Conrad Boyce is the editor and publisher of the Cosmos. He has a BA in English from the University of Alberta and a diploma in journalism from Grant Macewan Community College in Edmonton. He lived and worked in the Yukon and Vancouver Island before arriving in Ontario in 1995. Beyond these pages, he is the Artistic Director of OnStage Uxbridge, and the technical manager of the Uxbridge Music Hall.
A small town web
It has been slightly more than a year since we saw them – our friends who moved from Goodwood to Haifa, Israel to work for the international Baha’i headquarters – and it was like they visited yesterday. The journey has been over many years – it started with an invitation from Nancy Minden to the local churches to provide posters to be displayed in Goodwood Hall for World Peace Day and my wife and the children of Trinity United Church participated in this important event – in fact, my wife still has some of those posters in her possession. I came along some years later and was privileged to meet these people. Nancy and her husband David Honsberger, for whatever reason possessed them, decided that for either an anniversary or birthday gift to each other – I cannot remember which – they would audition for Annie, a musical being presented by Uxbridge Musical Theatre in January of 1998. Much to their surprise, but not mine, they became members of that cast – and many more. Both have been lead performers in multiple productions, Nancy even playing my wife in I Do, I Do in 2000 – which as my real life wife, Lisa, will tell you, is not so easy! Their youngest son, Jonathan, has also been an important member of many casts and we have enjoyed watching him mature into an amazing adult, working with youth throughout the world. We just spent part of a day and evening with them and some of their close friends here (on one of their occasional necessary returns from Israel, this time for the wedding of their middle son in Vermont) and it was joyous because we are family.
I’m sure that you, too, have family members that are not necessarily blood relations. I know that in Uxbridge, and in small towns like it all over the world, this happens all the time. My wife, who has been a member of this community since 1976, has many of these, and I, who only came to Uxbridge in 1996, do so as well. Many of our family members you know from the columns of this newspaper. Ted Barris, the fellow beside me, has been a staunch supporter of this newspaper since the beginning. His father, Alex, and my wife’s mother, Libbie (who was the “Oprah” of Halifax in the sixties), were guest panellists on Front Page Challenge many years ago (I also appeared ion the show in the 80s, as a guest impersonating Robert Service). Lisa and Ted have volunteered together on committees here; and their daughters have done professional theatre together and remain friends and “family” to the present.
Harry Stemp hired my wife in 1984 to work at the Uxbridge Times-Journal and she still works for the next generation company 27 years later. The members of the Cosmos’ Board of Directors are also cherished “family” members. Shirley Baster and her late husband Paul were so supportive of me, and trusting of me, that Paul drove Lisa to our wedding at Pine Grove Church. Frank Chown has been in many plays with me, George Pratt helped pull me out of a very cold Yukon River when my highly suspect paddling skills dumped me there about a decade ago. Fred Bendell arranged for Lisa to own her first horse, which after a lifetime passionately involved with horses was a dream come true, and we get to see him lavishing loving care on his “ranch” just about every time we head out to the barn to take care of Pegasus. Dave Jones and Scott Crockatt and their families are also a large part of who we are. Our theatre group literally lives and breathes thanks to the generosity of Dave and his wife Enid, who’ve stored our sets and props in their outbuildings for more than a decade. Scott and his wife Debbie are part of a group of amazing Sunday School teachers who supported Lisa when she became a single mom in her 30s. In fact, one of my first visual memories after I came to Ontario was this close-knit group walking down a small-town road, arm in arm, at Debbie’s father’s funeral in the fall of 1996. They were so obviously such dear friends, so close that they might as well be family. There was no question that all of them would be at the weddings of Lisa’s children, and we’ve been to all theirs.
Dave Jones’ son, Bryn, still calls Lisa “Mom” as they were “family” members in Music Man many years ago, as does her “daughter” in that production, Nicole Daley. We are as proud of these young adults as if they were our very own children. So many of the young people we first got to know on stage have made us similarly proud.
How did this ramble start? We don’t see any of these people mentioned here on a daily basis but they are so important to our daily existence – they are a part of who we are. Nancy and David just remind us of that fact – whether they’re across the dining table or half a world away - and isn’t that a blessing?
