Up in Ontario

From the River

Winter Fishing - Three

Please read And the World Was Silent for context, as it precedes this story.

We started back downstream. Snow now covered the round rocks beneath our feet and made the walking easy and silent. At the break where cb had landed the two bull trout earlier we stopped for a final try at the fish. We had been expecting all day to see some silver coho but so far had seen none, not even a stray. Once again, cb and I started to cast about 10 feet apart, then he moved downstream and I moved upstream. I casted a few times at different angles and then walked up the bank about five paces and casted at a few angles again. In the slack water ice had started to form and my longest casts sometimes delivered my fly right onto the edge of the ice.

I started to feel the rod working in my hand. My fly fishing trips are infrequent enough that each time out I have to spend the first hour remembering how to feel the line and time the casts. But now everything felt strong and connected. The line loaded the rod, the cadence of the casts snapped back and forth in longer beats as the line lengthened and the fly started to land where I wanted it with some precision. I mended the line back into the current and watched my fly sink out of sight.

cb called to me and asked me if I was ready to go. I told him I wanted to fish to the end of the shoal protecting this slack water, and he nodded and resumed fishing. Ten feet from the end of the shoal I felt a fish pick up the fly and I set the hook. "Ha!" I cried out. I had one on. My long rod bowed down to the water as the fish struggled across the current. It felt strong and I looked at the line pinched between my index finger and the cork handle of the rod, a length of slack line hung down between that point and the reel, and I wondered how I would tighten the loop without letting the tension off the fish. Then it dawned on me that I could just reel it up, and so I did, and then I had the fish on, and was ready to play it.

cb had heard me cry out and jogged upstream to where I stood. I handed him the camera from the pocket of my jacket and resumed my grip on the rod. The fish ran across the current away from me and cb watched the rod bow further and said, "He will break you." I took my hand off the reel and started to let the fish take line when it wanted to. Back and forth across the current the fish ran, leaping from the water at one point and showing its full length. It was a bull trout. Eventually, the trout tired and I reeled it close to the shore. The eyelets of my rod had frozen over and the knot of my leader stuck in the ice. I lifted the rod, grabbed the line and pulled the trout onto the rocks. I held it in my hands. cb helped me free the fly from its mouth with surgical tweezers and we watched as the trout twitched free and shot back into the deep water.

After the excitement I cast a few more times and then we packed up and hiked back to the small channel where chum salmon remained finning in the current, their last days or hours passing as hungry gulls waited. One chum that had been dead for a few days lay on the bottom of the river, just its silhouette visible. Already, the river had started to reclaim it. These were the same fish that we had caught weeks earlier at Thankgiving, silvery and full of fight out in the deep salt water off Campbell River. Since then they had run up the rivers, spawned, and now were dying or had died and decomposed right before our eyes. The marvel of the regeneration of the species was right there to behold.

We climbed up onto the road to find the car under a blanket of snow. We estimated about eight or nine inches had fallen in the four hours we'd been on the river, but men are never good at estimating such distances. The first thing I did was start the car, at which point cb told me that I couldn't be from Vancouver since no one from Vancouver would think to start the car to let it warm up. We stripped off our waders and slipped into dry clothes. We brushed off the car and climbed into the warm cab.

I gently let out the clutch and we started out through the snow. Behind us the gravel of the road appeared in the bare spot where the car had sat. I shifted to second and we sped up. At 40 km/h snow started to billow up over the hood onto the windshield like a curtain, obscuring the road. I slowed the car and the flow of snow relented. I sped up again and the curtain of snow returned. As soon as we sped up past 40 the snow pushed up over the hood again and we couldn't see a thing. It was going to be long ride back to the highway.

We crept along through the snow and the numbers on the red and white signs counted down the miles. Twice we stopped the car in the middle of the road and got out to sweep the accumulated snow from the hood and windshield. We didn't pass another soul. The second time we stopped I walked around the front of the car and saw the wedge of snow piled up against the front grill. I could barely make our the shape of the headlights. We drove on. After a few minutes out of the corner of my eye I saw cb's head sag forward against his seatbelt as he drifted off to sleep.

I stopped the car once more to clear the snow before we hit busier roads where other vehicles had passed and brushed away the snow. cb hardly stirred and I didn't blame him. He'd been a trooper to make it as far as he had. As we had fished he had told me about the night before.

Some of the story I already knew, since I'd been over at his place the previous day for the late afternoon and the evening. About eight of us had watched the Heritage Classic hockey game, then the doubleheader of Oilers vs. Canadiens and Canucks vs. Leafs. Between periods of the Heritage Classic there had been some road hockey played, with cb tending a net whose posts consisted of two garbage bags full of leaves, which became known as the leaf net. Before the start of the Oilers-Canadiens game I made a trip to the beer store to refill the diminishing stocks of the fridge, and I returned with a two-four of Molson Canadian tallies, or tall boys, depending where you're from. cb had stewed a pot of chili and we had watched Jose Theodore wear his toque for the length of the game. After I left for home around 11 the party had continued, and cb mentioned something about karaoke and walking home from a downtown nightclub at three am.

We arrived back to the highway without incident. A procession of cars crept past and we knew we were in for a long ride back to the city. At Squamish we stopped to eat and I called home. I spoke with the Duck and she reminded me we had plans to be at a friend's birthday party, an hour from that point. It looked like I was going to be late. After some creative intepretation of traffic rules we merged onto the highway to start back. cb dozed off again and darkness closed in as we hustled back to the city, listening to a radio station from Nanaimo play Huey Lewis and the News' hit, "The Power of Love." The car smelled damp and I knew that it had been a day to remember.

And the World Was Silent

Winter Fishing - Two

(Please read Winter Fishing on the Upper Squamish for context, as it precedes this story.)

Now fully geared up, cb and I crossed the road to a break in the trees where a short path led down to the water of the Squamish River. We stepped into the water and watched where we stepped, careful not to walk over the redds containing the eggs of spawned salmon. The channel of water we faced was calm and shallow, flowing over a gravely bottom. On the far side of the channel the dorsal fins of chum salmon broke the surface and then dipped back under. We walked downstream to a gravel bar with a few chum already dead lying in the shallows. A few seagulls took off as we approached.

"These are recent," cb said and pointed at the eyes of the dead fish and explained that the first thing the gulls ate were the eyes. A chum that looked dead flexed its body from the gravel. We stood and watched the fish struggle. "He'll probably be dead by the time we get back." In a calm hollow of the channel another chum hovered as still as a stone, its sides and back mottled with colour. I poked at it with the end of my fly rod and it jerked to life, surged up and out of the hollow into the current and was swept downstream.

We crossed at a narrow point in the channel where the water flowed fast and I was reminded of the leak on the inside of the left leg of my waders. Snow started to fall. The cliff walls around us grew faint through the falling snow. We walked upstream over the round rocks and around the washed out trees. Floods had torn through the area only a few weeks previously. "The river's completely changed," cb said to me as we walked.

At a calm backchannel to the side of the main current we started to throw flies. I had placed the backpack under a log above us along with the two spinning rods we carried to try at a another spot we planned to visit later. The snow fell faster all around us: big, fluffy, dry flakes that only rarely fall this close to the coast.

cb and I started about ten feet apart on the shore, fishing a break that drained off into a small, quiet pool. He watched me fish for a few casts and provided instructions in how to mend the line and how to control the sink of the fly. My novice skllls with a fly rod improved measurably just from this small lesson and soon I moved upstream and he moved down. Within five minutes he had a fish on. He played it for a minute and then landed it at the edge of the shore. "It's a dolly," he said. "No, it's a bull trout." I looked down at the sleek fish in his hand just as it slipped back between the rocks and, realizing it was free, wriggled out to the deeper water. Out in the current of the river, small chunks of ice floated past, ghostly in the dark water. Two minutes later cb had another trout on, this one bigger. He played it a few paces downstream and then landed it on the rocks. This time I saw the prettiness of the fish, its flashing silver sides and pink spots with their black outline.

We cast some more but nothing else took our flies except a large chum that rose out of the murk of the deeper water like a dinosaur from the past. Its jaws were crooked and it reminded me of a snapping turtle reborn as a fish. If a fish could lumber in the water, then that is what it did. cb pulled his fly away from the chum and we reeled up. I retrieved the backpack and the spinning rods. We divided the load between us, then moved upstream.

Small channels criss-crossed the rocky shoal on the fall lines. We leapt over some and waded across others. We stopped at one and cb pointed out the formation of the bars, the patterns the water etched in the sand mirroring the patterns of wind on clouds or sand or snow. At the side of a fast-moving piece of whitewater the current had cut away a back eddy, and we cast our flies into this swirling water for coho salmon. "They're lazy fish," cb said. "They love the slack water."

I never quite got the hang of having my fly come back towards me without a clear current line to fish accross, and cb had no luck either, so we moved on upstream. We followed the main channel of the river to the far side where a rock wall covered in evergreens rose up. The snow continued to fall and our wading boots started to pick up the snow and water on their felt bottoms. As we set up at a long, flat pool faced on the far shore by a cliff, cb mentioned to me that this pool looked like a great spot but had never produced a fish.

That prognostication seemed to be prophetic. We fished up and down the pool until our hands were too cold to hold the line. We even tried the spinning rods and the gear we had brought along, which required us to estimate how much weight we would need to reach the bottom in the current. After a few dozen more casts it seemed time to call it a day. We gathered up our rods and the backpack and returned to the back eddy just off the whitewater. Walking warmed us so that when we dug into the backpack for the thermos we were able to pour out the hot coffee. I'm not sure if it's the coffee or the location or the heat of the cup in my hands, but hot coffee in the bush is one of the finest things I can think of.

We sat above the back eddy and listened to the water rush over the rocks and away to the ocean. We took turns at the bank, one of us drinking coffee and the other casting and watching. Those huge flakes of snow continued to fall and the world was silent except for the water. "Look across the river," cb said. "The snow always falls faster on the far bank."

(To be continued...)

Winter Fishing on the Upper Squamish

Winter Fishing - One

I called my friend cb on his cell phone so I wouldn't wake the whole house. There was no answer. I left a message and hung up the phone and sat in the dark for about 10 minutes, until the green numbers of the clock on the microwave read 6:14 am. We had planned the night before to go fishing. I called again. No answer. I did not leave a message.

I showered and gathered my gear and dressed in layers and set out to pick up cb with the car packed and a travel mug full of coffee. There were no lights on at his house when I pulled up. I found a few small pebbles on the street and tossed them up at his window on the second story. I threw one, two, missed with the third, then hit again with the fourth. The curtains pulled away from the window and a head popped up. cb looked down at me and waved, a weak gesture of recognition. He pointed to the front door and his head disappeared and the curtain fell back into place. When he opened the door I could see he was in rough shape. "You still want to go?" I asked. He nodded. "Okay," I said. "I'll go and fill up with gas and hit the bank machine. I'll be back in 20 minutes." He nodded again and turned back into the darkness of the house.

When I arrived back after 20 minutes he stood inside the door, ready to go. His eyes were slits and every movement he made looked slow and painful. We loaded the car and set out through the empty city in silence. I handed him the coffee I had bought for him at the gas station and he held it in his hands for ten minutes before asking if I had a cup holder to put it in.

By Brittania Beach, he asked me to pull out. "I think I need some water," he said. We stopped at a cluster of buildings selling native arts and crafts. A light film of snow had accumulated on the ground. I bought two bottles of water, two Cokes and a tabloid newspaper at the only shop open, a house trailer fashioned with a front porch and overhang. Thinking about that trailer now I recognize it as a Bowler trailer, the same kind that my dad tells a story about a time he and some friends were hunting and all four of them sat down for dinner at the table at one end of the trailer. As the last man joined them at the table they heard a creak and felt the trailer roll a few inches and then all of a sudden it tipped up on end. Four of them were left scrambling for the door, trying to tip the trailer back down by evening out the weight.

I turned back to the car and cb had the passenger door open, his feet out on the ground, his head bowed. He rubbed his hands over his head and face. As they say in the sportscasts, he was in some difficulty. I handed him a water and got in with my newspaper. I read about England winning the Rugby World Cup, a fact I did not want to know since a friend had taped the match for me and I had not yet watched it. cb eventually swung his legs into the car and we started on our way again.

We carried on through Squamish and turned off the highway to the north. cb pointed at a red and white sign we passed that read 11 mi. and said, "Mile 28." Then he reclined his seat and pulled his hat low over his eyes. In less than a minute he gave a little kick and I knew he was out. We climbed away from the highway and the red and white signs kept counting off the miles. I woke him once at a fork in the road and he said, "Straight on," and closed his eyes again. The road followed the Squamish River upstream, past a power station and over a few rough wooden bridges that spanned shallow creeks. At mile 27 cb lifted his head and said, "One more mile," and then resumed his nap.

Mile 28 came into sight and I slowed the car. cb sat up and said, "You want the pullout on the right." We parked and he was awake and smiling. "That logging road saved me," he said and we stepped out into the cool air to slip into our waders and head out onto the river.

(To be continued...)

Spinning Class

The first part to this story is an admission on my part. I go to a gym that some people consider to be a fancy place. The place looks garish, covered in chrome, mirrors and neon signs. But it's a gym; it's a temple of self-love. What do you expect?

I justify my membership to myself in two ways: I like to workout and the gym is located only a two blocks away. But jesus, sometimes it's a hard pill to swallow. My dislike for the place is strong enough that I get up at 6 am during the week to get my workouts done. At that time, a regular few are there, and the place feels less obnoxious, almost friendly. If I went after work when the place is brimming over with keen desk jockeys just off the trading floors - the posing and preening, the self-conscious outfits, the casual questions to the hot bodies, "Do you mind if I work in a set?" - I don't know if I'd be able to stand myself.

So that brings me to this morning, when I tried to get to the gym early, except that a combination of strong coffee and good headlines in The Globe and Mail kept me at the café for too long. I know that by mid-morning on Saturdays the place feels like a freshly kicked anthill - people flinging themselves about in frenetic activity - yet still I dawdled with my newspaper. So when I walked in this morning at 10 am, I faced a phalanx of spandex and nylon.

I started into my workout and, though there were more people than I was used to, it didn't turn out badly. I thought I might escape without having to face anyone flexing in the mirror or talking loudly about their max bench. I was just finishing up my last exercise when the spinning class started off in one corner.

Now, I have never taken a spinning class. So I have no idea what they are like and they may very well be wonderful. I may be missing something. But seeing about a dozen women wailing away on stationary bikes as if they were dogs tied to the bumper of the station wagon, and the wagon was travelling along at highway speeds, did nothing to make me think that I would enjoy it.

Jesus it was a spectacle. An instructor faced the class on his own stationary bike, and he had a microphone headset. Through the speakers he sounded like the caricature of a drill instructor in a military movie. The drill sergeant of Full Metal Jacket comes to mind, with the language cleansed of swears. "Faster!" he yelled at them. "Faster! Now take it up a notch." The lot of them bobbed frantically on their machines, as if the station wagon had pulled into the passing lane.

I watched them for a minute and they all had the gleeful zeal of the devoted in their eyes. They were all women too; all of them, already thin and buffed up like in the magazines. What were they getting out of being yelled at? Someone walked by me, saw me staring, and said, "That's the advanced class."

The instrutor barked at the women to glide for a minute. As the minute elapsed he counted down the seconds, as if a bomb were about to go off, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now go, go, go, go! Top speed!" I laughed out loud. The scene reminded me of something I heard a comedian say about his experience at Starbucks. "It's as if the Nazis won the war."

That was enough for me. I jogged the two blocks home.

What searchers are finding here

From the web server logs of the Up in Ontario website, I present the search phrases that are being typed into search engines and bringing visitors to this website. They are in order from most popular to least popular.

Language is a Peculiar Thing

An article by Sarah Andrews, Associated Press writer, has been making the rounds on the internet this week. That article, along with the recent Massey Lecture series, has got me thinking about language, in particular languages that are disappearing. In Andrews’ case, however, it is about a language that is returning. Her article, “Near-Extinct 'Whistling Language' Returns,” is about the Canary Islands and silbo.

Silbo, Andrews defines as follows: “Silbo - the word comes from the Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle - features four ‘vowels’ and four ‘consonants’ that can be strung together to form more than 4,000 words. It sounds just like bird conversation and Cabello says it has plenty of uses.”

Cabello is Juan Cabello, a silbador, someone who knows this whistling language that can be heard more than two miles away. Apparently silbo came to the tiny, mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off West Africa, 2,500 years ago with early African settlers. The whistle saved peasants from trekking distances to send messages or news to neighbours. It’s still used to call a lost friend in a crowd, to tell your kids to come home for dinner or to fetch the castanets as is the case in this bit of dialogue:

MP3 sample of silbo.

Here’s a link to the full article, including the translation of the dialogue.

We all tell stories in different ways. As James says, "what's your story?"

Newsletter - Volume 1

The first issue of the Up in Ontario email newsletter shot out into the ether tonight. It's full text is available here, in case you are one of the 7 people on earth who have not signed up. And if that's the case, what are you waiting for? You should sign up for the Up in Ontario email newsletter.

In the newsletter, I am quoted as saying, "Never underestimate sheer gall." Though that's a rip off of David Arnason.

Call for Contributors

Hear ye! hear ye! I'm on the lookout for some writers to contribute to the Up in Ontario blog. It's busting out. You don't have to be an ace at the keyboard, you don't have to deconstruct A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, you just have to tell a good story.

If you're shy, you can write from a pen name. If you're not sure if you want to have a story online, send it to me and we'll figure out what to do together. Be brave! Tell the stories that bounce around in your head while you're waiting in traffic, while you're walking along the street, while you're savouring a fine toasted sandwich. If we don't have stories to share with each other, how do we make sense of the world? All you closet storytellers out there, it's time to fish or cut bait.

Our first contributor, a friend of mine, required a little prompting to contribute at first. He and I were talking the other day and he said he had written a bunch of short-short stories that just collected on his hard drive. I told him that the genre he was working in was recognized, that contests existed dedicated to it. They call it variously microfiction, postcard fiction and matchbook fiction. In fact, the book nominated for the Giller Prize from Turnstone Press, Kilter 55, is a book of microfictions. I asked my friend to send me one of his stories, and finally he complied. The story comes next.

Tombstones

For a couple of years as a young boy he had a habit of carving tombstones out of bars of soap. As the tombstones became smaller with each washing he felt very strongly that he was helping somebody feel better. He did not know who, that hardly mattered. He harboured no enemies amongst his peers and the adults in his world seemed to genuinely love him.

When the tombstones became thin wafers with rounded edges on all sides he set them aside. They no longer resembled tombstones and, having achieved their purpose, were placed in amongst the grass clippings and vegetable ends of the compost. There they would eventually disappear, affirming his belief of his privilege of healing.

The Duck Hunting

This was the scene here last night for the Duck's Birthday. I handed her a guide to a scavenger hunt and she was off. The guide is below.

Welcome to the Duck Hunt, the beginning of the events for Monique Trottier’s Birthday 2003. The Duck Hunt will begin at 5:30 and will end when all ducks are collected. There are 6 ducks in all that need to be collected at various locations throughout local neighbourhoods. You will need to use a car for transportation as you find them. Clues to help you find the ducks are below. The ducks should be collected in the order in which they are presented below. Each duck has a story behind it and then the duck gives you clues to its whereabouts. In some instances, you will have to trade something for the duck – perhaps an answer to a riddle, a impromtu 8 count. In other instances, you will find the duck comes attached to goods. Those goods should also be secured with the duck, for they will be needed later. As soon as you find one duck, immediately read the directions for the next duck, since the ducks are to be collected in a specific order for specific reasons.

If at any time you are stumped, lost, confounded or just plain fed up, call James Sherrett at 604-736-XXXX and he will make sense of your predicament.

Duck #1
You heard a story earlier today about an injured white duck named a few things: Howard, Donald, Daffy. You have seen this duck before. Where did they catch that duck before they released it? Go there and you will find Duck #1.

Hints from Duck #1:

Paintings of Allen Sapp

This past week, Allen Sapp won the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Literature (Illustration). I want to call attention to this event because seeing the book that he won for, entitled The Song Within My Heart, calls up for me an incredible resonance of rural prairie life. The book tells the story of a young boy preparing for his first pow-wow, and the learnings imparted to him by his nokum (grandmother) of the ritual and history of the pow-wow.

In awarding the prize, the Governor General's jury made the following comments:

Allen Sapp creates a spiritual experience for the reader. With a universal and timeless quality, the paintings resonate with the rhythm of the drum, the rhythm of the heart – the rhythm of life. A truly beautiful book.

Allen Sapp's paintings are currently on exhibit in Edmonton and Victoria at the West End Gallery, and they are simply incredible to see: the colour of snow in the shade, the glow of a lit window in the winter, the loneliness out on the rink alone. I suppose when we grow up, instead of buying picture books we buy art books and coffee-table books. But it seems to me we lose something common to our plain humanity in this transition. The simple stories of children's books - how to love, how to overcome obstacles, how to lose something we care about - are the stories that we need to read every day.

For today, how about:

Update on the Novel

Now that I have books in hand, people want to know, "Where can I get me a copy of that there novel?" Well friend, I can tell you're an honest soul. So I'll pass some wisdom your way.

First, for all the locations that I am about to disclose, you are advised to call them in advance of showing up at the counter to see if the beloved novel Up in Ontario is in.

Remembrance Day

In Flanders Field

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army, wrote the poem In Flanders Fields in 1915.

Books in Hand

Books! Books books books books! Here, in my hand, the book has arrived!

I called my family to tell them. "I have an annoucement," I said, only slighly realizing the dangerous territory I trod on, having lived with the Duck now for five years. "The book has arrived. It's here. I have a copy in my hand." And I did.

This is not like the day I found out Up in Ontario would be published. It is not at all like the first day I saw the manuscript typeset and ready for printing. It is certainly not at all like giving birth. But it does feel like something momentous. "A red-letter day," my mom said when I told her.

To give you an idea:

O! it's beautiful, the cover a perfect image for the story
O! an author photo, looking folksy
O! such a fine blurb from Lynn Coady:

"Sherrett brings such warmth and humanity to his characters, it's almost startling to take into account the razor-sharp precision of his writing. This is an assured, captivating debut."

I don't know what else to say. I'm at a loss. You'll just have to see it for yourself.

Investor Relations

Since I've been banging away at the keys here at Up in Ontario central, blogging to my heart's small content, a few of my loyal readers have asked to have a summary of the cast of character that regularly appear. So I says, "Okay, here you go. But mark my words, I'm going to have to change some of this."

The Duck
Alternately, Monique. I share the rent with her. Or, she shares the rent with me. A wonderful woman. The person I want to tell my exciting news to. Don't listen to my brother when he says, "Dark horse." He's just pulling his own chain. And why? Because she quacks.

Scott
Alternately, the Keester and S the B. Brother Scott: red hair, rugby player, video games expert. We used to fight but now he's too big and we'd just hurt each other. "There's nothing quite like the feel of an unfurnished basement."

Janice
Me Mum. Alternately, Mighty Mouse. She has the finest handwriting I have ever seen. Fitness fiend. Still cooking for a family of six. Sometimes warring over her garden with rabbits. Too much energy for her own good?

Jimmy
Me Dad. Alternately, big James. Independent agent of sporting enthusiams. Taught me to fish, to hunt, to drive a manual transmission. Becoming a traveller of renown. Enliven your party by inviting Jimmy and furnishing unlimited cranberry juice.

Linda
Me wicked stepmother. Sleeps and works in self-imposed shifts. Loves to hear stories. Favourite adjective: willowy. Road trips exist for sleeping. Fan of the weiner dog in all its varieties. Author of the famous diet book, "Eat Less, Exercise More."

The White Rabbit
Alternately, Caroline. Mother of the Duck. Watch out when crossing the street with her. A pleasure to be around. Like a racoon, show her something sparkly and she lights up.

The Noodle
Alternately, Damian. Brother of the Duck. Talented illustrator and designer. Offer an ear and he'll fill it. Mark a line on the rum bottle when he arrives and the cuba librés start.

Nanny
Me grandmother. Alternately, Rosie and Joanie. A scorpio, don't you know it. Busy all the time. On the go. A going concern. Thankfully for all concerned except the dealership, no longer driving. She retains an element of a movie star. "I haven't been here since the last time I was here." and "What goes up always comes around."

Pa
Me grandfather. Alternately, RJ, Bob and BS. "Aquariass," Nanny says. Storyteller extrordinaire. Bob won the war. Tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber. Still a fine shot. Not too strong on cleaning the game. Dashing rake, great strut. Show us those pins!

Books on their way

I got the word today from the eminent Kelly Stifora at Turnstone Press:
the books are coming!

As I type here in this dark room, a boxful of Up in Ontario novels is on its way west. It seems like it may really happen. Keep you eyes glued to the Up in Ontario website, the Up in Ontario blog and the Up in Ontario email newsletter for further details. You got your ears on?

And I'm not kidding about the plan to stare down Christmas and finish off your presents list in one bold sweep of the bookstore. In fact, I'll up the ante. Anyone who buys Up in Ontario for everyone on their Christmas list will get all of their copies signed by the author, James Sherrett. All my family and relatives are not eligible.

Up in Ontario up

Alright, I think I can now say the website has launched. All the important links work. Most of the typos and grammatic miscarriages have been corrected. What's left but to tell the world about it?

Launched tonight, hot off the presses:

Up in Ontario, Fall 2003

It's up. Up in Ontario is up on the Turnstone Press website with an author photo and everything. Jesus, do I really look like that?