Let me preface this week's column by sharing with you something that I posted on my social media page this past Saturday night after I returned home from Elbow.
"I just got back from the village of Elbow, turned once again into a Christmas village with so many houses lit up, goodies being given out at the golf club, and fireworks lighting up the brisk Saskatchewan sky. I was leaving the golf club after an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G prime rib buffet supper when a gentleman approached my SUV window. I rolled the window down, and he identified himself as Rod Vollmer from the Loreburn area. He then proceeded to blow my mind by telling me how much of a fan he was of my writing, in particular my weekly column.
If it wasn't dark outside, I'm sure my red cheeks would have given away my blushing. I'm not used to such a high level of compliments. I shook his hand, I thanked him, and I wished him a Merry Christmas. He gave me a hearty thumbs up as his car rolled out of the lot.
I've been doing what I do for a long time; by the end of this March, it'll be 15 years. There are good weeks and bad ones, busy weeks and slower ones. But whenever I have that kind of experience with a reader, well, it tells me that I must be doing *something* right. It lets me know that I need to keep going. If you read my stuff, just know that I very much appreciate it, now more than ever.
This year hasn't been a good one for my family and I on a personal level, but on a professional one, I guess I still got something left in the tank."
I wanted to share this with you, Dear Reader, because it was an interaction that meant a lot to me. The events of this past year, and by 'events' I think you already know that I'm talking about my mom passing away, rocked me to my absolute core and I wasn't sure if I was ever going to find a way out of that hole. I wasn't confident in my writing, and everything just felt off-kilter for the longest time. It was like the universe, or my universe specifically, was just a little bit off its axis.
Luckily, time went on, and I found the strength that I needed to pull myself out of that hole and keep going. Yes, of course my heart is still shattered to pieces about Mom, and I know it always will be, but things just had to find a way to keep going. See, that's the thing about life. It doesn't stop, it doesn't slow down, and it doesn't speed up; it just keeps moving steady and trudging along at the same pace. You just have to hop onboard.
Speaking of time moving, it blows me away that we're already saying goodbye to another year at the end of this month. My coworkers and I were just talking about that here in the office this afternoon. Seriously, the days and weeks fly off the calendar so quickly that I find myself asking, 'Wasn't yesterday.....July?'
With the closure of another year, it'd be one thing if I decided to recap a few interesting stories from the past twelve months, but I'll go a step further: journey with me as I recap a few interesting stories told over my past (almost) 15 years here at the paper. What a long, interesting, eye-opening, life-altering experience it's been...
I remember one of my first big assignments was covering the provincial election we had back in November of 2007. If you remember, this was the year that the Saskatchewan Party was making its debut in the political arena, and leader Brad Wall and company wanted to make a big splash. Well, splash they did, as the green-and-yellow party won in a big way that night. I found myself over in Rosetown at the campaign rally headquarters of Jim Reiter, who represented Outlook and area at the time. He was high-fiving and hand-shaking all night, especially after it was announced that he'd won, and soon he approached me, cold beer in one hand.
"Derek, I'd love to talk some shop with you, so let's find somewhere quiet and we'll get down to business, huh?"
And talk shop we did. In the basement of the Legion Hall, I interviewed Jim and got his thoughts on his new position and his new party's future prospects in the province. Looking back on it now, I'm glad that I can look back on that historic Election Night in Saskatchewan and say, 'I was there'. Fourteen years later, Jim is a decorated Minister within the government hierarchy, and although he doesn't serve Outlook and the area that sits east of the South Saskatchewan River, he's still my elected official on the west side.
Now let me go on the record with the following statement - stories about hockey always go over huge in Saskatchewan. What can I say? It's a sport sewn into the very fabric of our being and it always will be. Two articles that I vividly remember writing were about players who were facing incredible odds at the time.
One of them was about Dean Blenkinsop, a Hawarden native who was a longtime player and coach with the Kenaston Blizzard team. On a Saturday night in October of 2017, the team honoured Dean for his contributions to the team and to the sport with a jersey-raising ceremony before a game between the hosting Kenaston team and Loreburn. Suffering from colon cancer on and off again for the previous nine years, it was obvious from his physical state that the disease was winning the battle, but Dean was in great spirits as I talked to him and took photos of the evening ceremony. He would pass away just over a month later, but this was a night where small town Saskatchewan paid tribute to someone who they respected in a setting that everyone was all too familiar with - the local hockey rink. There were tears, there were cheers, and it all made for an incredible story that connected with many readers.
Another eyebrow-raising story was about McKenzie Neufeld, a local Outlook teen who in February 2018 spoke to me about the serious injuries he sustained in a game that took place the previous spring. He was checked hard from behind by another player and sent sailing into the boards, where he collided head-first. The aftermath saw Neufeld's C1 vertabrae being fractured in three places, with a ligament where the C1 and C2 vertebrae connect being pulled away to one side. This young man could've been paralyzed and living in a wheelchair, but instead what McKenzie had was a surgery that saw his neck fused with four screws and two rods. At the time, it was said that the procedure would leave him with limited head movement for the rest of his life. I talked to McKenzie just after he got done playing hockey in the Outlook rink, and I could tell he was ecstatic getting back out there. Sometimes the human spirit is just too much for medical science.
There are countless others: Christmas celebrations, small town graduation events (especially those during COVID!), and interviewing the winners of the Outlook Citizen of the Year Award (whatever happened to that...?). I've enjoyed all of it, and I'm honoured that so, so, so many people have allowed me to tell their stories.
Let's see what the future holds.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
