#8 Allan Hawco

Over the years, there are many Newfoundlanders who have made a name for themselves, either locally or nationally, some even internationally.

Some have made their names and fortunes in politics, some in entertainment, some in the business world. There are not so many, however, who have given back so much, who have done as much for the image and collective morale of this province as Allan Hawco of the hit television series, "Republic of Doyle".

I consider any Newfoundlander who has not watched this series, who has not loved it, and is not caught up in the hype, as being unpatriotic. Call me wrong and all the other things you can call me for having this opinion, but I do! Unapologetically.

Allan Hawco stars in, writes, and is executive producer of "Republic of Doyle". His fingerprints are all over it, which meant he was either going to get all the blame, or all the glory, whichever way it turned out. I'm thrilled for him that he's gettin' the glory! And, boy, does he ever deserve it.

When I first heard that there was a local series being filmed, I had nauseating visions of another "Hatching, Matching & Dispatching" embarrassment. Some locals seem to think that unless there is blatant vulgarity and foul language at every turn, Newfoundlanders aren't going to enjoy it. WRONG.

When I heard the title of the show, before it had ever aired, I thought it was going to have a political premise, based on the word "republic", and how close we were back in 1949 to being exactly that. I had no idea that it was a private eye show, one styled loosely on the 1970's series "The Streets of San Francisco".

From Scene 1, Season 1, they've had me hook, line and sinker. That first season, I had to watch every episode at least 3 times. I was so distracted by how beautiful St. John's (and up-until-then unknown Allan Hawco) looked, that I had a hard time following the storylines! It was all about trying to figure out where each scene was filmed. All those involved with the production of "Republic of Doyle" made a gift to us of our beautiful city being the backdrop for a cleverly written, smart, funny, dramatic series, that just as importantly was not patronizing and did not play on the hateful stereotypes of our province and its people.

The cast is a wonderful blend of personalities that are so believeable and talented.

Sean McGinley, Allan Hawco, Krystin Pellerin, Lynda Boyd, Rachel Wilson, Mark O'Brien, Marthe Bernard

The guest stars they've featured over the past 3 seasons are proof that if celebrities of this caliber are willing to involve themselves in this production, then it must be good. They include:

Alan Doyle (Great Big Sea) and

Gordon Pinsent

Paul Gross (Previously starred in "Due South". Loved him in that!)

Victor Garber (with Allan Hawco). Previously starred in the movie "Titanic", as the architect Thomas Andrews.

Shannon Tweed. Something to do while hubby was performing at the Salmon Festival!

And, the biggest name of them all - Russell Crowe, who guest starred in the Season 3 premiere.

The really cool thing about that particular episode was that it reunited the four actors who played the Merry Men in the 2010 movie, "Robin Hood", in which Alan Doyle (Great Big Sea) played the role of Allan A'Dayle. The others - Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes and Russell Crowe. 



There were many others featured as well - Shawn Majumder, Mark Critch, Seamus O'Regan, Pete Soucy, and other up and coming Newfoundlanders who will hopefully benefit by the exposure. There was even a scene at the Duke of Duckworth where the whole St. John's City Council and the Lieutenant Governor appeared. Anybody who's anybody is showing up on "Republic of Doyle", and that's perfect! Everybody wants to be involved, because it's such a positive, amazing ride.

But, back to Allan Hawco, himself. This show could not be as successful as it is without him. He plays the charming, devilish rogue Jake Doyle, but he's the brains behind the beefcake, no question. 

 

I've seen him and heard him interviewed many times, and every time without fail, he is genuinely enthusiastic about how well the show is doing, and is grateful for the opportunity to do something he loves, that has done so much good for Newfoundland.

Alice & I saw him in person once, when we were dining at Raymonds restaurant last year. He came in to the dining room to speak with friends seated at a nearby table. Sadly, I resisted the urge to give him a big ol' bear hug and kiss. Another missed opportunity! As she and I have said to each other many times - if we were younger, we'd be haunting the filming locations all summer! They publicize them on the radio, so it's not as stalker-ish as that may sound!

As is becoming apparent, I cannot say enough good about Allan Hawco, and what he and his colleagues have done with "Republic of Doyle". All I know is that I hope it goes on for many seasons to come. The DVDs of the first two seasons are my 'go to' shows to watch. I never tire of the stories, the settings, the stars and the smarts of this excellent, excellent show.

I wish you every success, Allan Hawco. Thank you, from a devoted fan, who's admiration and respect for your talents and hard work is unparalleled.

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#6 Mildred Harris

Today's post, #6, is dedicated to my mother, Mildred Harris.

Dad, Mom & Alice at the Hibernia construction site, Bull Arm, Newfoundland, 1996.

Composing a list like this at any other time of year, Mom would have been my very first post, but I thought I would reserve it for today, which would have marked her 89th birthday. Therefore, this being the 6th day of Lent, she ended up being #6!

Mom passed away in December, 2003. That's over eight years ago, and rarely, if ever, does a day go by when she is not spoken of, and certainly when she is not remembered.

There is no way to adequately describe her. I've typed lots of things here and then deleted them, because they sound so pathetic and maudlin and inadequate.

Those who knew her, knew her as someone with a great sense of humor, style, a true lady in every sense of the word, modest to a fault yet with steely strength of her convictions, a writer of letters to the editor that got even the the Evening Telegram publisher in a spin, and a lover of life, especially the life of the unborn.

With no fanfare, self-congratulation or self-promotion, she would try to make a difference. She would man the crisis phones at Elizabeth House, the home for unwed mothers, offering support to girls and their families at a most difficult time in their lives.

It was that love of the unborn that brought my mother to the attention of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. John's, Alphonsus Penney.

Archbishop Penney bumped into my brother in the Halifax airport one time, and instead of asking how my father was - who in his day was very active and involved in the Church - he instead enquired after my Seventh Day Adventist mother, "Millie" as he would call her. We still get a big kick out of that! Poor Dad!

When it came down to it, she was really more Catholic than anything else, but refused to convert because, as she would say, she was a member of "the round church where you can't be cornered". As children, when Sunday morning came and Dad was taking us all off to Mass and Mom got to stay home and cook Sunday dinner, we all wanted to be Seventh Day Adventists!

Any writing ability I may have was very likely passed down to me through my poor mother's genes. I have boxes of old newspapers in the basement that feature Mom's letters to the editor on one topic or another - politics & Right to Life, mainly - and my personal favorite, "Santa, Please Change Your Phone Number". CBC Radio featured a call-in show in the lead up to Christmas many years ago, where children could call and speak to Santa on the air. Unfortunately for Mom, the phone number for that call-in show was only one digit away from our home phone number, so she was getting inundated by hysterical children wanting to talk to Santa! Instead of having a fit about it, she got out her pen and paper, and wrote her own letter to Santa, in care of the Evening Telegram editor. It was a funny work of brilliance.

My friends always said how much they liked my Mom. More than me, in a lot of cases!!

She was always the one who would drive bunches of us where we needed to go, especially for school outings. She was automatically volunteered by us, and never said "no".

But, she was very good at saying "no" when out shopping. We got everything we ever needed, as well as our birthday presents, and our Christmas and Easter presents, but certainly did not get everything we cast our eyes on and 'just had to have' throughout the rest of the year. We got what we needed, but not everything we wanted. We DID do pretty good, though, but certainly not the way it is by today's standards!!  

If it wasn't for Mom, God only knows what I would be doing right now. I went to the College of Trades & Technology and did the Nursing Assistant course. I wanted to be a nurse, but as far as I was concerned, there was no way on Earth I could possibly ever give anyone a needle. In her "don't be so bloody foolish" way, she went and got an application for St. Clare's Mercy Hospital School of Nursing one day, and when I came home from wherever I had been, there it was, on the table for me to complete. And I did, because throughout my life, even the teenage years, I always knew Mom was right. It is because of this very story that my nursing school pin is buried with my mother, and rests on her heart to this day.

She survived the death of a child, and thrived on the arrival of seven grandchildren.

She spoiled my father so badly!! In the years since she's been gone, he bemoans the fact that "your mother would get up in the middle of the night and wash and dry my back and put powder on me." Come ON, MOM!!! Talk about a hard act to follow!!!!

She loved nothing better than going to lunch, or having me or my sister call her and say "I've got to run around and do a few things, do you want to come for the ride?" She'd drop everything and go.

If I start to list off my regrets, I'll be in a puddle of tears, so the only one I will own up to is the fact that I wish I had half an idea how to cook while she was still here. Not that I'm any great chef now, but she, like (I'm guessing) 100% of all mothers, was taken for granted in the kitchen, and I wish I could have done that differently.

I do thank God that I asked her how she did her roast beef, and her pickled beets, before she died. To this day, when I walk in the house for Sunday dinner, it smells just the same as when Mom was still here. My sister definitely has 'the knack'!

I dreaded her wake and funeral, but what I anticipated as being pure hell, turned out to be a very comforting, moving, illuminating experience. To see so many people who I never knew, but who knew her, and to hear their stories, was so wonderful and unexpected. For all she did for the Catholic church, while raising us and supporting Dad, she was honoured with four priests on the altar at her Mass of Christian Burial. I'm sure some of her non-Catholic friends were a little shocked, but if they were, they didn't know my mother.

Reading this over, it is hands down the most inadequate writing I've ever done. This could and should go on for chapters, not just a few paragraphs. However, there is no way to capture the essence of who Mom was well enough for someone who didn't know her to appreciate her. But, to any readers of this who did know her, you know. She was a smart, wonderful, remarkable, loving woman who had class and spirit and humor, and was unlike anyone I have ever or will ever know.

Happy Birthday, Mom. See you again one day.
All my love,
Margaret.

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#5 Colin Firth

Number 5 on my Top Forty is Colin Firth.

Colin Firth? An actor?!?! Not quite the same genre or intensity as those in my first four posts. But, hey! It's a girl's prerogative to admire and respect a knee-weakeningly gorgeous face, is it not?

Colin Firth is a two time Academy Award-winning actor, ("A Single Man", "The King's Speech") who first came to my attention in the role of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC / A&E TV miniseries, "Pride & Prejudice".

If I were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of time (...a girl can dream...), this would be the one and only DVD I would need to sustain me.

Aside from the fact that I believe he is the most handsome man on the face of the Earth, the thing that I admire most about him is how he has managed, throughout his career, to avoid the nasty glare of the Hollywood spotlight, and being sucked up into its vortex.

It is not enough for most actors and actresses these days to simply ply their trade in television, movies and stage, and make scandalous amounts of money for their efforts. No. For the vast majority, their sideline is to use their pedestals as soapboxes, lecturing the rest of us mere mortals on, among other things, who we should and should not support politically. Never was this quite so evident as during the 2004 US presidential election. Oprah Winfrey, Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, Matt Damon, George Clooney, and on and on and on. I know more about their political affiliations than I know about their real jobs. Who are they to lecture me?? At the time of the 2004 election, Elton John, who I idolized in my younger years, even went so far as to say he “did not want this country to have to live under George W. Bush.” He declared himself to be “a great believer in the vice president" - which meant he wished President Bush dead. (The vice president automatically becomes president following the current president's death.) That's a hell of a thing to say - vile, hateful and vicious - regardless of one's political leanings. I will never listen to his music in quite the same way, ever again.

But then, there's Colin Firth.

*happy sigh*

All I know about him is hardly anything at all, and that's just as it should be. He's not prancing 18 adopted children across the screen and magazine covers, for global pats on the back. He's not saying a bunch of scandalous, outrageous things just to get his withered,wrinkly face some publicity, because all the juicy, sexy roles have dried up. He's not naming his children after pieces of fruit. He's not having a nervous breakdown on a stage. He's not opening orphanages and leaving the children to the mercy of unscrupulous, abusive management.

He's gettin' on gettin' on. He's living his life with his wife and children, and every now and then, he surfaces in a wonderful movie, gives me a face to dream about again, and then goes off to live his life, and allow the rest of us to live ours, without the strident commentary.

Bravo, Colin Firth, for rising above the fray, and staying below the radar, for not getting sucked into the Hollywood mindset that believes every utterance, no matter how trivial or ridiculous, is one the rest of us should live by. That definitely earns my admiration and respect.

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#4 Patient 'X'

Over the course of thirty years of nursing, I have crossed paths with thousands of patients in countless settings and in almost as many stages of illness and health.

It would be impossible for me to select one single "Patient X" as someone, above all the others, who inspired me. If I were to write about each individual one, I'd have fodder enough for years of posts, not just the 40 days of Lent!

So, the patient of whom I will write and refer to as Patient 'X' is a conglomeration of those who, over the years, have made me laugh, cry, swear, think, excel, dare, pray, blush, hope, wonder, cheer and learn.

I remember Patient 'X' with the two small boys, who fought long and hard, and whose spouse was so hopeful and supportive in the face of insurmountable odds.

Then there was Patient 'X' who asked me to get her "pair o' brae" (bra) from the bureau drawer in her room. That was 30 years ago, and it still makes me smile to this day!

The Patient 'X' with a below-knee amputation, who did not make fun of the silly student nurse who searched high and low for his second slipper.

Patient 'X', whose personal tragedy was played out in such a public way.

Patient 'X' who was brave enough to let me suture his nose laceration, and who was rewarded for his faith in me with the teensiest, tiniest, neatest little scar!

Patient 'X' who swore on me and made me cry. It was not a good day, but those have fortunately been few and far between. It did give me something to contemplate, though perhaps not what he intended...

Patient 'X' and spouse who I would see, week in and week out, who were all there for a laugh, despite the burdens that affected them both.

Patient 'X' who came for his routine end-of-the-offshore-trip blood pressure / blood sugar / cholesterol checks, and would make a point of dropping in to the clinic each Mother's Day, to remind me that I was "Mom" to the crew.

Patient 'X' whose desperate situation at the bottom of a scaffold, on a Rotterdam drydock floor, wasn't making much of an impression on the shipyard "safety" guy, who was telling me and my first aiders to stay away, because we were not from there. HA!! Nice try, you stupid Dutch jerk. I hope my steel toed boot wasn't too uncomfortable...

Patient 'X' with the childlike innocence.

Patient 'X' on the roof...

Patient 'X' who sent me flowers.

Patient 'X' who told me that I was, and I quote, "...dumber than a sack of hammers." Was it wrong that I laughed?!?!

Patient 'X' who died in the middle of a dirt road.

Patient 'X' who 'taught' me that peeing on a freshly amputated finger stump would sterilize the wound. Yikes! I must confess, I was more interested in fishing his finger out of his discarded work glove than I was in learning that particular lesson.

Patient 'X' whose damaged 6-month old heart survived and thrived.

Patient 'X' who claimed that the 5-gallon salt beef bucket, half-filled with blood-tinged water, was "pure blood", all from his nose.

Patient 'X' who went into cardiac arrest in the chair next to his bed, and in my fright I lifted him, by myself, back into bed. (I was a much younger woman then!)

Simulated Patient 'X' who allowed me to apply whacks of injury make-up to her face, which later would not wash off, and she was going on vacation the next day! Months later, she died in a car crash.

Patient 'X', the homeliest little newborn baby I ever saw, who I loved to bits.

Patient 'X' whose blood pressure reminder birthday card was, he told me, the only birthday card he received that year.

Patient 'X' whose jaundiced eyes I still remember, 20 years on.

Patient 'X' whose family knew when enough was enough.

Every Patient 'X', these few and all the rest, did me the greatest honor and service by teaching me 99% of what I needed to know to be effective in this profession. 

I was privileged that they and / or their loved ones entrusted me to play a role in their care, their healing, their passing.

As a mark of respect for that faith in me, Patient 'X' - past, present & future - has a firm hold on my admiration, respect and compassion. Thank you, each and every one.

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#3 Violet Pike & Lanier Phillips

This is the story of two inspiring people, not just one. Their stories are so intertwined that there is no way to tell about one without telling of the other.

Violet Pike was a woman from the Lawn / St. Lawrence area of the Burin Peninsula, Newfoundland, who was instrumental in saving the life of Lanier Phillips, a black US serviceman who had been aboard the USS Truxtun when she and the USS Pollux ran aground at Chambers Cove, between the two communities, on February 18, 1942.

View of the USS Truxtun and USS Pollux wreck sites at Chambers Cove,

with Lawn Point Head in the distance.

Dr. Phillips grew up in the segregated South, being told by his great-grandmother to never look a white man in the eye, for fear of a whipping or even of being lynched.

He was raised by sharecroppers in Georgia, was a mess attendant at the time of the disaster, and later went on to become the US Navy's first black sonar technician. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland for his work in civil rights in the US.

Mrs. Pike (...sadly, no photo that I can find...) was born and raised in isolated, outport Newfoundland, married and had children of her own, and until that day had never laid eyes on a black man.

The story of this disaster, and how these two unlikely people met is a story told on the saltscapes.com website, far better than I could tell it. An excerpt:

"Waves slammed the ship against the rocks. As daylight came and chaos continued he could see the water was thick with oil. Sailors were hurled through the air like rag dolls. Some were dashed against the rocks; others scrambled to safety.

Phillips got into the last life raft, telling his black comrades they would die if they didn't follow. They wouldn't come aboard, petrified they were off Iceland, worried about the lynchings that would surely come. And so they died. But Phillips decided to take his chances. 

The raft agonizingly crept toward shore through bitter winter conditions, then capsized. Phillips made it to land, but thought that was it. Then somebody picked him up and said, You'll die if you lie there. "I looked at him, and I saw his white face," Phillips says. "I knew he wasn't an American. I knew he wasn't a sailor. And the accent…"

Memories are fragmented. Up the sheer cliff... onto a pony-driven sleigh. A large blank space. Suddenly awake, conscious on a table. Naked. Sailors covered in oil, black as an outport midnight.

A woman massaging the life back into his cold skin. The first thing he heard her say as she bathed him: This is the curliest hair I've ever seen. "I thought, this is the end of me - they're going to know I'm black." He thought he had survived the shipwreck only to be lynched after all.

The woman, Violet Pike, continued to work at cleaning the oil from his skin. It came off the others; why not this sailor? "I spoke up then. I thought, I might as well let them know and get it over with. I said it's the colour of my skin; I'm a Negro … You can't get it off."

Nonplussed, Pike just kept bathing him. There were kind words. Longjohns for underwear... a bed to rest in for the night. She stayed by his bedside all night, feeding him, tending to him. "I didn't think white people existed with that kind of humane treatment - they could treat a black man like that," Phillips says."

The innocence of this woman, and the powerlessness of this young man... what a touching and inspiring story of two remarkable people that will last longer than any of us.

It makes me smile proudly to know that what Violet Pike did, and will go down in history for doing, is pretty much what ANY Newfoundlander would have done, then or since. Would they have been curious and stared and whispered, I wonder? Absolutely! But I know as sure as I live that the thought of treating Lanier Phillips differently than any other survivor just would not have occurred to them. No way, no how, never.

So, it is with great pride in my fellow countrywoman, and admiration for the later successes of her patient, that I hold up Violet Pike and Lanier Phillips as examples of people who have earned my deep respect and admiration.

Inscription: "In memory of the Truxtun and Pollux disaster of 1942

Erected by parishioners of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish St. Lawrence / Lawn"

12.March.2012 - UPDATE - It is with heavy heart that I announce the passing of Lanier Phillips today, at his residence in Gulfport, Mississippi, two days before his 89th birthday. He is reunited with Violet Pike once again. Rest in peace.

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#2 Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III

The second of my Lenten posts, of people who inspire my admiration, respect and / or compassion, is about this gentleman, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III.

Captain Sullenberger, you may recall, is the USAirlines pilot who, after his passenger jet carrying 155 souls was disabled by a flock of birds, went on to successfully land it in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009 with no loss of life.

He is a person who instills in me a sense of awe that is impossible to describe. His courage under fire, so to speak, and his ability and willingness to make such a decision, and carry it out so wildly successfully, is simply beyond my imagining. 

Every time that incident, and Captain Sully, crosses my mind, I just shake my head in continuing disbelief and admiration. If only the world could boast of many more such heroes…

And, the crowning glory of his ultimate coolness – in every sense of the word – is the fact that he took the time to walk up and down the entire aircraft, twice, to ensure that all the passengers and crew were out, before he left the plane himself. (Certainly a different caliber of man than the captain of that cruise ship that recently sank off Italy, who abandoned ship before even the women and children!)

Click here to read the full account on Wikipedia's website. The section entitled "Post-flight accolades and publicity" is so impressive. Being a baseball fan, one accolade that I very much liked is described on that website as follows: 

"Sullenberger threw out the first pitch of the 2009 Major League Baseball season for the San Francisco Giants. His Giants' jersey was inscribed with the name "Sully" and the number 155 - a reference to the 155 people aboard the plane."

I would be awed and thrilled beyond words just to have the momentary privilege of shaking this man's hand. Well done, Captain Sullenberger, well done.

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#1 Diana, Princess of Wales

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the first day of Lent. Following a bit of a dead diva-related brouhaha on Facebook over the past week or so, I have made a commitment that for the 40 days of Lent, I am going to post each day about a person who has inspired my admiration, respect and / or compassion, prominent or not, living or dead. They are not in any particular order or ranking.

These are people who have inspired these sentiments in me. It would be nice if others feel the same way, but it is not a requirement, and I'm really not interested in being told I'm wrong!!! This is about who inspires ME. It CAN'T be wrong.

Today is the first installment, and as you can see by the title, Princess Diana is going to be my choice to start this process.

I was captivated by Lady Diana Spencer from the very beginning of her public life. She was 7 months younger than me, so I was a teenager when her whole odyssey began; still young and naive enough to be enthralled by princes and princesses and the possibility of real life fairy tales playing out for the world to see.

There are many stories and sides to the Princess of Wales, some flattering, some not. But some things that she did are factual and undeniable, and have my undying respect.

Diana was the first Royal to shake the hand of an AIDS patient, when the rest of the world were still grappling with whether or not it was safe to be in the same room with one.

 

Following HER lead, Prince Charles even donated blood, to demonstrate that it was safe and one could not get HIV / AIDS in that way.

In her later years, Diana had taken on the cause of land mines, with the hope of having them eradicated throughout the war-torn world. No glitzy-glamour there, but a worthy cause that would not have otherwise received the attention it has.

There is no way, in one short blog post, that I can do justice to all of the many charities that Diana chaired and supported. These are just two examples of her compassion, a new concept to the Royal Family at the time, and are the ones that jump to mind when I think of her.

I was very sad when her supposedly fairy tale marriage ended, and when stories, true, exaggerated or not, of what she had to endure surfaced. In many ways, she didn't help herself, but I believe that had she received the support and guidance that Kate Middleton undoubtedly did, things might have been different. And of course, if Charles had not married her, because he did not love her, she would certainly still be alive.

And then she died. Oh my.

I was on the Bill Shoemaker oil rig that day. No TV, no radio, no newspaper, no telephone, no nothing. I came down for breakfast, and the Chief Steward said, "Diana died last night", to which I smiled and said, "Yeah...???" I was expecting him to say, "...and when she got to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter was there..." and would continue on with what I thought was a joke.

It was no joke.

I sat at the table with the rest of the catering crew for a little while, then I went up to my cabin. I closed the door, and screeched. I thought I was stupid and INSANE. Here I was, all emotional over this person I didn't know, even though I had read every book about her, every People and Time magazine article about her, everything. But still. She was a public figure, and here I was, in a state. It made no sense, even to me.

I was finally able to get a phone line patched through, and called my Mom, who held the phone receiver to the TV for about 10 minutes, so I could hear what was going on. My sister was given strict instructions to record on the VCR everything and anything for the next few days. I still have those tapes downstairs, in a box.

When I came home a couple of days later, I was actually a bit relieved to see that the rest of the world was crying, too, it wasn't just me, stuck out on the water, unaware for the most part of what was going on. The images were amazing, especially of the ocean of flowers outside Kensington Palace. Stunning.

*heavy sigh*

But to this day, Diana, Princess of Wales, ranks as a person who I vastly admire and respect, and felt compassion for in the very public, very difficult life she lived, which she tried her best to make meaningful.

I'm not sure if the rest of the 39 people I hope to write about will reflect all three of my criteria, but Diana certainly did, and does. May she rest in peace.

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