Surprise visits caused a sense of foreboding
By Lethbridge Herald on May 6, 2023.
LEAVE IT TO BEEBER
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
Years ago while Christmas shopping for a very young Dylan, I ran into an old friend from Raymond at Toys R Us.
I hadn’t seen him for decades and briefly caught up at the checkout counter. Days later he was dead.
A relative told me at his funeral that in his final days he’d seen quite a few old friends and acquaintances.
This week, that memory has haunted me and left me worried about my own mortality because I’ve had the same experiences.
On Monday, long retired Herald photographer Elwood Ferguson dropped into my office to show some photos of the Frank Slide taken just days after it happened. I’ve often thought about Elwood, who along with Ric Swihart and Ron Watmough, I used to go often with to grab a morning coffee.
Elwood and I caught up on life and shared memories about the Herald before he left. In his 90s, Elwood is still going strong and it was great to see him again.
On Tuesday, while in the middle of a Zoom meeting with other company managers I saw a text from an Ontario friend.
I couldn’t respond obviously but I didn’t need to because within moments of the meeting ending, to my massive surprise Bob Tkachuk and his wife Mary-Beth showed up at my door.
The two were returning home to Fort Frances from Palm Springs where they’d vacationed for two months and Bob had played tennis with Bill Peterson of Lethbridge, Bill who made a point of mentioning he and his crew hadn’t seen me stop by the Army and Navy here in a long while.
I hadn’t seen Bob since 2015 when he and I along with friends Snake Krawchuck and Roy Belluz did a round at Kitchen Creek Golf Course.
Even though it was Snake’s wedding anniversary, his wife Carla wholeheartedly agreed he should spend the day with me.
Bob and I go back a long way. In the early ‘80s as I’ve probably written about, we did a fundraiser for weight room renovations at the local sports complex.
If we wanted it improved with the rest of the facility, the bodybuilding fraternity was expected to carry its own weight. This was the era of Farm-Aid and I had a man perm down to my shoulders. Bob was as bald as bald could be in his 20s and while walking to coffee at the Rainy Lake Hotel to brainstorm, I saw the sunlight reflect off his head and had an epiphany. We would shave my head for charity.
The idea was just stupid enough that we thought it would work. With the support of Molson which donated the suds, the Town which donated the facility and a DJ who provided his services for free, we raised about $10,000 in a memorable night.
The local RCMP detachment even lent us its drug scales to weigh the shorn perm as a side bet to raise a few more bucks.
At the golf course in 2015, Bob had our crew in stitches when the foursome following didn’t give us enough space and proceeded to tee off before we hadn’t even lined up for our second shots, one ball almost hitting Bob in the back. He was so livid that he pretended to find his own ball and instead whacked the offending one so far into the bush I’m surprised it didn’t land in Winnipeg.
When the offending golfer came looking for it and asked if we’d seen it, Bob casually told him he thought it landed in the nearby rough before hopping into his cart and driving off cackling with a few choice cuss words.
Two hours after Bob visited, the now retired publisher of the Fort Frances Times, Jim Cumming, who’d actually interviewed me by phone for my first job back in 1980, called out of the blue to see how things were.
When I saw his name appear, the first thing I thought was that his mom Del – who was everybody’s mom at the Times – had died. But no, Jim was just making a social call, which was a relief because all of us who worked at the Times to this day still consider Del to be our unofficial group mom.
Since that call I’ve been worried sick about keeling over unexpectedly, the sense of foreboding which has followed me all week.
If you read this today, I’m probably still alive and kicking although a few in this community will be highly disappointed to hear that given the bizarrely personal animosity they have toward me.
I’ve told a few people about my feeling that Death is swinging his scythe close by and they’ve done their best to convince me I’m going to be here for a long while yet.
None of us is getting out alive and so I’m prepared for life to end eventually. Death is part of the life process, one though which I’d like to delay as long as possible. And with my lack of physical grace, I’m surprised I’ve actually lived as long as I have.
But I hope those who have tried to calm me are right and my intuition is wrong – which it seldom is. Fingers crossed.
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an article that is hard to read without a smile 🙂 an interesting snapshot of your life, and also a thoughtful reflection of a bright perspective. thank you, Al. wishing you as many more years as you feel you need!
Thanks Al . . . great look into some of your experiences . . . none of us know when that day will come, but if we are prepared, then there should be no fear.
Things happen in our lives for a reason and are different for each person. At our weekly family coffee on Friday I brought up a neighbour that our family grew by, who we respected and wondered if anyone had seen him around . . . my brother sent me an email the next day saying that there was an notice in the Herald on Saturday saying that this person and his wife just celebrated their 50th anniversary . . . happy to hear he is still around!
Keep up the great work Al . . . thank you for sharing!