Glenn Kubish

  It’s the end of the week as we know it! Here are three things that left behind tracks of gratitude and happiness. Three Things, episode 110:                                                             1. Timing   There’s a difference between saying the right thing and saying the right thing at the right time. Both take skill. They are different skills. Shelagh needed grated ginger for a ginger cake, and I was in the produce section at Andy’s IGA where I quickly located everything she didn’t need for the cake—garlic, shallots, chives, bok choy.   It was like looking for a word in the dictionary not knowing how to spell. I walked over to the produce clerk who was unloading oranges and with mock weariness asked him, “How close am I to a knob of ginger?” He nodded, smiled, removed his hat to make sure I didn’t miss the fa...

I am thinking more about pylons these days. I knew the word first as slang, a demeaning term applied to someone without natural athletic ability on skates. Used this way on the typical hockey bench: "Did you see him blow past the defenceman? What a $%&# pylon that guy is! Hahhahaha, moron. Throw me the water." Like that. If someone calls you a pylon, they are not complimenting you on your strength or solidity or reliability of character. They are not likening you to a bridge pylon or to an electricity line pylon or to any other huge piece of technology that can be counted on to just stand there and mutely do its work of support. No, if you're called a pylon, it's because someone has decided that you exhibit the dumb part of the pylon's being. Like the way Lemieux reduced Chambers to a piece of material in 1991. Nobody wants to be the pylon. Except, as John Milton said in a different context, those who only stand and wait also serve. Mil...