By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
Most words have antonyms. Makes sense, because positives usually rely on the existence of negatives. So what is the antonym for serendipity? Can anyone tell me? We all know the word embodies the rare wonder of making a discovery of significance as a result of seeking something of relatively minor importance. You may be looking for a substitute for vanilla and stumble upon a cure for the common cold. Now that's truly serendipity! So why need there be an antonym?
Imagine, if you can, being on the brink of a serendipitous discovery. The clues are there. All you have to do is follow the leads and it will be at hand. But then, after evidence of the promise, and pursuing a natural course, you find yourself on a path that leads nowhere: it simply comes to an end.
An example of such a disappointment - admittedly trivial - takes me back more than 30 years to the vinegary days when I was given to searching for the brass ring and its rewards.
When offset printing, with its reliance on photographic processes, was new to the community newspaper business, this new tool or adjunct to a venerable industry took the mind on strange tangents.
Quickening my heart with a hint of opportunity may have been the decision to use a reduction of the front page of a 1913 issue of the Review - the edition reporting the city of Weyburn's inaugural ceremonies - on the dust jacket of Isabelle Eaglesham's "The Night the Cat Froze in the Oven."
Hence sprang the exciting (serendipitous) idea of offering a collection of photographic reductions of newspaper front pages carryinging events of national, international, local or even personal significance.
Toward this end, I wrote - with some success - for copies of such pages. I have forgotten what most of them were about, but as an example, I had one from a Honolulu paper issued immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I also wrote to (among many others) the Brantford Expositor, for its report of the first long-distance telephone call, made by Alexander Graham Bell (I have always understood) at Brantford, Ontario. The reply, mingling regret and chagrin: the paper had not reported the event.
My plans for the "mini-page" adventure that was to have brought me acclaim and riches got nowhere, but for some reason the Brantford disappointment always rankled.
Then last spring, to celebrate the end of a harsh, confining winter, we took a day-excursion to the little city of Paris, Ontario (about the size of Weyburn). To my astonishment, the tour guide pointed to a little building near the main intersection, and announced that from it Alexander Graham Bell had made the first long-distance telephone call - to eight-miles-distant Brantford.
Our coach stopped at the main downtown intersection to allow us to stretch our legs; perhaps to do a little shopping, which is very low on my list of priorities. A few doors away, however, was the office of the weekly Paris Star, and before the day had advanced much farther, I dropped in and asked if they had copies of the paper back to that important 1876 date. (In my defense, I had no desire to revisit my ambition of three decades earlier. I simply remained curious about what newsmen of the day had written of the event.) I learned that archival volumes of the paper previous to 1910 (or whatever) had been lost in a fire, but the local library or museum might have copies
Time considerations prevented me from pursuing my quest then, but upon returning to the big city I contacted the provincial archives and asked about Paris Star issues of the sought vintage. After checking files, the librarian advised that microfilm of the Star did not go back beyond 1910 (quick letdown), but went on to inform me Paris Review microfilm was available from the 1870s on (another trip to the clouds).
At my first opportunity, I rushed to the archives, found the specified reel, and learned that, in fact, the so-called 1870s microfilm amounted to several scraps from an 1878 issue - two years too late.
A quick scan of the available reels - so poorly reproduced
as to be virtually illegible - yielded me little more than the
fact that Paris, Ontario, was so named because of its location
on substantial deposits of plaster or Paris, one of the town's
early industries. This, you see, is why I need an antonym for
serendipity.
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