Fr. Stephen D'Arcy the Original Running Man

I just heard that my uncle Stephen passed away in Ireland. He was a Catholic priest. He spent most of his career in Zambia, but retired to his homeland in Ireland. Because we lived in Canada, he was one of the few relatives that we saw on a semi-regular basis. He was my Dad's older brother.

On one of my uncles visits to Hamilton he appeared on the local radio program, The Tom Cherington Show on CHML. I believe the topic was the war in Biafra. Cherington had a reputation of being a difficult interviewer, but my uncle found him quite affable.

I remember my uncle was very funny, but he could be blunt at times, all the years in Africa wore away some of the tact, or political correctness.

When my brothers and I were kids our backyard was attached to a park. I recall that my uncle was a jogger and would run around the park. Back then no one jogged. I'm very serious, if you jogged back then people would stare at you in disbelief. I'm pretty sure that my uncle invented jogging. In many ways he was ahead of his time, as he took fitness very seriously, well before it was common.

A few years later the neighbour across the street, who it turned out was an insurance adjuster before I knew what an insurance adjuster was, took up jogging. He was the second man to ever take up jogging. He took up jogging for a more practicable reason than Fr. Stephen. He took up jogging so he could chase after the McNair brothers, who terrorised him. They were the Eddie Haskell's of our street. He never did catch them.

I'm sure it is a coincidence, but I jogged the furthest I have ran in several years, just moments before I heard uncle Stephen passed away. Maybe he passed the D'Arcy running torch to me.

My youngest brother Steve was named after uncle Stephen. It has to help to have a priest in the family, just to hedge your bets with St. Peter.