Thought for Today ~


"So what is my point?  Quite simply that increasingly in the media today, truth is being sacrificed to art (or at least artfulness);  reporting to literature.  No, this is not a matter of dumbing down; rather its opposite, dumbing up.  Newspapers are far more sophisticated, for cleverer, far better written than they ever were before; incomparably more entertaining and readable.  A column in The Times by Matthew Parris has even deservedly earned a place in the New Oxford Book of English Prose ~ the first column by a hack ever to do so; and it is only a matter of time before a news story in The Times wins a place in the next Oxford Book of English Fiction.


But therein lies the danger:  the picture of the world presented by the media is both much more beautiful and much more ugly, both much more eye-catching and much more dramatic, both much more simple and much more complicated, than in actuality it ever is." ~ Peregrine Worsthorne.


[This appeared in a 1999 book. Is 2012 even more "dumbed up?"]
~ The Penguin Book of Journalism, Secrets of the Press edited by Stephen Glover. 1999.

ALL HAT, a novel by local author Brad Smith, was picked up by Penguin also made into a movie.  For horse-racing fans ~ Ray and Pete, two main characters come up with an audacious plan to exact revenge on a ruthless, wealthy Sonny Stanton.

"Well, we ain't quittin' now, Ray."  Pete nodded toward the barn.  "That Paulie ~ he's a damn good kid.  You see the change in him already?  Hell, he even walks different.  When he first got here, he'd walk into a room like he was apologizing for something.  And now he don't.  All I did was give him an old hat, and he thinks I'm the second coming.  He's been told his whole life he ain't worth nothin', by people like Sonny Stanton.  Calling him down and hitting on him.  His whole life.  Now maybe I done a few things I shouldn't have done, and maybe you done a few things you shouldn't have done, and maybe when the last steer is branded we ain't much better than Sonny.  But I gotta believe we're a little bit better than Sonny, and I'd like to show that kid that it's so.  I'd like to show him that the Sonny Stantons in the world don't always come out on top."

Smith tells a fast-paced story, well constructed, humourous with heart.  Read one of Brad's stories and be ready to look for more.

~ ALL HAT, Penguin Canada, 2003.   Brad's books are available at The Neat Little Bookshop.

Grand River Locks ~

Lock 1 at Indiana presented a difficult engineering job. There were two river-openings requiring locks ~ a large island in the middle.  Locks on the average raised the water nine feet.  Flooding and economic delays complicated completion.

Parish Hall, York

The York Historical Society has erected lock signs; Lock 1, Indiana, stands on the river side of The Gingerbread House Restaurant and Inn.   An outdoor billboard at the York Parish Hall Golden Horseshoe Antique Society, shows all canals, locks and dams in the lower Grand River. 

Hamlet of Indiana ~

Site of Several Mills on the Grand River, Indiana

Indiana grew from the saw and flour mills and distillery built by Director of the Grand River Navigation Company, David Thompson.

"The Towing-path from its commencement near Cayuga to Indiana is finished." ~ An Engineer's Report from 1835, included in Bruce Emerson Hill's book, The Grand River Navigation Company.

Remnants of the Canal & Towing Path Remain

"The inland cut from Indiana to Dam No. 1, is finished."  Indiana had a population of over two hundred and fifty people and was the site of seven mills, a lumber camp and saw mill, a stove factory, a pail factory, two distilleries as well as other businesses."  [As well as several pubs, we are told.]  A fire in the hamlet threateded its existence in July, 1857.

*Brant Historical Society, 1994, Image Quest, printing by Brant Service Press.

Mark Twain *~ "I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way:  by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. . .
We have no permanent habits until we are forty.  Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins.  Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up ~ and that is one of the main things.  I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to.  This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity.  It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person.
In the matter of diet ~ which is another main thing ~ I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it."

~ * (1835 - 1910) "A Severely Moral Life," a speech at a dinner, Delmonico's Restaurant, N.Y., Dec. 5, 1905. Mark Twain, An Illustrated Biography, Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns, Knopf,2001.
Image:  Wikipedia

Jane Austen's books remain popular today.  Canadian author, Margaret Laurence, made the following observations in the 80s* ~

"Jane Austen, the more I read her and think about her, was such a subtle and strong feminist!  In them days!  But those days, apparently so far back, are not so very different from our own.  Is this not always the way?  I think so.  Strong women did always have the difficulties that Austen presents, and people like you and I have lived through that, too.  With, I may say, totable [sic] success.  We pass on a whole lot of things to the children, both female and male, or so I hope and pray and know. . ."

"How alike women writers are, or so it seems to me. . . we are sensible, amidst everything else, aren't we?  I think Jane Austen would have loved us, but I suspect she might have been a bit in awe of us, as well she might, we who have coped with having and rearing our children, writing our books, earning our livings, and not hiding the manuscripts under the desk blotter when the vicar came to tea."

~ A Very Large Soul  Selected Letters from Margaret Laurence to Canadian Writers.  J. A. WAINWRIGHT, Cormorant Books, 1995
* letters to Marian Engel
English novelist Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Smile for Today ~

"My golden retriever has been trained, when ranging, to drop instantly in response to my whistle of three short notes.  On more than one occasion when walking near trees he has suddenly dropped without any prompting from me.

I was at a loss to understand why he did this until, on two recent occasions, I saw him drop at the same time as I heard the triple notes of the nuthatch.   I wonder if other dogs have been known to respond to the call of a bird?"
~ Jean Summers


~ The Second FIELD bedside book, Edited by Wilson Stephens.  The Harmsworth Press Ltd., 1969.