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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

For me, Christmas means slippers from Mom

Tuesday, December 31, 2002

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and that things are falling into place for the New Year. I'm having a hard time believing that we're entering the year 2003 – I mean, we're two years beyond "2001: A Space Odyssey". I had a great Christmas that lasted for about a week. We started our celebrations on Christmas Eve with my wife's family, the McPhail clan, carried on for a couple of days with the children and grandchildren at our place, then headed for Hanover for Christmas with my folks on the weekend. And I must tell you that I simply can't go back to Hanover, my old hometown, for Christmas without getting all emotional and nostalgic. As I sit around the table for Christmas dinner with my Dad at the head of the table, I look around and see how things have changed over the last several decades. My sister and I have gone through divorces, and she had a serious bout with cancer. Our kids are now fully grown and we've been through the years of teenage angst. My brother and other sister's kids are also on the grow and we really don't have any little kids at the Gardiner Christmas. There have been many changes since we were all young. But Christmas in Hanover remains a very special time for me. I can feel tears well up as I watch the family opening gifts, happy and free of the cares of life even for a short time. There's always a theme gift that everyone gets – this year, it was barbeque lighters – I now have four. Then, there are the slippers from my Mom and Dad. I get a new pair every year and the tradition has been going on for many years. I realize, though, that Mom and Dad are getting older with each passing year and many more changes are on the way – not always ones I would choose if I had a choice. As I watch my extended family celebrating together at Christmas, I wonder what life will hold for each of us. I hope it will be only good things but I know that can't possibly be. I hold my slippers close. You can't imagine how very special they are to me.

It's been a slow week for cktimes, as might be expected for this time of year. I've worked in the newspaper business for over 25 years, and I've been through this slow time each and every year. This year, because I'm a one-man show and I've really been burning the midnight oil for several months now, I took a little break. We have a good selection of new columns for you this week, but not a lot of Chatham-Kent news. Expect that to return in force next week. Also, watch for me to try a few new ways to promote cktimes to try to get more of you involved in the project. Tonight, for example, is New Year's Eve, and my wife and I are heading to Blenheim to ring in the New Year with Blenheim Rotary and friends at the Rotary Bell. I will try my darnedest to make cktimes reflect life in Chatham-Kent as the year rolls along. I will work hard to make the product grow, hoping to live up to the high praise contained in Jim and Lisa Gilbert's Cultural Musings' column this week and also in Glen Turner's Theatretalk. I want this paper to be different – unique. I want it to look at mostly the good things in our lives (Jeff Wesley and the C-K budget aside). Nearly everyone I talk to is tired of all the negativity in the media. Time for change – or, cktimes for change. Hey, maybe that's a good slogan.

Life continues to roll along for me – I hit the big 5-0 last week and, man, is that a weird feeling. How the heck can I be 50-years-old? I'll never figure out this life stuff works no matter how hard I try. Although I find life to be a beautiful thing that should be filled with promise, it's hard not to be somewhat melancholy as you look around you and realize that everything and everyone you love and hold dear will one day be gone and mostly forgotten. I'm having a great deal of trouble dealing with this aspect of my life. I'd like to pull everything that's important to me together and hold it in the here and now forever. But it can't happen. Life marches on. People keep telling me it's better than the alternative – but you know what? We don't have any actual proof that that's true. Not that I'm in a hurry to find out. Something to think about.

I watched a movie the other day called simply "'68". It was about a family dealing with the turbulent changes that were happening in the late 1960's in the San Francisco area and throughout the United States. I was amazed to find out that so many major events occured in 1968 – Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy both murdered and the National Democratic Convention, as well as Viet Nam and civil rights. Man, what a year! Folksinger Phil Oches thought 1968 was the beginning of the end for our free society. He saw it as a pivotal year when the so-called Establishment put the counter culture in its place. Things have never been the same. By the way, Neil Young had a bit part in '68 and he was okay. Great soundtrack – Hendrix, Joplin, Buffalo Springfield and all the rest. Worth a watch just to get a feel for the times.

Out of time for another week. Happy New Year to everyone – I hope things go well for you. Let's take some positive action for Chatham-Kent in 2003.

Take care.....and remember...."Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may."



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.