Attended one funeral on the weekend and watched another on television. Due to my advancing years such occasions are beginning to add up.
The first was for former MLA Dan Coulter. Met him when first attending labour council out here we grow your corn, berries, cannabis and avian flu. We bonded when we learned we shared the same hillbilly employer at different times a good long time ago. Nothing bonds people closer than shit employers in my experience.
Dan was not yet 50. When people head to the other side too young I always think that should have been me. Yet here I am writing about another friend gone to the other side.
The funeral was held in my local union hall. As I am retired I was not called on to prepare our space for the event and when I arrived with another old fellow worker everything was set up and looking good. Lots of snacks, sandwiches, flowers and enough liquor to start next year's Stanley Cup Riot.
Before the service began we lost power to the hall due to the windstorm. Luckily the hall is well skylit or it would have been a disaster.
Premier David Eby gave the best speech I have seen him give ever; former MLA Andrew Mercer and a fellow University College of the Fraser Valley political science student of Dan's gave an even better speech.
We cried and we laughed in equal measure. The lack of power meant there was no music which was really too bad. Better not be a power outage when I croak.
The second funeral was John Horgan's. I bawled through damn near all of it even though I was not a friend of John's. The Prime Minister showed and spoke well of the best Premier my province has ever seen. The Prime Minister is a boob but he is a boob with class.
The last speaker was a childhood friend of John's. He wrote a novel long speech, probably while drinking Irish Whiskey all the way from Australia to Victoria. He got cut off. I would have liked to have heard the rest of it.
See y'all on the other side. Hope I am not the last of you to make it there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk57tQmRw70
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