We have a ‘life story’ retold by his brother, Michael C.
The anticipated speaker being suddenly afflicted with flu, we were fortunate to have a ‘life story’ retold by his brother, Michael C. And this commenced quite dramatically, when he as a very young boy was taken by his father to be examined by an orthopaedic paediatrician because of a slightly strange walk. It transpired that this doctor happened to be familiar with the problem, termed Perthes disease. This is one of those problems, rarely found, wherein the head of the femur is deprived of its blood supply, an issue that generally arises in 4-6 year olds, and which requires specialized care, and, it would seem, which entails a long period of weight treatment on re-aligning the legs. Any parent in the audience would have appreciated the trauma that this could effect.
But being born into a large family (the second of 9 children) Michael recalls the circumstances of his young life, apparently with great clarity: he even now sits at the same table as that enjoyed by what must then have been very rambunctious meal-times. But all was not tough: he recalls that the family was the 26th family to join the Arbutus Club - at the vast expenditure of $1,000. He enjoyed Vancouver College and Churchill, and by his own account received a good and useful education, en route having a close encounter with Miles for Millions, and an even closer exchange with Jack Webster, whom he greatly respected as a man and a journalist. His education even included delivering papers, and at 4 cents a copy to him, he presumably made scads of money (if any seminal influence shows you how to collect money, your correspondent’s experience would lead us to believe that collecting dues from newspaper deliverees is one of the world’s toughest jobs).
His educational career included its own drama, and centred upon his need for a knowledge of latin, which he described as suddenly having been terminated by the latin teacher immolating himself in an incinerator. He learned to smoke a certain non-tobacco substance, from where he graduated to working for a Rivers Inlet Float Camp (he didn’t describe his job there) from where he went on to Cariboo College and then University. He thereafter graduated and was certified a CA by articling and working at Price Waterhouse, apparently in the interim working in Vancouver’s main cooperage company (and then, fate took a hand, for on the balcony beside our room, there appeared a Club employee rolling a barrel - incorrectly as Michael pointed out! - which was one of your correspondent’s life’s most extraordinary and unlikely coincidences!).
His interests ultimately turned to life insurance, in part because of a chance encounter with a Sun Life agent, and , equally notably, he joined Rotary in 1980, at which time he obtained his CLU certification. But, as he emphasized, he is still a member of a closely-bound family; his own, however, is somewhat smaller. It has to be said that Michael to this point seems to have enjoyed at least three simultaneous lives!