Beebs always takes extra care on Friday the 13th

By Lethbridge Herald on June 13, 2025.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

Today is Friday the 13th and for those among us who are superstitious, you can be relieved this is the only time in 2025 that this will occur.

I’ve written on various occasions in the past about the history of Friday the 13th so I won’t bore you repeating myself. The reason I  mention this date is because during a talk to Fleetwood Bawden Elementary School Grade 5 and 6 students this week on their Career Day, I was asked by one student about the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me on the job.

I was invited to the school by Jackie Schrage and talking to those inquisitive students about journalism was an absolute blast. I told  them when I first stood at the podium in their gymnasium 48 years ago, I had actually gotten cold feet after being accepted to the  education department of a university because I thought I was too shy to speak in front of a classroom.

But there I was in front of a bunch of students along with their teachers and some parents, which was rather ironic especially since I chose journalism as a backup profession because writing is all I really wanted to do since I was four years old in Westlock and would spend time scribbling with a crayon pretending I was writing while other kids were outside playing.

I told the students that each of them in a way was preparing for a career in journalism without even knowing it, because every day at  school they communicated through the assignments they did and the discussions they had. And each was creating their own personal voice through their writing.

One of those voices had me wondering for a couple of days about anything funny that’s happened in 45 years. And Friday the 13th phobias naturally came to mind because this is the day bad stuff has long been believed to happen to people.

But I don’t need Friday the 13th to come around to have accidents. As colleagues, especially former ones, know, I’m no stranger to falling  down – or up – the stairs, often because my shoelaces aren’t tied. I’ve fallen out of my office chair more than once when a lace wrapped around a wheel. And Dale Woodard can count how many times I smacked into the wall beside the sports desk while rushing to drop off completed page dummies to our crew of Dave Rohovie, Bill Dudas and Mark Schandor in the production room upstairs at the Herald.

I’ve ended up in hospital because of misadventures on more than one occasion, including Christmas in 1990 or’91 when I threw an empty Saran wrap box at Tigger the cat, who kept on jumping on the table. I sliced a finger open with the box’s serrated edge.

As I prepared entries for my first horticulture society show, which I entered on a lark because I thought the experience would be a good  story, I ended up in hospital with a bruised scalp when I jumped off what wasn’t the last basement step and banged my head on a beam as I  rushed to the TV which I could hear from upstairs that my Edmonton CFL team had just scored against the arch enemy Stampeders.

A few years ago on the morning of the Whoop-Up Days parade, I caught a finger – on my dominant left hand, of course – between a dumbbell and the rack, prompting a detoured run to my doctor’s office for stitches  where I promptly had everyone rushing in to check on me after I accidentally kicked a footrest off the examination table, prompting it to crash loudly onto the floor.

I’ve broken my left big toe at least three times, including when a cargo door slammed onto it back in Ontario after taking my Honda 750 out for a mid-February ride and again when I dropped a heavy piece of  plywood on it at a local lumber store.

And last year when I tripped over a heavy wooden stove cover I’d placed in the wrong spot and the edge crashed down on that same toe.

Of course, I’ll never forget dropping to the ice in front of my rec hockey goalie in Ontario to prevent a shot getting past him and having a skate blade nearly slice off my nose.

More recent accidents include getting multiple stitches when Izzy’s leash sliced through a finger – again on my left hand – as she lunged at a deer last Thanksgiving.

So far in 2025, my luck has been better. But just to be safe today, I’m not climbing the roof to fix a leaky  gutter or carrying scissors anywhere. And I’m ordering pizza tonight  to avoid the stove cover. 

No sense in taking chances on Friday the 13th.