april 08, 2009 12:01am
July 1, 2008 Canada Day
July 1, 2008.
On Canada Day, Harry and I had our spot set up by 7am. While Harry and I waited for the museum to open we sat in the Blue Bomber and shot the breeze. I looked up "Harry Watts" on the internet and a bunch of hits came up and we started to look at what the web had on Harry and that started the conversation going. I grabbed my camera and started filming Harry as he talked about his days as a dispatch rider and recorded about an hour with him that day, I got some really good stuff that morning.
The day went well as we talked with a number of interesting people that day but one person in particular stood out, his name is Stephane Government. Stephane is in the department of History at the University of Calgary. Harry and Stephane talked for an hour about Harry’s experiences in WW2 and his time as a dispatch rider. I am sure that Stephane can help our cause and help Harry with some of the research since he and I have been trying to find out more about the history of his time in as a dispatcher in the Canadian Army.
On our first day in Ottawa we met a gentlemen by the name of “Red” who is a well known man in the Ottawa area. He has a scooter decorated in Canadian Flags and Ottawa Senators regalia. If you need something done, you get a hold of Red he is the man to see in Ottawa.
Harry and I packed up the Blue Bomber at the end of our day at the war museum and bid farewell to each other. We vowed to keep up with our mission on both ends, Harry in the Kitchener and me on the tour to get stories for the “Online Veterans Video Library”.
I finished the day at the home of Kevin and his wife with a couple of their friends around the camp fire on their beach. What a great country that our veterans have allowed us to have, to be able to sit on a beach with some new friends and bitch about gas prices and talk about how much fun we had as teenagers, our kids, past relationships all kinds of stuff. I love this country.
