It’s an October morning, 1975, in Upper Fraser, a remote sawmill camp in north central B.C. I’m 9 years old, sitting at my desk in the portable classroom where I’m to spend the remainder of my elementary school years. A bank of windows running the length of wall to my left looks across the dirt…
A Community of Sufferers*
I'm having a meal with my husband at a pub in Bristol, delighting in the warm and jovial conversation of the three older men having a pint at the neighbouring table. By their camaraderie, I assume they've had a long history together, probably meeting at this very pub over many years. As I finish my chicken…
Small town diaspora.
Are there any, like myself, the diaspora of a small and rural, remote town. Are there any, like myself, who yearned to know where the gravel road led. But, now that it's gone, wish I could follow it home. Are there any, like myself, who used to think the open spaces were like walls that…
Oh, come on — let’s give the blather about “tribalism” and “ideologies” a little kick in the knees.
I'll be getting back to this topic, but here I take a quick kick at what I'll call "ideology-talk." Whatever it is that some people think ideology is, it seems they think it something that keeps us apart. You know, I'm in one camp, you're in the other. So let's push on that notion a…
