Thoughts from Chickadee Lane

Space Call Nov 26, 2022 This week I listened in on an ‘out of this world’ call.   On Wednesday, our granddaughter Avery was one of several students from Five Bridges Junior High, Upper Tantallon, NS, who chatted with Josh Cassada, one of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Students sat on the floor in the school gymnasium, while those asking the questions sat on the stage. Each student asked their question and Josh replied one by one as if he was actually in the room. And he was.   Not only was I able to listen in on the questions, I was able to watch it live streamed to my cell phone while I sat in a car in the Superstore parking lot. I am in awe at the wonder of it all - that humans can do such miraculous things. There I was, watching, through prescription glasses, and listening with bionic hearing aids, in on a conversation between a group of students in Nova Scotia, talking with an astronaut orbiting the earth at an altitude of 408 km! AND this conversation

  Lean on Me by Elizabeth Stevenson Yesterday I was gifted with a lovely email - one that brought a smile. A friend had just purchased a new cane - the beautiful red cane you see above. Since this cane is to become her daily companion she thought it should have a name (Why not?) and asked for suggestions. How about “Splash” I suggested, imagining my friend getting ready to head outdoors calling out “Ok Splash, let’s go.” Or, when the cane went missing, calling out - “Splash, where the —- are you hiding?”   My friend is one of four friends who studied together at the Atlantic School of Theology. This week we gathered for what is lovingly called the “19th Hole.” Golfers will know the reference. It’s where you go after an 18 hole golf game to debrief the game, to share stories and a beverage or two.   In theology school, several of us adopted the name “19th Hole” to describe the debriefing sessions after a late evening class. There we would gather to ponder “What the heck was that all ab

                                                                                                             "where poppies grow" Growing up I knew nothing of war. In fact, the only thing I really knew about war was from movies and books in which war was often romanticized. Yet the presence of war hung around our home. Literally. The big farm house in which I grew up has a front stairs and a back stairs. A door off the kitchen led to the back stairs - a narrow circular stair case - a great place to hide ‘stuff’ when visitors arrived unexpectedly.   The front stairs is more elegant, without twists and turns. Along the staircase hung a long narrow vintage WW1 picture, about 4 ft   X 15 inches, of about 100 men dressed in uniform. One of those men in the long picture was my great uncle Theophilus McCoubrey, only brother of my paternal grandmother Beatrice who lived with us. Theo was one of the thousands killed overseas in WW1. Another picture of Theo hung in the parlour (the liv