It was a mistake. Coming home one evening, I slumped into an armchair beside Mum. “Can’t go on this way. I’m so depressed. No-one at work likes me. I’m failing all my exams. How can I become an accountant when I can’t even add up? Can I go see a psychiatrist?” At that...
Since his retirement several years ago, my client John and I meet every time he’s back in town. His greeting is always the same. “Oh! I have a whole bunch of bills to pay.” “John, they’re all for the trips you make. You have no mortgage. You spend $20,000 a month...
On a glorious summer’s day, my quintessential London isn’t the tawdry brazenness of Piccadilly, nor the arch-celebration-of-invincibility, Trafalgar Square. It lies in the environs of Green Park tube station. Across the broad boulevard of Piccadilly, overburdened with...
Lou’s best friend once told him “You’re lucky your father was born before you.” Over decades, his family had accumulated a number of rinky-dink 12-suiters across Calgary. In his mid-twenties, with no ambition, Lou became a caretaker of one of those buildings. Lou...
Lulu was Flo’s mum. Flo was my English foster mum. Attending North Town Primary School—a fifteen-minute walk from home—I dropped in every Friday afternoon, to visit Lulu from the age of five to eleven. “Tell Flo I’m at the end o’ me tether.” She would say this every...
Perhaps it wasn’t my home, but Hong Kong sure felt like it. From the age of twelve, I was showered with free airline tickets by my father, an employee of East African Airways. Although rich in tickets, we were poor financially. This meant sleeping on airport floors...
After emigrating to Canada forty-three years ago and being away from my Muslim community ever since, I received a call from them. ”We are trying to bridge the gap between our business community and that of Calgary’s. Would you be interested in joining our committee?”...
“Pops, can we go visit Italy this summer? I have a social studies course on it next September.” How could I refuse? “Lex, if you want to understand a country better, you should compare it to another completely different in character. How about if we start in...
Taking Chris to buy a suit for graduation, we took a shortcut through an alleyway that linked the downtown parking lot to the mall. Out of a large garbage container, a head popped up. It was a homeless man rummaging through a restaurant’s swill, searching for food....
The biggest mistake of my life was teaching The Monster to play Gin Rummy. It was Nanny, my English foster mum who first taught me the game as a child. Recalling those days through adult eyes, I now realize it was a way to spend time with me , all the while asking how...
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