Eavesdropping on a landline and having the skills to be able to hang up without the incriminating ‘click’ 2.        Assuming plans you made a week ago are still happening 3.        Prank calling people because there was no call display 4.        The sweet sound of the dial up tone – can you imagine, not being able to use the phone and the internet at the same time? I know, how DID we survive? 5.        Endlessly debating if Ross and Rachel were really on a break – jury’s still out 6.        Just showing up at someone’s house – who does that? We did, all the time 7.        Getting the last copy of the new release at the video store, THE LAST ONE! 8.        Where you were when the OJ ver...

FULL DISCLOSURE – this story involves skipping school. And skipping school – although exhilarating and rebellious – it is bad. Like grounding bad. Yes, I should have been grounded for what I’m about to tell you, but I wasn’t – but June was. It was a typical grey wintery day in Catana. The snow banks were piled so high that you could barely see the on-coming traffic. And on this randomly regular weekday, we were gifted with the freedom every teenager desires… to borrow the parental car to drive to school. June’s dad was away on business. His car was tucked safely in the garage awaiting his return. On this fine morning, she had the courage to ask her mom to take his car to school. June carefully presented an itinerary of how the day would unfold; outlining where she would go with the car and who would be with her. As added insurance, she kindly reminded her mom of her outstanding grades, obedient nature and a cross-your-heart-hope-to-die promise to come straight home after school. Her m...

To close our Remembrance week stories, I wanted to share why wearing a poppy is important to me. See, our Canadian Forces have been part of my family for generations. My grandfather had a motivational role in the war and played baseball and entertained as a musician for the troops. My dad – an F18 mechanic in the Air Force, ensuring our troops could be scrambled at a moment’s notice. And my husband – also in the Air Force, was a navigator for our fleet of CP-140 Aurora’s keeping our coastlines safe and oceanic threats at bay. Even though the three most influential men in my life rarely speak of their time in the military, I couldn’t be prouder of what they chose to do for our family and for all Canadians. Learning about Remembrance Day and its significance as a young lady growing up in our nation’s capital was monumental. It helped shape my views on selflessness, sacrifice, belief and pride. In elementary school we learned to recite and perform “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, we m...

I remember being over at my grandparent’s house one day, and lined along the outside of the garage were – what looked to me as a ten-year old – antiques. My grandfather would go on to tell me those were his “tools” from when he fought on the front lines in Italy as a young eighteen-year-old in World War II; the one thing I remember most was how small his meal pan looked. My grandfathers never talked about the war and both of my grandmothers were war brides who came over from England. How courageous do you have to be to pack up and leave your family and the only home you have ever known to travel across the ocean and start a new life in a completely different country? Very. I was homesick leaving for university, and that was only two hours away! Much respect to my grandmothers, who I learned later in life were braver than I ever could have understood as a child. We learn about Remembrance Day at a young age in elementary school, but like many things you are taught in school, they ...

  There is nothing more exciting than when you get your license as a teenager and your parents start trusting you to borrow their car – FREEDOM! (And by trusting you I mean holding their breath until you return it in the driveway in one piece – which let’s be honest, didn’t always happen…) But first, getting that license required the successful completion of driving school. My younger sister, brother and I all had the same in-car driving instructor and collectively agreed he looked like Tommy Lee Jones – and also realized over the course of conversations later in life that he always made us swing by his house because he’d forget to turn the coffee machine off or close the garage door or let the dog out?! Perks of the job I guess... Once you pass that nerve-wracking driver’s test – even with the points I got docked because when stopped at an intersection my examiner scolded me for not looking in the bushes thoroughly enough, “There could be wildlife that runs out!” – it’s by...