I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, raised in Vancouver and partially (but not satisfactorily) educated. This schooling compelled me to consider the primary ideas of the century––1) cars are the icon of the age , 2) dipsomania is a near-religion, 3) bloody-mindedness is a sport for everybody.
I was intrigued as well by the fact that ‘facts’ have only a tenuous connection to truth. I was more intrigued that what we call “reason” was apparently a good reason to exclude facts. I was most intrigued by the appearance of overwhelming vulgarity in our institutions.
In 1973, having spent most of my life driving around, drinking, playing football and otherwise conforming, I decided to reform, get married and retreat to the far end of the Canadian bush country. By way of subsequent events, I learned that middle age can be a satisfactory education and knowledge promotes survival. For example, the summer air remains cool in the northern latitudes and root crops do best. Residents tend to favor seasonal produce. As a corollary to these actual facts, trees there are dense, so just being a wood splitter generates a lot of warmth.
Years later, I concluded that such experience allowed me to pretend that I knew what was going on. Accordingly, I set out this random postscript to my life:

• The glory of football has dwindled to a quasi-useful memory.
  
• The rosy glow of climate change makes the concept of north irrelevant.
  
• This potential catastrophe excuses one substitution––the splitting of hairs for the splitting of cordwood.
  
• Years ago my son Christopher fled the farm, and once established in the capital of the British Empire forgave his father for having raised him as a hillbilly.
  
• The equestrian skills of my first wife, Rhea, and our daughter, Sarah, would have become a benefit to the Spanish Riding Academy.
  
• I’ve upgraded drinking to a bad habit.
  
• Paddling a canoe is better than drinking.
  
• Going to a movie once a year makes me laugh.
  
• My wife, Joan, works seven days a week so I can have a giggle at the facts.
  
• All along it’s been my own ignorance that’s vulgar.

Last month I concluded that mirth is the salient virtue of life.