There's a blog, three times a week, called The Decarie Report. It began as a criticism of the Irving owned newspapers in New Brunswick, the worst daily newspapers I have ever seen. But far the largest parts of my audience are in the U.S. and China - with substantial parts from France and Germany. So now it's mostly on world affairs.
The stories that gave me most satisfaction were two I wrote for Reader's Digest some years ago - "Mr. Herbert D. Johnson's Florida Soiree" - and one whose title I have forgotten - it was about a 16 year old who played with me when I was just seven or so. Bertie was big kid, severely retarded. Even a little kid could see that. One day, when I was walking in the lane behind our flat, two arms in khaki scooped me up. It was Bertie. He had stolen his brother's draft papers and joined the army. He loved walking in those boots and hearing his heels click. His family said it would intervene. But it never did. Six months later, he saw his first action. His squad was pinned down by machine gun fire.
I met a man who had been with him. " Bertie was lying beside me. He was cryin'. Of course. He had loved marching. But he'd never thought of the fighting part. Then he jumped up, and the machine gun cut him in half. Craziest thing. When he jumped up, he was screamin' for his mother."
He was buried under his brother's name. The family said they would fix that. But they never did. They got several thousand dollars from the government - and spent it all on liquor within months. Years later, I found his grave, and got a friend in the Canadian government to change the name.
Right now, I'm close to finishing an autobiography for my children.