As we filed down the loading ramp toward the flight, there was one face in the group of passengers around me that looked familiar. Was he a TV host? Maybe a sports personality? Possibly a politician? As passengers began stowing their bags overhead, I realized he wasn’t any of those guesses I’d made on the ramp. Then, it hit me as I sat down beside him.
“You’re John Ralston Saul, aren’t you?” I said.
He nodded, smiled and said, “Or, as some call me, Mr. Adrienne Clarkson.” (more…)
A soldier with circular spectacles, corporal’s stripes on his sleeve and khaki shorts on, walks toward a stationary camera. He smiles as he acknowledges the commotion around him. Glasses clink. There’s a general hubbub of voices in friendly conversation. He’s in a military pub – circa 1940s – and stops in a kind of selfie-framing attitude and speaks right to camera.
“Hello, Joy. How’s this for a wartime miracle?” he begins. “And a novel way of saying, ‘I love you.’” (more…)
I walked among heroes, last Wednesday morning – eighteen of them. Several had fought in the Second World War. At least one was a veteran of the Korean War. A number had helped keep the peace in the Middle East, Africa and the Asia. Several others had served Canada as reservists. Almost all were veterans from a theatre of war or world hotspot. But nearly all – after serving Canada in uniform – had accomplished something more that had caught the attention of the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
“After serving,” Minister Steven Blaney said at a recognition ceremony on July 27, “[these] veterans have continued to provide outstanding service to their country, communities and fellow veterans.”
In most parts of Canada, they’re located in the suburbs where the lots are larger. In downtown areas they’re called mansions. In some older communities they’re found on former estates. In fact, out in the country, they’re described as estate homes. A few weeks ago, we were driving past a group of them north of Stouffville and an older passenger in our car gasped.
“Unbelievable aren’t they,” I said.
She nodded and reacted with an unexpected comment: “How on earth would anybody clean something like that?” she said.