I was in Toronto a few weeks ago at a National Volleyball tournament. Teams of teenaged boys and girls from across the country come together to play copious amounts of volleyball in a huge center in Toronto…dozens of courts.
Love watching volleyball.
One game I was watching was a particularly competitive one…the games were very close…all within 2 points, and sometimes went into extra points to declare a winner. The team I was cheering for was playing a great team from Ottawa.
There were extra fans at this game…and extra security.
One of the fellows in the middle position on the opposite team was Ben Harper, and his dad, Stephen, was watching.
The security folks were pretty friendly to talk to…and one of the moms from our team was chatting with him. He said that after the game if our team wanted a picture with the Prime Minister, he would be happy to oblige.
Sounded like a good idea to the mom…she liked the idea of a team pic with the top politician in the country.
The players…not so much.
After they lost in a squeaker…the first of three very important games that day, the players from our team left quickly in discouragement at the close loss. They went off and gathered to go strategize what went sideways and how to get back on track.
Prime Minister Harper shook hands with those around the court that approached him, and several snapped photos of athletes with him.
The mom from our team still wanted the photo. To my surprise, it still happened.
After the team had licked their wounds for a few minutes, and had developed a strategy for the next game, they lined up in a corner near the exit. The prime minister and the staff were in a private room off to the side. Shortly after our team had lined up, Prime Minister Harper emerged and posed for photos…we parents snapped heartily. He shook hands with the boys who thanked him before he disappeared.
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed how generous Prime Minister Harper was with his time. He was shaking hands with kids too young to be voters, and several years away from the next election.
While I would have thought that spending a few moments after a game or on his way out shaking hands and posing for pics would have been appropriate (though completely wearying as a lifestyle!), I wouldn’ta thought he would come out specifically and only to pose with a group of boys who left quickly after their match. I thought that was really classy and generous on his part.
It wasn’t hard to imagine how endless pictures and handshakes could get enormously tedious, as he came and went over the course of the tournament…and this apparently is a part of his lifestyle.
Nice to know that the folks that lead our country have a graciousness to rise above the tediousness to go above and beyond to be friendly.
This is not about politics…this is about being human.Thank you, Prime Minister!
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