‘ Thank you Barbara’

Re: Barbara Amiel’s brave new book, Diane Francis, Nov. 3

Long before Barbara Amiel hit her stride on the world stage, and just as I was hitting my own, I met Barbara, by chance, on a bright sunny day not far from my home on the Hamilton mountain. I was a newly- crowned national beauty queen at the time, a shy young girl about to embark upon a journey that would propel me from high- school classrooms to countless stages throughout North America and Europe. On that day, though, I must have seemed like a bewildered and lost teenager to her because she walked up to me, a stranger, as I was standing in silent contemplation in the middle of the sidewalk. Somehow she sensed the silent, dark well of fear that had paralyzed me at that moment in time as I tried to recalibrate myself for what lie ahead.

I remember looking up at the angelic face of a beautiful young woman with shiny dark hair falling below her shoulders. Gently she asked me if I would join her for a dish of ice cream at the nearby soda bar. She had “a few minutes to spare” before she was to meet a friend, she said. In no time I was pouring my heart out to her. She listened in silence, and then she said something that was to turn my life around.

“Don’t rely on your beauty to make your way through life. Always rely on your brain.”

And then she was gone. I never crossed paths with Barbara again but her words, having seared into my psyche, dissipated my anxiety and re- set my course. I walked onto the world stage thereafter, but on my own terms, not as a beauty queen, but as a goodwill ambassador for Canada.

I’m certain that Barbara has no memory of me, as our meeting was so short and so random, but on that day she changed my world. Thank you, Barbara.

Carol Mason, Etobicoke, Ont.