First, I add to riverrat's "sticky" on this, in case someone tries to slide by his line about "formerly" held office or whatever.

Anyone posts anything unfunny, critical, or comparing Frank's performance as mayor, MLA, businessman, with anyone else's, or even hints at anything critical, and I'll be on your doorstep. Guaranteed. I'm second in the running for "nastiest old bat in town", and gaining fast on the front-runner, who's so mean and nasty she beaned a former student's girlfriend working a cosmetics counter in a Nanaimo department store with a large jar she picked up and threw at the cosmetics girl, and No. 1 "nasty old bat" is now banned from the store. Maybe only women will understand this: "nastiest old bat" was trying to get cash back on an item that she'd received as a "gift with purchase" a couple of weeks before. But don't mess with old women.

So let's have funny stuff, and here's why: two female friends were visiting a few days ago, one of them a former Albertan who's been here about six years and who had heard of Frank Ney; and the other a more recent arrival from Europe who hadn't even heard of him. So I tried my best:
  • Warm-up to the beginning of the Bath Tub Race, Frank was aboard his "Blue Girl" in pirate uniform, complete with sword, building up the excitement, and got a semi-rotten grapefruit right in the chest. A well-known high school shop teacher, a former Canadian Navy guy still in the Naval Reserves, along with his buddies, had let a bunch of fruit get a little more than ripe and let go at Frank with a modified beer can cannon. Whether or not Frank really did drop his sword, which promptly sank to the bottom, is still under debate, but the Navy guys were forced to apologize to Frank. Very sincerely and very abjectly.
  • At any "fun" event, Frank could be counted on to work one or both of the following into his speech: "Just goes to show you that in Nanaimo we prefer corn to culture" and/or "Welcome to Nanaimo, the sunporch of Canada."
  • This one should probably go into a time capsule to be opened about fifty years after I die: I was a member of a volunteer organization along with a lot of others, including Frank Ney, an honourary member. Was there any organization in the Nanaimo area that Frank didn't belong to, either as a regular member or as an honourary member, with the possible exception of the Cedar Women's Institute? Annual summer BBQ and we decided to end the night swimming at Westwood, so long ago that it was in the bush, with maybe three houses on the road up to it. We weren't making any noise, but that number of vehicles going up the road must have alerted someone, and we turned into a "police incident". Until the RCMP spotlights hit His Worship. About thirty of us, no one was drinking, no one was using drugs, no one was noisy--we were swimming. I leave the rest to your imagination and the time capsule.
Anyone have anything they'd like to add to my "happy memories" of Frank in the glory and funny days?