Volume 57 Number 18
Friday, May 5, 2017
Thompson, Manitoba
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Funny stories on the menu as Jack Robinson marks 80 years BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Jack Robinson has a lot of stories to tell and many of them end with a punchline. He had the opportunity to deliver a few zingers to family and friends at the Ma-Mow-We-Tak Friendship Centre during a surprise 80th birthday party April 17 and to be the butt of a few jokes as well. More than a few of those stories focused on being out in the bush, as Robinson loves hunting and has had his share of mishaps in pursuit of his prey. “One time I was out, I got into an accident with my four-wheeler,” Robinson told those in attendance, recalling how his partner Maryann Denechezhe had helped him out. “I was going to back it off the truck and I fell back and it fell on me. She was there to take me to the hospital emergency but when I was laying there – I got knocked out – I was laying there and she was beside me holding my head and I opened my eyes and I said, ‘That’s it. I’m going. I see the angels coming for me.’ She says, ‘Those are a flock of snow geese.’” As his daughter Gina Spence put it, Robinson fi rst came to what has become his home “when Thompson was just becoming Thompson,” arriving with a group of workers surveying the area when he was 16, and many of the friends who spoke at his birthday celebration have known him for 30 years or more.
Nickel Belt News photos by Ian Graham Jack Robinson was in the place of honour for a surprise 80th birthday party at the Ma-Mow-We-Tak Friendship Centre April 17. Lane Boles recalled one time when he dropped in to say hi to Robinson when he was living in a cabin south of town after returning to Thompson around 1998. “I sat inside the cabin
for a minute and on the table were two bowls,” he recounted. “There was a bowl with about seven or eight chocolate-covered almonds and in the other bowl was probably about 30 just regular almonds. I
was a little hungry, hadn’t eaten. I knew Jack wouldn’t mind. I didn’t want to eat the special ones that were chocolate so I started picking up the regular almonds. Jack walks in, he sees me helping myself and
I said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was just so hungry, Jack.’ Jack says, ‘No, you help yourself, Lane. You’re sort of helping me.’ He says, ‘All I can do is lick the chocolate off.’” Although he was an ac-
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complished hunter, Robinson didn’t always get his moose, said Bobbi Montean, noting that for many years Robinson was the one responsible for hunting food for Ma-Mow-WeContinued on Page 12