Patrick Dunnigan's winning entry to our Hicks on Six/Lighthouse Cafe Fishy Valentine Contest.


(Patrick and his wife have won a Valentine's special seafood feast at the Lighthouse Cafe, normally $99 a couple. to reserve for Valentine's (two sittings) please call 780 433 0091. )


My wife and I eloped to Cozumel to get married there – combining the wedding and honeymoon and saving us a small fortune.

I also love scuba diving and wanted to introduce my bride to this sport. To do this we went snorkeling on a reef off the beach from the hotel. The crystal clear water and many rainbow colored fish swirling around us was almost as breathtakingly beautiful as my then-fiancé. I had a water-proof camera and had a wonderful revelation to feed the fish and take pictures.

The next day my fiancé and I went snorkeling again. She was (and still is) nervous about the water and all of the fish.

This time I brought bread crumbs in a bag so she could feed the fish and I could swim below her and take pictures upwards with the sun shining over her.

The fish however had a different idea. The second I left her side many – hundreds – of 3” to 6” fish swarmed her; tearing the bag with bread and releasing the bread crumbs around her.

The fish went into a feeding frenzy and even jumped onto her back to get the crumbs that they couldn’t pull out of her hair or eat from within centimeters of her face mask.

I was taking pictures and didn’t realize she was truly in distress – but I was more excited because the pictures were going to be great!

Seconds later she was flailing about with her mask off and gulping water. I swam up to her rescue, put my arm around her to settle her down and was quickly bitten by a fish that was still hungry.

She was (and still is) very angry at me because she thinks I knew the fish would tear the bag open and attack her.

She couldn’t have been that angry as she did marry me the next day September 04, 1997 and we are still together.

But every time I try to take her scuba diving she always starts off with a “remember the time you tried to get the fish to attack me……you deserved to be bitten “


Patrick Dunnigan

This letter from a reader regarding our Adopt-A-Teen program, despite its original good wishes, annoys me.

"Hi Graham,

"Congratulations on a job well done.

"This is a small point that I don't want to blow out of proportion but as I read your column thanking "Edmontonians" for coming through I couldn't help but think that I have helped out each year since it started and I have never lived in Edmonton.

"I have to think that a significant amount of money comes in from Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, St Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc or even further away.

"I always wish to remain anonymous and I seek nothing more than the inner satisfaction I receive from the feeling of giving but........I doubt it would happen if it weren't for many people who can't be defined as "Edmontonians".

That's all I wanted to say.

Once again, God Bless you for your efforts."

•••••••••••

This is SO IMPRACTICAL!!!!

Does it mean that everytime I mention "Edmontonians" in Hicks on Six, I am supposed to also mention Spruce Grovians, Stony Plainites, St. Albertans, Fort Saskatchewanians, and Leducites?

If you live in Parkland County, do you wish to be called a Parklander? In Sturgeon County, an outstanding Sturgeon? (Sounds fishy!)

I find this need, by some, to be recognized as something other than "Edmontonians" to be very parochial and small-minded.

To me, it's like saying you're a "Riverbendian" or "Mill Woodsian" first, and an "Edmontonian" second.


Of course it feels good to be associated with your community. I have always admired the fact that people living in the satellite cities around Edmonton sometimes have more pride of place than do those of us living in the big bad city.

I admire the fact that the regional satellite (sorry, that is what they are) cities often have better community programming than we have in The City. I personally love the atmosphere and arts-friendly culture of St. Albert - if I hadn't had a job that had me working so many evenings and weekends, my wife and I would have been tempted to move there when the kids were young.

And I wouldn't mind paying St. Albert's extra taxes for the extra quality of life!

But for heaven's sake, we are all "Greater" Edmontonians, and I'll be darned if I'm going to put "Greater" in front of "Edmontonians" every time I refer to our pride of our "greater" place!

Like it or not, we are all in truth one big city.

Half of us work in one municipality, live in another, play in a third.

When your kids hit post-secondary, they're in The City.

Any of your non-local entertainment is in Edmonton itself. Lots of Edmonton firemen live outside Edmonton, and vice-versa. So what? In reality, we are ONE CITY!!!


The Capital Region Board has finally merged the over-all interests of the region into on quasi-governmental decision-making authority - and a fine-tuned beast it is.

Slowly but surely, we are becoming one city. I'm convinced the Capital Region Board will evolve into one over-all civic government.

But you won't lose your satellite identity. The five regions surrounding the central city will become "boroughs" with their own mayors etc. but ultimately subject - for issues of transcending municipal boundaries - to a higher regional "municipal" government.

So, please, enjoy your sense of community in the cities around The City.

But let's all be proud Edmontonians first. Let the "region" or "area" or "Greater" be understood.

Not that all the other car dealers were cackling at the weekend's Edmonton Auto Show.

But it's kinda like when the most perfect girl in the school - always beautifully dressed, good-looking, prim and proper, teacher's pet, honour roll, president of this and that - falls into a foot of mud in front of the whole school.

Face it, everybody else is JEALOUS of Toyota!

Toyota with its impeccable reputation, Toyota with cars that never break down, Toyota with its leading edge technologies, Toyota this, Toyota that .... Didn't matter what other brands did, didn't matter how much better they made their quality, dropped their prices, offered similar models. Toyota always led the perception class.

And, finally, last week, a flaw in the perfection! The massive recall over a defect! Finally, not quite so perfect anymore.

I dunno ... my dealer friends (not Toyota) argue that most American-made vehicles are now at just as high quality as toyota, but are not recognized as such because the improvements have all happened in the last five years and they still carry the scars of cars still on the road not so well made.


OK ... but my independent mechanic friends - i.e. the ones that don't work for dealerships - will still tell you they'd buy a Toyota or Honda second-hand anyday over an American model.

And the beat goes on ...

*Isn't it true? Now that the Art Gallery of Alberta is a fait accompli, and looks pretty terrific, all the boo-birds complaining about public funding - $27 million from the province, $20 million from the feds, $21 million from the city - have shut up.

And so they should. The argument that yes Matilda, there IS a quality of life we all want to aspire to, is a perfectly good one. City life is not all about roads and transport and cops and firemen, vitally important as they all are.

It's about public gatherings, reflection, contemplation, beautiful buildings, delightful parks. It's about the qualities that make us more than animals - what is more interesting for instance, than pondering the lives and art of the two most famous painters now on exhibit - the soft Edgar Degas of France, whose work is all ballerinas, quiet scenes and nudes from behind combing their hair, compared to the horror and macabre nature of the Spanish Francisco Goya's art. There's a contrast that leaves you thinking.

There's a magic to standing in the great hall of the gallery, letting your eye follow all the swoops and turns of the giant zinc ribbon, of the acres of unusually angled glass.

There IS a responsibility of government to fund such spiritual necessities of the city - especially when the gallery can also come up with another $20 million from non-government sources, thus proving to all that indeed, individuals also pull their weight for art.

Likewise, I don't think you can argue against some government contribution for a major new arena - providing that money goes into making it a more beautiful building.


•Great to see former art gallery executive director Tony Luppino at the Saturday "artist and industry" party. Tony had so much to do with getting this gallery built, that it was a shock when he suddenly resigned last fall, just months before the crowning moments of seeing a baby he'd nurtured to near full-term be born.

Tony says it was a number of things that factored into his decision - sure, some parts of the job might have been difficult, but that's the same wherever you go in high positions. Mostly, he says, it was the realization that he and his new bride Ann Lewis - CEO of the Calgary Philharmonic - weren't getting any younger, that time together was precious and that kind of re-priorization of one's life.

There's a delightful contradiction to Rob Christie, Audie Lynds and my monthly Art of Conversation get togethers.

Because the occasion is NOT about "networking" we discourage the exchanging of business cards.

But without business cards, how do you remember who's who in the Art of Conversation zoo?

So, yes, we cheat. Take business cards. Or we try to do this from memory.

Among the estimated 100 to 150 folks dropping by the last Art of Conversation, our 42nd, held Friday January 29 at the Matrix Hotel thanks to the lovely and most hospitable GM JoAnne Kirkland (soon to be regional manager for the Matrix, Varscona and Meterra hotels), with Dan Taylor, Nathin Bye and Ryan Byrne from the Wildflower Grill providing some of the best appies ever were:

From the regulars:

Rob and Diane Christie, Audie Lynds and myself of course.
Alan Howat, Bernie Robitaille, Pete Koziol, Kamilla Reid, Paul Fuog, Ted Powers, Dr. Larry Ohlhauser, Julianna Cantwell, Muggsy Forbest, Dr. Ollie Triska, Brent Collingwood.

From irregulars - those that come by occasionally:

Richard Wong, Mary Phillips-Rickey, MLA Raj Sherman, Bruce Keltie.

From "newbies" - or at least those I don't remember seeing at past art of conversations:

The beautiful and talented Sharon McLean of New Image; U of A prof Joan Leakey, John Ough, Cielito Villanueva, Randal Kabatoff ... and a whole pile more.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list for upcoming Arts of Conversations - we try to hold them during the last week of each month, more often towards the end of the week than not - just drop me an e-mail with your name and e-mail at graham.hicks@sunmedia.ca