Resentment against otherness

Migrants on the move in Mexico. BBC.com

Leslie hadn’t had much opportunity to mention her religious affiliation. She and I worked together as producers for a TV Ontario show, back in the 1970s, and the subject of her faith never came up. Then, over a coffee one day, she happened to mention her activities on the Sabbath and I realized she was Jewish. But she surprised me with this admission.

“I never really feel very comfortable talking about my faith to non-Jews,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked, and added, “This is Canada.”

“Even here,” she continued, “I’m often looking over my shoulder.”

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Smoke and mirrors

Aurora Borealis as captured by Canadian National Geographic photo.

I had only been in the city a few days. When I arrived in Saskatoon that winter of 1972, I had a job – as a TV producer in the audio-visual centre of the University of Saskatchewan – but I didn’t have a place to stay. A friend directed me top a house rented by some U of S students. I met with them and and they said I could move into the available room – a kitchen on the second floor. They told me to bring my stuff a few days later.

I arrived at my new lodgings only to discover a phalanx of RCMP cruisers barricading my way into the house.

“Who are you?” asked one of the officers. “What’s your connection to this place? Clearly, I had walked into the middle of a police raid.

“I’m just moving in,” I explained. I later learned that the house where I was about to reside in Saskatoon was home to one of the busiest soft drug distribution points in the city.

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Details that made a difference

Dorothy Taylor holds  my book; she was  delighted to be recognized for her wartime service.

She’d sat pretty quietly a few rows in front of me – a woman with an intent look, a tailored leather jacket and a sparkle in her eye. Older than many in the room in Orillia where I spoke, her eyebrows responded continuously to my story – curving up when it was humorous, down when sad. When my talk was over, a man at the back of the room pointed out the very same woman and indicated she was his mother-in-law.

“She worked in war munitions in the Second World War,” he said, “but her most important work was in quality control at Victory Aviation.”

“You mean where they built the Lancaster bombers?” I asked.

“Ask her,” her son-in-law said. “And she’ll tell you she was in charge of rivets.” (more…)

Finding the way without GPS

Adam Shoalts speaks about his book at Second Wedge Brewery in Uxbridge.

As he sat on a bar stool at one end of the Second Wedge brewery, a few nights ago, talking about his latest book, I got the sense Adam Shoalts was a different sort of author. Blue Heron Books had brought along piles of his book, A History of Canada in Ten Maps, to sell. And he seemed game to answer whatever questions either the host or audience threw at him. But when he was asked – in fun – whether he needed GPS to navigate his way to Uxbridge, he had a logical map-reader’s answer.

“I came from several hours north of here,” Shoalts admitted. “I didn’t use GPS. I just memorized all the highways and roads I’d need to take to get here, and I arrived within minutes of seven o’clock,” the time of his presentation. (more…)

Anger not allowed, Ladies

Broadcasting Centre building in Toronto, where the CBC radio program “Q” is produced.

It struck me the moment the Jian Ghomeshi allegations became public. It was 2014, when the CBC relieved the host of his duties on his daily show, “Q.” I contacted a young woman who had attended my journalism classes and who had then completed a placement (unpaid employment) at the same radio show. I wondered whether any of the horror stories going public about Ghomeshi’s alleged treatment of women might have included her.

“The truth of the matter is that I did feel threatened during my time at ‘Q,’” she wrote in a note to me. “He would flirt with me … This always happened when I was the only person in the office.” (more…)

An unwritten book

Student Neil Powers during his placement at The National Post in early 2018.

He came to my office a bit tentatively. He didn’t want to impose. It was early in the semester – back about three years ago. At the time, teaching journalism at the college where he’d enrolled, I told him it was my job to listen and offer feedback. And frankly, I told him, I welcomed the interruption. His whole face broke into a genuine smile and he settled into a chair across from me for our first conversation. Not as teacher and student, but as fellow writers.

“I know you’re an author,” he started, “and I want to write a book too. But I don’t know where to start.”

I should have asked Neil Powers, the mature student across from me in my office at Centennial College, what he wanted to write about, but I never did. (more…)

What’s the problem here?

Last Monday’s Candidate Forum in Uxbridge featured those vying for Mayor’s, Regional Councillor’s and Regional Chair’s positions. Photo John Cavers.

They’d just turned off the lights and cameras. The Rogers on-air microphones had gone silent. I’d finished my wrap-up of the second candidates’ forum over at the Uxbridge arena on Monday night. But we still had people standing in line at the floor mike eager to pose a few last questions. Then, with the broadcast done, a woman stepped to the mike and began to describe an eye-sore – a grain elevator – in her part of town. I wanted her to bring her concern to a question for the candidates, so I butted in.

“And the problem?” I said, expecting her to pose a question to one of the mayoral or councillor candidates.

You’re the problem,” she said. (more…)

Photo with a checkered past

Glossy 8X10 of a 1950s TV hero.

A note popped up on my laptop one evening recently. It was from our younger daughter. She’d been going through some things in the latest phase of moving into her new house and she’d stumbled across an old black-and-white photograph. It was a portrait of a middle-aged man with a smile and a Stetson. Scrawled over the photo was an incomplete inscription:

“For ?” In other words, the photo was for some unnamed person. Then there was a sign off. “Come fly with me! Sky King. 11/21/79.”

As well as sending the digital copy of the photo, our daughter wrote, “Any idea who this is?” (more…)

The U.S. war chest

Flag-draped casket of Sen. John McCain at Washington’s National Cathedral.

About halfway through Meghan McCain’s tribute to her father last Saturday in Washington, D.C, the director of TV coverage of Sen. John McCain’s funeral cut away to a shot of the middle rows of mourners in the National Cathedral.

Beyond the three former U.S. presidents – Obama, Bush and Clinton – and past the Republicans who wereinvited, sat row on row of American military people. They didn’t appear to be military brass, but relatively young Marine, Army, Navy and Air Force veterans seated in solemn tribute to their hero.

“Look at the military ribbons across those chests,” I thought, and then mused, “what a powerful statement of the man, the politician, the real state of America.” (more…)

All hail, the rivet counters

Members of the BCATP Facebook group (l-r) Ken Meintzer, Les Mroz and Peter Whitfield at Nanton on Aug. 25, 2018.

I drove into the museum parking lot last Saturday morning. Leaning over the tailgate of the pickup parked next to me, several guys in ball caps and jeans surveyed their precious cargo. I peered into the back box of the pickup, but I couldn’t recognize the rusty tangle of metal and wires as anything I’d ever seen before.

“Can you believe it?” one of the guys said. “We salvaged it from a ditch just this morning.” (more…)