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Somewhere in South Glengarry, there really is an old red barn on the hill. You can see it while driving along County Road 2 beside the St. Lawrence River. I have never been inside that barn, though a picture of it has appeared in our newspaper before. We used to have a barn-of-the-week feature and I knew that, eventually, that old red barn would squeak its way in. - The barn has the words River Run on it. These words are what make the barn memorable, especially because most barns are unbranded. By the way, there is a reason why most barns are red. In fact, I once did a story about it in the newspaper. Here is why most barns are red: A recipe consisting of skimmed milk, lime and red iron oxide created a rusty-colored mixture that became popular among farmers because it was cheap to make and lasted for years. Farmers were able to easily obtain iron oxide the compound that lends natural red clay its coppery color from soil. Linseed oil derived from flax plants was also used to seal bare w

I just typed "Winter Grooming" into Google and came up with a whole bunch of links about dogs. Apparently, it is very important to groom your doggie in the winter because of ice and snow. I am going to assume that Alaskan dog sled doggies get groomed a lot more than chihuahas in New Mexico. - As for me, when I think of Winter Grooming, I think of the volunteers who groom the trails of the Summerstown Forest so that people can go cross-country skiing or snowshoeing or sledding. My kid prefers the latter. He doesn't care how tired I get lugging him on his sleigh. I am nearly 50. Good grief, kid. Have mercy on your old man's heart. - Like most people, I hate winter and I love it. I like the first two weeks of Christmas. That is because my birthday is January 3 and I like that I was born in the winter (I was, in fact, born in a blizzard.) After that, I want the winter to go away. I don't like the cold, I don't like scraping ice off my windshield or shovelling snow

One winter day in Rosebud, Sue and I decided to make a snowman. After a breakfast of bacon and Ovaltine, we met in front of the Legg House, which was also the girls dorm, and started to make our snowman. Sue insisted that the snowman be exactly five foot nine and three quarter inches tall. I acquiesced, even though I knew the snowman would be taller than me.  When the snowman was done, we found some rocks to serve as eyes and mouth and an old toque to be a hat. I found a big long stick to be the snowman's arms and Sue went back into the Legg House to get a carrot. Now the snowman had a nose. We looked at the snowman. Then Sue sang Frosty the Snowman. I didn't sing because I am a lousy singer. Sue is not a lousy singer. Sue has perfect pitch. She knows that Frosty the Snowman is in the key of C and that the first note is a G and that the next notes are E, F, then G again and then a high C.  When Sue was done singing Frosty the Snowman, our snowman did not come to life. This surp

 Despite living most of my life in magic, I have yet to see a magician perform in a top hat. That makes me sad since one of the most enduring symbols of my trade is the rabbit popping out of a top hat. I have NEVER seen a magician do that trick. I have seen them make rabbits appear in cages and in handkerchiefs but never in hats, top hat or otherwise. I have seen magicians pull cakes and ribbons and balloons out of hats, but never rabbits. It makes me think maybe I should get a top hat and wear it as part of my act. Branding, ya know. - Here are reasons I would NOT want to wear a top hat as part of my act: - It would probably leave one of those ugly pink lines on my forehead. - Would be uncomfortable on hot summer days. - I would probably lose it. - Difficult to store. - Might look silly. - Would probably clash with the rest of my wardrobe. - On the other hand, a top hat would also be unique. My own unofficial mascot, Mr. Impossible, wears a top hat. Of course, I'm not a purple blo

 I saw this YouTube video of this morbidly obese man losing his mind at McDonalds. I think it was taken in the United States somewhere, possibly in a WalMart. It was being filmed by a guy who kept saying "bro" as in "why you so mad, bro?" His questions did little to mollify the fat guy, who probably would have been even more enraged if he knew he was being filmed. At the heart of the gentleman's rage was that McDonalds didn't have his chicken sandwich ready for him in an appropriate amount of time. The work crew told him they were making him a sandwich fresh. This was the start of Tantrum City. The man yelled and screamed and swore at the entire McDonalds work crew and he also cussed out the other people in the restaurant who suggested he might want to be a bit more patient. One person even had the temerity to suggest he might be in better health if he chose a salad instead. Yeah, that prompted an all new fresh rage and an invitation to a fight. Seriously, I

 I really did make a turkey. For the first time ever, I made a turkey. I'm so grateful that at the place where I work, they give everyone $100 every year to make a Christmas meal. So I took that C-note right to Your Independent Grocer and I got myself a turkey. It was one of those remade thingees that had already been basted in bourbon and butter. The label said that I could put the frozen turkey in a roasting pan and heat it at 350 degrees. The label was wrong. I got up at 8 in the morning to put the turkey in the oven. That's because Christmas dinner was supposed to take place around 1 that afternoon. Mr. Turkey decided he wanted to take longer to cook. The turkey wasn't ready until well after 3. Much of this intel was shared with me by the mom of Ash, who knows more about cooking turkeys than I do (most people do.) I also got some advice from my mom and my brother via Zoom, but this wasn't about making the turkey. This was about making gravy out of the turkey drippin

 If this was the last Christmas, I guess I would have given you my heart. But tomorrow, Boxing Day, I'd have to watch you give it away. I imagine that I would vow to give my heart to someone special the next year in order to save me from tears. - See what I did there? - Everything about Last Christmas - I am talking about the Wham song - disturbs me. Here is a brief list of things that bug me about it: 1. It is overplayed. 2. It is the first "modern" Christmas song I ever heard, which meant it didn't have anything to do with sacred Christmas carols (all about Jesus and Mary and the manger) or secular Christmas carols (all about Frosty and Santa and Winter Wonderlands.) No, Last Christmas was just another pop song about someone loving someone and maybe them not loving back. It was a top 40 hit masquerading as a Christmas carol. 3. The fact that George Michael is singing it but in the music video, he is playing the role of the person to whom the girl gives her heart to

    Me and Billy are driving through Kentucky we're talking about the theory of Evolution Billy says to me: "Well I see that it's a problem but to tell you the truth, I can't find the solution." I didn't answer instead I just sat there the only thing I did was give my head a little nod Billy said: "Hey, you gonna answer my question?" I said: "I don't know the answer because I'm not God." Then my friend Billy pulled into this gas station and I got out to stretch my legs Billy asked me if I'd like a Dr. Pepper I said that I didn't have any change But when Billy came back out he handed me a Dr. Pepper he said: "Don't you worry 'cause this one is on me." So I sat back and had a drink of Dr. Pepper and thought it was cool how we sat around and disagreed. Then these two girls came out of the gas station Billy said the one on the left was kinda cute One of them was pretty the other, not so pretty. I'm sorry I

 For some reason, I had to go to the newspaper at five o'clock in the morning. I unlocked the door, flicked the lights on, and found a middle-aged bald guy sleeping on the couch in the break room. I turned the lights off, got myself a cup of coffee, and went back to my work station. A couple hours later, I heard the man get up, pour himself a cup of coffee, and make a phone call. The call lasted about five minutes. It was very heated and in French. I sensed he was using a lot of profanity but my French wasn't as good as I thought it was. Eventually, he trundled out in the office area where he found me working. He glared at me for a second and then he yelled something in French. I am only moderately fluent in conversational French and I don't do well when words are screamed rather than spoken, so I have no idea what the guy was trying to say to me, though I sensed he was criticizing me for something. Maybe he was telling me not to come into the office so early or to refrain

The American pastor John MacArthur gave me an earful when I climbed into my car this afternoon to take my kid swimming. My radio, as always, was tuned to the Mars Hill Network and it happened to be Grace To You time. Pastor John was saying that Christmas doesn't make any sense if we discount the reality of sin. He went on and on, as radio pastors tend to do, talking about Jesus being born a saviour who was sent to deliver us from our sins and to urge us to repent. Jesus didn't come to give us Our Best Life Now. - Even if I am living my Best Life Now, it didn't feel that way when I was in Wal-Mart earlier, which was unbelievably busy on this particular day. I should expect as much three days before Christmas. I navigated my shopping cart among my fellow shoppers as I carried out my mission, which was to buy a roasting pan, two cans of green beans, some apples, and Melatonin. My kid tried to add a Kinderegg and a new vacuum cleaner to the cart but he succeeded only in adding

She thought that poverty is always more evident in the wintertime.  She had the trailer park to thank for that. All these trailers, their lawns buried beneath mounds of snow. Broken garbage bags bleeding rotting meat poked from the piles like hungry rodents. Porches with soaked cardboard boxes filled with empty beer bottles; empty coffee cans overflowing with cigarette butts. Broken down cars in driveways had been transformed into nondescript hulks beneath that snow. No one could afford snowblowers here. Forget about suburbia where getting rid of the snow is not a chore. All you have to do is pull a chain and push your little contraption up and down. Whee!!! There's a winter wonderland on your front lawn and five minutes later you can go back inside and sit in front of the fire and watch the game on your big screen TV. She sighed, dropped the half smoked cigarette into her own empty coffee can. From inside the trailer came the sounds of Barney singing to children about how much he