Glenn Kubish

Here, for the week of noticing things that made me feel happy or grateful ending February 4, 2022, is the Three Things podcast . 1. Sign of summer 🌻 I love winter in Edmonton, especially when there’s new snow. It’s like a fresh comforter out of the wash. But there are cold days—I’m looking at you last Monday—when the north wind casts snow across the roads so the roads themselves appear to be in motion. The strands of white look like strips of cirrus clouds skimming at fast forward speed over the asphalt. The snow works itself into swervy shapes that bury the work of sidewalk shovellers. On those days, you open the front door to see four inches of snow lining the threshold. There are signs this geometry of winter is not eternal. In fact, I saw one of those signs last week. It was in the middle of a field in the Rossdale Flats. The sign read: "See you on the hill 2022." This means the Edmonton Folk Music Festival intends to be back on Gallagher Hill this August. This is music ...

When I pedal my bike through the city, I carry some things with me. Some other things I pick up along the way. Here are the contents of my red Arkel bike bags (Red Bike, Cliff), in no particular order of weight, after this morning's ride. Ziploc large freezer bag, transparent, containing orange bandana from murder mystery dinner night in Chelem, México, where Shelagh was a reporter and Sheryl was the sheriff, eyeglasses (right lens chipped, prescription: -1.00, -1.25, not bad), 3x pencils (2 Blackwing 530 special edition California Gold Rush series from Stylus, closed on Saturdays in the summer, 1 with Chinese charactering, gift), eye drops, pencil sharpener containing shavings that remind me of a dancing woman's hemmed dress, City of Edmonton red reflector and blue reflective bracelet courtesy bike grid street team because Edmonton now has a bike grid street team because Edmonton now has a downtown bike grid, iPhone 6 ring of keys: Honda Accord, not driven in a month...

A really good part of my day was riding my bicycle dressed like a 10-year-old boy from California carrying a hooded extraterrestrial in his front basket. The best part of my day was how I got there. Rewind. Last month I was off ill for few days and some friends at work—Aminah, Michelle, Barry, Lana, Stephanie, Brian, et al —used my absence as my tacit agreement for their scheme to raise money for the United Way. If enough money was raised, I, in absentia, agreed to dress up like Elliott from E.T. the Extraterrestrial, put a stuffed E.T, in a milk crate, and cycle to work and then pedal  through downtown Edmonton at lunch in character, with the cute character aboard. Forget for a moment the truth that I was bronchitised to the gills during the hatching of the plan. A good idea is a good idea. E.T. and moon, Parkview And then enough money was raised by the gang at ATB Financial. Because a good idea is a good idea. But I don't have a red hoodie, I said. But I don...

In the rush to brand the flood disaster in southern Alberta, devise slogans, whip up Twitter momentum, come up with T-shirts, and then move on to the Stampede, High River has been forgotten. No, not completely forgotten, but certainly not a beneficiary of the buzz that helped neighbourhoods in Calgary bail out, mop up and make waves nationally.  Basement muck High River is a disaster. For sure, the Highwood routinely floods. And if it's true, as was explained to me by locals, that the riverbed becomes a troublesome, undredged deposit of silt that regularly pushes water over the banks, there are questions to be answered. But there are also basements to be pumped dry, mould to be outrun, drywall to be crowbarred, and mud, mud, and mud that is almost alive to be moved.  Twisted rails Along with some mud-non-averse colleagues from ATB Financial, I went down to High River yesterday to help. We were welcomed into the waterlogged homes of Sandy and Craig.  ...

As we bused back north up Highway 2, the military vehicles streamed south. I was with some ATB Financial colleagues who were finishing up the first leg of a province-wide tour to mark the 75th anniversary of the financial institution born in a disaster of too little water. Now, a disaster of too much.  Heading to Calgary The camouflaged vehicles presented both a welcome and an eerie prospect. Yes, the uniformed men and women were bringing their engineering skill and sandbagging brawn, but the movement of those same vehicles whispered that this was, maybe, a state of nature (and not of the tourism variety) they were heading toward.  Back moving through Edmonton on that Friday afternoon, a scheduled drink at Latitude 53 just ahead of me, the scenes through the bus window were jarring. Not because they were hard to see. They weren't. They were the easy images of friends talking on the steps of the Hotel Macdonald. And of a businessman running to get a waiting cab. A...

Carol! Today, I met Carol. What a joy, what a character. She works in ATB's archives and she is somehow the present and the past and the future all at once. Going to see her at work means dropping down an elevator shaft into the concrete hallways and beige paint of the document storage rooms. There, giant, floor-to-ceiling stacks just stand there shoulder to shoulder, holding seven decades of history safe from gravity and forgetfulness. Lady Managers You get the sense that Carol's work joy is rooted in the ability to rescue what she calls "points of time," whether in the form of text, film or video, from that oblivion. Carol is irked when documents are not dated properly, she is saddened by gaps in the company record of, say, the succession of branch managers. She knows the evanescence of digital records is a challenge for her craft. She has an ear for how the documents tell stories that weren't obvious when they were composed. For instance, that ha...

Edmonton Journal reporter Elise Stolte has asked her readers to share their favourite memories of the North Saskatchewan River. Or a favourite picture or hidden beach or a cool spot on the river that is so big and quiet we always miss it. My favourite memory of the North Saskatchewan River hasn't happened yet. I mean, I know what it would be, but it just hasn't occurred. Maybe it's not possible. Maybe it's not cold enough. But I do have a favourite photo, so far. Here it is: This is the view this morning from the 16th floor of ATB Place in downtown Edmonton where I work. It shows two rivers, two flows, one of traffic on 99th St., one of water. There are many days when the water is moving faster! I love the shot because it won't let me stand still. Am I in the present, the tense ruled by the automobile, or am I in the past, when the now-forgotten waterway was the channel of transportation and commerce? It's the water that brings a fragment of a pas...

Today, I gave Toronto Mayor Rob Ford a lift. There he was, I was almost certain, walking along Jasper Avenue across 101 St, and there I was, I was pretty certain, watching him walk in front of my car as I waited to turn and head back to work at ATB Financial. "Mayor Ford," I said, throwing my arm out the window with a handshake offer, "welcome to Edmonton!" He took the offer, and there we were, I was still fairly certain, shaking hands, he on foot, me in the driver's seat, at Edmonton's major intersection. He asked me which way to city hall, and I started to explain the route, but then offered to give him a lift. At first, he politely declined, but I asked again and he obliged, and slipped into the backseat. In the five-block drive we talked about the Leafs' playoff chances, Corey Boyd's ouster from the Argonauts, the Edmonton Eskimos and their defensive prowess, the construction cranes in the city, his recent appearance on TSN's Off The...