The Fudge

(a Pizza Dude Tale)

Then there was Sudbury. And the fudge.

I had a brief stint as a copy editor at the Sudbury Star and was there for the creation of the world’s largest slab of fudge. I never understood this one. It’s Sudbury. They already have the biggest nickel and the largest city-that-doubles-as-a-moonscape. But fudge?

You certainly couldn’t argue with the results. The thing weighed 2.29 tonnes – that’s more than 5,000 pounds – and it was a fundraiser for local school kids. And it also put Sudbury on the map as the fudge-packing capital of Canada.

That’s what Melvin Dockerson, the pompous Mayor of Sudbury, said in his big speech after the record-breaking event. It drew raised eyebrows from some people, polite applause from the old folks in attendance, and much snickering from most of the people there.

Us media types, we were busting our guts. Sven  Redmond – he was the sports editor at the Star at the time and had got me my job there – was on the floor laughing so hard he was having trouble breathing. A radio guy – I forget his name, but he was a veteran dude, probably hired by Marconi himself – just stood there with his head in his hands.

“Why,” he said to himself as much as to us, “do the people keep electing this guy?”

Making fun of stupid politicians was a perq of the job for most newspaper people. After all, politicians provide jobs for journalists. If they didn’t continually put their collective feet in their collective mouths, most of us would be back serving blueberry fritters at the local Tim Hortons, or  - no, no one could sink this low – picking up garbage at 5 am for some landscaping company.

Sure, we can expose stupid politicians when they say something stupid, but we’re still restricted by libel and slander laws and by the fact that most of us in the Fifth Estate actually have ethics and know how to use them.

Sometimes we do get satisfaction, however, if only by accident. I remember covering an agricultural fair in the tiny Manitoba community of MacGregor. I was hanging with the local TV crew that day and one of the cameramen – Camera 2 that day, to be exact – was a city boy, new to all things rural. So while us newsies were getting ready for a big speech – and a live TV shot - from the local Mayor, he was pointing his camera at the sights and sounds of an agricultural fair. He was particularly fascinated by the prize bulls awaiting auction and, figuring the other camera operator had the speech well in hand, he zoomed in on the part of the anatomy that made that bull a champion.

Then, to his horror, he heard the words from the truck  that haunt him to this day: ‘Cut to Camera 2.’

“Now, introducing, the Mayor …”