Mr Bium taught us grade 11 geography and history. It was the 1974-1975 school year at King George in the ethnically dense West End of Vancouver. Mr Buim was a calm guardian of our minds. A wooden tray next to the window contained the Guardian Weekly. He brought it in to give us a wider view of the world.
I read it by the window in the pale watery light of Vancouver winter. My Canadian world was luckier than I knew. The Guardian was a window with views beyond my small teenage world. It made me less oblivious. People around me were from Chile, Uganda, Vietnam, eastern Europe, the Middle East, China, and other not so lucky places that Mr Bium asked us to study. Places the Guardian gave pulse to week by week.
The Guardian in those ancient times was an elegant paper window, written on a silky creamy paper, light as feathers, flying tales across the world. It glowed with a richness of stories, curious news, vivid and haunting people and places. Its compact wisdom was a wonder. I wanted copies of my own.
The paper is not as creamy and otherworldly as when we first met, but neither am I. It is still proof good things come in small packages. Subscribing keeps me sane in not so sane places. The writing shelters me with wit in witless times. The Guardian of truth and enlightenment is so welcome in a world short of both. Please keep it up.
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