Right now, our labrador retriever, Princess, is barely breathing. She’s taking shallow breaths, her muzzle white with age. Her hips, stiffened with arthritis, make movement slow, painful, and limited. Her eyes are milky and as we carry her up and down stairs, out to the backyard, or out to her favourite grassy area at the…

I knew it would happen eventually. While I’m not an environmentalist like David Suzuki and Peter Burzstyn, I’ve been doing my bit for most of my life. Composting since 1972, recycling, and not buying junk packaging… you get the picture. I think I started using cloth bags in 1985 because mine say Eaton’s across them,…

Hey! Raven and Shoshona brought home a Juno! Best aboriginal album of the year! Amazing, isn’t it? We are… that’s the name of the album that garnered this incredible honour, an honour not borne from numbers of records sold but for craft, for sheer artistic endeavour. Nothing to do with cha-ching in the music store,…

Where to start? Where to start? With the hundreds of residents of Tollendale Village, the retirement facility with semi detached homes and fabulous gardens, with life lease buildings complete with decks and flower pots? Or with former City of Barrie Gardener Renny deBoer who moved from his Colleen St home and into a unit at…

When Tom McBride was a tiny baby, the ‘goodness gods’ slipped into the nursery and implanted a generosity chip in among the curls, making sure it entered his brain. And as a wee fellow Tom got into his share of devilry, ‘tom’foolery (if you will), which has equipped him superbly to participate in raising the…

It all started with a hissy fit! Mackenzie Oliver was four years old, standing with her mom at Barrie’s waterfront on an autumn day, getting ready to participate in Run for the Cure. She noticed all these other women wearing pink t-shirts. Hers wasn’t pink. And if you know four year olds, they’re vocal and…

For sure, commerce in this country is changing. Big multi-national stores offering everything under the sun lure in shoppers with ‘lower’ prices and ‘bigger’ selection. It makes for tough times for the small family operation which usually offers ‘superior’ customer service and connection to its customers. In Barrie, one of our finest examples is at…

I have a business mentor who’s been critically important to me as I work through life. About 15 years ahead of me, he’s not only an example, but an advisor as I move along through stages of business. At lunch recently we talked about how difficult it is for people who build businesses to turn…

If you drive past the Trinity church hall on Collier St at any given hour of the day, you’ll see the patrons of the David Busby Centre. They start to arrive about 7:45am, some coming from Out of the Cold beds, some from the Salvation Army mission, some from rooming houses in the downtown. Who…

They’re all over Barrie, really. People who reach down inside of themselves and do something that helps somebody else. People who have an idea for a product or service that will make life better for someone else. People whose ingenuity expresses itself with kindness. People who leave the world in better shape than they found…