From a Distance…

492aa4df-3846-4d1f-9c70-ee2a3b85a6d4

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Life in Wiikwemkoong: Ashlee Manitowabi zooms in

Mathieson - Part 1 - Clip 1_Moment

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Interview with the mayor of Stratford. (Part 1 of 2)

In late 2019, a mysterious illness began to infect people in the sprawling city of Wuhan, in the province of Hubei (China). It spread fast.  Authorities locked down the city and other parts of the province to try to contain it. By early winter, the death toll climbed past 1,000. Now known as the novel coronavirus (or Covid-19), it hitched a ride with travelers and found its way to other parts of the world. On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic. By then, 114 countries were reporting cases. More than 4,300 people were dead.

As the spring unfolded, nations went silent: borders were sealed, airplanes were grounded, and people were told to stay apart and stay home. The new mantra:  flatten the curve .

COVID-19 marched on. By June 3, the global death count stood at 388,000, with more than 6.5 million infected. Health officials and the public tracked the numbers in real time . Scientists raced to make a vaccine.

In Canada, everything stopped. Highways and subways emptied out. Downtowns became ghost towns. Some First Nations communities and provinces set up checkpoints to wave away unwelcome travellers. The economy skidded into the ditch, shutting down thousands of businesses and sending millions to the unemployment lines. Schools, colleges and universities closed.  Everything else was cancelled, “paused” (including the NHL) or Zoomed. Like never before, people donned masks and gloves, washed their hands and door handles, and had their groceries delivered. But the virus found chinks in the armour. By early June, Covid-19 had claimed 8,000 lives. Nursing homes were ravaged, especially in the country’s two most populous provinces, Quebec and Ontario. The ticker continued to be appointment viewing.

Stratford, Ontario (pop. 32,000) is world-famous for two reasons: it’s the home of the annual Stratford Theatre Festival and it’s where pop star Justin Bieber grew up.

As summer 2020 approached, Stratford kept COVID-19 in check. On June 3, the local health unit reported four deaths (all of them in nursing homes) and 26 positive cases . 

So far, so good, at least on the COVID-19 front.  But peril lurked elsewhere. In late March, the city declared a state of emergency. A month later, the theatre festival, the engine of Stratford’s economy, shut down for the season.

Dan Mathieson, the five-term mayor of Stratford, is involved in all aspects of the economic recovery task force for the city. In late May 2020, he agreed to an interview. It covered many topics. I began by asking him about the theatre festival.

See the interview here:

Note: the video will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

Mathieson - Part 3_Moment

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Interview with the mayor of Stratford. (Part 2 of 2)

Stratford faces a rough road ahead. Its world-famous theatre festival is closed. No one is coming to town to eat in the fine restaurants and spend money in the quaint shops.  The streets are empty.  The charm and lustre have faded.

Dan Mathieson knows his hometown’s in deep trouble. In Part One of my exclusive interview with him, the five-term mayor of the southwestern Ontario city (pop.32,000) laid out the numbers for jobless figures and business bankruptcies. They’re not pretty. 

In this segment of my FaD interview with Mayor Mathieson , I ask him how Covid-19 will change “the face” of the city. Will real estate values suffer? What will happen to the town’s population size — up or down?  What about annual events such as the Pride Parade, Blues and Ribs Fest and the Summer Music Festival? Will the city’s beloved junior hockey team survive?

Also: the mayor — known as a hands-on politician — talks about his leadership style.  I ask him how he deals with the town’s power elite; he talks about the influence of women leaders in his midst; and he talks about his latest “flash of brilliance.”

Three other things.

Will he or won’t he? Dan Mathieson is closing in on 20 years as the mayor of Stratford. He’s not yet 50 years old. What’s in his future? His answer might surprise you.

This is cool: Mayor Mathieson, a heavyweight in hockey circles, weighs in on the future of the NHL.

And of course, I couldn’t let him go without getting a word on his buddy Bieber.

See the interview here:

Note: the video will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

101691512_10158509467648523_5358573894829604864_o

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Interview with Jasmine Clark

Ms Clark is the executor director of Optimism Place, the women’s shelter in Stratford, Ontario. I caught up with her recently to ask her how things are going during the Covid-19 crisis.
 
“Right now we’re in a good place,” Ms Clark said. “We’re into the recovery phase of our operations. We’re adapting.”
 
The shelter supports women in the city and across Perth County. It offers crisis counselling, necessities such as food and clothes, budget planning and referrals to lawyers, and other services. According to Ms Clark, all operations are running.
 
On a “typical” day, the shelter has beds for 17 women and children (counting cribs and cots). Ms Clark said there hasn’t been a surge in demand for space during the state of emergency. But she admitted that when she reviews the weekend logs for the crisis phone line, the calls from women are “more intense.” (I’ve left messages with the Stratford Police Services, requesting a report. No response.)
 
I asked Ms Clark if the shelter could take in more women and children if demand increases. Covid-19 is keeping people in confined spaces. Domestic violence could spike in the summer months. Her simple answer: no. In fact, Optimism Place has to do what’s done everywhere else: move people apart. She described the shelter’s set-up as “congregate” — lots of common areas. For now, she said, the shelter is restricting visitors and volunteers, and not allowing unrelated clients to share bedrooms. Will the shelter need to be re-designed or expanded? That’s a plan for later, she told me.
 
Ms Clark explained that throughout the pandemic crisis, Optimism Place staff, volunteers and board members have been nimble and quick to respond. To them, Covid-19 is simply one more problem to take on. (“We’re good at crises. That’s what we do every day.”) She’s been working with local government, funding organizations and emergency services to book back-up rooms at a local motel (“in case any clients or staff need to self-isolate”); her staff has been extra diligent about sanitizing the shelter, and they’ve “remained calm” in order to assure women that the shelter is steady.
 
The word “resilience” came up a couple of times during the interview. Ms. Clark said that it’s important to understand that abused women find ways to get to safety in order to get help from the shelter. They meet counsellors in public places in order to craft plans — escape plans. They call lawyers. They do everything they can to protect their children.
 
I asked Ms Clark, “What’s needed most at the women’s shelter these days? How can people help?” Her short answer: money. (“We had to cancel all of our fundraising events this year.”)
 
Readers who wish to donate dollars to Optimism Place can go here:  optimismplace.com
 
(A quick note about another important service in Stratford-Perth County: ShelterLink. It serves young people who struggle with homelessness, mental illness and addictions. I contacted its executive director, Bev Hagedorn. She declined to answer my questions, explaining that she was too busy. Two months ago, she wrote to me to say ShelterLink needs cash.)
women x

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Loreena McKennitt and Dr. Marlene Janzen Le Ber, on women and leadership during the pandemic

Loreena McKennitt is a legend. The Celtic and world music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has turned out 16 studio and live records, toured the globe and earned a staggering collection of awards and honours. They include multiple Junos, two Grammy nominations, four Honorary Degrees and the Order of Arts and Letters (France). She is the Honorary Colonel of the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as a Member of the Order of Canada.

Ms. McKennitt is a leader renowned for her singular determination to build her own business and brand. In 1985, she started the independent record label, Quinlan Road, in Stratford, Ontario. As its soul owner and artist, she has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.

These days, Ms. McKennitt is working on projects tied to climate change. She’s also keeping a close watch on another global crisis: Covid-19.

Dr. Marlene Janzen Le Ber is monitoring the pandemic, too. She’s the Chair of the School of Leadership and Social Change at Brescia University, in London, Ontario. She’s one of the foremost scholars and researchers on women and leadership. She holds numerous appointments, including as an Adjunct Research Professor at the Ivey School of Business at Western University (London). She’s also a trained nurse.

The two women joined me to talk about the ways women are asserting their knowledge, experience and leadership in a time of disorder. Dr. Le Ber started things off by describing the kind of leader we want and need for these times.

Listen to the interview here:

Note: the interview will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

b618f0ff-1c3f-4b4a-99c6-35c440b8e592

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Whisky and Wakeboard Weekend with Trish Thornton (Ep. 1 of 3)

Trish sips cheap whisky while gazing out across her lake. She listens for cowbirds and loons while her cats lounge, soaking up the afternoon sun. It’s “May 2-4” weekend. She’s feeling loose, but some neighbours’ nerves are taut. The burning question: Will the two-legged loons alight? The locals worry that city folk will bring the bug with them.

Welcome to dystopia, Muskoka-style. What fun times to be sharing the …land with the wealthy 1%, eh?

Trish is a year-round dweller there. These days, she’s unemployed, getting by on $2,000 a month while caring for her parents. She’s happy to be there for them. (Mary and Kirk — wonderful folks, big Stratford Theatre Festival fans — are in their 90s.)

Oh, and this: today, May 17th, is World Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Which reminds me, why do the gays own cottages? Anyways, thanks for coming out, Premier Ford!

So, here it is, Part One of our Victoria Day Weekend conversation — on video! Trish and I talk about our lives of leisure and lassitude during these dangerous times. And From a Distance: My Vic Day Weekend Dinner with Trish Thornton

(“Canoe Song” by Connie Kaldor; “Hockey Song” by Jughead.)

Click here to view:

Note: the video will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

Victoria 2

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Victoria Day Hockey Weekend with Trish Thornton (Ep. 2 of 3)

Varna. Ever heard of it? Me, neither. Not until I drove past it awhile back. It’s a blink-and-miss ‘burgh, 45 minutes west of Stratford.

…

Trish Thornton’s great, great aunt, Eleanor, knew Varna. Her pappy was a travelling preacher. Eleanor would often say, “Varna was always home to us.” (Apparently, she said the same thing about many other Ontario towns.)

A guy named Brian knows Varna really well. He lives there. He’s a preacher of a different sort. Also, he knows hockey.

I talked with Brian about what he thinks will happen to the NHL. Then I talked to Trish. She has a few predictions. (By the way, my view: the next time we see the NHL, it ain’t gonna look like your pappy’s. Or your daddy’s. It’s in big trouble.)

Preach!

(Later today: our 3rd and final installment. We’ll talk “theatre.”)

Click here to view:

Note: the video will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

play 2

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Monkey’s Paw Weekend with Trish Thornton (Ep. 3 of 3)

Today, two numbers leap off the page.

Mary and Kirk Thornton attended the Stratford Theatre Festival for more than 60 consecutive years, dating all the way back to the year the fledgling festival was staged inside a big tent. (They gifted all their theatre programs to my partner and me when we moved here.)

…

Like all of us, Mrs. and Mr. Thornton won’t be enjoying our world-famous festival this year. Now in their 90s and living not far from Trish, they’re bearing up as well as can be expected.

Also: Trish, turns 60 today! Later on, we’ll sing to her. Stick around for that!

Back to Trish’s parents: they’d want us to talk about theatre today. So we do!

Click here to view:

Note: the video will open in YouTube.  To return to my website to view other stories, click the BACK button on your browser or close YouTube.

MAX 1

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

Dinner with Maxine Ruvinsky

From a Distance: My Dinner with Maxine Ruvinsky

Once upon a time — before time — Maxine Ruvinsky attended a performance by Stratford’s musical legend, Loreena McKennitt. It was held in Max’s hometown, Montréal. She was my date that evening. The other day, we reminisced. I asked her what impression that show made.

“It proves that some people like Loreena grow more beautiful, not less, with age. Also that the way her gorgeous music tugged at my heartstrings means I haven’t yet become a complete or certified misanthrope.”

Indeed.

Dr. Maxine Ruvinsky is a best selling author (“Practical Grammar” and “Reporting for the Media,” both published by Oxford University Press), a former newspaper reporter, an academic (Professor and Chair of the Journalism School at Thompson Rivers University, in British Columbia), a musician, mother and grandmother. Also, she’s a mentor to many. Misanthrope? More on that later.

What I appreciate about Max: she’s brilliant, tough and possessed of a kind heart.

Max is retired now. Well, not really. I caught up with her to talk about her life during The Great Pause. These days, she’s missing her family, especially her darling Clementine.

WGF: What’s going on with you in Montréal these days?

MR: I’ve been self-isolating since early March, so the short answer is “not much.”

It’s eerily quiet in the apartment building where I live (on the second floor of a four storey building). I do hear people working in the apartment above mine; those tenants have apparently opted to move since the building owner sought exorbitant rent increases this year (according to the Régie, Quebec’s “landlords” are entitled to annual percentage increases). How does this make any sense when workers aren’t entitled to annual wage increases? Oh, right: how to get blood from a stone.

I’m writing in the morning (about 6 a.m. till about noon), playing in the afternoon, usually for several hours, and relaxing in the evening. When I crave fresh air or need to fill the bird feeders, I go out on the balcony that’s off my bedroom. When I do, the birds scatter (oh, you scaredy-birds, I say to them), but they return once I’ve gone inside. When I play guitar, some of the visiting birds notice. The sparrows and finches aren’t terribly musical, but the cardinals (and I think I heard a thrush the other day) are most certainly into it: for example, they go absolutely berserk when I play Bach. Good taste. (Did you know that songbirds have the fastest twitching muscles of any of the world’s creatures?)

WGF: What else are you noticing around you?

MR: The thing I’m noticing that’s different in my immediate surroundings is the quiet. I would have imagined, with more people staying home, more noise. The only person I see (when I go downstairs to collect the groceries I order online or to collect my mail) is a neighbor taking his dog out (a sweet little guy named Wendell, after Wendell Berry) for his constitutionals.

I’ve noticed in phone conversations and emails with friends and family, and a couple of former students (one emailed from China to see if he could send me some masks), that there appears to be taking place a collective raising of consciousness, about how we approach the elements of everyday living, like shopping for groceries, a growing awareness of how connected we all are, a growing appreciation for all the things and people we take so much for granted. I could be romanticizing this as some kind of silver lining to a horrid pandemic, but I don’t think so.

I noticed, talking to you on the phone the other day, how much you talked about your gardening, and the natural environment generally—things you often talk about with a certain unmistakable verve, but these days with even more exuberant passion (if that’s possible, given your exuberant nature).

As for sameness: My daily routine hasn’t changed much: I write in the mornings and play guitar in the afternoons. In the evenings I catch the news on TV and whatever else seems worth watching, or more likely, I take to my bed to read. I do miss my long daily walks, though; trying to stay physically strong with my old yoga routine (and a new aerobic routine that I added recently because the yoga was feeling too static).

WGF: Are we at war now?

MR: In a sense, I guess we are. But strangely, I (and many of the people I talk to) feel more at peace than during “ordinary” times. Breakdowns can be breakthroughs socially just as they can be for individuals.

WGF: Before we talk about your thoughts on the way forward, what are you writing about these days?

MR: I’m still working on The Trouble With Words: A Commonplace Book, which has turned out to be not much like a classic commonplace book, more like my collected thoughts on language and literacy, and love and insight, a strange attempt to integrate my thinking in three usually separate spheres: the journalistic, the scholarly, and the personal. I’m close to a first real draft (as opposed to what I used to call “zero” drafts—where I just let fly without worrying about anything, including making communicable sense—but a friend gave me a better word for them: he calls them interim drafts (more encouraging that “zero” drafts, no?).

I started taking notes for this commonplace book almost five years ago, and I don’t mind telling you it’s been hard, harder than the previous books (or is that like childbirth: in the joy of the baby, women forget the pain of childbirth, and that’s why they do it again after the first time).

It’s been so hard, in fact, that I’ve pleaded with several people: “If I ever get another idea for another book, please take me out back and shoot me. Do not let me suffer like this.” They think I’m joking (I’m only half-joking), or they don’t buy it all. My daughter Lienne said, “Yeah, yeah, Mom.” A writer friend said, “Think how good you’ll feel when it’s done.” (Right. Like stopping to bank my head against a brick wall.) My sister Carolyn, renowned for her ready wit, said, “Sorry, I don’t do that,” but did offer to take me out to dinner instead (an offer I look forward to taking her up on when, the universe willing, covid-19 has played itself out).

WGF: You’re a musician, too. What role does your playing play during The Great Pause?

MR: The playing is a nice break from the banging my head against the page (that unforgiving tyrant!), but what’s interesting is how much more I notice about it, not just the all-important sound, but more about my intentions for a given piece and more generally my motivation for playing at all. It feels as if all of my “normal” behaviors are more significant somehow, lit up somehow with a new kind of curiosity.

WGF: Let’s talk about your work as a journalist. For many years, you were a reporter. Later on, you wrote a series of books, including “Investigative Journalism in Canada.” If you were covering today’s pandemic and what would stories would you chase?

MR: I would be talking to every corporate CEO I could to find out how they are fulfilling their responsibilities (or not) to their employees (by continuing to pay them while social distancing is still necessary), and I would be talking to social critics about their ideas for handling this social reckoning.

I would try to make explicit the connections between corporate power and government power so that people would see that connection as I see it: government as the public relations arm of corporate power and the Insurance Company for the corporate stranglehold. Why? Because although reporters and writers some time ago let the fat cats out of the Panama Papers bag, the reckoning has yet to occur.

I would not attend the press briefings and televised rallies of such a one as Donald Trump. Let Fox News do it.

WGF: What opinion pieces would you write?

MR: What covid has shown us, the human species, is how much in need we are of a grand reckoning to deal with built-in, ingrained injustice systems. While human lives are at risk, corporate behemoths and some individuals look to make a profit—and do—from the crisis.

This crisis shows how we need a guaranteed annual income and a guaranteed minimum wage. Companies that can’t abide by a minimum wage and guaranteed health care and non-polluting practices would have to fold. Of course that would mean radical change for all of us—no kind of “new normal”—but then that’s what grand reckonings are for.

WGF: What about the idealist in you? What are your hopes and dreams?

MR: In my political fantasies: People work together to form their own cooperatives, where everyone shares the work and profits, if not equally, then at least with something recognizable as fairness. Decisions are made collectively and power is shared. (In the ancient Hebrew court, the Sanhedrin, when everybody agreed on something, the group had to go back to the beginning of the discussion to figure out what they had missed.)

A “government” (at any level) that can’t ensure no on lives on the street and no one is hungry for lack of money, is a government that should be ousted. No matter how good a system, there will always be wise guys (and girls) looking to and finding ways to game the system. Laws have to change to incorporate the equivalent of a shotgun clause. For example, in countries like the U.S., where senators and congress people still get paid when they shut down the government, if they had to forgo pay during shutdowns, the latter would be exceedingly unlikely.

The only way to fix the vileness of politics is shared power. Voting is a nice idea (despite the anarchist saying: don’t vote, it only encourages them), but the real potential for change is in unified economic action (not just boycotts and unions, but all kinds of new and creative ways to make justice speak, to give voice to common humanity)—these ideas exist in abundance (but they don’t make good TV—and I am not here putting down TV; these days I’m grateful for it).

WGF: You’re a skeptic. In whom do you place your trust these days?

MR: If it’s a choice between Trump and Trump-like anti-intellectualism, then no contest: I trust the scientists. But there’s a difference between science and scientism. And scientists, in any case, don’t speak as one voice, so my answer would include a question: Which scientists? They speak, when they do, after all, like the rest of us, as individuals (and as individuals in the employ of other individuals).

The only “trust” I think any of us can rely on in the midst of this pandemic is self-trust, that is, reliance on our own judgment based on the facts. We can get the facts from mass media (especially if we avoid the sayings of president Trump). The capacity for good judgment, however, is, like the capacity for independent thought, something that we learn (or don’t) from our experience and from our caring for each other (or not)—in any case, it’s not something we can pick up online.

WGF: We’re hearing more and more about people demanding that their governments free them from lockdown. In America, they’re showing up at state houses. Some are carrying guns. In Canada, they’re protesting in front of legislative buildings. What do you think of these demonstrations?

Every crisis—whether pandemic or personal—brings out the best and the worst in people. When I see people demanding an end to lockdowns, it makes me sad. When I see them with guns, it makes me scared. I try to cope with these feelings by reminding myself that more numerous by far than these fear-mongered responses are those people doing whatever they can to keep themselves and others safe and sane. I remind myself that the former sort make easier television than the unnamed everyday heroes who far outnumber those without the wherewithal to appreciate an enemy they cannot see with the naked (and/or jaundiced) eye.

WGF: Many of us call these people stupid, as in, “you can’t fix stupid.” We call them idiots. Menaces. Dangerous. What do you call them?

MR: I call them people.

WGF: Where do you think we’ll go from here?

MR: If there is any hope for us as a species, and I retain hope, we will move toward raised consciousness, especially of how connected and interdependent we are as individuals, and not just the individuals of our own necessarily small circles. I think we will move toward greater compassion and greater justice and so, toward more enlightened behavior.

WGF: What needs to change?

MR: Guaranteed annual income, guaranteed living wages, free education and health care. Because all of these social goods depend in our money system, on money. (The Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, called a “humanist” economist because he writes about the economy of the world’s underclass, has written about this money economy, in which money is considered a good in itself, rather than a means exchange. He’s shown that people can die of starvation in famines in the modern world not because there is a lack of food production, not because there isn’t enough food to go around, but because they lack money (“currency,” hard or electronic). We can work collectively for such public goods as health and education; we don’t have to pay corporate systems to dispense their impostors.

If there were to be this reckoning of which I dream (and I’m hardly alone), if there were to be no danger of starving for living outside the stranglehold of “employment,” corporate or otherwise, I think we would see a genuine flowering of human potential and an enlightened redefinition of work: Doctors with a healing touch and intent; teachers who love to learn; writers with something to say; community organizers with a hope and a helping hand, plumbers with water divining skills.

I can hear my opponents now: “And who will collect the garbage? Well, see, we would all have to contribute to that, we would all have to share the work “no one” wants, and with enough of such sharing we might come to actually respect “the dignity” of work we pay such lip service to—and the natural dignity of each other.

All of that reminds me of my obsession with “why write?’ and with writing, and with old Dr. Johnson’s much quoted “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” and its wonderful contemporary correction: “Of course a writer writes for money, but only a blockhead writes only for money.” (Tracy Kidder, in Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction).

On the other hand, if I see one more mock-Buddhist corporate commercial about how we’re all one—I’m going to toss the TV set.

To return to where I began in this brief rant: guaranteed income does indeed work to prevent people from dying in the despair we call hunger and homelessness and poverty and prison.

WGF: What are the chances we’ll change?

Fifty-fifty.

WGF: You had a birthday just before everything skidded sideways. Happy 70th! How does Covid affect your thoughts on death and dying, or does it??

MR: I’ve thought a lot about the end of life, I’ve seen to getting my affairs in order, and I’ve spent a lot of time (probably too much) reminiscing about people I’ve loved and lost, especially about my folks and about the siblings who have passed (there were seven of us kids; four are left).

WGF: Now that you’re one year older and living through a pandemic, what’s your life’s purpose? Will you stop being a misanthrope? Your word, not mine.

MR: Plans for change, post-covid, include these: never again waste a shred of food, never again buy a single item I don’t actually need; volunteer to teach writing and guitar for free to people who can’t afford formal study; find other musicians with whom to play classical music and overcome my fear of performing. Notice I’m not planning on any more books (though magazine articles are a possibility).

And about being a misanthrope: You know what they say about self-declared misanthropes (and if memory serves, I said I was in danger of becoming a complete misanthrope, not that I am already one). In any case, you know what they say about misanthropes: Scratch one, and you find a hopeless romantic. Plus, she just might scratch you back.

WGF: You’ve endured heavy losses in your immediate family. How does this crisis feel to you?

MR: Scary and lonesome.

WGF: It’s Mother’s Day? How is your family?

MR: I’m so happy to say that everyone’s doing okay. I miss family and friends, think of them daily. I miss my granddaughter Clementine something fierce.

WGF: You and I have broken bread together a few times. What should we have for dinner tonight?

MR: That’s an easy one: big green salad, linguini prima vera, sinfully rich garlic bread, a bottle (or two) of Beaujolais, and for dessert: berries and cheese and chocolate and strong coffee, maybe even with cream.

Louise

From a Distance.../ Sidebar

VE Day Cream Tea with Louise & Family

Louise Marten and her sister, Patricia Morris, changed my life. Bold statement. True, though. More on those two in a minute.

I’m named after a Second World War pilot. J. Grant Fleming, my father’s first cousin, was a squadron leader for the R.A.F. In September 1944, a Messerschmitt chased his Mosquito and gunned it down, killing Grant and his navigator, Harold Clark (whose story I recounted to readers late last year).

By many measures, in the minds of many, Grant was a hero. His deeds and exploits were harrowing and extraordinary. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross. I don’t have room in this space to dive deep. (Google a book called “Grounded in Eire,” by Ralph Keefer.)

A year ago around this time, I got serious about looking into the life and death of Grant. I unearthed good stuff (archive materials, online chat groups, the Keefer book, etc.). But the big break came a few months later. Enter Patricia and her sister, Louise.

A document I’d dug up led me to the Morris family. At first, my efforts to figure out a connection was like cracking a wartime code. I kept at it. I found a phone number for a “Patricia Morris.” She’s a Montreal-based artist. (Stratford content alert: she’s a big fan of a musician friend of mine who lives just outside my city.) My cold call to her was, well, incredible. (“We had no idea Grant had relatives!”) She told me that her uncle, Douglas, was Grant’s best friend. The young Albertans crossed the ocean by ship and signed up together. Doug was shot down in May 1940, during the Blitzkrieg. He was 23. He, too, was a true hero.

Then Pat said, “Call my sister Louise. She’s the family historian. She has loads of stuff on Grant. She lives in Henley-on-Thames.” I did. Oh, my.

Last October, Louise and her partner, Stephen, hosted me at their lovely home in Henley. She shared photos, showed me Grant’s wartime wristwatch, and much else. The three of us hiked and drove around Oxfordshire. I loved every second.

A month later, I met up with the Morris sisters in Montreal. Louise had flown in to visit their mother. (Pat and I attended a Loreena McKennitt concert together, at Place des Arts.) A few weeks later, Pat and her family visited us in Stratford. We reminisced at Revel Caffe before they headed out to see a musical.

Jacques and I were supposed to go to Henley last month. On the agenda: more talks about Grant and Doug, more walks, probably a pint of beer (or glass of bog gin) to toast Louise’s upcoming 60th. Best laid plans, eh? (Speaking of which, Henley and Stratford are both hurting these days. Covid closed our world-famous theatre festival, and did the same to Henley’s famed rowing regatta.)

Today marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Tomorrow is Louise’s 60th. These days, Steve and she have their son, Benjamin, sheltered at home. Benjamin the Tarantino Aspirant and I joined forces for this very special “From a Distance” session.

1 2 3