This is my third autumn in Canada, and while the sharp, clear distinctions between seasons—brisk mornings, leaves changing colors, frost on the pumpkin or least my old Chrysler—bring back memories of my high school years in Western Pennsylvania, there is one thing I simply cannot adjust to. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in early October.

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For those of you new to this site, I feel as though I should begin this week’s post like a weekly television series, “Previously at The Storyteller Cafe.” Instead let’s just say for nearly three years I’ve been sharing my slightly stilted view of life’s little adventures and hopefully a few laughs and all of those tales can be found on this site for your reading pleasure. For the foreseeable future, however, I’ve got a different task ahead of me. [click to continue…]

As I’ve said many times, Canada has great healthcare coverage for Canadians, visitors and foreigners, not so much. This is especially true if you’re an American. While your car insurance travels with you across the border, with few exceptions your healthcare coverage does not. This then is the story of how I managed to run up over $65,000 CA in medical bills with a simple little heart attack. [click to continue…]

Back in mid-April [2018] I fell asleep one Monday evening and awoke the following Thursday with two veins missing, one from each leg, a gigantic vacuum pump bandage on my chest, wires coming from all over my torso running into a little transmitter resting on my stomach, four new connections among my coronary arteries and the most dizzying and confusing array of random thoughts bouncing around my head. I really did feel as if I’d just returned from a journey to another galaxy. [click to continue…]

A simple rule that every good man knows by heart
It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart—Stephen Schwartz, Pippin

It’s Smarter To Be Lucky

I must really be smart because I am,  apparently, at least during that week in April, the luckiest bastard on earth. [click to continue…]

“We cannot, not tell Jonny about this,” I said to Brodie while still in the receiving area of the Hamilton General Hospital Emergency Room.

“I’ll take care of all of that,” Brodie said. “You just take it easy.”

“Thank you,” I said between grimaces. My main concern wasn’t about telling Jonny what was happening, but when to do it.  [click to continue…]

“Do I have wings?” I asked as Brodie’s face came into view. “No,” he replied.

“Do I have horns?” I asked as I turned and saw Jonny’s smiling face for the first time in weeks. “No,” he replied sweetly.

“Good,” I thought to myself, “apparently I’m still alive.” Although, where exactly that was and in what condition I was seemed to be beyond my ability to figure out just then and there.  [click to continue…]

I have got to learn to stop making predictions. In the previous post I opened by quoting the last paragraph of my serialized book God Can Wait. I closed with the following words; “Stay tuned, it promises to be an interesting spring here at the Cafe.”

I should be careful what I wish for. [click to continue…]

“Additionally, next week, or maybe the week after, we return to our regular series of wry, some might say jaundiced, series of commentaries about life as an American in Canada.”

That was four weeks ago. A few things have happened since then. On the bright side, Jon got a job offer from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, way south of Sudbury, praise geebus. [click to continue…]

Recently, despite the fact that he knows Jon and I personally, I was asked by one of our overseas friends how I came up with the different problems and events that take place in God Can Wait. He’s part of a group that meets each week to read and discuss each chapter as they appeared here at TheStorytellerCafe. It seems they couldn’t believe two people with so few resources, and in my case so little self-confidence, could overcome so many obstacles and become a loving committed couple. [click to continue…]