"I believe Yossarian lives"

PROFILE OF DOUG DRUMMOND
By Dan Hilborn
Published Aug. 17, 2005


Yossarian lives!

It was the most ubiquitous phrase at the sixth annual Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival. And, as one of 30 people who wore the dark blue T-shirts with those words upon it, I was stopped more than half a dozen times to explain the meaning of that cryptic message.

Capt. John Yossarian is the main character in the book and movie Catch-22, the story of an American bomber in the Second World War who is convinced that he's the only sane person in the war and everyone else is crazy.

Initially, Yossarian is told that, if he flies 20 missions, he gets to have a holiday. Then it's 50 missions, then 75 missions, then 100 and, finally, towards the end of the story, as he approaches 150 missions, Yossarian finds his own way out of the war.

He throws a rowboat into the waters off North Africa with the aim of paddling his way to Sweden.

The movie ends as the rowboat slowly moves out into the deep, blue sea.

End of story, right? Wrong.

"Yossarian lives," said Doug Drummond, who served 27 years on Burnaby city council, including the final six as the mayor who presided over the very first Burnaby Blues Festival.

Catch-22 has always been one of Drummond's favourite stories. Those blue T-shirts were his - which he handed out to friends to share in the message of hope and optimism in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Last weekend, Drummond and his group of 'east siders and close friends' were given a special roped-off section of lawn at the blues festival where they could sit together and listen to some of the best music in the world.

Drummond had good reason for celebrating. On Tuesday (yesterday), he was scheduled to go into hospital to have a large tumour removed from his brain. The cancer that began as melanoma and ended his political career has not abated. Despite seven successful years of fighting, Drummond got the call last week that the tumours had spread and grown. He'd rather not have the surgery, but the doctors are insistent.

So on Friday afternoon, one day before the blues festival, I sat down with my longtime friend for our second visit in a week. Our earlier meeting had focused on the blues festival and how happy he was to see the event take wing. This second meeting had a decidedly more serious tone.

"I want to do it my way," he said. "I'm not afraid at all. I've gone through this since 1997. I've had lymph nodes taken out and I've gone through all kinds of treatments."

Drummond has always wanted to be more of a private man than his public persona allowed. In the 21 years since we first met - I was a 10-speed riding college kid, hired by a small paper in South Burnaby to cover what was then a Socred-dominated city council - his two most frequent comments to me were: "Nobody ever accomplishes anything on their own" and "Don't quote me, Danny, but ..."

The first is a Doug Drummond truism. No matter what the project, Drummond almost invariably let other people take the credit. The second is an example of how our relationship was based on trust built up over many years.

"Sometimes you made me look like a fool and other times you made me look like a genius. But you know me, I'll never complain," he told this reporter more than once.

Looking back on his 27-year career at city hall, Drummond singles out his role in helping to keep Burnaby Hospital open during the the first term of the B.C. Liberal government as one of his greatest achievements.

One of the main reasons why he took on that fight was the exemplary treatment he received when Dr. Gary Cuddington first performed surgery on him after his cancer was diagnosed.

"Burnaby Hospital tried their best. My surgeon, Dr. Cuddington, didn't damage one nerve," he said last week. "When we fought for our hospital, we knew some of the people there were just great. We couldn't let it close."

Drummond had many other political victories during his three-decade-long career, but his true passion was for his day job, teaching math at Gladstone secondary in East Vancouver. When he retired in June, one of his students wrote an emotional two-page essay in Drummond's 2005 yearbook that thanked "Dug Ditches Drummond" for making a huge difference in that young man's life.

"My Mom and Dad taught me that your life amounts to how many good moments you have," he said.

Among the many changes Drummond is coping with this week is the loss of his father, Ed, whose funeral was held last Wednesday. Not surprisingly, the former mayor delivered the eulogy.

"I said that if you haven't got the guts to love somebody, you're not living," he said. "And I was lucky because I had so many crazy friends. Not just a few friends, there were a lot of us."

Much of Drummond's style and attitude comes from his many travels as a young man. He toured South Asia, walked to the base camp of Mount Everest, slept on the heads of the Bamiyan buddhas in Afghanistan and danced in the slums of India.

But this week, the pace will be decidedly slower.

"I'm OK," he said while looking out over his backyard garden with his standard poodle Trudeau by his side. "I'm only worried about my family. I just have three wishes. That I can spend more time with my wife, that I can see my grandchildren, and that I can walk with my dog."

When Drummond is released from hospital after this surgery, he hopes to spend his time relaxing at home with family. And he'll probably watch that favourite movie a few more times.

"I believe Yossarian made it," he said.