About Me – Why Am I Doing This? - Chapter Nine

Politics has been part of my life since my earliest recollections. I was about three or four years old when my Dad started talking to me in earnest about this topic. I recall that he pulled a slender blue book from his shelf and introduced me to Hansard - The Proceedings of the House of Commons in Ottawa. He would sit and read it at length and began reading it to me from this very young age.

Howard seemed to sense that I had a vocation in this area and he nurtured it effectively in spite of my youth and the disinterest of others. He told me the democratic histories and shared the democratic values with me. He described our democratic institutions to me and told me that all people should cherish one thing above all things – Liberty.

He prompted me regularly throughout my childhood to read books that enhanced my understanding of politics and especially democratic methods of self-government. He stressed that literacy was critical for Liberty in modern societies.

So he taught me to read and write and recommended many good books to me – from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich when I was ten to the Iliad and Odyssey the next year, as well as Webster's Dictionary and an encyclopedia set. He helped me to join the public library and then set me loose to read almost the entire collection in that small isolated northern Ontario community.

Howard stood up for my Liberty and Rights when I was a child and really had none in Law. He employed the Principles of democracy and his physical and intellectual prowess to convince 'educators' and others that they should not bully me. I was an energetic child but I was also a little delicate and vulnerable and quite sensitive, so he protected me with his prizefighter's love.

I had almost been killed when I took a giant tumble off of an outcrop near my home and Howard found me injured and ran to the hospital with me in his arms to save my life. He had watched another of his children die and seemed in no mood to go through that again. His children were precious to him, though we often did not realize how much. This injury affected everything in my life until the present.

I do this work because I have an inexplicable fondness for and love of humanity. This is an odd part of my personality that I value. I do it because I have gifts and abilities that permit me to do it. I do it because there is a compelling need.

I do it because I see practical solutions while others often only see a wall of frightening facts. I do it because no one else seems able to do it. I do it because I like the people I do it with.

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