Moose FM CFBG 99.5 - Muskoka

Today is my wedding anniversary. My wife's too.

We got married in the Year of Orwell, and have managed to hang on for all the years since.

Think of George Orwell, think of his most famous book, and then do the math. I have run out of fingers and toes.

We have been empty nesters now for a few years. Arthur the Airedale is dead, gone and irreplaceable. My wife, Karen, misses him dearly because he was with her 24/7 whereas I am not.

I spend half my time either in Toronto or Ottawa, and the other half at home. My wife misses me too when I am away, but she misses the dog more.

And I am only half kidding.

He was a great dog.

Our daughter Erin — our only child — works for the Harperites in Ottawa as a communications strategist, is engaged to be married next year, and only calls her dear old dad when the moon is blue.

When I was her age, I did the same.

You don't tend to think of your parents until you become one and start feeling old. My mother is 88, and my father has been dead since 1980.

When he died he was the same age I am now.

What I then thought was old, now feels young.

Funny how things change.

There already has been some worrisome inflation.

It happened even before gas prices went through the roof. But now it may get much worse.

Look around. Just about everything in sight --- in my case, a  tv set, furniture, the newspaper, the flooring, the snack I munch on as I write this item ---  everything was delivered by truck. And the cost of fuelling those trucks has jumped just as much as the cost of  fuelling our cars.

You can bet that both the Beer Store and the LCBO soon will boost their prices. Taxis? Public transit?

Last weekend I noticed a great number of boats on driveways and lawns sporting for sale signs.

What`s the impact on shops and restaurants, on theatres and sports events,  as people pour more and more money into their gas tanks rather than their leisure? On tourism?  On charitable donations?

If your car now drinks ninety bucks of gas when not so long ago it was forty, that’s fifty dollars that no longer goes to food, to furniture, to fun, fifty dollars that now goes to big oil rather than small business!