Acknowledgements & Dedication

DEDICATION:
This book is for George Budziszewski.

Lord knows I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t dedicate this book to George. But I guess I would do so anyway because he is after all, my inspiration, my strength, my best friend and the love of my life. Words of course can never express…


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I would like to thank Farley Mowat for being the calibre of man he is: wise, funny, kind and supportive. He represents one of the best this country will ever see. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my book and fulminations and for inspiring this revised edition.

There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful to my parents, Roy Tilden Shawcross and Amelia Victoria MacNeil.

I’d like to thank Nikki Mantell, publisher of the Low Down to Hull and Back News for the opportunity she has given me to share my voice. I will always remember Bob Mellor fondly. I do miss him. Thank you to Barb Levitan for helping always and for having faith in me despite my bad housekeeping. Now I am amazed that I have any friends, family or acquaintances left at all because as a humor writer these poor souls are often the target of my midnight search for a story line or a character and to those I express my undying gratitude if not apologies. (But then again, what can I say for heavenssakes… if you’re going to be so darn eccentric then of COURSE I’m going to write about you eh?) Now you all know who you are and you all know I love you all dearly. Don’t make me list you here! Oh… alright… not in any particular order of course… Theresa Winfield, Jo-Anne Oosterman, Linda Bardell, Stella Michaud, Heather Paterson, Bob Hughes, Kitty Mantell, Barbara Levitan Preston Wilson and the other members of the Wednesday afternoon Happy Gang, Dain and Michaela Moore, Royanne, Amelie, Lisa and Danielle(y) Shawcross, Avrah Levitan, Sasha Smirnoff, Oliver and Julia Przednowek, Emily Michaud, Liam O’Grady, Arthur Blank. Adrienne Herron always wise and supportive and whose photographic skills are a blessing indeed. (Particularly when charged with the misery of taking a picture of me who so so didn’t want to have my picture taken… Thank you.) Also James Kellaris you wit you! If I’ve forgotten you, oh for heavenssakes… I’m old. It’s not that I’m not grateful but it’s more likely because I’m getting forgetful. I would of course like to thank the Municipality of Chelsea for their fodder: politics and pundits were ever thus.

But here is the important thing: I should never have written a column poking fun at Todd Evans because it was through his column I was able to discover Frances Curry and Chelsea Books publishing arm. Forgive me Todd. Thank you Frances. And to my faithful readers (I think that’s plural) my sincere thanks for having negotiated your way through the texts of many a trial and error while I found my voice (which when I think of it I’m still looking for but never mind all that….)

22 November 2006

“The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.”
--Mahatma Gandhi