Day One!

Captain’s Log, Stardate 21052016. What a day! Thanks a bunch to Tony Cadrin and Lorraine Jessee for helping me get through day. Tony and I had a terrific chat on our way to Chestermere. I’ve known Tony for more than 30 years and we’ve always seen eye to eye. Anyone that knows us both will understand that phrase. Over 30 years, though, the majority of our interaction has been “Cocktail chat”, drinks in hand, with other people around. It was great to hear about his family, his travels and especially to meet his family at the end of the day. Thanks again Tony!

“Let's take a walk. You can show me some of your memories and I'll show you some of mine.” ― Adam Berlin, The Number of Missing

Tina and I headed downtown at 8:15 after a flurry of last minute packing. I had spoken to Wes Jenkins of Arts Commons about using the covered handicapped entrance as the “Podium” for the kickoff. The forecast had been bouncing from cloudy and cool to cloudy, rainy and cool so having a covered spot to set up microphone and MP3 player was critical. We had to run extension cords from the hallway outside, so duct taped them down. Nothing is ever quite that easy, thoughly. We had to pass through 2 sets of doors to do that, neither of which had sufficient clearance to allow the cords to pass beneath them. Fortunately, both sets of double doors met in the middle so by orienting the cords at right angles to where they meet, they were able to close.

Thanks to Norm Hopkins, who also plays guitar on “Walking Back to Saskatoon”, we had an amp and MP3 player. I had loaded up some Guess Who classic gold on my phone to set the mood. People started to arrive at around 9. I was standing close to the MP3/phone when we heard a voice saying “DAVEY, DAVE, DAVE…..” We were looking around to find who it was. Apparently a friends phone call had been automatically answered by the phone and he had had an extended listen to “Albert Flasher” . We only heard his voice when the song ended. Sorry about that, Tim!

A big thanks to Gerry Bellows for the stim machine! Gerry and I played flag football together back in the day and he’s been my go to physiotherapist ever since. My wonky hip thanks you, too!

We got started at 9:30 with Gord Beach talking about the Ore Gangue Alumni Bursary Fund and its importance to geoscience students at the U of S. Elisa Renick of Heart and Stroke talked about the fund and introduced Betty Jensen. Betty’s son Dave is a heart transplant recipient and recently celebrated 20 years with the transplant. He’s a music teacher in Calgary, married with a daughter (9 years old if remember correctly). Very inspiring story that Betty has written a book on. “Brave New Heart” is available on Kobo. For more information, questions, comments, etc you can email Betty at bravenewheart@shaw.ca.

I followe Betty with thank yous to a lot of people who helped me along the way. Wes Jenkins, for allowing us to use the space, Christine Berstad, my social media consultant(Actually we work at Sitka together, she’s just down the hall!), Norm, the music man, Hopkins, Eric Jessee, the pro music mixer, Susan Eaton for editing my press release, Elisa for her guidance in the fundraising process, Betty for her inspiration. Lastly I said a few heartfelt words about my wife, Tina. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on Thursday. It has been said that we become more like our spouses with time. I hope I have osmosed some or her strength, commitment and determination. I’m going to need them.