by Robert LaFrance
Right off the bat in this column, I want to give my best wishes and salutations to our beloved editor—well, editor anyway—for many years, Mark Rickard, who is moving on to the Daily Gleaner. His contribution to the lottery pool will cause some financial repercussions, but we will just have to make do for the good of…well, us.
Mark was officially done as editor of the Victoria Star as of December 6, and the obvious comment to make would be ‘now the mice can play’, but he is being replaced by an even harder rock. Enough said about that, before I get myself into even more trouble than usual. I’m hoping she has forgotten about that snide comment I made last March about her shoes.
Although we all love and admire Mark, we Star slaves—er, workers—have to say ‘no’ to his request for a certain parting gift. I was thinking something along the lines of a new (or at least secondhand but in good shape) pair of slippers, but decided to ask him what he would like.
“I think a Ford Edge would be appropriate,” he said, “considering how well I’ve treated you guys.”
When I regained consciousness and had picked the phone up off the floor, I asked him if he meant one of those models you put up on your fireplace mantelpiece so you can gaze at it during long winter evenings. No, he said, you can go to the Ford dealer and get the Ford Edge I’m talking about. “I’m usually not much for hybrids (he wasn’t talking about roses) but the Ford Edge looks like something I wouldn’t mind having.”
How much could it be? I asked myself this question the same way a carpenter shingling a roof in the rain says: “Am I gonna fall offa this thing?”
‘How much it could be’ was STARTING at $27,499, according to the Ford website. When, once more, Sydney Crosby-like, I came out of an unconscious state, I looked again, and Ford gave the realistic price range as somewhere between $35,000 and $50,000, depending on whether you want windshield and tires. After a quick consultation with other Star workers, I decided to break the news to him. “Sorry Mark, you know we all love you, but slippers it is.”
Best wishes to Mark in all his future urban endeavours, as they said under my school graduation photo. Only they said ‘Bob'. It would have been silly to say 'Mark' under my photo, since my name isn’t Mark. I hope he likes the slippers. We drove all the way to St. André - more than 5 kilometres - to pick them up from a retired gardener. He knew all about hybrids too, but after a while we realized he was talking about roses. Next time we buy a going-away present for a beloved editor, we shouldn’t stop at the club for lemonades.
*******************************
You should know that I wrote the first part of this column directly after returning from the club where the lemonade was flowing freely. I will now remove that part about making the snide remark about the new editor’s shoes. If she is reminded that I said that, I will be reporting on garden parties and beauty contests until I dodder into retirement in 2021.
There, that’s done. Back to the subject of Mark’s going away present, I had arranged a conference call for later today with the Victoria Star staff. This arrangement was made while about ten of us were on the phone to discuss the slippers. It was then that Shelley (or was it Shirley? Gretchen?) from the advertising department said: “But, Bob, this is a conference call!”
I never knew what a conference call was. Over the years I had assumed it meant that the boss would call all his or her workers in for a conference.
The bottom line is that the ‘conference call’ has already been made. Some thought that a pair of slippers wasn’t quite enough for a man who had worked so hard and accomplished so much over the years. I mean, he’s done a lot of work on his house and yard and has pretty much kept the Ford company afloat during the economic turndown, which I understand is like a recession.
Printer’s devil Jock McAllenby, who hails from a country north of England, wanted to send him a card. “I dinna ken how we laddies and lassies can spend yon cash so free,” he said. “Or we cud get him ONE slipper and promise the other one once he gets settled in down there on the dirty city streets.”
Here’s what we finally decided: We’re going to get him a pair of NEW slippers. It might not be a Ford Edge, but now he knows what we think of him. Truth is everything in journalism.
-END-
No comments:
Post a Comment