I'll always remember him as Moses, when I envision Moses. Also very similar to that long-haired character portrayed in The Lord of the Rings.

I'm of the opinion that Michael Moore is as much of a charleton as this newly deceased one. The characters men portray as they weave their way to their ends. Someone, somewhere, at least once loved them.

Cormac McCarthy springs to mind in this same circle. I thoroughly enjoyed No Country for Old Men and recently read his two-man play The Sunset Limited. The last two words of the play, spoken by the black character. Okay! Okay! (O King! O King!)

Yesterday I listened to Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe and thoroughly enjoyed a duo's (Jakob and Lily) demo (from Winkler, Manitoba) entitled Lock Your Devil Up! I wonder, is this where this particular old man is headed ... UP. I phoned my own father and advised him to listen up!

Some readers may want to log onto www.ted.com to view a quick video presented by an old DJ called Jakob Trollback entitled Rethinking the music video.

Last year, riding on the BC ferries with my father. He had been visiting my brother in Powell River and I needed to get him over to Comox, on the island, so he could catch his flight back to Winnipeg, where he currently lives.

It was early in the morning. We sat in the canteen of the boat waiting for our breakfasts to arrive. Two young men in their twenties sat down beside us. "Where you headed to?" my father asked. "Up north. Up mountain." was their response.

"Maybe they'll meet Moses on his way down!" was my response to my father, as we each dug into our chow.

After eating, we went looking for a seat in order to relax and enjoy the scenery on the journey. My father said something to me that struck me as being quite profound. Which way to face when sitting and looking out the windows. "I like to see where I'm going, not where I've been," were his words.

It's like standing and looking up at Mount Rushmore. "Look! See! A head!" (Actually, a few of them carved out of and into solid rock, all of them now also old dead men, cold old dead men.)

My father, at 81, is still hanging in there. His name is Walter (Wally). Once home and safe from the trip we shared, he thanked me "for helping him with his baggage." I kind of felt good about that one.

It just might have been the last time I'll see him, in real time.

Years ago, he also had guns, which he used for hunting, mounted up on high in "his area" in our basement. I never saw any bullets though.

Handguns scare me. I saw my first one thrown onto my mother-in-law's table in Northern Ireland. The man who threw it onto the table, for some reason, just needed to show my husband and I, that he "belonged to some sort of group." As quickly as it appeared on the table, he was asked to pick it up and get it out of our sight. No need, to prove to us, that he was, in fact, a man.

What would I want to remember about Heston? I think, really, coming down from a cold mountain with tablets in hand as opposed to hoisting a gun up on high or that of a doddering, rambling old fool. Possibly, his hands grew cold because later on, towards the end of his life ... no one wanted to hold onto his.

I am a child of a King; my father. Heston, I believe, was also a child, of sorts, of one as well.

Till the death, defend the right.

Speak before your mind goes dark and your hands turn cold ... tick, tick, tick!

Even though my grandma taught me that it's never nice to speak ill of the dead, I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel a little relief when I heard about Heston's death.
Although I did feel sorry for him in Bowling for Columbine when Michael Moore was confronting him about his beliefs on being a gun advocate. He was clearly confused and suffering from Alzheimers, but nevertheless he didn't ever strike me as someone who was open to listening to the other side.