Here I am and it’s my 74th birthday. This is the only day in my life I will ever be able to note the day and year as 20 2020. If I post this at 8:20 in the evening, which is 20:20 military time, then I guess it will read 20:20 20 2020.
So, now in my mid 70’s I and happy to report that I’m feeling great, enjoying life and well aware that our health is our most important asset. For that I am very thankful.
So…… what now?
We all go through what seems like a long period in our lives (longer for some than others) wondering what we will do “when we grow up.” Some people never find that answer.
I have been very fortunate.
I know what I want to do, and when you know what you want to do with the rest of your life, you want that portion of your life to get started as soon as possible.
I have been lucky to have always loved the work I was doing—and I’m looking forward to the work still to come. I was supposed to have retired a while back, but that wasn’t really what I wanted to do.
My first career was in broadcasting. It started in 1966 and lasted 30 years. Like many broadcasters it all started at a small-town radio station, in my case CKOX Radio in Woodstock, and then grew into a career in both radio and television at CFPL in London as well as CBC radio and television in Vancouver. It was a wonderful time.
My second career I hadn’t really planned on. It began when I founded a new Canadian charity with just one goal—funding research into a disease that claims the lives of young boys almost exclusively—Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I think my son Jesse entered the hearts of a lot of people when a little project we called Jesse’s Journey first came on the scene in 1995 when I pushed Jesse across Ontario in his wheelchair. That was before I set out to walk across Canada. Now, I’m just happy to be a volunteer at Jesse’s Journey.
We started with nothing and although Jesse did not live to see our dream come true—we have now built that little charity to the point where it’s Canada’s leader in funding research in our area of interest. We now grant well over a million dollars a year to researchers around the world who are thankful to Jesse’s Journey for providing them with the funding they need on their road to finding a cure. I think Jesse would be proud of what we are doing to help other boys and girls.
So, what comes next? Well, I am now launching my third career.
Over the past 25-years I have spoken in hundreds of churches, schools and to service clubs, but I never had the time to take that work to the corporate level as a professional speaker. Now, I’m taking the lessons I have learned in life, particularly on the road, and sharing them, so I can help people who genuinely want to make a difference in the lives of others.
The funds I raise as a speaker are going to help researchers move closer to finding that cure, I promised my son I would find. I intend to persevere and keep that promise.
You can find my story at:
I hope you will help me spread the word and reach those audiences that might want to see and hear a real story that happened to real people. Because it did.
Thanks for taking the time to read my birthday card!
