Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

I've just finished reading Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse .  It's a 2013 Canada Reads Radio One Selection. After having heard from three different people saying they'd read it and that it was an excellent novel, I thought I should pick it up at Chapters.  I wasn't disappointed. The story is that of Saul Indian Horse whose life traverses losing his family at a young age, being sent to a residential school in the sixties with all the horrors that that involved, discovering the beauty and magic of hockey and later the ugliness of racism and alcohol abuse.  And finally the long road to healing. In the middle of the novel during which Saul discovers he has a gift for hockey, he rises in the ranks, going from outdoor reserve rinks to local Northern Ontario tournaments until he finally ends up as a rookie on the Toronto Marlies.  The story briefly threatens to turn into a feel good story, but fortunately it doesn't.  It stays faithful to what I'm sure, sad...

Lately – I’d say since hovering around 50 years of age – I’ve experienced… not quite a lack of respect… it’s more like a subconscious, bordering on smug, dismissal of sorts from some (thankfully not all) folks around 10 years my junior. And it’s not so much direct, obvious disrespect.  It’s more like:  I’m in my prime, I know my stuff. That’s why I’m talking and you’re listening because, quite frankly, what could I possibly learn from someone your age? If I recall correctly, I’d have to say I also experienced it when I was 40ish from people who were 30ish; and although the memory gets tenuous with each 10 year gap, I’m sure I experienced it at 30ish from people who were 20ish.  Hence the title: “The Ten Year Honour Gap”.  I should point out that if I were to examine myself for all of one minute, I’d remember instances when I was 30ish knowing individuals who were 40ish for whom I had marginalized respect albeit mostly sub-conscious and through a solid veneer of p...

I've tweeted, I've FB statussed (not a verb, I know) and I've had lots of conversations about this. I'm going all digital maudlin, but once I get it out of my system, I'll be done. I'll move on. I promise. But for this post, I'm going to have to write about what it's like teaching for 25 years and saying good-bye to anywhere from 100 to (yesterday) 183 kids every year. Do the math. For me that's around 4000 students, many of whom I've taught at least once or twice not to mention being with some of them through extra-curricular activities and field trips. Imagine building a relationship with a number of these kids and then 4 or 5 years later, they walk across a stage, grab a diploma and off they go into the bright or dark or gray unknown. A few of them break away from their friends and family to thank you; and then you don't see most of them... ever again. And 25 years later, how many of them can you possibly remember? Yesterday ...

my new educational blog: givemeonemoretrack.blogspot.ca Inaugural Post -- Autumn Change

I'm not sure how it happened, but my son turned nineteen a couple of months ago. We just saw a home video where he was three. The sixteen years in between were a blur. If there's a choice of being hard or easy on myself, I tend to go the former. So when my son, Joey, wants to go see a hockey game with me or -- just yesterday, he invited me to the Virgil Stampede -- I'm kind of shocked. I think, he likes me and wants to hang out with me. Really? This is going to sound cliche, but the fact is if I had to do it over again, I'd be way more encouraging, way less nagging; every time he said, "Dad, do you want to play EA Sports NHL?" I'd have said yes. Every time he was down about something, I'd have been way more patient. I would've listened instead of trying to give solutions. Last year, my daughter got married. For some reason, all our kids were home in early June including our married daughter and brand new son-in-law. A few days before our son...

Today I was driving into work by myself and I had one of those thought over-dose moments. I have a friend who actually wakes up in the middle of the night with thought-overdrive. He can't get back to sleep, so he goes to a coffee shop or his office and journals. I like my sleep, so I'm not quite that radical. My speed is when a thought percolates long enough and it starts to take shape, it becomes a blog post. A charmed life. I know it's misquoted; it's from Macbeth of whose main character, Macbeth, it is said -- pejoratively -- that he has a charmed life. Ie. he thinks he's invincible because of certain equivocal prophecies given to him by three nasty witches. That's not the kind of charmed life I'm thinking of. Several times this week -- and on the drive into work -- the thought occurred to me that I'm a very happy (aka blessed) man. My wife and I are now empty nest; the house is quiet and it stays relatively mess-free. Although I miss our ki...

Check out my daughter's songs http://kaylamaiolo.tumblr.com/ Dad is very proud of her!