Author Archives: Peter Carter

WELCOME TO MOTHERS ANONYMOUS: What a great idea. Moms–like the two above– get together to discuss their havoc-creating sons. My wife Helena and I just returned from a seven-day driving trip around a small part of northeastern United States. I have neither the energy nor the stamps to send out a bunch of postcards, soContinue reading “Postcards from America: Now museum now you don't”

Some years ago, I was a Senior Editor of what was — at the time — Canada’s largest and best-known women’s magazine, Chatelaine. During my time there, under the leadership of editor Rona Maynard, the 91-year-old Chatelaine underwent a very expensive (million bucks, I seem to recall) and radical (stories about sex toys!) makeover.   AfterContinue reading “Featuring Chatelaine recipes for loaves, fishes and other miracles”

LEARNED FROM THE BEST: 2 of   my mom’s brothers, Alex and Stellie The first dirty joke I ever heard a grownup tell came courtesy of my mother’s brother, Angus Joe MacIsaac. It happened more than 50 years ago but left such an impression that even today, if you phone me, I can tell youContinue reading “Finally… after all these years… 10 Uncle Commandments”

These days I spend my workdays as an editor at a publication called The Lawyer’s Daily. I OLD HABITS DIE HARD: I swiped this photo from the web. enjoy the job so much it’s not fair to call it work but my point is that I am immersed in the Canadian legal system and althoughContinue reading “The only sound Mom could hear was the clock ticking”

UPHILL FROM HERE:  If we didn’t have hills we wouldn’t have known where anything ended. Sudbury, the mining community I grew up in, is very hilly. When we were kids, almost all our friends lived in houses on hills of one steepness or another. We Carters walked up a hill to school and church andContinue reading “A Hill of a Place to Grow Up In”

Except for the few weeks she took off from active duty in the summer, Iris the Cat messages have been appearing in our front window for almost 10 months. Early on, we published these answers to our most-common made-up questions. But since then we’ve made up eight more. Here they are: 8) A new signContinue reading “8 More Iris Cat FAQs”

STRAW POLL SAYS: Everybody recalls their nativity role  (Photo by Chris Sowder on Unsplash) Hands up everyone who remembers what role you played in your grade-school Christmas pageant. Hah! Just as I thought. You all do! Rather, we all do. Never mind that it was way more than 50 years ago, I still recall me dressing up asContinue reading “Jesus Mary and Joseph”

TIED UP WITH A BOW. It was a very good  deal with strings attached. That fiddly thing in the picture? It’s a viola da gamba. The photo was taken at 1:18 last Thursday afternooon, minutes after I–the world’s worst bargainer–wheedled and dealed for the instrument with a tough-minded clerk in a pawnshop near my house. That–believeContinue reading “In the chess game of life we are but pawn (ers)”

I haven’t asked the woman at the centre of this story if I can use her name, but here goes nothing. Believe it or not, I am extremely cautious about how I employ names in this blog. I never use a person’s first and last names without permission. THE DEVIL YOU SAY: Imagine the momentContinue reading “Karen feeding of a young guy's brain”

When I was a kid, we Carters didn’t have Grand Theft Auto. We had slot cars. Just like in the picture. Two little electric cars, guided along their paths by tiny plastic pegs and fuelled by hand-held wired remote controllers, raced around the track until they crashed or we got bored, whichever came first. ForContinue reading “Making tracks for life”