The beginning of September is remarkable for the appearance of yellow school buses and the drone of cicadas. Like all signals, there are consequences. In these events (as in all others) it is a mixture of novelty, application and evolution. The novelty is the buzz of people and pursuits; the application is study and seasonal adjustment; the evolution is approaching what we’re to do and where we’re to go. In short it is a recipe for adventure and improvement.
In June of 1976 when I transitioned from Messrs. Macdonald, Affleck Barrs. &c. in Ottawa to practice law in Almonte the featured image was then the active Land Registry office. It was to become an important symbol of my life. Not only was it pivotal to my real estate law practice (typical of a country lawyer); it just happened to be located at the corner of Brougham and Clyde Streets around the corner from my first residence on the corner of Brougham Street and Martin Street South. By further coincidence the house I rented belonged to the incumbent minister (Rev. George Bickley) of St. Paul’s Anglican Church immediately across the street from the Land Registry office. St. Paul’s Anglican Church had been constructed in 1863.
We haven’t many attachments – by which I mean, we’re not especially affixed to anything. At least if you discount medical, dental and optometric desiderata. It is only our tiresome habits which presently interrupt our lives. This makes for a puzzling platform from which to contemplate where to go and what to do. I suppose one could say in fact that the globe is at our door. More realistically however – and in the wake of what I call the American commotion (a political about face which has had extraordinary consequences) – we are presently fashioning a short trip in Canada; precisely, the maritime provinces. I wish to be by the sea. Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have come to mind. Recalling my law school days in Halifax 55 years ago, I know that there is customarily outstanding weather in September – clear blue skies and clean fresh air rolling over the harbour off the North Atlantic Ocean. I recollect standing on Citadel Hill on such a day! The perspective and atmosphere were exquisite!
Tomorrow is the 1st day of September. How can it not mark a major change! Although the weather continues to be marvellous, it philosophically marks the end of summer. Uniquely too tomorrow is a Monday, Labour Day. According to my good friend Hal at ChatGPT, the next Labour Day Monday that is on the 1st of September is Monday, September 1, 2031. That’s 6 years from now – longer than I prefer to stand waiting. But I will by contrast jump into the mix today! Indeed we did so by visiting our dear friend in the Village of Ashton where he reported to have been busy harvesting the summer produce in order to prepare this evening’s glorious meal. And what a success it was! Fresh corn with an abundance of garden herbs, spices, garlic and an exotic addition (anchovies). This was followed by a bubbling hot cast iron pot of ratatouille complimented by a focaccia loaf. And then the fresh fruit cobbler with local ice cream (a late summer imperative).
Today is Sunday, August 31st. In addition to being an inestimably divine day (there is but one cloud the size of a cotton swab in the azure dome), it is the prelude to Monday, September 1st – Labour Day – a statutory holiday! And it is warm! Now, for those of you, dear Reader, who no longer subscribe to the latest edition of the magazine Métier, that is a peerless combination. It is an end-of-summer festival. In the distance I overheard the jarring caw of a crow. Minutes afterwards, sharply to the left of my line of sight upriver, another caw – whether repeated by itself or issued by another crow in its stead. No matter, the cacophonous harmony is to no avail today. This is the type of Labour Day weekend one hopes for!
Crossing the Canada/USA border has lately revived parabolic reminiscences of the War of 1812. Its competing ambitions and maritime roots have likewise gingered up unfavourable comparisons to the rhetoric of the Trump administration and the importance of the Canadian eastern shore. In short more and more Canadians have recoiled at the outbursts of the current American government; and, fewer and fewer Canadians have expressed an interest to cross the border. For our part, we have brought back to consciousness the appeal of Nova Scotia – while at the same time muffling and dampening our recollections of South Carolina and Florida.
It was almost 60 years ago that I met Duffy. That’s not his real name of course. It was something like Maynard or Mandrake or equally uncommon. We were in undergraduate studies together at Glendon Hall on Bayview Avenue in Toronto. We were among the first students at Glendon. In those days it was still an adjunct of the University of Toronto. Later it became part of the newly developed York University on the outskirts of the other side of the city. What initially made Glendon singular was its bent for bilingualism and political science. It turned out – when we subsequently had time to examine more than the sprawling gardens and canyon fields surrounding the former Wood Estate – that by design the university was geared to breed Canada’s diplomatic crowd. The proof of that speculation is that the first Principal of the college was Escott Reid who personally attended in 1966 upon our Upper Six graduating class at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora to promote the college.
Arrogant, given to excess, and a naïve liberal idealist. This is how history has often remembered the late Canadian diplomat Escott Reid.
The Glendon campus became a bilingual liberal arts college led by Escott Reid, who envisaged it as a national institution to educate Canada’s future leaders, a vision shared by Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who formally opened Glendon College in 1966.
Reid succeeded to convince a number of us to apply for admission (instead of sheepishly going to Trinity College at the University of Toronto as would have been customary). We later unearthed as well that we were but a batch of prep school students (both men and women) from other private schools in the area. At first the private school students isolated themselves and sat together in the dining room hall over breakfast, lunch and dinner at the long heavy wooden tables. Eventually segregations developed.
Duffy St. James was one of those private school students whom I met at Glendon. He had attended “The Grove” or what is also known as Lakefield College School. The school later acquired a degree of celebrity because in 1977 Prince Andrew attended the school for a term as an exchange student from Gordonstoun School, Scotland. Until then however, among what was then known as the “Little Big Four” (Upper Canada College, Bishop Ridley College, Trinity College School and St. Andrew’s College), Lakefield was a remote country school on the periphery of involvement. His school and ours had seldom collaborated for football games or cricket matches. As a result my acquaintance with Duffy did not arise in particular because of his private school credential. Instead he lived in the same House as I on campus at Glendon, just down the hallway. We shared a common room of shower stalls and washrooms. What triggered our acquaintance was therefore nothing other than a friendly passing hello.
In spite of our tenuous relationship – not to mention his burning interest in afternoon card games for which I had no interest at all – we developed a personal relationship. It interested me for example that he was somewhat of a renegade. I cannot now recall what he said to identify his early high school dilemmas, but he told me he had been sent to Lakefield College as an attempt by his parents to improve or correct him of his divergent tendencies (whatever they may have been). I couldn’t imagine Duffy being radical – he was always seemingly calm and intellectual – but something had been amiss. As for his intellect, one incident especially impressed me. I recall him telling me how he got his first summer job upon graduation from prep school. He had applied to work on a bus with a tour operator. When asked at his interview, “What’s the first thing you would do if someone dies on the bus?”, he replied, “Open a window!” He got the job. And I think it paid well, as much as $2 per hour which, believe me, at the time was astronomic for a student summer job.
Duffy was the only student from Lakefield. Soon he became part of the larger private school clique on campus. That first Christmas he joined me and several other confederates (boys and girls) at a Caribbean resort for a mid-winter holiday. There his popularity excelled. He drank alcohol; he smoked cigarettes; and he knew how to joke and laugh. He was popular with the ladies. He was handsome – tall, well built and had a head of thick dark brown curly hair.
In spite of all this, Duffy died young. He committed suicide. I read about it years afterwards in the Globe and Mail newspaper.
I have since spent years pondering the unfortunate consequence of Duffy St. James. Because he was such an undemonstrative person, never one to brag about his accomplishments or benefits, and because he was always such a lonely person (I never knew him to have any alliance beyond his afternoon card mates), there is little indicia by which to assess him. It speaks to the inclination of youth to dwell only upon the moment that I haven’t any useful detail of his past. Nor did he ever speak at length about his past. He had simply materialized from another world – and then as quickly and as insignificantly departed.
Notably Duffy had been the subject of interest of one girl at Glendon. She, I afterwards learned, was interested in just about any boy who had been at private school. There were, as I mentioned previously, social events which inspired the private school crowd, among them the annual Highland Cadet balls at school. This girl – Mart was her name – proved herself to be “socially conscious”. She was not a snob – never did she proclaim anything to advance her public esteem – but she was clearly intent upon grooming herself for membership in a select group. Mart was, I thought at first, interested in Duffy because of his appearance but I was mistaken. Mart was by current standards attractive (along the “Twiggy” lines of sylphlike expression). She and Duffy would have made a good pair from that point of view; but they never graduated to anything beyond chat at table in the dining hall. Mart eventually transferred her insinuation tasks to other avenues (and I heard about her years later that she developed quite the history for doing so, sometimes upon the most exotic levels of society across Canada).
As you may well have already surmised, my connection with Duffy evaporated. In fact I lost touch with him primarily because of a letter he wrote me while I attended law school at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That was in 1970 immediately after having graduated from Glendon Hall. My flight to Nova Scotia was initially intended to afford me knowledge of life beyond the bounds of my past in the Toronto area; and, to connect me with my father’s roots in the maritime provinces. But when I reached Halifax I had trouble making an immediate adjustment. I wrote to Duffy to tell him so. His only reply was, “There ain’t no ship to take you away from yourself; you travel the suburbs of your own mind.” It stung, not especially because it were true, but because Duffy hadn’t to my thinking shown any ambition for sympathy. I did however respect his decision – so much so that we never communicated again. The adage by contrast has stuck. And while I thank Duffy for the intelligence I rather wish we had had a less abrupt end. I have since enquired of others whom I knew at Glendon about their knowledge of Duffy St. James, but to no avail. Even my review of his obituary discloses nothing material about him other than his date of death and his immediate blood family. There is no mention of a friend, partner or spouse.
There are so many possible lessons to derive from this brief account. After I had read his obituary, I had attempted to contact one of his siblings but nothing came of that either. There is naturally no answer to his suicide. Only Socrates has ever come close to convincing me of its propriety.
Socrates
(469–399 BC), ancient Athenian philosopher. As represented in the writings of his disciple Plato, he engaged in dialogue with others in an attempt to reach understanding and ethical concepts by exposing and dispelling error (the Socratic method). Charged with introducing strange gods and corrupting the young, Socrates was sentenced to death and died by drinking hemlock.
A rainy day – as we all know – is indispensable. Apart from melting snow and glaciers, the water in our rivers comes from precipitation. Rivers have sustained human and animal life for millennia, including the first human civilizations. Like any day of the week a rainy day is never entirely predictable. Seldom however is a rainy day considered superfluous or undesirable – except perhaps when it figuratively attaches contrition and regret to one’s day, when things turn dark and grey and run into difficulty or even go wrong, when the psyche – the very soul, the life force, the anima, the persona, the inner most self, the ego, the pneuma – is at risk. It is then that we question the need for the rain in our lives. But it is a mistake to do so. We need the rain. Not even ecclesiastical dispensation will modify the hardship often caused by rigorous application of general laws to particular cases of the hydrologic cycle.
An article by Louisa Clarence-Smith (US business editor at The Times) has been forwarded to me by my erstwhile physician. The article is about the well known southern business called Cracker Barrel.
When my erstwhile physician travels to his properties in Florida, he flies. When we visit Florida on vacation, we drive. And when we do – as we have done for the past decade – we regularly stop at Cracker Barrel along the way. Cracker Barrel – not unlike many corporations – punctuates its restaurant endeavours by maintaining an underlying theme of prime real estate. Its convenient locations along i95 are only part of their success; the biscuits are nonpareil, the lemonade delicious, the main courses are reliably prepared and served.
A southern comfort food chain is attracting little sympathy after falling foul of America’s most influential corporate activist of the summer: President Trump.
Cracker Barrel, which serves chicken ’n’ dumplins, meatloaf and country fried steak with biscuits and cornbread, finally reversed a planned rebrand on Tuesday night after a backlash over its decision to change its old logo, removing the image of an older man, “Uncle Herschel”, in overalls sitting next to a barrel and the words “Old Country Store”.
Here is the skinny on Uncle Herschel:
Uncle Herschel was Cracker Barrel Old Country Store’s founder Dan Evins’ real uncle, the younger brother of Evins’ mother. He helped shape not only Cracker Barrel’s image but also its values. He was our own “goodwill ambassador” to the public. Uncle Herschel was a wealth of knowledge about what rural America’s old country stores were really like. He was a salesman for Martha White Flour Company for 32 years, traveling the rural South calling on many towns’ general stores. Like many Cracker Barrels today, the community general stores were more than just a place to purchase goods. They were a gathering place for folks to take a timeout from the chore-filled day to visit with a neighbor or two, exchange pleasantries or just talk about the weather.
Its “country store” model – which, by the way, is so repetitive you cannot judge one outlet from another – is a model which I find to be wearying: the collection at the front of the restaurant of wooden rocking chairs (all secured by coils), the oppressive masses of glitter and pure sugar confectionary within the entrance, the racks of cheap clothing, the customarily useless fireplace, the wall hangings of garage sale relics. In short, I consider it a small compliment to preserve the identity.
My conclusion is the same as that of the author:
Instead of focusing on winning over a new, younger audience, Cracker Barrel is now scrambling to win back its Maga base.
The decision of Cracker Barrel to abandon change is, in my opinion, reflective of the American psyche generally. And, no, I don’t mean that in a nice way. What disturbs me in particular is the attempt to revitalize what is historically an infected resource. Let me put it this way: reliving the plantation days is not exactly the most healthful way of advancing society; and, whether the Americans like it or not, youth have evolving motivations and manners of expression which are no longer chained to the past.
Though it may be nothing but a reflection of my inveterate smugness, I take inestimable pride in being a country lawyer and living in the country. I am only too willing – unprovoked – to share with others what I believe to be an extraordinarily happy circumstance. My elevation to this lauded status at the age of 27 years happened within 3 years of graduation from law school at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1973, interrupted only by the necessity to fulfill my clerical articles with Messrs. Macdonald, Affleck, Barrs. &c., 100 Sparks St, Ottawa as mandated by the Law Society of Upper Canada then subsequently passing the bar exams at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West, Toronto (during which I smoothed the transition from urban to rural by having been appointed by Dean Charlie Lennox as a Don at Devonshire House, University of Toronto).