A few indelible impressions from 2006. The delible ones seem to have slipped my mind.
When they lined up in February for the women’s Olympic cross-country sprint final in Torino, it looked like our incomparable Beckie Scott would get to put a gold cap on her stellar skiing career. It wasn’t to be.
Instead, a stringy youngster who didn’t seem to have the sense to be scared just went out and raced, and won gold. There seems to be a lot of manufactured emotion in sport, especially professional sport, but there was no mistaking the Chandra Crawford’s megasmile was genuine. Playing Duane Allman-style air guitar on the podium and her heartfelt rendition of O Canada were not-to-be forgotten highlights of a very good games for our country.
It’s always nice to see good things happen to good people, especially those who have slogged hard for years for a good cause. Mississauga’s Sandy Milakovic has been an ardent champion for a better deal for the underclass who suffer from mental health difficulties in Peel and she continues to keep those issues on the public radar. Her peers at the Canadian Mental Health Association recognized her outstanding service with the Peel District branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association in November by awarding her the prestigious Marjorie Hiscott Keyes Award. Well-deserved.
For 18 years, Scott Gillies was the face of the Bradley Museum, always willing to appear in the most unflattering period costumes and do the most outlandish things for a photo shoot to promote the cause of heritage. He was unceasingly knowledgeable, helpful, gracious and professional and his efforts helped make The Anchorage and Benares successful City assets. His flair for programming brought history alive for young people. Scott left the City last summer to pursue his career closer to family and home. All who care about local history are the poorer for his departure.
Listened to a lot of great music this year, but nothing moved me more than Lori Cullen’s CD, Calling for Rain. The Mississauga native has a gentle voice that is absorbed straight through the skin to the soul. She has the uncanny knack of taking songs you thought you knew and turning them inside out. Case in point, Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again Naturally, a song about unspeakable loss. Cullen’s version is much more quiet, yet forceful, than O’Sullivan’s own pop version.
The municipal election turned out to be a combination of Much Ado About Nothing and A Comedy of Errors. The conduct of several candidates was unconscionable. Not to mention criminal. Perhaps it is a good thing that they’ve extended the length of the terms. That way the spectacle cannot be repeated for four years.
Maybe the most memorable recollection of ’06 will be that of a Mississauga man in a skin-tight pink suit, pedalling his guts out to raise $266,149 for the cancer centre at Trillium Health Centre that is named for his mother. Kevin Wallace didn’t win the Race Across America but it was not for want of trying. Ten days through the desert, up and down mountains and across 4,900 kms. of countryside from San Diego to Atlantic City.
When it was finished, Wallace turned the media spotlight that he’d earned back onto the cause for which he rode. “The real story is the power of our mothers and our wives and our daughters to fight this disease,” said Wallace. “They’re the news. I was just a guy out on a bike trying my hardest to get the attention of people.”
May all your worthy causes get the attention they deserve in 2007. Happy New Year.