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 (126)
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Teaching Methods and Strategies
Trevor was a likeable enough fellow. He was of good farm-boy stock and he had average intelligence I suppose. However, he also had several character flaws, one of which was his unrealistically high opinion of the male gender as opposed to the fairer, but not weaker sex. Trevor was enrolled in one of my Grade 10 Science courses way back in one of the early years that I taught High School in a small prairie town.
By John Oliver Smith5 years ago in Humans
Building a Backyard Ice Rink
A crisp, clear winter morning heralded by the hollow squawk of skate blades on new ice and the clackity-clatter of hockey sticks and the boom of pucks punctuating their caroms from a border of new boards. The season of ice and snow has arrived, celebrated through construction and use of a backyard skating rink. If you are interested in building your own ice rink, the fabrication of a simple one should commence sooner than you might think.
By John Oliver Smith5 years ago in Lifehack
At Your Place
Dear Loved One, I wish I could see you at your place. I wish I could sit at your kitchen table and talk to you while you do things at the counter. I know I would probably watch you when you weren’t looking. But I wouldn’t be rude about it. I wouldn’t be disrespectful when I watched you. I would just think how wonderful you were, because you are wonderful. I can’t lie to you – I’ve watched you before so I know you are wonderful.
By John Oliver Smith5 years ago in Families
Being Willie Mays
In those two months between the end of grade seven and the beginning of the eighth grade, I was agreeably resigned to spending my summer vacation on the family farm, as I had done every summer in my life to that point. There was no wiggle room for negotiation on the matter anyway. My family had no money for travel and there were so many things to manage, including hogs to look after and plenty of summer field work to be done. So, there always had to be at least one adult around and, one adult realistically meant two and, two meant the kids would be staying put as well. For me there were plenty of house and garden chores to go around and, neither did I mind doing barn chores, like feeding the pigs. I actually looked forward to helping as much as I could with the barn-cleaning each morning – carrying straw-bales and pushing wheel-barrows full of manure. You see, my passion was playing baseball and I believed that all this work would provide me a much-needed opportunity to improve and strengthen my skinny little frame, for the game I loved.
By John Oliver Smith5 years ago in Unbalanced
Cash on the Kitchen Counter
“Shopping list!” he celebrated. No sooner had my grandfather dropped his pen beside the book when a dozen eggs and a container of milk appeared on the kitchen counter. I was five years old at the time so I hadn’t yet experienced anything in my life that would dissuade me from the presumed normality of this event. Indeed, grandpa’s behavior seemed to attract weirdness wherever he went. I made no connection between his oftentimes strange life and the little black book he kept in his denim smock pocket. After he died, however, and I discovered the book on a shelf in his workshop, I got a clearer picture of his magical life.
By John Oliver Smith5 years ago in Futurism
