Old Boys, Girls and Teachers Guestbook

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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 502 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 501 to 502

Alex Patterson '46 - '51 | alexpatterson~AT~videotron~DOT~ca

Hello Mike,
I can’t let Neale’s message go without comment. I have a bit of a cold and was feeling pretty miserable about being 80 in the next few months...I think I might be one of the oldest in the ’46 intake...but after reading Neale’s message I felt positively suicidal!!
Apart from anything else Neale even spelled his name incorrectly in the address line. I felt sorry for old Hardy, but even sorrier for Sassoon. What a misery, finding nothing better to write about than his observation of Hardy going “dotey” (losing one’s marbles).
Then I realised that this was one of Neale’s practical jokes, lulling us into a false sense of gloom and doom before ending with a cheerful Christmas greeting.
I must say I’m feeling OK and while I don’t care for the maturing process, I can tolerate it a bit better than Sassoon. As for gaining new wisdom, I think that can be a cheerful challenge to be faced everyday. I started painting again and writing...I’m 70,000 words into my third novel. Haven’t finished the other two yet...I’m going to turn them into unrelated parts of a trilogy. I’ll have to live until I’m at least 105 to finish all my plans for the future. But my immediate plans are to enjoy the next few days with our whole family here in Georgian Bay at our daughter’s new home the garden of which runs into the lake.
I’ll close now and once again wish you Mike, and you Neale, and all the other readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year,
Regards from a mild (plus 10 C !!!)
Alex

Wed 24-Dec-2014 02:57 - Montreal, Canada

Nele Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Mike
Here we are at the end of another year.How the years fly by!
We of the 1946 entry will be heading into our eightieth year in 2015. Is this the decade when all will be revealed, I wonder, and we will acquire true wisdom. Maybe I should be asking Ed. I'm guessing he'll be tackling his nineties next year.
I'm trying my best to acquire true wisdom but as soon as I learn something new I tend to forget it fairly quickly. I even tried reading Steven Hawking ,he of the parallel universes and Theory of Everything. Where's Scratcher Aichieson when we need him!
Maybe Fred Grey would be the consoling voice.
This is a poem he might have recommended from the "Selected poems of Siegfried Sassoon" describing a visit he made to the home of poet/novelist Thomas Hardy in the latter's declining years.

At Max Gate.

Old Mr. Hardy, upright in his chair,
Courteous to visiting acquaintance chatted with unaloof alertness while he patted
The sheepdog whose society he preferred.
He wore an air of never having heard
That there was much that needed putting right.
Hardy, the Wessex wizard, wasn't there.
Good care was taken to keep him out of sight.

Head propped on hand, he sat with me alone,
Silent, the log fire flickering on his face,
Here was the seer whose words the world had known,
Someone had taken Mr. Hardy's place.

Merry Christmas Mike and to all the gang who assemble here!

Tue 23-Dec-2014 01:08 - Victoria BC Canada

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