Are they giving you time off for good behavior?

This past weekend was my cousin's 40th wedding anniversary. They held a very well-attended open house on Saturday in Ingersoll, Ontario (it is also Thanksgiving weekend in Canada). The festivities were in the Royal Canadian Legion hall.*

Poppies all the way. On the hall's signs, inside and out were poppies. And the words 'Lest We Forget'.**

It was a beautiful weekend, Indian summer, and the light flowed in through the windows as if it wanted to be there to say hello and thank you to two very good, warm, open-hearted people, my cousin Lorna and her husband Gary.

And in the lobby were the memorials to those who never returned. And outside was a 40mm bofors AA gun the little kids played on, younger cousins it was a joy to see again.

Much food, much laughter, lots of stories and jokes. Nothing from the cold monsters who would see these people as peasants, or each one of these little kids scrambling over the old gun as an 'eco-disaster'.

For the utter normality of that weekend I give deep thanks - and in the bottom of my soul I breathe a curse for those who would destroy what I just experienced again. Little children running about and playing in the sun; their parents keeping one eye open; the elders sitting and standing, talking, eating, and drinking, sharing a joke or a memory of when they were young and running around on the grass next to an old gun, or when they were watching their children do the same.

Bless them all, those who can gather in an RCL hall to celebrate a long-standing marriage.

Curse those who can not see the beauty in such a place or taste the sweetness that comes from a chipped mug filled from a battered coffee urn.

And to all here - a Happy Canadian Thanksgiving.

*I cleaned the coffee urns so well afterwards that the Ladies Auxiliary offered me a job as dishwasher.

**Kipling; Recessional. They don't forget there; on Remebrance Day you get your poppy, and if you don't there is something wrong with you.

Vanderleun, back with a VENGEANCE. All is well now in the crackersphere.

Welcome back, Gerard.

On the Che Guevara thing:

There was once incident that Che himself detailed in his "diaries" that ought to kill the myth about him: Ordering the execution of a puppy by strangulation.

Google "Che strangle puppy" and you'll get a host of hits. I don't know why this hasn't been more widely circulated. All the revelations about Che being an execution-happy sociopath doesn't seem to make any difference. Maybe all sorts of tiny-minded, puppy-loving and nature-worshipping twits will focus better if they read the details about that unfortunate puppy as "Felix" applies the noose at Che's behest.