Morning Hero

One of my best memories is being up north at a hockey parents cottage. A fancy place in Muskoka but these parents were down to earth folks who just loved having kids running around and the boys (and girl) playing shinny on the lake. I left early early one morning to boot into town to hit the Tims to bring back a box of coffees for all the parents (they knew me as the "Tim Guy"- my contribution to the team kinda). I came back and there were 4 or 5 of the parents already down on the frozen lake shovelling. Kids were, of course, up. Parents were pretty happy to see me and pitch their "cottage swill" coffee. Better than that though was this beautiful scene with salt of the earth Canadians clearing off a pond with the kids off to the side waiting to get on (some still tying their skates sitting on log stumps). As I walked back up to the cottage (fireplace burning of course) and then looked down from the deck to see this all unfold like a freaking Rockwell picture, I sniffed in my Timmies, looked at Joey my kid and I thought, man you have life by the tail. We're lucky people to live in this great country and create these kind of great memories for our kids.