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THE LODGER AND THE GRAVITARG

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By Alan Gratias

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VALDO GOES TO SCHOOL

My father was an enigma to everyone, his three children not excepted. Perhaps even to himself. He was the most reserved but intelligent man any of his peers had encountered. He said so little that you might have thought him border line autistic except what he offered when he spoke was so insightful, sometimes scary smart, that his companions often fell silent in response, which rendered Orvald even more withdrawn... | read |

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BETTY GOES DANCING

"Look after Mum," Dad implored from his hospital bed quarantined from the rest of the floor, "she's not well."

He had been rushed to the Ottawa General Hospital in the middle of the night from my house in Rockcliffe Park. I had been woken by the night nurse who had called for an ambulance. His breathing had been irregular before the violent coughing fit, a residue from the pneumonia we thought he had recovered from. At eighty seven, lung congestion is hard to shake... | read |

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MY TURN FOR GAGSIE

I brought her tea as usual that Wednesday morning. The door was ajar but no one responded to my calls. Mother was a determined night wanderer. Usually I found her in a night gown lost on the neighborhood streets or in the library with the dogs. When she first moved in, Mum continued the ritual she had practiced with my father. In the early hours of the morning, she would come into my room with a jug of water, pour it on me and climb into bed... | read |

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"I'LL FIND YOU A WEELBARROW"

Camp Nominingue is a residential wilderness camp in the Laurentians, four hours north of Montreal. Founded in 1925 by the Van Wagner family, and set on 400 acres on the shores of Lac Nominingue, the summer camp is based on the belief that the self-esteem of young boys grows the longer they live in tents and go on canoe trips. Families, who want to get rid of their sons for the summer, send them to Camp Nominingue. Deo and I lived under canvas for July and August for nine consecutive years, from age 7 to 16. We enjoyed our annual banishment, accumulating the maximum number of points for our Indian headdress shield of feathers... | read |

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A familiy chronicle by Alan Gratias. Alan Gratias is the founder and creative director of Gravitatis Entertainment and former agriculture trade negotiator in Ottawa.  He has published a book, The Completely Civil Servant (Eden Press), a satire on public service.

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