Knowing by Heart
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These columns were originally published in the Kings County Record between 1984 and 2016.
The illustrations are by Alice, most of the photographs are by Lee

Hopeless but not serious

24/10/2019

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​We sought out a column that would cover the Halloween season (or Hallowe'en as you'll soon see), and this one struck us as highly appropriate. By the time you read this, the election results will be known... but it's fitting nonetheless. This version has been lightly edited, but was originally published in October of 1985 (the first year Jacob Erdman graced the pages of the Kings County Record), please enjoy.
 
Somebody was doing a program on the radio the other day, playing autumn songs. You know what I mean ... September Song, Autumn Leaves, Autumn in New York, that sort of thing. Of course, it wasn't even fall yet but why should that bother anybody when the decorations for what seems to be one of the major Christian festivals – Hallowe'en – have been on sale in all the shops for weeks?
I hope you noticed the apostrophe there in the word Hallowe'en folks. It is there because e'en is short for evening just as e'er and ne'er are old-fashioned short forms of ever and never. The "Hallow" part is short for All-hallows, and that is a very old way of saying All-holies, or All-saints. So, the first of November is the day on which we should remember all the holy people, known and unknown, down through the ages, and Hallowe'en is the evening before that. Q.E.D.

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Jesse Ramsden, procrastination, and the Arrow of Time

17/10/2019

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This was originally published exactly thirty years ago today on the 17th of October 1989. Enjoy!  Given the topic, you won't want to put it aside for later.  Read it now!  ​
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Image Credit: Kristin Chisolm
Have you heard of the honorable Jesse Ramsden, a scientific-instrument maker living in London in the nineteenth century? Apparently, he was somewhat unpunctual. He delivered an instrument he had been commissioned to make to Dunsink Observatory in Dublin twenty-three years late. Furthermore, he once appeared at Buckingham Palace for a party on the correct day and hour, but exactly one year too late.
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​Jesse Ramsden, Esq., was a very good instrument maker; the Dublin observatory was apparently delighted with the instrument when they finally got it. There is no word on the reaction of the Royal family at the appearance of the party-goer 365 days after they had seen the last guest out the door.

​But the thing is, no one gives him credit for being a really inspired procrastinator.

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    Words & Images

    We moved to our farm in Sussex, New Brunswick from Toronto in 1977, only moving away in 2014. 

    For over 30 years of our life there, I wrote a weekly column for the Kings County Record in Sussex chronicling the little events that are the heart of ‘daily life’ in a small place in the country.  These blog posts are drawn from those columns.

    The weekly column became, over the years, a series of bench-marks or surveyor’s stakes to record the contours of the place we lived, its dreaming hills and fertile valleys, icy chasms and swift-flowing streams. 

    While I no longer live on the farm, we continue to share the columns from time to time on this blog.  And very soon you will be able to read my book!  To be published in December 2019.  

    ----
    Images on the blog are drawn from my own photography,  and my wife Alice's artwork.  We occasionally resort to other people's images when nothing we have on hand suits the content of the post.  

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