It’s been a year since I wrote this:
Macdonald: At Hy's, the staff was special too
The restaurant where I used to work was closing. It was a high profile place and it was getting a lot of media attention but I thought part of the story was missing.
I’d never published anything before. I’d never written a letter to the editor or a politician or anything beyond emails and long ago, personal letters. But I sent an email to the Ottawa Citizen for submission, unsolicited and without any connections, and they liked it. I sent it on a Sunday night, they replied the next day and sent a photographer the next day. It was on the front page and the lead letter in the editorial section and it was eventually carried nationally. The CBC wanted to interview me on their morning radio show. Nationally known political writers congratulated me on those last few days of work. Strangers approached me to shake my hand and I even got job offers because of it. It was an odd and interesting experience.
I was by the former location of Hy’s today and it’s still a construction site. And I don’t think it will take too long before people don’t remember how much actually happened there. I suppose that’s true of just about everything and every place. Time marches on, indeed.