the write stuff

stories about family, outdoors, travel and running

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May 4, 2021

The story of a tiny Covid obsession

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a girl named Rose. She loved books and read voraciously. Her dad was a trained pressman who eventually became the head of printing at University of Toronto Press, overseeing the production of hundreds of monographs. 

December 6, 2020

He was a Toronto industrialist … until they sent him to the sanatorium

THIS IS MY great-grandfather, Robert Kilgour — a handsome dude! It’s a haunting, melancholic portrait, a black-and-white photograph colourized by hand I believe. His beard and countenance resemble Sigmund Freud, who lived during roughly the same era in a different part of the world.

July 21, 2019

My cardiologist never smiles, but I still love him

I’VE COME TO ADORE my cardiologist, even though he sometimes delivers disturbing news and forces me to contemplate my mortality every time I’m in his office. I didn’t always feel this way about him.

June 3, 2018

Ragnar Relay Niagara: five thoughts

I RAN THE Ragnar Relay Niagara race on the weekend, my third time doing this particular event and my sixth crack at this type of two-day, team relay race.

March 29, 2018

It’s more fun to be the predator than the prey

AT THE END of last Sunday’s Around The Bay 30 kilometre road race, I felt elated. I threw my hands in the air and cracked a big finish line smile. That doesn’t always happen.

April 27, 2017

Zen and the art of bike tripping

When my buddy and I biked across the country in 1976, the only book we carried with us was “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. I’m not sure why.The dense monster of a novel was about philosophy, reason and mental illness – although it was also a sort of travelogue. Maybe that’s what possessed us to bring it along for our own adventure.

February 21, 2017

Bob White was progressive, charismatic and fearless

I only spoke with Bob White one time, at a labour convention in the early 1990s, but I observed him closely during the decade I worked in the labour movement. He was a street-smart leader, an excellent orator and a risk-taker who was always confident of his vision. Jerry Dias, the current head of Unifor (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers, the union where White made his biggest contribution) said on Sunday, “You sure felt a lot stronger when you had Bob White sitting beside you.”

October 25, 2016

Guelph arts couple are a formidable pas de deux

Meeting Judith Yan and Amanda Paterson in their new home on Talbot Street in Guelph, you see immediately that each admires the other. They don’t exactly finish each other’s sentences, but each enlarges on their partner’s responses to questions, especially if they think the other person is underselling themselves.

August 10, 2016

A tale of two Lees, Harper and Fanny (mostly the latter)

When I would visit my friend Neal Evans’s house as a teenager, it was always full of his mother Lee’s presence. This included artistic vigour, lots of projects, and a strong dose of social activism in the air. Lee and her husband Sam led the youth group at the United Church where my father was the minister. Although it was very uncool to be attending a youth group at a church that was, unfortunately, across the street from my high school, Lee and Sam actually made it fun and relevant.

July 7, 2016

Sea to sea on two wheels

WE’D RIDDEN WELL into the evening and it was nearly dark, so we threw our bikes over a farmer’s fence at the side of the highway, gobbled a quick pasta dinner chased by a Mars bar dessert, then opted to camp on the open prairie without a tent. Our gear was strewn everywhere as we fell asleep under the stars, oblivious to the tiny flashes of lightning on the distant western horizon.

May 18, 2016

Who stole Church of Our Lady from Starkey Hill?

I’ve hiked the Starkey Hill trail many times since I moved to Guelph a decade ago. At first, I was astonished by the sudden appearance of Church of Our Lady on the western horizon as I reached “the summit” of the trail in the last quarter of the 4K loop. (It’s now “Basilica” of Our Lady, but I like the older term.)

May 12, 2016

Every breath you take

At this time of the year Vancouver is verdant, warm and blooming. And well it should be: spring has already been on the go for two months, or sometimes even four.

February 26, 2016

Miss you Sarah, now and forever

Ten years ago my wife and I spotted deer in the woods below our house in Elora, for the first time ever. There was also a lot of noisy activity from the crows in the cedars, which seemed odd because it was still late winter.

February 24, 2016

Who killed Ontario’s Himalayas? There’s a smoking gun …

One of the favourite day trips from our summer cottage on Georgian Bay is to a lakeside patch of granite everyone calls “Painted Rocks,” even though it has no such name on the map. It’s a spectacular place, where the mysterious forces of deep nature are hard at work, on a time scale you can scarcely imagine.

February 9, 2016

The little wave that lives forever

Once upon a time there was a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a good old time. She was enjoying the wind and the fresh air. She had her friends around her.

January 18, 2016

Josh Cassidy: built for speed and for artistry

In his race photos, Josh Cassidy is an intimidating, even fierce presence. His right bicep features his own tattoo design, a detailed lion atop a set of Olympic rings. His other arm sports a Celtic cross illustration with his last name above. But in person, the first things you notice are his friendly blue eyes, his warm smile and easy laugh.

November 28, 2015

Music carries the spirit of Christmas

It’s a little less than two weeks before Christmas and I’m seated in the River Run Centre, just two rows from the front of the large stage. Toronto’s Faith Chorale has sung a syncopated, a cappella first verse to their gospel version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” quite unlike any I’ve heard before. Then the chorus leader, Sharon Riley, comes forward, walking with a cane and a pronounced limp, the result of a devastating car accident 25 years ago.

September 17, 2015

The house that Thomas and Helen built

“SO WHICH is harder, building a house or writing a novel?” I ask novelist Thomas King and his partner, Helen Hoy, who is a painter.

May 24, 2015

Nice shot, Randy – eulogy for a friend

My friend Randy called me last February, shortly after he received the news that his cancer had metastasized and his condition had gone from “hopeful” to “terminal”. He was worried, and although his spirits were sagging he was also on a mission.

May 18, 2015

Great shift, Randy

Randy, my friend, is dying. He has cancer and he’s not going to make it.

May 11, 2015

Randy’s state of grace

There is a sombre, monotone painting resting on the window sill of Randy’s room at Toronto Grace Hospital.

April 11, 2015

The man who lost his ability to comprehend language

I met a woman earlier this year (a chance conversation with a friendly stranger in a coffee shop) whose husband had a stroke 20 months ago. When you hear “stroke” you may think facial paralysis, a limp, or perhaps worse – coma, complete disability, utter dependance.

March 27, 2015

My top 10 cooking tips, with recipes!

One afternoon, at an early age, I was watching my mother bake cookies in her Vancouver kitchen and I suddenly declared, “When I grow up, I want to be a pastry chef!”

January 30, 2015

Diving into the blue

I’m all buckled into my buoyancy vest, air tank, weights, and I’ve donned my fins, mask and snorkel. I put the regulator in my mouth, breath air from my tank, shuffle awkwardly to the stern of the boat, then take a giant stride into the water. I’m floating instantly. I test out my gear, check my gauges and a few minutes later I’m descending with a group of six other divers and our leader. Our destination is a shipwreck called the St. Anthony, 70 feet below us, off the south shore of Maui.

December 24, 2014

Christmas traditions can be a double-edged sword

My earliest Christmas memory dates from when I was five, or perhaps six. I had graduated from the upstairs room I shared with my three sisters, downstairs to a daybed in the small den. So when I awoke to the dim light of a Vancouver dawn, I was alone.

December 19, 2014

The case of Adnan Syed resembles that of Steven Truscott

The podcasting smash-hit Serial released the final episode of its first season yesterday, and the result was … a little underwhelming. (Spoiler alert here, if you intend to listen to the show.) No grand announcement of some new piece of evidence that would acquit Adnan Syed of the murder of Hae Min Lee, which he was convicted of in 1999. And no clear resolution to the mystery of whodunit.

October 1, 2014

A track workout is a repetitive thing

I received this cryptic email in the middle of the afternoon yesterday: “Tonight’s workout will be 6 x 800 / 3′, then a 400m / 90″ / 300m / 60″ / 200m / 45″100m.”

August 3, 2014

A surprise killing by the bay

It’s late in the day. Our friend Jessica is sautéing shrimp in the cottage kitchen. Her husband and daughter are playing a leisurely card game nearby. It’s the dénouement of a long sunny day that’s been chock-full of activity and adventure. I don’t think we can possibly cram another highlight into this 12 hours. It began with a warm run followed by a cold swim, and has seemed to stretch on forever from there.

December 5, 2013

The curious joy of Tempo Tuesday

It’s dark. And cold. A winter wind blows from the north. My watch reads 6 pm. I should be home enjoying a drink or a meal, right? Yeah, but it’s Tuesday night. That means group tempo run with my club, the Guelph Victors.

November 12, 2013

Not the men they might have been

Just before Tarek Lubani and John Greyson returned to Canada from their 50 days of captivity in Egypt last October, the coverage of the incident reached a sensational peak in the Toronto media. Ezra Levant of the Toronto Sun red-baited the two Canadians as they lay captive in Cairo, calling them left-wing attention seekers, professional agitators – that is, blaming them for their own predicament. In the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente went a step further, outing Greyson as a gay activist in her column.

September 29, 2013

My French holiday top 10 list

I just returned from a four-week vacation in southern France. I know, I know – poor me, having to switch from cheap-as-dirt baguettes, pastries and wine (plus clear blue skies, dry air, and a 20 degree ocean), to falling leaves, near freezing nights, 7 pm darkness and public adoration of … the pumpkin? … in one short weekend. Oh well.

March 21, 2013

Huge public grief for Guelph workplace death

When I heard about Constable Jennifer Kovach’s accidental death by traffic accident in Guelph last week, I felt sick. She was only 26, and died suddenly, for no easy reason, perhaps just a slippery road.

February 4, 2013

Down to my last 19 cents

I DIG INTO my wallet this morning and pull out my last 19 pennies. I’ll spend them the next chance I get, and I won’t be sad to see the coin get retired. Or will I?

November 7, 2012

Dreams happen when you keep trying

LAST SUNDAY I ran the Hamilton marathon in just over three hours, my first 42.2-kilometre race since New York, two years ago. It wasn’t my fastest ever – in fact, it was pretty average. But one of the joys was racing with loads of my training partners from the Guelph Victors. I drove down in a van load of six; I ran the first 25 kilometres in lockstep with Stephen and Lisa; and the finish line had a strong Victors vibe as we all cheered our teammates home. I had my eye out for one teammate in particular, but I never saw him, not at the start nor at the finish.

October 9, 2012

There was a girl

THERE WAS a girl. Twenty-four years old. By all accounts, a luminous human being from the very beginning – the sort of girl whose sparks of brilliance and warmth of personality ignited everyone she met.

June 17, 2012

The magic of the mile

LATE ON A FRIDAY EVENING: the mid-June sun is lingering, a soft breeze blows, and I’m standing on a red clay track behind a line of white chalk along with eight other middle-aged guys. We’re all outfitted in similar singlets, shorts and racing spikes. I’m uncharacteristically nervous before a race.

April 12, 2012

The beauty of the Boston marathon

I’M SOMEWHERE IN the middle of a pack of more than 15,000 runners, thumping down the narrow road out of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, headed east for downtown Boston. The course is thick with spectators. They offer slices of orange. They yell and clap. Kids raise their hands for high-fives. “Go Canada!” they encourage me (I’ve got a small flag pinned to my shirt). Cool – it’s the Boston marathon, or Mecca for long distance runners like me.

March 21, 2012

When fathers come out of the closet

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER recently won an Oscar for his nuanced portrayal of Hal, an elderly gay father, in the movie Beginners. Hal’s son Oliver spends most of the film coming to grips with his dad’s late-age emergence from the closet after his mother’s death, including its reverberations on his own romantic life.

March 1, 2012

Lost behind enemy lines: Bill and Rocky

IT’S MARCH 1945, just two months before the end of WWII. Bill Barker, 27, is flying his Spitfire on a bombing and strafing mission over Germany. He gets hit by enemy fire, his plane is damaged, but Bill isn’t hurt. He radios his squadron to say he’s returning to base in England as quickly as possible.

February 15, 2012

How I learned to love the Volvo (and my Dad)

I CHANCED UPON an amusing story online this week, about a Swiss guy who installed a wood stove in his Volvo, to counteract Europe’s recent freezing temperatures. It brought back a flood of memories about growing up with Volvo wagons.

May 19, 2011

Over hill, over dale, over park, over pale

IT ONLY TAKES a mere three months for spring to arrive in Ontario, so here we are at 6 pm on the first warm Thursday of the year, early May, eight runners standing on a grassy secluded hill about to start our weekly tempo workout together. It’s a first for 2011 ­– everyone’s in T-shirts! The sun warms our skin as a cool breeze rustles our hair. We fidget and stretch, shaking off a day of inactivity, readying our bodies and minds for the coming exertion.

May 5, 2011

It’s in us to give

IT’S 8:10 AM on a Tuesday morning as I enter the Guelph blood donor clinic. I love this place on a sunny day like today, with its comfy recliner chairs and bright, south-facing windows – even if the primary view is a Mr. Lube auto shop. I ignore the TV that’s suspended from the ceiling, tuned to CP24 news. I prefer to watch the clinic hubbub, the other donors and the morning traffic on Silvercreek Parkway.

April 16, 2011

Testing the machine at full power

I’M NOT SURE what possessed me to sign up for a VO2 max test at the University of Guelph recently. Curiosity? Fascination with numbers? Vanity? Nothing better to do at 5 pm on a Thursday after a sedentary day at the office?

April 4, 2011

Maple syrup moves to the rhythm of spring

TERRY AND KYLE MOORE are ecstatic. After learning the ropes of maple syrup production each spring for five years, they’re finally cashing in. The sap has been flowing briskly all weekend. Their assortment of high- and low-tech gear is working perfectly. And they’ve got the boiling technique down pat. They started at 9 am this Monday morning and by 7:30 pm they’re pouring off jar after jar of rich, amber syrup. It’s a bumper year, more than double the production of any previous spring. Neither guy can stop grinning at their magical good fortune.

March 10, 2011

If I had a hammer (how I came to appreciate curling)

CURLING IS ONE of those games you don’t take seriously at first. Everything about it seems bizarre ­– the non-athletic look of its participants, the peculiar equipment, the glacial pace, and of course the hyper-urgent shouted instructions between thrower and sweepers while the rock is in motion (“Hurry hard!”).

February 26, 2011

We lost Sarah

WE LOST SARAH last Sunday. It was crushing. At one point, there were 13 of us in the Hamilton ICU waiting room, visiting Sarah briefly in pairs as she struggled for her life. We could stretch past the monitors, ventilator and over the IV lines to whisper in her ear, hold her hand, tell her we loved her – but nothing we could do, nor the best efforts of the doctors and nursing staff, could halt the downward spiral that began sometime after her first operation on Friday morning. By Sunday afternoon, she was gone.

January 28, 2011

The strange case of the Willie P. Bennett couch

BACK IN OUR university days my friends and I lucked upon a cheap housing deal – a rural house situated on an abandoned farm just north of Trent University near Peterborough, Ontario. The digs had been passed down from student to student, with the university as landlord, and carried the name “Total Loss Farm” – taken from a 1970s back-to-the-land memoir.

January 20, 2011

Do fraternal twins share a special connection?

ITS CROWDED DOWN HERE in the birth canal! I reach the start line first, before my sister Beth, but then things get screwed up. I’m sure it’s not my fault I’ve turned breach. But it jams things up for both of us when I get stuck the wrong way around. My mother is exhausted from two days of labour. Her small town Alberta doctor panics. The result? A Caesarian. And so I’m suddenly at the end of the line instead of the head. My sister is lifted out first, leaving me in second place. A rivalry is born.

January 13, 2011

Lost in translation: Est-ce que j’arrive?

THREE YEARS AGO, my wife Nichola and I visited Paris and Marseille while our son Thomas was in France on an exchange. It amazed me how we can pick up the language once every few years, and even improve. We were better than we’d been in Belgium five years earlier, and way beyond the high school French we’d both started with so many decades ago.

January 4, 2011

My 5K valley of despair

MOST PEOPLE CAN imagine running 5K, just a shade over 3 miles. It’s like running across town, or over to the supermarket and back. What’s the big deal?

December 20, 2010

How I met Emmanuel: a winter running story

WINTER RETURNED this morning, and it’s nearly Christmas. Snow is everywhere, big fluffy flakes floating down from the heavens. I suit up for my morning run, but one look at the road conditions sends me back into the house to change into my “Icebug” trail running shoes, the ones with metal studs embedded in the soles. I head south on the gravel side road near my rural home. It’s cold and windy as I disappear into the rolling, resting countryside. This is the best.

December 14, 2010

I have called your name – you are mine

ALTHOUGH SHE grew up in Ontario, and camped as a teenager in Algonquin Park, my mother came to love the Canadian west. Her favourite spot was the beach, dykes and mud flats ringing Tsawwassen, B.C., her home for the last two decades of her life. Even in her 70s, she led family crabbing expeditions across the mud flats. She followed the ebb tide on foot, hoping to grab a straggler or two with her barbecue tongs as they scuttled for deeper water. The outdoors put her in touch with her family heritage and her faith. Although she loved music, theatre and visual art, she found the most solace in nature.

December 6, 2010

What happens when our parents die?

A SMALL BROWN ENVELOPE arrived in the mail this week, containing a form letter from Canada Revenue Agency – the tax people – a single printed page, small type, in both official languages, declaring that the federal government no longer had any official claim on the estate of Marling Kilgour, my mother. This is known as a Clearance Certificate, the green light that says, “you’re done” for the estate executors.

November 26, 2010

My short career of sailing mishaps

I LEARNED TO SAIL small boats as a teenager, in the frigid salt waters of Georgia Straight near Vancouver. Learning to manage a dinghy in heavy wind was thrilling, but also cold, salty and uncomfortable. My hands always hurt, and when you capsized it was nearly life-threatening!

November 12, 2010

It’s not about the clock: NYC marathon 2010

THE NEW YORK MARATHON is the largest in the world, with 45,000+ runners. So everything about it is complicated, commercial and highly organized, from the application process (a lottery that draws 124,000 applicants) to the marshalling of runners at the start line (into almost a dozen separate “waves” and “colours”). You have to go with the flow and trust that they know what they’re doing, because you’re a very small fish in a gigantic school.