My Queen Victoria

This weekend marks the birthday of Queen Victoria, whom all of us are too young to remember and probably wouldn’t at all if our country hadn’t declared a holiday in her honor.

So I want to write about my own personal Queen Victoria. She’s somewhat of an icon in Portage la Prairie, known and loved by many. She’s been lovingly referred to as “a party wherever she goes.” She celebrates an important milestone birthday this month—though you’d never guess—and I’m proud to call her my friend.

I’m talking about the unsinkable Vicki Hooke.

One reason Vicki’s so recognized in Portage is that she taught at Crescentview School for nearly four decades and continues to substitute since her retirement. Countless students remember her fondly as the teacher who encouraged them and made school fun. But even if you never had the privilege of being one of her students, you’ve probably played pickle-ball with her, partied with her, seen her in a play, sang show tunes or Christmas carols around her piano, or volunteered with her somewhere.

I first met Vicki when she began attending my church in the late nineteen hundreds. Knowing Vicki, her friends quickly convinced her to join the church drama team which I led. I soon came to appreciate this bundle of energy who brought life and fun to every rehearsal, laughs and applause to every performance. She served with us for close to two decades, until church drama teams became passé and ours dissolved.

Today, Vicki serves our congregation as an usher and greeter—a perfect fit for my gregarious friend. Years ago, I declared her a “little pillar” of the church for her faithfulness through thick and thin. And so she is.

I soon dragged Vicki in with me when I became involved with the Prairie Players, our local community theatre group. We continued to act, laugh, and learn lines together. As a playwright, I’ve lost count of the parts I’ve written especially with Vicki in mind, for both these groups.

Our latest shenanigans involve riding the Herman Prior Centre bus to see plays at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, followed by shopping and supper at Polo Park, and gabbing all the way there and back. Vicki’s unparalleled ability to make friends everywhere we go makes me feel like a wallflower in comparison, but I love it. Her energy at 70 surpasses what most of us enjoyed in our thirties. You can’t hang around with Vicki and not feel better about everything. Her three young granddaughters are blessed.

If all that’s not enough, under the sparkly earrings, feather boas, and musical laughter, Vicki is a woman of depth and character. I’ve seen her handle real struggles with strength and grace. She’s not afraid to ask for help when she needs it and she passes on praise generously. Vicki grew up in a family that valued education, hard work, and service to community. She’s living proof that a woman of faith and substance can also be the most exuberant party hostess, that wisdom and humor can reside in the same little body, and that a merry heart really is the best medicine.

I thank God for my friend, my Queen Victoria, and for the wonderful way He created her. If you know Vicki, wish her well this birthday month and thank her for all the joy she brings to our community and our world.

The real Queen Victoria, after surviving her eighth assassination attempt, said, “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.”

Happy Birthday, Miss Vicki. I hope that, even without getting shot at, you know how deeply you are loved. 

Vicki and Me

 

Peace We Often Forfeit

It’s a silly little play, really. The original version was created in eight hours during a competition at Winnipeg’s 2015 Femfest. The assignment was to write a script about anything, but you had to incorporate three random things: a red line, a yellow submarine, and hysteria. The five competing scripts were then read by professional actors before a live audience, who voted for their favorite.

Mine did not win.

It’s still my favorite.

When the Prairie Players asked me to write a short play to present at this year’s ACT Festival (2019 is our group’s fiftieth anniversary and we’re hosting the festival—its fortieth year!), I decided to resurrect the Femfest script and tweak it a little to suit its new purpose. The red line, yellow submarine, and hysteria were all left in. This time, the actors are not professionals, but they did a far better job. They all contributed to the further tweaking of the script—one of the perks of creating your own is the power to change it.

Haley L’Heureux portrayed sixteen-year old Morgan, whose worst nightmare is coming true: a road trip with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother—and a dead cell phone. It’s the longest four hours of her life.

Her mom, Kelly (played by Rita Carignan), isn’t sure how she allowed her mother to talk her into taking this four-hour drive—each way—to watch her overachieving sister perform a one-hour excerpt of Mary Poppins for the ACT Festival. All she wants is a little respect and maybe some rest. She’s getting neither.

Kelly’s mother, Doris (portrayed by Vicki Hooke) dreams of a happy family where everybody gets along and enjoys one another’s company. Surely they can have fun together for one day. Can’t they?

Nita Wiebe (songbird extraordinaire) played Ruth, Doris’s ninety-year-old mother. Ruth wants to join the church choir and drink orange Crush with two straws. While deafness and dementia have robbed Ruth of independence, memory, and respect, she clings to some pretty powerful truth in the form of an old hymn. Too bad no one else is listening.

Rita Carignan, Vicki Hooke, Nita Wiebe, Haley L'Heureux

What a Friend We Have in Jesus is the life story of Joseph Scriven, born in Ireland in 1819. When his fiancé drowned the day before their scheduled wedding, the heart-broken twenty-five-year-old left for Canada. Later, he met and became engaged to Eliza Rice. But just weeks before their wedding, she grew sick and died. Joseph swore a vow of poverty and devoted his life to helping the poor. Ten years later when his mother lay ill and he was too poor to assist, a heart-felt poem emerged from Joseph’s soul. Within two years, Charles Converse set the poem to music. However, it was not until after Joseph’s death that the hymn was carried to every corner of the globe. Ironically, Joseph Scriven drowned in a Canadian lake in 1886.

The uplifting words of this old hymn become more significant when you understand the grief of the hymn-writer’s tragic life. Though our little play is far more comedy than tragedy, the age-old truth rings loud and clear: what peace we often forfeit, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything—EVERYTHING— to God, in prayer.