Christmas Greetings

(This is a column originally published for Christmas in 1992. Hope you enjoy it and may you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2007-08)


The Christmas spirit touched me early this year and I'm not sure
why. Normally I don't think much about the holiday until it's almost
here but this year is different. I found myself humming Christmas
music weeks ago and I keep day dreaming about, of all things, going
for an old fashioned sleigh ride. I've never been in a horse drawn
sleigh in my life and yet there I am, at least in my imagination,
riding through the woods and over the hills toward a far off village.
I can hear the jingling sleigh bells and feel the cold on my cheeks.
It's like living in a Christmas card. This is strange behavior for
someone who tends to be a little like Scrooge at this time of year.

You see I love Christmas itself, I just don't like all the fuss
and planning and hype that goes along with it. I'm uncomfortable with
the Christmas buying frenzy that's underway now and I feel the holiday
has become much too hectic for most people. And yet, I still find
myself in this mysterious Christmassy mood.

Even the Christmas chores, as I call them, couldn't destroy the
seasonal spirit that's infected me. Putting up the outside lights is
always a miserable job. They're tangled, bulbs are missing and it
takes an hour of fiddling just to get them working. In my wisdom this
year I decided to put them up the day of our first big snow storm of
the winter. My fingers were frozen, strings of lights decided to stop
working just after I placed them at the very top of the tree. These
are the joys of Christmas. It was a frustrating afternoon but you
know once the job was done and the lights were sparkling in the trees,
that darn Christmas feeling came back again.

I probably shouldn't be feeling this way. The last few months
have been difficult and painful for a lot of people. More then ever
before, I've seen the toll this damn, never ending recession is taking
on peoples lives. Times are tough for everyone and many families are
just scraping by. Others are dealing with sickness in the family or
the death of a loved one. For many people there isn't a lot to be
happy about this holiday season.

Maybe that's why Christmas seems so special this year? Maybe
it's just the tonic we need to help us get through these difficult
times. After all, isn't the magic of Christmas partly about sharing,
and caring for others and hoping for a better future? I think it is.

Yes, I'm looking forward to the holiday this year. I guess the
spirit of Christmas has really worked it's magic on me. Who knows,
maybe those Christmas Card sleigh rides of my imagination will turn
into the real thing. I have to go. The tree still has to be
decorated and I think I hear sleigh bells.

Merry Christmas.

Allen's Wall

(This is a column originally published in November, 1992. As far as I know, the wall is still there and still a mystery.)


It's not every day you go on an archeological expedition to the ruins of an old fort. It's even rarer if that fort is in your own backyard. But that's what happened one day this past summer on the Kingston Peninsula. Allen Gorham lead an expedition of sorts to the site of an old rock wall he's known about for years.

"When we were kids we came down here to play and look for Indian arrow heads and cannon balls and stuff." Allen says laughing, "Of course we didn't find any because we didn't even know what an arrow head looked like. But I've been told all my life that this wall is part of an old French fort."

The wall or fort or whatever it is stretches for about 200 feet through the woods at Gregory Point, just below Crystal Beach. It's about four feet high and three feet thick in most places and is made of field stones and boulders. It stands about a hundred feet from the waters edge, where the river bends and flows toward Westfield and Grand Bay. It's been here for a long time and yet few know of it's existence. But that could change.

Allen Gorham invited a special guest along on this expedition to the wall. He's Dr. Chris Turnbull, the Provincial Archeologist. Chris had heard about this rock structure before but never seen it. He was getting excited as he followed Allen along the beach and then through the woods toward the site. Dr. Turnbull has done this sort of thing before. He often gets asked by people to check out something on their property or an unusual structure they know about. In fact some of the most exciting archeological sites in the maritimes have been discovered this way.

After a careful examination of the wall, Chris Turnbull admitted he's never seen anything quite like this before. "The problem is that forts usually aren't just simply long walls like this, they're small enclosed areas." he said. "And French forts in particular are usually very small structures." He believes it's of European origin because native societies generally didn't build rock walls like this but he can't understand why it would be built here.

"Archeologists of course deal in probabilities and it certainly is a rock wall, it was put together by people for some reason but as to exactly when and for what reason we'd have to undertake some digging along here to uncover some artifacts." said Dr. Turnbull. "People have been living in a disposable mode for a long time and that disposal is the stuff we use to date things."

This expedition has been a great success for Allen Gorham. He's been assured by the expert that his mystery wall is indeed authentic and historic but to find out any more is going to take some digging both in the ground and in the archives. And Dr. Chris Turnbull promises this will happen at some point but he can't give Allen a date. That' OK though. The wall's been here for many years. It and Allen can wait a little longer.

For now this stone structure is being officially called "Allen"s Wall". "I'll go for that." Allen says with a hearty laugh. "I'll finally have something named after me."