Words of wisdom -- mostly -- from the year

And now a few choice words from a few of last year's choice columns.

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"In response to your question -- Bonnie Staples-Lyon from our office phoned the Winnipeg Police Service to see if his traffic incident was treated any differently than any other citizen and the response was 'absolutely not.' "

-- A spokesperson in Mayor Sam Katz's office responding to a question I hadn't even put to them yet about an accident where a van driven by His Worship reportedly "slipped through a red light" and collided with another vehicle. But wasn't ticketed.

"I'm out on the streets listening to what matters to my constituents right now."

-- Aspiring Conservative member of Parliament Joyce Bateman, who, once elected, took nearly three months to return a constituent's call for help, and then only on the eve of a column about her unavailability.

"I fought in the protests to keep them and did the rallies. The least we could have is the name back."

-- Winnipeg Jets loyalist Les Puchala pleading for True North Sports & Entertainment chairman Mark Chipman to do the right thing and bring back the Jets name at a time when it was still endangered by Polar Bears and Falcons.

"It doesn't take a lot to give a lot."

-- Britney Fache, a part-time flower-distribution worker, explaining why she had been quietly lending a mood of magic and delight to her apartment block by secretly decorating the lobby with flowers that otherwise would have been thrown away.

"You think about your own family. And what it would be like if you weren't around for them. And then you wonder: 'Is this guy OK? Does he have family? Does he have kids?' "

-- Shawn Crockett describing how he felt after he stopped his run at the Manitoba Marathon to perform CPR on another contestant who had been felled by a heart attack and wasn't breathing -- but survived.

"If ever there was an area that needs a little loving care, that's it. I think it's sad and some kind of commentary. I'm not sure what."

-- Refugee-resettlement executive Tom Denton wondering why the flowerpots on north Main medians were full of weeds, while the city had helped fill other Winnipeg boulevards with flowers.

"He said, 'Mum, everybody does it.' "

-- Winnipeg mother Donna Twomey recalling a conversation about drug use she had with her son, Derek, before he became the 84th Manitoban to die from an accidental prescription-drug overdose in the last five years.

"Maybe Winnipeg's football nickname should be Staggerville instead."

-- Yours Truly and Bluely commenting after a couple of fans and their young son had a stairway run-in with a drunk during an early-season game when the Blue Bombers were winning and Winnipeg still thought it was Swaggerville.

"The flight operations unit has identified several fires from the air that were not yet reported and has searched the area of several fires after they were reported and suspects had already fled, however, they have not had occasion to actually locate a suspect on scene at a fire when it occurred."

-- Winnipeg police media relations department's wordy way of saying "No," to a question about whether the service's high-priced and high-tech helicopter had anything to do with the arrest of a suspect in a series of south-side arsons.

"These are poor lost kids."

-- Dr. Keith Hildahl, the head of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority's child adolescent mental health program, describing what he finds when he looks deep inside most young people who kill.

"It's the LAW. Obey it."

-- The online comment reaction of "Finn" after a column about Gary Claeys, the Deloraine senior who, after taking in a stray, now has three cats, one above the town limit.

"It used to be the LAW that no women had the vote and only some men. It used to be the LAW that fugitive slaves had to be returned to their owners. It used to be the LAW that marriages between First Nations people and Caucasians were illegal. It used to be the LAW this; it used to be the LAW that. 'Finn' needs to stop confusing what is the LAW with what is right!"

-- Free Press reader Tim Sayeau in an email to me.

"I was going to just throw it in the garbage."

-- West End resident Greg Sutherland explaining his initial reaction to finding a piece of neatly folded paper by a back lane garbage container that had the words "Wishes for 2011" on the outside.

"I wish I can have enough money to be able to buy my family Christmas gifts this year."

-- The only wish Sutherland found on the list on the unfolded and the unsigned piece of paper.

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And now, for the quote of the year:

"Friend, as you pass by as you are, once I was. As I am, soon you will be. Prepare yourself to follow me. Make a will Dummy."

-- The late Jerry Edmond Alexander's parting advice to the world chiselled in stone on his Rossburn headstone.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca;

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 3, 2012 B1