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Music plays and the sun dances through the windows of Moose Winooski's, a popular eatery on King George Road in Brantford, Ont. The lunchtime crowd has thinned out, but the place comes alive again when Walter Gretzky walks in. "Sufferin' Jehoshaphat!" he whoops as an old friend extends his hand. Exuberant, animated, instantly recognizable, Walter is a slim, fit, youthful-looking 65. An ever-present smile lights up his familiar Slavic features. He's glad to chat and sign autographs, and people in his home town are as eager to greet him as Canadians anywhere.

From "Walter Gretzky: Using His Winning Ways to Fight Stroke", Good Times, September, 04

It's an old joke. The English teacher asks the student, "Johnny, is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy?" Little Johnny replies, "I don't know and I don't care."
Little Johnny may now be heading a major corporation. But he's probably not. More likely it dawned on him somewhere down the road that he should have listened more closely; the ability to use language thoughtfully and with precision is vital in the working world..

From "Choose Your Words Carefully, Somebody Might Be Listening", Globe and Mail, June '04

Who was Hank Williams? His favourite reading was comic books, he liked ketchup on everything, called his buddies 'hoss'. Once when his most famous song was a work-in-progress, he sang to a radio technician: "The silence of a falling star, lights up a purple sky/And as I wonder where you are, I'm so lonesome I could cry." The technician gasped: "That's beautiful! That's poetry!" "Sheee-it!", said Hank Williams and turned on his heel.

From "He Never Saw the Light", Globe and Mail, January 2003

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