By Kate Winquist
How can you possibly get injured while bowling?
Well, my dear readers, it can happen. And it did happen to yours truly last week.
I’ll be honest. I had missed the previous two weeks of bowling because of work commitments, but last Wednesday I was ready to roll. Pun absolutely intended.
My first ball was a strike!
Lane number six was officially my new favourite.
I’d also made a few changes since my return to the lanes. I was no longer using my friend Adair’s bowling balls. I’d decided it was time to switch things up a bit, and apparently it was working. I’d been bowling better and had even cracked a 564 triple one week!
Look out, ladies. The gal from Glidden was on a roll!
And then it happened.
About halfway through our second game, I was making my approach, just about ready to release the ball, when I felt something pull.
And not just a little pull.
I swear I could actually HEAR something crunch in my lower region.
I pulled up lame.
Now, when you hear about an athlete pulling a muscle, you generally picture someone sprinting down a football field, rounding third base or perhaps making a spectacular play on the ice.
Not a middle-aged woman wearing rented shoes and attempting to knock down five bowling pins.
But there I was.
I’d pulled my glute.
Yup. My butt muscle.
My gluteus maximus, if we’re going to get all fancy and medical about it.
How embarrassing!
I could barely finish the second game, let alone attempt the third. And to add insult to injury, I needed help untying my bowling shoes.
There is absolutely no dignity in being sidelined by your own backside.
I drove back to work, where I foolishly thought I might find a little sympathy.
I was mistaken.
Lana laughed.
Joan wanted to know if I’d at least managed to get a strike when I did it.
Meanwhile, I sat gingerly on my office chair and texted Robert.
“I hurt myself bowling.”
No reply.
Not even a “What happened?” or “Are you okay?”
Nothing.
I eventually decided to head home and pop a couple of Motrin. I also managed to convince Robert to help me apply some Voltaren to the affected area.
You know you’ve got a good husband when ...
Well, I’ll just leave that one right there.
Needless to say, my bowling career has been temporarily put on hold. And while I have thoroughly enjoyed telling everyone about my unfortunate sporting mishap, I do realize that, in the grand scheme of things, a sore backside is hardly a tragedy.
Which brings me to something far more important.
This week’s paper includes our annual Remembrance Day tribute.
It’s a project that means a great deal to us, and one that required many hours of research, gathering photographs, reading family histories and piecing together the stories of men and women who served our country.
Over the past six years, we’ve collected photographs and information about veterans from communities throughout our readership area. Every year, we try to uncover a few more names, a few more faces and a few more stories that deserve to be told.
Some of these individuals returned home to raise families, work the land, build businesses and contribute to the communities we call home.
Others never had that opportunity.
My great uncle Bruce Maclennan was killed in WWII at age 21.
They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands, wives, friends and neighbours. Ordinary people who found themselves facing extraordinary circumstances.
And that’s something I think we sometimes forget.
Before they were soldiers, sailors or airmen, they were people just like us. They had hopes and dreams. They laughed with their friends. They fell in love. They made plans for the future.
Many came from little prairie communities where everybody knew everybody, and where news of a young life lost overseas would have been felt by an entire district.
For those who returned, the war didn’t necessarily end when they came home. Some carried physical wounds. Others carried memories they seldom spoke about.
And yet, so many simply picked up where they had left off, quietly building the communities and the country we enjoy today.
As a community newspaper publisher, I believe we have a responsibility to help preserve those stories.
Because once the people who remember them are gone, photographs become unidentified faces, names become inscriptions on monuments, and important pieces of our history risk disappearing altogether.
That’s why our Remembrance Day tribute matters.
I want to sincerely thank the families who have taken the time to share photographs, memories and stories of their loved ones with us. Some of those photographs are treasured family possessions, and we don’t take lightly the trust involved in sharing them.
If you have a photograph or story of a veteran from our area who isn’t in this year’s tribute, please get in touch. We’re already starting on next year’s edition.
I’d also like to acknowledge the businesses and organizations that sponsor our Remembrance Day tribute. Your support allows us to dedicate the space and resources needed to honour these individuals and preserve a little more of our local history.
It’s about much more than filling pages in a newspaper.
It’s about remembering the people behind the names.
It’s about ensuring that future generations understand that the freedoms we enjoy today came at a tremendous cost.
And it’s about recognizing that courage and sacrifice weren’t confined to faraway battlefields. Their stories began right here, on the farms, in the schools and along the main streets of our own communities.
So, as I nurse my bruised pride and my considerably less-than-cooperative gluteus maximus, I’m reminded that most of the things we grumble about in our everyday lives are pretty small potatoes.
A missed bowling game. A hectic workweek. A sore muscle. An unanswered text from your husband.
Minor inconveniences in a life filled with freedoms that others helped secure.
This November 11, I hope you’ll take a few moments to remember those who served, those who sacrificed and those who never made it home.