Notice to handyDART Members From Paul MacDonald

It is with great pleasure that I report to you that I can tell you to read something motivational that originated in our own Union Office. LR wrote a letter for the membership for the last General Meeting (no I was unable to attend but maybe you did?). Here is the link to that letter.

The bottom line for our Union is that we must find a way to make activists out of our members. We at HandyDART have always been looking at a half empty glass comparing ourselves to our brothers and sisters at VTC and LTC. There is another larger canvas we are on and on that canvas our glass is more than half full and once you put your corrective lenses on you will see our glass is overflowing.

Read LR's letter and you will see why I feel this way and believe that this is the moment to seize on the goodwill so many people feel in the wake of the Obama victory. As you know I lived in the US for years and I followed this election intently, always worrying that the grassroots movement was going to be outmaneuvered and cheated for the Presidency once again but this time really was different. Yes we can make a difference and yes we will make that difference - globally. It will not be easy but we need to be a
determined high profile component of society that gives freely of ourselves and involve our families too. At first it will just be a few of us but leading by example others will follow.

I discovered this week that one of our passengers that we have transported for years is a woman of great experiences and conviction. Mary Gordon on Garnett told me in conversation that she and her (deceased) husband had walked, talked, ate and spent time with Jessie Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. on several occasions in the late 1950's and early 1960's. She had me spellbound as she told me the stories behind the struggles of the Blacks in the South. She KNOWS firsthand what the tears on the Rev. Jessie Jackson's face were about in Chicago on 4 November 2008. She is a white woman who was raised by a black family in the 1920's, 30's and 40's and I have barely began to hear her stories. This is one of the things that makes our job so rewarding.

I also had the pleasure of listening to the father of one of my Cadets who has just returned from Afghanistan. He is a civilian writer and he was there for almost a month and he told me what I already knew. He said that our media here are disgraceful and that the people of Afghanistan get it and they want us there. They appreciate what we as Canadians do and they are very happy that Barrack Obama has pledged to send 3 Brigades of Marines to their country so that they can start to rebuild their country for their
children. It makes one see the BS is flowing in all directions from our media.

Talk to you soon - after you have read LR's letter.

 
Paul MacDonald
Cell  -   (250) 888-8754
E-mail - handydart@shaw.ca