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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-05-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010. PAGE 5. The story goes that back in the dirty thirties, a Californian pilot by the name of Douglas Corrigan applied for permission to make a solo flight across the Atlantic from New York to Europe. Inspectors for the Bureau of Air Commerce took one look at his rattletrap 1929 monoplane and laughed him and his suicide crate right off the tarmac. The next day Corrigan showed up by the runway again, revving his engine and announcing that he was flying back to Los Angeles. Twenty-three hours and thirteen minutes later he landed at Baldonnel Airport in Dublin, Ireland. When someone on the ground informed Corrigan of where he was he feigned amazement and said: “I flew the wrong way!” Thus spake the infamous Wrong-Way Corrigan. He’ll always be my hero, not so much for his bull-headed initiative as for being the only pilot I know who can stop talking after five succinct words. Compare that to the garrulous flapdoodle passengers are forced to endure on commercial flights nowadays. “Aft’noon, ladies and gents,” drawls the voice over the public address system, its owner doing his best to sound like John Wayne. “Thiz yer cap’n speakin’. Like tuh thank y’all fer flyin’ with us tuhday…” And on it goes, with brain- deadening details about ETAs, de-icing procedures, cloud cover, wind direction, flight altitudes and cabin pressure. Forget the Hollywood audition tape Tex, just fly the damn plane. Of course by the time the pilot speaks, passengers have already been buffeted into mute submission by the dreary and prolix litany of pre-recorded pre-flight announcements. Who writes that stuff? At this point in time we do ask and require that you please return your chair backs and tables to their full upright position…. That’s a sentence suffering from morbid obesity. What’s wrong with “Please raise your chair backs and tables.”? For your safety and comfort the washrooms are equipped with smoke detection devices… Bullcrap. It’s got nothing to do with our ‘safety’ and ‘comfort’. The washrooms are equipped with smoke detectors to catch anybody trying to sneak a cigarette while we’re up in the air. Why not just say “No smoking during the flight.”? I’m glad to see that WestJet has dialled back the excruciatingly cornball routines with which they used to greet passengers – Hee Haw style monologues and groaner puns that made your feet curl. Air Canada, on the other hand, continues to mete out brisk and humourless service that features all the warmth and humanity of a Xerox machine. Surely there’s some happy medium? We’re all human beings up there. Like the pilot and co-pilot who bumble up the gangplank onto an airplane flying out of Dallas one morning. The pilot, tapping along with a white cane, keeps tripping over luggage and bumping into passengers. The co-pilot has less trouble – but then he has a guide dog to rely on. Both men wear dark glasses. At first the passengers think it’s an elaborate April Fool’s joke, but the two men disappear into the cockpit and no announcement is forthcoming. The engines fire up. The pre-recorded announcement about seat belts and laptops; chair backs and chair tables is broadcast. The plane begins to lumber out to the runway. The passengers look inquiringly at the flight attendants, only to be met with stony indifference. Slowly the aircraft gathers speed as the passengers begin to murmur among themselves. This, they all agree, is a joke that’s going too far. Seconds tick by. The murmuring turns to grumbling. Several passengers press the flight attendant button. No response. Whole minutes have elapsed and still the aircraft hasn’t achieved liftoff. The last of the runway markers flashes by, a lady in 22A swoons. Suddenly the entire cabin of passengers scream in unison. And at that very moment the aircraft finally soars into the air. Up in the cockpit the co-pilot lets out a huge breath, turns to the pilot and says: “You know one of these times the passengers aren’t going to scream and we’re going to get killed.” Arthur Black Other Views But first, a word from our pilot Blyth lost a true hero last week when its last known veteran of the Second World War, Russell Cook, passed away peacefully at his home. Having met Russell several times through Remembrance Day ceremonies or interviews for The Citizen, I remember immediately being struck at how forthcoming and kind he was. He told me that he wasn’t always that way. Forthcoming that is. Perhaps he had been forthcoming in his personal life, but when it came to his experiences at war, that was something he didn’t talk about until just under a decade ago. He began speaking about his experiences through England, France, Belgium and Holland when he was asked to speak to a group of Blyth Public School students and from then on, he was much more open about what he had been through. Cook said he wanted to help inform a generation about the Second World War and did so through a series of speaking engagements throughout the next eight years. He was, in a way, inspired by a veteran of the First World War from Westfield who never spoke of his experiences in war. For years Russell said it was too painful to revisit the horrors he saw at war, but eventually felt that he didn’t want to stay silent anymore for the benefit of others, especially young people, in the community. In 2009, his story was committed to a DVD series entitled Veterans Remember, produced by Kirk Scott. Russell was a very kind man. I remember calling him about the DVD in which he was featured. He stopped by the office the next day with a copy for me to watch before I interviewed him. I was then invited to his home. We spoke about his time at war, the countries he travelled through and the two gunshot wounds he sustained in the war. He told me about Huron County connections he made along the way, meeting with a fellow Blyth resident in France and a Benmiller resident in a hospital in England while he was on a stretcher awaiting surgery on his leg. He also told me about how he felt the touch of God when he was in France. He said he watched God protect him while in the crosshairs of a German tank just seconds before it exploded. From that day on, Russell remained as devout a Christian as there is. When he made it back to Canada, he said, he was in a Toronto hospital for several months, enduring surgery after surgery, all the while making plans to marry his future wife Marion. He gave his doctors a deadline, saying that if they weren’t done with him by a certain date, he was getting up and walking out of that hospital, because he had a young girl he needed to marry. Marion passed away in 2005 after the couple raised seven children together. It was on the four-year anniversary of Marion’s sudden death, Russell informed me, that I was sitting across his table from him discussing his life and time at war. Through this gesture and his willingness to discuss his life, his wife, their relationship and her eventual passing, I saw Russell as an extremely conscientious man who put the interests of others before his. It was just a few weeks ago that I saw Russell walking to the post office on his own, remarkable for a man in his mid-80s. The community will greatly miss a man who did so much for his village and for his country throughout his entire life. Keeping it simple makes it easy A historic loss With every passing year, journalism changes, the job and skills required are so different now that people ten years ago would simultaneously laugh at how simple it has gotten, and then run away scared from how much extra knowledge they would need just to be an intern, but one thing never changes. To do the job, and do it successfully, requires readers just like you. That’s right, some papers have totally forgotten about you, and print based totally on advertisers’ cost, completely ignoring the fact that people pay for what they get, but not small-town Ontario. We know that we rely on you, and without you, not only would there be no one to read our stories, there would be no one to let us know what is going on. At the same time, we can find ourselves challenged, as we cannot have eyes and ears everywhere. So in the interest of making our jobs more successful, and your reading more enjoyable, I present some suggestions for your interactions with the newspaper. If you want us to take a picture: • Timing is everything With such a wide area to cover, it is important for members of The Citizen’s reporting team to be able to accurately gauge the amount of time that will be needed at each event. If we can’t, we may miss other photo opportunities. Do you have a dinner and awards ceremony? Well make your eating less rushed and awkward, and give us the most bang for our buck by telling us when and where the pictures can be quickly taken. We like letting people know about other people’s accolades, but if we have to wait for you to finish eating, we may miss a photo elsewhere. • Have names prepared. This can help with the misspelling of names, which, unfortunately, can happen. Do you know who is going to be in a picture? Or what the significance of the picture is? Write it down or print it out. Odds are you already have for yourself, make a copy for us and avoid spelling mistakes and factual errors. • Remember, journalists are different from most photographers. In the mind of a photographer, things are bright, vibrant, beautiful, in the mind of a reporter we know our photos will most likely show up in grayscale. That means composition will be different than the norm. So, if you’re asked to do something, there is probably a very good reason for it. Are you the coach of a sports team? • Get your scores to us. The Citizen will be more than happy to recant the victories and valiant attempts of local sports teams, but we need to know the basics; who played, who scored, who won, and when did it happen? • Let us know when you play. Get a schedule to The Citizen. We may not make it to every game, but what are the odds your team will get in the paper if we don’t know where they’re going to be and when? Do you have a story that needs to be written? • Be ready to sit down and chat. Our job is to tell your stories. We’re not trying to overthrow governments, or implicate politicians, or discover world domination plots, we’re here to serve the community. Making us interrogate you isn’t fun for anyone. If you’re not at your most comfortable speaking to a near-stranger, find someone who is, or submit your story as a letter to the editor. • Have background information. If you’re going to tell us that the Queen of England is a cloned imposter, give us a bit of information to back it up, or a place to start looking. Being a journalist is a unique career; you don’t need to know everything about everything, you just need to know a little bit about most things, and how to easily find what you don’t know. That said, you know the story you want to tell, so provide us with the information. Let us know we’re not on a wild goose chase. • And, as I say at the end of every interview I do, let us know what’s going on. The Citizen covers a wide area. We can’t possibly know about everything. If you know about news, or see it happening, call us. Thank you for all the help you give us in telling the stories of this community. This business wouldn’t work without you. Denny Scott FFrroomm DDeennnnyy’’ss DDeenn Shawn Loughlin SShhaawwnn’’ss SSeennssee Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. – Oscar Wilde Final Thought