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Darrel Janz will not allow his age to get in his way.
At 82, he is almost finishing up a weekly talk show on Yes TV about influential figures in Alberta who have left a legacy in their fields. He still enjoys cooking by himself (albeit “not all the time”).
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The longtime TV host, once described as the face of the news in southern Alberta, loves spreading his wisdom at various luncheons. He is slated to speak this month at an annual breakfast held by the Calgary Seniors’ Resource Society about purpose and the many things seniors have to offer.
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But that doesn’t mean being old comes without its challenges. Janz admits he isn’t as quick as he used to be. When he speaks to his older peers, he often hears about ailments, a spectre that has loomed over his family for generations.
“I come from a family where on my dad’s side there were a fair number of severe cases of Alzheimer’s and other dementias,” he said in an interview. But his mother’s side, whose genes he must be thankful for, faced no such troubles.
“My mother died just shy of her 94th birthday and had a clear, sharp mind,” he said. “And I’m hoping to be like that.”
He doesn’t just hope but strives to be as youthful as he could be — if not physically, then mentally. “I enjoy my work,” he said. “Because it keeps me thinking. And I think it’s very important to keep the brain moving.”
More important than simply exercising one’s mind, to Janz, is finding purpose. Without that, “you’re lost,” he said.
“Unless you can point to something that gives you reason to get up in the morning,” he added, “life is pretty aimless.”
Janz found his reason for waking up every day at an early age, a gift he still holds dear to him.
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While his brothers played with their toy trucks, in a small town called Main Centre, Sask., four-year-old Janz would sit beside his father and soak up the CBC National show at 8 p.m. “At age four, I knew a fair bit about the (Second World War).”
By the time he reached Grade 7, he was beating students five years older in quizzes on current affairs. As he grew older, a passion for speaking and writing coupled with a thirst for knowledge led him to pursue a career in journalism.
Shuffling between Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, Janz made his mark in the field, going on to cover the country’s and even the world’s biggest stories, including the 1970 October Crisis and the NATO takeover of Bosnia in 1995.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be at the right place at the right time to cover some monumental stories,” he said.
He rose through the ranks and remained at the helm of CTV until 2013, a career spanning nearly 50 years.
The earliest thoughts of the retirement floated across Janz’s mind in the mid-aughts when he turned 65. He didn’t pay them further attention until he realized, “I’m not quite as fast on my feet as I once was.”
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He stopped anchoring in 2013. But he stayed with CTV, hosting a weekly show called Inspired — not too dissimilar from the show he is currently filming — until last year at the age of 81.
When the show ended, he hardly called it a day. People came up to him, wondering why he “wasn’t sitting at home with my feet up.” His response: “I can’t do that.”
His aim has always been to tell people what’s happening. “If you don’t know what’s going on in the world, you’re going to wind up with without a real sense of without a worldview,” he said.
His belief in finding purpose is now what he wants to impart. His message: The gift doesn’t just belong to younger people, but to those old like him, whom the world casually dismisses at the tail end of their lives.
“There’s still a lot of ageism being practiced by our society,” he said. But things are changing.
Higher life expectancies and rising living costs have meant people are delaying retirement and contributing to the economy.
For Janz, seniors are proving their worth, and more needs to be done to appreciate their value. “With an aging population, we cannot let the seniors who have so much experience just waste away in a home somewhere.”
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In his speech at the Calgary Seniors’ Resource Society’s annual breakfast, Janz will emphasize the importance of valuing what seniors have to offer — decades of experiential knowledge that could help the younger generation broaden their perspective.
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After all, everyone grows old, and if we can’t cherish those who are living out our future, the prejudice will inevitably haunt us when we’re no longer young.
For Tamrin Heardt, philanthropy officer at the Calgary Seniors’ Resource Society, no guest could have been better than Janz to discuss the sense of purpose.
“If you grew up in Calgary, you know he was part of your home every evening at six o’clock,” Heardt said. “We can’t wait to hear him speak about his ageing journey.
“At 82, he’s still reinventing himself, and we can all aspire to have that kind of energy and optimism.”
hmansukhani@postmedia.com
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