Oyez! Oyez!

Bill Paul died this weekend from natural causes. He was 66.

If you didn't live in or near London, Ontario, you probably didn't know Bill. He held the unofficial position, if one can hold an unofficial position, of Town Crier. He founded Laff Guards and, with them, clowned, painted faces, made balloon animals, and entertained folks. Bill kept a birthday book of thousands of people he knew or had encountered: my wife and I were among those he would phone and wish a happy birthday.

He gave talks and, for years, hosted a radio talk show covering local events and personalities. I was on it a few times.

And he turned up at every local event. Parades. Conventions. Music festivals. Book festivals. Free Comic Book Day. Charity events. New Year's Day levees. If something big was happening in the region, you could expect to see Bill, cheerful anachronism in colourful garb, his tricorne and bell and his burly beard. During the down time created…

On his desk there’s a Newton’s Cradle. One of those ball bearing things, and it’s still as he scribbles and jots, stops for a moment, looks up, adds a scribble then puts down his pen.

And how are we today.

Me? I’m fine. I don’t know how you are.

I’ll ignore that for now. Terrible thing you went through. All those months. Alone with a man like Johnny Blythe.

Wasn’t as bad as you make it sound.

There’s a word for that. In…

i like to listen to music when i drive any distance. my car, a 2017 Volkswagen Jetta has a pretty good factory audio, and i have Apple Music. That software platform is pretty good and because i recent bought some Julien Baker and Flock of Dimes and wanted to listen to the CD i'd just bought, their algorythm decided that Dave loves to listen to women singer/songwriters with decent production values.  So once the album finished it fed me an array of women who front bands.  Which to be fair was…