Ted Barris • Page 33 of 102 • author

It can’t happen here

Written by Ted Barris on November 15th, 2018November 14th, 2018. Leave a comment

RCMP cordoned off the community centre in Sherwood Park. Sherwood Park News.

The first I heard, it was a fire inside a building. Later on, last Tuesday evening, I learned it was an explosion. Then, it was two explosions. Next, that the blasts had occurred in the same community where I was about to present one of my Remembrance talks, last Wednesday night. But I never felt as if I were in any real danger until I learned that the RCMP had become involved.

“RCMP have cordoned off the area around Festival Way in Sherwood Park,” the CBC News story reported Wednesday morning.

If that community – Sherwood Park– sounds a bit familiar, it should. It’s a satellite town near the City of Edmonton. And it’s the place where last Tuesday evening, according to police, a young man set off two bombs inside a public parking garage, and one of the bombs severely damaged the car he had driven there. (more…)

Greatest loss from the Great War

Written by Ted Barris on November 8th, 2018November 14th, 2018. Leave a comment

Globe and Mail (Nov. 8, 2018) front page features artist Tyler Briley and his sculpted relief of Sam Sharpe installed on Parliament Hill.

In one of the first notations he jotted into his combat journal, First World War soldier Sam Sharpe recorded the actions of his rookie Canadian battalion. The 116^thOntario Country Regiment was experiencing its baptism of fire in France. It was April 9, 1917, the first day of the battle of Vimy Ridge. His men were not fighting German soldiers, but laying wire in communication trenches on the Allied side of the Western Front. L/Col. Sharpe noted that his men endured a hail of artillery shells as they worked. Members of the 116^thwere wounded or killed, including one of his closest friends in the battalion.

“It is awfully sad,” Sharpe wrote. “Lt. John Doble was killed instantly by a shell, while leading a wiring platoon. Ontario County is paying its toll in this great struggle.”

This Sunday – for the 100^thtime – at the 11^thhour of the 11^thday of the 11^thmonth – we will gather at the cenotaph at Brock and Toronto streets in Uxbridge. (more…)

Resentment against otherness

Written by Ted Barris on November 1st, 2018November 14th, 2018. Leave a comment

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.”

(more…)

Smoke and mirrors

Written by Ted Barris on October 25th, 2018October 30th, 2018. Leave a comment

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.

(more…)

Details that made a difference

Written by Ted Barris on October 18th, 2018October 30th, 2018. Leave a comment

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

Written by Ted Barris on October 10th, 2018October 30th, 2018. Leave a comment

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

Written by Ted Barris on October 4th, 2018October 6th, 2018. 1 Comment

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

Written by Ted Barris on September 25th, 2018September 25th, 2018. 3 Comments

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?

Written by Ted Barris on September 20th, 2018September 23rd, 2018. Leave a comment

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

Written by Ted Barris on September 12th, 2018October 1st, 2018. 1 Comment

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…)