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)
Filter by community
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
Do You Want To See My Snake?
Jerome was hired initially as an educator / demonstrator at the science museum in Twin Falls. He learned the scripts and protocols of a number of different science shows and soon, was able to present all of them flawlessly and creatively to any audience of any age. His favorite demonstration was the Cryogenics Show. He loved teasing the little kids with great anticipation, for the instant before they exploded onto his stage in their infantile efforts to wrap themselves in the billowing clouds of nitrogen gas that filled the air when he poured a liter of liquid nitrogen into an open tub of boiling water. He indulged in the thrill of making the thinning white hairs of some elderly man or woman, stand at attention while they slapped their hand on the static ball of the Van de Graaff electrostatic generator. He enjoyed his time “on the exhibit floor”, chatting science with visitors as they circulated and marveled at all of the kiosks and play areas put there for their amusement.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
So Long Norma Jen Morten
I get around to some pretty weird parties from time to time. Sometimes when I’m at these pretty weird parties, I hear people talking, you know, like saying things that nobody else is supposed to hear. Sometimes, the people I hear talking are like really famous people too – famous people I never knew were famous until I listened to them talking. Like this one time, I was at this New Year’s Eve Party down at the Red Velvet Layer Cake – I know, pretty crazy name for a night club eh? Anyway, I looked up at the clock on the wall in the men’s lavatory and I saw that it’s getting pretty close to midnight, and I’m thinking that I should get back out onto the dance floor and find some real nice doll, you know, like one that I could be dancing with, real close like, when the countdown starts. You get what I’m saying right? Good! Because, I don’t want to be, like telling some story here, that nobody understands.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
I Think I Left the Iron On. Top Story - November 2021.
To quote a “Very Funny Fellow” – I started out as a child. I spent the first twenty-four years of my life acting like a child and doing some rather childish things. I didn’t date much before then and even when I did reach the one quarter century mark, I still much preferred ‘playing’ to working. I played hockey and baseball and football whenever I could. I skipped work occasionally so that I could play these games, and others. Some would have called me immature, but I prefer to think of my habits and behaviors as simply efforts to preserve my youth. In my 28th year, I got married (finally, by my mother's account). After being on my own for my entire life to that point, it was difficult for me to get used to the things I needed to do as a married man. I had to refrain from executing some of my favorite bodily functions in public (or even in private). I couldn’t watch sports on television any more than two or three hours per week. Dishes had to be washed after every meal. Bathing, showering and shaving became almost daily expectations. Chairs could no longer be used for hanging my clothes. And, articles left on the floor for more than one or two days often disappeared from my collections altogether.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
The Car Wash Redemption
“Seriously?” gasped Randy, “You want to borrow my rifle to shoot what?” “Sorry man, but that does not compute. Besides, I’m out of bullets and the hardware store is closed now and nobody else around has the same gun as I do and, and, and, a million other reasons and excuses why you shouldn’t be thinking about doing what you are thinking about doing. What the fuck’s the matter with you anyway? This isn’t the wild west you know. You can’t just go around, shooting shit up because some guy pissed you off . . . ”
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
Report Card Comments
One of the accomplishments I am most proud of in my years on the planet to this point is that I had the magnificent opportunity to teach a variety of students in a variety of content areas in a variety of grade levels in a variety of schools in a variety of locations all over the world. It has been said that variety is the spice of life. If that is true, then teaching school has offered me a multitude of chances to spice up my life over the years. There are so many things that take place in a school building that warm the heart, tickle one’s fancy, make one cry, piss one off, blow one’s mind or drop one to the floor in a fit of laughter. I enjoyed pretty much every aspect of teaching during my 32 years in the classroom. From the first day of school in September to the last day in June, to the field trips, to the hands-on activities, to coaching teams at tournaments, to tutorials for students, to making up lessons and exams.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Education
Who's Your Daddy?
I was born in the fall of 1952. My mother was an elementary school teacher and my father worked for the city. He was a wiry little man with a brilliant sense of humor, as I recall. He could light up a room just by thinking about the room. He could also light up a cigarette and then do magic tricks with it. One of his tricks was particularly brilliant. He would first light the smoke and then grip the unlit end between his tongue and his lower front teeth and pivot the cigarette back, open his mouth wide, rotate the burning end back and inside his mouth, close his mouth and blow smoke out of his nose and his right ear. I know this sounds like I’m making it up, but he really could do it. The nose part I got because I could do the same with a glass of milk. My dad taught me how to do that one. He figured, at the time, that I was too young to be performing cigarette tricks so, he showed me how to take a mouthful of milk, close my lips tight build up some pressure and blow it out through my nose. Much to the chagrin of my poor mother, my two older brothers and my three sisters could also perform the same trick. On a good night at the supper table, my mom would consider herself lucky if only a couple of us spewed a white stream of dairy product back into our glass before we drank it. Eeewww! I know. Gross right?
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
