Coming....My Glimpse of the Future

Final preps for MacKids Celebration broadcast this Sunday afternoon 1pm to 7 pm. Final Steering Committee meeting today...then St. Joe's long service awards dinner tonight.

Coming soon....I had a glimpse of the future at Burlington's Notre Dame Secondary School and wow, do I feel good!

He called me "Conner"...

He had nicknames for everybody and I can't think of a single soul who ever said a bad word about him. I first knew him as my friend Karen's pesky little brother. Oh the typical brother-sister tiffs they'd have on the phone when Karen and I worked together. The calls would end with Karen saying through gritted teeth,"Randy put Mom on right now!" Mom never usually made it to the phone!

He was a shaggy-haired happy-go-lucky teenager who grew into a loving husband, father, friend to so many, and... fellow journalist at CHCH-TV Hamilton. And what a journalist he grew to be. The kind who knows that that real news stories are often away from the spotlights and headlines where everyone else is looking...perhaps at a neighbourhood fruit market or inside an abandoned building in the gritty end of a downtown.

He could ask tough questions but always in a folksy way with dignity and respect. He made people talk to him in spite of themselves or mostly just because really wanted to.
He was a journalist driven by the search for truth but not at the expense of integrity, always uncovering the wonderful and often whimsical side of issues or just ordinary life itself.

Even when robbed of his voice, he re-channelled his incredible story telling skills through the written word and his stunningly insightful photographs capturing the wonder of simple everyday life .

I have one of his pieces in my home and I will think of him everyday I look at it. It's a single pink flower; its colour, shape and beauty preserved forever. In one of my last e-mails to him I sent him a photo I had taken of a trillium in the woods. In his typical cheeky response, he told me I had wiped out all the highlights and could use a few lessons.

Randy Steele died today and that photograph on my wall is just a little piece of the beauty and truth he leaves behind. Randy my friend, thank you for the best "lesson" I could ever learn, about living life with honour, humour, courage, and grace... no matter what. You are a great teacher.

I, along with so many, will never forget you.

Love,
"Conner"

This is my entry for the May 2-4 weekend!

Buckhorn, Ontario: Land of fun, Lucky Charms for breakfast, White Donuts any time of day, dock installations, shoreline clean-ups, bringing "Moving' On" out of its marina hibernation to discover one less season of life left in it, escape from the back flies in Dave's outstanding screened-in porch and......the Army Pants Dance!

Life doesn't get much better!

My First Long Weekend!

I am off on a Holiday Monday! That may not seem unusual to you but after spending so much of my working life "working" while everyone else was "off", it's a luxury I plan to enjoy for some time to come.

Working stats was one of the cons of the TV news business...not to say there weren't plenty of "pros". But I am very much enjoying being like everybody else right now. Now I know that's a bit of an over simplification because many people do work stat holidays but for "heaps" (to borrow that wonderful Australian noun/adverb) of others, enjoying May 2-4, along with Canada Day and Labour Day make up an essential fibre of the Canadian fabric, the true Canadian experience. I'm no longer reporting on what others are doing on these days, I'm one of the "doers"!

I'm also reaping the benefits of being "off", potentially off, when everybody else is working.

It means avoiding the highways during rush hours. That alone makes driving fun again! It means lingering just a little longer over the morninbg paper. It means shopping when the stores aren't busy. What a joy! It means celebrating my Aunt Joan's birthday at a mid-day mid-week tea party...with real tea ! complete with china cups and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Photo above shows left to right niece Sierra, 5, her Mom, my sister Kate (whose real name is Barbi but that's the subject of another blog one day!), Aunt Joan, Mom and family friend Pam. Pam is another wonderful story I have yet to tell...your turn is coming Pam!

The underlying theme of my new found freedom thanks to CanWest downsizing: more TIME! Time to do what I want to do. I am busy today, just like everyone said I would be. My volunteer and community work continues uninterrupted with M.C. work, St. Joe's Board of Trustees work, speeches to community groups and schools, and the upcoming MacKids Celebration broadcast May 31st. More work will come with details T.B.A. but I am in charge of my hours now and I am my own boss (just don't tell my dog that!)

Morning After Mother's Day

I'm putting the good china away today. I use it more often now because there are so many good things to celebrate .

My whole family was together this Mother's Day, my turn to host the family ``dinner``. (above photo shows left to right sisters Barbi and Claudia, Mom, Audrey and me).

My two sisters and I rotate those now which is great when it`s at my two sisters. They are pretty good in the kitchen. When it`s my turn, I am pretty good because I know they are there along with my wonderfully patient husband Dave who all tie up my loose ends. I blame years of never having time and I blame my nature to talk a lot. So while my culinary organizing skills leave a little to be desired, I`m pretty good at the actual entertaining part.

My Mom has always been my biggest fan: laughing at all my silly faces, jokes and antics . She went to all my speeches and plays as a kid and with my Dad, has kept every newspaper article that ever mentioned by name. (see former blog: Lunch with Mom and Dad. Dad, your article is coming soon...)

My best Mothers Day gift (aside from my new little pink camera from Dave) was a picture of the Eiffel Tower from my son Cal. For years, step-dad Dave would go shopping with him, pick out a card, gift etc. But when a teenaged boy does it by himself, that is a gift! And a meaningful one: our last family vacation. It is now hanging in our front hall.

It was a good time to use the good china. Incidentally the meal was superb! Thanks to all!

McHappy Day Update

McHappy Day in Hamilton raises $31,500. for children's charities, with the help of generous customers, lots of local community volunteers and celebrities like Canadian Idol and Hamilton native Brian Melo! He promised me an interview to talk about his new album and children's charity. Stay tuned....

Happy McHappy Day

It's nice to have some constants in life. Witness: McHappy Day.

Community leaders and celebrities of various note volunteer their time behind the counter at McDonald's Restaurants to raise money for Ronald McDonald House and other McDonald's children's charities. I think I've been doing it since it began.

It's one hour of experiencing a different world...a really fast world. Not just fast as in fast food but hi-tech productivity fast. Talk about multi tasking ! Do you ever wonder how drive-through servers can take the next order behind you while handing over yours plus change? I could probably still deliver a newscast relatively flawlessly but put me in a drive through? I even get nervous as a customer, which my son finds very funny. I can tell you, it's not easy; neither is figuring out and remembering what all those icons mean on the cash register, if that's what it's still called!

I fetched burgers and fries, even a strawberry pie plus two Happy Meals and managed (with help) to get them in the right-sized bags! A dollar from every Big Mac and Happy Meal sold goes toward the cause. It was daunting! Thankfully a couple of young Tiger Cats and even Canadian Idol past winner Brian Melon, who, by the way, has a new album coming out, also appeared a little overwhelmed.

But the delight of seeing folks working together, as klutzy as we were, older folks for the most part, being mentored by younger folks, very patient younger folks, I might add, made it all a wonderful experience. John Novak and Ray Michaels of Oldies 1150's live broadcasts added to the excitement. I even put in a guest appearance on-air for a few minutes and discovered yes I can still talk!

Congratulations Doug and Janice Inch, Stacie and all the great people at the Dundurn St. McDonald's and McDonald's everywhere. Thank you for giving my son his first job a few years ago, a mighty impressive entry in any young person's resume and thank you for helping us learn a lesson in selflessness and finally, giving us all a constant in our lives, at a time when constants in the midst of uncertainty are as valuable as gold.

Life Outside the News Room

I'm running through a field of new spring grass, the sun is shining. No one else is in sight and the only sounds I hear are the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze. A dream? A flashback to a childhood?

No. It's me. Today at 50-something, untethered and in control of my time; time I never used to have, or at least time I seemed to be chasing from the moment I awoke until the moment I would finally and fitfully fall asleep..for a few hours. It's time I'm enjoying while most others, in the working world, are madly attacking their treadmills, the metaphoric ones in the work place and the real ones, in search of fitness (?) in their basements or local gyms.

I've learned there's another kind of fitness other than cut musculature and flat tummies. It's the mental and spiritual kind you don't get on a treadmill. I've found it in quiet times and easy conversation.

It may be hard for most of us to believe at the time, but life actually goes on outside the work place. In our own individual working worlds we tend to think that all that matters unfolds where we are. Yet while I had been tied up "making news" all those days, all those weeks and months and years, real life was happening off camera...in community halls, neighourhoods, mains streets and even open fields behind high schools. A conversation in the park between dog owners, while their charges sniff and play; a greeting in the grocery store that last last more than a few seconds; a lesson learned about someone or something; smiles!

Every morning now I read the whole newspaper, I drink ALL my tea and when I go into my closet and look at the rows and rows of my "on-air" suit jackets and high heels, I choose runners and yoga pants... Don't get me wrong I still clean up well and don the "anchor" hair for special occasions, like this Saturday's Hummingbird Ball for the Juravinski Cancer Centre.

An expert on the medicinal value of humour once told me in an interview, if you physically make yourself smile, you will feel happy and that the secret of true happiness is really choosing to be happy. You know what? It works! Even medical experts acknowledge the power of positive thinking in fighting life-threatening illnesses.

It's been a busy weekend, moving my son into a new house we purchased as an investment property ( we seem to buy property every time one of us loses a job...oh well, it's work out fine so far). The related stresses remind me of the working world pressures: impossible deadlines, unexpected challenges and crises. But it's Monday and not the kind of Monday I used to lament all those years.

I'm upstairs at my home office, where I spend a couple of hours "at work", staying connected in the hopes of one day re-entering that frightening working world. But I know it will be different next time because I'm different now. I take the time to breathe, smile, really talk to people and run through fields of new spring grass under sunny skies.