Woody delivers for riding UPDATED

Retired Nipissing MP Bob Wood "prepares" for his dream job.
____________________________________________________________

Bob Wood has delivered many cheques to the former Nipissing riding, but what he’d really like to be doing is delivering packages.

Or so said an old friend last night at Wood’s retirement dinner, held at the Clarion Resort Pinewood Park.

Help him out
Tom Arens, who now lives in Orillia, had worked with Wood back in the day when he was a radio morning man in North Bay.

Wood, Arens said, had confided in him years ago that he’d really like to try working as a courier.

So with Wood now looking for something to do in his post-politics days, Arens decided to help him out and send applications to courier companies.

“And Bob,” Arens said, “one bit, and you start Monday at 5 a.m.”

Arens then pulled out a Purolator jacket and cap, which Wood gladly tried on.

Waxed nostalgically
Tributes to Wood took up much of the evening either through speakers or contained within a video presentation assembled by the North Bay Cogeco production team.

The video included a paean from Mike Harris in which the former Ontario premier waxed nostalgically about having worked with Wood when both were involved in municipal politics and senior levels of government. Then came the punch line Harris had leisurely been building up to.

“No MP and MPP have worked together as well as we have Bob, and that’s something Monique Smith can learn from when Al McDonald is elected Monday,” Harris said.

“Whoops!”

Smith had spoken prior to the video, leaving her unable to retort.

Save the base
Other speakers included former North Bay mayor Jack Burrows, Nipissing First Nations chief Phil Goulais, Wood’s assistant Clancy MacDonald, Lana Mitchell, of Low Income People’s Involvement and Nipissing Mayor Wendy Billingsley.

Members of the Dreamcoat Fantasy Theatre provided the night’s entertainment, debuting “Bob Wood, The Musical.”

One song, Save the Base, was sung to the old chestnut ‘Baby Face, You’ve Got the Cutest Little Baby Face.’

Wood was also presented with the chair he sat in while Nipissing’s longest-serving MP.

A gift
He thanked family, friends and supporters for their loyalty to them and said being elected MP “was a gift given to me by the community, and I really appreciate that gift.”

Wood then added a touch of his well-known risqué humour when he related the advice given to him by local Liberal Garth Goodhew the morning after his first election to parliament.

“He came by my house and said ‘Bob, you’ll have to stop using the ‘F’ word now’ and left," Wood said to a roar of laughter from the 300 people or so who attended.

Never dreamt
A person “can’t keep this job forever,” Wood told reporters earlier during the evening.

“It’s a job that should be started over, different person different ideas, different way of doing businesses, it revitalizes not only the Liberal association, but it revitalizes the community too, because it has to be revitalized,” Wood said.

In October of 1988, Wood defeated Conservative Moe Mantha to take the riding by less than 500 votes.

“I never dreamt I’d be here almost 16 years, win the largest majority ever, win all the polls, I never dreamt all that stuff,” Wood said.

“I think that happened because I never changed, I was always me. I don’t have any degrees or letters at the end of my name; I’m just an ordinary guy who took a chance."

Series of choices
Ironically, Wood said, he had to be coaxed into seeking the Liberal nomination that led to his first election as MP.

"Life’s a series of choices and I made my choice and it happened to be a good one in October of 88,” Wood said.

“I made a lot of bad choices in my life but this is one of the good ones.”

They lost
Saving CFB North Bay was the “pinnacle” of Wood’s career, he said.

Goodhew, MC at the dinner, concurred.

“The generals wanted to move the base to Winnipeg. Bob fought the generals and they lost.”

Wood also considered meeting the Pope a highlight, “and not too bad for an Anglican.”

Treated everyone fairly
He believes his success in politics stemmed from his Everyman approach.

“I treated everyone fairly and I never asked their political affiliation when I was helping them or anything,” Wood said.

“It didn’t make any difference to me, and that way I garnered some support and took some support from the Conservatives back then.”

New game
But there won’t be Bob Wood to vote for June 28, he acknowledged.

“When you leave, those loyalties disappear. People who were loyal to me don’t have to be loyal to me anymore,” Wood said.

“It’s a new game.”

Proceeds from the evening will go into a scholarship fund named for the late Liberal organizer George Lowe.