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I am approaching 70 like a freaking freight train! I have heard a lot about these so called “golden years”. My parents used to talk about them in derogatory tones. We self flagellate with desultory lines like “there is nothing golden about the damn golden years” – promptly hike up our pants, let our big…

Becoming a parent is not for the faint of heart. I know countless people that have either not had kids yet, or have chosen not to have them, but yet know exactly how to raise your children.  Parenting styles are often based on two people bringing their own learned parenting skills to a relationship, combining…

“To spur on, impel, or motivate. To fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence. To produce or arouse a feeling or thought. To cause something to happen or be created”. When I think of the word inspire or inspiration, my mind immediately goes to Terry Fox. Selfless, courageous, a symbol of hope and perhaps…

Much to my surprise and everlasting gratitude, I had a couple of people come to my rescue after I tendered my resignation from Bell. You never know who you might have impressed along your professional journey. Colour me shocked, to have both Gary Leitch and Al Hobbs contact me to ask how they could help.…

I was back in Aylmer and working for Amtelecom once again. Things were good. We were back close to friends and family and I was happy with my new role. Geoff was born around 11PM on Oct 8, 1985. I had been on a 2 week course in Toronto with Ron Mervis and had to…

I started my career at Bell Canada with a lie. And now I had to somehow live up to it. The question from George Walker, my interviewer, was “Have you ever worked in a Central Office?” “A Telecom Central Office is the main switching facility for a telco, providing access to the Plain Old Telephone Service…

The Early Years I have been a very lucky man. Many times, my life has been a series of fortunate events, tied together by good fortune and propelled by the generosity of others – and sprinkled with liberal doses of happenstance and dumb luck. Oh there has been lots of misfortune along the way, as…

Oh, What a night! I was 11 years old when dad promised I could go with him to the horse races for the first time. I had watched him leave in the late afternoon on several occasions, for an evening at the horse races in London. Dad’s friend Vern Soper, was a standardbred horse breeder,…

I never wanted to be like my father. Not because he wasn’t a good man, but because I wanted to forge my own way. He was old. He had old ideas. He was set in his ways. He was inflexible. Or so my brain thought at the time. I think the first time I realized…

Democracy Dies in Darkness is a phrase attributed to the Washington Post, a media company that focuses on news and journalism across the globe. The primary meaning of the phrase draws a parallel to the idea of light and darkness with the colloquial terms of knowledge and ignorance that we often use. To say that…