My daughter Lisa was able to interview my mother before she passed away. This is her story. My mother was sister to Brian Ritchie's grandmother Maria Sonego.

The Casagrandes…

I must start off this post by saying that it is not with any political intention that I write it; the story and is posted for heritage, historic and family legacy reasons alone. I also want to state that I have two strong heritage backgrounds in my family, Italian from my beautiful mother, who will be 92 in a few weeks, and Cree from my father. I am immensely proud of both of these heritages but this post deals with the Cree side of our family.

Last Friday, November 27, 2015, I was…

I thought this title might grab your attention. This past September, a group of friends and I celebrated 30 years of what we have come to call the Golf Weekend Classic or GWC. This post is about that group of guys, but its more about creating traditions to preserve the important things and people in your life. In the shot below, you see 6 (dare I say) middle-aged men, that came together once again to share work and family updates, a little golf and a lot of wine, food and laughs.…

Tonight my beautiful wife called me at work and wanted to now were i was ?? . I told her that I was working till 7:30 the same as normal for a Weds , All the changes the Doctor is doing is making her worse not better. So I asked the pharmacist what he though as he is a big help to me , and she said to reduce  one of the pills and see how her pain is and if she is still stoned .I hate doing this to her but to look into her eyes it makes me cry in despair.

So tomorrow I will write a big…

Today Abi called me at work I drive bus for Kids Programs and wanted to know were her PSW was as she had not shown up. I had to explain to her that today was Tues not weds when her PSW comes. Some day she is so confused

She also accused me of taking her pills that she doesn't have anymore and hiding them. I tried to explain to her that they were gone and i ordered a different pill for her and would be in tomorrow which will be in

K 

Happy Birthday to Kaitlin who turns twenty-something today. Below she is pictured in the middle of he Zack and Jared on Christmas 1997 when it appears Tele-Tubbies were all the rage.…

As the primary caregiver for my lovely wife Abi it sometimes looks like we are never going to be Normal again , If it isn't the pain my wife feels or the diabetes or the drugs the doctors keep changing for her it will be the depression that comes with it , I feel so alone in my quest to make her the most comfortable that she can be and it hurts me so. Some days she is not in pain but is higher then a kite with the drugs and it takes all my effort to get her to eat or even go to the…

Stone Unturned

After 18 months, hundreds of joyful hours of writing, rehearsing, recording and producing, Mileage 51's debut album "Stone Unturned" is set to launch.

I know I have reported on this periodically over the course of…

It was a still, hazy early spring morning on Lake Muskoka; April 2 to be exact.  I was alone in the cottage with my English Cocker Spaniel puppy, Phoebe.  The other cottagers were in the city as was my husband.  Every morning for the past six weeks, a crew had been building a dock across the bay, but not today.  Not a soul in sight.  I loved this time of year.  The ice was breaking up on the lake and the only sound was the odd crack.  Total silence; peace.

There was a meeting at the…

These blogs I will use to preserve memories of the past, such as I remember. And I will be as truthful as I can be - but not more!

One Sunday morning, in January or February of 1958, when I was still not quite nine years old, and living in Delhi, my mother sent me with a servant, Sohan Lal by name, for a haircut, to a market about a mile away from our house. (It must have been a Sunday because back then we used to have…

I was a grad student at the time - the seventies of the last century – and the area of my study (what a grand phrase this sounds now – “the area of my study” – but I think I’ll let it stand) was Physics. I had gone to Ohio University, after completing a Master’s degree at Delhi University, India, with the hope of obtaining a Ph.D.

But midway I lost interest, because I thought the problem I was working on was insoluble, and so, in the summer of 1975, I decided to take off for…

I WAS IN THE BALTIC STATES THIS PAST AUGUST, 2015. BEAUTIFUL AND HISTORICLALLY INTERESTING COUNTRIES. LOVELY ARTISTIC PLACES, WITH THE BALTIC SEA. WENT TO BERLIN AND HELSINKI AFTER. NICE TO SEE THAT THEY HAD SYNAOGOGUES THERE,ESPECIALLY IN FINLAND WHERE THEY PROTECTED ALL THEIR JEWS DURING WWII.

FOR THOSE OF US WHO TRAVEL ALONE I HAVE A GREAT TRAVEL COMPANY IN USA, BLUE SKIES TO ALL, MG

I recently had the great pleasure of attending a wedding in northern Spain, in Basque country...actually just on the border to be precise. Two long-time friends Tony and Chen had finally decided to tie the knot and, given their proclivity for great food and wine, opted to hold the ceremony and celebration in a small town called El Ciego in the heart of Rioja.

I…

It’s impossible to relay a life time of memories in a blog. Harder still to write about them on the heels of the untimely and painful loss of a life-long friend. But I owe it to my friend Alain “Boo” Bouillon to try.

I first met Boo in elementary school. My early memories were of a highly energetic, physically strong and precocious young man. He was shaving…

I saw this quote this morning and I was inspired to capture some of the things that visions of countries, teams or even individuals have delivered to the world because they were too driven (or stubborn ;-) to be silenced or demotivated by the naysayers.  

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose…

This story was originally written by my eldest son, Lark, for Billy Pellow's Chapleau Trails book of local stories. I recently re-read it when Brian brought it by my new place in Hamilton to remind me of all the family and to re-live my experience through Lark's words and our old family pictures. Thanks Lark for documenting this story of my life with my own family and with Esher and our four boys.

I was originally nervous about Lark sending the story to Billy for his book but…

As an expat, vacations usually mean going home and trying to jam…

A very special Throwback Thursday of me and my beautiful wife Loreen who I married 32 years ago today. Her and I are pictured here with her family dog Sandy during our honeymoon at our cottages on Prairie Bee Lake.

In some ways it has been a long ride raising our beautiful children and going through our respective career changes; in another way, it seems like we're…

Breaking Down Camp 

Copyright Lark Ritchie, 1998. All rights reserved.