Grandpa gripped my hand as I leaned over his hospital bed. There wasn’t much time. With the back of his other hand, he swept aside his oxygen mask and struggled to speak. “Remember: Love!” he said. His grip loosened. He was gone, and I didn’t understand. Until now. Ninety years earlier in south Wales, a six-year-old boy died. The death rippled through three generations and across the ocean to Prince Edward Island. In its wake were sadness, longing and doubt. Love had a limited meaning and we had forgotten why. The secret was buried in Wales, and is now set free. This is a story about the meaning of unconditional…

I write less here when I’m meditating more. Not sure what that means. I think it was Mordecai Richler who said that writing was his meditation. My meditation technique is Vipassana, a non-sectarian lifestyle practice that is connected to Buddhism but not beholden to it. (I don’t have a jolly fat man idol in my house). Vipassana strives to help people see things “as they are, not as you want them to be.” It’s a tough challenge. Essentially, what you do is sit or kneel in silence and start by monitoring your breath in and out of your nose. Then as the noise and clutter of your mind settles, you…

“How many horses does it take to haul your fat ass around town?” I’m sick of SUVs. We need to DO something about them. Who ARE these people riding around in these planet-killers? A guy in an enormous Lincoln Navigator gave me the finger the other day when I pulled out of a parking lot into the lane in front of him. Yeah, like he needed to worry. Had he hit me he would have crushed my wimpy Corolla like a bug. Fat ass! Child killer! Irresponsible twat! Happy Earth Day to you too, pal! Cool info from the Sierra Club Web site: “Switching from an average car to a…

Check out Laugharne, Wales. Beaches like PEI. Never snows. Seven pubs. 2000 people. One of Wales’ largest used bookstores. 100+ kids (and young parents). Did I mention it doesn’t snow? Take a tour of Laugharne. Be sure to click on “Scenery.”

I just spent 6 days in Wales, the land of my ancestors — story-tellers, miners, musicians, dreamers. I managed to trace my mother’s side of my family back to its origins in a tiny subsistence farming community called Disserth. The family name is Weale because Great Great Great Great Great Grandpa’s family lived next to a mill, powered by a water wheel. Yes, it’s that simple. If I’d been a Jones, the search would have been more difficult, of course. The strongest and most ambitious of the family left the farms behind in the mid-1800s and went underground in booming mining communities a few hours south by horse and cart.…