This column isn’t disappearing with new role

By Lethbridge Herald on February 18, 2023.

LEAVE IT TO BEEBER
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

In the past two weeks since taking over my new position of managing editor, I’ve heard from many readers directly and indirectly asking if I will keep writing my weekly column.

The questions about – and appreciation for – this column have really touched my heart in a way I can’t describe. I’ve always been a humble guy, the first to crack jokes about myself and I’m the harshest critic of my work and myself.

A huge ego – in fact, much of an ego at all – is not something I was endowed with at birth or developed over time. Ego is something I find in people can be obnoxious. It’s one thing to be self-confident but when a person acts like a red carpet should be rolled down every day for their presence, my hackles and eyebrows both tend to rise. And my eyebrows don’t need to get any higher – a former co-worker who I won’t identify by name – let’s just call him Bill – actually came after me with a pair scissors to trim them one day. There went a potential Guinness record.

So when people compliment me on my work after all these years, I’m still not sure how to accept it. To hear praise is still as surprising now as it ever was.

I just do what I do because it’s the only thing I know how to do, to be honest. While I considered long ago becoming a teacher or studying political science and sociology, journalism was made for me. It fits like a pair of favourite slippers without a dog bone lurking inside.

Back in 1981, when I ventured home to Raymond for a vacation I ran into a classmate sitting outside the pool hall operated by Val Grbavac. I hadn’t seen him since graduation and when I told him what I was doing, he said that’s what I was always going to be – a writer. Everyone was sure of it, except maybe me.

When something is right it’s right and this career path was right for me. I fought it for a long time, trying to make myself think it was just a phase I was going through while fishing, helping to coach a  women’s softball team, or curling, playing hockey and writing about all of those and much more. It was my dream – a pipe dream, that is – that I would make a full-time career writing novels or embarking on a different career. But this career stuck like bug gunk to a windshield.

And since Harry Vandetti, my editor at the Fort Frances Times, told me on my first day I had two weeks to start writing a sports column, I’ve been cranking these out for most of my career with only sporadic breaks.

In Ontario, I was a sports and outdoors writer and wrote about a lot of topics – mostly work-related but some not. After all, life needs some play in it. And whether I was helping to coach or hitting bonspiels in Wisconsin, or ice-fishing on northern lakes or motorcycling with friends, I always had something to write about.

And  I still remember the pain of my first bike, a Honda 750 Magna that I bought on a whim for my 25th birthday with zero experience riding one except my brother’s Honda 90. 

Bill Toffan, who to this day is still a good friend, had stopped at the local Honda centre after we were up the lake, as we called it, to get a bulb for his Honda’s taillight. While he was at the parts counter, I saw the Magna in the showroom and at the spur of the moment bought it.

A couple of days later, gassing up for the first time, I forgot to put the kickstand down and thump, the Honda landed on me. Go figure. 

It was a memorable incident which after all these years still makes me both chuckle and cringe. And I have no problem writing about cringe-worthy moments because we all experience them from time to time.

So I’ve been writing about personal experiences as well as social and community matters and other topics for many of my 35 years at The Herald, including a column on the second page of our TV book when I put that publication together just to fill some space. 

For years I wrote a column in the Wheels section before starting one on the Entertainment page when I was given that beat.

In 1987, I was named Ontario’s weekly newspaper association sports writer of the year because of what judges called a “folksy” style.

I take that as a huge compliment because I can relate to the average person on the street or grocery store. 

I’m sure I could be more eloquent if I tried but that would be as fake as me buying a bottle of expensive Scotch and pretending I like the stuff. Which is definitely not happening. Ever. 

Give me a Jameson and ginger or a Pabst and I’m happy, thank you very much. 

If my palate isn’t sophisticated enough for someone else, oh well. I’m not a status seeker or a social climber; I’m a person you can talk to anywhere at any time and feel comfortable with. If I ever had any pretensions, I’m sure I lost them long ago quicker than the remote control or matching socks. 

So to make a long story less long, I’ll definitely be continuing to write this on a weekly basis as long as I have a pulse. And you’re the reason. 

All of us in this business do what we love to do for you the readers. And I thank you so much for your support. I wish I was eloquent enough to tell you how much. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter