Glenn Kubish

  Here are three little things that found their way back in, leaving behind either some happiness or gratitude. Three Things from Edmonton, episode 66: 1. Bubbles Bubbles…it’s a fun word to say, bubbles…bubbles stop me as they go by. Trains, too, I will stop to watch a freight train pass in any season. Geese overhead this time of year, they will carry my attention away. And polite children firing bubbles at me on a cold spring day, they stop me, and take me back—and aback. Jasper out of Place The pair, a sister and her older brother, I guessed, stood, parka hoods over their heads, next to each on their family’s front lawn last week. At his side the boy held a plastic toy bubble gun, a delightful version of a Gatling gun. As I walked by he cranked the handle a couple of turns, looked at the barrel when nothing emerged, shook the weapon to agitate the dish soap in the chamber, earnestly fired again, and, this time, watched bubbles spit out of the ...

It is April in Edmonton. A fitting time to report the effect of a pothole. Shooting marbles in the schoolyard was a thrill of spring. The pots we aimed for in those now-buried days were shallow craters dug out of the earth. Cars flowed by on 66 St. Girls jumped in and out of skipping ropes. Peewees were the small marbles. (They were just the right size to go down an alarmed seven-year-old's esophagus once). The regular-sized marbles were the main currency. It took five or so marbles to make a boulder and four boulders to make a jumbo. There were crystals, cat's eyes, creamies, and steelies. These gems all carried different values. Marbles, boulder Steelies (jumbo-sized ball bearings, actually) were curious. They sat outside the exchange system. A steelie was technically worth nothing, but was still valuable and coveted. Like the zero concept. The value of a steelie was what the player trying to win it deemed its value to be. I might put four "jums" and...