The Peter Gzowski Invitational Golf Tournaments originated from a pledge Peter Gzowski, host of CBC Radio's Morningside program, made in June of 1986 to raise a million dollars for literacy. There will be 11 tournaments held across Canada in 1990 from New Brunswick to Victoria, with the Calgary Learning Centre hosting the First Annual PGI in Alberta.
Because of his interest and influence in the literacy field of late (and because I had been told we are distant cousins) I decided to write to Peter to tell him about this book project and the good literacy work being carried out in Alberta. His response was warm and immediate. Over this past year, we have struck up a dose friendship through our letters and telephone conversations. A couple of months ago, Peter suggested that the PGI in Calgary would be a good place for us to finally meet each other.
So now I've been learning how to play golf. Murray Whitecotton, a generous and patient man who owns a golfing equipment shop in Camrose has been my "golf tutor" for the past month. He is a wonderful teacher, volunteering much of his time, sharing his enthusiasm for the game, hoping that I will come to love the game as he does.
(At my first lesson, Murray handed me a golf club and told me to show him how I thought one should swing a golf club. Never having held a dub before I had a picture in my head of a tutor handing a pencil to a new literacy student saying, "Here, now go ahead and write your first story.") Murray says I'm a natural, but I'm not that confident, yet.
"I have an envelope for you from Howard," Marnee said excitedly over the telephone. In all my last minute preparations for Calgary, I had almost forgotten about Howard. "Howard and his tutor have been working hard for the past couple of weeks and he just brought over a terrific two page letter he wrote to Peter Gzowski," Marnee continued, obviously proud of Howard's efforts. Marnee said she would be visiting a friend in Camrose on the weekend and would drop the letter off to me.
I left for Calgary the following week, 2 days ahead of the Tournament, with borrowed golf clubs, a hand-knitted golfer sweater, and Howard's letter, all safely stowed in the backseat of the car. It was Indian Summer - warm and windy as the last of the leaves fell from the trees. I had decided to do a couple of interviews along the way, with my first stop being Rocky Mountain House, about 2 hours southwest of Camrose.
I had lunch with MARILYN HUNT who has been the coordinator of the Literacy Program in the Rocky Mountain House Public Library for the past 6 years. Within minutes of arriving at her lovely home in the foothills of the Rockies, Marilyn eagerly began to tell me about some of the students in her program.
"Jim is a Native fellow who knew how to print his own name when he first came to the program but didn't know the names of the letters of the alphabet or the sounds they represented. When I asked him how he had learned to print his name, he said that his name was the same as his grandfather's. He told me that Kerry Wood, the noted naturalist, had written a book about his grandfather. Jim learned to print his name by copying his grandfather's name from the book."