Rose's Cantina

Every day, my mother Vera took the bus downtown to the factory where she spent eight grueling hours manipulating the heavy machines that were used to make fine sweaters for people who could afford them. In the summer, sometimes, the temperatures soared into the thirties and the heat made her swoon, but she was forced to carry on for what anyone would consider a laughable salary. On those steamy days, she boarded the bus home in sweat-soaked and cheap polyester clothes she bought at KMart.  I was 16 and in high school when my mom took that job. Because she worked shift work, she left a freezer full of Swanson concoctions for me to make for dinner. I came to detest frozen food, particularly the processed mystery meat that was lauded as "real" beef and turkey and slathered with gravy full of salt and sugar. Vera took that job after my grandparents died and we were forced to move into an apartment in city.  It was a long way from the farm where I spent my...

A few days ago, my daughter Marissa set out a challenge for her white family and friends after the senseless lynching of George Floyd. WHITE PEOPLE, white friends, white family, I'm going to ta lk to you for a second. Your silence on the issues that people of colour face, your passiveness ("I'm not racist, I don't see colour, etc) also further systematic racism. If you don't look for information on the LIVED EXPERIENCES of people of colour, if you don't educate yourselves, if you don't push for change, ask how you can help - these things will never get better.  Funny, we never talked about it. Not even when Jeff came for dinner, moved in, and never left. He was just Jeff who lived in our basement, a quiet man with dreads, and glasses who didn't say very much.  He wasn't the only young man who lived under our roof. My boys had friends who came and stayed, mostly after getting kicked out of their parents' houses. But Jeff was the only ...

The old woman sat in her wheelchair looking out the window at the perfectly manicured garden. It had a fountain, where she loved watching the birds frolicking on hot summer days like this one. She held her useless left wrist with her right hand for a moment, then gently laid it by her side. The woman did this by habit; she didn't want people seeing what the stroke had done to the hand that used to knead the shortbread that she once made for her grandchildren. "Hi Elsie," I said softly, and sat down in the chair beside here. "Do you want to come out for the sing-a-long?" She looked up at me with rheumy blue eyes, and shook her head. "Not today, dear," she said in her soft Scottish accent. "I'm not feeling up to it." "Come on, now," I said. "It will do you good. Singing always makes you feel better." She shrugged and gave me a wave her hand, as if showing the white flag. She knew there was no...

I am a white woman. I have a black son-in-law, a black granddaughter, and a black niece. My daughter Marissa has many black friends, and relatives. I am no longer surprised when I see a video of a black person being killed by police, or vilified by a white person just for being "on the scene". It worries me that my granddaughter will have to navigate the world using a different lens than her white cousin. And I'm concerned that something bad will happen to her dad just for "driving while black". So I am sharing this post that Marissa put on Facebook today, because she asked her family to stop being silent on the issue of race. There is a lot we can do if we only open our eyes, call out racism when we see it, and get involved. Marissa's right. White people were shocked to see other people standing by while a police officer killed George Floyd in cold blood, and reacted by just asking him to "stop".  And they were shocked that a black bi...

In May 1978, I got my first and last full time newspaper job working for the Ottawa Journal. It wasn't my first foray into print journalism. As a 16-year-old, I had a weekly newspaper column with the St. Catharines Standard as a student at West Park Secondary School. The gig paid 25 cents an inch and I learned quickly the art of padding my column with the names of everybody on the football and rowing teams. The Standard later hired me as a summer student. The editors quickly sized me up, and decided I should become the "first woman" writer. So I wrote inches and inches of copy about the first woman rowing coach, the first woman dump truck driver, and the first woman police officer. In exchange for selling my soul, I was given some plum assignments, like covering Marvin Gaye at a champagne reception where he was given the key to the city of Buffalo. (Later that day, he returned the favour by bailing on his concert because he was being chased by private dicks who...

Embed from Getty Images On the day the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, my entire view of the world changed. I had been going through some really rough stuff, trying to raise a small group of hellions who were out of control; desperately searching for work when there was none; and hanging on to a house I hated, one which I had bought irrationally post-divorce. It often felt like I had stepped in quick sand and it was all I could do to cling for dear life onto what was left of the solid ground. Every night, I would sit in the living room and stare at a tree in the middle of the green space behind my house, and imagine building a fort, and just going there to live. I wanted to be in a place where nobody could find me, not the collection agencies, or the ex, not even my beloved children. Instead, I just sat there with a bottle of wine in one hand, and a self-help book in the other. Then the planes hit and the entire world was turned upside down. My kids came r...

Like most old codgers, I'm a bit reluctant to embrace change of any kind. Call me what you like: individual, contrarian, stupid. But this is a trend I had to follow because I know, like it or not, if I don't, it could kill me or somebody else. I do it for the same reason I put on a seat belt, or don't get in the car after a night of drinking. Because I am part of a society that values the taking on of personal responsibility. I am a Canadian who pays taxes to make sure no one goes bankrupt because of illness. I believe in the public good, in the social safety net, and giving a hand others. I am a mother, a grandmother, a wife, and a friend. Just an ordinary Canadian. I don't carry a gun, but I'm happy to carry a mask. In 2009, I got really sick with a coronavirus called SARS when I was working at an Ottawa hospital. I've never been that sick in my life. I didn't wear a mask, or gloves, or even use hand sanitizer. And I got terribly sick. The ...