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2006
Leacock Dinner a(n) Hilarious Success - click
here for photos
The
2006 Leacock Medal of Humour award dinner, held Saturday June 10, was a much
different affair from the 2005 version. This year’s event included all the
courses of the excellent dinner, speeches read by electric light and
temperatures that stayed well below body temperature. Last year’s dinner was
afflicted with lightning, driving rain, a hot and humid conference room, power
outages.... all the makings of a near-disaster. In the words of this year’s
host, Ian Ferguson, “Come to the Leacock dinner and see Biblical plagues
unfold!”
In
fact, Ian commented in his introductory remarks that the people of Orillia
don’t know how lucky they are to live in such a beautiful part of the country
with the benefits and charms that entails. “You people live in
Luckybastardville,” he said, with all the envy of someone who lives part of
the year in LA and part of the year in BC.
The
entire evening was side-splittingly funny. “We take our comedy pretty
seriously in this country,” said the M.C., a former Leacock award winner
himself and a man who at one time opted for stand-up comedy to escape the
drudgery of the building trades. “What we do better than anyone in the world
is....comedy.” Perhaps we can, at least in part, thank Stephen Leacock for
that.
There
was a definite Thunder Bay (Ontario) connection with the Awards banquet this
year. Arthur Black, winning for his third time, used to be a broadcaster for CBC
in the Lakehead. Carmen Fletcher, our student award winner for 2006 is a student
from Dag Hammarskjold high school in Thunder Bay. Miss Fletcher was accompanied
to the event by her mother, an avid listener of Basic
Black and by her English teacher, Alexandra Kraft-Wilson.
Dan
Needles, the Mayor of Mariposa, gave his second annual “State of Mariposa”
address and delighted the crowd with his observations. While he admitted that no
public works had been accomplished and he had not managed to meet the terms of
the Kyoto Agreement, Mayor Dan does have plans. One of them involves moving all
the hobby farmers back to the big cities, where they’ll own fewer gas guzzling
vehicles and machinery and thereby use less fossil fuel! And, while he was
unable to move the citizens of Mariposa to action this past year, he stands
ready to serve as Mayor for another term. That statement met with no dissent
whatsoever.
Several
of Orillia’s “real” politicians were in attendance at the Gala Dinner.
Simcoe North M.P. Bruce Stanton came fresh from the House of Commons, where the
day before he had mentioned the Leacock Award in Parliament. Bruce explained to
the gathering that he’d experienced a “Leacock envy” moment. After his
brief speech, he was inundated with other Members of Parliament from across
Canada who had their own Leacock anecdotes to share. Garfield Dunlop, the
(provincial) M.P.P. for Simcoe North, was also in attendance and suffered the
razzing of our M.C. Ian was
surprised that Tories have a sense of humour! Perhaps we can attribute some of
that to the fact that both politicians had as their high school English teacher
Mrs. Judith Rapson, one of the Leacock Association Board of Directors.
Of
course, the evening’s main event was the purpose of the gathering: to honour
Arthur Black with his third Leacock medal, a “trifecta of humour.” No matter
who spoke about him, Arthur was glowingly praised for his manner and for his
brilliance. At one point he was called Canada’s favourite uncle. And, making
an observation from the perspective of a former (one-time) winner, Ian Ferguson
stated that Arthur Black “uses the least amount of words to make you laugh.”
Ian went on to mention that Mr. Black has written eleven books. “Our Prime
Minister hasn’t even read eleven books,” he joked.
Cathy
Stephenson, the Branch Manager at Westridge Place in Orillia, presented the TD
Bank Financial Group’s $10 000 cash award to Arthur.
As
is the tradition, this year’s Award winner gave an acceptance speech that kept
the audience laughing for the better part of half an hour. Arthur explained that
he came from a Scottish background – “Ontario Scotch” as John Kenneth
Galbraith would have said – a people not known for flamboyance in thought,
word or deed. Yet they produced a three time award winning humourist! Mr. Black
then regaled the room with an account of his sex education and his experiences
as a public speaker. While acknowledging that he “doesn’t know where humour
lives” and stated that he is unable to explain how to write humour, he
definitely knows how to practise what he doesn’t
preach. Arthur Black is as funny in person as he is in print.
Mr.
Black concluded his acceptance with a thank you to the Leacock Association.
“Now that the CBC has gone the way of the railway, this [the Stephen Leacock
Medal for Humour] holds the country together in a way.”
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