RUNNING ON ITS OWN

We enjoy going out for breakfast on a Sunday morning. To

a restaurant In Woodbridge called Denny’s. You order comes

on a motorized three-level tray on wheels.

It stops at your table and waits for a waiter to serve you.

It’s fascinating to watch.

I ask him how the thing works.

He points to the ceiling where a group of small round

discs seemingly control where it’s to go. To which table.

“Someone in the kitchen loads up what you ordered," he said, "and

pushes, in your case, number 66. And off it goes. Right to you.”

I look around at the many tables and chairs scattered about

in no particular order. It left me puzzling how it could manipulate

its way without bumping into something.

“It will stop,” he said, “if anyone is in its path.”

The waiter was telling us this while placing our breakfasts in

front us. He disappeared and it toddled on back to the kitchen on

its own.

Writer’s comment: I’m stumped at such situations like this. How

can it work on its own with no one paying attention? It even waited

to let us pass as we headed out the door.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY-YOU BET!

My mom never liked Mother’s Day! Ugh. “It’s a total waste of time, effort,”

she’d grumble. We, my older sister, Anne and I would shrug it off

knowing she enjoyed us making a fuss about it.

Louise Wallace. Born in Rosedale, that uppity part of Toronto. She

went to Bishop Strachan Private School and would later marry

an Anglican clergyman from the small village of Woodbridge, Ontario.

His father represented the area as an elected Member of

Parliament in Ottawa.

My dad, a dashing figure of a guy, must’ve swept my mom off

her feet when he asked her to marry him.

What a woman. Straight out of Rosedale to become a cleric’s wife.

And loved by everyone around her.

My sister Anne came along first, then me. What did they call me? Nathaniel

Clarke Wallace (#3). ‘Clarke’ for short.

It was my mother who took over when my dad died. She gave me

the balls, as it were, to make sure I wouldn’t be pushed around.

When my wife Rosanne and I had a son, what did we call him?

Nathaniel Clarke Wallace (1V) aka Nathaniel. Nat for short.

Writer’s comment: There was something Louise (Lockhart) Wallace

insisted on with me growing up. She let me make my own choices.

Even when she knew all hell would break loose every now and again.

My mother, long gone but in no way forgotten.