Friday, May 3, 2013
It was my honor and pleasure to say I was able to work under Vic for 5 years until 2009. He was a mentor, a comedian, a confidant and a friend. And watch out if I have any grammar errors he will haunt me, ask Barbie if you don't believe me!!
One of the best stories I have about Vic and I tell it every time I am asked to play the Ground Disturbance Blues song he directed me to write. It is hard to tell this story without rambling but I will try. At the Calgary spring meetings I commented to the facilitator that Vic had been using the same theory in practice that the guest speaker was preaching, she promptly requested Vic to speak at the Lloydminster conference for the ground disturbance summit. Vic wasn't really a volunteer speaker, he was a good speaker but he only imposed his opinion when it directly involved his project usually. It took him a couple of weeks to reply and in the end he came to work one morning and told me that he had an epiphany. He said he was out on the deck having his morning coffee and the girl across the way let her dog out to do it's morning business and it came to him. He let out his world famous war whoop and scared the crap out of the dog. He had decided he would speak but I had to write a song called the Ground disturbance blues and after his talk I would sing it. The end result was we showed up at the summit my guitar and harmonica in hand and waited for our spot which Vic in his usual wisdom wanted to go last. After 8 hours of information sharing, other speakers and brainstorming any form of entertainment to lighten the mood would have been good. Vic went through his points on ground disturbance and experiences and then gave me my formal introduction to the 100 or so engineers and project managers as well as lead operation personal for Husky for which I am still remembered. He told the audiance that we had worked together and conducted a lot of ground disturbance activities in difficult situations, he then went on to tell them all that I was a member of the "selective Saskatchewan inbreeding program" with Vic you had to be prepared for the humour and I introduce myself in that fashion whenever I sing this song, it kind of became my mantra.
The things Vic taught me went beyond learning, he was a gentleman, wordsmith and truly a man of character, I could never thank him enough. I wonder if theres chinese checkers in heaven??? inside joke
