Sometime in 1987, I received a letter in my mail slot at the CBC.
That’s right, mail: that long ago world before email. Try explaining that to your grandkids. The mail slot was in a large cupboard-like structure at one end of the newsroom – a slot for each person working there. In our case, there were dozens of slots. I’d always get a lot of mail, viewers praising, people complaining, lobby groups trying to push ideas, and so on.
Well, this day, one letter was quite different. It was an invitation. An invitation to attend a conference in an exotic-sounding location- Davos, Switzerland. It was the first meeting of a newly named conference, The World Economic Forum and the appeal to attend was going out worldwide to people the organizers felt would contribute to a meaningful discussion on world economic trends. How, and more importantly why, they got my name I’ll never know. I’m no expert, even by a long shot, on the economy but a ski resort in the Swiss Alps sounded like fun. I took it to my bosses. They just laughed and that was the end of it. For me anyway. |
