Glenn Kubish

Nothing is wrong here. The boy lying in the middle of Alberta Avenue is making a snow angel on the asphalt. Why wouldn't he? There is snow. He is a child. His parents are busy with the other little ones. There is no danger. He got back up the second time his father called. The avenue is closed for the Deep Freeze: A Byzantine Winter Festival. The celebration is the work of wonderful people in the community who work all year to program two days of winter spectacle for the rest of us. Including the young boy whose view of the Alberta Avenue sky must have been marvelous. The sight brought to mind the start of a paragraph from a book I have on the go. It's called The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate. It's written by Peter Wohlleben. The passage I am remembering deals with dead trees. Book taking root Here is the start of the paragraph that I wouldn't do a good enough job trying to paraphrase. The importance of trees for stream...

Gotta dig The Carrot The barber shop where I got my first haircuts as a boy is now The Carrot coffee house. The little music store on 118th Ave. where I took my first guitar lessons is now an empty shell. George's Cycle is gone. The House of Banjo is now Myhre's Music. If you've been in a place long enough, as I have Edmonton, life, especially in neighbourhoods where you grew up, like Alberta Avenue, becomes, unavoidably, so much visual archeology. What is no longer there is still there. It's just down a few layers. We are layer people. It was back into time today as Shelagh and I headed down to Alberta Avenue for Deep Freeze, the Byzantine Winter Festival. Weatherwise, it was sunlit, chilly, with scythes of wind. If you live the house-to-car-to-mall life, it was the kind of weather that would feel doubly cold. It was the kind of Edmonton day that asked you, are you with me or against me? Against me: hands in pockets, light shoes, open head, jeans. With me: m...