Langford man, 94, overcomes adversity to become tireless volunteer
Kurt gives a thumbs up and says “good show” to everyone wearing a poppy who passes him. After completing 45 of his two-hour poppy campaign shifts, the 94-year-old has come to a conclusion.
“It’s the best job I ever had,” Kurt smiles.
To understand why, we need to go back to Kurt’s first job on the railway. Back to the day when the then 16-year-old was working beside a track and heard a train turning the bend towards him.
“I could see these cars were swaying,” he says. “They were on the verge of coming off the track.”
Kurt started running down the bank away from it. The derailed boxcars followed behind him.
“I thought the world was coming to an end,” he says, pointing to a picture of the crash, where he missed being hit by metres.
When he returned home that night, Kurt remembers wondering if he had a guardian angel.
“I couldn’t leave my mother and the kids because they needed some support,” Kurt says. “There was no social assistance then.”
Kurt says he was living in poverty in rural Saskatchewan, with his mom and seven younger siblings. He had been “the man of the house” since he was 14, after his dad was institutionalized.
“I had to give up my youth.” Kurt says his life was limited to working, eating, and sleeping. “I couldn’t go out anywhere. No social life.”
While Kurt was too young to fight in the Second World War, he was old enough to help the countless farmers whose sons were sent overseas. After his full-time job on the railway, Kurt says he worked his neighbour’s crops and sent food to the troops.
“I served on the home front,” he says, before repeating himself quietly. “I served on the home front.”
After the war, Kurt made the most of the life he felt he had the privilege to keep living.
The medals he wears during his poppy campaign shifts were presented to him — by a lieutenant governor and a prime minister — for decades' worth of tireless volunteering at countless organizations, including the Royal Canadian Legion.
“When you do something good for someone else you feel good inside,” he says matter-of-factly.
Which is why volunteering always feels like “the best job in the world.” Which is why the 94-year-old says he will never stop serving.
“Everyone tells me to slow down, [but] it’s in my heart,” Kurt smiles. “I’d sooner burn out than rust out.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
What happens after we die? Most Canadians say an afterlife does exist, survey shows
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.