A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
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It's not what you know
I remember when what seemed the hand of fate reached down and touched me, one day back in 1995. My wife Jayne and I - along with my sister and two cousins - were about to depart for Britain aboard a Virgin Airlines flight. As we made our way onto the Boeing 747 jumbo at the Miami airport, instead of directing us into the economy section of the aircraft, the flight attendants guided us into business class. My cousin, a seasoned traveller and travel agent, explained:
“We've been upgraded,” she said with the wink of her eye. “So, sit back and enjoy the Buck's Fizz.”
“Buck's Fizz?” I asked, still pinching myself that we'd been given business class seats for a trans-Atlantic flight to Britain aboard Richard Branson's fancy schmanzy airline. I soon learned that Buck's Fizz was a combination of champagne and orange juice. Just a little perk for business class passengers as they prepared for take-off.
In other words, I had discovered yet again that it's not what you know, but whom you know.
I thought about that incident, with a bit of embarrassment, as I read about the professional hockey players, who appeared to jump the queue, this week, in order to get the H1N1 influenza vaccine. The National Post reported last Tuesday that the Alberta government had begun to investigate allegations that members of the Calgary Flames hockey club, their families and the coaching staff had arranged private vaccinations. This, in spite of the contention that the swine flu vaccine appeared to be in short supply and that the province's designated priority groups - pregnant women, children under five and those with existing health problems - were patiently awaiting their turns for the shots.
I've always bristled at people who feel they shouldn't have to wait their turn. You see it often enough at live theatre events, at taxi stands and in restaurants waiting areas. It's in these and other such situations that one can always spot at least one person attempting to talk his way into getting preferential treatment. Maybe it's become a kind of challenge for those who feel they shouldn't have to wait, to try to short circuit the system in order to get ahead.
Mind you, there have been occasions in my own family's existence when knowing the right person at the right time made all the difference in the world. I remember my father describing he day he got his Canadian citizenship back about 1964. Like every other landed immigrant, in my father's case coming from the United States in the years after the war, prospective Canadian citizens in those days had to memorize dates and personalities in Canadian history, write a short test and finally go before a judge for final verbal assessment.
“All went well,” my father recounted, “and I went before the judge ready to answer any and all questions.” The judge, Dad said, had very little to say, except for the occasional “Hmmmm.” Then, apparently spotting my father's employer - the Toronto Globe and Mail, leaned over his courtroom desk and asked, “Do you know Scott Young?”
Of course, my father, while he had little to do with the award-winning sports writer, took the opportunity to affirm whatever the judge was asking. “Yes, yes, of course I know Scott.”
Where upon the judge stamped my father's papers and officially congratulated him on his new Canadian citizenship. Dad always said that he'd wished he had gone back into that room full of expectant immigrants at the court house. “I just wanted to tell them, all they had to do was tell the judge they knew Scott Young and they'd automatically get in.”
Then, just last week, as I raced to catch a plane home from Halifax to Toronto, I realized that I had arrived at the ticket agent's desk later than the airline's prescribed deadline. Occasionally in those circumstances, I have suggested that my media standing kind of required that I be allowed to get on the plane and that if I wasn't allowed I might bring the wrath of my broadcasting corporation down on their heads.
But this time it wasn't Virgin Airlines. Instead, I stood there knowing that the man was going to lambaste me for arriving after the gate had closed. And instead of rising to challenge his authority, I just stood there and took his school-marm-like scolding and admonishment. I even apologized repeatedly. In this case, I realized that discretion was the better part of valour and that whom I knew - at a time like this - didn't amount to a hill of beans.
