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Terry Fox

2 Ron Terry Thamesford

The Man Behind the Marathon of Hope: Ron Calhoun

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Terry Fox and Ron Calhoun, July 1980. Photo from Ron Calhoun’s collection, used with permission.

Well here we are 40 years after our Canadian hero, Terry Fox, started his Marathon of Hope across Canada with the behind-the-scenes help of Ron Calhoun. Ron was the Canadian Cancer Society Special Events Chair who worked out all the details to make Terry’s run successful. And he did a fabulous job.

From the starting date of April 12th, 1980 to the day Terry was forced to suspend his run in September of that same year, his story grew and grew. And so did the dollars raised. Today the Terry Fox Foundation counts the total at approximately $800,000,000.

Municipalities all across the part of the country where Terry ran treasure the memories. They are so delighted to have been part of this huge undertaking that they find many ways to salute that indomitable young man.

Last year my husband and I were in London walking along the Terry Fox Parkway near the Thames River.  We were there to take part in inducting a new park bench to celebrate Ron Calhoun(and his wife Fran) and his tremendous contributions to our area and to the whole country, if not the world.

Ron at 86 reliving the Marathon of Hope when he spoke at the dedication of the bench in London, Ontario.

Just this past week, Woodstock, Ontario added their own memorial to the hundreds across the country. Here is the story in the Woodstock Sentinel Review.   

John Versaevel, the chair of the Woodstock Terry Fox Run, and Woodstock Mayor Trevor Birtch watch the raising of the Terry Fox flag at Museum Square Wednesday July 15, 2020. The day celebrates the 40th anniversary since Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope travelled through Woodstock. Greg Colgan/Sentinel-Review/Postmedia Network jpg, WD

The appendix of The Man Behind the Marathons: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions for Charity lists many of the many awards and accomplishments of Ron Calhoun. He was a quiet, rather unassuming man who liked to ‘drive from the back seat’. In other words he liked to suggest ideas and then see how others would proceed with them.

He used this method in many instances as John Davidson, of Jesse’s Journey fame, experienced. Ron helped him in his quest to find a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. John is now the humble head of Jesse’s Journey which gives out to researchers around the world $1,000,000 every year to help eradicate that disease.

With Ron’s passing in February of 2020, an initiative to have him awarded the Order of Canada, along with all of his other awards came abruptly to an end. Unfortunately at this time the body in charge of awarding those medals only gives them to living recipients.

This seems unfair as Ron Calhoun’s services to this country and the world have not disappeared because of his death. His has been an exemplary life, much of it spent in service to others. He told this author that he hoped when he died that he would have left this world a better place. I think he has done that in spades. He deserves recognition.

 

 

The Man Behind the Marathon Final Ebook Cover Final

The Man Behind the Marathon Cover Reveal!

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For a year and a half and more I’ve been working on The Man Behind the Marathon: How Dr. Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions For Charity. Today I’m happy to present this cover design by Sharon Clare based on an original oil painting by Cliff Kearns and a photograph by Dan Peer.

Look for upcoming posts regarding this book in the next couple of months. It’s history of a different sort but no less fascinating or important.

Here is the excerpt from the draft which I sent out in my newsletter (subscribe at left):

On October 15, 1979, Ron Calhoun received a call from Blair Mackenzie, the Executive Director of the British Columbia Division of the Canadian Cancer Society. A young man had walked into his office who wanted to run across Canada to raise research dollars for cancer. Blair told him about the young man and his idea. Sitting in his office in London, Ontario, Ron, the National Special Events Chair for the Canadian Cancer Society, knew that no countrywide mechanism existed in the Society to handle such a mammoth project.
By the end of the call Ron had told Blair that the young man would have to find his own transportation from the west coast to the east coast, he’d have to line up a vehicle with sleeping accommodations where they needed it, a driver, hotels, food supply—something like A&P—all across the country, and a companion to go with him. If he did all of those things, Ron promised they would talk further.
He thought that would be the end of it.
About six weeks later Blair called again and said, “He’s back, Ron, and he’s done everything you asked. And by the way, he’s an amputee.”

The book is of the man behind 5 different marathons and of his incredible life. His vision and his method of “driving from the back seat” have made history for Canada and the world.

Watch this space for the launch date of The Man Behind the Marathon: How Dr. Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions for Charity.

Please share on all your social media places.

Ron-Calhoun

Biography is My Marathon of Hope

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Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope. Painting by Cliff Kearns, used with permission.

Here are some points that might both explain how I’m writing the biography of Ron Calhoun (Behind the Marathon of Hope: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox Raise Millions for Cancer) and give some guidance to others contemplating writing a biography themselves.

This book is about a living person rather than an iconic figure from the past which fact presents me with a huge advantage. I have been able to get the story directly from the star’s mouth; in fact, I’ve been interviewing Ron over the course of the last year, sneaking out time whenever our busy schedules have permitted. We’ve talked about Terry Fox, the most famous of those Ron has assisted; John and Jesse Davidson of Jesse’s Journey; Steve Fonyo, a Cancer survivor whose run presented huge challenges; and blind Ken McColm who ran across Canada to aid Diabetes research.

Ron received his honorary doctorate.

Either at my home or his I set up the tiny recorder and push record. Ron and I have about a two-hour discussion as he explains documents in front of us, tells stories from the past and answers my questions along the way. I have a sheet of topics and questions for him to explain and that leads to many interesting conversations. I’ve discovered that my interviewing style is more like a conversation where I even share salient points from my history which fit in with what he’s saying. Ron first worked with my mother in the Cancer Society and our families have a long history, making this conversational style most appropriate.

The question I am having to ask myself is whether to use or how to use all the information Ron gives me. Ron has many unique documents some of which I’ll put into an appendix at the back of the book but I’ll try to keep the narrative of Ron’s life a flowing story. Footnotes are useful here as well.

I like the third suggestion in the following very simple list from the web particularly as these questions start my own brain thinking about what might be good for my particular project.

To write a biography you should:    (Click link for more information.)

  1. Select a person you are interested in.
  2. Find out the basic facts of the person’s life. Start with the encyclopedia and almanac.
  3. Think about what else you would like to know about the person, and what parts of the life you want to write most about. Some questions you might want to think about include:
    • What makes this person special or interesting?
    • What kind of effect did he or she have on the world? other people?
    • What are the adjectives you would most use to describe the person?
    • What examples from their life illustrate those qualities?
    • What events shaped or changed this person’s life?
    • Did he or she overcome obstacles? Take risks? Get lucky?
    • Would the world be better or worse if this person hadn’t lived? How and why?
  4. Do additional research at your library or on the Internet to find information that helps you answer these questions and tell an interesting story.
  5. Write your biography.

One of the surprises I’ve had is the amount and the variety of information available to me for this project. Just now I’ve had to resort to putting everything into the chapters as I’ve laid them out in my chapter list at the beginning of the book and not worrying too much about writing perfectly integrated information. That narrative quality will be more important in editing but just now I really want to see the shape of the story. I need to get control of the process and this is how I’ve chosen to do it.

I have sixteen chapters and am planning a prologue. Some of the chapters are very long, some short, and others almost empty as I haven’t got to them. Once I organize the information in this way, I’ll revamp the whole thing with a view to evening out the chapters, making sure I end each one so the reader will have to turn the page, and giving the book a rising action quality, as much as is possible with a biography.

This book is a different kind of history for me, whose historical fiction books started my writing career. There I could use the actual historical facts as a framework upon which I imposed the fiction part. A lot of the book came out of my imagination. I’m pretty sure Ron Calhoun, his family, friends and the rest of the world actually want me to make this whole book factual, so my approach to it has to be quite different.

I’ve contemplated using sidebar boxes with related information but have decided to go the appendix route. That will give the biography a narrative quality. I’m telling a story. Yes, it’s a real person’s story but it’s a story and I want it to read like one and not like a list of facts. With Calhoun’s exceptional stories this format is working well. The appendices will be substantial with Ron’s documents. Pictures will be included as well.

Another narrative quality here is my use of direct quotations, possible because my subject, though eighty-four and having outlived every other person on that Cancer Society team back in 1980, is still very much alive. Ron was the chair of that committee. He gets to tell the story. A weird thing that has been happening as I write the story is that I often find myself using Ron’s own phraseology. He’s a wordsmith himself. That means I can hear his voice in the writing making this a biography that is almost alive with his very personality. That may diminish somewhat in revisions but I hope to retain that flavor.

Photo by http://www.charlestonfootprints.com/charleston-blog/calhouns-moving-grave/2014/01/07/

Now if you happen to be American and are not quite so conversant with Terry Fox’s name I must tell you that Ron Calhoun is related to a Vice President which John F. Kennedy included in his list of five most important vice presidents of the United States: John C. Calhoun. Like John C., Ron can trace his Calhoun lineage back to the twelve hundreds. And Ron even engineered help from a local historical society in Charleston, South Carolina, to get his famous ancestor’s gravestone repaired. The man takes on any cause he possibly can!

The last point necessary to address today is the question of what to do with all the information you find about your biography subject that doesn’t make it into the book. I have two thoughts. Come up with a guideline for choosing what will make it into the book, either in the main biography or in the appendix. Then take those items which are just too far away from the main topic of the book and use them for marketing tidbits, blog posts, Twitter bits, Facebook articles, or any other similar venues. They can lead nicely into your main subject matter for a speaking engagement. They might link your subject matter to a newspaper article. Do not simply discard any of the research you’ve done.

My deadline for completing this rough draft is the end of August. Then I’m setting it aside for a month and living my life outside of writing. When I get back to it, I’ll be looking at the whole project with fresh eyes and the revisions will begin. Publication is sometime in mid 2019. Meanwhile, here are my beloved historical novels to tide you over.

 

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Different Kind of Historical

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When you think of it, every story we tell is historical. As soon as we use the past tense, as in “my daughter woke up in the middle of the night with red spots all over her chest”, we are dealing with history. To be considered a part of the historical fiction category, though, the subject matter should be at least fifty years in the past, a rule set and followed by the writing community.

That idea of categorizing sometimes leads us writers to wonder just what genre our new story actually fits into as it may have historical elements but they are more fantasy than history. Or it may have historical elements as the backdrop for a murder that needs to be solved. Is it historical or is it crime fiction?

This leads to agents having difficulty knowing where to sell a story. It may be excellent but their job is to sell it and they do all they can to figure out where their market might be. At lunch yesterday this very problem led me to suggest my author friend might be better to self-publish her book as it does not clearly fit into one category or another and I wondered if an agent would struggle to find a market for it. The book is extremely creative in its structure and story line, something readers love to see, but the author must decide how best to actually get it to those readers. Should she try to traditionally publish or do it herself?

In a similar vein, the new book I’m writing started out as creative non-fiction but I’ve completely restarted it as a biography. You see, the framing device that I had thought was so clever, actually began to be extremely unwieldy, so much so that a few weeks ago, lying awake at three o’clock in the morning, I decided I had to start over and write this thrilling and uplifting story about Ron Calhoun and Terry Fox and a lot of other amazing people as Calhoun’s biography.

That decision is allowing me to use a more sequential time line and include a rising action aspect just as I do in my historical fiction. And it relates to my historical fiction very well as I’m telling the story of a man born in 1933 who came to be so connected with historical figures during his long lifetime (and he’s still going!). My working title for this is The Man Behind the Marathon of Hope: The Story of Ron Calhoun and How He Helped Terry Fox Raise Millions for Cancer.

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pad thai3

Creative Non-Fiction, Pad Thai, and My New Book

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Every few months I get a hankering for a taste of my homemade Pad Thai recipe and last week it came again. I had all the ingredients assembled so that once I finished my writing for the day I could begin my next labour of love.

Making up a favorite recipe is a little like writing. You assemble the ingredients–writing and research tools–and then you start with a plan of some sort. For my historical fiction I did quite a few months of reading and research, made a bit of a plan starting with the premise for the book, and then started in writing the first chapter. I knew pretty much where I was going and as I went along and thought of ideas I put them at the bottom of my word document lest I forget them. And I felt free enough to make changes when brilliant ideas popped into my head. Gotta love first drafts!

So here’s the first change in the recipe. It calls for raw shrimp. Well, I use frozen cooked shrimp and the recipe works just as well as long as I don’t cook the shrimp over again. You, too, can make changes as you go along according to your taste and your imagination.

Here’s the recipe I use:

Pad Thai

8 oz. uncooked rice noodles

2 T. rice vinegar
1 1/2 T. fish sauce
1-2 T. lemon juice
1 T. ketchup
2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 T. vegetable oil
1 boneless skinless chicken breast (4 oz.), finely chopped
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 oz. small raw shrimp, peeled
2 cups bean sprouts
3/4 c. shredded red cabbage
1 medium carrots, shredded
3 T. minced fresh cilantro
2 T. chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts
lime wedges

  1. Place noodles in medium bowl. Cover with warm water; let stand 30 minutes or until soft. Drain and set aside. Combine vinegar, fish sauce, lemon juice, ketchup, sugar and red pepper flakes in small bowl.
  2. Heat oil in wok or large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, green onions and garlic. Cook and stir until chicken is cooked through. Stir in noodles; cook 1 minute. Add shrimp; cook 3 min. or until shrimp turn pink and opaque. Stir in fish sauce mixture; toss to coat evenly. Add bean sprouts and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes.
  3. Serve with shredded cabbage, carrot, cilantro, peanuts and lime wedges. Makes 5-7 servings.

And here’s the second change. I’ll put in more chicken and shrimp than it calls for as I like to up the protein. I love noodles but not too many of them.

Writing is like this, too. We do our first draft, we hone it, we edit it, we have others edit it, and after a whole host of days, months, and even years of this kind of work we have our book. I’m finding that the recipe for this new book which I’m planning as creative nonfiction requires a lot of rewriting and adding details to shape it into what I envision. I’ve never written in this style before so the work is frustrating at times but thrilling when I make a breakthrough.

My office shows just a little of the notes I have from all the interviews with my prime subject and memorabilia he has for me to sift through. Since last July I’ve been recording him and have pages and pages of transcribed notes to sift through. (Foreground of picture shows just some of them.)

Soon I’ll be ready to announce the title of this book. I have an idea for a good one but need to test it a little more (just like a recipe). Some of the subject matter, though, I’m ready to hint at with this next picture. See if you can come up with my subject person, the last surviving member of the Canadian Cancer Society team who managed the 1980 Marathon of Hope. He also came up with that name. The painting below is by Canadian artist, Cliff Kearns.

Oh! I forgot to take a picture of my finished Pad Thai. We had dinner guests and devoured it!

 

Writerly Gems, Helpful Websites and Just Plain Fun

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I can hardly remember back to the time when research for school essays, for tidbits to enliven the lessons I taught, and for more background about subjects that intrigued me all took place in the library. I knew the hours of all the libraries around and the best librarians to help. Even when writing my first historical novel, my librarian’s help was very important.

With the advent of the WEB, virtually any piece of information became accessible and the trips to the library were more for books to read or book clubs to join.  My research moved to my computer and to related historical museums and forts.

With those changes in mind I wanted to share some very cool things I’ve found that help me every day as a writer:

  1. I like the daily email I get from Google Alert about subjects that I’ve noted. This year being Canada’s 150th birthday and that linking so well with my Loyalist trilogy, I’ve kept abreast of everything across Canada that is remotely related. I had no idea the word loyalist was so widely used. And for many things not connected in the least to my books. Someone advised me to put in my actual titles and I did. That is how I found out about scammers offering my books for sale! A few ‘cease and desist’ letters seem to have eliminated that but Google Alert keeps an eye out for me.

  2. A virtual mecca of how-to information is at my fingertips and yours. Rather than go to manuals written in Chinese English, I now use the http line whenever I have a question about virtually anything. I just typed in ‘What is historical fiction?’ and ‘What is a musket?’. Click on the links to see the variety of sites I can explore about those topics.

  3. For my new book about Dr. Ronald G. Calhoun and his part in the Terry Fox phenomenon in 1980 and beyond, I’m looking for an agent here in Canada as both Fox and Calhoun are Canadian icons. Here’s a list of agents I found. If you are a possibility feel free to get in touch with me as my queries are going out soon.

  4. Even the magazine I get in my post office mailbox every month, The Writer, has an online version which is wonderful to receive, especially if I’m going to be traveling and can put it on my iPad. It is always full of interesting hints and full-fledged writing ideas–writerly gems, I call them. This month (November) the back page article by Allison Futterman is about television host Mike Rowe who gives writing tips in the article. He says if he didn’t have deadlines, he’d never finish anything as he is a picker who constantly makes changes: “sometimes making [the writing] better, sometimes making it worse.” Recognize yourself, anyone?

  5. Just a few weeks ago, I got an email about something called Bibliocommons. Of course I checked that out on the web and ended up submitting The Loyalist’s Wife so that the ebook version can be listed on library websites and more people will get to see my work. I don’t know how far this exposure will take me but the Bibliocommons people say every book gets read and this approval process can take 4-6 weeks.) I’m hopeful it will broaden my reach. I’m at Stratford Public Library this Saturday as part of their author group in connection with launching Bibliocommons.

This past weekend I was honoured to be speaking at the Colonel John Butler United Empire Loyalist branch in Niagara Falls. There are over twenty of these in our country and a few have engaged me as a speaker. This one was particularly thrilling as this is the largest UEL group in Canada and Colonel Butler and the whole Niagara area figure prominently in my trilogy. The members there were gracious and knowledgeable about Loyalist history. I was speaking to my peeps, you might say.

Of course I mean that as a writer of historical fiction about the Loyalists, specifically a Loyalist couple who came into Canada across the Niagara River in present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake. While that story is fictional, my own story is not. I could really relate to the Niagara group.

What is the fun I mentioned in the title? Well, Sunday we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at our son’s home by the pool which is still open for business! Crazy weather, we’ve been having here in Ontario. My grandson and I had a lovely few moments talking about rocks and shells and semi-precious stones as he showed me his burgeoning collection. It was all fun and I hope my Canadian friends had similar moments of Thanksgiving over the weekend.

 

Click on the books below for more historical stories:

 

 

 

 

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