Since Rosemary and I returned from a week’s trip to New York City almost three weeks ago, I have been plagued by a terrible respiratory disease that unfortunately never deteriorated to pneumonia (I have had that twice in my past). Had I had pneumonia an antibiotic would have stopped it. I have been feeling in what seems for three weeks of not wanting to do anything, read anything or even write a blog. I wrote about this feeling here.

Today I feel a tad better and I am writing this because of a shot in the arm that came from Paul Grescoe. Who is he? Read here. But that entry does not really explain all that Grescoe and wife Audrey did in Vancouver to make the magazine milieu of the 70s, 80s and 90s in Vancouver to be as terrific as it was. It was Audrey Grescoe (and Andrew Scott) who transformed Western Living into to the success that it has even today in spite of the decline in print.

But I must also point out that my career as a photographer had its downs. Often when I was really depressed I would call Paul Grescoe who would gently (with a voice that could sell thousands of used cars) give me gentle advice (very good it always was) that mostly involved having patience.

Their son Taras started a career as a free-lance journalist that at one point when he wrote for the Guardian included my photographs in that publication for a first and last time. Few in Vancouver would know that many times Taras Grescoe would step in for William Safire’s column On Language in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Like his parents Taras Grescoe is prolific from his base in Montreal.

I must also record here a little article that Paul Grescoe wrote for Homemakers in which he wrote about the safety virtues of building cars that would have their headlights one during the day!

Today he sent me an email after years of having lost touch perhaps because the Grescoes live in Bowen. It has been another well placed Grescoe shot in my arm!