Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
Home town celebrities
Sorry for the abbreviated version of the 'Stew' this week but I am writing from
Uniworld's cruise ship the 'Odyssey', a trip which started in Vienna and has made its way down the Danube River, ending up in Bucharest next week.
A small ship with only 90 passengers, most from across Canada, but four from Australia and, as usual, with these cruise organizers, an off the track itinerary which
is organized by Sanjay Goel of Cruise Connections in Vancouver.
We enjoyed three days in Vienna, the highlight being a private concert organized just for our group, and we have strolled through small villages along the Danube, being greeted by residents who are anxious to show off thier small communities to these 'strange' looking people from across the ocean.
A large number of passengers are from the medical field as part of CME (Continued Medical Education) and they have seminars every morning before we take off on the shore excursions.
There are six of us on board who are not part of CME and we are fondly known as the 'foreigners'. We are welcome to sit in on their seminars which I have done on occasion when they dealt with sugjects that I found interesting.
As usual a large number of passengers, when they discover I am from Uxbridge, mention they know a lot about Uxbridge and, in particular, a lot about Lucy Maud Montgomery and Glenn Gould. This allows me to brag about my hometown without being a bore, as they were the ones to raise the subject.
And, on this trip unlike others, there is a lot of political talk as the election in Ontario takes place on Thursday. This encourages some heated discussion between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives who all have one thing in common... they do not want
another NDP government. 'Rae Days', although well back in our history, are still remembered like they happened yesterday, and none wanted them to return.
In Budapest we were exposed to what it was like to live through the German occupation of the 2nd World War, followed by the Communist years and then the amazing Freedom Fighter years, with many people being killed, but which turned this beautiful city into a free zone once again.
This morning - October 4 - we are in for a very interesting shore excursion. We will be visiting Vukovar in Croatia - scene of the terrible ethnic cleansing tragedies of a few years ago. We will be sitting in with a school classroom in session. Some passengers have given Sanjay and his staff money to purchase school supplies to be distributed amongst the students.
We will then be broken up into groups of six to have lunch in private homes with
Croatian families. We are all looking forward to this experience as I can imagine there will be some interesting stories of what it was like to live through that horrible experience. Must run as the 'going ashore' warning has been issued.
Hope this reaches across the big pond to the Cosmos safely and you enjoy this short travelogue of this amazing trip. And it will be made even more enjoyable knowing that everyone reading this intends to get out and vote on Thursday. It is ironic that such a low number of people bother to mark an 'X' on the ballot while I am visiting parts of the world where hundreds of thousands lost their lives fighting for that right.
In my opinion anyone who does not bother to vote on Thursdsay, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
