MEDICINE HAT'S FINEST

One day last fall my phone rang. It was an offer—an all-expenses paid trip to Medicine Hat. All I had to do in return was speak at a staff development event focussing on palliative care. And though it would be dishonest of me not to admit that I had been hoping for an offer from Paris or Vienna or New York, I can still remember the time when I could only be invited to make an out-of-town presentation if I called up and asked to be invited, then agreed to pay all my own expenses. So I negotiated a modest fee with Medicine Hat and said I’d be there in early May.
I might have stayed in Medicine Hat’s finest hotel. Instead of doing that, I wrote to my old friend Janice and invited myself to spend the night with her and Ben. Janice and I grew up on neighbouring farms south of Lougheed Alberta and went in different directions to live our adult lives. One time we surprised each other by meeting at a conference and she,. Waiting until I had finished my second glass of wine, then seized the opportunity to persuade me to go white-water rafting on the Athabasca River. Once we survived that, we again went in separate directions until she began to notice references to me in the media and became a reader of THE HOPE LADY Blog. She said I should come and visit if ever I was in Medicine Hat.
It definitely would have been a mistake to have stayed in Medicine Hat’s finest hotel. Staying with Janice introduced me to the kind of service the queen might expect at the Ritz Carlton. Even though she was within minutes of playing a major role hosting the Alberta Archaeology Association Conference, you would never have known she was in the final frantic stages of pre-conference prep hysteria. She provided me with limousine services, hosted bar, poached salmon dinner and lots of laughs. While cooking me whatever I wanted for breakfast she told me she had been showing her friends the copy of my photograph that appeared with the pre-event advertisement in the Medicine Hat News. At my free public lecture she turned to the people beside her and said, ”We grew up in the same community.” Apparently even a minimal amount of reflected glory is better than no reflected glory at all.
So I’ve forgiven her for taking me on that white-water rafting trip, for I hardly think I would be as well treated in Paris, Vienna or New York as I was at her home in Medicine Hat. And if you are ever invited to make a speech in Medicine Hat, I suggest you prepare yourself for travel by making friends with Janice.