Posted on May 12, 2016 under Faces in the Crowd with 2 comments

 

 

Photo courtesy of Bernice MacDonald Photography

 

On aging.  “I spend my days the same way I used to. Everything just takes me twice as long.”

Meet Willemina Hendriske MacDonald

She was born in Zutphen, Holland but spent most of her childhood in ‘s-Gravenzande. Her home birth, with the assistance of a midwife, was filled with drama. At a crucial point in a tricky delivery, her father fainted. With no one else in the house, the midwife was busy attending to the mother and father of the newborn! A doctor was beckoned. He didn’t think the baby would survive. “I surprised the doctors back then and I have been surprising them ever since.”

Her brothers remember her as “a quiet girl playing with dolls, knitting embroidering and roller skating”. Their father died when Willemina was only 13. Growing up without a father was difficult on the family. As a teenager she filled her hours learning how to play the piano and was also an avid tennis player. Other sports included swimming, dancing and field hockey.

Most teenagers find it distracting when it comes to study time. When she was 14, the war broke out and it was very difficult to study at night with bomber aircrafts flying overhead. The Germans occupied their town and they were forced to move farther north.

She decided to learn Esperanto and quickly picked up French, German and English. Asked about her fluency in French, Willemina said, “It wasn’t the best but I wouldn’t starve in France.” After completing grade 12, she took a secretarial course in The Hague and gained employment in Hagen. The Germans entered the Municipal offices where she worked, one day, in search of the registration lists of all the male citizens that they planned to utilize for the war industry in Germany. Risking life, she and fellow workers carted off all the records to a safe home. After the war, this deed was recognized as an act of heroism.

She was forced to flee once again. She remembers this as a time of constant fear. “The last year was hellish. I was frightened all the time until the liberation.” When the Canadians showed up in their town, any available room had to be used to house the soldiers. Jim MacDonald from Nova Scotia stayed in their house. He endeared himself immediately to her family, bringing fresh raisin bread which was all but extinct during the war years.

They decided that they were meant for each other, but she was a Protestant and he was a Catholic. By the time she finished studying how to become a Catholic, she knew more about Catholicism than she had discovered about her future husband.

She travelled to North America with their first-born, who was six months old at the time. The ride across the Atlantic was nausea inducing. She landed in New York and then went by train to Saint John, New Brunswick where she rejoined Jim. They settled on the Dunmore Road in Antigonish County. For the first time in years, Willemina had found tranquility.

When she was only 45, and with seven children at home, Jim passed away. In short order she got her driver’s license and a job with the Municipality of the County of Antigonish where she worked until retirement. She was a tireless volunteer for many, many organizations including 4H and Club 60, to mention but a few.

Willemina is a professed political junkie. When asked about the possibility of Donald Trump becoming President of the U.S., she glared and said, “ He needs a good swift kick in the ass.”

She has a keen sense of humour. She suggested that one of the keys to a long life is surviving two heart attacks!

Reflecting on a long life well lived, she opined, “I loved my family and I loved my community. I tried to do my very best. I also felt it was important to give something back after Canada liberated Holland.

It would appear that the debt has been paid in full.

 

Posted on May 9, 2016 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

Sidney, B.C. with Mt. Baker in the background

 

How is it humanly possible to walk 443 kilometers covering 547,749 steps in 28 days and gain two pounds?

Easy.

While vacationing in Victoria recently, I inadvertently discovered an app on my iphone called “health.” I clicked on it by mistake to find that among other things, it measured the distance one walked daily including the number of steps. There was a time when measuring distances was important to me when I was training for the Boston Marathon but those days are in the rear view mirror. Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less about how far I walk these days . I am interested in keeping moving and that’s about the extent of it.

Despite walking the dog ( my job for three weeks! ), it was only when my brother returned from Europe, that the walking ramped up to epic proportions. We walked at least twice a day and often logged well in excess of 25 kilometers and on a few days, topped the 30 kilometer mark. So that is how I accumulated these ridiculous numbers.

My addiction to sugar has been well documented on my website over the years. Before my sister in law left for Europe , she baked the most amazing oatmeal, raisin, coconut, chocolate chips cookies and had the audacity to leave them, unlocked, in baggies on the counter… about a two week supply for a normal person. Well, I made short work of those ( cookies and cold milk: sorry – can’t resist and you know that two cookies in one sitting just doesn’t cut it ) and then went on a month long sugar binge.

As the experts say, you can’t exercise your way out of poor nutrition. Despite my prodigious walking regime, I still managed to gain weight. The fuel we put in our body is the single most important determinant of weight. Enough said.

Regrettably, I did not bring home sunny skies. Upon arriving in Halifax, I stayed overnight with a family member. When I woke the next morning, it was very cold, rainy and windy. Both family vehicles were gone. And ( gasp ) there was no coffee in the house. I seriously thought of grabbing a cab and heading straight for the airport. “ Farewell to Nova Scotia,  the seabound coast….” !

Let us continue to reach out our hands and wallets to those who suffered devastating losses in Fort McMurray.

Have a great week.

Posted on May 4, 2016 under Faces in the Crowd with one comment

 

Vertigo derailed a successful professional downhill mountain biking career. Now, this Victoria. B.C.  resident is making heads spin in the business world.

Meet Andrew Mitchell.

As a child, he started exhibiting signs of fearlessness that would define him in his teens. At the tender age of three, he won his first BMX race. While he played and excelled at several sports including soccer, lacrosse and hockey, it was mountain biking that gave him his biggest thrills. His parents, Susan and Michael, were understandably concerned when he announced that he was dropping all of his other interests to pursue biking.

He started racing professionally at the age of 15, and in the ensuing years became a four-time Canadian champion. In his second year he suffered a head injury at the first race of the year in California. The ensuing vertigo plagued him for several years. A very serious ankle break caused him to ponder his future. His doctors were convinced that he would never race again, but his trademark tenacity had him riding after a stint doing construction work.

His goal had always been to be world champion but the reoccurring dizziness finally took its toll, and at the age of 23 his body told him it was time to move on.

During one of the hiatuses on the racing circuit, he did a year of Business Administration at UVIC.  The time away from biking gave him the opportunity to ponder his exit strategy from racing. When he finally packed it in, he sat down with his mother and they started working on business strategies. He knew that he would apply the same tenacity in business that he demonstrated on his bike.

Ultimately, he decided to look at the courier business but from a very different perspective. He decided that his business, Geazone Eco-Courier would be 100% emissions free. He now owns a fleet of bikes, cars and trucks that run entirely on human power and electricity. The business has doubled its revenues every year, having been in existence less than a half decade.

His goal is for Geazone to be a global company. “I am committed to environmental stewardship locally, but want to expand this around the world.”

According to his friends, this goal is achievable. One of his lifelong buddies said that “Drew is incredibly determined. He attacks problems as if they’re the beaches of Normandy. He never backs down or runs from a problem.”

Asked how he would like to be described fifty years down the road, Andrew said “I want people to know that I went for it in everything I did. I would rather die trying than not try at all.”

Although the climb to the apex of the mountain will be littered with obstacles, the view from the top will be sublime. Just don’t expect Andrew to hurtle back down on a bike … not that he wouldn’t be sorely tempted! http://geazone.ca/

http://youtu.be/WOcKxywUxfY