In the spirit of talking about people we meet along the way, let me tell you about a guy who changed my life. You will never meet him because he’s dead, but we did meet his doppelganger. Sort of.
As you all know, the sixties were a turbulent time, and that is how I remember my youth. Turbulent. The boomers were in the process of contesting everything, deconstructing everything, just generally being a pain in the ass, and I, a confused, rebellious youngster, followed suit. Turbulent.
But there was Ward Bishop. Of slender build, open face, active mind, great heart. He and his wife Martha ran the youth group at the church I was raised in, which for me, at any rate, was a literal godsend. If I was a dumb kid thrashing about in the river rapids, he was the cool coach bobbing along in a raft, shouting encouragement. Or something like that.
Among many other things, Ward would organize hockey games at 5 in the morning, because that’s the only time you could get ice time in Victoria. He would get you to read stuff you’d never heard about before. He drove a behemoth red Plymouth station wagon (new, I think), which was totally out of character for him. He understood both you and your parents, a useful skill in those days. He never gave up on people.
His greatest feature: he was a political aficionado. A fan. A junkie. He loved Diefenbaker, reveled in WAC Bennet denouncing “the godless socialists at the gates” (aka the NDP), and rejoiced when any liberal cause floundered. Which sounds like your typical MAGA guy circa 1968, but Ward was anything but.
A lifelong foe of government over reach and the welfare state, Ward and his wife adopted four kids and raised them along with their own two children. Took them and all their problems right into their home and raised them to adult hood. He was an enemy of charity by taxation (which ain’t charity), but he and Martha were of all people the most charitable. The homeless weren’t the government’s problem; they were his, and he did something about it.
He was a teacher by trade; not normally conservative territory, but he was always advocating for some educational improvement or other. I’m not sure, but I’m guessing the BCTF knew who he was, and I’m thinking they must have been amused by this slender conservative chap beating the drum for the public good. A socialist perhaps?
Ward became the mayor of Ashcroft BC, propelled to power by his campaign team (aka family). He was a school teacher there, and he dislodged the old boy’s network that had always run that town by running on a platform of progressive reforms. His kids handed out flyers, organized things, etc, and there he was, His Worship Lord Mayor of Ashcroft BC, shaking up the establishment with his progressive ideas. Incredible.
From which I learned a mighty lesson and never forgot it: do not slot people. Always a mistake.
If Ward were around today to be interviewed by media folk, I’m pretty sure you would not hear about he and Martha raising a houseful of kids, but you would hear about his opposition to the “welfare state”. Brainless conservative.
I’m pretty sure you would not hear about his endless compassion for everybody that crossed his path, but you would hear about his opposition to all the crazy shibboleths that were beginning to gain currency in his time. Hater. Right wing fundamentalist.
I’m pretty sure you would not hear how he could laugh until tears ran down his face, and how he was the life of the party, and how he could joke about himself and his foibles, but you would instead hear about an “angry conservative”, a dangerous fellow, a resentful white male. (There is a book titled “The Angry Conservative”. I know because Ward gave me a copy, but I lost it).
In short, to slot Ward would have been to miss him. He was a conservative for sure, but there was so much more to the story.
I said earlier that we met Ward’s doppelganger, which is only partly true. We “met” him on the TV screen about a month ago, which ain’t really meeting him, but what is true is that Ward and his doppelganger are absolutely identical in every way. If you want to know what Ward looked like, and how he thought, and how he laughed, and how he approached politics, google Nayib Bukele, who is the president of El Salvador. Spitting image. It’s shocking.
And sure enough, people want to slot him. Have to slot him. By his own account, Bukele was a radical leftist when he started, but he has since been labeled a dictator, the Trump of Latin America, a human rights denier, and etc. The world’s press has piled on enthusiastically during his tenure, but his people, the Salvadorians, love him, to the tune of 85% of the last vote. Kind of reminds me of Ward; to know him was to love him, but once the press had finished slotting him, you might have missed the real man.
So here’s to Ward, and here’s to everyone who looks like him, and here’s to listening to people and not slotting them. Especially not wildly popular ones.
Unless they piss you off, but even then you should try, I’m thinking.
For your amusement and entertainment, google Mr. Bukele. Read his stuff. Watch his speeches. Ward 2.0.
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