There
are many people in my life for whom I am grateful – old friends and new, family and those I call family, authors,
book buyers, coworkers and colleagues, and so much more.
My work life as an author, editor, and book publisher has been greatly enriched this past year, so I have a few new blessings to add to my already blessed
life.
I am grateful to have met and become friends with 101-year-old Reginald “Crash”
Harrison of Saskatoon, who survived four plane crashes while serving as a
bomber pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. Reg
grew up on a Saskatchewan farm and went off to war in search of adventure and
to serve his country, like his father and uncles did before him. He flew 19
missions and survived four crashes – none of which were his fault.
Upon his return to Canada, Reg stopped in Ottawa to visit the fiancée of
a fallen airman friend. Reg’s dramatic war story turned into a beautiful love
story – all of which I’ve documented in my new book Crash Harrison –
Tales of a Bomber Pilot Who Defied Death (available on my website). To
Reg, for painstakingly recalling all the details and trusting me to share his
fascinating life story, I am grateful. I also appreciate the assistance of many people who helped me see this book through to fruition, including Lisa Driver, Mary Harelkin Bishop, Dani Driver, Don Acton, Laurie Harrison, Sylvia Acton, Susan Harrison, Pete Colbeck, Thomega Entertainment, and Creative Saskatchewan.
Reg "Crash" Harrison and author Deana J. Driver, August 2023
I’ve had the privilege of talking about the Crash Harrison book
alongside Reg Harrison at numerous events in Saskatoon and to Saskatchewan
media – including CTV News Saskatoon, CBC Radio Saskatchewan Weekend, and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. Plus, he’s been interviewed twice on the John
Gormley Talk Radio show! (See the links on our News & Events page.)
My Crash Harrison book has been #1 on the Bestsellers list at
McNally Robinson Booksellers Saskatoon, and I recently found out from a friend
that the book has been nominated for Best Book in the Prairie Dog Magazine’s Best
of Regina 2023 contest! For these honours, I am grateful.
Those who know me personally will tell you that the last seven years have been a time in which I’ve been rebuilding myself after the unexpected death
of my husband Al from cancer. Grief will always be with me and my family. We
are learning to grow and find happy moments alongside it. And we are eternally
grateful for the life and love of Al Driver.
As a retired journalist, I admire those who are gifted wordsmiths. On
the topic of gratitude, one of my favourite pieces was written by the late Ron
Petrie, whom I was privileged to work with while publishing a collection of his Regina Leader-Post newspaper columns. His Running of the Buffalo book was one of the first of about 100 books I
have created since I started on this publishing journey.
So Ron gets the last words here about being grateful.
(His "Giving Thanks for a Great Life" column was published
in 2007 in the Leader-Post and again in 2010 as the final chapter, "Thankful," of our
book. The newspaper column was also buried in the 100th anniversary time
capsule at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in December 2012.)
Enjoy!
Thankful
Whether one day of humility makes up for 364 of selfish bellyaching is a
question best left to theologians and ethicists. The point of this weekend is
to take stock.
So let it be known that I am grateful.
Grateful to be where I am, for starters.
As a younger man, brash and full of swagger, I considered my calling to
be Vancouver, Montreal, even New York. Only now do I appreciate that what I
actually fancied was merely the idea of my farmboy self destined for the big
city that, in reality, traffic jams, restaurant queues, cut-throat office politics,
six-dollar cups of coffee, shoebox apartments and crammed elevators are not for
me and never were.
Where I am is Saskatchewan. Thank goodness. With the possible exception
of the Maritimes, nowhere in Canada can one find folks with a keener feel for
the absurd, with a more grounded sense
of purpose and place, the confidence to enjoy the gift that is a good laugh at one’s
own expense. The job description calls me a Saskatchewan humour writer. Hardly.
I am a stenographer. I simply take notes.
That my Saskatchewan grows the food that feeds the world makes me guilty
of a deadly sin. Pride.
Chances are that in the coming weeks and months, Saskatchewan will be
called upon to install both a provincial and federal government. Unlike in too
many other parts of the world, this will be accomplished through words, not
blood. I am thankful for our British system of parliamentary democracy, for its
longstanding tradition that holds my role, political satire, as an indispensable
safeguard against the threat of pompous and overbearing authority.
I give thanks for my home. Droopy eavestroughs, cracked driveway and
ill-fitted door jambs notwithstanding, I live in comforts unknown to three-quarters
of the people of the planet and with conveniences unimagined before the 20th
century, not even by kings, emperors and czars. A hot shower, on tap every
morning remains, for my money, one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind.
I am grateful for a wife who, after early shopping for a Halloween
supply of miniature Kit Kat bars, hides the bags where only she and I can find
them. Also for pretending that she doesn’t know that I know where.
To the men and women of the Canadian Armed Force, I say thank you. The mission
our soldiers accepted halfway around the world is reminiscent of the dangers of
two world wars that my parents’ generation and my grandparents’ generation had
no choice but to face down. Canadians of my own pampered vintage, conversely,
have known nothing but peace.
I am indebted to the 2007 Saskatchewan Roughriders, for posting an 8-5
win-loss record and relieving me of the usual journalistic obligation every
fall to write snarky wisecracks about my lifelong favourite football team.
For those moments I spend with my kids at our favourite fishing hole, at
dance and music recitals, in hockey rinks or on the golf course, I am beholden.
It is fashionable among experts in child-rearing to lecture that parents ought
not to live vicariously through their children and shouldn’t derive their own
happiness from the activities of their sons and daughters.
I am thankful my kids do not read books written by child-rearing
experts.
I am grateful for the wherewithal that allows me to provide my children with
everything I know they need, if not always for everything they think they want.
Putting a child to bed with an empty stomach and with nothing humanly possible
to dry the tears must be a parental nightmare beyond all scope of the Canadian imagination.
Likewise, I am thankful for a rising group of young work colleagues who
challenge each other through excellence, not gossip or backstabbing; for
refrigerated transport, putting fresh asparagus on my plate where, as a boy,
there would have been, blech, canned peas; for good friends who laugh too much;
for a westside address with its view of the Prairie sunset; for the memory of
my mom and dad; for our land of variety, of four seasons, even if the white one
is a tad on the long side; for pain-free dentistry; for disposable contact
lenses, for, for…
As a professional bellyacher, perhaps I should be most thankful that, on
this rare occasion of listing what’s right in life, not wrong, I’ve run out of
space.
There’s too much. Here and now, there’s just too much.
October 6, 2007
