This Ain't No Healing Town

by Barry Callahan, the son of the late Canadian novelist Morley Callaghan.

"Of course in recent years ~ the forty years after the War ~ there has been a building boom, an explosion of shopkeeping. The grace waters of the lake have been almost completely bunkered off by a concrete elevated expressway and a cluster of downtown banking towers have been built, erections to dreams, but make no mistake, these are austere secular steeples, new cathedrals on the same old corners, casting their shadows at right angles to each other to make a point: the top of the line is always the bottom line.

"My father told me back when these banking towers were going up, when I was a young writer thinking that I wanted to tell a truth or two, that the writer always has to deal with appearances, with shadows and what goes on in the shadows...

"The shadows in this town have got dense, and with different colors, more dense than you can shake a nightstick at." ~ Barry Callaghan, This Ain't No Healing Town ~ Toronto Stories, Exile Editions Limited, 1995.

Barry (1937 - ) is the son of the late author Morley Callaghan.

Photos by Lorna. Toronto, Ontario. Click on photo for larger image.

King Arthur and Guinevere

Ever wondered what the medieval bride and groom served at their wedding? King Arthur and Guinevere feasted on roasted boar, roasted venison, roasted hare, little birds toasted, big birds stuffed, big pies, little pies and suckling pig. And, of course, great pitchers of ale and wine.

Story Hour in the Neat Little Bookshop offers kids adventure and excitement ~ a chance to explore some of the classics and any number of contemporary stories. They choose a book to read and we sneak in a book with some literary value. Yesterday we read excerpts from a Scholastic childrens' book, King Arthur His Knights & Their Ladies by Johanna Johnston. Before they knew it, the kids were right there in the medieval castle dining with 150 knights at the great Round Table.

End of Summer. Monarch butterflies gathering silently in the tree branches on Lake Erie shore. Haldimand County, Ontario.

Stop by the Neat Little Bookshop. We have a new photo display.

Cayuga Village Centre

Flower boxes along Highway 3 and Cayuga Street provided by the Cayuga and District Chamber of Commerce.

The regular breakfast meeting is on Wednesday, September 8 at The Gingerbread House Restaurant on Highway 54.

Thought for Today:

"The heart hath its own memory,
like the mind,
and in it are enshrined
the precious keepsakes
into which is wrought
the giver's loving thoughts."


~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet (1807 - 1882)

Photo: by Lorna. Mount Olivet Haldimand County

Sights on Jarvis ~

Our hearts are broken this morning. We have lost one of our own. Robert Schweyer passed away late Thursday evening, September 2.

Robert is the well-known, respected author of the historical WWII book, Sights on Jarvis.

We extend our sincerest condolences to his wife, Cindy, Sarah and Mathew and to the rest of Robert's family and friends.

Imagination

Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, believed that imagination is a "higher gift." We watch a beautiful three-year-old play throughout a day creating a series of fascinating imaginary worlds.

Using few props, she excitedly draws the adult into her games incorporating stories that she has been told, experiences that she has had in her short three years and her childlike, innocent imagination. The line between fantasy and reality is indistinguishable, barely defined.

In Joy of Books, Eric Burns expands on Faulkner's theory that a story comes from three sources: observation, experience, and imagination. Faulkner explains that it is hard to know just how much comes from which source.

We watch our three-year-old go off to Junior Kindergarden on September 8. Will her imagination survive or will she be channelled and moulded into a replica of students who came before and those who will inevitably follow?