The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
I think it was the dogs who did it. It is now Tuesday afternoon in the nation's capital, time for the much-expected George Bush Memorial Riot. Both sides have arrived, just as expected, rather like two basketball teams who know they must appear at an appointed time, since the TV cameras are waiting. This at the very apex of our dear city, in front of the wide promenade between the Chateau Laurier and the old Union Station, the National Arts Centre just off to the left, the War Memorial right there, the Prime Minister's bunker in the Langevin Block just up the street, Parliament Hill's magnificent tower overlooking all this. Up Wellington Street in front of the wonderful pile of Chateau stone comes a startling, frightening sight, something that looks like a TV shot out of Berlin or Moscow. In lock-step, a mass of black-clad men with massive plastic shields, visors protecting their faces, march to face their foes over four-foot-high street barriers. All ready for them are all the suspects, the jeans-clad protesters who have come in buses from as far away as Winnipeg, those who don't appreciate the American dominance of the world. A large white truck advertises: George Bush is a War Criminal. The two basketball teams face each other, inches from one another. Daring who is going to make the first move. The police/security is brilliantly planned. Fifty yards behind the Moscow-looking black squad is another line of several hundred uniformed men. Even further behind, lower in Wellington beside the Westin Hotel, are even more hundred. These guys have got resources. One suspects the White House has been giving suggestions. Every so often, one or so brave jeans-lad tries for a Victoria Cross and is dragged off on the scruff of his buff. While the TV cameras roll ? and sharp-shooters patrol the roof of the Union Station and the helicopters whirl above us ? the hours stretch. Among the innocents among us, trapped behind the five-foot steel barriers, attempting to check into the Chateau Laurier, is Henry Champ of downtown Manitoba, CBC's Washington correspondent. Also Senator Jerry Grafstein, leader of the post Sept. 11 "Canadians-love-Americans" tribute in New York. Also Peter Lougheed, long-time Alberta premier and fan of America. After two hours of this riveting nonsense, the frightened young cops wearing gas masks refusing to respect my press pass, this scribbler vaulted the barrier that shielded us from the Chateau front door, some 20 yards away, and attempted to instruct the constabulary of what Henry Champ would be reporting to his TV audience of the idiocy of the Dubya Memorial Riot. Then came the sound of the dogs. The third line of the coppers had German shepherds. It is now 5:15, darkness settling in. The sound of the dogs, we sort of sense, settled the stand-off. The protesters didn't like that sound. X X X AND ANOTHER THING One day, Pierre Berton as a hot-shot kid out of the University of B.C. was sitting with his lanky feet up at his desk at the Vancouver News-Herald, the town's only then morning paper. In walked Clayton Boston (Slim) Delbridge, who had just been appointed publisher and having made his fortune in the stock market knew nothing about newspapers. Slim, who was once my father-in-law, demanded to know of the city editor why this large lout had his feet on the table. Berton, not lowering his feet, replied: "I'm reading the comics." Slim said, "Fire him." Berton picked up his jacket and walked out. Slim then looked at the paper he had never read and found on the front page three sensational stories. "Who wrote those?" he asked. The guy you just fired, he was told. A copy boy raced two blocks down the street and retrieved him. At 21, he was the youngest city editor ever in Canada. I cannot stand men who name their kids after their self. What chance did Frank Sinatra Jr. ever have of making something of himself? So my buddy Pierre, who was actually shy, named his kids Penny, Pamela, Patricia, Peter, Paul, Peggy, Perri. Is that ego or what? You can't be a writer if you don't have ego. That's why you are a writer.
