Barbs & Jabs

-30-

The jig is up.
After 30 years of trying to get it first, fast and right, my days of chasing ambulances, run-away politicians and the truth have drawn to a close.
I'm retiring.
My first job, at a fruit market in 1956, paid 25 cents an hour. I thought I was rich. I was 11 years old.
I graduated to washing dishes, waiting tables, life guarding, worm picking, hay tossing and when I walked up the aisle in 1962, I was thrown into a family business.
A marriage breakup in 1974 sent me back to waiting tables and to school. When I graduated from Durham College's journalism program two years later, I had $9 in the bank, five kids and no job.
A day later, I scored a commission-only job selling aluminum siding. Chasing a lead, I took a late night flight to Kapuskasing, only to return the next day when my boss was arrested.
With the business owner in handcuffs and a bankruptcy seal across the door, my days selling siding were over. Facing a $73 overdraft, it took me three days to sign a one-year contract as a counsellor with the Ministry of Social Services, immediately followed by a second year-long contract with the Durham Region Separate School Board, co-ordinating a regionwide volunteer recruitment program.
Since I was poor, a product of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant work ethic, a single mom and wore my heart on my sleeve, I was a good counsellor and, while never a Christian, Catholic or otherwise, I stood proud when placing 1,000 volunteers into 25 schools.
In mid-February 1978, I walked into what is now a Metroland Publishing newsroom. On Jan. 30, 2008, I'll walk out.
I'm taking a little side trip. Tomorrow, I have a date with a surgeon. After he mends a broken heart, I'll be fit as a fiddle.   
My place in my family and my career in journalism will always define me. In the past 30 years, my five hard-to-raise children became adults, nine grandchildren arrived and my mother died. Seldom did my reporter's cap come off.
Covering Durham Region for 19 years and York Region for the past 11, I have produced thousands of stories, covering everything from murders to meetings. Some stories won awards, a few ticked people off, but none turned up in a court of law — I've never been sued.
A few months ago, Metroland, representing about 140 newspapers, chose me as the reporter of the year. When I took to the stage to accept the Presidents' Award, I realized a job well done matters.
Over the past three decades, I was privileged to meet many outstanding people. Besides prime ministers, premiers and United States presidents, I interviewed a world champion rattlesnake bagger, a man sporting a diamond in every tooth and a bank robber. There have been stories about three-legged dogs, overpaid call girls, convincing transvestites, born-again virgins, at-large boa-constrictors, phony money and politicians of every shape, size and stripe.
Most politicians are honest. A few aren't. One thing I noticed: Every time a politician is arrested, the others run for cover, but not before accusing the media of sticking its nose into places it doesn't belong. While all law-breaking politicians claim to be as pure as the driven snow, the only innocent one I covered was an Oshawa councillor charged with fishing out of season.
To bring in the story, I've ran with the foxes and hunted with the hounds. It took barbed-wire willpower and absolute tenacity to open some doors. But, you got the story.
I've been a hands-on journalist. In the name of news, I rode in a submarine, flew in an air show, soared beneath the clouds in a hot air balloon and was plucked from Lake Ontario by the crew of a rescue boat after jumping overboard. I have attended a biker's funeral and accepted an invitation to the after party at the clubhouse, led a camel in a parade, got trapped beneath a raft while shooting rapids on the Ottawa River, fell face-down in the mud at a train wreck, got struck in the head by a board-wielding scab and was chastised by a judge for covering a crime before reporting it to police.
The news business was a good fit. With an attention span like a hummingbird, I got as much as I gave.
It must be said that I have a great deal of respect for the media. Its editors, photographers and reporters all play a critical part in the preservation of democracy. The people who stay in the media for the long haul are hard-working, talented and caring people who deserve a communitywide standing ovation. Even though, my loyalty has always been to the reader, I tip my hat to this ever changing, always improving and community-building industry. 
I leave the same as I arrived: in awe of the media and a very nosey person.

Pig plays possum

When a pig turns into something else, people notice.
When, on New Year's Day, Aurora Mayor Phyllis Morris sent a public works crew to check out a pig sighting in a residential area, I opted to care.
When the pig turned out to be a Virginia opossum, I cared even more.
When Aurora resident Walter Heck called to report he'd skinned a dead Virginia opossum, I listened.
When Mr. Heck recently spotted road kill while travelling in Nobleton, he decided to investigate.
When the long-time Aurora resident identified the dead as a Virginia opossum, he took it home. Mr. Heck had been telling his neighbours the little southern critters have, indeed, moved north and are now setting up house in York Region. 
When Mr. Heck's neighbours didn't believe him, he looked for proof.
When he found the dead opossum, Mr. Heck knew he had Exhibit A.
When Mr. Heck called the Ministry of Natural Resources, he got the okay to skin the dead opossum. It would be Exhibit B.
A the story about the pig turning in to opossum was published in the Era-Banner on the weekend.
When Mr. Heck turns up at your door waving copy of the Era Banner and a opossum skin, welcome him in.

A few tears does the campaign good

The ice queen has melted, kick-starting a when-all-else-fails cry movement.
When a tear fell in New Hampshire Monday, it bolstered Democrat Hillary Clinton's chances of sitting in the big chair come November.
Hillary's rare show of emotion is the talk of the town.
"Maybe I have liberated us to actually let women be human beings in public," the presidential hopeful told the media.
It may be OK for Hillary to cry her way to the White House, but I hope she reserves the good stuff for the world stage. I'd pay good money to see the next president of the United States throw herself to the floor and throw a good old American temper tantrum for all the world to see. 
No doubt Hillary realizes, in the name of equality, tears must now fall in all U.S. states. Since the race for the White House has turned sad, Hillary should practise lip quivering, silent sobbing and lady-like whimpering.

Callers hog mayor's time

For the sows of Aurora, it's still the Year of the Pig.
If the first questions in the New Year are any indication of what's to come, Aurora Mayor Phyllis Morris is in for a heck of a ride in 2008.
When the phone rings at the mayor's house, it's worth answering.
At 8:30 a.m. Jan. 1, the mayor and her husband, Brian, were all snuggled in bed when Patrician Pemberton of Jasper Drive called to report a pig was sitting in her back yard.
The mayor and her constituent agreed: if it looks like a pig and snorts like a pig, it is a pig.
Our mayor jumped from her bed and called the town's public works department and gave the order: climb from the snow plows and sanders and go catch a pig.
When the public works guys got to Mrs. Pemberton's house,  the pig was gone, but the public works crew did see little pig tracks running off the property and into the far reaches of the town.
The mayor only had 24 hours to wonder why the pig left town.
At 8:30 a.m. the next day, the mayor and her husband were, again, all snuggled in bed when a woman called to complain that when an Aurora variety store sells condoms, the clerk asks for ID.
So, in addition to doing regular mayor stuff, Mrs. Morris is pig hunting and checking the law books to see what dos and don'ts are linked to condoms.

Questions to kick off new year

Right off the top of my head, here are a few questions to kick off the New Year.
To the world: How can democracy be the best defence if the leader of a major political party is anointed?
To Canada: Instead of Prime Minister Stephen Harper offering the same words of condolence every time a Canadian solider dies in Afghanistan, why doesn't he stop this sad echo by putting an end to the country's involvement in a war that can't be won?
To Ontario: Did York-Simcoe MP Peter Van Loan impress anyone when he called Premier Dalton McGuinty the "small man" of confederation?
To York Region: How much bang for the buck did York Region taxpayers get when York Region chairperson Bill Fisch and his best buds took a $26,000 junket to Italy last summer?