Boy from Nowhere. Allan Fotheringham

a tin helmet in a foxhole dug in the English Bay sand by Sun photogs.

      After the season-end B.C. Lions drunk, Stuke staggered into the sports office with the hot news that the very popular line coach from Texas had been told he was sacked but should go home quietly to Abilene and his retirement would be announced down the track.

      When we reported this big-time hypocrisy in our first edition, denials from the Lions filled every radio and TV newscast in town. A hungover Stuke began to question his memory. I, being the nervous kid on the sports desk, had to make a quick decision whether to kill the scoop before the second edition.

      Managing editor Hal Straight, all of two hundred and sixty pounds in his $3,000 camel hair topcoat, eventually arrived in the office with casual advice as I babbled the crisis to him: “Kid, don’t worry. If you’re right, you’re right. If you’re wrong, you’re fired.”

      It was a dull time.

      This is what I came back to.

      7

      Vancouver and Marriage

      When I returned to the Vancouver Sun, the managing editor, still Erwin Swangard, put me to work as a sportswriter. Back to the old desk but not for long. One day Swangard told me I was going to be assistant picture editor, which meant I had to sit and write the captions for all of the pictures in the paper.

      It seemed like a silly nothing job to me, but I realized later, as I had to fill in for the picture editor on his days off and his holiday, that I would be in on the daily conferences with the top editors and making decisions on how to lay out the front page. He then had me go sit on the “desk” with all of the rheumy old drunks who edited the copy.

      Erwin also sent me up to the composing room to instruct the printers how to make up the pages. I finally realized after some time being bounced around like this that he wanted me to learn all of the sections of the paper and all its jobs. While all of my old sportswriter buddies never got out of the sports room.