The back end of a great summer
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This is the weekend we mourn the end of summer. School begins, harvest will be over soon. Small town fairs are being in full swing. There is a definite nip in the air. Holidays are over.
I had a great summer. My few days away, early in the season were exceptional and then I got to spend almost two weeks at Jack Lake near Apsley, in a secluded lakeside cottage. Did a lot of sunning, reading, canoeing, some fishing, some flea marketing, much laughing and relaxing. Had high tea at a lovely, old school house/tea room and enjoyed a beer at the local Legion where the lady tending bar had connections to Springford. Her mother’s matron of honour was my next-door neighbour when I moved to Otterville. Small world.
Read Bonnie (Mudford) Virag’s book, The Stovepipe. It’s the story of her life, written as she remembers it, without anger or accusations. She talks openly about her life experiences, being taken away from her parents by the Simcoe Children’s Aid Society, being separated from her siblings and time spent at several foster homes in Norfolk County.
Most of us have not had those painful experiences but the situations of poverty, working at a young age, tending livestock, working in the fields, including the rigours of early tobacco years, are very familiar to a lot of families. The belt or being sent to bed without supper as punishment, having little or no heat in the upper floors of the old farmhouse, wearing hand-me-downs or ill-fitting clothes are things many of us remember. And not all kids living at home or in foster care were loved as they should have been. It’s a reality of the times.
It was a good read, simple in its childlike quality. If you get the chance to read it, I would highly recommend it.
Also spent some time reading lengthy articles in the supply of Vanity Fair magazines available at the cottage. Of interest were articles on the likes of Conrad Black, Ernest Hemmingway and Pamela Wallin among others.
I worked at The Tillsonburg News for some 26 years before becoming a freelance columnist and full-time grandmother some six years ago. I worked with many reporters over those years, some who have gone on to find some international recognition, some who are equally as talented but have as yet not reached those heights and some who are bright stars locally. And of course, some who should have made another career choice.
My connection with all those reporters taught me many things but the most important was that journalists are intricately geared to search out truth above all else. They pride themselves in the transparency, honesty, morality and fairness of their work. They never took a person’s word for anything. Nothing went into the paper that wasn’t confirmed by documentation or witnesses. I would never question the integrity of the good ones when it comes to their job.
Journalists are particularly hard on politicians. You have no doubt heard them grilling some elected official on TV to get to the truth of some issue of interest to us.
So what happens to them when a journalist crosses the line and become a politician? Do they get totally intoxicated with the power and status? How do you forget everything you ever valued, sell out your principles so cheaply?
I always thought Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin were good journalists. I might have been wrong about that but they do make good politicians, don’t they? Politics must be a deadly high which destroys a lot of good people. We see it every day, don’t we?