Howdy folks. I am in the process of upgrading my blog page so you may have to look around a bit to find what you're looking for.
At the same time, I started a different blog strictly for the SCARS book chapters. You can find that on https://perryhubbardwriting.wordpress.com.
I will be adjusting the content on here, as well, as only Chapter 1 of the Scars book will be left on this page.
I thank you for your patience while I slowly get these kinks worked out.

LEST WE FORGET.

Hello again. I had this write-up all queued up and ready to post last night, which I thought I did, but in my haste to get to the Maple Leafs game I apparently forgot to hit "Publish" before closing the blog! Details, details. So, here you go...better late than never. Enjoy.

THE BIG MISTAKE

 November 10, 2017

I wanted the readership to know that I missed posting on this blog yesterday as I had a much more important service to provide and that was to look after our 8-month-old grandson, Ryker for the day. His Mom, our daughter Meghan, has gone back to work in her salon a few days a month and I love to do the babysitting honours, whenever my schedule allows, to save her a few bucks on childcare while Ryker and I get to spend a lot of time together bonding.

Ryker has an older brother Treyton (8) and a sister Ava (6) and they are wonderful children and I love my time with them, as well, but yesterday was just Ryker and Papa’s day.

Besides, baby Ryker is about the happiest baby in the world. Even while he’s teething!! And he loves to sleep on Papa’s chest during nap times which, to me, is just about the best salve for a person’s soul, there can be. He’s such a happy, cute, cuddly little guy and you cannot help but feel better about life after spending time with him.

That said, it wasn’t lost on me that yesterday, the 9^th of November, also happened to be the one-year anniversary of the 2016 United States Presidential Election and we all know what happened there. If ever one needed some salve for the soul, that was the day. Thank you, Ryker!

November 9^th, 2016 was the day that the American voters proceeded to the polls and delivered unto the world “The Big Mistake”. Apathy, ignorance and American narcissism propelled Donald Trump into the Presidency of the Excited States of America and ever since that day we have been spectators to the Trump Train Wreck! If you wrote the whole story as if it were fiction you’d be a laughing stock! You can’t make this shit up!

Now, I’m just a small-town Canadian boy whose Paternal Grandparents and their parents and their parents were residents of the United States, so I am comfortable speaking freely about our American cousins because I have a lot of American cousins and I feel for them, or blame them, as it were.

Now, it’s all fun to watch, as awful as it is, but my true feeling is that The Donald could not have arrived at a better time in human history than now. He is merely the catalyst for the exposure of the underbelly of hatred and fear that has been festering and percolating below the surface for years.

And I’m not talking about his “Swamp Draining”, either, ridding the world of the political elite, I’m talking about the rampant racism, the misogyny, the absence of basic human compassion, the reverse Robin Hood, as in-taking from the poor to give to the rich and on and on we go.

These are the attributes that the 45^th President of the United States brought with him to the White House. Attributes shared by too many of his base supporters.

There are a couple of reasons why I think now is the best time for Trump. One, bringing out the very worst in humanity only shows how much more work and education is needed to move forward towards a more open and progressive world.

The second reason that makes now the best time for Trump is that this guy is a shining example for our children and their children of how NOT  to act as a human being. “I don’t really care what you are going to be when you grow up, Junior, but just don’t be this! Oh, sure, you can be president, but don’t be Donald Trump.”

Again, I’m a simple Canadian prairie boy and this is my opinion, take it or leave it. Also, I am not looking down my Canadian nose at my American cousins,  here, because Canada and Canadians have their share of isms as well and we have as long a road ahead as our American neighbours in becoming a truly, all-inclusive, modern society.

SCARS- A novel by Perry N. Hubbard-Chapter 1

      

Chapter 1

      He was sitting in his big chair watching the hockey game on TV when his 3 year-old-grandson, Ethan, climbed up onto his lap. Ethan loves his Mom’s Dad who he calls Pops, Papa or Grandpa, depending on the little guy’s mood or the situation, I guess.

Ethan loves sitting on Papa’s lap, and as a rule, whenever he was at Grandpa and Grandma Palmer’s house visiting with his Mom and Dad, the two of them would be sitting together on Papa’s chair at the head of the table after every meal. The tradition was started immediately upon Ethan's birth and continues still.

Ethan loved both his Grandma Darcy and Grandpa Rod Palmer, but he was especially close to his Grandfather and they spent a lot of time together. Ethan hung on every word his Papa said.

            As he settled onto his Grandpa’s lap Ethan couldn’t help noticing his Grandfather scratching vigorously on his right shoulder, “What are you scratching so hard at Papa?”

“Oh, this old scar on my right shoulder drives me nuts. Must be the nerves, or something, but it itches like hell sometimes.”

“Let me see, let me see. What scar? Where is it? What happened? How didja get that Papa? How old were you?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa buddy, one at a time. Let me tell you about that scar, then. I would like to say that I got cut up fighting a demon or something; or I fought a knife-wielding biker in a bar to save a woman’s honour, but the truth is, and you always tell the truth because, (in unison) always tell the truth that way you don’t have to remember anything! Right, right, atta boy. You’re so smart!

So anyway, the truth is I was getting surgery on my right shoulder that I messed up playing fastball back in the '80’s and while the surgeon was fixing whatever he was fixing in there, hm…old Doc Silver, I think it was, something like that anyway...Silver...Sauder...Saunter...Santa?" Ethan giggles,"...whatever...doesn't matter...anyways, whatever his name was he was tightening shit up in there.”

“Papa!” Ethan cried out.

“…I know, I know…here’s for the swear jar…yeah, yeah, yeah, now, where was I? Yes, while he was fixing my shoulder he cut out a big ol’ fat ball that had grown under my skin right over the front shoulder socket. It didn’t bother me much, but it looked pretty goofy bulging out there. Ol' Doc Whoever says it was just a benign, that means "not nasty", fat ball so he offered to take it out while he had my shoulder frozen and I said sure and now I’ve got this damn itchy scar here, see?” He lifts his t-shirt sleeve up and shows Ethan the 11/2” scar and Ethan runs his index finger over the small surgical scar.

“I have no idea why it gets so itchy now and again, but when it does it’s ITCHY!”

“You got a lot of scars don’t cha Grampa?”

            Chuckling Grandpa says, “Oh, yes, that’s for sure, buddy. Don’t I know it. Threw the old body around a lot over the decades. I got the other shoulder operated on, too, you know. This one over here was arthroscopic surgery so they only left these little scars…see…not like this 4” nasty one over here but it did the same thing inside, I guess.

 Now, the left one was a hockey injury. Wiped out on the ice and pancaked on my left armpit back-checking in an old timer’s game. Dumbass! Whoops…here you go again, but “Dumbass” shouldn’t qualify as swearing but that’s splittin’ hairs, isn’t it buddy? You’re likely gonna get most of my money someday anyway, so, here you go.

Where was I? Oh, yeah! Who fu….. who the heck back checks in an old timer’s game? Hm? Me I guess….go hard or go home, eh?”

“Hey Papa tell me about your extreme pain again.”

“Hmph,” Papa said with a little nose snort and head bob, “You remember that one, do you? Well that’s quite a story. It was the day before your mom and Dad’s wedding, you see. You were having a nap, so you and I had stayed back at your Mom and Dad’s place while everyone else went to the community hall to decorate for the wedding….”

BOOK CHAPTER INSTALLMENTS

After using this blog spot for posting all of my personal interest columns for a number of years, I am going to do something a little different on this site and see how the readership reacts.
I have had a couple of book ideas for a while now and I am going to publish a chapter regularly on the first book that I want to work on and post those chapters here. They will be serialized so once you finish the first chapter you will want, (I hope), to come back for the next chapter and so on until I'm either done the book or it continues in perpetuity.
The idea came to me a few years ago  while I was sitting with my grandson, who would have been three or four years old at the time, (he's 8 years old now), shortly after I had had back surgery. I referred to the scar on my lower back, beside my spinal column, as my "extreme pain" as an explanation as to why I couldn't do all of the physical things that I had done with him in the past like wrestling on the floor or tossing him in the air. He would often lift the back of my shirt and want to look at my "extreme pain" to see how it was doing.
Treyton is a very intelligent, thoughtful, little guy and he wanted to know everything there was to know about the incident, or incidents rather, that caused the disc herniation, which happened to occur the day before his Mom and Dad's wedding! I know! Interesting story...
I told him the tale and then I said that I had a whole bunch of scars on my body and that every scar had a story...if you can remember them, that is. Like the time Davey Quan stepped on my right ankle while he was wearing pointy spiked TRACK shoes while we were playing after school pick-up football and it left two or three scars where the spikes had sunk into my lower leg and ankle bone. (FYI-I told the dink not to wear those shoes but.... nooooooooo!!) That incident happened when I was about fifteen-years-old and by the time I was fully grown those scars, which were millimetres apart after that dumb-ass stepped on me in 1972, became centimetres apart after reaching my full height.
Another time I was getting my car fixed by this guy who lived in a sketchy neighbourhood in Regina and did his work in his backyard garage. He, of course, had a big-ass dog chained up in the yard for protection. It was a German Shepard guard dog and it was a nice enough dog, if you knew it, which I did and I hadn't had any issues with him at all.
Anyway, the guy had a bunch of junky cars in the yard, as these type of guys are prone to do, and the dog was sitting on the hood of one of the cars when I arrived. It was in the spring and there was still snow on the ground and the yard was all slushy and muddy and everything, and so was the dog, and as I walked by him he barked, lost his balance, slipped off the hood of the car and landed on the ground with a woof-grunt right beside me.
I don't know if it was from the shock of the fall or the embarrassment and pain of it all but he landed, yelped and proceeded to chomp down on my right calf like his wipeout was all MY damn fault! Yowza that hurt!! Then came the tetanus shot and then the thing got infected and then it took forever to heal and then it left a real nasty ol' scar!
So, there you have it. Those are the types of tales I will be telling on a regular, chapter by chapter basis which will become my book Scars.
I am asking anyone who reads and likes these stories to please spread the word.
Chapter 1 of the book Scars is coming very soon.

Bye for now.