Author Archives: Peter Carter

I Google-Imaged Preacher’s Kid and got this. Guess I  better watch it.  I’ve never met a preacher’s kid I didn’t like.  This occurred to me earlier this week after spending a few days and evenings with a long-time chum named Jan De Pater whose late dad was a Dutch Christian Reform Minister.  Besides Jan, IContinue reading “5 Things You Oughtta Know about Preachers' kids.”

See that smiling lady in the photo? She’s Winsome. Google tells us winsome means “attractive or appealing in appearance or character.” And Google uses, as an example, “a winsome smile.” I took the picture about two hours ago. But it was more like 10 years ago that I first spoke to Winsome and told herContinue reading “Where you Winsome and lose some. But mostly win.”

A GIANT OF A MAN: Me, I mean. The guy who  didn’t make the obvious joke.     The only time I’ve been in a recording studio–the kind you see in movies–was about 27 years ago. I was on staff at a magazine called Influence and researching a story about jazz pianist Hagood Hardy. Hardy–bestContinue reading “The Biggest Story I Never Wrote”

Ria and I give hitchhiking two thumbs up! My daughter Ria and I spent an unforgettable week in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada in August at the arts-culture-alternative lifestyle-mud-orgy called Burning Man and we hitchhiked out, heading to Reno, where we would; A) get a shower and B) catch the first of three flightsContinue reading “Why 2016 Was Such A Great Year. (A.K.A. My Very Last Burning Man Blog Cross My Heart And Hope To Die)”

Woke up this morning to the following email: “You’re not here.” The words made my tummy go all empty inside. This was bad news.   The “here” was a Toronto restaurant not far from my house. The email had arrived just about suppertime, yesterday. I had missed one of the most important events of myContinue reading “The Pickering Christmas Miracle That Saved Pete's Bacon”

Off and on over the years, I’ve acted (and I use the word with care) as a part-time journalism instructor. But since I know squat about what you might call actual teaching, what I end up doing amounts to jumping up and down and yelling like a cheerleader about how rewarding journalism can be. ForContinue reading “Magazines, You, and Career Tips from Rompin Ronnie”

This past Sunday, I made $150 (American) for 90 minutes of talking. Between 2:00 and 3:30 p.m. two extremely articulate and charming women from a New York City-based market-research firm interviewed me on location in a hardware store in Toronto. The topic? What goes through a guy’s head when he’s in a hardware store withContinue reading “7 lessons learned the hard(ware) way”

Next Friday, December 9th, I’ve been invited to join a Canadian Citizenship Ceremony in Terminal 1 of Pearson International Airport.   It’s an event run by the Greater Toronto Area Airport (GTAA) Community Engagement department; and the idea is, you meet a bunch of newly arrived soon-to-be-Canadians and, in the words of the GTAA, “yourContinue reading “Where we hope the students are, like, 'Welcome back Carter'”

My brother Eddie visited Sunday and after supper we sat in the living room and reminisced about the sports we played when we were younger. Yup. Sports. Competition. Sweat. Teams. Uniforms. Football fields. The whole nine yards. Hahahahaha. It’s uncharacteristic for us, actually. We Carters were raised to not brag about our athletic achievements. Indeed youContinue reading “The Carter Brothers' Miraculous Sporting Careers”

My older brother Tom, a guy I look up to and trust, told me that in Canada, if a guy gets sentenced to 99 years in prison and dies while serving time, one of his sons or brothers has to go in and serve the remainder of the term. I of course believed him. He’sContinue reading “Getting the real story behind truthiness”