Posts in the Barris Beat category:

Barris Beat

Up the sleeve of an audience

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
You’d think in a room full of people over 70, there’d be somebody with a light for candles on a birthday cake for a 90-year-old. Ronnie Egan and I had to do the cake cutting without lit candles.

The event was coming to its climax. Guests were assembled. Speeches from dignitaries, family and friends were in the books. We had even sung “Happy Birthday” to the birthday girl. All we had left was to present the cake and candles to her, invite her to make a wish and watch her cut the cake. But there was a problem. Nobody had a way to light the candles. No problem, I thought, I’ll ask the audience.

“Anybody got a light?” I asked. And I looked out at a sea of faces expecting a smoker or a boy scout to come forward.

But nobody moved. Not one person had either a lighter or a book of matches to offer. If any group might be expected to have one or the other in its pockets, for sure, I thought, this one would.

(more…)

Barris Beat

No honour in silence

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment

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…)

Barris Beat

Peace, order and good information, please

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

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…)

Barris Beat

Passage out of childhood

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

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…)

Barris Beat

The science of remembering

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment

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…)

Barris Beat

A day is not enough

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Where the Junos come from

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Stitch in time…

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Papal opportunity

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Words R us

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
In 1966, Walter Cronkite made the cover of Time magazine. But he still couldn’t pronounce “February.” Photo Robert Vickrey.

I know Walter Cronkite did it and that made it OK. Walter Cronkite, the CBS TV news anchor from the early 1960s until 1981, was once considered “the most trusted man in America.” But just because he was most trusted didn’t make him the most correct. He still couldn’t pronounce the name of the second month on the calendar. All those years ago he still closed his show this way:

“And that’s the way it is, this Thursday, Febuary 7, 1963,” he’d say in his sign-off. “This is Walter Cronkite for CBS Evening News. Good night.”

(more…)