The world seems to be short of heroes these days, (sung ones, anyway) so we were ready to ooh and aah when Chris Hadfield burst into our lives from outer space.
Hadfield, a veteran pilot of 35 years, is not only the first Canadian to hold the post of Commander of an international space station, he is the first to use social media to record his experiences.
He caught the attention of fellow earthlings by sharing his six-month space odyssey in an entertaining way that fascinated the world, not just proud Canadians. The thing is, he was fun, and goodness knows we are as short of fun as we are of heroes. When so many elite Canadians (e.g. some senators) are letting us down Hadfield has been an inspiration to young and old.
He announced his retirement from the space program last week, apparently he has his shot at space travel, and he is returning to Canada. At age 53 he`s too young to retire but after his six-month star performance, you do wonder what he will do for an encore. I Googled but couldn’t find out what kind of salaries and pensions astronauts get. I hope they are on par with what some greedy politicians pocket.
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Once upon a time, mothers writing letters expressing their opinions on one thing or another would begin “As a mother of five, (or whatever) I think yatayata.”
I used to wonder how the size of one’s family gave authority to anything but looking back I realize there was a point to it. Mothers of big families were, and no doubt still are, masters of multi-tasking. That is an awesome and transferable skill.
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Interesting that city is looking for pizzaz (something unique) when it comes to place branding while the school board settled for total blah in renaming the schools.
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.