OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, July 23, 2009 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER Vice-president and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com It's up to all of us Steve Bright f it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to help a child fight cancer. Having recently completed a cross-Canada ride to help kids fight cancer, I have come to understand just how important communities such as Oakville are in this fight. Steve Bright Last month, I was one of 36 regular Canadians who completed a 12-day, 7,000-km journey across this country. I took this on as a challenge in my 40th year for a cause about which I am passionate. Being the proud father of two young, healthy daughters was added incentive to help other parents dealt a very bad hand. Our goals in this riding adventure were straightforward: to raise money and awareness for childhood cancer research; and to ride as far as we could every day as a sign of our determination to help the 10,000 Canadian children living with and beyond cancer. Six months of intense training took us to the required fitness level for this marathon. Collectively, we have raised more than $1 million for the leading cause of nonaccidental death among children in Canada, with 100 per cent of money raised going to the cause. And that's the point. Cancer devastates many families. It also brings some much closer together. It cuts through social status and physical size. It doesn't discriminate. When it hits in remote parts of the country, it can isolate families more than any terrain. They need money for research as well as hugs from strangers. There are many lessons learned from having done such a trip. Canada is indeed an enormous country when seeing it on the ground for so long, and the cycling is fabulous. Speedy flats, rolling hills and long climbs await, as does camaraderie among fellow cyclists that will see you over any obstacle. The greatest lesson for me was the power of active community engagement. A ride like this helps communities, is inspired by communities and indeed creates communities of those rallying around one cause. In this case it was pediatric oncology, but similar dynamics are at play countless times over when considering the multitude of worthwhile causes in need of resources. There is a lot of demand waiting for supply. The power of community was driven home on every day of this ride. Communities can be defined any number of ways -- by geography, cause, belief. They can, and do, make a huge difference in fighting childhood cancer. That is as true in large urban settings as it is in communities of a few hundred souls. Take Wawa, Ontario as an example. A young man of 18 years of age died of cancer two days before our team arrived I RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION PHOTOS BY MICHAEL IVANIN / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER TOLES FOR SENIORS: From left, Jared Gour and Lara Issac keep an eye on their music while Simon Harmgardt keeps an eye on the ball as the members of Teens Organizing Local Entertainment for Seniors (TOLES) performed its 50th variety show recently at the Kensington Seniors Residence. Toles bridges the generation gap through entertainment. See A cause page 7 Cottage life: golfing without guilt and some heaven at seven I t's in the Bible, man: Go forth and recreate. Still, we have a hard time shutting down and letting go. We have an even harder time believing the work world can actually survive a week without us -- that if we click off the computer, lock the office and leave the building, our personal work universe will not completely collapse in our absence. In other words, we're over intense, a little obsessed and (dare I say) delusional. Hey, we're Canadians. When summer comes, we feel the need to take ourselves slightly less seriously. We feel the need to heed the words of the good book (go forth, recreate), and the need to turn off, tune out, get away and release our inner surfer dude. Consequently, we head to the cottage. Not `a' cottage, but, rather, `the' cottage. In Canada, it's never, "We're going to a cottage." It's always, "We're going to the cottage." Even if you've never been there before. Even if you're only renting. Even if it's just a shack in the woods, it's still `the' cottage. Recently a buddy who was born and raised in a faraway land quizzed me on the appeal of cottage life to Canadians. In particular, he wondered what people do up there in the wilderness. I can't speak for all Canuck cottagers, but I did give him an earful regarding what is, for me, the laidback allure of a cottage. Sorry, of `the' cottage. Reading Without Repercussions. These days, life is ceaseless hustle and bustle. With the economy still without a real muscle to flex, we all feel obligatAndy Juniper ed to work umpteen hours a day to prop up businesses, to make bosses happy and ends meet. So, when are born bibliophiles supposed to sate their passion? At the cottage, of course. I take a box of paperback treats and treasures and I indulge. Hell, I overindulge. To boot, I love newspapers, but only at the cottage -- on the dock in the open air or crashed on the couch -- do I get to thoroughly indulge, front page to back page, as many editions as I can find in the tiny town down the road. Golfing Without Guilt. You know the drill: you're at home and the weather's postcard perfect and the local course is calling out your name, but there are deadlines and endless obligations to be met, so golf goes out the window. Well, not at the cottage. The crappy little course a few kilometres down the rollercoaster road seems like heaven at seven (a.m., each morning). And who is going to bug you about taking the time to golf? Nobody. You're on holidays. Tanning Without Trunks. Er, I just made that up. Never happened. Never mind. Seriously. If none of this suits you, how about a hot cup of coffee on the dock, fend-for-yourself breakfasts on the deck, barbecued feasts, endless board games, rediscovering the pleasure of cribbage, paddling a canoe across a glassy lake, listening to a static-laced baseball game on a cheap transistor radio, not checking e-mail every three minutes, and spending time with people (real people, not fake Facebook people)? And by the end of the cottage stay, we Canadians are invariably rested, relaxed and re-centered having released our inner surfer dude. And should someone dare even mention the word work, but one reply is forthcoming: "Dude, you're harshing my mellow." Andy Juniper can be visited at his website, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com.