Posts with the Tyler Briley tag

Barris Beat

“Well aware” isn’t good enough

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Volunteer firefighter with dashboard green flashing light.

Down from the 6th Concession I came, driving eastbound on Brock, this week. I slowed into the new 50 kilometre-per-hour zone. Then, I spotted him. A pickup heading the opposite direction with a green light flashing clearly on his dashboard. I pulled to the curb right away.

Then, a white SUV whizzed past me into the centre of Brock Street in a big hurry to make a left turn north onto Quaker Village Drive. An awkward moment followed, as the firefighter dodged the SUV. Finally, he passed en route to the firehall. I pulled up beside the SUV, still sitting in the left-turn lane. I honked my horn. She rolled her window down.

“You know that’s a firefighter trying to get to the hall, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said dismissively. “I’m well aware,” and off she sped into her left-hand turn, visibly ticked off at my scolding. (more…)

Barris Beat

Silence is not an option

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Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, March 26, 2024. India TV.

Instincts cannot be unlearned. Early last Tuesday morning (March 26), a retired chief of the Baltimore fire department was wakened when he heard rumbling and felt his house shake. He lives a short distance from the Patapsco River. He said the experience “felt like an earthquake.”

Interviewed by The Associated Press in the U.S., former firefighter Donald Heinbuch explained that instinct told him to drive to toward the unearthly sound. Then, he described what he saw. “The (container) ship was there, and the bridge was in the water – like it was blown up.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Greatest loss from the Great War

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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 116thOntario 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 116th were 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 100thtime – at the 11thhour of the 11thday of the 11thmonth – we will gather at the cenotaph at Brock and Toronto streets in Uxbridge. (more…)

Barris Beat

Evidence we’re winning

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Jennifer O’Connell explains how MPs voted unanimously on a long-awaited installation on Parliament Hill.

During her speech at the Sam Sharpe statue unveiling, last Friday night, MP Jennifer O’Connell became emotional as she explained that the day before, Members of Parliament had voted unanimously to install Tyler Briley’s sculpture of Sam Sharpe in the Centre Block of Parliament in Ottawa.

And when Seamus O’Regan, the minister of veterans’ affairs, quizzed her about the community groundswell of support in Uxbridge that had brought this motion to the House, he seemed genuinely impressed.

“Who are these people?” O’Regan asked her. “What is it about Uxbridge?” (more…)

Barris Beat

Away from the spotlight of praise

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Caring when nobody notices but the kid cared for.

I almost missed it. My daughter and I were up in the bleachers watching her son at a house league hockey practice. The six-year-olds were skating, falling, trying to stickhandle and the arena was bursting with noise. Then I spotted this one boy standing way off to the side, crying, wanting off the ice. One of the volunteer coaches skated over to him, got down on his knees and quickly connected with the boy in conversation.

The boy stopped crying. The coach’s face looked very encouraging and before long the boy was over the trauma and re-joined the practice. Nobody seemed to notice the exchange. It was low key, calming, but clearly motivational. And I thought of that quote by that U.S. national basketball coach from the 1970s.

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is looking,” John Wooden once said. (more…)

Barris Beat

Monumental trauma

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Speaker of the House of Commons Andrew Scheer, left, and Minister of Veterans Affairs Erin O'Toole unveil Sam in relief.
Speaker of the House of Commons Andrew Scheer, left, and Minister of Veterans Affairs Erin O’Toole unveil Sam in relief.

Sam helped Tyler make it through. But when he needed the same kind of assistance – nearly 100 years ago – there was no one there to help Sam through. Tyler Briley, from Port Perry, was in Ottawa last Thursday. The minister of veterans affairs was unveiling Briley’s latest creation, a wax sculpture of Sam Sharpe.

“It’s been a form of therapy,” he said. “I’ve just gotten well in the last year, in part, because of my work on this.” (more…)