Hurricane Hazel 23 / 30

I read this article about the amazing Mississauga mayor, dubbed Hurricane Hazel by her pundits and fans alike.

She turned 90 today, as you can clearly see by the story, and is quite the fixture in Mississauga, having been mayor now for twelve terms.  She's so damned successful that she didn't even campaign at the last election, she just kept working and won again.

I was most intrigued by this part of the story:

McCallion was hailed as a hero in 2006 during a police standoff involving a distraught man who was threatening to kill himself.
The five-hour standoff came to a peaceful end when McCallion appeared and demanded the man stand down so emergency personnel could attend to more important matters.

Now that's more of what we need to see.  Plain old fashioned common sense.  I've often wondered why the police send dozens of cars and officers to proposed suicide locations.  Don't get me wrong, those folks at that stage do need help, and they deserve to get it.  But why the giant media circus?  Why the ERT van?  Why does the media show up?  Seems like Hazel has the right attitude to me - don't do it, but if you must do it, do it quickly so these people can get back to saving other lives.  But that's the lingering cynic in me speaking.

McCallion's attitude reminded me of the video I am certain you have all seen by now, which you can go see here on Youtube.  Remember, I hate posting the actual video - messes with the formatting.  :)  The truly bothersome part of that video, over and above that a pensioner had to come to the rescue, was that people are driving and walking by, no one is intervening, no one appears to be overly bothered even.  But enter Super Granny with Mjöllnir in her sensible handbag, swinging like mad and obviously pretty upset at these young people's antics!

So, two different stories about two older women (both are seniors by anyone's definition) both putting a stop to behaviour with the simple method of direct, no nonsense action.  We need more people like this!

Maybe its growing older and gaining wisdom.  Maybe it is being too old and too tired to waste any time on bullshit.  Maybe its just plain common sense.  Whatever these two ladies have, I say we need to find more of it and try and get it across to people of all ages.  That kinda moxie, I like.