A New and Brighter Day

This morning after only one day of the ground hog grumblings of 6 more weeks of winter the sun came out.

Even the normally taciturn post lady offered a greeting as I came up from the laundry room and astonished me by stating what a nice day it was.

After all there's hope!

I received a Twitter message from my friend Danny advising that as per its Superbowl announcement, Denny's Restaurants all across North America were offering free Grand Slam breakfasts to all comers until 2 p.m. I slid in just under the wire and our local Denny's at Thurlow and Davie looked like the Union Gospel Mission on Christmas Day.

The CNN news media twittered back:

Denny's slammed by breakfast giveaway http://tinyurl.com/att4bh

This sort of advertising campaign, a brilliant stroke of intuitive genius in a jaded corporate world would not have been thinkable before Barak Obama and the current economic crisis.

I had never seen the restaurant so busy, and despite the protests and complaints of the usual still-drunk-from-the-night-before rowdies, the staff and management with all hands on and perhaps triple its usual staff were a living breathing example of the meaning of customer service and generosity of spirit.

And what a note of optimism to sound in a year amid thunderings of doom and gloom!

After my hearty breakfast and over a month of snow, rain, sleet and freezing temperatures rarely seen on the West Coast I took my first seawall walk of the year to English Bay.

Down at the waterfront a grizzled veteran in Cowboy hat and rawhides who usually strums aimlessly at his guitar amid shouts and jokes to his drinking buddies on the nearby benches was in the middle of a full fledged rounding version of Marguaritaville, while an elderly lady sat by his side head inclined in rapt listening attention and with a look of admiration in her eyes as she gazed at him. He sounded pretty damn good, so good that his usual ranting buddies also shut up and watched him!

I made it all the way to English Bay and home in about an hour and a half after a stop or two along the way.

Thunderclouds on the horizon be damned, it is this kind of day that makes one want to shout Halleluliah!

And when I got home and checked email my thoughts and visualization of the night before were proved prophetic. I received a note from my son Ky who is now in Barcelona and walked down to the waterfront for his first ever glimpse of the splendid Mediterranean Sea.

For today anyway, its a new dawn and a new day!