John Oliver Smith
Bio
Baby, son, brother, child, pupil, athlete, collector, farmer, photographer, player, uncle, coach, husband, student, writer, teacher, father, science guy, fan, grandpa, comedian, traveler, chef, story-teller, driver, gardener, regular guy!!!
Achievements (1)
Stories (121)
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Putting the Planet Back Together
I had some time to myself the other day, and I was thinking. Let’s say that someone, like God maybe, gave me a job to select a committee of all-star individuals that would put their heads together and come up with a plan of action to save the Planet. Who would I pick, living or dead, to serve on that committee? And, what would be my reasons for selecting the chosen few? Well, I thought about it and I came up with a list of 30 people (past and present) whom I think would do a pretty good job of “gettin’ ‘er done”. The people I have chosen to be on this hypothetical committee are listed in no particular order of importance. They simply need to be sitting somewhere around the table when the process starts. I have also included a short present-tense selection rationale for each candidate along with a photo to remind us all of their strength and character.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Motivation
Twice or Thrice the Mice Would Suffice
Prologue A female mouse has the potential to survive in the wild (or even in an improvised cage in a Grade 8 classroom) for about 2 years. The gestation period for this female mouse, if she becomes pregnant (rather, when she becomes pregnant), is about 20 days. The nursing period for each litter of pups (yes, baby mice are referred to as pups) is about 15 days. Ultimately, this means that a single female mouse can become pregnant as many as 10 times in one year. Each pregnancy can yield as many as 6 pups. A quick calculation at this point, places the number of offspring that one female can produce in her lifetime, at about 120. Each litter of pups would normally have a likelihood of producing 3 females, which themselves would begin ovulating at about 8 weeks after birth, and at which time, they will likely become pregnant and bring three more litters of mouse pups into the world, 20 short days after that. Within the life span of one pair of mating mice and in the year following their death, the number of mice that could be produced by them and all of their offspring and all of their offspring’s offspring, and so on, would hover around the 7200 mark. Whoa! With that in mind, let’s begin our story.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
No Way I Have to Respect Your Choice
The drastically overused concept of “Political Correctness”, as an empowering and self-enabling justification for truly bad choices, is a moral cop-out. It has become the “soupe de jour” for uneducated individuals who believe that any of their selfish, effortless personal choices and resultant actions are always defensible, simply because they are humans and they have the “right to choose”. Some small-minded types may imagine, in their wildest fantasies, that all of mankind is required to accept and / or respect any choice made by them, no matter how ludicrous and harmful the results may be. They feel that the political correctness we so boldly brandish in today’s civilized world, offers suitable protection from ridicule and evaluation of the ignorant and hurtful things they do and say. One drawback is that these same self-righteous souls are seldom on board with accepting the consequences of their choices. For example, If I am expected to accept and respect a person’s right to choose NOT to be vaccinated against the Covid virus, and any of its variants, that person must also accept and respect my decision NOT to allow him into my place of business or my home. Sometimes, I think it would be easier if I just refused to accept / respect that person’s choice in the first place, then there would be no nasty surprises for anyone regarding the acts that follow.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Humans
Jokus Practicalicus (Part III)
. . . previously on Jokus Practicalicus, Jonas was saved from Joe’s brutal behavior by his teacher Miss Anderson, while another teacher’s belongings fell out her desk drawer – LOL, LMAO, LMFAO, HAHAHA. Mortimer played a trick on his friend, who ended up in the police station!! Jerry, Will, Morris and Danny had a close brush with danger in the form of Jerry’s uncle, but were eventually saved by an unknown garage mechanic. George plays a trick on Bill and some other friends as they all end up NOT winning the lottery . . .
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
Jokus Practicalicus (Part I)
Chapter One There are a gazillion different tricks and gags, one might see played on people of all ages during one’s lifetime. Some are just plain lame. Others are pretty good. But, there are several practical jokes out there, that will stand forever in the chronicles of sheer brilliance and creativity. Jokes which cause one to stretch one’s imagination so far, that it is truly difficult to believe the jokes themselves, much less the accounts of them, are actually true.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
Jokus Practicalicus (Part II)
. . . previously on Jokus Practicalicus, Jonas was saved from Joe’s brutal behavior by his teacher Miss Anderson, while another teacher’s belongings fell out her desk drawer – LOL, LMAO, LMFAO, HAHAHA. Mortimer played a trick on his friend, who ended up in the police station!!
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
Simple Joke-writing 101
Not to give away any of my trade secrets or anything but, as a teacher, this is how I used to spend most of my school day – writing jokes (or at least, researching material for writing jokes). Since, it was so much fun (way better than actually teaching or going to meetings and listening to department heads and administrators drone on for hours about exam week policies and evacuation procedures), I thought I would pass on to you, the real secrets of LIFE and “STAND-UP”.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Humans
But On Closer Inspection - Behold a Diamond
When I was 10 years old, I didn’t really know very much. What I mean to say, is that I didn’t really know anything outside of what someone else had shown me or told me. I hadn’t yet figured out anything novel and exciting for myself / by myself. I didn’t know about important life situations yet.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Motivation
Seventy Years of Soundtrack. Top Story - November 2021.
As I rock ‘n’ roll toward my seventieth birthday, I can’t help but reflect upon all the music I listened to, that helped get me through these past seven decades on the planet. I have lived through the 1950s where Elvis and Buddy Holly changed the face of popular music forever. I spent the 1960s in grade school and welcomed the sights and sounds of the Beatles and the Stones and the Supremes in the lower grades and felt the (flower) power of the Haight-Ashbury scene and Dylan, Eric Burdon and the Spoonful as I reached my last year in Grade 12. In the first half of the 1970s, I attended university and met new friends who introduced me to new music from the Dead and Zappa. I was around when the icons of rock music died – Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin – and I remember how their music moved me and how it changed the way I looked at the world. In the second half of the 1970s, I became a farmer and Cash and Owens and Haggard and Kristofferson became my minstrels of choice. Eventually, they gave way to the sounds from Elton John and Purple Sagers, Prairie Leaguers, Daredevils and Eagles. In the 1980s, I started my work life as a teacher and, out of necessity, or convenience – I’m not sure which – I began listening to Steve Earle and Hank Williams Jr. The Boss and Billy Joel and Elton John, Van Halen, Police and Duran Duran. By the time the 1990s were well into swing, my music collection had transformed mysteriously into a Country & Western collection with contributions from Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Martina, Reba and so many others. At the turn of the century, I began to cultivate my once-long-ago attraction to Canadian artists. Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young, The Hip and Blue Rodeo along with Joni Mitchell and Bruce Cockburn became my ‘musique de jour’. In 2011, I remarried and moved to China. While in Asia, my wife's performance background in music, helped me to become reacquainted with all of the music I had listened to for the first 60 years of my life. It was then, I came up with the idea of listing 30 songs and/or albums that were most meaningful to my life to that point. The list I came up with is featured below. The songs are not listed chronologically as far as their release dates are concerned but rather in the order of my life when I used them to help explain and narrate my day-to-day world. Neither are the songs listed in order of importance or personal popularity. No song on the list is any more or less important than any other song – just like no friend or family member is any more or less important than any other – they all contributed to who I have become, and they should all be included in the soundtrack of "ME". I have also included one short personal blurb with each entry on the list, to tell a little about my life and to demystify why the song was important to me.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Beat
First Thing You Know, Old Jed's a Millionaire . . .
As I understand it, approximately 70% of the oil consumed in Canada is used to fuel the country’s transportation needs and, the majority of that 70%, facilitates transportation east of the Great Lakes and west of the Rocky Mountains. Presently, the pipeline infrastructure supplying the West Coast, Eastern Canada and the Maritimes is either lacking in some respect or non-existent. If one looks at domestic production and consumption statistics only, it certainly appears that Canada could theoretically meet its own demands for oil and gas. However, the true cost in dollars, for nation-wide distribution of domestic oil through a network of yet-to-be-built pipelines, fleets of tanker trucks plus the resultant highway maintenance, or for upgrading rail service, would be so astronomical, that the true north, once strong and free, would be taxed into a pandemonium of poverty in efforts to support such a venture, considering Canada’s present system of outdated infrastructure.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Journal
Thirty-two Years in the Business . . . Day 873
When Jack took on his first teaching assignment, he never entertained the thought of becoming a school principal. To tell the truth, he had never really given much thought to even becoming a teacher until about five years prior to his first day of real, in-the-trenches teaching. He had aspirations of becoming a veterinarian when he first left high school. It was the money mostly. He thought that animal doctors had it pretty easy really – you know, stick a needle or two in a dog or a cat, deliver a calf, pull some porcupine quills out of a dog’s nose, put an old pet out of its misery, cut the nuts off a pig . . . wait . . . he had already done all that stuff by the time he was 17 and as he recalled, it really wasn’t that easy or much fun for that matter. Why a vet then? Well, his school advisor, being of little ambition and even less creativity, figured that because Jack was a good student, with high marks in the maths and sciences and because he had a farm background, he could quite easily navigate his way through the workload of Veterinary College. Jack was a gullible sort, so he believed it also. He believed it, that is, until university life got the better of him. He never did enter the College of Veterinary Medicine. Instead he gave up the sweet life of a university student to become a . . . farmer.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
