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I wanted to share a photo with you in this very short blog. When I first came here to Toronto after having lived and worked in Montreal for many years, I needed to get new license plates for my little two-seater, a 1988 Toyota MR2. This was before the personalized license plates that you see today. I thought I would share this photo with you. Out of all the license plates available, I just happened to get one starting with these numbers…

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Don Jackson

It’s been called “a living art” in one of my old editions of the Britannica.

William S. Ellis in the December 1993 issue of National Geographic wrote: “Of all the glass arts, none is more enduring than stained glass, incorporating the glorious union of sunlight and colours. Abbot Sugar, who in the 12th century rebuilt the basilica of St. Denis outside Paris, was among the first to recognize the ability of glass to brighten the mood and perception, to allow us to move outside our physical world, ‘urging us onward  from the material to the immaterial.’”

Whenever I visit a church for the first time, I’m immediately attracted to the light that streams through the stained glass windows high above the pews. William Ellis described the process in this National Geographic article that was condensed for the January 1995 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine. He says that the actual process really hasn’t changed throughout the centuries. “Different metallic oxides are added to the basic mixture to provide colour. Yellow can be created by adding silver; an exquisite gold-pink glass contains real gold. Pieces of the coloured glass are cut to fit a pattern–say, a depiction of a saint for a church window–and then joined with the use of lead cames, or rods, soldered together. The process demands not only the vision of art but also craftsmanship.”

In this very old encyclopedia, it says: “As early as the 13th century a yellow stain was sometimes added to the glass by burning into it a silver salt which was painted on. In the 16th century a method of applying colored enamels to plain glass was introduced, producing sometimes pleasing effects but never rivaling the results of the regular method.

“The dominant color is always a primary–red, blue, or yellow. In early glass it is a rich red or blue, and the windows are quite dark. In later glass it is yellow, which admits more light and is more appropriate for modern churches, where a greater use is made of books.” In very early churches, the stained glass was an instructional tool, a way to teach the congregation about the Scriptures.

“The pattern may be purely geometrical, but usually there are figures of people. In windows near the eye level the figures may be small and arranged in separate scenes–’medallions.’ When looked at in order they tell a story … Such windows may have large figures instead of medallions. Windows high from the floor always have large figures, if any.

“To make a window the designer makes full-sized drawings, showing each piece of glass and its color … He then cuts pieces of glass to fit the drawing, paints each piece which requires paint, ‘fires’ these in a kiln which turns the paint to an enamel, leads the pieces together, and secures the whole fabric in the opening.

“Well-done stained glass is a great art, and gives a church a feeling of majestic grandeur and mystery.”

A friend of mine once made me a stained glass image of a parrot. I have always had a fondness for the creature that inhabits the rain-forests of Brazil. You can take courses that allow you to create your own stained glass.

William S. Ellis was reminded “…of a colleague who once wrote of Chartres Cathedral and its magnificent windows, referring to the medieval French church as ‘a vast prayer in glass.’” Ellis remembered the stained glass in a church in the Tidewater area of Virginia where he grew up. He called it “opalescent blue.” He writes: “In the church of my childhood, there is nothing to compare with that, but I think that this stained glass before me now is, at the least, a moment of grace.”

You can bring a little stained glass into your home. Sun-catchers hung in windows can produce some of the same effect.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said: “People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed if there is a light within.”

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Don Jackson

“Walden is a perfect forest mirror; set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the Earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go defiling it.. it is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding nature continually repairs; …” An excerpt from Walden by Henry David Thoreau in 1854..

If you read your tea leaves and find rocks, according to The Complete Guide to Psychic Development by Cassandra Eason (2nd Edition) “Care and Tact are needed…”

“I do not ask to walk smooth paths/ Nor bear an easy load./ I pray for strength and fortitude/ To climb the rock-strewn road.

“Give me such courage I can scale/ The hardest peaks alone,/ And transform every stumbling block/ Into a stepping-stone.” -Gail Brook Burkett from Fields of Gold published by the C. R. Gibson Company.

In one of my very early blogs is a photograph of some of the decorative stones my wife and I have collected and placed around our huge ornamental pond. We also have stepping-stones on the lawn and by the pond itself. I received a rather unusual Father’s Day gift from my children one year. They found a kit for making stepping stones, and created their own unique gifts including their handprints.

Speaking of stepping stones, I thought this poem appropriate. It’s called A Bag of Tools by R.L. Sharpe, “Isn’t it strange/ That princes and Kings,/ And clowns that caper/ In sawdust rings,/ And common people/ Like you and me/ Are builders for eternity?

Each is given a bag of tools,/ A shapeless mass/ A book of rules;/ And each must make-/ Ere life is flown-/ A stumbling block/ Or a stepping-stone.”

In 2007,  The Boston Globe reported that The International Olympic Committee  has refused to make Rock Paper Scissors  an  Olympic event. The game has been around for a very long time, this is not a game that only surfaced a few decades back. Many people are unaware that The World Rock, Paper, Scissors Society was created in 1918. Graham Walker, is the author of The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. He gave me some advice on the game in Men’s Journal some time back. This is what he said: “Against a beginner, play as paper. The Reason? Most people pick rock. Against a seasoned player, tell your opponent what you’re going to throw and then actually throw it. Most people won’t think you’re crazy enough to telegraph your throw.” A U.S. National finalist, Matt Corron, believes that throwing a rock right off the bat is a mistake.

“There is a time to speak and a time to keep quiet. There are things to tell and things not to tell. But it is an excellent rule to practice frankness in all dealings and associations with others, whether in business or socially. The frank person treads a firm bridge crossing a river, while the secretive person charily steps from stone to stone.” -B.C. Forbes from Forbes and featured in the Points to Ponder column of the March 1996 issue of The Reader’s Digest.

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Don Jackson

“Not so long ago in the English countryside the snake was supposed to have an inherent power to heal the sick. Even so it is surprising that a snakeskin should still occasionally be utilized as an inside band for hats in cases of persistent headache. Quite extinct today, however, is the analogous custom of using an eel-skin garter for cramp. Snakes, like eels, are supposed, quite erroneously, not to be able to die before the sun has set. The snake has acquired its important role in superstition as a direct product of its power to cast its skin, and for this reason it has always been regarded as a symbol of immortality.” Eric Maple writing in Superstitions and The Superstitious, published in 1971 by A. S. Barnes and Company.

A snake makes a surprise visit to my radio show tonight. Since I seem to be the only one to see it on our property, my wife believes it might be some kind of spirit guide. I have a few books on loan from a friend that talk about our animal totems. There are some things that these totems can teach us about ourselves. I have a few thoughts about that in the show tonight between 9 and 11 p.m. This blog is concerned with some superstitions and even a spell.

“A form of bewitchment .. was employed to compel the return of a faithless lover. In this case the contents, which included ’seven hairs from a black cat, 7 scales from a rattlesnake and seven bits of feather from an owl,’ were burned for 7 minutes on a fire together with hairs and nail-pairings and the hoped-for result was the production of seven agonizing pains in the loved-one’s body which were supposed to continue to rack him until he was prepared to return to the arms of his lady love.” Again, Eric Maple from the aforementioned book.

“Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, / Until we meet a sake; / ‘Tis then we sigh for houses, / And our departure take / At that enthralling gallop / That only childhood knows. / A snake is summer’s treason / And guile is where it goes.” Emily Dickinson

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Don Jackson

Have you seen the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach? It was his follow-up to the success he garnered in Titanic. In the film, his character doesn’t just stumble onto this secluded paradise. He hears an urban legend about it and begins his search to find it after acquiring a map. But there’s trouble in paradise. It asks the question what will happen to this pristine beach after he arrives to disrupt the flow of the community that lives along its spectacular but secluded shoreline. And then there is the secluded beach in the hit ABC series, Lost. How it its complexion and character changed after the survivors washed ashore. I would imagine there are still some undiscovered beaches in the world, but they must be few and far between…

There are so few places on this planet left to explore. Most have been found and mapped. And with a program like Google Earth, the entire surface of the planet is just a few clicks away. All you have to do is put in an address, or a general location, and you can see what the satellite saw as it crisscrossed the Earth taking photographs.

I remember a time when my family would gather round the kitchen table as my father spread out a map. When we planned family vacations he always took the time to plan out the routes he intended to take. Now we do a simple search online and a map comes up with the easiest, most direct route to the location we need to reach. There are even some makes of cars that come with GPS systems to help you pinpoint exactly where you are. No longer do you need to pull over to ask directions.

I watched a family being interviewed on the TV news about their vacation plans this summer. Due to the high price of gas, this particular family had no long trips in mind. I would imagine a lot of families will be sticking close to home this year. That’s one downside to the high cost of fuel.

I ran across this excerpt in Life’s Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr., and published in 1991 by Rutledge Hill Press in Nashville, Tenn. There was a very special reason why he wrote this book. In the introduction he wrote: “This book began as a gift to my son.. As he packed his stereo, typewriter, blue blazer, and other necessities for his new life as a college freshman, I retreated to the family room to jot down a few observations and words of counsel I thought he might find useful. I read years ago that it was not the responsibility of parents to pave the road for their children, but to provide a road map. That’s how I hoped he would use these mind and heart reflections.” I like that description. I think we all provide some kind of map to follow. We can only hope that it provides the most direct route with very few detours.

“Despite the maps, charts, formulas, verbs, stories, and books, I have really had nothing to teach, for my students really have only themselves to learn…” An excerpt from I Am A Teacher by John W. Schlatter and featured in the 1992 collection, Chicken Soup For The Soul.

One of the most spectacular road maps leads millions of miles to a place called Earth. We’ve sent spacecraft outside our solar system with a map showing where we live, pictures of what we look like, and even sounds and voices from our planet. There are those who believe this universe is filled with life. Our sci-fi movies have hinted that there might be superhighways out there among the stars, wormholes in space to easily faciliate the journey from one star to another. If that’s true, I wonder if we’re listed on an intergalactic road map as a major stop, or if we’re just on some lonely back-road, out in the middle of nowhere?

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Don Jackson

“When high the sun in noonday glory–rides, / Where willows keep the lake’s green margin cool, / The speckled trout amid their shadow–hides, / And dragonflies haunt every shaded pool.”–Thomas S. Collier

This writing tonight features excerpts from a very long poem by William Morris who lived between 1834 and 1896. John Matthews Manly in his notes concerning the poetry of Morris, from his collection English Prose and Poetry published by Ginn and Company, New York, back at the turn of the last century, tells us that his “…whole interest as a young man lay apparently in medieval romance.” Nowhere is that more apparent than in his work The Lady of The Land, which is his own take on the Sir John Mandeville story, The Voyage and Travaile Of Sir John Maundeville. A brief summary of the original story is necessary to appreciate the poetic scenes that I will feature in my blog tonight.

A group of seafarers land on a seemingly uninhabited island called Lango. It is while there that one of them wanders away from the rest and discovers the true nature of this strange place. He enters the grounds of a castle hidden deep in the forest. The courtyard of the castle is overgrown with plant life, choked with weeds and statues lay on their sides destroyed. He finds access through a long corridor into an underground chamber…

“He moved not for awhile, but looking round / He wondered much to see the place so fair, / Because, unlike the castle above ground, / No pillagers or wrecker had been there; / It seemed that time had passed on other-where, / Nor laid a finger on this hidden place, / Rich with the wealth of some forgotten race.”

He is soon to discover that time really hasn’t forgotten the place. He also discovers that he is not alone in this vast room. He discovers a beautiful maiden who is something more than what she seems…

“In one quick glance these things his eyes did see, / But speedily they turned round to behold / Another sight, for throned on ivory / There sat a woman, whose wet tresses rolled / On to the floor in waves of gleaming gold,…”

“In her right hand, upon her bosom laid, / She held a golden comb, a mirror weighed / Her left hand down, aback her fair head lay / Dreaming awake of some long vanished day.”

He first sees her combing her hair in front of a mirror in a room filled with magnificent riches. The scene, in a sense, reminds me of the dragon Smaug in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, for dragons were supposed to have their lairs in a place where they could guard their treasure. But this creature was not a dragon.. She was a beautiful woman…

“Her eyes were shut, but she seemed not to sleep, / Her lips were murmuring things unheard and low, / Or sometimes twitched as though she needs must weep / Though from her eyes the tears refused to flow, / And oft with heavenly red her cheek did glow, / As if remembrance of some half-sweet shame / Across the web of many memories came.

“There stood the man, scarce daring to draw breath / For fear the lovely sight should fade away; / Forgetting heaven, forgetting life and death, / Trembling for fear lest something he should say / Unwitting, lest some sob should yet betray / His presence there, for his eager eyes / Already did the tears begin to rise.

“But as he gazed, she moved, and with a sigh / Bent forward, dropping down her golden head; / ‘Alas, alas! Another day gone by, / Another day and no soul come,’ she said; / ‘Another year, and still I am not dead!’ / And with that word once more her head she raised. / And on the trembling man with great eyes gazed.”

He tells her about his journey and also says that, if given the chance, he would be her suitor. She asks if he is a knight, to which he responds that he is not. She tells him to go back to his fellow travelers, make himself a knight, and then return to her the next day. She would then meet him in front of the chamber. He is to approach her, and bestow a kiss upon her, even though she would appear to him in the guise of a dragon…

The maiden in the chamber tells the seafarer why she has been condemned to this lonely place. She was left there by the goddess Diana who cast a spell over her. She was only twenty years of age when her father, a greedy landowner, made a pact with the goddess, a pact-in hindsight-that seems more a deal with the devil. She was to remain in this temple as its guardian. But in time, a rescuer arrived. She felt great affection for this man, and begins to remember…

“Ah! well do I remember all that night, / When through the window shone the orb of June, / And by the bed flickered the taper’s light, / Whereby I trembled, gazing at the moon: / Ah me! the meeting that we had, when soon / Into his strong, well-trusted arms I fell, / And many a sorrow we began to tell…”

Their reverie is interrupted by a shadow. They turn to find the goddess in the room with them.

“And on the high white brow, a deadly frown / Bent upon us, who stood scarce drawing breath, …”

 Her anger is such that she casts a spell on her guardian and deals a harsh blow to her would-be suitor.

“‘No word at all the dreadful goddess said, / But soon across my feet my lover lay, / And well indeed I knew that he was dead; / For in a while the image turned away, / And without words my doom I understood, / And felt horror change my human blood.

“‘And there I fell, and on the floor I lay / By the dead man, till daylight came on me, / And not a word thenceforward could I say / For three years; till grief and misery, / The lingering pest, [plague] the cruel enemy, / My father and his folk were dead and gone, / And in this castle I was left alone:

“‘And then the doom foreseen upon me fell, / For Queen Diana did my body change / Into a fork-tongued dragon, flesh and fell, / And through the island nightly do I range,  /… When in the middle of the moonlit night / The sleepy mariner I do affright.

“‘But all day long upon this gold I lie / Within this place, where never a mason’s hand / Smote trowel on the marble noisily; / Drowsy I lie, no folk at my command, / Who once was called the Lady of the Land; / Who might have bought a kingdom with a kiss, / Yea, half the world with such a sight as this.’”

She was transformed into a hideous dragon. That’s why the castle grounds have been ransacked. A statue of the goddess Diana was all but destroyed in one of her rages. She will do no harm to anyone who should happen to come upon this place, unless he tries to steal the riches she guards. But, as is the case in many legends of old, a kiss from a knight can forever banish the spell once and for all. But he must kiss her only when she assumes the form of the hideous creature. After the transformation, she will once again be mortal, but her time on earth may be painfully short.

The next day, he returns a knight, and as he approaches the chamber, he sees her in the shape of a dragon, the vile creature that the goddess Diana had changed her into. He is so frightened by the sight that he immediately casts aside any courage he may have mustered to break the spell.

“Shutting his eyes, and turned and from the place / Ran swiftly, with a white and ghastly face.

“But little things rough stones and tree-trunks seemed, / And if he fell, he rose and ran on still; / No more he felt his hurts than if he dreamed, / He made no stay for the valley or steep hill, / Heedless he dashed through many a foaming rill, / Until he came unto the ship at last / And with no word into the deep hold passed.

“Meanwhile, the dragon, seeing him clean gone, / Followed him not, but crying horribly, / Caught up within her jaws a block of stone / And ground it into powder, then turned she, / With cries that folk could hear far out at sea, / And reached the treasure set apart of old, / To brood above the hidden heaps of gold.”

No man who entered her lair, with intentions to break the wicked spell with a kiss, ever survived her hideousness. Such was the case with this seafarer, for he died after three days of lunacy and wild ravings.

She was seen over the ensuing years by passing sailors in the ripples of the bay, or heard terrorizing the beasts who lived in the forests around her castle, a temple to the goddess Diana.

If you’ve been watching the hit ABC series, Lost, then you know that the plane-crash survivors occasionally come upon a column of black smoke that has the voice of a dragon. It seems to be a guard of some sort to keep them crossing certain boundaries. I imagine the look of fear on their faces bears little resemblance to the fear described by those who happened upon the lonely guardian on the lost isle of Lango.

There can be no happy ending to a tale like The Lady of The Land. By the end of the poem we are led to believe that she is still haunting the isle of Lango to this day, still waiting for the kiss of one brave knight.

One of the pewter figurines in the Myth And Magic collection is called The Dragon’s Kiss. For a time I collected these incredible creations that feature a dragon in most settings. There is also an Austrian crystal incorporated into each setting. In The Dragon’s Kiss, a maiden is being kissed by a dragon. She is holding one of these Austrian crystals in her left hand, while the dragon’s long tail is loosely coiled around her on the ground. I’ve often wondered if the idea for that aspect of the collection came from this old story and poem.

April 23rd is St. George’s Day, the patron saint of England, and dragon-slayer. 

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Don Jackson

“Not by bread alone, but by the splendor of the firmament at night, the glory of the heavens at dawn, the blending of colors at sunset, the loveliness of magnolia trees, the magnificence of mountains.” An excerpt from a writing called Not By Bread Alone from The University Presbyterian many years ago.

It’s Earth Day today. When I logged on to our website today, I was pleased to see our Earth in all its glory. It’s the day we set aside some time to contemplate the changes to the environment and the natural world around us. A wise saying from the great Native North American Winnebago Nation states: “Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.” Mother Earth is also witness to our thoughts and deeds on this day..

My daughter told me that her high school geography class was spent outdoors today. She and her classmates spent the time cleaning up a portion of the school yard, making a small but vital contribution to the environment. In one of her later classes, they saw a huge column of black smoke outside the classroom windows. They were later told that a tree, some distance away, was on fire. One wonders how a tree catches fire on such a beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and certainly no lightning…

I spent the better part of my day out by the pond, cleaning filters and watering our early spring flowers, plants and parts of the lawn. I was down on my knees cleaning out the debris left behind by winter. Leaves from the neighbouring mature trees fall in the autumn on the pond’s surface and eventually sink to the bottom. They need to be cleaned out now. The decaying matter is a natural part of the cycle in woodland ponds but it is not conducive to a healthy environment in backyard ponds. I was back and forth to the tap on the side of the house that feeds the hoses. On one of my trips back to the pond after turning the water off, I saw we had a visitor. A fairly long garden snake was sunning itself in that short period of time on one of the large, flat stones that rest on the perimeter of the pond. I almost walked right by it, but my movement had disturbed its reverie. I must admit that it startled me. This is the earliest in the year I’ve seen a snake. It slithered down into the pond itself, and it was then that I ran for the net. We have a new generation of fish that were just born last year. The snake would be more than pleased to make a meal of some of them. I circled the the water for awhile, watching for it, but it must have slipped out of the water and into the bushes. A snake can be a threat to the backyard water garden, along with raccoons, foxes, cats and herons. On my home after work the other night, I happned to see two raccoons sauntering across our front lawn. Just the other day, a neighour out for a walk with her family, heard tell of a coyote that has been seen in the ravine that borders our community. I’ve mentioned the fox, the raccoons and the rabbit I’ve seen in the past little while in my blogs and radio programs. In years past, I’ve heard stories of coyotes encroaching upon the northern borders of the city I live in. The ravine next door is a little too close for comfort, though. As our communities continue to grow and expand, we’re building in places that used to be the natural habitat for these creatures. It doesn’t surprise me to find they are turning up in our communities from time to time.

In our dining room is a real tree that we bought at a furniture store. You might think that a rather strange place to buy a tree, but this tree no longer has any leaves on it. Rather than destroying it after it died or cutting it up for firewood, some imginative person found a way to preserve it and fill its branches with beautiful silk flowers. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that this tree was in bloom all year through. It resembles the large pink flowers that are beginning to open now on the branches of one of our magnolia trees.

We planted two magnolia trees on our property. The one on the back lawn was planted the year my daughter was born. We planted another variety on the front lawn when my son was born. The one in the back is filled with magnificent blooms this year. I wondered what would happen since last year was a not a good time for both magnolia trees. This year we are more than making up for it, and even earlier in the season. I snapped a photo today so that you can see the blooms in the uppermost branches of this huge tree.

Both trees seem to have mirrored the growth of my children. Both have grown straight and strong. My daughter’s tree rewards us with beautiful pink flowers early in spring and his rewards us later with absolutely stunning purple blooms. People who stroll by on the sidewalk always comment on the lush leaves and the fact that it is filled with so many dark purple flowers. Over the years, the roots of these magnolias have reached out to take nourishment from the soil, and the values we’tre trying to impart in both our children are also taking root.

I couldn’t take a photo from orbit of the Earth in all its magnificent slendor for Earth Day, but I thought you might appreciate savoring the beauty of this incredible tree in my little corner of the world.

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of tides, the folded bud ready for spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature–the assurance that dawn comes after the night and spring after the winter.” Rachel Carson (1907-1964) in her classic work, Silent Spring published in 1962 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

Happy Earth Day!

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Don Jackson

Late Wednesday night, I happened to glance at the digital dial on the radio in my vehicle. It was just before midnight. I was driving on the 401 eastbound, heading home. I left the studio later than I usually do. I don’t know what it was that made me glance down at the time. Maybe it was the fact that I was at that stretch of the express lanes of the highway later than I usually was. When I looked up, all I could see in front of me was a sea of red tail-lights coming on. I eased down on my brakes and pulled into the right-hand lane. When the vehicle came to a stop it would not move again until two hours later.

You probably heard the news the next morning concerning the details of the multiple vehicle accident on the 401 late the night before. I was about five or six transport truck-lengths away from it. It was terrible. Words can’t describe what I felt when I was told what had happened up ahead. There was a transport beside me in the centre lane, a few cars ahead of me and a whole line of cars and trucks behind me as far as I could see in my rear-view mirrors. For the next fifteen to twenty minutes, I watched emergency vehicles converging on the scene from all directions. Police cruisers, ambulances, fire trucks, a special EMS ambulance bus with paramedics and other rescue vehicles passed us in the collector lanes as well as on both shoulders of the express lanes. I was running low on fuel and just knew that I should turn the vehicle off and call my wife on the cellphone to let her know I wouldn’t be home anytime soon. She always worries about me being on the road as much as I am. For a number of years I did not have a cellphone in the car with me. It was through her urging that I finally broke down and got one. That night it came in handy as I tried to explain what had obviously happened just in front of me.

Drivers began getting out of their vehicles and began to mingle in between the cars. I stepped out of my vehicle careful to ensure the traffic was not going to begin to move. It was a strange sensation to be out in the middle of the express lanes of one of the busiest highways in this country. People who run into trouble will pull their cars over onto the shoulders of the highway to wait for help. They will usually stay in their cars until help arrives. It is extremely dangerous to attempt to get out of your car with so much traffic speeding by. I didn’t stand outside of my vehicle for long.  Some of the drivers around me began to walk up to where the accident occurred. Upon their return, I leaned out of my driver’s side window and overheard snippets of conversation concerning how serious the accident was. It wasn’t until much later, while listening to the news on the radio, that I heard exactly what had happened.

I struck up a conversation with the transport truck driver beside me. He was out to stretch his legs. I learned he was from Montreal and was on his way with a load that needed to be there by 6 a.m. He told me he didn’t think he would be moving for hours yet. We talked about the high price of diesel fuel and I shared some memories with him of the city I once called home. Out of all these strangers around me, I happened to meet someone I shared something in common with. Truthfully, though, it did little to ease my concerns for what was going on just up ahead.

In all my years of driving this was one of the most serious situations I found myself in. I have been in a few car accidents myself over the many years I’ve been behind the wheel and, thankfully, they were minor in comparison to what had just happened in front of me. The worst accident I was in was the time when I was hit from behind by a drunk driver. One of my early blogs back in December described that accident. I was struck from behind and forced into a busy intersection. Fortunately, it was late at night and the oncoming traffic was light. I was hit by a train the first winter I drove a car. I was sixteen at the time and it was my first car. Fortunately, the train was going very slow. I wasn’t going much faster, but it was at a level crossing with no gates and no flashing lights, and the train had emerged from behind a building. With the heater on full, my noisy windshield wipers going and the windows rolled up, I didn’t hear the horn. The engine lifted the front end of my car up in the air. There was some damage to my car and not a scratch on the engine. There were no cellphones in those days, so the railroad police drove me home. You can imagine what my parents must have thought when they were awoken to me calling out to them, as I walked through the front door, that I had been hit by a train. Fortunately, I walked away from that accident, too.  This time, I was trapped on a section of highway with no exit ramps in sight with so many other drivers. By the tone of the conversations around me, you could tell that we all sensed how grave the situation was ahead of us.

I was lucky. I was able to call my wife and tell her I was okay, that I wasn’t involved in the accident itself. I would imagine other phone calls were being made by emergency personnel to other families. I know I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those calls. My thoughts and concerns go out to the families of those who were involved in the accident that night.

We heard the highway was going to be closed for hours. An accident reconstruction team arrived due to the seriousness of the situation. I watched some drivers and their passengers milling about,  looking into vehicles that had been left locked up while their drivers were somewhere up ahead. I rolled up my windows, made sure the seat belt was secure, locked the doors and sat back to wait.

Sometime later, I saw a car up ahead trying to back up and maneuver its way onto the shoulder to head in the opposite direction. You can imagine what was going through my mind at that moment. I thought that one driver had finally had enough of being stuck, and decided drive the shoulder back to the last exit into the collector lanes. With the number of emergency vehicles that had used that same shoulder to get to the scene of the accident, I began to imagine the worst. It was then that I saw a familiar uniform. One of the police officers on the scene was directing the driver. It was then I realized the police were trying to find a way to get the cars, SUVs and small trucks out. One by one, we were all led around the parked transport trucks and onto the shoulder. We proceeded slowly past the big rigs that would not be able to move for some time. As I drove against what is the normal flow of traffic, I saw how the police had cleared out the stopped traffic behind me. We drove down the somewhat empty lanes around parked transports, and pointed to a transfer lane into the collectors. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to come into contact with a vehicle speeding in the opposite direction, it was surreal driving westbound in the eastbound express lanes. Just before turning onto the transfer lanes, I rolled down my window and thanked one of the OPP officers who was directing the line of traffic into the collector lanes.

I wanted to write this blog to commend all the emergency responders who were on the scene that night. I can’t imagine what they must go through when they come upon an accident like the one they were called to.

10 seconds… That’s what I figured as I passed the accident scene in the express lanes. Car parts were strewn everywhere. Had I sped up just a bit earlier that night, touched the gas pedal, passed one or two trucks, left work a little earlier….

10 seconds.. The time it takes to pour a cup of coffee, to make a cellphone call and connect, to tell someone you love them and to hear their reply, and how fast your life can change…

10 seconds… That’s how close I was to being involved in an accident. I wanted to share this experience with you to also serve as a reminder that we must never take our eyes off the road ahead. The cellphone call can wait.

On my drive in the next night, I was a little more careful and wary of what was going on around me. I decided that if someone was anxious to pass, I  would let him. I wasn’t in a rush. If the cellphone rang, I decided that I might let it go unanswered. I don’t know how many people around me on the highway late at night are thinking the same things, but I’m sure that some of those who were stuck for hours behind that horrific accident the other night are doing the same thing. The others beside me, who were also 10 seconds away…

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Don Jackson

I saw my first robin driving in the car a week or so back. Since that time, I’ve been seeing them everywhere…

“Creeping, creeping, here and there, / In fields and meadows, everywhere, / Coming up to greet the spring, / And hear the robin redbreast sing;…” A poem about the growing grass from a very long time ago, published in an encyclopedia published by The Holst Publishing Company in 1924.

I’ve been out looking at the condition of the lawn to see how it fared after our harsh winter. We have a nest of robins in the huge evergreen tree that sits on our neighbour’s property. I know because I’ve seen the robins down pecking at the bare spots in the lawn looking for a meal. The tree is absolutely huge. I’ve talked about this monster in my past programs. With it being so high, I am unable to see the nest that is obviously being prepared deep within the safety and security of the large boughs. Last year at this time, we had a nest just outside our kitchen window.

It was well hidden and protected in the lilac tree that grows at the side of our house. When it blooms in late spring, we are rewarded with the intoxicating fragrance of the lilac blooms. When I am at the coffee machine in the morning pouring my first cup, that heady scent comes in on a gentle breeze through the open kitchen window.

At the time the eggs hatched, we enjoyed seeing the male and female birds doting over their brood. Their little open mouths would poke up from deep within the nest in anticipation of a meal from the older robins. And they were voracious in their hunger. No mater how tired the male and female seemed to be after hunting up food, they were constantly ready to forage for more.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, / I shall not live in vain; / If I can ease one life, the aching, / -or cool one pain, / or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, / I shall not live in vain.” Emily Dickinson.

I did what I could to prevent large crows and cats from discovering the nest. I was watchful over the nest to make sure the mother and hatchlings were safe from predators. I remember one night when we had a fairly large raccoon walk by. It would have been a short climb to the robins’ nest. That night, a hush fell over our lilac tree…

Fortunately, they all survived and one day I found the nest strangely silent. They were all gone. They had tested their wings and flew off. The nest stayed in the branches throughout the summer and autumn and on into the winter. Today it looks ragged and bare. I wondered if some of the over-wintering birds might take up residence but that never happened. When I saw the robins on the lawn I realized that last year’s nests are forgotten. Cervantes wrote: “Ne’er look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.”

“Bess and other insects were humming around them; a butterfly fluttered over the fence and alighted on a dandelion almost at her feet; meadow larks were whistling their limpid notes in the adjoining fields, while from the trees about the house beneath them came the songs of many birds, blending with the babble of the brook which ran not far away. ‘Oh, how beautiful, how strangely beautiful it all is!’ ‘Yes, when you come to think of it, it is real pretty,’ he replied. ‘It’s a pity we get so used to things that we don’t notice ‘em much. I should feel miserable enough, though, if I couldn’t live in just such a place. I shouldn’t wonder if I was a good deal like that robin yonder. I like to be free and enjoy the spring weather, but I suppose neither he nor I think or know how fine it all is.’ ‘Well, both you and the robin seem a part of it,’ she said, laughing. ‘Oh, no, no,’ he replied with a guffaw which sent the robin off in alarm, I ain’t beautiful and never was.’  She joined his laugh, but said with a positive little nod, ‘I’m right, though. The robin isn’t a pretty bird, yet everybody likes him.’ ‘Except in cherry time. Then he has an appetite equal to mine’” An excerpt from a long ago spring recounted in the novel, He Fell in Love With His Wife by Edward P. Roe, published in 1886 by Dodd, Mead, and Company.

With all the ugliness just outside our collective windows in this world, it’s heartening to know that there is beauty if you’re willing to look for it… You might be surprised to discover it’s right under your nose, almost within reach…

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Don Jackson

“Clear and cool, clear and cool, / By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool.”-Charles Kingsley

“The tame bird / Longs for his old forst- / The fish in the house-pond / Thinks of his ancient pool.” An excerpt from a Poem on Returning to Dwell In The Country by T’ao Ch’ien (365-427)(China) translated by William Acker. I don’t think the koi and goldfish in my pond know any other home. To them my ornamental pond is the only home they’re ever known, especially recent generations. George C. Blasiola II in the book Koi published in 1995 by Barron’s Educational Series, wrote: “Koi, as the major animate element in a water garden, bring an enhanced appreciation of nature. Their gentle disposition and relative ease of care make them one of the world’s favorite ornamental fish. A short walk in a garden to relax and enjoy nature is immeasurably enhanced by the sight and sound of koi rushing to their feeding area. The calm feeling that this produces will be eagerly anticipated at the end of a busy day.”

“Madame Pompadour of the court of King Louis XV of France was perhaps the first person in Europe to keep goldfish. A number were brought to her from China as a present. Because she was the leader of fashion, other people began importing them. The fad soon spread all over Europe. Goldfish have been bred in China for centuries, … The Japanese, also, have raised goldfish for more than 400 years.” An excerpt from a very old edition of the Britannica.

I wanted to once again share a few photos of the fish in my outdoor pond with you since they’re up and about after their long winter’s nap…

One final though. Rupert Brook posed this philosophical problem. “Fish say, they have their stream and pond; / But is there anything beyond?”

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Don Jackson