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Precious times for parents
We’ve got our family together once again.
We went to the train station late Sunday night to meet child the elder, aka Crazy Guy on a Bike, who’d just returned from Vancouver, the first time I’d seen him since he rode down the street and turned the corner onto Kingsway back on Sept. 14.
During that time he rode his bike 14,624 km through parts of four provinces and around the perimeter of the U.S.
He’d planned to get off the train in western Manitoba and ride back home the last few days, but the flood and the chaos ended those plans. Instead, his bike went in the back of the car, the trip on two wheels ending when he arrived at his old friend’s place in Vancouver.
If you go off to the right and look for my favourite blogs, you’ll find the link to his journal, which still awaits the final couple of entries. He’s written enough for a book, with more than 5,000 incredibly good photographs, and closing in on 300,000 hits.
We heard about the really hairy times after they were over and he was safe, but almost all of it was wonderful. The number of generous and welcoming people he met was just amazing.
We’ll have him home for a couple of weeks before he goes off to his summer job — those who follow his journal know that he’s a counsellor at the Shad Valley camp at McMaster University — and then he’ll be back in August for a month at home, or at least the part of the month that he’s not on canoe and bike trips. And then he and child the younger head for the west coast and Upper Canada to resume university.
It’s five years since we were preparing for his safe grad. Once they move on, the short times when you see your kids are all the more precious.
Sigh.
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About Nick Martin
Nick Martin is the old bearded guy at the back of the newsroom, the most experienced reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press, having started his career in Ontario in 1971.
He’s been covering education for the Free Press since the spring of 1997, after decades primarily covering municipal politics, including a four-year stint at the Ontario legislature for the London Free Press.
Nick moved to Manitoba in 1988 with his Winnipeg-born wife, who is a professor at the University of Manitoba. They have two kids, both of whom graduated from Grant Park High School: son Chris and daughter Gillian.
Nick has won a national journalism award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, two Manitoba Human Rights Journalism awards, and the Ontario Reporters Association investigative award.
Nick is a long-distance runner, having finished and survived 18 marathons and 15 half-marathons and 30-kilometre races, and having (barely) survived 10 years as an outdoor and indoor soccer coach.
Nick became a soccer referee in 2007, delighting in his 60s in outrunning 16-year-olds and keeping his distance from obstreperous coaches and parents.
Nick and his wife have discovered a mutual love for kayaking at their Whiteshell cottage, and are both regulars at the Reh-Fit Centre. They hold season tickets to both the Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Warehouse, and as empty nesters, have rediscovered the joys of an active winter vacation.
A native of Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, Nick is a member of the Toon Army as a Newcastle United supporter, and a proud citizen of Leafs Nation.
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