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!!!
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Stories (126)
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The Greatest Threat to Mankind
Recently, while perusing the various inane posts one can usually find on the Facebook app, I happened to notice a question asked by somebody out there with way more time on their hands than any one person should be allowed to accumulate. The question was, “What do you consider to be, the biggest threat to mankind?” I scrolled through some of the typical responses like, “Hunger”, “Greed”, “War”, “Terrorism”, “Disease” and so on. I was saddened and disappointed to see that a former acquaintance of mine had written his response as simply, “China”. Having lived and worked deep in the heart of China for eight wonderful years and having, during that time, made more than just a few friends from a group of citizens that would have gladly given me the time of day or the shirt off of their backs or the food off of their table, I really took exception to this guy’s comment. So, I responded by saying that I hoped he was joking, and if he weren’t, then shame on him for saying something so flippant and so unsupported (at least by him), considering that he had never set foot in that country or made even the most distant of acquaintances with anyone remotely connected to the country. He responded to my response by reminding me that the Chinese government were still in the process of holding two Canadians hostage in return for a detained Chinese national who just so happened to be the CEO of Huawei Company and finished by saying that my wife and I were indeed lucky to have escaped from China when we did and to feel lucky that we never had to go back there. I, of course, could not let that comment go either. In the paragraphs below, I have written my final response to that man.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Futurism
The Tin-Can Internet
John had always been a collector. When he was a five-year-old, growing up on his family’s farm, he collected fuzzy caterpillars. He would rescue them from sure death on the roadways and put them gently into the cuffs of his trousers. When he eventually wandered into the border of caragana trees surrounding the farmyard, he would release them into what he imagined to be safer refuge. More often than not, however, he would forget about them and his mother would find their crispy little bodies curled up in the cuffs on wash day. This gathering-nature of his, was the beginning of, what some might call an illness – a malady from which there could be no escape and from which could only come disastrous ends. From caterpillars, John moved on to baseball cards and animal cards and plastic “car” and “airplane” wheels / discs sold in packages of Jello and potato chips. Later he built and collected plastic model cars and motorcycles. As he grew older and travelled around the world, he gathered paper money and stamps from each of the countries he visited along the way. By the time he was 25 years old, he had also put together a display of sports hats and jerseys worth thousands of dollars. In his late twenties, he became a teacher and realized how necessary it was to save various household, and, everyday items to enhance the various activities he conducted in his classroom. He collected bottles and boxes with lids to store everything from paper clips to buttons to down-to-the-last-nub erasers.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
The Team's New Uniforms
The football team at Metrotown High School had played its final game of the season. Even though they had improved somewhat over the dismal performance they put forth last season, they still managed to win only one game, and that had been a forfeit due to a bus breakdown suffered by their opponents on the final weekend of the season. One of the visiting parents had remarked how shoddy the team looked in their ill-fitting and over-washed uniforms and how their lack-luster appearance seemed to be well-suited to the boring style of game they played while on the field. Once brilliant, red and proud, the school's teams were now down-trodden and slightly less than a faded pink.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Fiction
The Giants of Casa Grande
In late February, 1979, I drove from cold, white and barren Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to sunny and warm Apache Junction, Arizona. Most of my time was spent with relatives in this relatively new (at the time) suburb of Phoenix. Every morning, I hit golf-balls at a nearby driving range, visited my Aunt in the afternoon and, at night, played an extraordinary number of card games with other more-distant relations.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Wander
When Being Fair Means Being Equal
In the upcoming federal election, I’m not sure if I should vote for the competitive party or the cooperative party. I guess the alternatives would be equality and parity. Cooperation and collaboration seem to be hooped right from the start which means that we will probably go through another 1000-year term with inequality and social injustice gaining points in a weak-minded political market. We are so fucked when it comes to figuring things out. We are appalled with all the drugs and murders and thefts and other violent crimes and yet we never do the right thing to put an end to it. If Joe gets cancer, give him a regimen of chemicals and radiation and possibly cut out a segment of his colon or lop off his prostate. That is more manageable that trying to get Joe to eat right, live right, stop smoking, stop drinking. It is also more light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnelish than trying to clean up the environment that fostered Joe’s malignancy to start with. We pretty much handle all of our social, emotional, financial, environmental problems like that. We have spent a fortune, many fortunes, on band aids when we should have been investing in permanent and long term cures for our woes. Let’s face it, we are mentally fucking retarded when it comes to solving the world’s big problems and you know why? Because money gets in the way. There are some guys out there that are really lucky that money controls the world because they would be shit out of luck if everybody was all of a sudden put on the same equal and level playing field. And there’s the problem right there. There is no equality or parity in the world. All the individuals in the village, let alone the municipality, let alone the province, let alone the country, let alone the world are not playing on the same field. Hell, we’re not even all in the same league or playing the same fucking game. I have a house. It is not big. It gives me shelter and warmth and a place to keep my stuff. It is my home base. It is an important part of my life. It gives me a centre point. I can go back to it when I need to recollect or to rest or to recuperate or to read or eat. I can let people know about my place when I have to work or pay bills or apply for loans or school. It makes me feel good to know that I will always have somewhere to go. There’s the deal – it makes me feel good. Why shouldn’t everyone get to feel good about themselves by having their own place to live? There’s the first inequality. There are people out there that have houses that are bigger than hotels and that could hold dozens of people and that aren’t even lived in because their real house is an even bigger one somewhere else. I have heard it said that these people can’t be denied their big homes and all the accessories just because they are rich. They have worked for their money and so deserve the good life. Bullshit! These people are rich because others are poor. That’s the way the world works. The cobra population is up because the mongoose population is down. The Raptors suck because the Pistons are hot. These people are rich because others around the world have no chance of ever getting a piece of the pie. Child and slave labour around the planet provides goods and services that allow the rich to get richer and stay richer. You and I pay outrageous prices for fundamental and basic needs that somebody is selling and becoming amazingly wealthy. Cha-fucking-ching.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Humans
The Good Teacher
Like a mother is always a mother to her children, a teacher is always a teacher to his or her students. When my mother was 90 years old and I was 60 years old and my brother was 58 years old and my sister was 64 years old, my mother still fulfilled the role of mother for us. She still mothered us. She still cared and worried and fussed and doted and did whatever a mother has done all of her life with respect to her children. Once a mother, always a mother. No matter how old you are, your mother is still your mother. No matter how old a mother’s children are they are still her children. The mother and child relationship, no matter how it played out way back when will continue to play out in the same way forever, until death do us part. That relationship is one of the everlasting truths in the universe. There is no other relationship that comes close to that one except for maybe the relationship between a teacher and a student. That relationship also plays out and continues to play out in much the same way over the years. It always stands the test of time, and the younger the child when the relationship started the more similarly it plays out when the student becomes older.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Education
It's Story Time Boys and Girls
Today in our story, let’s build a polypeptide. Imagine if you will, a big hotel (in a super big hotel chain) in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Therein worked a Master Chef, Maurice (just like any of the other Master Chefs that worked in any of the other 50 trillion hotels in the chain). Maurice had just received a very important e-mail message from the CEO of the chain, Mr. Smithers (no relation). The message stated that several of the hotels in the Tri-State area were desperately short of Maurice’s very famous frosted chocolate brownies (according to the latest hotel customer satisfaction surveys). Mr. Smithers requested that Maurice search through his unbelievably huge recipe file and find the recipe for frosted chocolate brownies and get them made, pronto, and keep getting them made until all the people in the hotels in the area had enough of those frosted chocolate brownies – his very famous frosted chocolate brownies.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Education
Hand Dryers in Public Washrooms
Public washrooms are a really good place to do some serious people watching eh? Like . . . let me rephrase that okay! What I mean to say is that whenever I go into a public washroom I notice things that just make me want to take out my camera and start taking pictures . . . er, uh . . . this is not going well, let me start again . . .
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Humans
Changing The Lines
I have played around with different careers and roles in my life. I have been a farmer, raising hogs and chickens and growing grain crops. I have been a presenter and a director in a Science Centre. I have hosted my own radio show and, in fact, got married “on the air” in an attempt to allow more people to attend the ceremony and, to cut down on costs, of course. I have been teacher for over 30 years and I have been a student for another 20. During the time I was teaching, I decided to do something to help perfect my craft. I decided to enroll in a Stand-Up Comedy course offered by a near-by College. I felt that if I could stand in front of an audience and bare my soul by telling jokes and stories, I would somehow be more natural and entertaining in my day job of teaching. One of the exercises that my fellow students and I had to complete was to take lines from any movie and change them in a way that would turn the film into a comedy of sorts. Whatever genre the movie started out as, it would now become a comedy because of our line changes. My attempts at this assignment are offered below. I do believe, however, that the changes appear much funnier, if indeed, the reader has previously viewed the film in question. Regardless, read on, and hopefully enjoy.
By John Oliver Smith4 years ago in Filthy
