Saturday 10 March 2007

Jerry Gladman, ALS

In surfing the Internet for Jerry Gladman references, we discovered the Focus on ALS website has Jerry's complete four-part series on Living and Dying With ALS online for all to read.

If you did not read the series in 2003, we recommend you read it online.

Our late, great colleague wrote the series after being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The acclaimed series would win him an Edward Dunlop Award. Jerry, 61, died June 21, 2004, the day before the Dunlops were awarded.

The good-natured veteran Sun writer did what he did best to the end, writing with integrity and, in this final series, with a compassion for fellow-ALS sufferers.

We had looked for the series on the Toronto Sun/Canoe.ca web site previously without success, which is typically Sun Media these days. No time for sentiment or web space for staff tributes or for award-winning columns, stories and photographs.

In the early days of the Internet, we thought newspaper web sites would be an excellent source for linking mentions of awards and honours to the original content that earned the awards and honours. It hasn't happened and we are puzzled by the oversight.

So thank you Focus on ALS for sharing Jerry's award-winning series.

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