Blogs Moose Country

Those who have long been fans of Maclean’s magazine, and various newspapers over the years, will be familiar with my much-older friend, Allan Fotheringham — Dr. Foth to his fans.

Dr. Foth, as you might then know, is hardly a fan of the British Royals, has written many, many times about how silly our association with them is, and has blamed Ottawa for not having the courage to cut Canada’s ridiculous ties with the monarchy.

So you might imagine the dismay in Fotheringham’s mind when he opened his mail the other day and found an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to attend the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club last Monday to accept the Diamond Jubilee Medal.

The invitation was sent via Art Eggleton, a Toronto mayor from 1980 to 1991, who is now one of those Ottawa types because he is also a senator.

Did Dr. Foth choke his words and accept the medal? Or did he stick to his guns?

Because I am in Winnipeg right now, and wanted to clear my commentary slate, I emailed the good Dr. Foth, looking for an answer. No worries. He was going.

He now has a diamond jubilee medal to go with the gold one he got 10 years ago.

Forgot all about that one, didn’t we?

Either the Queen holds no grudges or she has a sense of humour.

Today is my wedding anniversary. My wife’s too.

We got married in the Year of Orwell, and have managed to hang on for all the years since.

Think of George Orwell, think of his most famous book, and then do the math. I have run out of fingers and toes.

We have been empty nesters now for a few years. Arthur the Airedale is dead, gone and irreplaceable. My wife, Karen, misses him dearly because he was with her 24/7 whereas I am not.

I spend half my time either in Toronto or Ottawa, and the other half at home. My wife misses me too when I am away, but she misses the dog more.

And I am only half kidding.

He was a great dog.

Our daughter Erin — our only child — works for the Harperites in Ottawa as a communications strategist, is engaged to be married next year, and only calls her dear old dad when the moon is blue.

When I was her age, I did the same.

You don’t tend to think of your parents until you become one and start feeling old. My mother is 88, and my father has been dead since 1980.

When he died he was the same age I am now.

What I then thought was old, now feels young.

Funny how things change.

Last week, as a change of pace from politics, my Sunday newspaper column focused on how I had become a supercommuter — coined by a New York professor to describe anyone who drives more than 145 kilometres to work at least once a week.

And I do double that.

If you read newspapers online, you will know that there are usually comment boards under most columns and major stories, thereby allowing readers to post their own comments.

Most do it anonymously, using bogus email addresses like Iamayahoo@yahoo.ca, all which had a number of readers taking me to task for destroying the environment because of all the fossil fuels I have3 burned over the years

I was so upset that I went out and hugged a tree.

Then along came reader and friend, Daniel Christie, who

reminded us all of a magazine called Popular Science which said we’d all be flying to work with personal jet-packs by now — all this after downing our Daily Nutrition Pill, right after wakening from our Suspended Animation Sleep Period.

We wouldn’t be using ancient internal combustion engines because fossil fuels would have run out in 1958.

But that didn’t happen, did it?

Unless the Harper government finally does what it said it would do, Governor General David Johnston may be the last white man with any standing in the federal bureaucracy.
I remember causing quite a stir among liberals when I wrote a national editorial for Sun Media congratulating Harper for appointing an “old white guy” as governor-general when all federal hiring ads made it quite clear that white men need not apply.
You’d think I had called the saintly Mother Teresa an infidel, or worse.
For the last fews years, many of us were under the impression that shortly after that editorial went to print, then Treasury Board president Stockwell Day told the Commons that he had ordered the end of the “affirmative” action program that gave preference in the federal bureacracy to those who are bilingual — preferably francophone, of course — or persons of colour, disability or of aboriginal descent.
But we were conned.
Apparently it takes a change in legislation to make merit trump special interest, and no legislation was ever tabled.
So forget about it. Even if you are white and bilingual, you’d best have another tick on your chart.
White only? Forget about it.

Back on Family Day, before heading back to Toronto, I pulled into the Tim Hortons out on Highway 28 for an extra-large, cream only.
Please, don’t tell Saidie at the Eagle’s Nest. Mike McCaskie and I have a pact.
Anyhow, I get to the wicket, and there is young woman, maybe a high-school student, with a smile as big as barn door. “It’s roll up the rim day,” she beamed. And she was beaming.
This is now much Tim Hortons has moved itself into the Canadian psyche. To this young Tim Hortons employee, the first day of the “roll of up the rim” campaign meant that spring just around the corner.
This is what she told me.
And she was excited about it.
Me? The first sign of spring was always the sighting of the first robin, or the catchers and pitchers heading to Florida to begin spring training for major league baseball or, if you want to stretch it, Groundhog Dog if he doesn’t see his shadow.
But it has never been the first day of Tim Hortons roll up the rim campaign.
Perhaps it was a good omen, but the very first coffee I bought on the very first day of roll up the rim won me a free coffee.
But no guarantee of an early spring.