Feb 15/24 CTV news talking today about the increasing incidents of breast cancer in younger females, and the fact that mammograms are now being offered in various provinces to women as young as forty who are at risk. Once again the importance of trying to find cancer early. I have a sister who won’t have mammograms, even though I have breast cancer. That is her choice. But for me, if I hadn’t had a mammogram, my cancer, at this point eight months after it was diagnosed, would likely have grown from a Stage 1 to a Stage 3 (cancer cells double every six months), and would be in my lymph glands and possibly elsewhere. So I stand solidly on the side of testing, with mammograms being the gold standard for finding cancer early. My cancer was found because my new GP hounded me, saying that he couldn’t take me on as a patient until I had a colonoscopy, which I reluctantly did, and a mammogram. Only the mammogram came back positive. Believe me, if you get cancer you can take solace in the fact that it is caught early, you don’t want to be diagnosed too late and then wish you had done the testing.

Feb 9/25. I had a friend who was dying from breast cancer a number of years ago. I ran into her husband who encouraged me to go to see her as the end was near. I immediately drove to the hospital to pay her a visit and once in her room, I saw a very slender old lady in the bed. I went out to the nurses station and told them that they had given me the wrong room number. They escorted me back in and assured me that this elderly looking lady was my friend, who would have been around 50 years old at the time. When she opened her eyes she recognized me right away, and as she spoke she was moving her arms, swatting at something in front of her. “I’m sorry Sharon”, she said, “but the spirits keep getting in the way, so it’s hard to see you..” It was shocking but interesting that she saw spirits around her. I asked her what I could do for her, was there anything she needed? She told me that she would love to have some ice-cream. As it was nearing the end of the day, and visitation was almost over, I told her that I would come back tomorrow. As promised, the next morning I came into her room with a tub of ice cream. She wasn’t in her bed but I heard her speaking behind a curtain. I could see that she was with a caregiver, who was apparently an ‘end of life’ nurse. The woman shooed me away and I left the ice cream on her bedside table. From what I was hearing, my friend was very upset, she was saying that she didn’t want to leave her grandchildren..it was heartbreaking. And she was one of the kindest, sweetest people I’ve known in my life…I’m wondering why we need to have the ‘end of life’ discussion when our time comes? My father had it when he was dying of Parkinson’s. I remember the end of life nurse relaying to us that she was advising him to ‘just let go’, and that he was fighting it, saying he, ‘wasn’t ready yet’. I don’t see how this helps the dying, unless they ask for a way out. Is it to move things along, so that the hospital bed is available to the next patient? I want to know why my friend couldn’t just have her ice cream and speak with me, if she wanted to? But then again, eating does prolong life and maybe at that point, the goal is not to prolong life. So you tell me, readers, is there a good reason for this ‘end of life’ discussion?

Feb 6/25 Saw my surgeon today, six month checkup. I was worried that the appointment might be delayed or cancelled. Do these medical professionals have any idea how important they have become to cancer patients like me? How dependent we are on them? It’s a very vulnerable feeling. I told him about the lump in my breast, that I first felt on Christmas Eve and that, since I already had an appointment scheduled with my radiation oncologist the following week, I decided to let him deal with it and leave my surgeon alone. Was it me or did he seem offended? “I didn’t want to bother you”, I said. “You could have”, he replied, adding, “can you at least send me a copy for my records?” “Of course, I’m sorry”, I told him. Everything takes on new meaning with cancer. I walk around gingerly, afraid of losing a member of my cancer team, not wanting the status quo to change, not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. It’s very strange. What if one of them changes hospitals, I fret? Or gets annoyed with me, which could happen quite easily (you’ll understand if you know me, let’s just say I ask a lot of questions). I have read about cancer patients who are upset when their appointments become less frequent and they see their cancer docs less, they feel abandoned. I don’t feel that. I just feel too fragile to lose anyone on my team. Happy to live in Canada and have this care, happy so far with my decision to go with North York General, and also its partner for radiation, Odette, Sunnybrook. Glad there’s a team. Several of my doctors have told me that if I need them, not to hesitate to get it touch. One doctor even saying, “just keep bugging my assistant until I get back to you’.  “I can be a real pest’, I warned. “But you’re a nice pest, right?” “The nicest”, I promised. “Then I don’t mind at all”, he said, “but don’t be mean to my assistant Abigail”. I promised that I wouldn’t be mean to Abigail (I assume some people are). He made me feel better just knowing that he’ll be there. Did he sense this need in me, I wonder? Or has he learned from his patients over the years that it is just cancer, the nature of the beast, that makes me feel like a dependent child again, with the doctors as my parents, teachers, babysitters. I read a story about a little boy who was diagnosed with cancer at 4 years old. Three years later, and in remission, when his mother told him that he was going back to see his cancer doctor, the boy was excited, and said, “I’m glad because I love him”. I think cancer patients of all ages can relate, and in that way cancer brings out the child in all of us. We are dependent on our cancer team, just like children are dependent on their parents. If you have cancer, I hope that you have a supportive team..it can make such a difference..if not, you have to advocate for yourself, get pushy, that’s what I do…and good luck!

Wed. Jan 29/25  On these pages I’ve talked about my easy run with breast cancer, I spoke about my personal experience. Today I got the news that a friend is in the hospital in bad shape months after surgery for colorectal cancer, and while awaiting a new liver to replace his cancerous one, which can only happen once he has recovered enough for the second surgery. He is thirty nine years old, with a wife and two year old twin daughters. The news is like a stab to my heart. I sit around preaching that cancer isn’t so bad, considering my current experience with it, but this has taken my breath away. I realize what so many others have to endure with such a diagnosis. I can’t speak about cancer as being an easy run anymore, I just can’t – a disease that hits someone so young with so much to live for…  I hadn’t had much experience with cancer until my diagnosis, I hadn’t witnessed it, personally, the devastation it can wreak on a family.  But with this hitting so close to home, I can see it so clearly now. I will never speak in glowing terms about cancer again…

Jan 26/25  It drives people nuts when I say that getting cancer has been a blessing. And I don’t blame them. Some have watched loved ones suffer terribly and die from the disease, others have cancer themselves and have had a hard road. But I’m obviously only speaking about my own experience to date. Who knows what will happen in my future? I might be in terrible pain, hovering over the edge of a cliff threatening to end it all any day now. But so far all is good! What I mean when I say that cancer has been a blessing for me is in how it has changed my life for the better. Others try to figure out why? “I think it’s because you know you don’t have much time left, so you want to get moving”, one friend mused. “I don’t think so”, I responded, “It doesn’t feel that way”. It felt more like a relief when I was diagnosed with cancer. Maybe because I didn’t have to worry about getting sick anymore, because I already was sick. It now being out of my control, I find it surprisingly easy to let go of the reins. Maybe because I don’t have to fear life anymore, I also don’t fear death, a light at the end of the tunnel. There is an eventual end for all of us and we are all fearful that it might end sooner rather than later. With my diagnosis, I felt humble, mortal, part of the clan, just another human being. I didn’t care about the rat race anymore. I feel fearless. Yes, that’s the word I would use to describe it – fearless. I fired a story off to Modern Love at The New York Times, a story I would never have been brave enough to share before my diagnosis. And I told my son that I wasn’t making the usual Christmas trip to Los Angeles this year because, ‘I just don’t feel like travelling during the Christmas rush’. He was as shocked as I was. Me – always there when my adult children wanted me, putting myself last. Even more amazing, I felt no guilt staying home.

Jan 6/25 I just dumped two friends. The first because she said that I was jealous of Melania Trump. Huh? Even though I have a breast half sliced off from cancer, male pattern baldness and I’m not even male (I hide it with hair extensions), and a broken nose from a fall during a hike in the Cape Breton Highlands in 2018, let me announce for the record, I am not jealous of Melania Trump, and for all of the money in the world, I wouldn’t trade places with her. Would you? The other friend decided to put down every single thing about me. “You just want to be famous”, she accused. Huh? I’ve been a writer for years and a TV news anchor before that, in the public eye since I had a radio gig at the age of 16. It appears to her that nothing I do is right. When I wrote to her merely to say, ‘hey did you watch the Golden Globes last night?”, she replied with wrath, “It was on??? And you didn’t tell me?!!” I’d had enough. I have a history of allowing abusers to be around me, now I want only supportive, positive people – cancer has given me the clarity to identify what I need and what I don’t need, and the courage to insist on it. 

Jan 5/25  I don’t know where it will all end for me, but until it does, me and my cancer will be enjoying life. How much time do I have left? A year? Ten? Twenty? Who knows? Maybe cancer will kill me, maybe not. Only time will tell. Until then, I will really live while I’m alive. And I highly suggest you do the same. After all, you could be the one diagnosed with cancer tomorrow… 

Jan 4/25 I found a new lump in my breast on Christmas Eve, 2024. It was on my operated right breast and I discovered it while applying daily cream to the breast, as ordered by my radiation team at Sunnybrook. It was a hard nodule the size of a pea, and it was terrifying.  This was the first time that I had ever felt a lump in my breast, I hadn’t even detected the original tumour, nor did the surgeon. I had a sleepless night while visions of mastectomies danced in my head. I had already had a lumpectomy, so if there was another tumour, I knew a mastectomy it would be. I struggled thinking about it. Although I had written in the Post that, in the event of a future mastectomy I would go flat, I was now singing a different tune. I looked up plastic surgeons, who do silicon implants immediately after surgery, and pretty much made up my mind on who to use. There are also surgical oncologists who use tissues from other parts of the body to recreate a breast. North York General Hospital has Dr. Fahima Osman, who specializes in such operations called oncoplastic breast surgeries. I was planning my future in the event this this lump was a recurrence of my breast cancer, diagnosed in June, and I had already opted out on going flat. I wanted to do the reconstruction immediately after surgery, instead of waiting and possibly chickening out from going under the knife again. I also discussed this with several friends. Surprisingly, they all said that if they were me, they would go with the full mastectomy. But they were not me, and they weren’t looking mastectomy in the face, like I was.  I had to wait a couple of days before I was able to get an ultrasound from TruNorth Imaging in Thornhill. They were tremendous at getting the results quickly (thank you Nicole), and even though it was the holidays, I had the results for January 3rd when I had a scheduled appointment with the delightful and brilliant Dr. Hany Saliman at the Odessa Breast Cancer Radiation Clinic (Sunnybrook). The report noted that the nodule was considered benign, less than 2% chance of cancer, while my previous mammogram before surgery had ominously predicted more than 95% likely cancer. Dr. Hany told me that it felt benign as well, but if I hadn’t arrived with an ultrasound result, he would have ordered one. “We can’t be too careful”, he told me, adding, “it’s so important to treat cancer early, it’s the difference between life and death”. He mentioned that I should be prepared to have every single tiny lump in the future tested. “To keep you safe”, he said. 

Jan. 10/25 Overexposure – what’s the deal with the hospital gowns in the breast cancer clinics? My first day at the NYGH clinic, I was a babe in the woods. After being escorted into the examining room, I jumped on the ‘bed’, while I waited for the surgeon and his team to arrive. When they waltzed in, the doc said, “Oh, ‘you’re sitting there, but that’s ok, you would have ended up there anyway.” So maybe I was supposed to take a seat? But we all knew why we were here, so in the interest of saving time, I raised my shirt and sports bra, and announced, “Well, here they are”. I thought I heard a gasp, or two, but the doc didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, here they are”, he said, “you didn’t see any changes, nothing suspicious, right?”.  I nodded. “Neither do I”, he said, adding, “do you mind if I touch?”  “If you dare”, I told him, as he came towards me with his index and middle finger extended. “You didn’t feel anything either, right?”. “Right”, I replied. “But your doctor wrote that he felt something, he must be really good”, he added. “He thinks he is”, I quipped. The next time I came into the clinic, I was immediately escorted into the dressing room, and handed the blue hospital gown, before I could cause any more trouble. I came out with it tied loosely in the front. “Miss Dunn”, it ties in the back”, an attendant scolded me,  “you have to go into the dressing room and turn it around.” Ties in the back? She must be kidding. “Is this an ass clinic?”, I asked her. “No, it’s a breast clinic”, she said. “Then why does it open in the back”, I wanted to know. It made no sense at all. How is the doctor going to get to the breast? Through the sleeve? Case in point. After radiation one day, I was sent to see a resident to ensure that I wasn’t having a reaction from the treatment. I was told to leave the hospital gown on, not to get into my street clothes. Once in the examining room, the young resident came in and made conversation. “Do you want to see my breast?”, I asked, cutting to the chase, knowing full well that was the reason he was in the room. He nodded. I leaned down and pulled up the ‘gown’ from below my knee – high, higher. Oh god, I was wearing a thong and nothing else! Now, at my breast level, and completely naked on the right side of my body, I was as red as a beet. “Close your eyes”, I gasped to the resident. He slammed them shut. “Turn around”, I ordered. He turned around. I tried to maneuver the gown so that only the breast in question was exposed. He turned back to see the one breast poking out, with everything else wrapped up in blue around it, then he hightailed it out of the room. I couldn’t blame him. If I had changed into my street clothes, as I had suggested, I could have just opened my blouse and exposed my breast…but apparently that’s too much like after cocktail hour on a Saturday night in a dingy and dark bar. Or so I’ve heard. My surgeon has solved the problem in his office with short, ‘paper’ blue tops that open in the centre and you can expose the breast needed for inspection, right or left. Although it’s a short style, that resembles Chanel, but only slightly, it is still, appropriately, highly unattractive and thus perfect for the clinical setting. Hopefully, I’ve just saved you the embarrassment I went through while over exposing in unfamiliar territory. 

Feb. 10/25 I have told my sons Luke and Jay that if things go badly and I end up terminal in a hospital or hospice somewhere, I need a limitless supply of beer and banana splits. I stopped drinking beer a number of years ago, and I havn’t had a banana split for ages, but still that’s what came to mind as my greatest need for when I reach my end of days. I wonder if death by beer and banana splits can be considered assisted suicide? 

Jan 6/25 I am just a kid from Canada with breast cancer, and it doesn’t feel bad at all. No pain during the lumpectomy surgery, an easy run with radiation, and the anti hormone pills that are rumoured to cause all kinds of nasty side effects, including reduced libido? Well, let’s just say, so far, they’re not working 🙂 Speaking of which, I got into a relationship recently. Havn’t been in one of those for a very long time. Didn’t want one, had enough of that and everything else that goes along with it. But another side effect of cancer, I wanted love and heady days again. I’ve had two, well, kind of, three marriages. But why have I insisted on being alone all of these years since, I wonder? Cancer made me think, ‘what am I waiting for’? So here is cancer calling the shots and changing my life for the better. And life is better with love and everything else that goes along with it. 🥰 

Ronnie Hawkins

Still Rompin

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Still rompin’
Rocker Ronnie Hawkins talks about his health and future hopes — with laughter, ribald jokes and salty language
[photo]
[Photo: Carlo Allegri, National Post]
The ailing iconic said this week, “I’m spiritual, I’ve always had the Big Rocker on my side, always, when I was down and needed help.”
[STONEY LAKE, ON]Ronnie Hawkins is in great spirits, and he’s looking really good. It can’t be easy being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but you’d never know it from spending time with him.We are at Hawkstone, the beautiful property overlooking Stoney Lake, in the Kawarthas, a two-hour drive from Toronto, where Ronnie and his wife, Wanda, have lived for more than 30 years. Hawkins knows people are interested in his health, and he is happy to provide a medical update — interspersed with jokes, much laughter and salty language. He had quadruple bypass surgery in April, and seemed to be making a good recovery. “I was just getting ready to rock, baby, and then this stuff hit. I was itchy, I started to tingle in places I haven’t felt for a long time, and my urine turned almost black [from leaking bile ducts].” A call to his doctor and tests in July confirmed the worst: He had a cancerous tumour in his pancreas. In August, he underwent his second major surgery in four months. “And they had me up the next.. day after the operations. In the old days they made you lie there, and if you lied there for too long, they tagged your toe.”When I ask him whether he is receiving chemotherapy, radiation or other treatments, he shakes his head and says matter-of-factly, “Nothing. There’s nothing they can do. They went in, and it’s on a main artery, so they can’t operate.” Instead, he’ll treat himself. “I’ll just smoke some dope. I’m going to be signing some papers so that I can get medical marijuana. And I’m gonna blow another 30 pounds and then I’m gonna work out.”He is in no pain, he promises. “I’m taking more drugs than the Rolling Stones, so I ain’t feeling too bad. With these doctors and all the pain stuff [medication], I never felt nothin’.”And he praises his physicians in classic Ronnie language. “We’re living in the promised land. Jesus would have to break a heavy sweat to beat this team.” His future, he says, “depends on how the tumour grows.” He says this simply and without fear. There is an awkward pause, and the conversation turns to religion. “I’m spiritual, I’ve always had the Big Rocker on my side, always, when I was down and needed help. I’m First Baptist, but we First Baptists don’t have that good a retirement plan,” he says, joking as always. Then he adds, “I’m not afraid of dying, I’m not volunteering for f—— nothin’ and I’m gonna fight, but when it’s your time to go…”There has been a massive outpouring of support and concern since Ronnie’s health problems became public in August — almost 50,000 e-mails and phone calls, he says. “And healers are calling me too,” he adds solemnly, “but I’m going to go with the Swiss doctor’s new remedy.” There follows a joke involving copious amounts of oral sex that cannot be recorded here. It ends with the line, “And if you can survive that, cancer ain’t gonna kill you.” And with that he let’s go with his signature belly laugh.A private party at the Four Seasons was held for him recently, attended by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, music men Paul Anka and David Foster, comedian Whoopi Goldberg and Arkansas billionaire Don Tyson, among others. “They all laughed at my naughty act,” he adds. “I introduced the president to my Toronto friends, and I said, ‘Mr. President, these men have had as much trouble with women as you have.’ One half-second later, the president said, ‘I hope it didn’t cost them as much.’ ” Hawkins, a former Arkansas boy, feels strongly that the former Arkansas governor was dealt with harshly for his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. “When people look back to this, it’s going to be like the burning of the witches in Salem. It’s not right, getting into people’s sex lives. People are going to have sex. I’ve had it all by myself for years,” he says, and laughs again. Of David Foster, who played keyboard for him, he says he “looks like he’s doing pretty good for a side man.”Other famed musicians who got their start with Hawkins include Levon Helm and Robbi Robertson. He lets out his laugh. I ask him about a scar on his face. “A garter belt came loose, and nearly tore my head off,” he complains… The true story is close, it’s an old wound from a barroom brawl.Hawkins is as open with his money problems as he is with his health. As we take a walk around his property — he calls it Mortgage Manor — he mentions that he and Wanda “are as broke as the Ten Commandments.” I laugh, and he’s on a roll: “If it cost a nickel to s—, I’d have to try to vomit,” he says. Or how about: “My banker thinks I’m a communist I’m so far in the red.” Yes, he’s broke: “I’m just a redneck hillbilly from Arkansas who made $3-million and spent $5-million.”Which brings us to the Ronnie Hawkins Tribute at Massey Hall next Friday. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “I’m supposed to make a lot of money, but I don’t know if you can make any money at Massey Hall. You have to fill that place just to break even.”Old friend Kris Kristofferson, as well as Amy Sky, Jeff Healy, Tom Cochrane and The Tragically Hip will be on hand to salute Hawkins. And who knows who else will show up.Of his future, he has big plans. “I’m going to make a documentary like The Last Waltz [Martin Scorsese’s 1978 film of the final concert by The Band] “with people like Bo Diddley and Lonnie Mack, a lot of the guys copied them,” he says reflectively. “They’re legends legends.” He pauses then continues. “And I want to do a recording with some of the old timers, Robbie and Levon, David Clayton-Thomas, James Cotton.” Another pause. “I ain’t goin’ easy, now that God’s givin’ me a chance to make some money.”Wanda comes in with the phone. “It’s Mickey Jones,” she tells her husband. “He just has to hear your voice.” Jones is a drummer from Texas, who was with Bob Dylan and Kenny Rogers & The First Edition. “What d’ya mean, you hear I’m not doin’ so good,” Hawkins roars into the phone. “I only went into the hospital for a little penis reduction,” and adds, “I’m goin’ to try the Swiss Doctor’s Remedy …”Hawkins is getting tired, so I quietly leave, with him still regaling Jones with his stories. Wanda walks with me to my car. “He’s not in any pain,” she says. “And I think we can all learn from him. He’s a perfect example of how you should accept what God has given you, and take each day as a blessing. We have so many people praying for us, and we believe in prayer. We believe in miracles.

by Sharon Dunn

Christopher Ondaatje

Where Indiana Jones retired

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Where Indiana Jones retired
On the water with adventurer Ondaatje

[CHESTER, NS] Christopher Ondaatje, former financier, at his 100-acre home on Meisner’s Island, N.S. Living there and having lobster feasts with his kids is what it’s all about, he says.
The beauty of the south shore of Nova Scotia is legendary. Quaint villages on the edge of the ocean, quiet summer playgrounds where local residents mix and mingle with the rich and famous without much ado. The area is a hot spot for American and European society: bank presidents, CEOs, authors, even former U.S. senators. The area is booming to the point where even movie stars are said to want in.But when I ask people on the streets of Chester to name this sea resort’s most interesting summer resident, Christopher Ondaatje is the most common reply.The Sri Lankan-born, British-raised philanthropist and former financier is a fixture in these parts for two months every year (spending the rest of his time in London, England). As I sit outside a deli called Julian’s, Ondaatje’s favourite place in Chester, I feel as if I’m meeting Indiana Jones. The adventurer and writer looks every bit the part in a well-worn, suede-brimmed cap and a striped pullover sweater that has seen better days. Ondaatje, on the other hand, looks great, tanned and fit, stopping to greet local residents who all seem to know and like him.The hugely successful Ondaatje takes my pen and starts to write in my notepad as he explains to me his latest project for the National Portrait Gallery, where he led the campaign to keep two important pieces of art in Britain, one the portrait of Sir William Killigrew by Sir Anthony van Dyck, and the other of prime minister Arthur Balfour by John Singer Sargent.Ondaatje’s philanthropy is legendary. He recently gave ?1,650,000 to the Royal Geographical Society, and contributed ?2,750,000 towards a wing of the National Portrait Gallery that would be opened by the Queen. I notice that even the Chester Playhouse has a bust of him in the Ondaatje Foyer and a plaque that reads, “Donated to the people of Chester August 24, 1992.””Can I take my own notes now?” I ask. Undaunted, he continues writing in my pad, obviously a man accustomed to being in control.”Chester is home”, he tells me, “remember we’re Canadian.” Ondaatje lived in Toronto “when it was the fastest-growing city in North America,” and he tells me that he benefited in the financial world because 1962-1987 was “the greatest 25-year wave in the markets.”In 1988, he sold everything, resigned all directorships, and shifted to London, “mainly to be close to the international literary world and The Royal Geographical Society.”Now I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do — running my foundation, trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, council of Royal Geographical.”He’s also a proprietor of the Literary Review in London, writes a monthly review for the Times, and his latest book, Hemingway in Africa, should be out this spring.Ondaatje insists on paying the tab (a wonderful trait of men who like to be in control), and takes me for a boat ride to see his house on his 100-acre property, Meisner’s Island, accessible only by water. Would he ever sell?”I can’t replace it, no amount of money,” he says matter of factly, “it’s priceless.”He proudly points to his 1938 wooden boat Ripple, winner of the 2000 Coronation Cup and a contender for this year’s cup.While on the ocean, Ondaatje explains his exodus from the financial world.”If it didn’t fit the formula, I didn’t invest,” he says adding that he always followed the value-investing teachings of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett.”My last two years [in the financial world] were the least pleasurable of my life, the game had changed, people had changed, the world was different.”Ondaatje continues, “I’m really lucky that I lived in the financial world from ’68 until the 80’s, because the current investment scene is fraught with hazards and deceptive accounting practices.” He says what particularly disturbs him is that people don’t understand the phenomenal debt structure of countries, banks, other corporations and individuals. “They’re all in debt, and there is absolutely no intention of repaying that debt,” says Ondaatje.”I predict”, he says, “that the purchasing power of the dollar will be 10% of what it is now in five years time.”He adds, “I may be wrong by a few years, but I won’t be wrong by much.”He says, “It’s time to be liquid, to survive, there’s a rough storm still to come.”About surviving: “I’m 70 years old, I’m 10 years younger than I was 10 years ago. I don’t have the pressures, I’m really lucky because I reinvented myself.”His advice? “Do what you love, back your passion, do things for other people.”I’ve had my day in the sun”, he adds, “I was lucky and I’m having a good time now.”Although he’s out of the financial world, Ondaatje says “finance is just like a drug, my adrenaline goes. I don’t even want to talk about it, let’s talk about dirty books, films, anything but finance.”During the excursion, Ondaatje points out landmarks in this small community that swells to only 1,200 in the summer. “This is what it’s all about. I like having dinner with my kids every night, lobster feasts, fantastic haddock and halibut.””This is Chester,” he sighs. “Heaven.”

by Sharon Dunn

Playboy’s Girls of Canada

“I’m worried – my parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses”

 From the

Sharon Dunn
I’m worried – my parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses
Strange how Playboy models react to seeing the magazine for the first time

[ORANGEVILLE, ON]
[Photo: Kevin Van Paassen, National Post]
Bianka Matchett (left) of Orangeville, Ont., and U of T law student Jill Nelson — both 25 — are among 25 Canadian women featured in Playboy’s special “Girls of Canada” lingerie edition.
I’m on my way to meet the “Girls of Canada” featured in Playboy’s brand-new special lingerie edition — at least that’s what the ad says. Canadian girls in lingerie? I don’t think so. Leafing through the magazine, I notice that most of the apparel is around the models’ waists, if it’s anywhere at all, with everything else completely exposed.”In Canada, you’re not considered naked if you wear slippers,” Gino Empry, Hugh Hefner’s promotions man in Canada, informs me. Empry has booked me for a luncheon date with two of the featured girls, but having looked at the magazine, I tell him I’ve lost my appetite. “Funny, it’s had the opposite effect on me,” laughs Empry, before asking, “Don’t you like it?”It’s not that I like it or don’t like it. I guess I’m just uncomfortable with nudity. Blame my childhood, my religion, my body, whatever — it’s just a fact of my life.Twenty-five Canadian models are featured in the magazine, which hits the stands today. Among them is Toronto radio host (Q107) Joanne Wilder. The first of the models I’m meeting today is 25-year-old Jill Nelson, a third-year law student at the University of Toronto. She is stunningly beautiful. Originally from Halifax, Nelson grew up in Ottawa. When she sees me holding a copy of the magazine that features her and the other Canadian girls in all their glory, she seems nervous.”I haven’t seen it yet,” she tells me. “Can I take a look?”I hand her the magazine and watch as she nervously turns to her layout. “There I am,” she laughs, adding nervously, “Well, there you go.”I like them [the pictures, that is]!” she says. Nelson, who spent two years in Montreal, at McGill, and two years at the University of Victoria before entering law, says that eventually she would like to be an entertainment lawyer and hopes this spread will lead to other things.”Like what?” I wonder aloud.”Maybe I’ll be a lawyer for this company, Playboy,” she tells me. “You never know.” She would certainly get the judge’s attention in a courtroom.She has been married for three years and insists that her husband and family are comfortable with her decision to bare all, but she does have one reservation: “I wish I could decide who gets to see the pictures and who doesn’t.” And she’s glad she didn’t do it (pose nude) when she was 18. “I’m happy that I waited until I was 25,” she says.Another model, Bianka Matchett, strides into the room. The Orangeville, Ont., native squeals when she sees that the magazine is out. I give her a copy and wait for her reaction. As she turns to her layout, she blushes as she looks at one of her pictures.”OK, my legs are really spread open there,” she says, then adds sarcastically with an eye roll, “My mother would be so proud.”She likes the shots, she says, but wants me to know that “this was the last set [of pictures] and I look so exhausted. I had my appendix out about three weeks before the photo shoot.” We inspect the photos and can find no sign of a scar. “Do you think they airbrushed it?” I ask her. She guffaws. “Are you kidding?” she says. “Of course they did. They could change my whole head if they wanted to.”Matchett, who is taking time off from her marketing courses at George Brown College, doesn’t model only for Playboy. She was recently featured in a more benign shot in a bathtub in a Home Outfitters ad.About the Playboy layout she says, “I’m worried about my parents’ reaction. They’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.” That comes as a shock to me. “I didn’t tell them about the shoot,” she says, adding that she’s most concerned about her dad. “I hope he doesn’t find out.” Oh, oh.”Why did you do it then?” I want to know. “I’m very impulsive,” she says. She explains she was at Hefner’s mansion when she was 21 (she is now 25) and was going to do a photo shoot at that time. “But I chickened out and I regretted it later,” she says before concluding, “I did it because I’m a little vain. I enjoy my body, I had the opportunity and I’m a bit of an exhibitionist.” So there.Matchett echoes Nelson when she says, “I wish I could filter who gets to see it and who doesn’t.” Still concerned about her parents, she frets, “They’re going to shake their heads, and that look of disappointment is going to be in my dad’s eyes.” In her own defence, she adds, “I’m spontaneous and very comfortable with myself, but in my parents’ house, I have a halo around my head.”If my parents were able to accept it … I feel bad because of the way that they might feel.””I don’t have any problems with it,” Jill, the legal eagle, volunteers. “But please don’t mention my parents,” she begs, concern crossing her face as well.The girls found their way into the magazine after an open call from Playboy that drew about 500 hopefuls. Empry assures me that Hefner makes the final cuts himself. “He makes all the decisions.”When I ask Empry about my chances of doing a layout, he says, “Very good.” But on the money end, he tells me I’m worth “about zero dollars.” That says it all, doesn’t it? And here I was about to pose naked for a mere half a million.By the way, the girls don’t get paid the megabucks I expected. I understand that even a Playboy centrefold, one who is a non-celebrity, gets only about $25,000. So would I do it if the conditions (the money and my body) were right? No way — my mother would kill me!

by Sharon Dunn

Broad Appeal

So six women walk into a bar …

 From the

Sharon Dunn
So six women walk into a bar …
For female comics at Yuk Yuk’s life is a joke
The Yuk Yuk’s women, clockwise from bottom left, Anna Gustafson, Taryn Della, Susan Stewart, Martha Chaves, Jennifer Grant and Debra di Giovanni.[TORONTO, ON]
One Sunday a month is ladies’ night at Yuk Yuk’s. Not the usual kind of ladies’ night — you know, free admission and a drink. In this case the female comics take over. They call themselves Broad Appeal, and on the day I talked to them the six women shown here were on hand.The group changes depending on who’s available but no matter which female comics are on the roster no one is safe — not the audience, not Julia Roberts and certainly not the Pope.Referring to the clogged drain that caused the sewers to back up near Downsview park when the Pope came to town, Debra di Giovanni, this year’s winner of Best New Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards, observed dryly: “I wish it had happened to Bad Boy. Then Mel [Lastman] would have been down there in a flash, huh?”I asked the ladies if it is difficult to make a living as a comic. Their answer was a loud guffaw all around. “What living?,” said Giovanni. “I’m a receptionist by day.””It is possible to do it,” Martha Chaves, the producer of Broad Appeal, quipped. “I’m making a great living … compared to a comedian in Kabul.”Chaves is known mostly for her stand-up work but she also works in movies — John Q, for example. “I was the Spanish hostage, Rosa, with the baby that never stops crying.” She told me: “I heard that the real mother of the child I was holding was not allowed to look Denzel Washington in the eye,” because he finds it distracting. “But for me, it was really hard to look him in the eye because his eyes were on my bosoms.”When I asked Chaves to let me take her photograph, she insisted on rounding up all the women. Good Lord, I thought, how am I going to get six of them in the frame. But we managed. “We have to stick together, said Anna Gustafson.The women tell me they’ve developed quite a following over the two years Broad Appeal has been around, though “mostly among women and gays.” Stand-up Susan Stewart complained the average heterosexual guy seems to have trouble with her. “Oh, no, a woman comic,” she mimicked. “They give me back-handed compliments like, ‘You weren’t bad for a girl, or ‘You were kind of funny.’ “Actually, Broad Appeal is no-holds barred, come-and-get-it brand of humour. The six all feel there are stereotypes about women that must be broken — and they’re here to do it.As aspiring comedians they are all hoping that some evening a big New York agent will catch their act, or an established comic will drop in and be impressed.About a week or so ago, Kevin Nealon, of Saturday Night Live fame, showed up at the Yuk Yuk’s Toronto Superclub (224 Richmond St. W.) and performed. So has Howie Mandel.Surprisingly, the ladies say that being Canadian isn’t a problem on the road to fame. Indeed, women have it easier here than in the United States. They may not be laughing all the way to the bank, but at least they’re laughing.And audiences are too. But be warned, as with the scariest rides at Canada’s Wonderland, Yuk Yuk’s should put up a sign that reads: “Not for the faint-of-heart.”

by Sharon Dunn

Lou Gossett Jr

“I’m lonesome, but I’m not lonely”

 From the

Sharon Dunn
“I’m lonesome, but I’m not lonely.”
Lou Gossett Jr. talks about life beyond Hollywood

[Photo: Chris Bolin, National Post]
Lou Gossett Jr. says he had a tough time getting work in Hollywood after he won an Oscar for his role in An Officer and a Gentleman. “I was hurt. I wanted to be treated like Harrison Ford.”[TORONTO, ON]
I hadn’t realized that famous Hollywood actor and Oscar winner (for An Officer and a Gentleman) Lou Gossett Jr. was a singer until I saw him perform at Hugh’s Room last Sunday night during the Richie Havens concert. Apparently, Gossett wrote a song with Havens called Handsome Johnny, and he performed it with gusto on Sunday night. “I got chills up there with Havens,” he told me. “We’re united, we’re of like minds, on the same page. Our spirits have grown.”We’re having lunch at Gossett’s condo in the Yorkville area where he’s staying while filming the movie Jasper, Texas with Jon Voight. Lunch — angel hair pasta with seafood and spinach — is being made for us by Gossett’s Toronto caterers. A Thanksgiving duck is cooking in the oven, with sweet potatoes and apple soup (with smoked turkey) boiling on the stove. Gossett is having a group of his Canadian friends over for Thanksgiving dinner, including his co-star, Toronto actress Karen Robinson. Gossett calls her “one of the greatest actresses I’ve ever worked with.”Not yet accustomed to the changing Canadian seasons, Gossett, who now lives in California, is suffering from allergies. “Ultimately, I’m heading for the islands. It’s not only because it’s a fantasy lifestyle there,” he tells me, “it’s because it’s the last place they would drop the bomb.” His lineage is West Indian, American Indian (Seminole and Cherokee) and African.”Originally, I wanted to be a doctor because many of the people I loved died too young — my grandmother, my brother, my cousin. My dad died of alcoholism at the age of 53. I don’t go to funerals any more,” he says. “The last funeral I went to was my mother’s [she was 59]. When people close to me die, I choose a picture of them when they looked their happiest, and I put it up on the wall for a while.”Gossett Jr. gives David Susskind the credit for discovering him, and says his darkest days were, surprisingly, after he won his Oscar. “I couldn’t get any work after that,” he says. “First it happened to Sidney Poitier after he married a white woman.” Gossett says he believes the industry resented a black man winning the Oscar, saying that if Robert Downey Jr. was a black man he’d be finished in Hollywood. “It was my peers who gave me the Oscar, not the industry,” he says. “After that Oscar, I started destroying myself with cocaine and partying. I thought, ‘I’ll show them,’ but I was only destroying myself.”I wasn’t angry,” he adds. “I was hurt. I wanted to be treated like Harrison Ford.”He tells me that what he went through in Hollywood “forced me to go on my own and put more relevant roles on the screen. I did what I wanted to do, I was my own boss.” Gossett says he’s happy he doesn’t have to play the Hollywood game, “show up at certain functions and live a certain way.”Of his co-star Voight he says, “I see peace and acceptance in his eyes. We’re gravitating to each other. I like that man a lot, I have the maximum respect for him. I see his heart.”More than 20 years ago, Gossett adopted a homeless child he saw on Good Morning America. “I got up at 3 a.m. and this little boy, who I had just taken to California [from St. Louis, Miss.] was hiding and eating. He was afraid someone was going to take the food from him.” His adopted son is now a computer whiz. Gossett believes in giving back. “What you put out comes back,” he says with conviction. “There’s more to acting than sunglasses and limos.”Gossett, who has been single for nine years, says, “I’m lonesome, but I’m not lonely. I’m a loner, I’m my own best friend.” About love, he says, “You can’t go looking, it happens.” Although he does add there are “candidates” — “I have a lot of friends.”I love to be in love,” he concludes, “and it’s a privilege to be hurt in love because at least you feel. Romance is a wonderful thing.”Lunch is coming to an end. As a parting remark, Gossett says, “I never let my ego get in the way. Who buys the tickets to the movies? I don’t ever forget that — that’s the end result.”

by Sharon Dunn

Alistair MacLeod

and the Cape Breton thing

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Alistair MacLeod and the Cape Breton thing
Should I mention the footprint on the back of his jacket?

[Photo: John Glenn Lowson, National Post]
“You have to encourage the reader to turn the page, otherwise he goes out for a cheese sandwich,” says Alistair MacLeod, who is in Toronto for the International Festival of Authors.[TORONTO, ON]

‘There’s a false belief, particularly among young people, that if things are true, they are interesting,” fiction writer Alistair MacLeod tells me over breakfast at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, where he is staying through the International Festival of Authors. MacLeod is a pleasant-looking, bashful sort, so I don’t tell him there is what appears to be a footprint on the back of his suit jacket. He’s a popular enough fellow that I assume it’s his own tread, not that of an agitated reader or editor. “But that’s not the case,” MacLeod continues. “Put a tape recorder at the checkout of Wal-Mart for 20 hours and you’ll get 20 hours of ‘Thank you so much for shopping at Wal-Mart, your change is $2.10.’ “

MacLeod, a professor at the University of Windsor for 30 years (he retired two years ago), says this was an issue he had with students over the years. “They would say about their writing, ‘But it’s all true,’ and I would tell them, ‘Even if it’s all true, it’s not interesting.’ The truth may set you free,” MacLeod goes on to say, “but it’s not necessarily captivating.” He insists all of his characters are purely fictional. “I make them up,” he tells me, adding that the only thing real about his stories is that he sets them in the Maritimes, in Cape Breton, to be specific. “I set them in the Maritimes because that’s what I care about,” he says. “I’m from Cape Breton, too,” I tell MacLeod, expecting oohs, ahhs and you don’t says. He doesn’t seem impressed (so much for camaraderie).The restaurant is offering a buffet-style breakfast. “It’s expensive,” MacLeod warns me. “I’ve already eaten here.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “National Post is paying.” He looks relieved. While he’s having his photo taken, I wander over to have a look at the buffet. “If you see anything wild, bring it back,” MacLeod tells me. Since there’s something about a buffet that makes me want to get even, I get right to it and return with bacon, eggs, French toast, fresh fruit, breakfast rolls, granola, and a chef to help carry it all. MacLeod is happy with my choices.

“The bottom line in writing,” he tell me, “is that you have something interesting to say. I think that emotion, or strong feelings, is at the heart of all good literature. You have to encourage the reader to turn the page, otherwise he goes out for a cheese sandwich.” Ah, the cheese sandwich, with chocolate milk, of course — I’ve left books on many occasions for that very thing. The 67-year-old world-renowned short-story writer, who won the acclaimed International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his 1999 novel No Great Mischief, tells me, “I always wanted to write, even in high school and university, but I never thought I’d make a living at it.”

And a living he is making. The IMPAC Award, the world’s richest literary prize, put exactly $172,000 in his pocket. “How many copies of the book have been sold?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” he tells me, adding that the book has been translated into 14 languages. “There were six judges from around the world,” he says. “If the book speaks to people all over the world, then it’s done what I’ve set out to do.”
“Do you make a lot of money?” I ask MacLeod, thinking of his $172,000 prize.” Not an awful lot,” he adds. When I push him a bit more, he says, sarcastically, “Bill Gates isn’t trembling in his shoes that I’m going to be the world’s next richest man.” MacLeod, who received a PhD from Notre Dame, says that because he was making his money as a professor in Windsor for most of his life, he didn’t have to worry about deadlines or bills. He says about his stories, “I write them very carefully. I don’t do drafts, I change them sentence by sentence. You have to be very certain what you’re doing. I write the conclusion partway through. It keeps me focused — I think about what I want to say.” I mention that his wife, Anita (who, by the way, is a dead ringer for former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall), confided that he likes to write in a cabin, out back of their summer home in Dunvegan, Cape Breton. The couple, who have six children, five sons and one daughter, drive there every year in either their 1988 Ford Crown Victoria or their newer 1990 Ford Crown Victoria. (Somehow I can’t picture Bill Gates doing that.)

“What’s a perfect writer’s day for you?” I ask. “If I had the freedom to do what I wanted,” he tells me, “I’d write from 8 till 11 in the morning, and that’s it. I was at a point where I’d start writing at 10 p.m., and I was so darn tired I’d have to get coffee and splash water on my face. I couldn’t get the words right.” I recount to fiction expert MacLeod an experience I had with a literary agent when I passed him a piece of work that was fictional. “This isn’t fictional, it’s fact,” the agent told me.
“But it’s not true,” I replied.
“Yes it is,” argued the agent, “it must be true because it doesn’t read like fiction.”
“Get a new agent,” MacLeod advises. “There are a lot of attitudes about fiction and music,” he tells me, adding, “there are no rules. Be careful of people who impose rigid rules upon you.” MacLeod says, “W.O. Mitchell called fiction ‘the magic lie.’ When you read fiction, you’re supposed to believe it’s true. Just like when you watch a movie, you don’t say, ‘There’s Harrison Ford pretending he’s a fugitive.’ Good actors are like good fiction writers, they convey the truth when they’re writing, but it’s not the truth.”

Breakfast is over and the buffet has long been removed from our grasp. MacLeod and I ate well (it’s a Cape Breton thing). He’s laughing a lot more now — maybe he’s become comfortable with me (also a Cape Breton thing). “Are you sure that’s not Barbara Hall you have up there in your room, I ask?”
“No, no,” he laughs. Wife Anita, a pastoral minister, has already left, he tells me, gone home to Windsor to work. As I leave MacLeod, I’m glad I ate heartily, mainly because I’m in the middle of one of his books, which means I won’t be having cheese sandwiches for a while. If you’ve read Alistair MacLeod, you know what I mean.

by Sharon Dunn

Jamie Salé & David Pelletier

The roots of happiness

 From the

Sharon Dunn
The roots of happiness
Salé and Pelletier are adamant the best things in life are free
Who can forget Jamie Salé and David Pelletier’s gold-medal win in pairs figure skating last year, that incredibly romantic routine titled Love Story. And a love story it is, perhaps the best one since Love Story itself, in 1970. Sandy-haired Pelletier looks and acts a bit like rebel Ryan O’Neal, and the wide-eyed, auburn-haired Salé is certainly reminiscent of Ali MacGraw. But this love story has ended with the two walking down the aisle.” Let me straighten this out for everyone,” says Salé. “We’re not married, we’re not even engaged.” She points to her diamond ring, which has sparked many rumours, and says it is “only a friendship ring from my friend.” The friend is obviously Pelletier. And good friends they are. They even live together in Edmonton.” We sure aren’t thinking of marriage,” Pelletier asserts. “We don’t need it.” Yikes, he sounds pretty certain, I think, as I catch Salé’s eye. “One day,” she says in a whisper, “I want marriage and children. Down the road.” But she assures me the relationship is going smoothly. “He’s very romantic,” she confides. “It’s not about the big things, it’s about the little things, like he’ll go for coffee and bring me home my favourite latte.” And the housework, I ask.”He cleans the floors, vacuums, and sometimes he even does laundry,” says Salé. “And we’ve never had a fight about money,” then observes as an afterthought that this might be because they make exactly the same amount. “Exactly,” echoes Pelletier. What that amount is they’re not saying, but it will likely increase now that they are about to begin their professional careers. “We’ve signed a four-year contract to skate with Stars on Ice. We’ll be skating with Kurt Browning,” Pelletier says excitedly. “It’s going to be awesome.” And there won’t be any judges, I point out. “That’s a good thing,” he agrees. The world’s most famous skaters say they are looking forward to the liberty they didn’t have when they had amateur status. “We love to perform and be in front of people,” says Salé. “In amateur skating, you’re restricted, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. Now we can do whatever we want.””Well, almost,” Pelletier says with a laugh. “We have to skate to get our money. But we’re not hockey players, that’s for sure,”

Salé points out, the salary at Stars on Ice not approaching what a hockey star makes.Salé and Pelletier are also adding their names to products, which is what brought them to the opening of the new Roots store at 100 Bloor St. W. last week. They’ll be Roots’ star attraction in its fall advertising campaign. “Newspapers and people were bashing us for not making [endorsement] money following the Olympics. Usually it’s the other way around, you bash people for making too much money.” The couple say they preferred to keep things low key after the Olympics, to give themselves time to relax and participate in celebrity charities. “You have to give back,” says Pelletier. “Money is not the motivating factor.” Salé jumps in. “We are interested in money, but it’s not the most important thing. Our aim is to retire when we’re 35 or 40.” Then she sighs and adds, “I just don’t understand it. Why is everyone so into money? They miss out on the good things.”At my urging, Pelletier is happy to list what some of those things are: “The best things in life are free: family, friends, friendship and love.” He reflects for a moment, then continues. “And the change of seasons makes me really happy. I just took my mountain bike into the woods for three hours. It was beautiful, the way it smelled. My senses were going a thousand miles an hour.”His message is this: “I want people to know that I don’t see the world better today because I have it [money]. And I’ve been on both sides.” “Me too,” echoes Salé, who was raised by a single mom. “Things were tight.”It takes a while but the famous duo finally convince me that, indeed, the best things in life are free: fresh air, friends … and free Roots leather jackets, as many as they want. Now why didn’t I learn how to skate?

by Sharon Dunn

Margaret Atwood

The great ones are always unflappable

 From the

Sharon Dunn
The great ones are always unflappable
Margaret Atwood discusses Canada’s ‘strange’ literary past

[Photo: Sharon Dunn, National Post]
Margaret Atwood and Scott Griffin, owner of Anansi Press, at the AGO.
I ran into Margaret Atwood and her partner, Graeme Gibson, at the Art Gallery of Ontario at the opening of the Gauguin to Matisse exhibition.I’d heard through various grapevines that she can be tough and cold, but nothing could be further from the truth — even as I persisted in following her around as “we” viewed the art. She even humoured me by posing with an oil she particularly admired, titled Large Pine near Aix-en-Provence. “I’m pretty fond of Cézanne,” she explained, “because for nine years I lived in the region where he was painting.”More to the point, she’s also fond of a new book in which she had a hand. It’s Ground Works, published by Anansi Press, the amazing Canadian house where she cut her literary teeth way back when, and edited by Toronto poet Christian Bok. It is a collection of experimental fiction, written between 1965 and 1985, and includes work by such luminaries (now they’re luminaries, then they were just getting started) as Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, Graeme Gibson and Matt Cohen.In her introduction, Atwood wonders why ’60s Canada was such a fertile ground for interesting writing, then offers her theory: “Partly because it was a stranger place in many ways than is often supposed — who remembers the LSD that flowed so freely in London, Ont., in the 1950s — well before the age of Timothy Leary — not to mention the orgies in the cathedral? It was strange in a literary way as well. What other country would have produced a set of Spenserian eclogues spoken in a farmyard by a flock of geese?” (That appeared in A Suit of Nettles, written by James Reaney in 1958.)”I was never a radical,” Atwood told me, “and now I’m too old to be a hippie. The book is not about radicalism,” she added. “It’s about conservatism gone astray.”It’s clear in her introduction that she harbours great affection for those days, and she gave me permission to quote a representative chunk from the introduction:”Many but not all of the writers sampled here [in Ground Works] were also poets. The overlaps — poets publishing poets in presses devoted to poetry — were considerable. Michael Ondaatje was for years a member of the Coach House collective; I myself worked as an editor with House of Anansi Press. Andreas Schroeder worked with Sono Nis, George Bowering was associated with Tish; and these are just a few examples.”This scene was not idyllic. In my own experience, small-press publishing was a hotbed of jealousy and intrigue and puddles of blood on the floor, second only to Rome under Caligula. Coach House Press got around this in the early days by consuming large amounts of mellowing substances – ‘Printed in Canada by mindless acid freaks,’ read their logo, right alongside ‘Copyright is obsolete’; — but at House of Anansi it was not so much drugs as drinking, and no one got out of it without a knife between their shoulder blades. No one but a lunatic, or someone brainwashed by the Girl Guides into thinking she had to do Good Deeds For Others, would have stayed in this situation for long. Which was I? A little of both. But that’s another story.”Before leaving Atwood, I mentioned to her that her book, Bear, had a big impact on me many years ago.”Actually, I didn’t write that, Marian Engel did.”I blushed. She laughed.My horrendous gaffe didn’t offend her a bit. That’s what it’s like when you’re the best in the world; unflappable. As for me, well, that’s another story.

by Sharon Dunn