Dust to dust...

It’s Saturday morning and I dust. I should say I try to remove dust. It’s one of those house cleaning things I don’t like. So I took a cloth and ran it along the board that frames the top of my bedroom closet. I did this two weeks ago. I did it again this morning. Dust. Damn dust. Where the hell does it come from? Surely I don’t make that much dust. Somebody is sneaking in and putting dust in my house! That’s gotta be it! Whew! Now I feel better.

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I felt sad, and yet somehow heartened yesterday, when the body of slain soldier Trooper Jack Bouthillier arrived at the Timmins Airport and was being carried to his hometown of Hearst, a lumber and railway town not too far from here.

Hundreds and hundreds of Timmins residents stopped what they were doing on a Friday afternoon to line the roads and highways from the airport, all through the north end of the city and on the highway leaving town. They stood in honour of the dead soldier and held flags as the procession escorted by police and many of Bouthillier’s childhood friends moved slowly through Timmins. It was a thing of kindness. It was a thing of respect.