The 105-Year-Old Blogger

Mom was the first in our family to use a computer . Her 1970s library technician job required it. She came home every day tearing out her hair from the frustration of learning something so unlike anything she had ever encountered. But Mom soon mastered the highest technology of the time and spent the rest of her career using it. Image by  Sergei Tokmakov, Esq. from Pixabay   Then she retired . . . and technology moved on. Years of innovation passed her happily by and she entered her 80s without email, the Internet, or a cell phone. And then she had to conquer a whole new technology: the Mac. It came complete with a granddaughter to show her how to use it. But the hair tearing resumed. Mom had been a computer-use pioneer, but that skill was now irrelevant. I wish, like my mother, that I could have merrily ignored advancing technology. But there is no stopping the inevitable. Like the rest of the planet, I eventually got a cell phone. One day, a text message...

Not one wardrobe malfunctioned during the half-time show of the 1977 Grey Cup game in Montreal. I know, because I was there; right there in fact, on the field with hundreds of other dancing girls. We were dressed respectfully in long black pants, long-sleeved white turtlenecks and thin beige canvas sneakers. These did nothing to keep out the cold; but that didn’t matter, since we were on the move with our balloons and scarves.   The show was put together by the same team that, the year before, had choreographed the Olympic closing ceremonies. My two sisters and I were friends with a pair of sisters who had been in that show, with its own tale of wardrobe malfunction; although in those days this kind of thing was deliberate, and called “streaking”. When the call went out for girls to perform in the Grey Cup halftime show, these sisters talked us into doing it. We did not need much arm-twisting.   It sounded like a whole lot of fun… and at the end of weeks of practice, f...

Image by  Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay   On June 28, 2004, I did my duty as a Good Citizen and walked to my local school to vote in the federal election.   I then forgot all about it, including who I voted for; because that’s the nature of my relationship with politics.     It takes a lot of energy for me to make an informed decision at election time; which doesn’t leave much energy left over to actually remember my decision.   When making the informed decision, most of my information comes from my friends and family; who, as an entity, have a wonderful variety of views.   So varied are their opinions that, in a post-election discussion about our choice of Canadian leaders, I’m less likely to be asked the question “who did you” than to be confronted with “you didn’t!!” Still, I’m glad that I entered adulthood with a strong sense of the value of the vote. All the life-long encouragement was there: adults dancing around...

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay On May 20, 1980, I was in Geneva Park near Orillia , Ontario , building multi-layered bird houses. These were destined to be placed around the park, in hopes of attracting bug-eating Purple Martins. Meanwhile, back in my hometown Montreal , Good Citizens flocked to the polling stations to decide the future fate of the Province of Quebec in Canada .   That day, my fellow Quebeckers set out to save Canada from disintegration.   I set out to save Geneva Park from mosquitoes. I was not alone.   Every day, my six fellow Katimavikers and I walked a short, wooded path from our cabins to the Geneva Park workshop.   There, we outfitted the park and its conference centre with birdhouses and beds.   For all this work, we were paid one dollar a day; with the promise of a thousand dollars if we finished the whole nine months of the Katimavik program.   Katimavik was set up, among other reasons, to send groups o...

In 1965, an interesting experiment began at St. Lambert Elementary School: French immersion. A year later, I started Kindergarten at that school, remaining in the French immersion stream until grade 7. I learned the French of my European teachers, which eventually made me very jealous of my teenage friend Natalie. She and her friends from the French high school could speak Quebecois French—beautiful French, proper French—and I couldn’t.   The Montreal suburb of St. Lambert was not a natural place for an Anglophone to become skilled at proper French. This traditionally-Anglophone-now-in-transition community wasn’t changing fast enough for me; I would never have learned French on the street. Fortunately, I was young enough to learn French in school… but only just. My older brother and sister were too late for French immersion.   At St. Lambert Elementary, my Kindergarten teacher spoke only French to me and my little Anglophone classmates. I can’t identify the moment ...

Image by heblo from Pixabay  ….which is what an Ottawa newscaster called the new President’s six hour visit to the Nation’s capital, one month after his inauguration.   Montreal , where I grew up, had its parties .  Ottawa , where I settled, had them too but for different reasons. When President Obama came to town, so did bus-loads of people along with corresponding bus-loads of policemen.   I have been known to purposefully join the festive crowds that occasionally inundate Ottawa over significant foreign visitors (which is why I’ve seen the Queen three times); but this February day was not to be one of those times.   I had other reasons to be downtown as my oldest daughter and I set out to obtain a visa for her from the South African High Commission, something that was proving to be difficult and required a couple of stops.   So, armed with the “Obama Visit Survival Guide,” which I had printed off the CBC website, we launched ourselves into the ...