A FEW kind words in the Vancouver Sun marked the passing of the North Shore’s Mac Reynolds, but they didn’t do him justice. Nor will this column. Mac was a feature writer for the Sun in its pre-politically correct days. Which is to say before the place was run by fems and their male equiva- lents. He would sit at his desk — or in his office when he had an office — gazing into space and blowing cigar smoke into the air and thinking up lines that a Bob Edwards or a Pierre Berton would have been proud of. These days, they’d probably clap him into jail for that — blowing cigar smoke into the air, | mean. But the weed was tolerated then and as far as [ know Mac didn’t kill anyone. I'm still here, anyway, much to some folks’ regret. When his daughter, Jenny, phoned to say he had died it was a shock, although we knew he was failing. Just before I left for a month in England he was at a dinner put on by his old friends Bill and Elinor Ryan, and as usual we had lots of laughs. Paul St. Pierre was there, too. For years, Mac had been suffer- ing from diabetes. It was that, in fact, that forced him to leave the Sun in 1980. (I nearly wrote 1890 and Mac would have liked that one.) Atthe Ryans J noticed that he didn’t accept his usual gin and tonic. He asked for a beer, a sure sign that all was not well. Diabetes or no diabetes, you see, he disregarded medical advice and always had the odd tot when his cronies were around. And possibly Doug Coilins when they weren’t around, too. Towards the end he was haif blind, having had several implants over the years, none of which was successful. They kept slipping. But. he said, the eye man was trying something new. We broke up when he grinned and said, “It's going to be one designed for a horse.” It was true, apparently. But I never had the chance to ask him whether the horse job had been donc. If it was, and Mac had still been around, I*m sure he would have neighed when we met. He had the dryest sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever known. One night, years ago, we had him and his wonderful lady, Jean, over for dinner, plus the late Judge Bewley and wife Bess. The talk got around to rats. Real rats, that is, although we often talked about the human sort, too. SEPARATION AND DIVORCE * Effective handling of custody, access, child FE support, spousal support and division of family ¥ assets matters T mentioned that when we lived up in the Windsor Park area we often saw wood rats in the woods. Someone else brought up the matter of water rats, Yes, they had been seen in West Van. “Wood rats! Water rats!" expos- tulated Mae. “Aren‘t there any rat- rats?” He was like that. An independent cuss, Never asked help of anybody, and rarely accepted help when it was offered. Never complained that fate had dealt him more than a few blows, either. Did {say he was a fine feature writer? He won a National Newspaper That probably doesn't sound very — Award for one piece and his work funny now. But it did when the wine was flowing. Like the rest of us, Mac had his ups and downs, In the 1960s he decided he would write a book, So he deft the Seat and went off to Pender tstand to compose. Alas, no book ever appeared, He spent his time crabbing and fishing. So when funds ran out it was back to the big city, it still being possible in those days for guys to drift in and out of the papers, especially if they were as good as Mac was. At one stage of the game they made him an editorial writer. Big mistake. It wasn’t that he couldn’¢ write editorials. Almost anybody can, But they weren‘t his bag. And the editorial think-sessions drove him nuts. When it was found be had dia- betes he made us all laugh again. “I'm a walking Popsicle,” he declared, That illness marked the end of his writing, even though the Sut man- agement of those days loved him and took him back, All he had to do was the occasional feature on some “per- sonality.” Writer's block set in. He couldn't face the typewriter. I suggested that we do it together, just to get him started, but he wouldn't hear of it. gothinta year in England on a cov- eted Kemsley scholarship. He covered the last voyage of the CPR ferries that used to ply between Vancouver and Victoria and I remember his line about the moments after the final ferry docked. “And then," he wrote, “they pulled the blinds down over the old lady's eyes and she went to sleep.” And now Mac has gone to sleep, Good night, Mac. DEREK A. 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