I don’t know about you but I’ve lately found that there’s an overwhelming amount of influence (guidance and pressure) upon my life that I hadn’t hitherto fully discerned or acknowledged.  I mean to say, getting where one is is not as simple as recounting the details of one’s scholarly achievements or movements about the planet.  The increasingly obvious fact to me is that there have been many circumstances and people, background and pathways, which were often hidden from view but which have unknowingly directed and swayed me. No doubt this private epiphany of mine is laughable to those of you who have a more critical analysis of your curriculum vitae or official record of what it is that made you what you are.  I guess I’m just so stubborn and intent upon getting my own way that I mistakenly (or should I say, arrogantly) assumed I had fully succeeded to do so without the unknown persuasion of others or the irreversible import of cultural and social dynamics.

One often hears of the humble beginnings of those who late in life have become a triumph of success. The multitude of stories (such as Frank McCourt’s 1996 Angela’s Ashes) about Irish hardship are examples. The references are invariably to poverty, starvation, filth, lack of facilities, disparaging employment and complete lack of education and opportunity.  It makes for colourful narratives; but the vernacular resonates with me poetically only. The people whom I know were spared a life of poverty and alcoholism in Limerick, Ireland.

Nonetheless I have learned to acknowledge that my own life, not being spared the so-called basics, was manipulated by forces often of equally strong impact and persuasion. While it is not uncommon to hear of the affect of parents upon the child, I can honestly report that for me the influence of my parents was more in the nature of taste than opinion, by which I mean I found both my parents agreeable, kind and loving but neither of them particularly moulded me along any one avenue. In fact if I were asked, I would answer that my parents let me roam uninhibited.

The closest my father came to directing me was when he responded to my undergraduate intention to study philosophy, “Well, it’s your bed, you make it, you sleep in it!”  Hardly an affirmation but neither a complete denouncement. It did more manifestly confirm my father’s decision to remain aloof from my personal imperatives. In later life he perhaps disclosed a more secretive paternal ambition when he contradicted my proposal for my fiancée and me to live together prior to marriage. The marriage never happened; and, not being co-vivant was a deprivation we were both able to bear in the end. If I were to attribute to my father a calculated process of influence it would be his decision to direct my prep school education which he said could be in England, Switzerland or Canada. I opted for Canada and I have never regretted the alliance with St. Andrew’s College.

What I learned from St. Andrew’s College was not only a classical education (Latin, English, French, history and geography plus simple science and mathematics) but more importantly the objective of achievement and success.  While this sounds palatable enough I can assure you it came at a cost.  As Phyllis Diller once commented, “The harder I work, the luckier I get!” Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my success was directly related to nothing more prosaic than work; specifically, it did not reflect an enormous intellectual capacity. But when I opened my own law practice within five years of graduating from law school, the mechanics of hard work were meaningfully reignited. This was an important feature because it meant that even with complicated legal issues I was able, by prolonged application and assiduity, to overcome barriers. It is part of the reason I unwittingly acknowledged the significance of niche marketing (which meant not only keeping one’s nose to the grindstone but also to the same grindstone, avoiding the temptation of being one with all the answers).

Here arises a further influence but of a curious nature.  Raymond Algernon Jamieson QC was the lawyer whose desk I assumed upon my arrival in Almonte in 1976.  Significantly for purposes of this monologue Mr. Jamieson had a walk-in-vault in his office in which he stored a vast number of original deeds of land (he had practiced law for about 54 years since being called to the Bar at Osgoode Hall in 1921; and, his father and his partners had practiced law in Almonte as well). What however was curious was that Jamieson kept a hide-a-bed stored in his vault. And, as I discovered when preparing to move to my new office building, he had an endless collection of empty liquor bottles hidden behind Halsbury’s Laws of England, Ontario Statutes and other legal sources on the bookshelf constructed on the back wall of his office. Allow me to jump ahead for a moment.  One day as I sat behind Mr. Jamieson’s former desk, sitting in his identical movable wooden chair with the pillow, I spoke with James R. MacGregor who was about to jump from Gale Real Estate to his own business.  As I had effectively done the same thing by having jumped from Galligan & Sheffield, Barrs. &c, I was anxious to assist Jimmy. What I had been told by Mr. Jamieson is that Albert Gale, when he started his business in Almonte, employed Mr. Jamieson to “do up the writin’s“. It was my suspicion that Mr. Jamieson and Mr. Gale may have done up more than the “writin’s“; and perhaps have engaged upon a celebratory moment the use of the contents of some of those bottles lodged behind the books on the bookcase. Reportedly Mr. Jamieson would afterwards console himself by the employment of the hide-a-bed before venturing to return home for the evening (though I further understand that he had called ahead to his wife to advise her he would be late at the office). Knowing all this, I said to Jimmy, “If we stick together we’ll get along!”  Jimmy and I liked to share a drink.  He later became a member of the Masonic Lodge with me.  We did a lot of business together. Unfortunately I was asked by the police to tell Jimmy’s wife that he was dead.  A car accident on the Wolf Grove Road to Middleville.

This particular story of reciprocal support was echoed in my life in another manner.  Once again, the impression though notable was by no means unobscured. John H. Kerry (who probably maintained a business in Almonte longer than any other person to date) told me that R. A. Jamieson had embraced him upon his arrival in Almonte. It would have been no small compliment to a young entrepreneur to attract the support of one such as R. A. Jamieson (whose family was as well hugely involved with the local community). Many years afterwards, John Kerry afforded me the same support.  He said, “If you were on your own I’d support you!” and he did.  We were friends until the day he died. His support during my career lent dignity and authenticity to my practice aside from the obvious compensation. I had the further advantage to breakfast every day of the week with him and five other chaps at the Superior Restaurant. That alliance too insinuated my life with a terrific sense of humour.

So where does all this lead? I mean, we know where we’ve ended up, but have we resolved. “How did we get here?” I’ve mentioned parents, people and schools. Others may include among the superlative credentials the influence of the church or one’s spouse or an accident of employment. Some may accredit it all to chance as did Thomas Hardy (“the indifferent forces that inflict the sufferings and ironies of life”). Or it may be no more substantial than the wave of Christianity or Judaism and their social alliances. One thing upon which we can all no doubt agree is that our evolution has not been without its stimulants however perceptible or imperceptible.

If however I were asked, the paramount influence upon my life has been the looming though sometimes obscure sense of personal objectivity. I characterize my thinking as independent because I was required at an early age to make critical choices.  Naturally I was influenced in these shifting matters of concern by the people whom I met.  But never did I attach myself either unwittingly or irrevocably to anyone or anything; I always knew my own imperatives prevailed whether socially, sexually, commercially or morally. It offended my brooding temperament to contradict whatever I knew was best for me (which was frequently a limiting imperative). Very often the external influences were pronounced to the point of being imperious; but to my knowledge I have never relented to those exigencies unless I felt they aligned with my private objectives. I ought to add at this juncture that my steadfastness on this point is not altogether nutritious because the fact remains that, having devoted myself so unmoved, I am solely responsible for the nature of the result. But it is another of my placating prescriptions that, “All’s well that ends well!”

This is I find an especially stimulating resolve as we approach the longest day of the year and the sunshine glances across yonder river and fields. My plate of soup awaits.