Blues take Dashwood teen to Ottawa

MusicFest chooses Carly Schroeder as one of the best music students in Canada; three SHDHS bands competing nationally

Story and photo by Casey Lessard

Grade 12 student Carly Schroeder is representing South Huron District High School and her hometown of Dashwood when she heads to Ottawa next month (May 12-18) to perform in the MusicFest Canada national concert band. But her parents won’t be there to see it.
“We’re feeling really bad about that,” says mom Brenda Schroeder. Before they knew Carly was accepted into the band as an alto saxophonist, Brenda and Steve had booked a trip to visit Carly’s brother, an RCMP officer in B.C. “We leave on Thursday and she performs on Friday. The timing’s all bad, so we’re hoping there will be CDs or DVDs that record the event. When it comes to your kids, you like to see them in such situations.”
You can’t blame the Schroeders for making plans; her selection to be part of the band was certainly a surprise to Carly.
“I didn’t expect to get chosen,” she says. “It was a little overwhelming at first. I was like, Are you sure?”
An email mix-up didn’t help. After sending the first confirmation message, something confusing happened.
“They sent me a second one that was addressed to Ryan someone. I emailed them back and a couple of weeks later, they sent me another email to say yes, that I was in. It was kind of a long process.”
That process began when music teacher Isaac Moore helped her record a CD of work learned during lessons with Ryan Fraser of London.
“The pieces I played were not your typical alto saxophone songs,” Carly notes. “The first song I played had this growling part to it, and it was really fun. I wasn’t sure what they’d think about it. Then there was another second movement to it that was more typical.”
The judges must have been impressed, says MusicFest Canada executive director Jim Howard.
“It’s very difficult to get into the saxophone section because Dr. Jeremy Brown (the head of music at the University of Calgary) is a world-renowned saxophone player,” he told the Strip from Calgary. “She must be very, very good to get in there.”
“This is kind of the ultimate honour band,” he adds, noting the band consists of 55-60 students from across the country. “It’s an amazing experience. We run it like a camp as opposed to running it like a touring band. Yamaha provides clinics to sectionals with them during the week. They get access to the MusicFest Canada master classes, and they get to play music they’re normally not going to get to play. They’re playing such a high level of music, even university bands aren’t tackling the repertoire these kids are going to play.”
University scouts will be at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to hear Carly and the rest of the band play, bringing with them $100,000 in scholarships to attract the best to their schools.
The band will practice for nine hours a day for four days, and then perform twice as a group. Howard estimates about 2500 students will jam the hall to see them perform. A big event for a small-town teen who became attracted to the saxophone as a student with Exeter’s Lori Erb.
“My parents put me in Music for Young Children when I was six,” Carly says. “That was piano, and I picked up the saxophone in high school. I loved jazz and blues, and I played my first blues song on the piano. That’s when I decided I wanted to play saxophone.”
“At about Grade 3 piano, she was wavering and wasn’t enjoying it,” Brenda adds, “and Lori had the insight to let her have a whole year of playing blues and jazz, staying away from the conservatory pieces. That was a real turning point for her.”
Besides jazz and blues, Carly loves classic rock, favouring the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Classical music can be heard when she’s studying. And there will be many more years of that. She’s planning on becoming a high school music teacher.
“Music has always been a huge part of my life,” she says. “I don’t see my life without it. Seeing this high school music department, it’s awesome how it brings people together.”
Bringing people together is what the music department does best, and three of its ensembles are heading to Ottawa with Carly. The senior concert band, wind ensemble and percussion ensemble excelled at the regional MusicFest in London last month, with the percussion ensemble earning the coveted gold status.
“It’s nice to be recognized for the hard work we do here,” says teacher Isaac Moore. “The national thing is pretty special because it means some of the best bands in the country come from right here in Exeter, Ontario.”
The music department’s annual Cabaret will showcase some of the work being performed at the nationals. The Cabaret happens Saturday, April 19 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 20 at 2 p.m. All of the department’s bands will be featured.

Julianna Zahn is walking for dad

Twelve-year-old Julianna Zahn is walking from London to Windsor April 24-26 as a tribute to her late father’s long struggle with liver disease. A father to Julianna and Kevin, and husband to Anita, Mike Zahn died August 29, 2007 after three failed liver transplants. He was ill all of Julianna’s life.

As told to Casey Lessard

He always joked with us, no matter how sick he was. He always had a good sense of humour, and I really loved that about him.
Even when he felt terrible, he always smiled at us and wanted hugs. He loved music so much and whenever he felt bad, he picked up a guitar and played. He loved animals, just like I do.
My whole life I had to watch my dad suffer. Doing this walk makes me feel that I am helping him because I always had to sit there and watch him suffer, and I couldn’t do anything. We had rough moments when he was really sick and he couldn’t take it. But we’d tell him that we loved him and a big smile would come across his face.
I always remember when he went away in the ambulances. You’d hear the sirens and see them coming in and getting him. And I remember him struggling to get up the stairs, because his bedroom was up there and that’s where he wanted to be.
I want people to know everything about transplants. The waiting, the stress. It’s not just surgery and pain. You have to go through all of this depression, and transplants are really difficult. Some people do well after transplants, but a lot of people are not so fortunate. The heart, the liver and the lung are the worst. Canada has one of the lowest rates of organ donation among Western countries. There aren’t enough donors. People need to sign their donor cards.
While I’m doing the walk, there will be people walking with me who have had transplants. It’s going to feel like he’s walking with me in a way. I know if he were here he would encourage me.
I know I’ll always have my mom to turn to because she knows what I’m going through; her dad died when she was my age. When other girls get to turn to their dads, I get to turn to my mom. I really am going to miss having my dad around to talk to and having a dad. That’s really going to be hard for me when I get married because before he died, the doctor asked him what inspired him to have the third transplant, and he said, “Because I have a daughter to walk down the aisle.”
Sponsor sheets are available at Westland Greenhouses, Country Corners gas station, Movie Gallery, Sobey’s, Twigs flower shop, New Orleans Pizza, Re/Max Doug Pedlar, The Fitness Centre, and Grand Bend Heating Plus.

April 27: A reason to ride - Tyson Breuer’s story

Pedal the Pinery
10 a.m. - Pinery Provincial Park
Canadian Cancer Society fundraiser. Ride and Stride 1 p.m. Ride 20 km, walk 8 km. Kiddy walk/ride 1.5 km. Pledge forms available from Peggy Smith at 519-296-5834 or email endoftheline@execulink.com.

Tyson Breuer’s life changed during a short trip to Grand Bend’s Movie Gallery in June 2006. His seatbelt was scratching his neck, and Tyson reached up to discover a sizeable lump on his collarbone. He was misdiagnosed with a terminal form of cancer (a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma), but then rediagnosed weeks later with a treatable form of classical Hodgkins lymphoma. Treatment started in August.
“A lot of people don’t know what radiation and chemotherapy involve,” he says. “Chemo is a drip that you get through an IV, and it’s a long drip. You’re in there for five hours minimum; eight hours was normal for me, but others are there for two days.
“You’re taken into a chemo suite that smells like new plastic. You’re sitting in this room with tons of really sick people. It’s not a great spot to be in.”
“It messes with your head. Every day after chemo, I would think about out the best way to kill myself so that no one would find my body. That’s the kind of thing I did every day.”
Chemotherapy was once every two weeks for six months. Following that, Tyson had a month off before 25 doses of radiation.
“Radiation for me was the easiest thing. It depends on the person. The radiation hit my breastbone, my heart, my lungs. I had a raspy cough and a sore throat. Those are all of the side effects I had. Some men who have prostate cancer end up with problems with their GI tract and urinating.”
The 20-year-old has now been in remission for a year, but he takes nothing for granted.
“You always have to be cautious. Any time you wake up with a night sweat or something unusual with your health, you get concerned. You have to deal with that kind of stuff on a daily basis. It’s not something you can easily forget.
“I wish I could say I learned not to be angry or that everything’s precious. I still worry about school, getting a job, relationships and all that crap. I still have those kinds of issues. What I’ve learned is my parents and my sister will always be there for me no matter what.”
The family has taken part in the Pinery ride for years, and you can join them April 27.

God and family were everything to Mary

Hub Thiel reflects on Mary’s life, his luck, and their love

Mary Simmons Walker-Thiel was born in Woodstock in 1954. The Zurich resident lost two children in infancy, and her first husband Rick Walker and their son Evan were killed in a car crash in 1989. Mary later married Hub Thiel, soon after his first wife – also named Mary – died, forming a family with two children each, and adding two more together.
Mary Walker-Thiel died February 19 in a head-on crash with a transport truck on Thames Road east of Exeter. Hub was driving their 15-passenger van, and survived the crash.

As told to Casey Lessard

Hub Thiel: I’d hate to be alive if I didn’t know she was in heaven.
Mary had a heart of gold. I don’t know why she ever fell for a guy like me. I guess I talked her ear off and got lucky as heck. Only a fool wouldn’t have grabbed her hard and hung on.

Mary was working at Merrymount Children’s Home in London when her roommate met a man from Zurich, and through them she met Rick Walker. I worked with Rick’s mother at General Coach, so I knew Mary a long time before I met her. I would see her at church, and we became friends. My wife and her were friends, too.
Rick and Evan and my first cousin’s son Samuel Thiel were killed on the May long weekend in 1989. It just totally rocked this community. He was a young guy with two little kids in the car, and Rick and Evan were killed instantly. Samuel lived for a few days until after his mother returned from a trip to Arizona.
Mary lived alone with her girls in Centralia until 1995. When my wife died that year, she was there and was a strong support. She was just this angel who would help everybody and anybody. I needed help and she had gone through things, so she was just like one of the thousand people who were helping.
We were both involved in youth council at church. We spent time planning a trip and a while after we returned we got closer.
It was easy being together. It just seemed like it was meant to be.
Family was the number one thing. Mary would drop anything for the kids. That’s the way she was. It wasn’t just grandkids; it didn’t matter who it was. She would be there.
She was always late. But that’s because she took the time. Then she’d realize she was supposed to be somewhere else and she was talking as she’s driving out the laneway. That was her heart.

Road warrior

We had a 15-passenger van, and we didn’t need a 15-passenger van here anymore than a hole in the head; the gas consumption’s kind of stupid. But I’d just drive it to work, which is just a couple of clicks. The price of the van was good and I’m really cheap. Mary liked the van because she could pile people in. If you needed a ride somewhere, Mary would take you. If your kid needed a ride somewhere, Mary would take you.
It was a perfect vehicle for her. She was a bus driver and I’m a truck driver, so we could both handle the big vehicle. It was important to her to be able to take as many people anywhere they needed to go. That was her heart.
Mary loved shopping. She’d take a couple women with her and go to Costco, filling the van up. She’d take the kids and push them in the carts, and love them right up. She had to go anyway, so why not take the van and take them, too?

The last day

Mary’s daughter Sarah is a world traveler. She’s a nurse and has been to Europe several times and she did a term in Africa. When she was in Europe, she met a group from Australia who said, Come to Australia. Sarah set up a trip for four months to go to Australia and we were taking Sarah to Toronto airport.
We went around by grandma Simmons’, we had a wonderful visit with Mary’s mother and took Sarah to the airport. We had a wonderful time saying goodbye to her, joking around and it was nice.
On the way home, we stopped at Milton and had a coffee. After leaving Milton, we had one of the nicest drives we ever had. Mary had to come home to be at the church council meeting and I had to come home to take the kids to figure skating.
We were late, but the road was snow-covered, so I wasn’t going very fast. All of a sudden, as we approached Exeter, the van veered over the centre line and into the opposite lane.
The last word I said to Mary was no, and the last word said to me was Hub. I don’t remember the impact at all. I woke up spitting this crap out from my mouth, which was from the airbag.
I turned to my right where Mary should have been sitting, and the wheel of the truck was within three inches of my right shoulder. Mary’s body was driven right back behind the seat behind me.
When I crawled out of the van, there was an Exeter firefighter there right away, and other people. The ambulance came and a police officer told me Mary had passed away.
I was devastated. Completely devastated. I was driving the van and it’s very hard on a guy because I thought, I should have maybe been able to do something. I’m not beating myself up. It’s not going to bring her back.
Being a truck driver, I know he had no chance of avoiding us. If we only had 10 or 20 seconds more either way, I could have been in the ditch in front of him or behind him.

Lean on me

The community support has been so unreal. I’ve never seen so many flowers in my life. I have dishes here I’m not even sure who owns them.
We have to go on. If the things like Heart-to-Heart and the Zurich Bible School, which were both very important to her, keep going, that’s going to be her legacy more than anything.
We live in the best community in the world and it’s because of people like Mary. Someone’s got to help carry on.
All six of my kids are level-headed people. We mourn at the times we mourn, but we are happy at the happy times. We have a good handle on mourning. People think we’re steady as a rock. You can be when you have faith and you have a good handle on what is going on.
I have to be strong for my kids, but I also have to be strong for the handicapped kids she worked with. She never saw their handicap; she always saw their potential. She made me, Katherine and Matthew see the same thing. It was a joy to have them in our house, and they brought a lot of love in.
I’m calling some of them to encourage them to come visit because it’s important for us to continue on together.
The most important thing was her faith in God. Right now, she’s in heaven, cooking, rocking Evan, she’s got my little son who was five weeks old when he died, and two children who were stillborn. Her father’s there playing harmonica and Mary’s doing a little dance. She’s taking care of everybody and having a good time.
Going to heaven’s going to be easier because we know she’s there.

Livin’ la vida in Grand Bend

Mexicans Anabel Salas, 18, of Torreón Coahuila and Carmen Rivera, 25, of Taxco both came to Canada in October to learn English. But it wasn’t until an email came through to Anabel’s adopted aunt Doris Becker that they realized the two were living only moments away in the same village. Now, they share a home with Becker in Grand Cove.

As told to Casey Lessard

Anabel: I wanted to learn English and I tried to come to a high school, but it’s so expensive because you need to be a Canadian. The paperwork is so complicated, and it’s as expensive as university. Doris told my dad, “She can come with me and find a baby-sitting job or something like that.” I am here, and I volunteer at her school – she’s a French teacher (at Usborne Public School). I read with the kids and help with the computers. I help in the kindergarten because there’s only one teacher and she needs help. I love the kids. They’re so cute and funny. The kids help me to read. I don’t have good pronunciation, and the kids laugh and tell me, you need to read like this. The kids are so nice.
Carmen: I had two Canadian friends, and they told me Canada is awesome. I love to paint, and they told me the landscape is beautiful, especially in autumn when the trees change colour. Now that it’s winter, there’s a lot of snow, and I like that.
When I was looking on the Internet, I saw the pictures of the beach and thought, it’s almost like Acapulco (laughs). The weather is too cold, but it’s okay. I like it.
I went through an Internet au pair agency. I got a family (the Gaukrogers) in Grand Bend, but they don’t need me anymore, so I decided to move here. Generally I came here to improve my English, but actually I’m a Spanish teacher in Mexico. I love to travel. The last year I was an assistant teacher in France and I was travelling a bit around Europe, too.
The idea is to live with a family so you learn the culture and you can go to the school. But here it was not the same because I didn’t take English lessons. As a nanny, you don’t get too much money. It’s good to learn the language, though.
Anabel: Doris came to Mexico when she was 18 (through Rotary), and she went to high school there and lived with my family. My father came to Canada to do the same, but he lived in Guelph. He stayed in Canada one year, too. Doris considers my family as her family.
Doris told me, “It’s a little town.” But I said, no, it’s not possible to be so little. When I got here, I realized it’s a little town.
I like Grand Bend. It’s so pretty. It’s different because I live in a big city. Here it’s so small and so quiet.
I miss the weather. I don’t like the cold. I don’t like the snow except when we are playing in it. I miss my climate so much. I live in the desert - right now it’s 45ºC there. I had only seen snow one time, but it only stayed one day.
I’d like to come back in the summer or in another year in June. I am not going to miss this weather. I don’t like wearing many layers. I feel I can’t move and I fall down because the ground is frozen.
Where I live it’s really warm. When it’s winter, in the night you need to wear a long T-shirt sometimes. But when I come here, I need three jackets and a scarf, two mittens.
Carmen: I love the weather. The snow, the landscape. Last week we went snowmobiling with a friend from Bikini Bob’s. It was awesome! I like it!
Anabel: It was like when you are driving a motorcycle. It’s so fun. We went by the drive-in. We went along the road and between the trees.
I’d like to go skiing. I went skiing with the kids from the school. I tried snowboarding, but I fell down many times and then I tried the skis and I like it. It’s fun, but it’s difficult.
Carmen: I like to watch, but I don’t want to try. Two years ago I was in Switzerland, and I hurt myself (almost breaking her arm) sledding.
Anabel: When Doris went to Mexico, they asked her if she lived in an igloo. She’d tell them, no, I have a house.
Carmen: I think people don’t know too much about Mexico. People think we are so poor. Obviously there are poor people and rich people. Here it’s easier to make money than in Mexico, but we are not so poor. People think we are ignorant and that we don’t know too much about culture or other things. I don’t like that. Sometimes people ask me, do you know pasta? I say, of course!
Anabel: I am going to miss my friends, the family, Doris. The kids from the school; they’re so friendly and they give me hugs and kisses.
Carmen: I’ll miss the people. People here are very friendly. Especially here in Grand Cove. They say hi when you walk down the street.

Remembering Ryan

Ryan VanValkengoed, 17, of Crediton went missing after leaving a friend’s house a short distance from home the evening of January 11. Police divers found his body in the Ausable River Monday afternoon. Ryan was the oldest of three sons of Bob and Lorie VanValkengoed, owners of Advanced Auto Parts and Salvage and Lorie’s Advanced Hair Care.

As told to Casey Lessard

Bob VanValkengoed: He was very responsible. With this incident, we knew there was a problem right from the start.
Lorie VanValkengoed: We were hoping this was the first time he did something out of character. But it wasn’t.

Lorie: When we first got married, we were probably married about a week and I remember saying to Bob, “Let’s have children right away,” and him saying, “Yep.” As a woman, I thought there were about 15 more sentences that needed to go with that, so I waited a week and asked again, and he said, “Yep.”
The hardest time Ryan ever gave us was giving birth. He was 19 days overdue. He was due December 9, and Christmas Eve, the doctor told me to come see him. I said, “You have no idea. If you put me in the hospital over Christmas, I guarantee I will make your life a living hell.” He said he just wanted to make sure I would make it through Christmas.
On December 26, we went into London to be induced and on December 28 at 2:32 in the morning, he was born by Caesarean section.

Bob: It’s the only time in his life he’s been late. He was pretty good otherwise.
He was always a good kid. I went to London three or four times a week, and every morning I had to get up at 5 o’clock and he would get upset if I didn’t wake him up. He wasn’t even two years old. So I would wake him up and put his work clothes on and we would go to work. He would sleep on my lap. We would take a load of products to London, and I always remember going to the restaurant for breakfast. At that age, he was just so busy fooling around or crawling under the table. We would drop off scrap at Zubick’s and every time he would get a chocolate bar. For years, if I didn’t wake him up, he would just be so grumpy that I didn’t wake him up.
After that, he was always in the shop. He was blonde as snow, but he’d come out of there covered in black from oil and mud.
One day I was working and I had bought an electric car for him. He wasn’t two yet, and I looked over; he had hooked a set of chain falls (for pulling engines out of cars) onto the electric car and it was sitting eight feet off the ground.
Lorie: He was interested in possibly taking over the business (Advanced Auto). We just talked about it over the holidays.
Bob: It was in his blood. He liked it. He could print invoices and take care of the business end of it. I always checked and there was never a time when he forgot something. And if someone came after hours, he would tell them, “I’ll deal with you this time, but you shouldn’t make this a regular habit.” He was good at training his customers. He was a real businessman.

Lorie: School was never an interest for him. He wanted to run his own business. One day, I got a call from the school saying Ryan had skipped. I asked him when he got home, and he said, “Yeah, I skipped.” I asked what he did, where he went. “To the cafeteria.” I said, “You skipped school to go to the cafeteria?” He said he was talking with the principal Jeff Reaburn. They were talking about starting your own business. So I called the school and said, “My son skipped, he was talking with the principal, so please give him detention.”
He was a thrill seeker. One day, he fell out of a tree on the property and he came to the shop and said to Bob he fell. He was walking and talking, and Bob said, “You look good to me.” We found out later he had fallen 30’. His first cousin said he landed and looked fine but started crying because he couldn’t find his shoe. It wasn’t the fall that hurt him.
Bob: We always had golf carts or dirt bikes. All the kids rode around on this one golf cart. I told someone that we went through 50 gallons of gas in one summer.
I bought him a new dirt bike in the spring, and he always wore a helmet. I was raised with a bike and I still ride without a helmet. But Ryan always wore a helmet. I always said, “What did I say to him to convince him to wear a helmet?”
Lorie: I cut hair out of my home, and I was with a client one day and Ryan was at the top of the stairs. Ryan asked if I could come up the stairs. I said I was busy – I think I was doing a colour. He called Jacob instead. Ryan had wiped out severely on his dirt bike. Jacob, to help Ryan had wrapped his wounds in toilet paper. It took me about two days to pick the toilet paper out of the wounds as it healed. To this day, he had scars (and he was proud of every one of them).
Bob: He was in bed three days, and Jacob took his meals up to him.

Lorie: All of us were very close with Ryan. He connected with each one of us in different ways.
Bob: Just a great guy to be around. Some of my hired help aren’t around this week because they’re taking it very hard.
Lorie: Ryan had a good group of friends.
Bob: [He didn’t like big parties.] Even on a Friday night, he was never comfortable if there were more than five people.
Lorie: The only time he liked that was for concerts. In fact, I have a $600 bill on my credit cards for Linkin Park.
Bob: He would take matters into his own hands and order tickets. One day he called me and said he needed (continued on p.4) (cont’d from p.3) $900 on my credit card. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “We’re going to see Motley Crue and Aerosmith.” He said the tickets were $150 a ticket and if he got six guys to go he could get a limo lined up. He was 15 when he did that. He was organized and knew what he liked.
Bob: He was very thrifty. He came from the movies one night and said, “Dad, I got free popcorn.” I asked how he did that. He said, “It was easy; I just went into the garbage bag and grabbed an empty bag and told the guy to fill it.” I said, “Don’t you find it gross to grab a bag out of the garbage?” He said, “Do you think I’m that stupid? I told the guy I needed a new bag!”

January 11
Bob: Lorie had gone to the States for a business meeting for the weekend. I was with the boys myself. I woke up at about 12:15 a.m. I went and checked him out and he wasn’t there. So I laid down again and kept getting up again every couple hours. All of a sudden, at 5:45 a.m., he’s still not there. I thought maybe this was the first time he slept over at a friend’s house. I had to take one of the other boys to hockey practice and on the way, I called the shop but got no answer. He would sleep out in the shop sometimes. I kept thinking he was staying at one of his buddy’s places. I had breakfast with a friend of mine that morning before 8 o’clock, and through the morning I kept trying to call a couple of his friends and got no answer.
Finally I got through at 2 o’clock when I called his cousin. His cousin said, “Oh, Ryan should have been home.” There were five or six people at the house he was at Friday, and Ryan was one of them. That’s when I started getting scared.
In the meantime, one of my nephews drives over here and he’s concerned. That’s when I called the police and told them it was very out of character. I thought they would just fill out a missing person’s report, but he took it very seriously. Within hours they had the dogs out and police officers all over the place. It was on the news Saturday night.

January 12
Lorie: I was at a big conference, and one of the ladies called my room Saturday night. She told me Bob had been trying to get in touch with me. I looked at my friends and told them, “It’s not good.” He wouldn’t call me for anything unless it was very serious. I phoned home and when I came downstairs, my one friend said, “You look like you’re going to be ill.” I kind of half-smiled and said, “Ryan’s missing.” A couple other friends gathered around and asked, what do you want to do, do you want to sit down, what can we do for you? I said, “Actually, I’d like to breathe for a minute.”
I sat and collected my thoughts, and one friend who had disappeared showed up and said, “We’re packed and ready to go.” It was a surreal ride home. We were about four hours away and I think we did it in two-point-five. The closer we got to home, the more it started to sink in.
Bob: From Saturday afternoon to Monday, we hardly slept. You doze off for a few hours here and there. I sat in the chair in the kitchen, and from that chair, I could see the door to see if anybody was coming in, I could see the road to see if anyone was coming there, and I could look at the clock. For three days, I kept looking at the clock, the door, the window.
Everyone was helping. Even people I knew didn’t have their driver’s license were driving around trying to find him.
Lorie: Two officers, Ralph Christmas and Jeff Adkin, were in charge. They sat with us, they gave us minute-by-minute updates. We had many people call offering to volunteer. The police had to treat it as a possible crime scene, so volunteers couldn’t come in. They tried to get a helicopter from Orillia, but it was grounded due to fog, so local pilots took officers up and did an air search. There were at least a couple of planes. There were numerous neighbours and their kids out looking. From young to old and everybody in between.

January 14
Bob: The police found some of his belongings by the tree by the river. They said that’s the last trace of where he’s been. Monday afternoon, they found him about 25’ from the bridge. The autopsy said he had drowned.
My brother-in-law didn’t want to be the one to tell us, so he asked a neighbour to do it, and all he said was, “It’s not good news. They found him.” And we knew.
The house was full of company - friends and family and relatives. And it was devastating. I’ll never forget that.

Lorie: The O’Briens had taken the kids for two nights and took their kids out of school to keep them company. Before the news spread, I went to tell my boys. They had some questions and some tears.
I called Const. Adkin and told him I was ready to come and see Ryan, so I got to spend some time with him before he left. That was a really good time.
Lorie: You couldn’t sit and write enough thank you cards. The first one would go to the police officers, then the professionals who did the search, the pilots who volunteered, the volunteers, the fire department.
Bob: The phone calls, the food. I’ve never seen so much food in my life.

Lorie: I’ll miss the stupid stuff. Folding laundry and making three piles.
Bob: Four people for supper, not five.
Lorie: It seems like it’s a lifetime away. I’ve told everybody there’s part of me that believes I knew this was coming. I don’t know if it’s just concern for a child normally or something more than that, but I’ve prepared for this for years because I believe the day he was born, the day of his death was pre-planned.
Bob: I wouldn’t have believed it was this bad to go through something like this. You keep blaming yourself and wonder what you did right, and your mind is racing with what went wrong.
Lorie: But if we had to change one thing, there’s nothing we could change. For a teenager, he was good.
Bob: We just feel it’s a big dream and everything’s going to go away and be back to normal.

This love will last forever

Zurich couple still lovebirds after 60 years

Lloyd and Leona Steinberg of Zurich celebrated 60 years in January 10. The Strip wanted to know their secret.

As told to Casey Lessard
Photo by Sandra Regier

Leona Steinberg: It was 1947, and I had graduated as a registered nurse from St. Mary’s hospital in Kitchener. I had broken up with my boyfriend because he was going to give me a diamond ring and I didn’t want a diamond ring. I didn’t feel that way about him. His sister was in my class and she ended up telling me that he was going to give me this ring, so I told him goodbye. All of a sudden, I realized that our grad dance was coming up and I didn’t have a date. My girlfriend said, “Don’t worry about it – I’ll get you one.” Her cousin was taking her to the dance, and she said she’d get Harry to bring one of his pals. The boy was very nice and quiet. He drove a car and wanted to know the colour of my gown so he could buy me a corsage to match. And he did. He was a good dancer; he could polka like nobody’s business, and I enjoy polkaing. We had a good time – he never talked much. We said goodnight at the door. That was Wednesday.
Saturday night, Mary said to me, Kitchener’s playing in Waterloo, and we’re going to the ball game. I said, “Who’s going?” She said, “You and I.” I said, “No, I’m not. I haven’t got any money.” She said, “You’ve got your grad money.” Finally I gave in. We had to take the trolley to Waterloo. Lloyd was there with the boy who had taken me to the grad dance, Benny. He was noisy, yelling at a player in the field. I wished he would keep quiet because he was spoiling the whole thing.
We had to be in at 11:30 at night, and if you had to ring the bell, you lost your half-day. I said to Mary, “Look at the time. We’ve got to get home.” She never worried about time. Benny heard me saying this to her and said, we’ll drive you home. She said we could stay to the end of the game.
I told her to sit in the back seat with me, “I am not taking a chance on sitting with that one.” We got into the car and who crawls into the back seat with me, but Lloyd.
On the way home, he asked if he could take me out. I didn’t know how I was going to say no. Monday night we had religion class. Tuesday night we had doctors come and teach us. Anyway, I got to Thursday and I had no excuses left.
We walked down to Victoria Park. He told me all about himself and my estimation of him got better. We started to go out and seven and a half months later we were married.
Lloyd Steinberg: I guess she thought I was all right; here we are 60 years later.

A decent proposal
Leona: We were, again, in the backseat of Benny’s car coming home from a ball game. Mary was in the front – she started going with Benny then. I had just gotten my grad ring, and I was playing with it. It was new and special. I was taking it up and down my finger, and he took my other hand and he said, “Someday, I’m going to put another ring on that finger.” And I thought, “Oh. Okay.”
We were married January 10, 1948 on my parents’ 37th wedding anniversary. It was very quiet. We were married in Dublin. And we were happy. I just said to him the other day, “You know, in 60 years, we haven’t even had a decent fight.”
Lloyd: No sense arguing.
Leona: I’d win anyway.

Making a house a home
Leona: You’re always short of money. The kids are always part of something. But you don’t spend money foolishly. We didn’t have a car until 1955. We didn’t feel we could afford it. We bought a lot and papa (Lloyd) dug the foundation with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
Lloyd: How would you like to do that?
Leona: He did most of the construction. Didn’t know what he was doing. We took the plans for the house to Beaver Lumber.
I was seven months pregnant and shingling. My father-in-law came home – they lived next door – and I leaned over the edge and said, “Hi there, pop.” He said, “What are you doing up there, woman? Don’t you know you’re pregnant?”
Lloyd: That house cost us $4400 to build ourselves.
Leona: Our oldest was born in November 1948; Susan was born October 1949; Debbie was born October 1950; Patti was born May 1952; Paul was born September 1954; and Cathy was born December 1960.

Making it last
Leona: Every time that man leaves the house, he always comes and kisses me goodbye. Only a couple of weeks ago, he didn’t. And I got right upset about it. I said, “Did you know you didn’t kiss me goodbye?” He said, “I didn’t.” I said, “No, you didn’t, and don’t ever do that again.”
One time in 1959, he was taking three of our girls and two leaders to a Girl Guide camping trip in Elmira. I was on duty at St. Mary’s Hospital on the children’s floor. There was a car accident in Elmira, and the girl downstairs said, “Leona, you’re getting three kids in. We don’t know who they are, but they say the mother works here at St. Mary’s, and Dr. Friday’s the doctor.” I said, “Helen, that’s my family.”
I almost went crazy until they started wheeling them in by ambulance. But the one thing that kept me going was that I had kissed them all goodbye.
Debbie had a fractured leg. Susan had platelets in her eyes and couldn’t see. Patti had bitten her tongue. I was afraid to ask where their dad was. I can’t live without him. Lloyd didn’t come in until much later because he was helping at the scene.

He’s a keeper
Leona: There isn’t a day that goes by that my husband doesn’t tell me at least 40 times a day, “I love you, mom.” That means a lot.
One woman told me a while ago that her husband has only said it once since they were married, and that was before he went in for heart surgery. When she heard my husband saying that to me, she said, “He’s a keeper.”

Bringing a smile to their eyes

Photographers offer free photo sessions to families dealing with cancer

Story by Casey Lessard
Photos courtesy Sandra Regier

“You always have the image that this can’t happen to me, this is going to happen to somebody else,” says Michelle Smith, whose brother Mike Steckle is recovering from cancer. “You just think it can’t happen to someone who’s 35 and healthy. It can happen to anyone. It affects everybody in some ways.”
Steckle was diagnosed last August after experiencing disabling back pain.
“I couldn’t walk anymore,” he says. “Dr. Teeple at emergency said we’re going to do some blood work, and she told me later that she thought from the start that I had leukemia. It was pretty advanced along, so I spent the next six weeks in hospital trying to get into remission.”
The therapy was successful, but the road to recovery was long and painful.
“I spent the next five months sleeping to recover from the chemo and radiation,” he adds. “I had zero energy and clots in my lungs. The beginning of this spring, things got a lot better.”
In the meantime, his business, a power-washing company, had to continue without him as a hands-on operator.
“The best I could do was drive there and sleep in the truck, letting the guys do the work. I did that for four or five months. I had no control over what the guys were doing, so I learned to be more laid back. It puts life in perspective.”
That’s where Michelle Smith’s friend Sandra Regier comes in. Her job is to put everything in perspective and capture the moment on film (or in the modern era, on a memory card).
“It had been almost ten years since we had family pictures taken,” Smith says. “Sandra called me and told me about Smiling Eyes, and asked me if we would be interested. I said yes instantly, because I knew my mom and my brother would love it.”
Smiling Eyes is a non-profit organization of photographers who offer their time and talent to photograph people dealing with cancer. Photographers spend time with the family and provide the images on a CD free of charge. No catch.
“My aunt passed away three years ago,” Regier says. “I had photos of her, but not a portrait of just her. I ended up making a portrait of her in Photoshop because we didn’t have one. It would have been nice to have had the forethought to take a photograph instead.
“I think it’s important to capture the stages of life, whether you’re healthy or not. To be able to look back years ago and see how big the kids were. On a personal note, I made a point of getting my picture taken this year with each of my kids. It’s just so important to have pictures of your family. When you look back and see how much people have grown and changed, you realize how important those images are.”
Michelle Smith agrees.
“A lot of people don’t take the time to get family pictures taken. It’s great to have somebody who wants to come into your home and capture memories. I don’t know when we would have taken a family picture if Sandra hadn’t called us.”
“It gives you the memory,” Steckle says. “I have a pretty good prognosis. God forbid anything should happen, you have the portraits for your family. It’s nice to have a decent picture that everybody’s in.”
Other families are seeing the value of the process, too.
“The family I took pictures of Sunday,” Regier notes, “the daughter said they wished they had done this a year ago because her dad isn’t with them anymore. Now her mom has lung cancer, so they wish they had the picture with their dad. But at least she’ll have a picture with her mom and her little girl.”
And the photographer gets the satisfaction of doing something nice for someone who will appreciate it.
“I think pictures are important. We do this free of charge, and the images are theirs to do as they will. Hopefully they’ll hang them on the wall.”
To reach Sandra Regier or find out more about Smiling Eyes, call 519-852-4892 or visit www.sandraregier.com

Rock ‘n’ roll helps retired steelworker kick drugs

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

Originally from Wales, Bill Osmond is a retired steel refinery instrument technician and Elvis tribute artist. He lives with his wife in Grand Cove Estates.

I was watching an Elvis concert - one of the last ones before he died. He walked on stage and he was just a balloon. He was so swollen and white and sweating. His words were garbled. He looked like he was dying, he was so far up on drugs. I thought to myself, if I don’t get off narcotics, that’s going to be me.

I discovered Elvis when I was 10 years old. We had a sleepover at a friend’s house and we slept in his sister’s room. She was a teenager, and she had a picture of this strange looking guy leaning against a gate. He was wearing a red shirt and sneakers. It’s kind of a famous picture.
When I started to hear his music, I thought he was fantastic. I was an Elvis fan until he came out of the army. Then, of course, we had the Beatles, the Stones, the Yardbirds and the Beach Boys, so I kind of went off Elvis. I still liked him, but it wasn’t the music of the day.
Then in 1970, I saw an album of his called Moody Blue at the supermarket, so I bought it. His voice was much deeper and it had a new excitement. I got right back into it. I was working the steelworks at night, walking on the catwalks and I’d be singing my brains out. I’d go into the workshop and I’d always be singing there.
Six months after I came to Canada, I was picked to go and commission a new strip mill. The second day on the job I had this terrific pain in my back. It just brought me to my knees. The engineer saw me and called the ambulance. I thought I was having a heart attack, the pain was so real. That was my first kidney stone. They shot me full of demerol to get the pain down. They operated on the stone to get the stone back in the kidney.
There was nothing for about five years, and then they came quicker and quicker. I got kidney stone disease, and it got to be impossible for me to go to work. Every time I’d go to work, they’d be shipping me out in the ambulance to operate on me. I had every operation going for kidney stones, including a kidney transplant. In the end, the company said, “If you want to retire early, we’ll give you a part pension and carry your benefits on for life.”
We moved to Grand Bend in 2000. I was on a lot of pain pills. I was kind of out of it and very dependent on the drugs. I hurt my back and went to the health centre here, and there was a Chinese doctor who gave me acupuncture for pain. I never thought acupuncture really worked, but it did. It took me about six months to get off all the narcotics I was on. I did it gradually myself.
One day I thought, maybe I’ll go down and sing some karaoke at the Riverbend, so I did. I was singing different songs, and one of them was an Elvis song. Women would come up to me with their husbands, and ask me to sing another Elvis song. After doing that three or four times, I thought this might be something to do in my retirement.
I went to an Elvis competition in Brantford. All I had was a black shirt with a large collar on it. There I met a guy named Marcus Wells who is one of the top Elvis guys in Ontario, and he gave me my first jumpsuit. He said, “You should have a jumpsuit because you’ll get more points from the judges. I’ve got one for you; I’ll send it to you when I get home.”
I do parties and stagettes, and whatever. When my dad’s partner died suddenly, we had to go down to Port Dover and rescue him; we put him in the Bluewater rest home. I found out that they had volunteers going in to sing to these people. I volunteered my time one day, and I thought, this isn’t going to really go with these old ladies. But into the third song, I’m singing Teddy Bear, and they’re all tapping their hands and their feet, and they’re all listening intently. I thought they’d all be fast asleep. I’ve done that place about four times now. They just love it down there.
I get more out of doing stuff for people like that than getting paid for jobs. You’re rewarding people that need to be rewarded, who are forgotten about.
Being in pain, I can understand other people’s pain. Being locked up in a ward, I can understand the people in Bluewater or Forest, or the other places I sing. It gives me more compassion to people who are worse off than I am myself.
The pain clinic had told me I’d have to be on narcotics the rest of my life. But the more you’re on narcotics, the more they become no use to you. It doesn’t free you from the pain for long. Maybe three or four months. You’re in a dream world all the time. It made me aggressive sometimes, it made me cry sometimes. I was living in a plastic world, and nothing was real.
Now when I have a stone, I go the hospital and have a shot to get me over the worst part, then live it out at home. I’m a lot happier now than I’ve ever been and people don’t shy away from me. I enjoy the good times and lay down when I’m not feeling well.
Bill Osmond is available to perform as Elvis; you can contact him at 519-238-2005 or via email at elvis@torontobluejays.net. He performs free for local non-profits.

From the Port to the Pacific

Couple hopes to one day sail around the world in hand-built catamaran

Story and photos by Casey Lessard

Retired teachers Hank (North Lambton Secondary School, Forest) and Diane (Our Lady Immaculate, Strathroy) VanderVelden, both 58 years old, set sail from Port Franks Thursday, embarking on a journey they started almost 20 years ago. With an interest in sailing that started in the early 1990s, Hank has spent the last eight years building a 14-metre long by 8-metre wide catamaran they now call home. The boat has three queen-sized bedrooms, two bathrooms (one with a bathtub), a storage area, a full kitchen, and living room with television. Equipped with a machine to convert salt-water into drinking water and solar panels for electricity, the sailboat (with two backup diesel engines) allows the couple to be self-sufficient on the ocean.

This year, their destination is Florida, next year the Caribbean, the following year Europe, and if all goes well, they will sail around the world the year after that.

Hank: I’ve watched the round-the-world rally races for about 20 years, so it’s always been something I’ve been fascinated by. Certainly you get to see a lot of the world, and parts of the world you won’t see through a travel agency. Backwards parts of the world, interesting parts of the world, scary parts of the world; it’s not boring, that’s for sure.
We plan to go to Europe in 2009 with a group called ARC – Atlantic Rally Crossing – where you pay a fee and about 250 boats cross through Bermuda. They supply all the charting, weather forecasting and a doctor on one of the boats. It sounds like a lot of boats, but three or four days out you won’t see anybody anymore. You might see a mast way out in the distance, but you’re in radio contact if you have problems. We’ll go to Holland and the Mediterranean, and come back in September. We’ll see where we go from there. We may get out there and say, “Holy crap, this is not for us. This is too scary.” Maybe we’ll just float back and forth to the Caribbean. There’s no guarantee that we’ll circumnavigate. It’s our dream, but it’s a dream that has to come with a certain amount of reality.
Diane: Hank said he wanted to do this for our retirement, so we started looking around. We got our plans from Roger Simpson Design in Australia.
We sold our house about 10 years ago to stay with my mother who was dying of Alzheimer’s. Then we moved to an apartment and she moved into a nursing home, so we just stayed in the apartment. We just kept getting smaller - from a four-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment to a boat. The boat’s our home.
Hank: We enjoyed sailing all the time, and we thought it would be nice to retire on a boat. The advantage of a catamaran is it doesn’t keel over. You can put a cup down and it doesn’t go sliding off the end of the table; everything stays on the level. And it’s got more room. A cat this size probably has as much room as a 65’ mono-hull. We started looking at boats, and we decided on a catamaran. Then we started looking at catamarans and realized they were too expensive for us (a new boat this size would cost about $800,000), so we had to build one; that’s the only way we could get one.
I first got interested when a good colleague of mine and I sailed on another friend’s sailboat. The three of us guys would sail to the North Channel, to Tobermory. Then Diane decided she wanted to sail, too, so we took the courses together and we chartered together. As we became more confident in our skills, they let us go out on our own. Then we had the boat for two weeks alone in the North Channel, navigating around rocks and all that other stuff.
Would I tell somebody else to go and do it (build and live on a boat)? I’d say, you’d better really think it over because there’s a lot of work involved. As long as you research and understand what it’s going to cost and what it’s going to take. When you’re out on the golf course, you know where I am. When you go away for the long weekend, you know where I am. It’s a dream, but there’s a cost. It’s hard, dirty work. If you want it, you have to pay for it one way or another.
Diane: For the last month we’ve lived on the boat, and it’s been an uphill climb. There have been a number of setbacks – you get one thing fixed and something else comes up.
Hank: Both of us have mixed feelings because you’re leaving behind friends and family. If I told you we had no second thoughts, I’d be lying. Of course I’m apprehensive. You’d be crazy not to be. But it’s a trade off: do you want to just sit around at Tim Horton’s every day talking to your friends or do you want to go out and do something? You decide.
I can see it going ten years. That’s what we’re thinking right now. You don’t know until you go out and do it. We know what it’s like to live on it for two or three weeks, but we don’t know how it’s going to be over several years.
Diane: I’ve survived 38 years with Hank; I think we can survive a few more.

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