Happy McHappy Day

It's nice to have some constants in life. Witness: McHappy Day.

Community leaders and celebrities of various note volunteer their time behind the counter at McDonald's Restaurants to raise money for Ronald McDonald House and other McDonald's children's charities. I think I've been doing it since it began.

It's one hour of experiencing a different world...a really fast world. Not just fast as in fast food but hi-tech productivity fast. Talk about multi tasking ! Do you ever wonder how drive-through servers can take the next order behind you while handing over yours plus change? I could probably still deliver a newscast relatively flawlessly but put me in a drive through? I even get nervous as a customer, which my son finds very funny. I can tell you, it's not easy; neither is figuring out and remembering what all those icons mean on the cash register, if that's what it's still called!

I fetched burgers and fries, even a strawberry pie plus two Happy Meals and managed (with help) to get them in the right-sized bags! A dollar from every Big Mac and Happy Meal sold goes toward the cause. It was daunting! Thankfully a couple of young Tiger Cats and even Canadian Idol past winner Brian Melon, who, by the way, has a new album coming out, also appeared a little overwhelmed.

But the delight of seeing folks working together, as klutzy as we were, older folks for the most part, being mentored by younger folks, very patient younger folks, I might add, made it all a wonderful experience. John Novak and Ray Michaels of Oldies 1150's live broadcasts added to the excitement. I even put in a guest appearance on-air for a few minutes and discovered yes I can still talk!

Congratulations Doug and Janice Inch, Stacie and all the great people at the Dundurn St. McDonald's and McDonald's everywhere. Thank you for giving my son his first job a few years ago, a mighty impressive entry in any young person's resume and thank you for helping us learn a lesson in selflessness and finally, giving us all a constant in our lives, at a time when constants in the midst of uncertainty are as valuable as gold.

Life Outside the News Room

I'm running through a field of new spring grass, the sun is shining. No one else is in sight and the only sounds I hear are the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze. A dream? A flashback to a childhood?

No. It's me. Today at 50-something, untethered and in control of my time; time I never used to have, or at least time I seemed to be chasing from the moment I awoke until the moment I would finally and fitfully fall asleep..for a few hours. It's time I'm enjoying while most others, in the working world, are madly attacking their treadmills, the metaphoric ones in the work place and the real ones, in search of fitness (?) in their basements or local gyms.

I've learned there's another kind of fitness other than cut musculature and flat tummies. It's the mental and spiritual kind you don't get on a treadmill. I've found it in quiet times and easy conversation.

It may be hard for most of us to believe at the time, but life actually goes on outside the work place. In our own individual working worlds we tend to think that all that matters unfolds where we are. Yet while I had been tied up "making news" all those days, all those weeks and months and years, real life was happening off camera...in community halls, neighourhoods, mains streets and even open fields behind high schools. A conversation in the park between dog owners, while their charges sniff and play; a greeting in the grocery store that last last more than a few seconds; a lesson learned about someone or something; smiles!

Every morning now I read the whole newspaper, I drink ALL my tea and when I go into my closet and look at the rows and rows of my "on-air" suit jackets and high heels, I choose runners and yoga pants... Don't get me wrong I still clean up well and don the "anchor" hair for special occasions, like this Saturday's Hummingbird Ball for the Juravinski Cancer Centre.

An expert on the medicinal value of humour once told me in an interview, if you physically make yourself smile, you will feel happy and that the secret of true happiness is really choosing to be happy. You know what? It works! Even medical experts acknowledge the power of positive thinking in fighting life-threatening illnesses.

It's been a busy weekend, moving my son into a new house we purchased as an investment property ( we seem to buy property every time one of us loses a job...oh well, it's work out fine so far). The related stresses remind me of the working world pressures: impossible deadlines, unexpected challenges and crises. But it's Monday and not the kind of Monday I used to lament all those years.

I'm upstairs at my home office, where I spend a couple of hours "at work", staying connected in the hopes of one day re-entering that frightening working world. But I know it will be different next time because I'm different now. I take the time to breathe, smile, really talk to people and run through fields of new spring grass under sunny skies.

Lunch with Mom and Dad

Everytime I turn on to their (my old) street, I marvel at how big the trees have become. When the house was the newest in the subdivision, little "twigs" lined the street in an attempt to add some maturity to the brand spanking new neighbourhood.

The street that leads to theirs used to be a veritable "outpost" in east Burlington. The barely-paved road slanted to one side so badly, we used to think the car would roll right over. The neighbour behind us had a horse. Pete the Pony would be hooked up to a sleigh and pull all the kids around in the snow. Come spring the adjacent woods, complete with "tarzan vines" transformed into jungles and hideouts.

The house has changed a little over those forty-odd years; a few new walls and French doors, paint and wallpaper. The above-ground swimming pool that offered icy-cold refreshment on a hot summer night and invited great parties in later teen years is gone, replaced by a perennial garden and patio. My Dad should NOT be cutting the grass or shovelling snow. He insists the neighbours help him. My Mom tells me otherwise. She'd love to move to a nice new condo or townhouse, as long as they'd take their two little dogs, but not my Dad! "They'll have to carry me out in a pine box!", he's been heard to say. So Mom just finds "projects!" Re-paint a bedroom, a new floor here, a new counter there... My Dad reluctantly gives in to avoid the "M" word.

Pete the Pony is long gone and the jungle gave way to more new homes decades ago. The little twigs out front are tall, majestic shade trees, even the one that broke when I backed up into to it to get my confirmation photo taken on the front lawn.

So much has changed....but so much hasn't. Newspaper clippings that highlight their first born's 32-year-career in television cover the refrigerator as we share sandwiches, tea and my Mom's ever-present chocolate cake. At 50-something, a chat with Mom and Dad around the kitchen table, talking about my day, and some new job opportunities, is still good medicine.