John Oliver Smith
Bio
Baby, son, brother, child, student, collector, farmer, photographer, player, uncle, coach, husband, student, writer, teacher, father, science guy, fan, coach, grandfather, comedian, traveler, chef, story-teller, driver, regular guy!!
Achievements (1)
Stories (118/0)
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 Smith3 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 Smith3 years ago in Filthy
Some Things You Just Never Hear
During the final eight years of my teaching career, I had the wonderful opportunity and once-in-a-lifetime experience of teaching in an International High School in Wuhan, China. There were so many things that took place on almost a daily basis in that school over those eight happy and memorable years that I will never forget and which seemed like an annoyance at the time but really were the substance of good-hearted fun. In the account below, I will list a few of them, in a format that may only make sense to teachers and students who have encountered the same experiences during the same time period.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Education
The First Day
Fall is simply the best time of year. Fall is all the golden, red and yellow mash-up tapestry you only get to see for two not-long-enough-weeks after summer has checked out. Fall has crisper, more urgent air than summer. Fall air takes nothing for granted. It reintroduces itself with each breath as it moves through your nose, your throat, your chest. Fall air is much like spring air, but fall air is fresh in a more carbonated way – a way that sensitizes for a winter that will eventually put an end to everything that fall is. Fall is football and World Series baseball and vacationers coming back from their summer sojourns.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Education
The Pears of Black River
'Las Peras del Rio Negro' was the bright red title on the poster hung on the cork-board outside the employment office door. I attempted to say the words aloud, not even knowing for sure the language in which they were written. I somehow suspected they might be Spanish because I recognized the word “Rio” from a couple of old ‘dusters’ I had seen at the cinema when I was a kid. I liked the way the phrase sounded, even though I knew I probably wasn’t pronouncing it correctly. I opened the door, edged into the crowded waiting area, closed the door behind me, then made my way to the queue marked ‘New Job Opportunities’. One of the agents was making his way up and down the lines, handing out the updated job list as we stood waiting. The list provided something to do as we shuffled from foot to foot over the half hour or so of moving forward at a snail’s pace. It also gave us a head’s up on what to inquire when we finally made it to the window at the front of the line. On perusing the list, I again noted the title – Las Peras del Rio Negro. “Interesting!”, I thought.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Fiction
Ode to a Moose
It was late April and we had just experienced another cold snap. Out my cabin door, I could see that the big pond had taken on more ice. The winter ice never really went away, and now that the temperature was dipping down to minus 15 degrees at night, any open water that might have been around, was thickening up pretty quickly. There were some smooth clear patches here and there that were alright for skating. Regarding ice thickness and skating safety on lakes and ponds, I always remembered the little verse I learned during Red Cross Swimming Lessons when I was a kid – “One inch – NO WAY, Two inches – ONE MAY, Three inches – SMALL GROUP, Four inches -OKAY”. Since I was skating by myself, I knew that the ice really only had to be about two or three inches in order to be safe enough for my medium-build frame to be supported as I lutzed and sowkowed around from patch to patch or when I took a slapshot to see how far a puck would actually travel.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Fiction
All My Friends and Relatives Eat Shit
“Hi there. My name is Ralph and I’m a Dung Beetle. I live on the western edge of the tropical Amazon rainforest in a country called Ecuador. I very seldom see the sun because of the massive overhead canopy formed by the large tropical trees in our neighborhood. We do have a daytime and a night time though. The night time is very dark and I can often see the stars through the openings in the trees. But in the daytime, it is very difficult to see the sky. Because of the light coming through the leaves above me, everything appears to have a green tinge to it. I’ve heard that in most places in the world, daylight is white. In my forest, however, the daylight is green light.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Fiction
A Ton of Bull
Sitting in the cowboy’s lounge, back of the holding chutes, my mind filled with some pretty serious second guessing and anticipatory jitters about what was coming up in the next few minutes. Like I had done, dozens of times before, I made my walk out of the locker room, down the corridor toward the event arena. As I climbed up the rack of tubular metal bars separating my next ride from the rest of the world, I wondered if I wasn’t making a mistake and whether or not I should have stopped taking part in this crazy sport after my last successful ride, 24 hours earlier. No surprises though. That was usually the feeling I had each time I made the ascent to the top bar before gingerly lowering my frame onto the back of a one-ton monster. The only thing that compensated for the doubt that filled my heart and mind as I grabbed onto the metal penning and put my boot onto the first rung was the absolute explosion of adrenaline and exhilaration that filled my entire body as I wiggled into position for my eight seconds (or less) on a rodeo bull. The bulls that any of us rode always waited reluctantly for their cowboy. The game was set up so that we never have to wait for them. Each preparation for the ride was, for me, as routine as shaving and consisted of a series of steps. If all went well, there might even be one additional celebratory step after everything was over.
By John Oliver Smith3 years ago in Fiction