With the kids well into their teenage years, I was looking for an Easter tradition to replace the old Easter egg hunt that evaporated some years ago.

I am nearing the end of an interesting project — helping Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion with her memoirs — and one of the most enjoyable parts of it is something I never expected.

A friend in Montreal — I’ll call her Sassy Knoll for her love of conspiracy theories — thinks Pierre-Karl Peladeau and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are in league to torpedo the Parti Quebecois’ chances in the crucial April 7 Quebec election.

As we approach the first anniversary of the election of Pope Francis, it is not difficult to find him top of mind.

The key to the great illusionist Harry Houdini was the art of misdirection. Houdini could do things like make elephants on stage disappear by misdirecting the eyes and ears of the audience so their minds believed something quite different.

It is official: Pope Francis is a rock star. Or, at least that is what Rolling Stone magazine is announcing to the world by putting the Pontiff on its current cover.

With the Christmas season behind us, so begins the “season of re-gifting.” The other day, my lovely wife was thinking about passing along a Christmas present she didn’t want until I reminded her of a story.

The Christmas holidays tend to be a time to catch up on reading around our house, when the hustle and bustle is over and before we gear up to return to work or school.

Like many families, for years the Brehl Christmas centred on dad and mom corralling as many of the seven kids as possible and going to Midnight Mass at Holy Cross Church in East York.

As a young lad, I remember coming home after being teased at school and my mother immediately asking me what was wrong.