No honour in silence

When I attended public school in the village of Agincourt (now part of Scarborough) because it was nearly a rural school the playground was sizable. Still, during recess, the boys in my class had to find the tallest maple tree – just off school grounds – to climb. The principal realized if one of us were hurt, he’d be liable. So he declared the tree “off limits.” That didn’t stop us. One day, we were blithely enjoying the tree, when out strode Principal Kilpatrick in a rage. Everybody ran for cover… except me.

“Were you playing in that tree?” Kilpatrick asked me directly.

“Yes,” I said, because I couldn’t hide the fact. (more…)

Peace, order and good information, please

Centennial College in Toronto recently asked me to organize a roundtable discussion during several days of lectures, study and debate on human rights. I agreed and have approached several acquaintances of mine in the federal civil service to participate. I was hopeful, in one case, that an expert on federal law might join the roundtable to offer a Canadian perspective.

“I’d love to, Ted,” he said. “But I’ve been told not to speak publicly on anything.”

“Not you too,” I responded. “Not like the scientists.” (more…)

Passage out of childhood

For some it’s the first ride on the Ferris wheel or the bumping cars. It might be that first night public skating and holding hands with someone of the opposite sex. For a lot of young people it’s Prom night. I guess it depends on when the parents in the equation think the son or daughter is ready to move from childhood toward adulthood. For me, that move came at an unusual moment. It came, after harassing my mother for months, when she finally relented.

“OK, OK,” she said. “You can go, but you have to go with friends.”

You see, when I was about 10 or 12 years old, the place we considered the ultimate destination was the Royal Ontario Museum. (more…)

The science of remembering

She does it every Wednesday night. By about midnight, my hockey buddies and I have put in a recreational hour-and-a-half scrimmage at the arena, showered, changed and landed at our favourite watering hole, Jersey’s in Uxbridge, Ont. Most of us have put in very average performances on the ice. Others claim they produced stellar goals or stand-on-their-head saves. But at the bar, thanks to our server, Tracey Surette, everybody gets the star treatment. Before any one of my teammates is three or four steps inside the front door, she’s got his favourite brand already in hand, the lid popped and the liquid poured.

“How’re you doing,” she always says with a smile. “Nice to see you.”

(more…)

In the footsteps of Canadians who liberated Italy – May 2013

This Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery is located near Agira, Sicily. Laid to rest here are more than 400 Canadians who died during the liberation of the island in July/August of 1943.

In the early hours of July 10, 1943, along the beaches of Costa Dell Ambra, about 25,000 1st Canadian Infantry Division troops joined nearly 450,000 other British and American soldiers in Operation Husky. It was D-Day in Italy and, up to that time, the largest amphibious military landing ever attempted. It would be the beginning of the end of fascist occupation of Europe.

On that Sicilian landing site, almost 70 years later, is where the Canadian Liberation of Italy tour with Ted Barris begins this May, 2013. You can join Ted Barris and his wife Jayne MacAulay as they lead about 50 travellers retracing the steps of Canadian troops who fought through Italy in WWII.

Highlights of the tour include the landing beaches at Pachino, Sicily, and historic Monte Cassino battlefield (including the abbey).

By Christmas 1943, Canadians have liberated Sicily and half the east coast of Italy. During the month of December and into the new year, they take on and defeat German paratroops in the Adriatic city of Ortona and break the Hitler Line.

You’ll explore the Canadian liberation route to the Adriatic coast including Ortona (Christmas battle site) and Rimini. You’ll also take in Taormina’s 3rd century BC amphitheatre, and War Graves Commission cemeteries in Agira, Cassino, Moro River, among others. You’ll end your tour in Rome with a guided tour of the ancient city. This will be the 10th sold out tour that Ted & Jayne have hosted for Merit guests.

More information – itinerary, booking details, etc. – at the Merit Travel Group website:

http://meritvacations.com/index/vacations/canadians-in-wartime-italy.aspx

A day is not enough

The one day The Scotsman newspaper changed everything… was International Women’s Day, March 8, 1995.

It happened the year we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. To mark the occasion, my sister, my cousin and my parents had all arranged for my wife and I to travel to the U.K. for a week. And on the morning of March 8, 1995, we walked out of our hotel on Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, to buy the daily newspaper, The Scotsman. We approached the newsies hawking copies of the paper. They were all women.

“Help celebrate this important day,” the women newsies shouted, “It’s International Women’s Day.”

(more…)

Where the Junos come from

The current Juno Award owes its name to a champion of Canadian arts and culture from the late 1960s, Pierre Juneau. Photo Music Canada.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with some of my journalism students about the annual parade of awards shows – the Grammys, the People’s Choice Awards, the Oscars and the rest. The subject of this year’s Canadian music awards, coming up in April, eventually cropped up. They had all heard of the Junos, sure. But then I asked if anyone knew the origin of the Junos.

“Oh, it’s the name of the Canadian beach on D-Day,” one said.

“Yes, you’re right on the D-Day reference,” I said. “But not the musical one.”

“I know,” said one of my more erudite students. “Juno is the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods.”

“Right again,” I said. “But she’s got nothing to do with the Juno Music Awards in Canada.”

(more…)

Stitch in time…

My father was born in 1922, raised in New York City, N.Y. and (as his U.S. Army Honorable Discharge paper said) was last employed before entering the army as a “sewing machine operator.”

I saw my mother do it. I saw my grandmother do it even more. It wasn’t something my grandfather ever did. And I never saw my father do it. Although, after he died in 2004, we did find some of my father’s military papers from the Second World War when he served a sergeant in the army medical corps. And those papers suggested he knew how to do it. On his Honorable Discharge papers when he left the U.S. Army in December 1945, his attestation revealed that he had done it.

“Civilian occupation,” the discharge papers revealed, “Sewing machine operator.” (more…)

Ted Barris writes Foreword to new book Syncopated: Black Stories

In a new book of biographies (compiled by author Ed Brown) about Black musicians in Canada, Ted Barris was invited to write the Foreword.

The star attraction was not in the house that night. While many others – the luminaries of the Canadian jazz scene – performed on stage, perhaps the country’s best studio and jazz concert drummer of the day was absent. In fact, it was because he was absent, that all the stars came out. It was in 1967 when Toronto-born musician Archie Alleyne suffered serious injuries in a car accident. He was not able to work … at either of his jobs.

“I didn’t have a car, so I had to carry my drum kit on streetcars and the subway,” he told my father, Alex Barris, back then. “I’d play from 9 at night to 1 a.m., get home with my drums by 3 a.m. and be up four hours later to go to my day job.” (more…)

Papal opportunity

Pope Kiril Pavlovich Lakota , in publicity photo from movie “The Shoes of the Fisherman” 1968.

I remember the Pope. He was Polish, but he wasn’t Józef Wojtyla. Not Pope John Paul II. This was a man named Kiril Pavlovich Lakota. He had been a political prisoner – Number 103592R – in a Soviet gulag. He was scooped up by the powers that be and sent on a mission, a mission to ascend the thrown of the Catholic Church and to then negotiate an end to the Cold War with China. What? You don’t remember that Pope? Well, he was in all the newspapers, magazines and movie trailers in 1968. And he looked an awful lot like Anthony Quinn.

“You gave me absolute power,” actor Quinn says as Pope Kiril, “You must submit to my use of it.” (more…)