by Judi McLeod
September 15, 2004
It took Google to shake him out of the trees. But then again Google is an awesome globetrotter and Michael (Fletch) Woloschuk is a long way from home.
In the days when Woloschuk, nicknamed Fletch because of his impressive reporting skills was living in the Elizabeth Street offices of Toronto Free Press (now canadafreepress.com), he was writing for Frank magazine.
Local politicians were diving for cover when Fletch and Yours Truly collaborated on bold stories, like Married to the Mob and Frannie, get your gun.
It seemed that the world was our oyster, even though having to literally live at the office, meant early morning jaunts over to the nearby YMCa for Fletch to get his shower. Our Technicolor dreams of Frank editors quitting gloomy limestone Ottawa offices for the more cosmopolitan downtown Toronto never happened. The office no longer doubled as digs. when Fletch moved on, then totally disappeared off our radar screen.
Over time, we decided to look for him.
One kind Frank reporter saying he’d heard that Fletch was in Singapore, promised to help track him down, while another accused me outright in a letter of pretending that Fletch go missing in order to be able to write about him.
Our 1999 story, complete with Google-seeking meta tags went up on the Canadafreepress.com site one day, and we had a letter from Fletch in Japan the next.
"Well you have finally shaken me out of the trees," Fletch wrote. "In fact, I am now living in Japan but was living in Hong Kong, not Singapore–those guys from Frank were, as usual, close but not accurate."
Life was never calm for the guy who morphed from Mike Woloschuk to Fletch even when he called Canada home. Ditto for Fletch in Japan: "It is around three in the afternoon as I write on Sept. 9, 2004 and we have just had three days of some jolting earthquakes and several typhoons."
In other parts of the world, he typhoons’ first cousin, Ivan the Terrible, would have been getting ready to wreak havoc in the Caribbean.
It seems that while Google warmed my heart by finding Fletch, the awesome search engine gave a real start to a potential Fletch employer: "I wrote in for this job as some flack for a woods products company here in Japan, and the manager decided to google my name to see just how famous a journalist I was.
"She wrote back and asked me if I was the "Mike Woloschuk" mentioned in your editorial.
"Yikes. So here is this sweet woman checking out my qualifications and she sees that I am some girl-chasing, rent-skipping graveyard ghoul who drinks scotch with his coffee in the morning.
Fletch rarely touched scotch and only drank beer in copious amounts.
"Well, if I ever was a drinker those days are over. about three years ago, in Hong Kong, I had a massive heart attack," he wrote. "It was so big, I nearly died. about 30 percent of my heart muscle is scar tissue. Needless to say, I don’t smoke anymore and a glass of wine with dinner once in awhile is all I have. But I have forced myself to get better, and I jog 5 km every morning, and I sometimes think I am in better shape than I was before my heart problems."
The graveyard ghoul story featured Fletch and TFP’s Vince Tassone up in Muskoka, trailing through a small-town, snow-laden cemetery at dusk. arriving at the scene late because of a winter storm, they were searching for a certain gravestone for a photo to illustrate Frank’s upcoming Frannie, get your gun. Because of the hour and how they were dressed, the pair frightened off nearby housewives who could spot them through their windows.
"I can say with all honesty that my favourite time as a journalist was with you two, (Vince and Judi) Fletch wrote in his letter. "You told that story about me and Vince shuffling through the graveyard up in Muskoka really well, except I think it was more eerie because we were both wearing long black coats. What a sight we were!"
In closing Fletch gave me what I consider to be one of the best personal compliments ever tossed my way: "The world would be a better place if more journalists had your spirit."
Meanwhile, thank you, Google and oceans of cherry blossom tea to Fletch.
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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