Some torches are more behavioral than genetic. For example, some parents smoke in front of their children, thus acclimatizing their kids to breathing in smoke and perhaps even finding smoky air to be the norm. I feel sorry for the children, and for the parents too. Not what you'd call a gift to either.
K.C.Irving gave his kids a business empire. This could be a curse or a blessing to the children. Looks to me like K.C.'s three kids rose to the challenge of following in Daddy's footsteps. They were clearly cut out for it. Ambitions aside, at the very least K.C. gave them financial freedom so that they'd never have to walk their own garbage out to the end of the driveway. Sadly, the Irving kids have grown up never seeing a garbage shark.
I don't know if Shawn Graham and David Alward have children or not, but their legacy for the children of New Brunswick is a province teetering on bankruptcy. Too bad they were unwilling to make some hard choices for their 'kids'. Instead they tried to be populist parents: letting the kids stay up late, feeding them junk food, playing video games for too many hours per day, etc. The consequences of their actions are staggering.
Me? What have I done for 'the boy'? I've encouraged his musical ambitions because, selfishly, I love to hear good music played well. I haven't smoked inside the house, or outside! I've never let him win at tennis or ping pong. If he won, he earned it. I taught him to windsurf a long, long time ago and then respected his right to either stick with it or cast it aside. Yesterday Julian went for a windsurf, by far the earliest he'd ever hit the water.
Julian...'hit' the water??
Truth be told, I fell about four times yesterday and Julian didn't fall in once. As is often the case, there's more to the story than the simple facts, but the fact remains that he was windsurfing and I was happy to see him out there. It was a gorgeous day to be out in the sunshine, enjoying the clean Washademoak waters in their natural state. A day may come when there are thousands of fracking wells all across new Brunswick and I will be encouraging my son to leave this place even though the government sees fracking as a way to bring our young people home to work here? To enjoy the place? Forget about it.
We'll have to re-design our license plates....'be not in this place'? That's the new slogan but we'll still pay some Ontario marketing gurus a lot of money to come up with that killer tag.
For now I'd be happy to see him spend his adult life in New Brunswick. It's a nice place physically...at the moment. Financiall, it's a wreck. New Brunswick needs some help immediately, and it's going to need more help in the future. Bright young minds might be able to save this place if their parents haven't already ruined it for them. Let's hope not. Let's not sit around and hope/pray. Let's take some action, and that action is needed to be taken by our elected officials. Put away the sugary sodas, ladies and gentlemen. Turn off the televisions. Get a good night's sleep. In the morning, we're all going to have to roll up our sleeves.
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