New Year's 2007 -T0 BOLDLY GO ...

What is 'time' - a subjective projection on space?

Tick, tick, tick. There is goes!

It's like water through our fingers or rather, through our very being. We are either gifted or cursed, with the magic ability to ingest and evaluate 'LIFE' -consciousness, as it flows right through us. And we mark 'time' in the dance of life. Terry MacHardy (Class '71) & Family

Time - 365 days for our current concept of a 'year' -a circle based upon the revolving earth and return of the seasons. Circles, rings, -actually loops. The cycle goes around and comes around but never back upon itself. It continues onward and outward and we mark the uniquness of the progress, with this system -'time'.

Perhaps the distinguishing factors on our personal voyage -our loops in space, are lessons garnered through 'experience' and the subsequent changes we put into effect, to create new outcomes and changes in spatial 'life' direction.



(Gary Wilkins Class '71)



Do the loops get smaller and pick up speed as we voyage outward from our beginnings? They seemed longer when I was in High School and were characterized by our 'common' activity or 'comm-unity' or 'comm-union'. I wonder what we as a community, have learned collectively?



"All That Rises Must Converge", says one book title...and perhaps we shall converge once again -briefly- to recognize and reflect upon a 'loop in time' through the symbolic process of 're-union'.

So NOW, we, -true time travellers- boldly step into our new year, perhaps recreating our vision of self (or not).

Happy New Year All.
Les McConnell

Christmas

So here we are.

Me writing and you reading.

An interesting process. There is no evaluating of body language when reading, no facial cues. It is straight from my conscioussness to yours. This really is quite intimate. There are no social filters to distract except for language and one's comprehension of meaning and one's continued interest and focus.

Christmas is many things to many people.

We have the traditions, (-'a virgin birth -man of miracles -son of God' -) the garb of 'organized' Christianity, as set forth almost 300 years after the man -Jesus - died; sanitized of the "Jewish-ness" and made palletable for Romans by Constantine when brokering between competing strains of this snowballing 'after-movement'.

And as of late, we have the purely historical focus on the controlled emergence of the Nag Hammadi "Dead Sea Scrolls", 'the Gnostics' (Gnosis =Knowlege in Greek) ranging from the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary to the Gospel of Judas -wherein Judas is actually a hero; these deemed as heracies by the "established" powers of the church back in that time and reinforced to present day in hopes of dispelling any thought of a continuing 'blood line' -"sang-royale" or 'grail', -holy or not .

Where does 'belief' come into it and what of the 'Christ'-mas?

Putting asisde the 'man forged' religion or husk and focussing upon the underlying message delivered by this (Jewish) Galilean of the House of David, perhaps it comes down to His precription - to be 'careful and considerate' in our communication while treating 'others' as ourselves, - from how we talk to our children, our wives, husbands, partners, friends and strangers - in what we say and what we choose to omit; then continue through to how we behave.

If we put into practice the prescritption, it is thought that we have a shot at integrating our projected (outer) 'child/ego/personality-mask' with our own dormant (inner) 'god' and achieving a higher level of existence (heaven). And one can perhaps achieve this with the help of an organization "Church", priest, teacher (or not).

Words are containers of messages. Our body language and facial gesture create the spin. Ours is a tricky existence. We shift moods, as we might shift gears when driving - almost without thought. We ought to be careful and conscious of inner choice -think before we speak or act.

Perhaps the underlying lesson in "Chrstmas" is more about consciousness; knowing when to implement choice - of "not speaking" or "not doing" - to achieve 'stillness', about striving to attain the ability of cutting through emotional ego-distraction and hugging one's partner, child or friend at the most difficult and vulnerable of times. Would this be the beginning of true 'giving' or "for-giving" and perhaps "real" convergence with a higher existence?

Good luck to us all in the quest given each of us in this life and - yes- Merry Christmas to my old and re-newed friends.

Remember to see each day -as your first and last. This will put a memorable spin on the gifts given and received.

Be well.
Peace be with you -/Shalom aleichem-/Salaam aleikum

Les McConnell.

Louise Lacey - Always hip and without a doubt, always cool.

Louise is one of the key people working with Bob and Gaby Houston, Cindy Houston and Scott Jones along with many other fine people at the company 'A.D. Display' in Chateauguay's Industrial Park.

I was at their Christmas party the other night and was pleased to watch Louise perform with the singer who was hired for the occasion. She has grit, gumption and courage and has brought up a lovely family with her husband Ken. (Schillgalies- Class of 68, I wonder if Mr.Plewinsky remembers how to pronounce his name?).They enjoy canoeing in the summer.

These are two good people.

Old Friends

Can there be anything in this life of greater value?


These old friends are (left) Richard Rankin and (right) Barry Stephens.

Perhaps they do not look quite the same nowadays, but in our collective hearts, they shall never change -two exceptionally bright and most pleasant souls.

Meanwhile, I went to the mall today; that which we used to refer to as "the shopping centre". I had only intended on dropping my client Christmas cards into the mail at the drug store. But then I got to thinking about getting some cards from the art store for my high net worth clients. So I meandered up the mall towards where Zellers used to be- it's now Harts'. I passed by what used to be Radio Shack but is now 'The Source'. No luck. I did not care for the artsy cards at all.

But on the way back two heads appeared over a plie of stacked fruit cake boxes. Mr.Mullahoo! My grade 7 teacher from 1967. "The Man". The lagoon swimmer! One of my all time favorites now retired ( my daughter won an award named after this man) is with the Lions Club! So he has gone on to another level of service. He really is so cool.

You can read about him a bit further in the entry from May 18 or 19 Titled Look Deep into The Past. So- I bought a fruit cake for Christmas.

Saturday Pre Christmas
(Pictures below Rose Mancuso/ Mike Glezos/ Ron Enros -from year books)

Well as you can tell by my blog activity lately, my time is taken up by other things - nailing down pricing on hotel etc, business, the markets
and of course the "bah-humbug" season of spending money -Joy to the Wallet. I feel like I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into the Holiday Spirit.

I become more prickly with age, I think. I mean I'm just getting over the summer for heaven's sake. Christmas music was blaring in the stores the day before Holloween! AHHH!

Yesterday was interesting.
While waiting for Jane to emerge from Indigo downtown, I bumped into Mike Glezos (Grad '72) and Betty - his lovely wife. They had just been to a movie. He's a tech manager with CGI -good company!

Three hours later in Chateauguay, IGA grocery shopping, I bumped into Ron Enros (Grad '70) and caught up on his business. Wow! I never thought E-Bay could be so intensive! It's been a two summers since he was last in my back yard in the gazebo playing guitar with me and Jimmy Williams.

And then - yes - I forgot the margerine! Had to go back to IGA.
And there she was - my old friend Rose Mancuso Bariel (Grad '73) who now works for the School Board. "Just couldn't get enough eh, Rose"!

So now it is 12:35 PM Sunday afternoon, I am writing, as I sit in my pyjamas and I want to be in Westmount in an hour to see and hear my Folk Singer (sister) Glenna McConnell playing as a guest to a Christmas choir. Better get a move on. You should check out Glenna's web site and hear her - she's great! She writes all her own material. Great Album! I love it. (http://www.glennamcconnell.com ).