Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul Read online

  Epicurus

  The True Story of Lake Ontario

  Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

  Winston S. Churchill

  There were no stars at eleven o’clock that September night, and no moon. It was overcast and windy, and very, very black. Taking a deep breath, I dove in and so began the night that would change my life forever. When I surfaced and looked around, I couldn’t see where the lake ended and the sky began. I couldn’t see anything, so I just started swimming.

  When I had said good-bye to my coach, Gus, earlier, I was very worried about finding him in the escort boat. I was nervous about getting lost in the dark and not nearly as brave as I’ve been portrayed. Gus just looked me in the eye and said, “When you dive in the water, keep your eyes open, and swim north, and I will find you.”

  I believed him. Gus Ryder had been my coach and mentor ever since I joined Toronto’s Lakeshore Swimming Club. Although I’d been swimming since I was nine—and always put my heart into it—I was never very fast and never very good. But I was so determined.

  In 1948, when Barbara Ann Scott won the World and Olympic figure-skating championships, she captivated me. She became my role model, and I wanted to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal swimming for Canada. When Toronto gave her a ticker-tape parade, I went by myself and stood on the corner of Bay and Queen. As she drove past sitting on the back of the convertible, I thought she was so wonderful—the perfect Canadian girl—and everything I wanted to be. After seeing her, I became even more determined.

  When I was eleven, Gus had watched me finish a one-mile race in freezing cold Lake Ontario. He introduced himself, saying, “Marilyn, you have so much determination and so much heart, if you work at it you’ll be a fine swimmer.” I started swimming for Gus, and was soon totally involved with the club. We trained for hours in open water, and every time I got into the lake, I had to deal with my fears. I was petrified of fish, of weeds, of whatever might be in there. I did it anyway, but no matter how hard I worked, I still came in third or fourth.

  By 1952 it was clear I was never going to the Olympics, so I turned professional. I looked forward each year to the competition hosted by the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), and I just knew I was ready to win. Then, in the winter of 1954, the CNE announced they had challenged the American long-distance swimmer Florence Chadwick to swim the thirty-two miles across Lake Ontario from Youngstown, New York, to Toronto. They also announced that the annual professional swims for Canadians would be cancelled. I was sixteen that year and bitterly disappointed.

  In July of 1954, I swam the Atlantic City Marathon. There, I met a young lifeguard named Joe Di Lascio. Having never been in the ocean before, I was petrified. I said to Joe, “Excuse me, are there fish in here?” Like everybody else, Joe never expected me to win. But when the twenty-six-mile race was over, I had won the women’s championship—and Joe had won my heart.

  Back in Toronto, there was a lot of controversy around the CNE challenging an American. That’s when Gus suggested I challenge Florence in a race across the lake. The idea had never occurred to me, but it had to Gus, and after Atlantic City, he had made up his mind.

  The Toronto Star agreed to back me, in return for an exclusive. I really had no confidence about completing that swim, and the idea of swimming at night terrified me. But I wasn’t sure Florence could make it either. I figured if I could swim one stroke further than her, it would be worth it. I would do it for Gus, and for me, but I would also do it for Canada.

  We were to start Monday, September 6, from the Coast Guard station in Youngstown. The forecast was bad, so Florence postponed, and we all went into “waiting mode.” My team, along with the many Star reporters, waited at the Youngstown Yacht Club on the Mona 4, the yacht that would accompany me on my swim. The officials agreed to give us a two-hour notice of when Florence planned to start, allowing us plenty of time to get to the starting point. But, when word came at ten o’clock Wednesday night, there was a mad scramble. They had left us only one hour! There wasn’t enough time for me to go to the starting point with Gus in the escort boat. He had to leave immediately, knowing he wouldn’t get there in time to be beside me when I started. I would have to start alone. But when he left he said, “I will find you,” and I believed him.

  Howie, one of the Star reporters, took me by car to the starting point. A few minutes after Florence started, he said, “Okay, Marilyn. Now it’s your turn.” Shortly after that, Winnie Roach, the other Canadian swimmer, began.

  It was so dark; the only things I could see were the lights from the boats around Florence. So I did what Gus told me—swam straight out of the Niagara River and just kept going. After what seemed an eternity, I finally heard Gus’s voice—they had found me! With him were George, another Star reporter and Jack, the boatman. Gus had a big flashlight, and he shone it just ahead of my stroke, saying, “Marilyn, just swim to the light and I will get you across this lake.” For the rest of the night, each time I extended my arm for the next stroke, my hand was reaching into that beam of light.

  Florence swam for about four or five hours before she quit. But it wasn’t until several hours later, when I was having difficulty, that Gus told me that Florence—and Winnie—were out. I was the only one left, and it was up to me to swim for Canada!

  It was a long night. I had to deal with horrible lamprey eels, and my fear of the lake and of the dark. Gus kept me going any way he could. But when I realized the dawn was coming, and the night was almost over, everything changed. It was the most glorious sunrise I’ve ever seen, and one of the most wonderful moments in my life. I thought to myself, Perhaps I’ll be able to do this after all.

  Now Gus began writing messages on a chalkboard to distract me and keep my thoughts positive. Once he wrote, “You know you can do it, you can do it for the team!” Another time he wrote, “All the Atlantic City lifeguards are pulling for you.” This referred to Joe, of course. He even wrote, “If you give up, I give up.”

  Sometime in the morning, a flotilla of boats began to surround me. Interest in my swim had spread like wildfire all across Canada. When Gus held up the message, “All of Canada is rooting for you,” I wondered, How did all of Canada know I was in the water? But they did!

  At the CNE grounds in Toronto, people had started to arrive by the thousands to watch me come in. I knew nothing about that, however. I was just in the lake, in this little cocoon, moving along.

  By midday I started falling asleep and veering away from the boat, so Gus brought out my close friend Joan in a water taxi and said, “Joan, you’ve got to go and swim with her and get her attention back.”

  I heard a splash and suddenly Joan was right in my face saying, “I’m here to swim with you Marilyn. Come on!” She swam with me for a while, and I perked right up.

  By now the boats that surrounded me were cutting in front of me, jockeying for space. The exhaust, oil and gas began to cause problems. My team fought quite a battle to protect my space. Eventually they were successful, because all the jockeying stopped.

  Somewhere on the lake, later in the day, I began to experience a very unusual, hard-to-describe spirit of unity and togetherness. For a short while, competing media or not, it felt like there were no divisions and everybody had only one goal, and that was to get me to Toronto. I learned later that my family and friends were all praying for me, and that the whole time I was swimming there was always a nun in my school chapel praying for my safety.

  At 8:00 P.M., after twenty-one hours in the water, I began approaching the shore. I was suffering from sleep deprivation and not really “present,” but my arms were still going. I later saw a film of the moment when I touched the break wall and an enormous roar went up from the crowd. But I don’t remember that. I remember a lot of confusion, and finally, Gus’s voice breaking through the haze. As they pulled me into the boat I said: “What happened? Did I do it?
” And that’s when I heard Gus say, “Oh Marilyn! You did it, you did it, you finished!” At that point I came out of the zone I’d been in and realized I had actually done it. I was amazed because I hadn’t really thought I could. I hadn’t really thought anybody could!

  I was stunned when I learned the CNE decided to award me the $10,000 prize money. That night, among the many congratulatory telegrams I received was one that thrilled me to pieces—from Barbara Ann Scott!

  The next night I was presented with the prize on the CNE Grandstand stage with the show headliners—Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who had stopped their show the day before to pray for my safety in the lake. On Monday, Toronto hosted a ticker tape parade for me up Bay Street to city hall. It rained, but the people came out anyway. There were mounted police, marching bands and thousands of people crowding the streets—screaming and yelling and waving at me, while the ticker tape streamed down from every window. Gus and I rode in a big Cadillac convertible, and sat up on the back, just the way Barbara Ann Scott had. When we stopped at the corner of Bay and Queen, the same corner where I had watched Barbara Ann Scott’s parade, I had a flashback. I saw myself standing there five years before—just a kid—with my dream of swimming for Canada.

  For many years after my swim, when I returned to Canada, people would come up to me and say, “The day you swam that lake, I was with you.” I hear magnificent stories all the time when I’m home, from people who say things like, “My mother didn’t cook dinner that night. We had baked beans on toast by the radio, because my mother wouldn’t leave it. And we prayed for you.”

  All these years later, I am still so deeply touched, and I really think that all those stories are the true story of Lake Ontario.

  Marilyn Bell Di Lascio

  Women Are Persons!

  I feel myself equal to high and splendid braveries!

  Emily Murphy

  Judge Emily Murphy was frustrated. Her last petition had been no more successful than all the others she had sent over the past ten years. It was 1927, and Canadian women were still defined by British common law, which astonishingly stated: “Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but not in matters of rights and privileges.”

  Emily was not at all happy about the outrageous indignity of being told she was “not a person.” She had set her sights on becoming Canada’s first female senator, but because women were not “persons,” no woman was eligible! Emily was determined to change things.

  And so it was that between 1921 and 1927, over 500,000 people, men and women, had signed letters and petitions requesting that Judge Murphy be appointed to the Canadian Senate. For most of them, it wasn’t about becoming a senator. Like her, they were upset and offended that women were not considered to be persons. Amazingly, despite all her efforts, two prime ministers had still said “no!” But Emily refused to take “no” for an answer and kept up her relentless pressure. Then one day, after ten years of lobbying, she happened upon a new strategy.

  Her brother had discovered a legal clause stating that any five citizens acting as a unit could appeal to the Supreme Court to clarify a point in the constitution. So in late 1927, she invited Henrietta Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby and Nellie McClung to her Edmonton home. All four of these prominent Alberta women had been active in fighting for women’s rights, and all of them were determined that by the end of their efforts, Canada would recognize them and all women as “persons.”

  That day, the five women signed Emily’s petition, and with great hopes and expectations they sent their appeal. Then they sat back and waited. Several months later, Judge Murphy excitedly opened the telegram that arrived from the Supreme Court of Canada.

  But her hopes were dashed. “No,” read the reply from the learned justices, “Women are not eligible to be summoned to the Senate. Women are not ‘persons.’”

  Emily and her colleagues were devastated. First two prime ministers, and now the highest court in Canada had formally ruled against them, and they feared they had done irreparable damage to their cause. However, further research revealed one more option. The absolute final court for Canada in those days was still the Privy Council of Great Britain—it could be appealed there. But they were not hopeful. They would have to persuade the Canadian government to appeal the decision, and the rights of women in England were far behind those so far gained in Canada.

  Holding her breath, Emily wrote to Prime Minister Mackenzie King, asked for his support, and urged him to appeal this matter to the Privy Council. To her great elation, he responded with his full support, and that of his government, and in addition they would pay for the cost of the appeal!

  With their hopes back up, the five women wondered, Should they go to England? Should they write articles for the newspapers? Contact their friends there? No, they were advised, only the merit of the case would be heard. Just wait.

  Finally, in October 1929, the five British Lords made their historic decision. When Emily and her friends learned that the new definition of the word “persons” would from that day forward always include both men and women, they were overjoyed! They had won!

  As the word spread, women around the world celebrated. The five friends were gratified to know that because of their efforts, every woman in the British empire would now be recognized as a “person,” with all the same rights and privileges as men.

  [EDITORS’ NOTE: On October 18, 2000, a memorial celebrating the Famous 5 and their tremendous accomplishments was unveiled, and our five heroes became the first Canadian women in history to be honoured on Parliament Hill. The monument depicts an imaginary moment when the women received the news of their victory. A joyous Emily stands beside an empty chair and beckons visitors to join the celebration. Today, many come and visit so they can sit in Emily’s chair and thank the Famous 5 for what they did. And everyone who does makes a pledge to do their best to participate in the building of a better Canada!]

  Frances Wright

  Calgary, Alberta

  The Legacy of Terry Fox

  I just wish people would realize that anything is possible if you try . . . dreams are made if people try.

  Terry Fox

  I was a young reporter, not long at The Toronto Star, when my editor asked me to find a young man named Terry Fox—he was somewhere in Newfoundland. She told me Terry had lost a leg to cancer and was trying to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. “See if he’s for real,” she said. By mid-afternoon, I was speaking to Terry Fox.

  His voice was young, hopeful and happy as he told me about his Marathon of Hope. His dream was to run 5,300 miles across Canada and raise $1 million to fight the disease that had claimed his leg. It was April 1980, and Newfoundland weather was harsh and unpredictable. He told me about being buffeted by high winds, about running in snow and freezing rain. His good leg was strong and muscular, and his artificial leg was made of fibreglass and steel. The run was painfully difficult, but he was cheery and confident, and at the end of our interview, I was certain he was unstoppable. He also made sure I understood one more thing: He didn’t think of himself as disabled.

  After that, we spoke every week, and I learned he was from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. He was the second of four children, and his parents were Betty and Rolly. His family was close-knit, hardworking and competitive. They all loved to win.

  Terry wanted to play basketball when he was in grade eight, and despite his small size, his physical education teacher, Bob, noticed the “little guy who worked his rear off.” After three practices, Bob suggested Terry might be better suited to another sport, but Terry persisted, and finally made the team. When Bob said, “If you want something you have to work for it, because I’m not interested in mediocrity,” Terry heard him.

  So Terry worked hard, and by grade ten, he and his friend Doug shared the athlete of the year award, winning it again in their last year of high school. His first year at Simon Fraser University, he made the junior varsity basketball team—there were more talen
ted players than he, but none with a greater desire to win.

  Terry was studying kinesiology and thinking of being a physical education teacher himself, when a pain in his knee he assumed was a sports injury sent him to the doctor. But it wasn’t a sports injury. To his great shock, Terry learned he was suffering from osteogenic sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. It was March 1977, and he was eighteen years old.

  He hardly understood what the doctors told him. What was a malignant tumour? They explained they would amputate his leg and follow up with chemotherapy to catch any stray cancer cells circulating in his blood. The night before his operation, his basketball coach brought him a story about a one-legged runner who competed in the Boston Marathon. Already Terry began to wonder, Could he do something like that, maybe even run across Canada, with one leg?

  Terry faced the loss of a leg as another challenge. “No one is ever going to call me a quitter,” he said. He learned to wear his artificial leg, played golf with his dad and began a gruelling sixteen-month course of chemotherapy. He lost his hair, and was weak from nausea. In the cancer clinic, he heard young people crying out in pain, and he heard doctors telling patients they had a 15 percent chance of surviving.

  When Terry left the clinic, he was more than a survivor; he had a new sense of compassion and responsibility. His hair grew back thick and curly. He’d been blessed with life, the greatest gift of all, and he was determined to live as an inspiration so that others might find courage from his example. While still undergoing chemotherapy, Rick Hansen recruited him to join a wheelchair basketball team. And then secretly, quietly, in 1979, he began training for his great dream—running across Canada.

  He started with a quarter-mile run around a cinder track. It nearly killed him, but soon he was doing a half-mile, and then amazingly, a week later, he ran a full mile. He was drained but ecstatic. Terry ran and ran and ran. Sometimes the stump on his leg bled, and his mother, rarely at a loss for words, would bite her lip and turn away in tears. Betty and Rolly weren’t happy with his plan to run across Canada, but they knew all too well his strong and stubborn will. In a letter he wrote when he began seeking sponsorship, he said he felt privileged to be alive. He said: “I remember promising myself that should I live, I would rise up to meet this new challenge face-to-face, and prove myself worthy of life. That’s something too many people take for granted.”