FOREVER YOUNG

I read Marni Jackson’s “The Boomerang Effect” (September) with great pleasure. The memoir’s careful mix of humour, introspection, and beautiful prose was refreshing, particularly in this era of unedited blog spewings. Moreover, as a “boomerang” myself, I enjoyed reading a perspective from the other side of the experience. I recently moved back home to my parents’ house, where my mum — forgetting that I took care of myself for seven years — has resumed making sure I have money for the subway and leaving notes reminding me to dress appropriately for job interviews.

Nick Hutcheson
Toronto, ON

I went straight to Jackson’s article, hoping for an analysis of the “boomerang kid” phenomenon, and a proposed solution for parents (myself included). Instead, what I found was an entertaining but familiar account of the angst mothers feel when kids leave home for Adventure Road. I’d appreciate something more in depth on this: is today’s world so difficult to navigate that our children just can’t make it on their own, or have we somehow failed to prepare them for independence?

Judy Storness-Kress
Gabriola Island, BC

Finally reading the @walrusmagazine cover essay on boomerang parents; thoughtful analogue to nyt Mag’s “20-somethings! What’s their deal?”

@xoxsnp (Twitter)

GOODBYE, LENIN

I enjoyed the article on Lenin’s bust (“Pravda and Other Words for Truth,” September), because I am the “Russian man” (Macedonian, in fact) who visited Ken Coontz’s store every year to celebrate Lenin’s birthday. My wife, Emma, would blow the bust a kiss whenever we drove by. Now that Lenin has left the building, we are very thankful for Jaret Belliveau’s photographs. I will have them enlarged and framed, and we will continue to have Lenin close by.

James Naumoff
Toronto, ON

LIFE GOES ON

It is indeed difficult, as J. B. MacKinnon puts it in “A 10 Percent World” (September), to “‘visualize previous states’ of local ecosystems.” I was therefore astounded to have that opportunity while skirting a tiny island off the west coast of South America, near Callao, Peru. Here the Humboldt Current seems to have retained enough fish to support an astounding array of life. Every nook and cranny is occupied by squawking colonies of penguins, pelicans, terns, boobies, and seagulls. The lower slopes are jam packed with basking sea lions, their heads bobbing in the water as flocks of birds wheel overhead.

There are, of course, no penguins in the northern hemisphere, but when the sea fog drifts along the west coast of Vancouver Island in the summer months, we can sample the “taste, smell, and feel of a wilder world,” in MacKinnon’s words, along our own shores.

Dick Momsen
Sooke, BC

I’ll be starting awkward convo’s with strangers about J. B. MacKinnon’s ecology piece in @walrusmagazine, I can feel it.

@lindsaypage (Twitter)

VALUABLE LESSONS

In his Editor’s Note (September), John Macfarlane asks whether school boards are accountable, using the TDSB as his chief example. As the parent of two autistic kids in this city, I am among the “tiny minority” who know the name of their school trustee: when my daughter was kicked out of second grade for four months, I phoned the trustee twenty-seven times. She phoned me back exactly once, leaving a flippant voice mail suggesting I call the premier instead to complain about the lack of funding for special education. Eventually, I gave up and hired a lawyer. Within a week, my daughter was back in school, with the support she needed to stay there full time until she graduated and moved on to middle school, where again I had to hire a lawyer to ensure she had the resources she needed to participate.

More than ten years later, in 2009, my son was effectively excluded from grade three, permitted to attend for only one hour a day. Day after day, I called my trustee, as well as the superintendent and the Ministry of Education. Again and again, I was told there was no program for my son in the TDSB, which, as Mr. Macfarlane points out, is a $2.5-billion system — the largest in the country. No one did anything until I hired a lawyer and filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

So are school boards accountable? I’d say it depends on the size of your legal budget.

Stephanie Griffiths
Toronto, ON

DEAR LEADER

I served Trudeau in a minor role, as one of the pilots in Transport Canada’s Executive Flight. Our task was to provide air transport for cabinet ministers and other official guests of the Crown, and I can say with no hesitation that Pierre Trudeau was our favourite passenger. What struck me most was his down-to-earth humanity: he wore the mantle of power lightly.

On one occasion, he was camping with Justin on Baffin Island. We were detailed to pick them up in Iqaluit (then Frobisher Bay) and take them back to Ottawa. When we asked him when he wanted to go back, he pondered a moment, then asked us what our preferences were: did we want to return now and have tomorrow free? We said, “Sir, this is your aircraft, you’re the prime minister, surely it’s for you to say!” “Well,” he answered, “it’s all the same to me. Let’s go when you want.”

He went out of his way to show appreciation for the long hours we often put in. We remember him fondly, and miss him much.

Peter Cranston
Former chief pilot, Transport Canada Executive Flight Service
(Online)

New issue of @walrusmagazine arrived today. Cover head: “The Humble Pierre Trudeau.” I assume it’s this month’s fiction feature.

@penguinstorm (Twitter)

Melancholic reading in leaderless Canada.

@shawnmicallef (Twitter)