Return to the Cold Hot Place

Camping is a strange kind of vacation: more work, more cooking, less comfort than a hotel and you can return home more tired than when you left, but it has been a treat for our household for years, especially when the weather turns cool.

Miette Hot Springs near Jasper has always been one of our favourite mountain spots, but who wants to bathe in a 39° C pool when it is already 27° outside?

Roche Miette, on the way to Jasper

Six years ago in 2017, Glory and I made our first trek to Miette after snowfall. Audrey joined us in 2018, but Frankentrailer gave up the ghost during set-up, so camping was off that year. 

Fenya and Glory and I returned to Miette in Bride of Frankentrailer in 2019, but Covid closed the pool for two years after that (although Glory and I still camped in 2021 because she missed the mountains) and a mudslide destroyed the road earlier this year, so we thought that was that.

But an interview overheard by chance on the CBC revealed that Miette would indeed open in 2023 for its shortest season ever: Labour Day weekend to Thanksgiving Monday. Unable to wait until 2024, we resolved to go, and let Audrey have her first cool-weather camping experience.

Did I say cool? Cold might be more appropriate. It dropped to freezing our first night and went to -3° the next, but we sustained ourselves in numerous ways. A hot breakfast, for one.

A hot spring for another. They are working reduced hours and a reduced capacity as well as a shortened season, so even though we arrived right at opening time (2 pm) it was still more than half an hour before we got in. But this wonderful place has always been worth the drive so what is a 30-minute wait? After a four-year hiatus, the 60 min soak was completely justified.

Even the refreshing cold plunge was invigorating (after a fashion). Mostly just grateful I didn't seize a piston and need to get airlifted out or something.

We saw numerous elk close to town (keep your distance y'all, the rut is on!) and a sole bighorn on our way to Miette from Wapiti campground, but on our way back we got a close look at a black bear munching on foliage in the ditch on Miette Road:

Even more amazing, it turned out the traffic slowing down where Connaught Drive intersects with the Yellowhead was due to an enormous grizzly lounging by the roadside, the closest I have ever been to one.

And even though the second night was cold, our time outside eating hot Tuna Helper (it's true, everything tastes better when you are cold and hungry!) was aided by the roaring campfire Audrey and Glory had set up while I cooked. 

And the little space heater in the Bride managed to keep the chill off long enough for the sleeping bags to warm up and keep us cozy til morning - barring the occasional late-night visit to the washroom, of course.

A Rusticated Perspective

There are a plethora of musical genres encompassed by the expression "folk music" and why not; it is all music by folk, right? But at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this year, it was country(ish) music that caught my ear the most. Which was a little surprising to me, but maybe it shouldn't have been.

Saturday was a long day for Glory and I, but we were intent on staying for at least part of the closing act, Old Crow Medicine Show. They didn't take the stage until nearly 11 pm, but opening up with two high-energy renditions of songs about cocaine, of all things, really enervated the crowd, us included. They were "Cocaine Habit":

Well, that cocaine habit is awful bad
The worst doggone habit that I ever had
Hey, hey, honey take a whiff on me

And "Tell It To Me":

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink your corn liquor, let the cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead 

Glory was convinced that live-wire frontman Ketch Secor had to be speaking from experience due to a dynamic 110% effort that would put most pro athletes to shame, but that is neither here nor there...

In the weeks afterwards I would often prompt music from the Google Home speaker by requesting "Cocaine Habit" or Tell It To Me and then seeing what sort of selections might follow them up, a technique we call "seed music." Sometimes it would be old-timey country from my "Rusticated" playlist, at others more modern but non-mainstream artists like Corb Lund that I have listened to previously, but on occasion it would pull something delightful from way out in left or right field, or possibly underneath the bench in the dugout.

And I was surprised and delighted to find these slices of Americana incorporate all sorts of themes beyond the truck-driving and freedom-cheering that dominates C&W radio. Consider the environmental apocalypism outlined by The Devil Makes Three in "Allelu":

What will it take to have this place on bended knee 
You run to the forest, you can bet I'll burn the trees 
I will poison the water 'cause it's only getting hotter 
And we came for sons and daughters 

Hallelu

(chorus)
Hallelu, Hallelu, praise the lord and pass the ammunition too 

They say Jesus is coming, he must be walking, he sure ain't running 

Who can blame him, look how we done him, Hallelu 

Or the lament of poor choices by Billy Strings in "Dust In a Baggie", performed here at the Grand Ole Opry (wait, for real?):

I ain't slept in seven days, haven't ate in three
Methamphetamine has got a damn good hold of me
My tweaker friends have got me to the point of no return
I just took the lighter to the bulb and watched it burn

(chorus)
This life of sin has got me in
Well it's got me back in prison once again
I used my only phone call to contact my daddy
I got twenty long years for some dust in a baggie

I mean, the Opry has a long tradition of musical exceptionalism, but I was not expecting something so - I dunno, sordid? - from a genre so strongly associated with conservatism, y'know?

Before Old Crow Medicine Show took the stage at folk fest, we had our first chance to hear Nick Shoulders, probably my fave artist of the whole weekend. In addition to being a tremendous vocalist, whistler and yodeler, he also took pains to share his educate his audience about just what "country" music is, and it might not be what most of us think.

The cartoons permeating this post are from his comic-style essay "Country Music History" which I highly recommend. His position that what was once called "hillbilly music" has more of its roots in geography and poverty than it does with rurality is real food for thought.

Hearing these other "hellbilly" artists talking about the squalid underbelly in rustic settings makes me think of Albertan Corb Lund who has described his style of music as "agricultural tragic" as opposed to country, despite his upbeat and generally humourous takes on that lifestyle.

And some of the darkest musical corners appear to be in Saskatchewan, courtesy of artists like The Dead South:

My life's a bit more colder 

Dead wife is what I told her 

Brass knife sinks into my shoulder 

Oh babe don't know what I'm gonna do 

I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee 

My squeeze 

The stage it smells, tells, hell's bells, miss-spells 

Knocks me on my knees 

It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt 

Hang me on a tree 

After I count down, three rounds, in hell I'll be in good company

...or Colter Wall, who sounds maybe 30-40 years older than he actually is:

Well the raven is a wicked bird
His wings are black as sin
And he floats outside my prison window
Mocking those within

And he sings to me real low
It's hell to where you go
For you did murder Kate McCannon

Of course, every genre of music has its sub-genres (and sub-sub-genres, ad infinitum) and his kind of boundary-crossing is hardly unprecedented, even within country & western music; it is amusing now to recall how Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash were once the standard bearers for "outlaw country."

But hearing twangy music that discomforts more than it typifies, and that sometimes brings an honest outsider's perspective is a great reminder that honest, heartfelt expressions don't need to be pigeonholed or boxed up - just listened to and appreciated.

Like Nick Shoulders said on stage when we saw him, "If you ever wonder why so many punks and goths and metal heads and weirdos seem to be getting into country, don't forget that the fiddle was once referred to as the Devil's instrument. This genre has its roots in rebellion and we are never going away." Or as he sings in "All Bad":

I grew a little into deafening rage 

Every hometown is a well built cage 

Be it high iron, highway or stage 

Don’t let it be all bad 

I’ve been indebted to a surgeon’s blade 

Probation officers and nerves that frayed 

Only the choiceless every gladly stayed 

Refuse to be all bad

Two Great Films, But An Even Better Dinner Party - Autumnal Geekquinox 2023

Yesterday afternoon at Pete's, we geeks graciously gathered to go over a gastronomic agglomeration of gourmet goodies themed around this summer's two most popular films, Barbie and Oppenheimer. 

Yes, this was the Barbenheimer Geekquinox.

A pop culture icon undermining the patriarchy and the surprisingly saucy life of the architect of the first atomic weapons might seem like both a strange combination and unlikely theme for a dinner party. Thankfully, in addition to being an excellent cook and wonderful host (ably aided and abetted by his lovely wife Ellen (gosh it feels good to type that)), he is also an uncannily clever and creative fellow. 

With only a moderate amount of stretching, he was able to create a menu that linked effectively to the theme (if a bit tenuously in places!):

With both of the kids now at university, Pete & Ellen's festivities start much earlier in the day - noon, to be precise. A late departure meant Audrey and Totty and I got there closer to 1 pm, but still in time for the "Pink just looks so good on toast"; tasty smoked salmon and sliced avocado on toasted baguette rounds. A fantastic amalgam of tastes and textures, as well as a light and refreshing staft to 10+ hours of focused ingestion.

Washing these tasty bites down with sips of a Luscious Barbie(TM), a re-labeling of the Luscious Lizzie cocktail developed by Ellen's daughter, got a wonderful day off to an immense start.

This was followed by the moistest chicken breasts I have ever had. Like, ever. They came hot off Pete's Big Green Egg but I presume they had also been pre-cooked a bit in his sous-vide rig. Notwithstanding the overcoming of chicken breast's greatest weakness (dryness), the crispy skin with rosemary and a bit of salt made them completely scrumptious as well.

Better still, having failed a coin check at XCOM the previous weekend, Scott was only too willing to build me an exemplary and photogenic Crown Float.

Atomic Buffalo Turds are a perennial favourite, and I believe this might be the 4th appearance of these bacon-wrapped, sausage-topped, cheese-stuffed jalapenos at Geekquinox. It is important to note here that absolutely no one appears to be tired of these, and they disappeared off the tray with astonishing swiftness, which is always the case.

Trying to follow the menu as best I could I washed down the spicy ABTs with swallows of Ichorous Stout from Blindman Brewing in Lacombe. This may be the best non-barrel-aged imperial stout brewed in Alberta, actually, and while the wisdom of washing down spicy food with a rich, dark ale that clocks in at 11% may be debatable, my enjoyment was indisputable.

Next up were delicious mushroom caps stuffed with garlic cheese; so tasty, in fact,  that our resident fungi skeptic Earl found them reasonably delectable as well. 

Pete and Ellen called an audible on their next play, opting to serve the stuffed potatoes as an appetizer instead of saving them as a side for the main dish. This was great for a few reasons, not the least of which was pacing the rate at which we were adding delicious food to our bodies, but even more importantly, keeping the evening on schedule. Getting even a precursor to the main before 8:00 was unprecedented! And the potatoes themselves, stuffed with brie, goat cheese and cream cheese were absolutely delicious, and a perfect balance of starch and creamy stuffing.

The main itself was a pork belly chicharron burnt ends that was unbelievably tender and flavourful, with a tasty, crackling-like topping. I asked Pete if he had sous-vided this as well, and his grinning reply was, "36 hours, baby!" My only complaint was that the richness of the earlier dishes forced me to exercise more restraint with this succulent pork than I really liked, but the servings I did have were absolutely luscious, and could have been eaten by a man with no teeth and sore gums without a problem.

For dessert: a scratch-made angel food cake with raspberry buttercream icing. Yes, it was tremendously tasty, but all the more so in light of the fact that a) angel food is notoriously finicky to make and b) Pete himself has almost no discernible sweet tooth. Scrumptious and a perfect capper to the evening - and it was not even ten o'clock yet! Truly unprecedented.

Sadly, the early start had also impacted our energy reserves, and our ability to carouse into the wee hours is greatly diminished compared to when Pete began hosting these biannual bacchanalias a dozen years ago.

But hearts were still light as we finished our nightcaps and said goodnight and thank you to our friends and immensely talented host and hostess for a wonderful time of fellowship yet again!

XCOM - A Boardgame with More X and Less Calm

So, if I told you I had played XCOM this weekend, you might have asked, "what the heck is that?"

But if you were somehow familiar with that tortured acronym (which supposedly stands for Extraterrestrial Combat), you might think I was playing the XCOM Legends game from 2021 on a mobile device.

Or maybe I was playing the XCOM: Enemy Unknown game on my Playstation, even though it came out -wow, in 2012? -  or the PC game that inspired it from 1994.

But in fact, I was playing a board game based on all those things (but mostly Enemy Unknown) that came out in 2015. And not just me - I had help from Scott and Jeff...and my iPad.

One of the reasons I had purchased the game (besides really liking Enemy Unknown and being a fan of the publisher Fantasy Flight Games and knowing their production values are rock solid) was because it was one of the first app-assisted games I had ever heard of. A decade later, I am actually surprised there aren't more of them.

Plenty of games have applications (usually third-party) that can help with record or scorekeeping or providing a rules reference, but XCOM uses its companion app to randomize events and limit player turns with a timer. It also makes great use of music and some sound effects to add a bit of drama.

In every iteration of XCOM, you are responsible for a defense agency trying to repel an invasion by aliens in flying saucers. The video game alternates between strategic planning including research and development and budgeting, and tactical missions where you equip a small team against an initially unseen enemy. Soldiers that survive get increased skills and improved equipment from R&D as you try to gain ground against the invaders.

The cooperative board game takes the same tack, with 1-4 players dividing four roles among them: Commander, Central Officer, Chief Scientist and Squad Leader. 

During the timed phase, the app directs each role, in a random order, to go about their various tasks - assigning scientists to projects, soldiers to base defense and other missions, satellites and interceptors to combat the saucers themselves, all while maintaining a limited budget. 

Sure, a deck of cards or a dice-table might accomplish the same thing, but having the app do it is not only faster, it is more dramatic. You must finish your task within the time allotted, or the next task will have its time reduced.

Some cooperative games lend themselves too well to "quarterbacking", where one player asserts themselves over the others, and their suggestions eventually become proxied orders, making hapless players wonder why they were needed at all. The timer pretty much precludes that as a possibility, and leaves each role-holder responsible for their portfolio, with just enough time left over for kibbutzing and groupthink.

"Ugh, both of these two crises are bad, which one should we take?"

"Doesn't matter; I am tasking two soldiers to Skyranger with this card and you can discard whichever one you do take!"

"Awesome, thanks!"

If the game has a flaw, I think it is in the tutorial, which quickly overloads the board with saucers, increasing global panic and eventually costing you the game. But when we played an actual game, we were able to manage the saucers much more effectively (especially once we developed Stealth Satellites that could kill one each turn without even rolling a dice). Honestly though, the tutorial should not discourage you from playing the actual game, right? Or is it perhaps meant to mirror the video game, where the first mission (with conventional military) goes so poorly (through no fault of the player) that XCOM itself is formed in the aftermath? Hmm...

Research, saucer destruction and tactical actions are completed using a simple but terrifyingly random push-your-luck mechanic and some custom dice. Each dice you roll has a 1 in 3 chance of generating a success, but if you roll a low number on the red Alien dice, you not only lose all the soldiers or Interceptors on that task, but the unlucky number gets larger as well - insidious!

At any rate, for a game that has so much resource management at the heart of it (hello again, Starfleet Battles!), XCOM is a surprisingly tense and fun game. With five different invasion plans that impact the types of attacks as well as the order in which they are presented to players, there is a ton of replay value even without increasing the difficulty level.

We had a great time earning our victory (even on the Easy level!) and look forward to defending our homeworld again in the future!

Summer's End 2023

Autumn doesn't truly begin until the equinox later this month (Sep 23 here in Edmonton), but the real emotional transition seems to begin when you flip the calendar after August 31 and get the first of those 'months with R'. 

Back-to-school time still has an inordinate impact on our family; Audrey meets her new 4th-grade class tomorrow but has already been busy with teachers at Education Station, while Glory starts her third-year of nursing classes on Wednesday. In Toronto, Fenya is settling into her new role with the Community Care Centre for the Student's Association at George Brown College, while Bobby will start his first lab rotation for his doctorate at the U of T Molecular Genetics faculty. 

I am the only one in our immediate family not headed back to class or campus in some fashion, but that is okay with me. The Labour Day long weekend is no less appreciated.

Smoke has made a lot of activity unfeasible for us asthmatic types, so I have been getting in a little painting, and we had a lovely visit with our friends from Red Deer and their daughter, who is now in an apartment here in town while attending U of A.

After they left, Audrey, Glory and I took advantage of a rare opportunity to lie-in on the next morning, drank a few shooters and played some games. The enormous Sequence board Audrey got me for Christmas last year is great for such an occasion, requiring attention but very little in the way of actual cognitive processing power. We also got in a game of Trivial Pursuit X, a more adult version of the classic game featuring slightly ruder questions and punishing incorrect answers with an X stamped on one's forehead.

Through a combination of deductive reasoning and absurd levels of luck, my forehead somehow remained unscathed...

This morning presented a rare opportunity to cook a nice big breakfast (albeit for a slightly smaller crowd than I have been used to) which presented more nicely than usual (despite basically being a hash with chorizo and bacon).

And this afternoon I varnished a few projects that got painted in the last week or so after Glory innocuously asked if I had any crafts we could do.

Hopefully she and I will get some time to paint together this week so she can finish the purple worms she started on...

Our new temporary minister started at church yesterday to a warm reception, Geekquinox is right around the corner, and I am hoping to get our Call of Cthulhu back under steam this coming Saturday. The gutters have been cleaned and patches of lawn clover killed in anticipation of the cooler weather and the status quo of shorter days begins to reassert itself.

Which is probably as it should be!

Ayreon Effect

Back in 2019, Fenya and Bobby and I went to see Delain at the Starlite Room, and Anneke van Giersbergen was one of the opening acts. We adored her, especially when she  got a crowd of riled-up metalheads roaring out the chorus to Dolly Parton's "Jolene."

She mentioned working with a live show for something called Ayreon that I was unfamiliar with, and did an acoustic cover of "Valley of the Queens" which was beautiful and haunting. I looked up a few Ayreon songs and enjoyed them, but noticed the majority of their videos came from what turned out to have been a rare set of live performances from 2018.

Ayreon is a music project led by Dutch songwriter/composer/musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen since 1995, but similar to the Alan Parsons Project, was always intended to be a studio endeavour, focusing on rock opera-style concept albums. Their music is a rich melange of sounds, with their Wikipedia listing including descriptions of "progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal sometimes combined with genres such as folk, electronica, experimental and classical music." 

Intrigued by the few performances I had seen and the one album I had streamed ("Into the Electric Castle") I finally sat down and watched the entire Ayreon Universe concert, a 'greatest hits' live show from 2017 that included a tremendous range of musicians (most of who are Dutch and only three of which I recognized immediately, including Marko Hietala, formerly of Nightwish.

The entire concert can be viewed on YouTube and is a worthy evening for anyone who likes Nightwish, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and/or 70s-inspired space rock, or if you are just into a comprehensive survey or "Who's Who" of Dutch Rock/Metal Performers. It is wonderfully staged and features an astonishing 16 different vocalists who have all worked with Arjen before, and who vary greatly in style but are all tremendously gifted singers.

Highlights for me included the aforementioned "Valley of the Queens" with Anneke reprising her role from the album while joined by Marcela Bovio (MaYaN) and the incredible Floor Jansen of Nightwish. The harmonies alone on this one are worth the price of admission as far as I am concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbebO5BZi-I

The concert's BluRay release was announced with an excerpted video of "Everybody Dies" which includes Hansi Kursh of Blind Guardian as well as Floor, Mike Mills, Maggie Luyten and Tommy Karevik (Kamelot). It is a tremendously upbeat and fun song considering the bleak prognosis of its lyrics:

Doom, gloom, the world goes boom
None will be spared, so don't assume

Not ragged clothes, nor silvers spooned
You're all the same when extinction looms

No food supplies (No water supplies)
No power supplies (Or other supplies)
No compromise (Just say your goodbyes)
And everybody dies!

No explanation (Or clarification)
No information (Or justification)
Forget the whys (Just cover your eyes)
And everybody dies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AAXtUdM7xE

The absolute standout for 14-year-old me was the raucous "Intergalactic Space Crusaders" (technically a product of a different Arjen Jucassen project, Star One). Not only does this song dramatize the discussion between two characters described as Loner and Idealist arguing between fight or flight regarding an impending space battle, it also includes tremendous backing vocals (one of whom is Floor's sister Irene!) on the chorus and is just too much fun, honestly: 

https://youtu.be/mDjomu33Xzc?si=uSZZwzBgjL8AFQmb

[loner]
I don’t care about your plans and schemes
Don’t give a damn ’bout your righteous dreams
All that I do, I do for myself
I never cared for anyone else

[idealist]
We have to save them, we have to try
We can’t just watch while the innocent die
Let’s steal this ship and start our crusade
Powerful allies will come to our aid

[loner] Seven fighters
[idealist] Navigators
[crew] Intergalactic space crusaders
[loner] Federation
[idealist] Dictators
[crew] No scruples, lethal traitors
[loner] Outriders
[idealist] Invaders
[crew] Intergalactic space crusaders
[loner] Domination
[idealist] Liberators
[crew] Fighting to survive

And not only is this song apparently an homage to the venerable British sci-fi tv show Blake's 7, it is specifically oriented around the second season finale - a tip of the nerd cap to you, Mr.. Lucassen; that is indeed a deep cut!

My final excerpt is "Theory of Everything" because of its amazing instrumentation, from the opening chords on a vintage Hammond B to the headbanging flute solo that surely made Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson gasp in admiration. Transitioning from the crunchiest power chords on guitar to soaring pianos and vocals from Mike Mills and later Marcelo Bovio - it is truly the most operatic feeling piece, at least to my untrained but appreciative ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3TxOaCZv0w

There is also a rare onstage performance by the seemingly introverted Arjen Lucassen himself, who says the only thing that scares him more than performing onstage is speaking in public. But this doesn't stop him from coming onstage to graciously and earnestly thank his fans and fellow performers. I think he can list me among those fans at this point too.

Like I said, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube, but I intend to pick it up on BluRay when I am next in the U.S. ($10 shipping to Canada? No thank you!) so I can listen to it at greater volume in surround sound.

If you happen to like what you hear and want to come over for a screening at some point, or want me to pick up a copy for you, just let me know!

Thank You and Godspeed John Bocock

We said goodbye today to a lovely fellow from church whose life was a splendid and tremendous story.

It was a great service, and some people commented on the great photo on the program (taken by his son-in-law Peter), how it was reminiscent of old photos depicting a cocky pilot getting into his aircraft and not a senior citizen mounting a tractor to go to work. Then I learned that John's initial career choice had been pilot, until colour-blindness ruled that out for him.

John Bocock was, on a most basic level, a farmer and fellow churchgoer. I know many farmers, but what made John (and his entire family, really) stand out, was not what he did or how successfully he did it, but what he did with it.

He could be counted on to stand up at every St. Patrick's Day dinner and tell the story of how Sinn Fein came to his father's house in Ireland and banged their rifle butts on the floor to demand food and money 'for the struggle.' I believe this incident is what convinced Bocock Senior to emigrate to Canada.

John also told us how his family would never have survived their first harsh Canadian winter without the aid of nearby First Nations families, something he never stopped expressing gratitude and admiration for.

The Bobcock family was instrumental in the founding of St. Albert United Church. John, along with his brother Bill and wife Jenny, also donated the funds for our church to install a large array of solar panels in memory of Bill's late wife Phyllis. I suspect they were behind many other anonymous donations to the church or to causes the church supported, and his philanthropy in other areas was renowned throughout the area.

We held an appreciation event for John back in 2019, and I was privileged to be asked to emcee. I introduced guest after guest who expressed tremendous gratitude to John and the Bocock clan for their generosity in time, money, and advocacy in areas ranging from Indigenous reconciliation through to environmental sustainability. 

It was in preparing for this event I learned John had sold 314 hectares of land at a deep discount to the University of Alberta (his alma mater) in 2008, establishing the St. Albert Research Station as well as the Bocock Chair in Agriculture and Environment. 

But these are all things I learned about John - I liked him even while ignorant of his benevolence.

I appreciated how he would invite the entire church to his farm for a picnic at the end of every summer.

I liked the methodical and articulate manner in which he spoke, and the deadpan style of humor that I am sure kept many people guessing as to whether he was trying to elicit a laugh or not.

I admired his commitment to environmentalism and ethical food production, and the pragmatism behind it: “It was just sort of common sense really. If you ruin your land, crops don’t grow, and you can’t feed people.”

I laughed when I heard that two political canvassers looking for John's support thought they might make some headway by entertaining the notion that climate change wasn't real. What I wouldn't have given to be a fly on that wall!

John had a lot he could be rightfully proud of, but he maintained his humility. This probably goes back to his encounter with the Moral Rearmament folks he met in the 1950s who explained that changing the world best began with oneself, and how that prompted him to apologize and reconcile with his brother.

To think that these two could so easily have ended up estranged and instead worked and lived alongside each other for, what, six or seven decades, is simply remarkable.

Like I said at the beginning - it is a great story, but all stories must come to an end, as John's did on August 6 following illness and a stroke.

But must they?

John's daughter Rachel today expressed gratitude how, although her father had many fanciful notions in his final days (such as driving a swather while talking to her from his hospital bed), his personality and wit remained the same right up until the end. 

Rachel herself is involved in policy and advocacy through Alberta Municipalities, and I can hear her father's insight, gratitude, and common-sense wisdom when she speaks.

And I know his story has inspired others, like the brother in India who heard John and Bill talk about burying the hatchet and desisted from burning each other's crops from then on. 

I hope John's story continues on, echoing in the hearts and acts of people working to people a safer, kinder, simpler, and more just world. In the meantime, I am grateful to have had the chance to get a little closer to this amazing family and all their stories, if only for a little while.