It doesn't take much

As my cousin Tim Burtch often says, LIFE IS GOOD! 

This weekend that just passed has yet again proven that there's infinite wisdom in those simple words as I enjoyed a few events that left me smiling widely, my soul enriched, and my body thankful.

The world of education is not a really big place, especially if you are involved with extra-curricular activities, usually meaning that names and faces of teachers at other schools are familiar. When I spent all of those years at Central, I was familiar with many of the North teachers who so willing donated their time for sports, especially the sports I was interested in. Although they were often a passing acquaintance, there was mutual respect and admiration since we were generally "cut from the same cloth" with similar background stories about paying it forward for the gifts we enjoyed as high school athletes.

One of those familiar faces was Gary Hamilton at Barrie North.

Once the closing of Central passed, the dust settled with my transfer, and the anxiety of changing schools after so many years waned, I began to build some new bridges with the long time HPE staff at Barrie North, a feat that was made infinitely easier by their kind hearts, welcoming smiles, and positive attitudes. Our group quickly hurdled the awkwardness of new friendships, sharing our stories from the "trenches", and swiftly finding commonalities in both personality and mindset. While all of my new colleagues became new friends at a staggering pace, there was a just a shade more connection with Gary. It was not a significant amount, but palpable and recognizable, born out of a genuine intention on his part to strengthen the bonds of our emerging friendship. Gary is kind, warm, positive, engaging, funny, and caring all bottled up in a larger-than-life personality that endears him to the staff and students that he interacts with. His booming baritone echos throughout the halls of North as he kibitzes and celebrates the great things housed within North's walls ... and its surroundings.

The greatest compliment I can give Gary is that he's really easy to be friends with.

A few weeks back, one of the football coaches, Ian Hunter, reached out to me with news that Gary was turning 50 and his wife Pam wished to surprise him with a bit of a gathering. Ian wanted to know if I wised to join in. It might seem pretty innocent, but I will tell you that it struck my as extremely generous and flattering that I was considered by Ian and Gary's family as someone that should be there to celebrate said milestone. Even though I was now living in Guelph, I knew that I had to put this occasion in the calendar because I felt strongly that I needed to show Gary how much his friendship meant to me.

The big event turned out to be a new experience since Pam had arranged the affair at Linx Kitchen + Social, a relatively new establishment in Barrie's south end that featured high end golf simulators in a licensed restaurant. Really, if you like golf, this place is an oasis in the frozen tundra of a Canadian springtime, where you can swing the clubs with your pals while you consume things that you know are taboo, but are so tasty that you choose the path of debauchery willingly. Upon arriving at Linx, I realized that the relatively small group was split along lines of school buddies and life friends, and as I would have guessed, despite being from a wide assortment of backgrounds, we were all similar in personality. I even got the added bonus of spending some time with my nephew Marcus, my brother Rob's firstborn, who has spent the years since graduating from North assisting Gary with the football program. Suffice it to say there was a lot of banter, smiling, and laughing as we enjoyed an informal 9-hole tournament complete with longest drives, closest to the pins, low gross scores, and mulligans ... or F12's ... this was a computer simulator after all.

As anyone who knows Gary at all might suspect, he was incredulous that so many that he values would make the effort to be there, felt humbled by the gesture, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Pam had arranged for some most delicious snacks at each of the simulators, leaving me feel a little embarrassed by her extreme generosity, compounded by the fact that she wouldn't allow me to make a contribution to the cost. I had brought a small token of friendship with a customary birthday card, complete with a personal message about the value I assign to our friendship, but I was floored by a text from Gary as I was returning to Guelph whose message prompted an unaccustomed blushing response, a big deal if you know me at all. 

Yep, Gary is really easy to be friends with.

If you were paying any attention during that weekend, you will have noticed that Mother Nature felt just a wee bit reticent about her recent snow storms and gifted us with one of the most fantastic Sundays on the 2022 calendar. With warm 20+ C temperatures, cloudless skies, and heavenly breezes it was idyllic to say the least. As you might have guessed, there was no way that this bike lover wasn't going to rip off a glorious chunk of km's in celebration of such an event. Settling into my ride with no particular destination in mind, I was entranced once again by the rural beauty of the Guelph area, the agricultural business of spring in full display, the scents of nature blossoming filling my nostrils, and the thrills of being back outside on my steed. My meanderings soon pointed toward the hamlet of Erin and its famous cycling destination, the Tin Roof Cafe, a popular waypoint for travellers of any mode, thanks to it's tremendous assortment of delectable treats. You don't have to be a cyclist to recognize the dopamine-induced glory of a piping hot coffee and a fresh ginger snap cookie ... but it certainly helps. If you aren't one, and you'd like some help with finding a choice little bakery in your area, seek out a local cyclist because they always know where the hidden gems are. Hey, it's a bike thing!

If those happenings weren't enough to pull at the corners of your grin, the piece de resistance was my inaugural exposure to the phenomenon that is the adult basketball league hosted by the Athlete Institute in Orangeville. Having accepted the assignment to referee a few games, I was venturing into uncharted waters, complete with anxiety-spawned snapping alligators born from past adult league experiences, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that while there were definitely a few gators, they were relatively harmless and docile. The institute was filled with teenage spirit, albeit bottled up in the girth of middle age, as yesterday-year's athletes struggled to find their game as their mind's vision was unmatched by their body's production, prompting frustration that occasionally targeted this NEWB "zebra" about calls missed or made. It sounds way worse than it was and I found myself on many occasions audibly laughing at the antics before my eyes. 

As I parked the RAV in the late night darkness, I found myself pausing in recollection of the blessings bestowed upon me, especially those of the past 48 hours, and I caught the twinkle of the streetlight in the wrinkled corner of my eye as I glanced in the rearview mirror. 

LIFE is most assuredly GOOD.

The view from my window

The view from my window ... Supplying all week for a basketball buddy who is on staff at JF Ross SS in Guelph.

It's an interesting turn of events, that's for sure, but not BAD interesting, more of a CURIOUS interesting since I had little to no idea what it wold be like to do an extended stay at a school that I have such a small footprint in. Even when I moved to BNC after a long stay at BCC, I knew people, was known by people, was familiar with the area, knew my way around the school, and didn't really feel anxiety in any form.

My BB buddy is Bill Price, a longtime teacher/coach at Ross. We met via the hardcourt after one of his players transitioned to more elite opportunities that I was involved in, then we built our friendship as we found ourselves facing each other across the timer's table. One thing lead to another and a quality bond of kinship materialized allowing us to share thoughts, opinions, strategies and jabs over the many years that have passed. When Bill had to be absent from class for a few days, he asked his admin if I could fill in. I was quite flattered that they would consent to an emergency supply taking an extended absence.

Prior to this week, I'd done a few days at Ross so I had a general idea of the layout for the school, but I was a definite unknown to the admin, staff and students so there was a small, albeit palpable, level of anxiety on that first day. Ross is a huge school! Way larger than schools in Simcoe County with a student population of just shy of 2200, and I let some of my unjustified, stereotypical anxieties get the better of me prior to that first day. 

Such a NEWB thing to do!

I am pleased to report that the experience has been stellar! I was tasked with delivery of a curriculum I had little experience with in two Gr10 histories and a G12 Challenge & Change, but at least I had a functioning knowledge of both. I should have known, but was pleasantly surprised, that kids are kids regardless of school size or community, and like the proverbial "riding a bike." I found my edu-mojo quickly. I would suspect that some of the credit for the smooth seas I was charting goes to Bill since he's quick with a smile, has great people skills, and is Uber intelligent, so I'd venture a guess that the kids were responding that way thanks largely to his previous guidance. Throughout the week we shared thoughts, opinions and quite a few laughs as we stumbled our way through some hyper-sensitive material like the Holocaust and organ donation. We even enjoyed the great outdoors for a writing session in JFR's quadrangle!

All in all, it was quite an enjoyable week!

To my former colleagues still attempting to stamp out the seeds of ignorance, I feel and see you and your daily grind combatting the siren's call of the device. Teaching these days is like herding cats, and I found my reflexive eye-roll to student opposition of the advice I was offering about their distraction levels didn't really warm them to me. As an aside, I did share a pretty cool graphic that I found whilst trolling the Interweb that graphically outlined the disruptive power of said devices, but some would've had to actually look up from their crotches to digest my message. The crux of the photo is a teacher who somehow bought the cooperation of her class to tally the device interruptions for an entire period. For us old geezers it's a powerful pic that sheds some light on the mental tug-of-war these teens and tweens are dealing with daily. 

Having said that, if that's my only complaint, I'm doing pretty gosh darn well.

Friday's my week's end, a gloriously sunny day, and while 4 days in a row is not a goal I would choose to set regularly, I'm glad that I could help out a friend, rekindle my edu-mojo, and gather a few shekels in the process. 

#GDTBATH

I bleed Carolina Blue!

I couldn't be very much happier with my loyalty than I am right now following the 2022 March Madness, aka the NCAA Men's D1 Basketball Championships! Well, maybe a little bit happier, like perhaps if we'd won, but I have to say that a lot of my buddies ate a sizeable portion of crow thanks my good ol' Heels bracket-busting antics this year!

I have a bunch of really old friends! I have had them a really long time AND they're really old!

As I have stated on this Blog in previous posts, my friends are very important to me. Most of the time we agree, especially on the important stuff, but when it comes to the teams we support in the wide variety of sports we pay attention to? Well, let's just say we have more than our fair share of "discussions". Some of the the most heated ones surround our allegiances when it comes to March Madness but I've never wavered from my complete devotion to the UNC Tar Heels, a relationship that goes back to my very early years. They've provided fans like me with year after year of tremendous ACC rivalries, deep runs into the tournament, and incredibly talented players ... anyone recall a skinny freshman, last name Jordan, knocking down the winning shot in '82?

If you really don't follow NCAA hoops, I'm not at all sure why we're good enough friends that you'd be reading this. HaHaHa ... just poking fun! I'd like you to know that my Tar Heels have proven to be the class of the NCAA for many, many years, and as only one example, hold a number of indicators of long, storied success like holding the record for the most Final Four appearances. CLICK HERE if you wish to read more about those records. TBH, I love watching all of the NCAA schools that make up the Madness because I find the tournament of extreme entertainment value, far greater than the NBA in my books. I'm on the edge of my seat each year as some underdog makes a run in the tournament ... St Peter's this year ... ousting long established blue chip programs by embracing the one and done nature of the Madness. 

I wager that almost any fan of college basketball has heard of North Carolina, but there may be less who could recall the coaches responsible for that incredible longevity in the national limelight. My love affair with UNC started in grade 5 thanks to an east end playground legend from my Johnson Street PS days, Jimmy Stevenson. They were his team,  and as a newbie hoopster, I really looked up to Jimmy so I of course followed in his footsteps. 

I have not regretted it a single year since. 

The coach when I was 10 was the unbelievable Dean Smith, a legend of the game who, for a short time, held the record for the most number of career wins until some skinny West Point grad from down the road recently took it over ... Coach K is easily in to top 5 to ever coach D1 basketball and has my deep respect ... despite where the school he coached. During my time rooting for the Heels, I was a huge fan of Coach Smith until his retirement in 1997 (and shed a couple of tears in 2015 with his passing). I tolerated the the Bill Guthridge years (not a huge fan though), was luke warm with the Matt Doherty years, then did a jig when Roy Williams returned to Chapel Hill in 2003 after a successful stint in Kansas. Williams both played and coached at UNC. 

The 2021-2022 season became one of note when former player and coach Hubert Davis replaced the retiring coach Williams partly because Davis is the first African American head coach in UNC history, but it's mostly about his abilities, not his skin tone. Following their 23-8 season, Davis was recently named the Clarence “Big House” Gaines College Basketball Coaches of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Additionally, the publication CollegeInsider.com named Davis the John McLendon Award as the 2021-22 National Coach of the Year. The award covers all divisions in college basketball from D-I, D-II, D-III, NAIA and NJCAA.

One of the Dean Smith thumbprints on UNC program is what he coined, "The Carolina Way" and it embodied his personal philosophy surrounding a successful life but enshrined in it was his method of coaching the entire athlete. He believed in following a process that would keep his players focused on the things they could control. It was never about the wins, and in fact, former players say Smith rarely mentioned winning to them. It was all about the process.

The Carolina Way is essentially something simple ... PLAY HARD; PLAY SMART; PLAY TOGETHER. 

Unfortunately, like all great things, people occasionally lose their way and being constantly in the limelight like UNC leads to a lot of opinions finding "ink" in the mass media, opinions that might be counter to the Carolina Way. If you'd like to read more about UNC's stumbles CLICK HERE but I'm going to leave it at that for this post. For me, the proof is in the pudding ... the pudding being the records held plus the tremendous graduation stats.

Quite a while back, I put watching my Heels live at the Dean Dome on my bucket list, and I was as giggly as a school girl when I realized that dream in 2019. I have been blessed with a wife who is eager to share all of my craziness, and willingly tags along as we trapse around North America visiting college campuses for games. The atmosphere in the Dean Dome is electric, the signs of legendary success hung from the rafters in prominence, the fans as loyal as any in the world, and the smiles as wide as the Grand Canyon. I'm 1 and 0 at live UNC games, a streak that will be put to the test when we can finally enjoy NCAA events live again without worrying about infectious ailments. 

As for April 4th, 2022, it was indeed #gdtbath ... a Good Day To Be A Tar Heel!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

As the iconic David Bowie once crooned, "Ch-ch-ch-changes ... time may change me, but I can't trace time." 

You'd think that retirement would be pretty stable without the ever-present tide of change lapping at your shoes, but you'd be dead wrong, or at least from the lens I view it through. 2022 has been fraught with new happenings and events from returning to the hardcourt as a referee, our first "Snowbird" experience, the return to supply work in Simcoe County, and the beginning of emergency supply work in Guelph, but easily the most significant will be pulling up our relatively shallow roots and moving to "The Beach".

Yes, you read that correctly.
"The Beach" 

... as in Wasaga Beach .

.. the world's best and longest freshwater beach 

... the gem of Clearview Township 

... situated on the eastern shores of Georgian Bay. 

Yes, THAT beach.

How that BIG CHANGE transpired is a little bit of a story.

As regular readers of this Blog will know, Joyce and I sold our Barrie home of 30 years in the spring of 2020, and I convinced her that a move to Guelph to experience the charm of an old, established central Ontario city, the beauty of the surrounding Wellington County, and the buzz of a university town was what I really wished. What we found over the past 10 months more than met our expectations as we explored as much as the area had to offer. Thinking with financial prudence, we decided to rent a condo on the off chance that it wasn't what we anticipated after 30 years in a detached 2-story, but we soon came to the realization that it was silly to pay someone else's mortgage when we had a sizeable chunk of the proceeds from our house sale to apply to a new place to call our very own. 

We knew that the search would require someone who knew this area and it's real estate peculiarities better than us, and based on the recommendation of our realtor back in Barrie (BCC old boy Tomas Sample of C21), we reached out to Nick Fitzgibbon (Coldwell Banker), an old hockey buddy of Tomas', for guidance. As it would turn out, Nick was a total pleasure to work with, was extremely knowledgable and insightful, and quickly started sending potential properties our way. As the months passed, we viewed a number of potentials that checked most of the boxes we had determined were important to our future, some of which we almost pulled the trigger on, and we successfully pruned the branches to reveal the neighbourhoods that were the most desirable. 

The sad truth of the matter is that we LOVE the city and would gladly choose to establish a permanent base here, but the realities of this cursed real estate boom have resulted in ridiculously swollen costs for the properties that we would consider and we begrudgingly acknowledged that Guelph may have to come off the list. During the soul searching about which path to take, we came to the realization that some of the reasons we chose Guelph were not longer topping the list, giving birth to the notion of returning to Simcoe County. We were still adamant that we would forgo returning to the city of Barrie, but with so many awesome communities in Simcoe, we figured that there was a wide assortment of choices. In the end, the lure of "The Beach" proved powerful and we enlisted Tomas' assistance with the search. 

Our time in Guelph cemented our resolve that a condo was the choice for us for a wide variety of reasons, and after a couple of viewings we established a list of Wasaga neighbourhoods and sat back to patiently wait for a desirable listing. The top choice on my Google list of recents searches quickly became the popular Realtor.ca. After a few weeks of searching, an offering that checked almost all of our boxes appeared, but soon after our viewing, it sold conditionally in less than 36 hours. We kicked ourselves for not being ready to pull the trigger, but as karma would have it, the following week an even more desirable unit in the same building popped up so we immediately set the wheels in motion for a viewing, and after numerous discussions, submitted an offer that was quickly accepted, much to our surprise. Cue the scramble to put our ducks in a row!

You know that it couldn't possibly go smoothly, correct?

After the email flurry with our investment guy, Tim Laine, to make the deposit funds available, and scratching our heads over why in these cyber times one still has to pay for a physical bank draft to be able to transfer the funds from one bank to another, we were told that the teller at our bank had filled out the draft incorrectly, beginning a back and forth between our bank and the real estate bank that thankfully resulted in successfully giving away 1000's of our hard earned dollars in the form of a deposit. Following the legal ballet involving the status certificate, Tomas delivered the exciting news that we would be moving just before the summer holidays!

I don't mind sharing that this whole process was charged with nervous energy since the last time we purchased a home was 30 years ago, and the financial commitment was SIGNIFICANTLY less. Don't get me wrong, we're Uber excited by the whole affair, but we'd be lying if we didn't acknowledge the anxiety.

As I alluded to earlier in this post, one of the other BIG CHANGES was a return to the classroom in the role of supply following our winter in sunny FLA. SCDSB asks that all teachers on their regular supply list declare a minimum of 4 schools to be available to, but the reality for me is that I limit myself to only one location, partially because of the comfort of familiarity, but also the sensible reduction of exposure to Covid. While I love returning to Barrie, the 4 hours in commute often prompts the necessity of staying over one or two nights, and thanks to my mom's continuing generosity and her condo on the waterfront, the problem is solved. In an effort to solve the travel woes, I twice applied to the UGDSB to join their supply list, but was curiously ignored, a stab square in my ego. As luck would have it, during a catch up with a an old BB friend, Bill Price, after refereeing at his school, he introduced me to his VP and the conversation eventually wound its way to the glaring lack of supply teachers in Guelph. 48 hours later, this old fart was on the list of "emergency" supply teachers for Bill's school JF Ross!

 Perfect! I didn't wish to to fill in at multiple schools anyway. 

I recently accepted my first couple of days of emergency supply and I don't mind admitting that it was indeed intimidating being in a new school, navigating a new layout, meeting new colleagues, interacting with new students, and developing new expectations. Definitely NOT afraid, but decidedly anxious. Thankfully, the anxiety proved unfounded as I quickly settled back into the groove and shared a bunch of giggles and laughs with the new students. Now all I have to do is keep the supply requests from SCDSB and UGDSB organized! I'm choosing to work a number of supply days between the two because (a) both boards desperately need the help this spring and (b) the extra cash will help with funding the Snowbird account for next winter.

"Time may change me, but I can trace time."