Jim Adams

Joined January 2021

18 stories

Bio

I've always been a storyteller. Either sharing stories verbally or documenting a business plan or procedure. Using events from my past, I create stories that will transport the reader to places and events of interest around the world.

Stories (18)

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The day Toronto's Outer Harbour was quiet
It was so quiet I could hear the water gurgling under our hull. Usually I would only hear that on a canoe in placid waters.
By Jim Adams5 months ago in Wander
A Sliver of my Soul
Lee Zaslofsky died. I don’t know why and I’m not even sure of the day. All I know is that no one was there for him. His family are all dead. I thought he was an only child and he had no children of his own, let alone a life partner. Alone, despite the huge number of people who called him friend, including myself. I felt a physical tightening of my stomach thinking that Lee had passed to the other side, and no one cared.
By Jim Adams5 months ago in Humans
Affordable Food means more than lowering prices
The last time I saw this person at the Freshco supermarket, she was deciding which of the five or six items she could do without. This decision-making process was being made at the cash register by asking the cashier to remove one and then another item until the total went below her meagre cash-in-hand budget. When she shuffled through the checkout line, as bent from wear as much as her clothing, I knew her choices were limited. There was no confidence in her gait and no joy in her purchases. Once a weekly fixture on my Saturday morning grocery run, but after that day, I never saw her again. I can only guess that she had to start using food banks.
By Jim Adams9 months ago in Humans
Friday Night at Vesuvio’s
A Friday evening in June. The sun is still high in the sky, and the warm, humid air defies the breeze blowing up from the lake, causing us to slow down a little as we hot-foot it from home. We are on a mission. A mission to preserve our sanity, to rid ourselves of five days' worth of work problems, family issues and even the oft-demanding dog.
By Jim Adams9 months ago in Humans
Do You Speak English - Part Two
"Do you speak English?" It was my second time hearing this simple but important question that afternoon in the Marseille train station. It was probably based on the Canadian flag sewn onto the upper flap of my blue nylon backpack. Coming from behind me, the words came out in a warm Scandinavian sing-song accent. The first time, a couple of hours earlier, was when a recently retired member of the French Foreign Legion invited me to have a drink with him and his friends, he and his companions were all wanted for murder or attempted murder in their home countries.
By Jim Adamsabout a year ago in Wander
Tiny Imperfect Strip of a Beach
I had to walk down 70 stairs to get to the beach. Of course, that meant walking 70 steps back up. I know there are 70, as I helped my father build them after he had a house built at the corner of Main Road and Birch Hill Road in Hudson in 1974. We made the steps of former railway ties, stones and old beams. One misstep and an extended tumble would be in the offing, especially in the winter. The steep hill was well-treed, so little direct sunlight reached the ground during the warm months. That protective canopy and moist earth from a small underground stream meant it was covered in ferns every spring. That attracted a few fiddlehead pickers braving the last of the snow and the muddy slopes during the late spring, cutting the fern tops for salads and stir-fries.
By Jim Adams3 years ago in Humans
Swimming backwards in the Gulf of Aqaba
It’s not a skill I set out to learn or even one that I thought I would need – but I did learn how to swim backwards with flippers on. And I learned how rather quickly. But I never expected to have a moray eel challenge me when I was snorkeling in the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba just north of Dahab Bay on Egypt’s Sinai coast.
By Jim Adams3 years ago in Humans
Do You Speak English?
"Do you speak English?" I was standing on the platform in Marseille’s main railway station. I had just travelled northeast from Spain and was looking for the next train to Nice, on my way to the famed Riviera. At 19, I was on my own for the first time, needing a break from school after two years of CEGEP, a community college system in the province of Quebec. In Quebec, high schools go only as far as grade 11 -- I guess the powers that be don’t think 16-year-olds who’ve completed grade 11 are ready for university. At CEGEP, I excelled at extracurricular activities such as community organizing, participating in political demonstrations and, oh yes, beer drinking. I cruised through academics (except calculus, which I flunked three times).
By Jim Adams4 years ago in Humans
The Day Jack Died
It didn’t seem possible. The images of him campaigning in his last election with his cane had shown him gaunt but still energetic. At ease with his cane, using it to wave to the crowds. Smiling eyes, exuding the Layton family energy. The thinning, greying hair and that mustache. Campaigning about hope, a brighter future for the many. Reaching the pinnacle as leader of the official opposition. Briefly moving into Stornoway -- the opposition leaders’ official residence in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe neighbourhood.
By Jim Adams4 years ago in Humans
Saturday Mornings at Peter's
My Saturday mornings used to start at an old diner called Peter’s Restaurant at Annette and Jane streets in Toronto’s west end.
By Jim Adams4 years ago in Humans
The lost roads of Morrisburg
To get to Morrisburg from Toronto by train, you have to go to Cornwall. Same thing if you try to take the bus. Years ago, when I was in my teens, I could take either the train or the bus to Morrisburg, but now I can only wave at it as our train passes its boarded up station. The powerful lure of automobiles has left train and bus travel an experience limited to suburban commutes and big city links.
By Jim Adams4 years ago in Humans
The Road
The line. It's there. A few feet from our rental cottage. It's the line in the road when the asphalt ends and the sand begins.
By Jim Adams4 years ago in Humans

Jim Adams

Bio

Stories .css-1svwz57-Text{display:inline-block;color:var(--text-default-mute);}(18)

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The day Toronto's Outer Harbour was quiet

A Sliver of my Soul

Affordable Food means more than lowering prices

Friday Night at Vesuvio’s

Do You Speak English - Part Two

Tiny Imperfect Strip of a Beach

Swimming backwards in the Gulf of Aqaba

Do You Speak English?

The Day Jack Died

Saturday Mornings at Peter's

The lost roads of Morrisburg

The Road

Stories (18)