragement to some of the stakeholder groups or agencies (in this case police) that have made meaningful and positive contributions to the effort around homelessness.

Today, in what will likely be my final kick at this can, I wish to offer solutions, not of my own making, but crafted by folks living in other parts of North America and involving the very same issue. I don’t want to come across as exclusively critical of the efforts, or non-efforts that I see as I learn more about this topic.

So I want to throw some ideas out there for an alternative approach, ideas not originated by me, but noted by me as having some real honest-to-goodness potential. Unlike some politicians that are exclusively critical, I’d like to show up with some ideas about how to make things better.

One effort, in Austin, Texas, is operated by a group that identifies as Mobile Loaves and Fishes. If you’re Christian, you may recognize the key element of that title from something you may have experienced in Scripture, a story we’ve all heard many times along the way. The story of Jesus feeding the assembled masses who gathered to hear him along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Mobile part of the title alludes to the fact that this group operates mobile food trucks as well as the community I’m talking about.

I’m not here to talk about the food truck. But I will speak to their Community First! Village concept, something now in operation and humming along rather nicely.

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October 17, 2024