Putting your money where your mouth is -- but not where your wheels are.

I was at a small-town farmer's market on a recent Saturday. It takes place in the local hockey rink, and features a mix of artisans with sea-glass jewellery, market gardeners with organic produce, fair trade coffee, and pleas for local causes. The crowd was mostly locals, with a sprinkling of tourists. Many of the tourists' cars sported Obama bumper stickers.

Near the entrance to the market, one bumper sticker caught my eye: "I buy local first."

The sticker was on a Japanese car.

Volunteer Firefighters in Reader's Digest

Turns out one of those stories is online after all.

“Firefighting gets in your blood,” says 37-year-old Lantz deputy chief Tim MacNeil, who has been with the department since age 19. He works two day jobs, including one fighting forest fires. “Everybody’s boyhood dream is to drive that big red truck,” he says. “I’m trained to do it, and I love to do it. If your house is on fire, I want to be there to put the fire out.”

Read the rest of the story here.

2 stories in the October 2008 Reader's Digest

I've got 2 stories in this month's Canadian edition of Reader's Digest. 

That's firefighter Tim Doane, on the cover, whom I interviewed for a story on volunteer firefighters. Also mentioned on the cover is "The Secret Men Won't Admit" -- my piece on men and depression.

Tim Doane and the rest of the volunteer firefighters were great to interview. They are just so into what they do. Doane spent 20 years as a firefighter and firefighting instructor in the military, and did two tours of duty in Afghanistan. After retiring from the military, he became a volunteer firefighter and an instructor at the Nova Scotia Firefighters School. 

After I'd spent some time with the volunteers, they decided I ought to suit up too, so I followed a couple of them into a building where a fire was burning at about 600 Fahrenheit. It took me about 20 minutes to get the gear on. I was in a highly controlled situation, but it made me appreciate how easy it could be to be overcome by panic in a hot, smoky, burning building.

If you'd like to hear more about volunteer firefighters, give a listen to my radio documentary on the challenges facing first responders in one Nova Scotia community. It's called "Where there's smoke, will there be firefighters?" and you can learn more about it and listen to it here.

The depression story has been a long time in the works, and I hope you get a chance to read it (neither piece is online, so you'll have to pick up the magazine). I am deeply appreciative of the willingness of the people I interviewed to share stories about some of the hardest times in their lives. Depression and other mental illnesses seem to be finally coming out of the closet, and that can only be a good thing.