Alexander Leach, Editor
When I first joined this paper, I found out about the Civitan Golf Tournament at the Oaks of Cobden. And then promptly, I showed up a day late, having gotten confused on the dates due to the flurry of activity adjusting to journalistic schedules again.
That they chose to delay the 25th anniversary until next year due to the deadly pandemic that swept the world was yet another example in that, while luck and fate do not exist, it is extremely easy to find very helpful coincidences.
When I arrived this year, I made extra sure I had the right date – and that I was there early, driving out at seven-thirty in the morning, a time that usually is when I go to bed on particularly difficult deadline days. It was cold, and it was sunny, but the golfers were out.
Civitan member Ted Barron recognized me despite my mask; with my overgrown beard protruding from my mask’s corners and my dark-rimmed, sleepless eyes, I’m pretty distinctive. I apologized for being a year late for the tournament.
I ran the story last year with information Barron sent me, and with pictures they’d taken there. This year, I have my own; golfers across the manicured greens ,the sea of donor’s signs, and the victorious teams hoisting trophies that will display in the golf club.
It’s been a year, and things have changed. We’ve gone from isolated and limited by the pandemic and the provincial restrictions to…still isolated and limited by the pandemic and the provincial restrictions, but less now. People still wear masks, but sit together in groups, most hopefully fully vaccinated now.
I’ve changed some, since then; I’m more used to the paper and deliveries, more used to checking social media I barely considered even eight years ago. While golf still isn’t my game – sports and I have a relationship that would be in place in a Gothic horror novel – I can at least appreciate charity and fundraising for what it does, and enjoy the good spirits of others.
And I’d like to think I check my dates a bit more closely.
