Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Last Resort

There really is a Green Acres Trailer Park in Bobcaygeon in the Kawartha Lakes Region of Ontario which today caters exclusively to seasonal campers. During his formative years Lindwood Barclay’s family owned and ran the place. I’ve been that camper attending to business only to discover there are no provisions in the stall I occupy. Linwood worked for a time for the Oakville Beaver before moving on to greener pastures at the Toronto Star. He still lives in Oakville. Despite the glowering appearance the photo on his website shows appropriate it would seem to his present occupation as a writer of crime fiction this memoir is written with loving humour.

Every eleven-year-old boy’s dream would be to have a John Deere Tractor lawnmower to ride around on, a power boat to tool around the lake in, a new set of playmates or potential girlfriends arriving weekly, and surrogate grandmothers to fawn over him and bake cookies. There were chores to perform in particular the bucket from the fish cleaning station but they weren’t all that onerous. The book reads like summers spent at the lake with friends. The troubles in his life are approached with the same sunny disposition.

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