The Five People You (Want to) Meet in Kingston
The final exam in my first year French class included a 15 minute conversational interview, where the challenge was to wow the prof with a long-winded response to a single question. The questions were, as you’d expect, very open ended. And as luck would have it, I drew the age old noodle scratcher: if you could have dinner with five people, living or deceased, who would they be and why? I don’t remember who exactly I had dinner with, or perhaps my selection is too embarrassing to recall, but suffice to say I was able to ramble on and get a decent grade. Nowadays I am sure my list would be entirely different, especially if the question was limited to local individuals. Would I invite current Mayor or a past one, the head Librarian, the guy who picks up our recycling, that old man who parks his car downtown and blasts big band, or a chef at a local restaurant?
Over the past few years, Kingstonist has been doing our best to interview provincial and federal government as well as mayoral candidates. We’ve caught up with Glen Fast, conductor of the Kingston Symphony, Jason Anderson, Kingston Canadian Film Festival’s Director of Programming, Virginia Clark, music promoter extraordinaire, The Gertrudes and a handful of local authors, musicians, film makers and so on.
Recently, the team sat down to identify some interesting individuals who we would enjoy interviewing, and you might enjoy reading about. In an effort to take guessing out of the equation, we’re asking: who do you want Kingstonist to interview? So long as they’re local and still alive, we’d love to learn about and introduce new personalities to our readers. Drop off the names of do-gooders, sensational bands, creative types, and anyone else who’s overdue for a feature interview with Kingstonist!
Thanks to smiling_da_vinci for today’s photo.
Have you considered the poet laureate, Eric Folsom? Or Merilyn Simonds, the artistic director of Kingston WritersFest? Clark Day is an interesting guy too. Or Al Rankin, though I guess he was profiled in Profile Kingston before.
How about something with the power landlords of K Town… Springer, Keystone, etc…
Those are really interesting questions. The only question is whether or not they'd be open to actually addressing some of the concerns people have about the way they do business.
Keystone is small potatoes compared to Homestead
Daniel Shipp and Stu Pike of Samba Maracuja and Samba Kingston; Catherine Lord, Kingston Latino Association and many other things.
Karen Pepperkorn, teacher at the Creative Arts Focus Program at QECVI for over 20 years, she is a hero to many. The guys from Kingston's ska band Tea for the Voyage. Theatre director and producer Michael Catlin.
Skate-At-Home Mom, Founder & President of Kingston Derby Girls!
As luck would have it, we've already had an opportunity to chat with her. You can read our interview with Skate at Home Mom here.
Neil Bettney, Graphic Designer – BentKnee Design.
How about Hugh Mosaheb, the asshat landlord who made a fool of himself with Coffeeco? I'd like to hear him answer questions and try to excuse himself, personally.
The person you really want to talk to is Col John Ross Matheson, OC , CD , QC , LL.M. , LL.D., father of the Canadian Flag among several other remarkable achievements. He’s 95, and they don’t make them that way anymore.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Matheson
That's a great suggestion. Any idea how we'd get in touch with him? 2 x J. Matheson's in the phonebook.
Pretty sure he lives in the building at Ontario and Johnson. Or you could do an old fashioned stake out and wait for him at the market, he is a regular there.
Mary Farrar! One of the most selfless community minded people I have met in Kingston. Ask her about the River Heritage Trail and saving Doug Fluhrer Park.
Francis MacLachlan — naval architect who "dreamed up" and then was responsible for building and running the St. Lawrence II — the first purpose-built square rigged youth sail training vessel built (earlier ones had been conversions from square riggers built for other purposes. St. Lawrence II was launched 60 years ago next year, and the concept has been copied many times. "Skipper" is a very youthful and active octogenarian (and lifelong Kingstonian; brother the the founder of the MacLachlan woodworking museum.)
Don and Joan McBride. The first (and maybe only) husband and wife team both appointed to the Order of Canada at the same time as a result of the same activity. Don is a retired home builder who years ago (maybe 30 or more years ago) began spending his winters (along with Joan) as volunteers traveling to poverty striken countries working with the poorest of the poor, teaching them how to build their own homes, schools, and other buildings to replace the shanties they were living in. Often they followed natural disasters such as hurricanes. 20 years ago I attended a dinner meeting at which Don was the guest speaker. The speech was fascinating. Don is a lifelong Kingstonian now in his 80's.