Her name is Alicia and her dog, Alexis is the cutest little shiatsu imaginable. Occasionally Alicia and Alexis have been at College Park where I take office mascot, Kiko for his walks. Alicia would be surprised to know what she did for me the last time I saw her.
It was a dark mood bordering on despair that sent me to the park with Kiko on a recent Saturday afternoon. Worries about Toronto Free Press were foremost on my mind. Would the new sales staff bring in the accounts? Would people around me not getting along be able to sort out their differences? Would the pace of running an independent newspaper ever become less hectic?
But the question troubling me most, "Are people really reading Toronto Free Press" just wouldn’t go away.
In other words, there was no doubt that I was walking under a black cloud when Alicia stopped to say hello. I had seen her only once or twice during the past year, but remembered her because of her humour. When female canine Alexis is less than her bounding self with other dogs she meets at the park, her mistress tells her she’s being "a bitch". Because he rolls on the ground in delight at the mere sight of her and next will be sending her poetry, Kiko recognized the little shiatsu straight away.
Nearby Yonge Street always makes me insecure and when alone, I have never let Kiko off his leash. Alicia, who has learned the ropes with Alexis, advised me it is always best to unleash a dog unused to freedom in a small confined area. Soon Kiko and his lady love were off on a bush sniffing expedition. Alicia and I trailed behind talking about how the frigid day was not fit for man or beast. She told me how frantic she had been after arriving home from grocery shopping, to discover that Alexis was somehow missing. As things turned out, the person who found Alexis telephoned and kept her until her mistress could return to fetch her. She laughingly told me how the little shiatsu, who goes to ‘daycare’ a couple of times a week, gets picked up and returned by car, and pondered aloud whether the unneutered Kiko could be counted on "to be a gentleman" if the pair were to travel to daycare together.
As we chatted, part of my mind was fixed on worries about TFP. I noticed that Alicia was carrying something under her arm that I presumed was meant to pick up after Alexis. Somehow that something looked strangely familiar.
I asked her, "What is that newspaper?"
She answered, "Toronto Free Press."
I asked where she had picked it up and she pointed out Nuga on Bay, across the street from the park.
Alicia told me that she began picking the paper up soon after her arrival in Toronto from New Jersey, about a year ago.
"I was new here. It helped me get to know a little bit about the city I had been transferred to because of my job."
All of this was of vast interest to me, but I was dumbstruck.
"The owners of this newspaper should be commended," said Alicia.
The coincidence of meeting someone in the park with a copy of TFP, particularly at a time when I was torturing myself with the question "Are people reading TFP", was too much and it showed in my face.
I told Alicia, "You’re looking at the ‘owners’ of this paper."
She was incredulous.
Suddenly I felt an urge to rush back to my office and the cold wind had nothing to do with my hurry.
A casual encounter in the park had not only answered a nagging question, it renewed my resolve that TFP and its problems were well worth the struggle.
On that Saturday afternoon I couldn’t possibly have known that things were about to take a turn for the worst. But in the end it didn’t matter. My restored belief in the paper being worth the struggle allowed me to meet that problem face on and to leave it far behind.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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