When Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams - Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape appeared in 1986 I remember Malcolm Parry telling me it was one of the best books he had ever read. Since I also read fiction (Mac doesn't) I was skeptical but upon reading Arctic Dreams I agreed with Mac. If I flew more often I would probably read more non-fiction. It was on board some airplane that I "discovered" an installment in the New Yorker of John McPhee's wonderful La Place de la Concorde Suisse. I had to read the conclusion of McPhee's account in which he watched and documented (in the admirable McFee way) Swiss Army "refresher" courses with soldier companion Luc Massy. I bought the book. It was around 1995 that I read a Barry Lopez essay in Harper's (again some airplane) on being aboard a cargo Boeing 747 in a world-wide trip and where he wrote:

"In this world, `perishable' refers to more than flowers, food, and newspapers; it includes everything in tenuous fashion: watches, video games, shades of lipstick, a cut of trouser--objects for which a few days' head start on store shelves is crucial."

I was hooked to reading the occasional non-fiction book. With Mac I share a fondness for Henry Petroski's engineering books which include not only To Engineer Is Human but his excellent autobiography Paperboy - Confessions of a Future Engineer. My interest in "engineering" books began when Erich von Däniken published his questionable "non fiction" Chariots of the Gods in 1968. He was hailed as the "father of the ancient astronaut theory". I preferred L. Sprague de Camp's The Ancient Engineers where the credit for the building of all the ancient wonders was convincingly placed on the shoulders of von Däniken's inferior humans. The just released (and on my bed table right now) Mountains of the Pharaohs - The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders by Zahi Hawass (secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities) is no McPhee or Lopez but fascinating, nonetheless.

My friend John Lekich talked, for years, about his favourite non fiction writer A.J. Liebling, to no avail. It was in a copy of Liebling's Between Meals which was on Vancouver Magazine restaurant critic Jamie Maw's living room coffee table when I became a Liebling fan. I read:

Mens san in corpore sano is a contradiction in terms, the fantasy of a Mr. Have-your-cake-and-eat-it. No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures; no ascetic can be considered reliably sane. Hitler was the archetype of the abstemious man. When the other krauts saw him drink water in the Beer Hall they should have known he was not to be trusted.

In 1990 when I photographed author Barry Lopez we found we had one thing in common. While I had been educated by Brothers of the Holy Cross in Austin he had  the same congregation in Notre Dame. We both agreed that our Catholic education had given us a more liberal understanding of the world which somehow gave us a competitive edge in some of our pursuits.

Liberal Catholic Education

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

Kitsilano - December 24, 2020

 Christmas Eve 2019

My Rosemary died on December 9 and since then I have done a lot of staring at the ceiling from my bed and appreciating that Niño and Niña are clinging to me and want my attention all the time.

I have no idea if they sense that Rosemary is not around or if it simply means that cats, the social animals that they are want to be next to the only human left in the house.

When the idea of celebrating Christmas Eve came around (I have celebrated Christmas Eve with Rosemary since 1968 and with our both of our daughters since.  In the last 23 years one our granddaughters have come to enjoy the night.

For many of those Eves Rosemary and I cooked the same dinner. This included a roast beef, Yorkshire pudding (Rosemary’s The Joy of Cooking recipe), my much appreciated beef gravy modified with onions and drippings, a cucumber salad and for dessert Rosemary’s flan.

This year I decided on the same menu. With the help of Hilary we managed a decent Yorkshire pudding and my version of Rosemary’s flan was just that. I was happy.

There was one modification to the drinks. For Hilary and Lauren I made fresh tangerine, orange and lemon drink. But for Bruce Stewart, Rebecca and I we had the lovely Catena Malbec.

A bone of contention for many years, was my telling the granddaughters that I felt tired and sleepy and that we would open the presents under the tree the next day. This year there was no tree. I did not have the heart to buy one and go to the storage room and decide on the ornaments. This is something (the ornament side of it) that Rosemary always did. Our single Christmas decoration was a huge poinsettia that our Friend Time Turner brought earlier in the week leading to Christmas.

Rebecca Anne Stewart

There were no gifts. For Ale and Hilary I bought two digital subscriptions to the NY Times.

Another bone of contention has always been the Christmas photograph. I had the lights ready and as soon as we finished we took the pictures. With the Fuji X-E3 on self-timer I took a few pictures in which one of us managed to close our eyes. Then I brought Niño into the picture (notice how unhappy he looks). But the picture had all our eyes open and it became the keeper.

Lauren Elizabeth Stewart

Earlier in the evening when the Stewarts arrived Rebecca (23) said her clothing was wet. She went upstairs but I did not notice what she was wearing until the Christmas photo happened. It was then that I noticed that she was wearing a lovely Rosemary  black dress with a scoop neck. Rebecca is the only one that can wear Rosemary’s clothing because like Rosemary she is slim. I suggested she pose for me by Turner’s poinsettia while wearing my mother’s red Mexican rebozo. I must state here that the resulting photographs are lovely and somehow the dress and the rebozo brought into our Kits home the presence of my mother and my wife.

I did not photograph Lauren because a few days before she posed with next year’s (she hopes!) prom dress.

My oldest daughter Ale remained in Lillooet because of bad road conditions.