The Citizen, 2019-05-02, Page 5Other Views
Giving, receiving and other lessons
One thing leads to another Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
When I was younger, there were a
couple songs made special not just
by their message, but by the people
with whom I listened to them.
Two perfect examples spring to mind:
Bobby McFerrin’s catchy “Don’t Worry Be
Happy” and Bobby Gaylor’s “Suicide”.
Don’t let the title of the latter confound
you;it actually turns into a song about all the
things you would miss if you committed
suicide, like McDonald’s French fries, living
above earth, waffles with whip cream and
strawberries and running over toads with the
lawnmower.
Those songs were special not because they
were particularly poignant or because they
were catchy (though they were both those
things). They were special because they were
the soundtracks for road trips with my dad and
my sister Tory (my other siblings were either
not born or too young to understand the
songs).
From the short jaunt from our house to the
babysitter’s to longer hockey road trips, those
tunes were enjoyed and sung over and over
and over again.
If you haven’t heard Gaylor’s song, I’d
suggest giving it a listen. It’s a spoken-word
piece, so you need to be ready for that, and the
language and situations aren’t exactly PG, so
be ready for that as well.
For some reason, that song has stuck with
me (far more than “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.
Anyway, that lesson never stuck). I don’t try to
run over toads with the lawnmower, but there
were other nuggets of wisdom that have
proven true the older I get.
At one point, Gaylor says that people who
decide to commit suicide will miss “the joy of
giving and receiving at Christmas” and boy is
he right, though I didn’t know how right until
I watched my daughter open her first
Christmas present a couple years back.
More recently, Ashleigh and I watched as
Mary Jane found the treasure trove of
chocolate, candies and treasures the Easter
Bunny brought her and there are few feelings
that compare with the smiles, happy screams
and look of wonder as she uncovered each
treat that led her on a journey to a new blanket
and some toys and dress-up clothes left for her.
She was excited to have new toys, of course,
but it didn’t hit me how much she cherished
these items until a few days later when it came
time for her bed time story and she asked for
her new blanket over all the other blankets she
has (and between the quilts and the character
blankets, she has quite a few) to take to bed
with her.
It put a smile on my face because the Easter
Bunny had picked a winner and put a smile on
her face and I can only imagine how happy
that made the rabbit.
It got me thinking about the other lessons
that stick with me and how they first entered
my life and, surprising to me (but maybe not to
others), a lot of them came through songs.
There are the obvious lessons you can take
from songs like The Rolling Stones’ “You
Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and
knowing when to walk away from the table (as
Kenny Rogers teaches us in “The Gambler”),
but some of the most important lessons are the
ones that blind side you on some idle Tuesday
afternoon and weren’t particularly obvious
before that. And yes, that’s a paraphrasing of
“The Sunscreen Song” by Baz Luhrman,
which put the column Wear Sunscreen by
Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich to
music. Check that one out if you need some
life-lessons put to catchy music.
Sure, every rose has its thorn, every night its
dawn and every cowboy his sad song, but
when I really think about it, those lessons have
never stuck with me quite the same way that
Gaylor’s words did for some reason. “Suicide”
had a lot of small lessons that add up to one
big one: “Finish what you started.” Maybe
that’s why it struck a chord with me: I’m not
one to back down from a challenge.
In the song, Gaylor is talking about
choosing to keep going instead of committing
suicide, but to me, it’s always been a battle
cry: don’t give up and don’t quit.
Plus, the other small lessons have proven to
be true. There was a rush when I got my own
first apartment. I have, on more than one
occasion, told my parents to let me make my
own mistakes the same way they did. I’ve had
summer nights that went on for ever. I hate
roller coasters, but I still ride them because
you never know when you won’t be able to
and, finally, I try to make a difference in the
world.
That last one may be a little hard to quantify
but, when I look back on the stories that I’ve
told every week for more than nine years, I
have to believe that somewhere along the way,
I made a difference to someone.
So let music in, you never know when that
catchy earworm will become the battle cry
you’ve been looking for all your life.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019. PAGE 5.
Getting experience
Personal experiences and interactions are
the core of how we become the people
we are. When we meet someone face to
face, when we go somewhere and feel its
ground under our feet, when we have to make
a choice devoid of options, it changes you.
What I mean is that too often in this day and
age we’re sheltered from the harsh realities
others face every day. Whether it’s due to
economic situation or other factors, there are a
number of experiences to which many of us
simply cannot relate.
That’s why it’s scary to have decision-
makers with their fingers on the button of so
many life-changing moves, the effects of
which they’ll never feel, in-office or not.
You hear stories all the time about people’s
lives being changed by an interaction. The
homophobic parent turned advocate when
their child is gay; the racist who learns the
error of his ways when he meets and befriends
those from cultures other than his own; the
woman who realizes the importance of a
shelter only when she’s had to stay at one.
These personal experiences are the
foundation on which we build our lives and
they sow seeds of empathy and compassion.
Right now, in rural Ontario, the discussion
has shifted to libraries. These buildings are
essential to the lives of many, especially in
communities away from the 401 corridor. Yes,
they are full of books, many of which are read
numerous times throughout the year. But
libraries are so much more now. They are hubs
of information and technology for those who
can’t afford internet; places to train and learn.
While I’d be surprised to hear that Premier
Doug Ford does much reading, what I’m
getting at here is that Ford, the son of a rich
entrepreneur, fell into a cushy job in the family
business after dropping out of college. He
doesn’t know what it’s like to need a library.
Ontario cabinet ministers make over
$165,000 a year – and most MPPs and MPs
didn’t brush gutter sludge off of themselves
and decide to run for office. They were doing
just fine before they took office and these
people will never need the services being cut.
Speaking with a friend last week, we were
discussing the persistent rumours surrounding
Ford and the privatization of health care. I told
him that one of the reasons I’m truly proud to
be Canadian is that we’re a country that
doesn’t leave its people behind. I realize there
are some who would disagree – First Nations
communities, the poor, our veterans – but
with universal health care and robust social
services, our country is one that seeks to take
care of those who cannot care for themselves.
To me, it’s unthinkable to have to pay for
care if you hurt yourself. You hear these stories
in the U.S., low-income earners who have to
make the choice between a doctor’s
appointment and paying the bills – the bills
always win. Ford would never have to make
that choice, nor would any of his MPPs, but
feeding the poor to the wolves is a staple of the
“Government of the People”.
U.S. President Donald Trump has followed a
similar trajectory. The son of a rich land
developer, Trump never had to worry about his
next meal (not even during all of those
bankruptcies) or apply for a job.
So, when social services are cut, it’s easy for
the rich to look down at the poor and tell them
to do better, but they’ve never truly walked a
mile in their shoes. Don’t ever believe a career
politician who says he/she knows what it’s like
to go without. With few exceptions, they were
born advantaged and they will remain so with
little regard for those out of their tax bracket.
It was the sort of conversation that can only
occur when a group of people are speaking
together – one person saying something
that triggers a thought from another which in
turn spurs a comment from a third.
A group of us were chatting last week
and one mentioned having visited what used to
be the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food (OMAFRA) building in the north end
of Clinton and finding it eerily empty these
days.
I immediately remembered the excitement
around the opening of that building back in the
late 1980s. The OMAFRA staff had been
crowded into their old office in downtown
Clinton and Jack Riddell, Huron’s MPP and
Minister of Agriculture and Food under the
short-lived David Peterson government, had
made it a priority to get them more space.
After the Liberals were replaced by Bob
Rae’s NDP government in 1990, things stayed
very much the same but huge changes came
when Mike Harris returned the Progressive
Conservatives to power in 1995.
Bent on cutting costs, the new government
completely rethought the idea of how to
provide the latest knowledge to farmers. In the
age of easy communications by internet and
telephone, the government decided there
wasn’t a need for experts at the local level
because expert staff at OMAFRA headquarters
in Guelph could be reached by any farmer in
the province.
Huron’s OMAFRA office actually came off
pretty well compared to most counties, as
several of the staffers were considered regional
experts in their specialized fields. There was a
reduction, however, and the extra space was
taken up by the Ministry of Natural Resources
(MNR) whose Wingham office was closed and
staff slashed to a fraction of its previous size.
Though the Liberals, who took office in
2003, grew the size of government again, they
didn’t reverse the cuts to local OMAFRA
offices and staffing continued to shrink, with
the Ministry of Transportation taking over a
large part of the Clinton building for its
drivers’ testing centre.
Under another cost-cutting government
with Doug Ford as premier, there’s no chance
there will be better local service at OMAFRA
or the MNR, which has no Clinton office left at
all.
So, back to the conversation. Later,
someone mentioned that the service club he
belongs to has no problem recruiting new
members, but that it’s hard to find members
willing to take on leadership roles. We noted
that this is a recurring story with many other
community organizations which is a threat to
the ongoing importance of many of these
groups to our Huron County way of life.
That prompted a comment from another
member of the group, a veteran volunteer who
remembered that when she was just getting
started, she and many other rural volunteers
attended leadership courses run by OMAFRA
staff. Those leaders are now nearing the end
of their leadership years and there aren’t
enough people willing to take over from them.
Perhaps this is because, without training,
people are intimidated by the responsibility
they’re being asked to take on.
If you’d asked most people when
OMAFRA’s role was being reduced two
decades ago, I doubt many of us would have
lamented the loss of rural leadership training
more than some of the more agriculturally-
oriented advisory positions. And who knows
for sure that if there were still leadership
training, if younger people would take it and be
prepared to become leaders. Perhaps it’s just a
trend in today’s society that people think
someone else will take the lead and they can be
followers.
But the situation shows that sometimes
there are consequences to our decisions that
never even occur to us when we’re
contemplating change. When OMAFRA was
shrinking, we were thinking about the loss of
advisors we’d come to trust, or the loss of jobs,
or of how much it was going to save taxpayers.
Few thought of the unexpected consequences
of a loss of leaders of our invaluable rural
organizations (other than 4-H which
immediately had to cope without OMAFRA
staffers who had done much of the heavy
lifting for years).
We’re not likely to reverse the trend of
watching the provincial government retreat
from rural communities to centralize in urban
hubs like Toronto or Guelph, but we need to be
aware of what we’ve lost. Despite being asked
to pick up more and more services that the
province used to provide, perhaps it would be
money well invested for the county
government to take up leadership training for
our community groups.
From 4-H to Lions and Kinsmen Clubs to
church groups, the volunteer sector is of crucial
importance to our local communities. Nothing
could be more important than creating more
leaders.
Keith
Roulston
From the
cluttered desk
A child’s life is like a piece of paper on
which every person leaves a mark.
– Chinese Proverb
Final Thought