When Your Children Save Your Life

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Sorry for the delay, sports fans, but I experienced a medical emergency recently that has kept me off the keyboard. All is well now, but I'm taking it just a little easier. Only last week I posted an article about how children can learn to change the world and the first thing I mentionned was:  teach them to be first aiders and lifeguards, that then they will learn to see their fellow humans as people for whom they can care and assist.

So it was more than a little rewarding when my young son found me in medical distress when he got home from school last Thursday and fired into action, contacting his Mom, who was on a school trip in Ottawa, to verify his procedures. He put in the accurate call to 911, contacted neighbours who could help, kept his mom informed, and basically saved my life.

Oh, I'll still be on his back about homework and cleaning up his room, and spending equal time on music and Minecraft and playing with his dog – that's my job. But something deep has changed. Fifty years of first aid and I've never actually saved a life. Oh, I 've assisted lots of people in need of bandaids, or assistance with allergic reactions, or splinting up breaks. But nothing this big.  I don't think he quite gets it yet, the significance, but I do.

Twelve years old, cool under pressure, and my hero.  I know there will never be a request for payback, like, "Hey, Dad, I saved your life, dude, how about the car keys." He knows how much I owe him. He also knows that I know that there is no charge for services rendered.

A lifesaver has honour – the reward is in a llfe continued, the satisfaction that all that training paid off, the affirmation that it works when you do it right.

This year he will go on to his Bronze Medalliion training, more First Aid and CPR, and I'll bet his attention to detail will be just a little more focused. He knows someone's life will be on the line one day and he may be the first responder.

I hope you get him. He is a lifesaver.

 

Skid Crease, Caledon

for William Gates-Crease

WHO DO YOU TRUST, CANADA?

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Ten MOST Trusted Canadians

 

Ten LEAST Trusted Canadians

1. Michael J. Fox, actor

2. Peter Mansbridge, news anchor

3. David Suzuki, scientist

4. Wayne Gretzky, sports figure

5. Mike Holmes, radesman

6. Clara Hughes, olympic athlete

7. Michaelle Jean, former G-G

8. Shania Twain, singer

9. Margaret Atwood, author

10. David Johnson, current G-G

* G-G = Governor-General

 

 

 

 

1. Stephen Harper, politician, PM

2. Rob Ford, pollitician Mayor

3. Bob Rae, politician, MP

4. Don Cherry, sports commentator

5. Justin Trudeau, politician, MP

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, Canada,  perfect timing for the annual Reader's Digest publication of their most trusted list.  This yearly coast to coast survey checks out everything from Most Trusted Professions to Most Trusted Institutions, and includes the above list of Most Trusted Canadians. You can check it all out on their website – just google Most Trusted in Canada 2012.

The timing was perfect because I really needed to see this list.  I had been going over my posts since my website opened on Earth Day 2012, and wondered if I had been a little too hard on some people. Maybe a guy who shakes hands with his children when he drops them off at school really does have a heart somewhere and I just can't see it.  What if it's my perspective that's skewed? Maybe I hug too much. Maybe I'm way off base thinking that environmental literacy, and social justice, and ecological economics are the base upon which a prosperous and just society are built.

Thank you, Reader's Digest.  Thank you, Canada. I will once again take up my lance and ride Rocinante into the sunset to tilt at the windmills of injustice. Together we will dream the impossible dream and reach the unreachable stars.  The True North, strong and free!

Skid Crease, Caledon