Words of Encouragement

This message made me smile: Hey Dale! What up! Good to see you today! (even if it was for a sad occasion... but that struggle continues). Anyhow here's the story I said I was going to email you about. So I got on the plane last week to head from Halifax to St. John's, and wound up sitting next to this dude, an older fellow, who I think was sort of a construction contractor. Anyhow, we got to talking, and I was wearing my favorite (union) jacket, so eventually we started talking about unions.

Anyway, he said that for most of his life he'd been adamantly, viciously opposed to unions and fought against them whenever possible. But recently he'd had the chance to take some courses at university, including one in the Education faculty that had touched on labour issues. He said then he'd totally changed, he now realized the important history of unions and the importance of the struggles and accomplishments labour has made, and now he's convinced that everybody needs to know about how important unions are and how everybody needs a union.

Anyway I asked him what this magic course was that had changed his mind and who taught it, and he replied "It was taught by that fellow who went and got himself elected Dale Kirby." Anyhow I thought you'd appreciate that. Seems you certainly changed some viewpoints! I didn't let on that I knew you and he proceeded to speak of how much he loved your course, said you were one of the most well prepared profs who knew his stuff that he'd ever had. Anyhow just thought I'd pass that on! With my personal thanks that I didn’t have to sit next to a union-hater for the hour and a half flight.