The Silver Dart, Peter Mansbridge and poetry

It's not often that three wonderful events collide, but this past weekend a replica of the Silver Dart took off in Baddeck (#1), Peter Mansbridge came to cover the story (#2) and CBC Sydney hosted a poetry face-off with five Cape Breton poets reading commissioned poems using the word "flight" as their inspiration (#3).

When I was young, I imagined I would be a pilot, or an airplane mechanic at least. Though I read every book about Amelia Earhart and Douglas Bader I could get my hands on, I never realized that dream, partly because when I entered high school and could take mechanics, St. Mary's High School in Kitchener, an all-girls Catholic high school, didn't have a tech program. But I still love to fly, still thrill on take-off, still marvel at flight. Standing inches from the Silver Dart was an honour I could hardly imagine. I visited it three times and not once was I disappointed. To read more about the Silver Dart replica go to: http://www.silverdartreplica.com/index.html

Now for Peter Mansbridge. My father is a CBC TV news and CBC Newsworld aficionado and for him, news is a joyful participatory event. He talks to the news reader, offers comments and corrections, gives his opinion, points and bellows and laughs and derides and agrees. And if you love CBC news as much as he does, Peter is your news guru. So to have Peter Mansbridge within a few feet of me this past Monday as he read the evening news, well it was a thrill I couldn't pass up: Dad, this one was for you (and I get to share it, as I admit to watching CBC news every night, too).

Last, not least, poetry, which I have always maintained is our first language. Wendy Bergfeldt from Sydney CBC radio hosted the poetry face-off. Now, proceedings are secret -- we all promised not to tell -- so I won't give anything away here (listen to Wendy's show between now and March 24th for details), but there were five wonderful and diverse poets who read five wonderful and just as diverse poems. Here's a link to Wendy's show: http://www.cbc.ca/mainstreetcb/

Photos: detail of sewing on the wing of the Silver Dart (photo by Marion Thompson); Marion & me and the Silver Dart; Peter Mansbridge taping The National (for Jerry Zettell); Marion, Bjarni Tryggvason (ex-astronaut and pilot of the 2009 flight of the Silver Dart) & me. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.