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.
All great writers have a way of avoiding that imagination-deficient fumble known as the clich. I normally try to follow their lead, but ask me what is great about my job and I relapse into the most customary of answers: the people. Specifically, the people with amazing stories to tell, who have done amazing things. Over the years, I have been fortunate to write about many individuals who fall into that category. They're people like 105-year-old (!) Evelyn Constable, who until her passing in February was Flin Flon's oldest resident. I've always been fascinated with longevity. As I spoke with Mrs. Constable on her 105th birthday last fall, I kept trying to wrap my head around her vast lifetime. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, our seventh prime minister, was in charge when she was born. She was eight when the Titanic sunk. The First World War ended the day after her 15th birthday. Mrs. Constable was mature enough to have babysat John Wayne and Alec Guinness. She was already a senior citizen when man landed on the moon, and fast approaching 90 when the Soviet Union collapsed. And, bless her heart, she was sharp and active to the end, playing cards every Saturday night and always making new friends and fresh observations. For me, Mrs. Constable really emphasized the value of making our own path in life and of enjoying the time we have on this earth, be it a decade or a century. She was an incredible lady. Also incredible were Sol and Rachel Fink. I was in Cranberry Portage just last week to hear them candidly share their struggle to survive the Second World War as Jewish teens in Hitler-occupied nations. I was deeply uplifted by the Finks, still so happy and young at heart despite the horrors of their past. Their story also hammers home appreciation for how far our planet has come in the last 60 years, all of the ongoing genocide and corruption notwithstanding. Simultaneously, I could not help but feel shock at the freshly reaffirmed fact that in the grand history of the earth, that darkest of dark chapters known as the Holocaust really wasn't all that long ago. Jennifer Markham's story was captivating for entirely different reasons. If you picked up Wednesday's paper, you read about this 27-year-old Flin Flon woman who dropped everything to go teach in Egypt. I've known Jen for years. We started university together over at Campus Manitoba, and I always knew she was going places Ð though I had no idea just how literally. I see Ms. Markham as nothing short of inspirational. Within many of us is the flickering flame of desire to see the world, to experience the daunting unknown. She is one of the few who has scratched that itch, and she's a richer person for it. There have also been local war heroes like Flin Flon's Rob Bettger, who gave up the comforts of Canada to fight for his country in Afghanistan. He was just 21 when I interviewed him last year upon his return from combat. He could not have been more humble, and I could not have felt more indebted to him. In writing about all of these individuals, my goal is to inform, entertain and educate the public. My hope is that I've done their stories justice and that you, the reader, have gotten as much out of meeting them as I have. Local Angle runs Fridays.
