writing

Night at the Museum – Books and Brews

/ Jack Profijt / Leave a comment

My wife went out on a limb and purchased tickets for the Books and Brews Book Club event as a Father’s Day gift.  As it turns out it was a perfect gift as I like to read and drink beer. I had never been part of a book club before so I didn’t know what to expect, I have to say that I was very pleased with my first experience.

As the name of the event suggests it was a combination of  some beer, wine and light snacks provided by Mahtay Cafe and Lounge located here in St Catharines , and books that have a consistent theme. This was the first event of this type that was put on by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canal Center and from my limited knowledge of book clubs, this event  appeared to be a wonderful success.

The first reading selection for this club was a great book written by Joseph Boyden called the Three Day Road. It is a story of war, tragedy, and in the end some redemption. It is a story of diversity and of the hardships faced by indigenous peoples of Northern Ontario in the early part of the last century.  Mr. Boyden does an excellent job in drawing the reader into the lives of the main characters Xavier and Elijah  as they enlist and head off to the First World War to fight fight as warriors for King and country.

Our first meeting took place on July 19th 2016 and the chosen location for this meeting couldn’t have been better.   The setting for this meeting, of our freshly minted book club, was in the museums exhibit entitled “Doing Our Bit: WWI from St. Catharines to the Western Front”.  For me, discussing this book surrounded by artifacts of the era in which this story takes place served to reinforce the enormity of the conflict and the hardship the main characters had to face. I have to thank the Museum Curator Kathleen Powell for an informative curators tour of the exhibit  prior to our book discussion, accompanied with some wonderful tasting craft beers. The exhibit itself gives a good cross-section of what life was like for those Canadians that went off to fight an empires war. If you haven’t seen this exhibit yet I highly recommend that you do so.

I found, as I’m  sure most in attendance did, the question and answer discussion very insightful specifically with the answers that were given by participants. I found that discussing this book was for some, a window into a history they had never known or knew even existed. I am not speaking of the history of the war itself but of the treatment of indigenous peoples, while in the service of Canada.

I am looking forward to the two follow on meetings in August and September where we will be discussing Emancipation Day written by Wayne Grady and The Danger Tree written by David Macfarlan. I think a book club in the museum is a great idea and whoever came up with the idea should get a pat on the back for a job well done.

Making Changes

/ Jack Profijt / Leave a comment

image (24)I have undergone a few changes in my life in the past couple of months that leave me reflecting on what the next steps will be for me in my adventure of life. I have left the army after nearly 30 years. Although it was part time career, if one can call it that, it still took up a great deal of my life. Couple this with having a full time job, being a father and husband, and add to all of this another nearly full time job of being a Union activist, my plate was nearly full. I have also relegated to the past my activities with respect to the union to the younger and more energetic crowd. My children for the most part are now grown up and for the most part are making all of their own decisions. So needless to say I am faced with a dilemma that all parents, and people of my generation face, what the hell am I going to do now.

Well with any situation like this I suppose that people in my position reflect on the time that is in the past and the time that is left in the future. What I find myself saying is, what’s next, what is around the next corner, where do I go from here? Well I find myself in my office, looking at the numerous maps and wondering about my roots and where it is that it all started. The faraway places nestled between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, to the tiny country in Europe where the people where the wooden shoes.   I have come to realization that the story of me really does span the entire globe. I find myself thinking more and more about the place my mother considered home, and often spoke of, even to the point of returning to one day. There was a constant pull upon her heart to return.

I also hear that call. Don’t get me wrong, I love Canada the country where I live and where I was raised, but I feel that much of the context of my life is somewhere else. My wife and I have often discussed moving to Europe and what the ramifications of that decision would be. How would we do it, how would we live, and what would our quality of life be? I guess the big question is, where do we start?  These are just some of the questions that we asked ourselves. I am not saying that this is going to happen, but it is something that I would like to consider as a possibility for our future.

image (23)My military mind tells me that (as well as my wife) with any successful operation, it starts with a good solid plan. So I guess we need to at least start creating a plan, if what I’m thinking about is going to have any chance of success. With anything like this there is a lot of apprehension a lot of things will have to happen, like the liquidation of assets, to generating capital to make any of this even possible is also a big question. In reality any journey starts with a first step. My first step in even making this idea a reality will be to regain my Dutch citizenship. Even if I never return to Holland our Europe for that matter, regaining my Dutch citizenship is also a personal goal that I have wanted for quite some time. The Dutch rules on citizenship have changed considerably over the last couple of years, so this option may not even be possible any longer.

In the short term there will be a considerable amount of research that needs to be done to compile the information that is needed to fully understand this kind of undertaking. For me personally the hunt for information has begun. My ability to collect and correlate data will now finally be used for my own gain and for my own purposes.  Maybe  it will happen maybe it won’t, however we will never know unless we take the first step to making the change.

The Travel Writers Bag

/ Jack Profijt / Leave a comment

The Travel Writers Bag

By Jack Profijt

The writers bag

The Writers Bag of Tricks

There are tons of articles on the net about travelling and where to go and what to see. There are plenty of different things to read about different travels, and how to get to where we want to go. But have you ever given thought as to how travel writers, or writers in general get what they see and experience onto the written page? All people that write can call themselves writers or authors, however they all have their own style of how they get the things they see or experience on paper or the electronic screen.  I have been asked in the past what I carry in my satchel (Man Purse) that I find to be indispensable as far as getting the ideas right.  So here is what I carry.

First you need a good bag to carry all of your writer junk in. One that is compact yet sturdy, however it doesn’t have to be expensive, but keep in mind you get what you pay for. The one I use has plenty of pockets and a place for everything, including a water bottle and a snack.

A good camera is also a good investment if you plan on doing any of your own content creation. I am currently using a Nikon DSLR3100. I think this camera provides a good balance between portability and quality. It has a crazy amount of options and shooting configurations, and can be mounted on a tri pod. I also carry a cell phone camera as well, this is also a cheaper option. Some of these modern devices have exceptional photo quality as well.

My choice for a note pad is quality over quantity. After all pen and paper are the tools of our trade, so I chose to work with the good quality notebooks bound in an Italian leather case (thanks to my wife). At the very least, I would also look for a refillable book cover, for obvious reasons. Along with this I use good quality pens. Parker Pens are my weapons of choice, if you asked my wife she would tell you that I am a little fanatical about my pens and note books but that is another post. It also doesn’t hurt to have a pencil packed into your writer’s bag of tricks.

One thing that I think is overlooked in the modern age is the good old fashioned voice recorder. You never know when those thoughts are going to strike or if you come up with an interview idea on the spot. Voice recorders can be picked up cheap from any electronic store. However in my case my wife found mine in a puddle, put it in a bowl of rice.. presto chango .. Good as new.

This may seem over the top but a good knife/blade is always useful. It harkens back to my Army and Boy Scout days. It’s better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have one. Besides you never know when you will need to slice into piece of French bread and butter or uncork a bottle of wine or trim a cigar.

Last but not least on my list of items in my writer’s bag of tricks are my watch, wallet, cell phone and of course my glasses. My watch is a Tissot with date and illuminated hands. My phone is an iPhone 4s on which I have an app called Commander Compass. It acts as a GPS and compass. With this app I can find points on a map using several different coordinate systems and then set way points with those coordinates. It is a useful app with too many features to list here. Also the phone carrier that I have has great overseas coverage so I am never out of contact.

So now ya know what’s in my writer’s bag of tricks