Harry Vandetti - Just Passing By

Editor’s note: Longtime Fort Frances Times’ editor Harry Vandetti passed away last Wednesday morning at his residence at Rainycrest. He retired on May 1, 1990 but continued writing his “Just Passing By” column for many years afterwards.
The following appeared in the Jan. 22, 2003 edition of the Times:
George Clooney is a TV actor I have enjoyed lately. Doing a hillbilly role, he explains to a young daughter he has not seen lately that he is her father and, in fact, “the whole paraphernalia.”
This made him important!

    Looking so lost now, lonely and hopeless, Mine Centre stands today like a complete collapse compared to the thriving village I knew in its gold mining era.
    Picture Fort Frances today allowed to go back to nature, with all businesses and industry vanished. Brush takes over and in the case of Mine Centre, where my daughter drove me last week to end my nostalgia.
    There are not that many rocks around us here, but those were not the most conspicuous part of the village I left so long ago.

    Looking so lost now, lonely and hopeless, Mine Centre stands today like a complete collapse compared to the thriving village I knew in its gold mining era.
    Picture Fort Frances today allowed to go back to nature, with all businesses and industry vanished. Brush takes over and in the case of Mine Centre, where my daughter drove me last week to end my nostalgia.
    There are not that many rocks around us here, but those were not the most conspicuous part of the village I left so long ago.

    After “Sambo” Fedoruk held McDonald’s door for me, I had to ask our all-star Canadians’ Allan Cup defenseman of 1952 what he thought about a new junior hockey team emerging here this fall—and his answer surprised me!
    “I haven’t though anything about hockey in a long time, “ answered Sambo, whose real name I seem to remember a Walter. Partner to Ed Dun Sampson or Alex Kurceba when we were grateful for the presence of three of four blueliners including Alex Kurceba, the latter came from Winnipeg but remained with our team for years.

    Along came a district lady who handed me a photo of my long-gone mother and her sister, Aunt Grace Foors, mother of my cousin, Claude McFarland.
    The picture was a gift from Marlene Kellar of Burriss, whose very name brings up memories of my mother’s relatives and friends among the Kellars of Arden, Ont., where I visited during the Second World War years (the Kellars down east being neighbours of the Veleys, my mother’s people).