Smile for Today ~

"I am enclosing two tickets to my new play; bring a friend...if you have one." ~ Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second night...if there is one."  ~ Churchill's reply to George Bernard Shaw.

~ Classic Put-downs, Insults with style, ARCTURUS Publishing Limited, 2013.

Final Layer of Asphalt 

Visit us in The Neat L'l Bookshop ~ We now have a sidewalk, curbs and a street.  [Lines to follow !]  Good used books ~ new books by local authors.  Stay a while.

Wed. to Fri. 10:30 to 5:00

Sat. 10:30 to 3:00

or by appointment

A sidewalk, a curb & a street!

The Eye Opener ~ Blackheath Feb. 24, 1933  [Paper found in family files.]

In presenting this copy of the eye-opener, the editor wishes to extend the greetings and good wishes from the Blackheath Literary Society to the Society at this place.  We are engaged in a common task not only furnishing clean amusement but education as well.

What better way is there to find out the latest talent hidden away in the country places than by taking part in a program of this kind - in practising plays - debates - recitations - songs, etc.?  Who know but what the future premiers are getting their start right now on some Literary Society platform in some small country place.  But we can't all be premiers, yet each one of us that takes part feels some advancement in the education that is necessary to make a life.

It has been said that the present generation is loosing the power and ability to amuse itself choosing rather to go to places of professional amusement.  But the crowds that are drawn to these literary meetings and the excellency of the programmes give the lie to both statements and long may it continue.  And in this work we hope you will continue to help make out of the rising generation men and women that will be better fitted for the journey of life than they otherwise would be -- and they looking back -- will bless the efforts of those who are carrying the burden of what I must confess sometimes seems a thankless task.  But it is not so.  We shall reap if we faint not.

~

Jack - Speaking about dreams, I dreamt last night that - er - I proposed to you.  What's that a sign of?
Nelly - That's a sign that you have more sense when you are asleep than when you are awake.

~

Teacher - And you don't know what letter comes after H?
John - No, Miss.
Teacher - What have I on each side of my nose?
John - It looks like powder from here, Miss.

J.A. Turnbull

Looking East

New Lampposts ~

Looking West

Southwold Diversified Ltd., London, ON on Talbot Street (Hwy 3)

New Man on The Street

Looking West

Lampposts Coming ~

Looking West

Underground Cables ~

The Oak Tree

A mighty wind blew night and day.

It stole the oak tree's leaves away,

Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark

Until the oak was tired and stark.

But still the oak tree held its ground

While other trees fell all around.

The weary wind gave up and spoke,

"How can you still be standing, Oak?

The oak tree said, "I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two,

Carry every leaf away,

Shake my limbs, and make me sway.

But I have roots sstretched in the earth,

Growing stronger since my birth.

"You'll never touch them, for you see,

They are the deepest part of me.

Until today, I wasn't sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I've found, with thanks to you
I'm stronger than I ever knew.

~ Johnny Ray Ryder Jr.

Summer Reading

SUMMER READING ~ Paperback fiction additional 10% off our price during reconstruction/ "streetscaping".  [Our price is 50% off Canadian list.]

Trade paperback fiction 20% off our price. Popular authors.




Reminder:  Third Thursday, August 20 at 1:00 p.m.  Bring a passage from a favourite novel, short story or a poem.  Or just come!

New Sidewalk Patched With Gravel

Installing the New Street Lights ~

Without Warning the new sidewalk is torn up

So...The Neat L'l Bookshop will be closed today.  The contact numbers are posted on the door.  No one called us.  What happened?  Our only clue yesterday was a UNION GAS vehicle and numerous Link-Line Contractors Inc. vehicles in the neighbourhood.  Today:

...on the other side of the street.  We have contacted our county councillor.  Fred Morison, thank you for coming this morning at 7:00 a.m. and forwarding our complaint to the project managers.  Businesses do not quickly recover from being closed over and over again - unpredictably - during advertised OPEN HOURS.  At one point we were left with a two-foot drop from our door for two weeks, without any prior warning or any solution in sight.  We were closed.

From Rain in Summer ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How Beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane

It pours and pours;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

(1807 - 1882) American poet, educator.
Works include, Paul Revere's Ride, Song of Hiaqwatha

"People love to talk but hate to listen.  Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers;  it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.  You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer."

~ Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 - August 22, 1942) American writer, poet.

Take to The Country ~ along The Grand

[Photos:  August 7, 2015]

View From Our Window This Week ~  Getting There

Smile for Today ~ Thought for Today

"We don't elect pacifists.  We admire the killer instinct in leaders.  It's genetic.  It is inevitable that people in high positions like Harper reach out for a bloody stick or sword.  The people who run the world today are psychopaths.  Everybody can see it, so why are we so obedient?  All they care about is the economy because that means money.  A virus is sweeping through the human race.  At the top, all over the world, we are rotting away as a species from the top down.  The leaders have gone beyond greed to the sheer amassing of power.  There is no effective morality, just power."

~ Farley Mowat (1960 - 2014) Canadian author, environmentalist ~ In an interview with author of PARTY OF ONE, STEPHEN HARPER AND CANADA'S RADICAL MAKEOVER, Michael Harris, Viking, 2014.

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
~ Abraham Lincoln

"As I get older...I become more convinced that good government is not a substitute for self-government."
~ Dwight Morrow (1873 - 1931) Businessman, father of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

"The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities."
~ Abraham Lincoln

Utilities ~ hydro, telephone, cable ~ Going Underground  on Talbot

Going Underground

[Photos:  August 4, 2015]

Champions!

Pretty Little Corner ~

Smile for Today ~

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill found a fascination in books as material objects and expressed a sentiment familiar to many book lovers:

"If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them ~ peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are.  Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances."

~ Churchill and Chartwell

"Pulling for Krista" ~ get well xo