View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: What are you thankful for.
Family time
It may seem trite to say, but I am most thankful for family.
My own family is spread across the country, from Lethbridge, AB to Moncton, NB. And that’s just the immediate family, kids and parents and siblings. The extended family goes much further.
It is truly remarkable. My great-grandfather came to Regina in the early part of the 20th century, separated by an ocean and most of a vast new continent from his family in Italy.
In those days, there was no air travel, no radio, TV or Internet. He used to play chess with friends in the old country by snail mail.
Yet, when we had our family reunion last summer, distantly related cousins made their way over for the event and fit right in.
It is a reminder, perhaps, that our similarities are greater than our differences. Thanksgiving is one of three holidays in a year that families make huge efforts in order be together.
—Thom Barker
Thinking time
Canada has always been a country I was proud of because we are culturally diverse, a mosaic instead of a generic blended mix. We have grown because of the diversity, the uniqueness of each culture adding to what we have here.
That was something to give thanks for.
And then along came the current federal election.
It has festered with racism, with religious intolerance, with sickening ideas like a ‘barbaric culture’ snitch line.
And while the hatred that is showing its bigoted head is masked in supposed concerns about ISIS and terrorism it has been horrifying clear racial and religious tolerance is not as widespread as I perhaps naively had believed.
I thought in a country where almost everyone can trace their roots to immigrants, many themselves moving here to escape some form of persecution in the country they had lived, we would be beyond buying into fear mongering as a way to get votes.
But instead I have found a Canada still rift with distrust of differences. Intolerance of differences. A belief in conformity as long as it’s Anglo-Christian.
And so instead of giving thanks, I find myself hoping instead that my country grows beyond the pettiness that has arisen out of pure politics to become something closer to what I thought we already were.
—Calvin Daniels
Blue Jays
What exactly is there to be thankful for this Thanksgiving?
I could easily say the normal ‘I’m thankful for family, thankful for friends, thankful for my health and a roof over my head’.
I am, of course, but so is pretty much everyone, with the exception of psychopaths and the forever alones (wait… am I sure that’s not me???).
No, this Thanksgiving is one that I truly feel thankful for, but for a very different reason.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for something that I’ve never been able to be thankful for; or rather, something I was alive for, yet cannot quite remember due to being too young.
And that is that the Blue Jays are finally in the MLB playoffs.
The second thing I’m thankful for has to do with the Blue Jays as well, although it’s something that comes after Thanksgiving (or rather, it happened on Thanksgiving). That second thing? That the Blue Jays tied up their ALDS series with the Texas Rangers to force a Game Five in Toronto on Wednesday.
Oh, and I’m also thankful for being employed, having loved ones and being a Canadian that can catch a baseball (right, Harold Reynolds?).
—Randy Brenzen
