Alex Carrick’s Blog

Gerry Westerfield was the kind of 25- to 30-year-old who disappears into the background. He grew his mat-black hair long, cultivated a beard and was perpetually attired in denim. He’d studied computer science at Sir Wilfred Laurier University but hadn’t quite earned his degree. There was no question he was a savant when it came to […]

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Little Jimmy Flotsam, aged 10 and living in Tampa, had never known Christmas. The current year was 2025 and in 2015 Santa Claus and his wife had wrapped things up at the North Pole and skipped town, so to speak. In a sadly mimicking blow, Jimmy’s father abandoned his family when his only child was […]

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It’s a terror nearly as elemental as the fear of dying. It can bring strong men to their knees and turn the smartest of women into incoherent babblers. Maybe you already know where I’m headed. It’s public speaking and there’s nothing else quite like its scary prospect. Many people would rather go through a spinal […]

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Life had been sweet on the planet Lollipop. Barney Bracken, a young fortyish married man with children, was living his life according to five simple rules: 1) don’t become addicted to alcohol; 2) don’t become addicted to mood-altering drugs; 3) have a decent job that pays a good living; 4) cultivate true friends; and 5) do whatever […]

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I have a story I know needs to be handled with delicacy. Thank goodness “finesse” is one of my middle names. The media often give coverage to some hapless and usually incompetent bad guy who robs a liquor store. However, this time it was the liquor store that robbed me and I’m not happy about it. Nor […]

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In a vision, he’d once seen another seagull in a top hat dancing at the Trocadero. It was the most elegant thing ever. He became entranced by imagery and longed to give expression to his own special voice. There was no doubt, he was a poet at heart.   That’s what his girlfriend, Sandy Barr, told him. Never […]

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I made it. I’m free. I can’t believe it. This is so great!   I can hear them talking below me. They think this is a tragedy and it’s making them sad. They suspect the tree was lurking to ensnare me. They couldn’t be more wrong. I saw my opportunity and I took it.   The […]

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North of the city, this past weekend, I eaves-dropped on the following conversation in a local diner.   MAN: Do ya suppose it’s okay to bury Barry in Barrie?   WOMAN: He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.   MAN: Bad how he bought it, though.

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You have to like Twitter. It yields access to large numbers of people that one could not otherwise reach. Through “following” and “followers”, direct messages and other commands it is a far more powerful tool than its simplistic design suggests.     However, its drawbacks are obvious. First is the brevity with which one’s message appears on […]

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“When one scoop of ice cream is too much, two scoops can sometimes be just right.” That was something my wife, Donna, said one summer evening – perhaps unwittingly, we’ve never been quite sure – when the family walked to the local ice cream parlour for a cool treat. Then she demonstrated her belief in this […]

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