Mount Olivet Lilac Drive-Thru~

Among the lilacs, Saturday, May 18, Pie Social, Silent Auction, Yard Sale.  Hot dog BBQ ~ a special day in the little country church.

Sachem Offers Opportunity ~

The Sachem

There are many deserving Cayuga and District Businesses that would welcome recognition in the Sachem's 2013 Readers' Choice.  Take a minute and nominate your favourite local business ~ imagine over 100 categories!

Throughout the year The Sachem has written stories, printed submitted articles and photographs for us.  This is our chance to support this local paper in their efforts to recognize excellence.

www.sachem.ca

Everything coming up blue & white ~

HALDIMAND MOTORS showing support for the Toronto Maple Leafs

www.haldimandmotors.com

"Only in Cayuga..."

Peter Worthington, Sun News

(1927 - 2013)

The devastating announcement of the Toronto Telegram closing in 1971

left staffers scrambling for jobs.

A small group including Peter Worthington, Don Hunt and Douglas Creighton

began plans to produce a tabloid eventually named the Toronto Sun.

"None of us had ever rented a building, found a press, bought newsprint or started a company.  Hardly any of us had dummied a tabloid paper before.

"It has been argued that every successful enterprise requires three leaders; a dreamer, a businessman and a son of a bitch.  Well, we had all three...I'll leave it to the reader to fit us into the proper category." ~ Douglas Creighton.

The Sun was to be "unintimidated, aggressive, accurate and irreverent."  In his autobiography, Sunburned - Memoirs of a Newspaperman - THE SUN,* Creighton describes the dream, the trying days and weeks of establishing the new tabloid.

*Little, Brown and Company (Canada) Limited, 1993.

"Get dis shack cleaned up!"  Mommy yelled "De mission boat's comin."
I was six and didn't know how to clean up yet.  Clean up what?  I glanced out the window and saw a large schooner coming around the point.  The fancy hospital ship was carrying Dr. Charles Curtis.  Suddenly, Spotted Island was alive with activity.  People milled about in a frenzy, tidying up for the doctor.  Mommy shouted at us to wash our faces.
"Racing to the porch washstand, I scooped cold water from the barrel into the basin, then took the corner of the already filthy towel from its nail and rubbed it over my face.  It was cold and there was no soap, but I did the best I could and placed the towel back on the nail.
"Whass de doctor comin fer, Mommy?" Marcie asked.
"Donno, maid, he jus coms."

~ Excerpt from So Few on Earth. Dundurn Press, 2010.

Author Josie Penny explains that most people say that they have never met anyone from Labrador.  "That's because there are so few of us on earth," she says. Josie lives with her husband in Dunnville.

Josie Penny will be in the bookshop

Thursday, May 16, 1:00 p.m.

"Everyone Welcome"

Coffee Pot's always on...don't miss it!

"...while I was a child her great affection for me, and her intense care for my welfare, made me love her and gave me that feeling of safety that children need...Her fearlessness, her public spirit, her contempt for convention, and her indifference to the opinion of the majority have always seemed good to me and have impressed themselves upon me as worthy of imitation."

~ Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970)  British philosopher


"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

(Photo:  Cayuga Street, Sunday, May 12 lbw)

A Prayer for Mothers

Marjorie Flagg Holmes wrote ~

A Prayer For Cross Mothers

Oh God, I was so cross to the children today!  Forgive me.  I was discouraged and tired ~ and I took it out on them.  Forgive my bad temper, my impatience, and most of all, my yelling.  I am so ashamed as I think of it.

I want to kneel down by each of their beds, wake them up and ask them to forgive me.  But I can't.

They wouldn't understand.  I must go on living with the memory of this awful day; my unjust tirades.

Hours later, I can still see the fear in their eyes as they scurried around, trying to appease me ~ thinking my anger and maniacal raving was their fault.
Oh God, the pathetic helplessness of children!  Their innocence before the awful monster ~ the enraged adult.

And how forgiving they are, hugging me so fervently at bedtime, kissing me goodnight.

All I can do is straighten a cover, touch a small head burrowed in a pillow and hope with all my heart that they will forgive me.

Lord, in failing these little ones whom you have put in my keeping, I am failing you.  Please let your infinite patience and goodness replenish me for tomorrow.

MFH (1886 - 1976)  American English & Latin teacher, civic activist.

(A Dear Friend, Janice Wingrove, gave the above to me after we shared a soul-searching discussion on the difficulties of stay-at-home Moms.  My friend died of cancer and I have only recently been in touch with her beautiful adult children, Cheryl, Lorna and Justin.  Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  I hope that Marjorie Holmes' writing means as much to someone out there as it did to my friend and to myself. lbw)