The best people of 2019
When Jeremy Rupke put a microphone on his four-year-old son, Mason, for hockey practice, he thought he might have a hit video within the hockey community, Healther Mallick writes.
The chaos of 2019 may have blinded us to the continued existence of the Terrifics, people who impress us mightily. Here are a few of my top Terrifics. Happy holidays to the Star’s dear readers, and let’s keep chatting away peacefully in 2020.
Coach Jeremy. Hockey coach Jeremy Rupke, of Oro-Medonte, put a mic on his son, Mason, so we could hear the stream of consciousness of a four-yearold at hockey practice. It was enchanting. Toddlers haven’t learned insincerity or even silence; Mason’s monologue as he skates or fails to, or scores a goal, which in his eyes he did, is comedy gold. He rolls like a sausage on the ice, naps, crawls, cheers his triumphs, hunts down friends, sits down and recites “criss-cross apple sauce,” gets lost, misses his friend Amy, gets lost — repetition is a big theme — and ends with “Dad, I love you sooo much.” Every word contains giddy delight. Doctors should prescribe Coach Jeremy’s YouTube videos for patients under stress. For some reason, Mason scorns the ice as “old paint can.” We were all Masons once and old paint Ccans we became, I suspect.
Vickery Bowles, city librarian at the Toronto Public Library. After Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy was allowed to speak at the library in October for a small group to discuss the rights of women and those of selfidentified transgender people, there was an uproar and an angry demonstration by anti-feminists. But free speech matters, Bowles said, and she stuck to that, saying the library cannot ban controversial books or de-platform speakers. As the Star editorial board wrote, libraries have an obligation to ensure “the widest possible boundaries for debate” and Bowles, who has worked for the library for 37 years, followed through. She says free speech is precious and words and thoughts are free to wander. She shushes nobody.
Margaret Atwood. Happy 80th birthday to Canada’s greatest writer, the one who knows us best. She co-won the Booker Prize this year for “The Testaments,” about a dystopian future that gets closer every day. She endured the death of Graeme Gibson, great writer and wonderful husband, and kept going, as she always does, studying us as an anthropologist would and remaining curious about every aspect of this world and imagined worlds. She retained her good humour in this most difficult year. I hope we do the same.
Catherine McKenna was a splendid Minister of Environment and Climate Change in four years of Liberal government, despite the “Climate Barbie” sexism and violent threats sent her way by primitive people. She is now Minister of Infrastructure. This smart, energetic and impossibly optimistic politician will do her best for us. She always has.
Fiona Hill, a longtime U.S. National Security Council adviser, testified at the Trump impeachment hearings about
Russian aims and tactics, and impressed the hell out of (almost) everyone. Realizing that her northern accent would block her progress in classridden Britain, she moved to the U.S. and soared. Hill was brilliant and brisk about the evil that Russia is shooting into the world. It worries me that she appeared only a few weeks ago and we are already forgetting her.
Marie Yovanovitch was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine before Donald Trump fired her for impeding his personal quest for information that would help his re-election. She defended the State Department and its devoted staff, stuck to the facts and was so intelligent and convincing that Trump was triggered. It was awful to see her face as she was informed that Trump was at that very moment tweeting insults about her, a new low in morality, decency, office etiquette and witness-terrifying. But she was not terrified. We saw that.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, she of “Fleabag,” the huge hit on the largely hitless Amazon Prime, is a remarkable British writer and actor. She has fizz, an extra effervescence that fills her work with an oddity unpermitted on this continent. “Fleabag” is very funny, but it is also strange, packed with odd, unattractive characters that resemble the humans we know, not the idiotic grinning candy-fied cane pretty people on the American Hallmark TV movies filmed in Canada on the cheap. Waller-Bridge is your protein, your nougat, your Turkish Delight.