Michael Atkins

I’ve spent a lifetime consuming and investing in media.

For some reason, I thought it was Mick Jagger who coined the phrase “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” It wasn’t him. It was a fellow named Mark Weinberg from Buffalo, NY.

In the fall of 1972 I arrived in Little Current, Manitoulin Island with an old Volkswagen van (pop-up roof), a motorcycle, a beard, a change of clothes, and a C chord harmonica. I was the new editor of the Manitoulin Expositor.

A new year and a new prime minister. A moment to be thankful for small mercies.

Admittedly, the headline is a fairly cheesy steal from the famous New Hampshire licence plate “Live free or die.” I owned a publishing company in New Hampshire for many years and so spent a little time in that neck of the woods.

Three years ago, my daughter (then 14) competed at Mount Baldy in an Ontario Alpine Ski Race. It was a big deal for me. I don’t get to Thunder Bay as much as I used to and I had a story to tell.

As I write, it is the first of August. I am in Nova Scotia. I am on holiday. My top priority is the tide so I can plan my walk. Tomorrow, I will consult Environment Canada to study wind speeds.

Bob Lipic died last month. If you were in the mining business in Canada, you knew him; or if you didn’t, you had heard of him.

I met Darryl Lake around 40 years ago. He was the dean of Health Sciences and Technology at Cambrian College and I was in the early years of publishing Northern Life newspaper in Sudbury.

I made a brief return to the homeland (Nova Scotia) last week for a little business and family. A cousin welcomed me for tea. She apologized for the lack of biscuits and explained her car had been stuck in the driveway since Feb. 28.