It was a road trip to celebrate a real Canadian roads scholar. Destination: Peterborough, Ont.
Not the most exotic locale, but one that holds a little lore for a Canadian legend. Ironically, on Canada’s 100th birthday, July 1, 1967, bartender Boyd MacDonald, at the King George Hotel in Peterborough, introduced a singer humbly known, until then, as Tom Connors, who would become a man most known for personifying Canada in song as Stompin’ Tom.
The moniker MacDonald used in his introduction stuck and the rest is history, a life, I thought, ended too soon at the age of 77 on March 6.
The celebration of life for Stompin’ Tom Connors on March 13 took place at a mecca of junior hockey – the Memorial Centre in Peterborough – where coaching legends Ted Kennedy, Scotty Bowman and Roger Neilson, among others, got their starts. Former Peterborough Petes players include Steve Yzerman, Mike Ricci, Chris Pronger, Larry Murphy, Eric Staal, Jordan Staal and dozens of other NHL stars.
For the man who penned and sung The Hockey Song, Canada’s ‘other national anthem,’ as guest speaker Ken Dryden, Hall of Fame goalie, remarked, it was a fitting place to be as the entire crowd stood and sang “the good old hockey game is the best game you can name,” word for word. It was also pointed out that Tom’s favourite hockey team was not the Toronto Maple Leafs, as many would believe, but the Montreal Canadiens. Tom told me once, the reason was, when he was young and had a rare chance to hear a game on the radio, the only games his foster parents in Skinner’s Pond, PEI, could tune in were the Habs, the farthest eastern Canadian team.
The word ‘real’ was repeated over and over by speakers Adrienne Clarkson and others to describe Stompin’ Tom the night of his tribute, farewell and final public appearance. (And yes, that really was his flag-draped casket on stage carried out by RCMP pallbearers. His wife, Lena, placed Tom’s trademark black Stetson on top. Tom wouldn’t want to miss his final party).
He was real. He was also unapologetic, gritty, smoky, sinewy, tough, vulnerable, passionate, intelligent, funny, philosophical, creative and one of the best conversationalists you’d ever encounter. Marathon all-night discussions of topics far beyond what some critics of his music might label as country and western novelty tunes. In fact, most of the time, music was the least of what we talked about.
He was known as Stompin’ Tom to millions of Canadians, but Thomas Charles Connors, the man, was equally intriguing and complex.
Even though he was very real in every sense, I somehow imagined he walked on water or was part superhero, folksinger and mythical legend, when I was invited for the first time to his house somewhere west of Toronto, in a rural setting on Thanksgiving Sunday 2005.
The reason for the meeting was to allow Tom to get to know the guy who kept pestering him with letters – the snail mail kind. Then, the first act of a stage play based on his life story, was mailed to him; the another letter until he relented and typed up a response to me that still smelled of cigarette smoke when I opened it – that is true and real.
When I read his letter, you couldn’t peel me off the ceiling. He said he’d liked what I’d written so far, but couldn’t promise anything or commit to how much time he could spend reviewing and discussing a stage play. If I didn’t find that discouraging, he welcomed me to keep working away.
Tom left the door open just a crack, so I jammed a boot in it and kept going.
It was intimidating as hell. I already knew before going to his house he had turned down other playwrights of far higher calibre and experience than me, who had but one production under my belt. I was flattered and humbled beyond belief when a few years later, in an interview, then-Blyth Festival artistic director Eric Coates said Tom had told him if it was anyone else asking to do the play he wouldn’t have done it, but that I was sincere in all my dealings with him and that he liked working with me.
Tom was interested in people, stories, history, religion, politics, science, math, society, space, numbers, music, Canada, the world, nature, etc. Anything you can imagine, we talked about.
Tom was happy to point out to me one time he makes the musicians in his touring band sign a contract that at least one of them has to stay up every night with him until 5 or 6 a.m. talking when they’re on the road. That also involved the consumption of many Moosehead, for Tom, at room temperature. Moosehead is the oldest independent brewery in Canada and, six generations later, the only large family-owned brewery left in the country. It’s also based in Saint John, N.B., Tom’s birthplace.
On Feb. 9, 1936, his teenaged mother, Isabel Connors, gave birth to Tom. As many know, it was not an easy childhood. He learned to hitchhike from his mother at the age of 3. He also witnessed his mother steal food to feed them. Eventually, the law caught up; Isabel was institutionalized and Tom was sent to live in two different orphanages, where he was in almost daily fistfights. And if it wasn’t the other kids picking on him, he received many beatings from the nuns for his bed not being made properly or other minor offences.
I can’t share his whole life here, but he grew up quickly. His foster mom was extremely cruel and after about half a dozen attempts to run away, he finally did, for good, at the age of 15. For 13 years he crisscrossed the country hitchhiking, taught himself to play guitar and wrote about the people he met and the places he saw. And he wasn’t always welcomed where he went but he embraced and celebrated this country.
While many head to sunnier locations than Peterborough on March Break, his son, Tom Jr., said it best at his dad’s celebration of life with, “It’s nice to travel south. It might be warmer on the skin, but if you go east and west, it’ll be warmer on your hearts.”
Stompin’ Tom has received accolades galore: Honorary degrees, gold and platinum records, the Order of Canada, etc. All deserved.
He cared deeply about his country and his fellow Canadians. You couldn’t encounter him without being changed yourself. He made you think. He made you believe that anything is possible, no matter what your beginning, background or circumstance.
Yes, he was real. And I will really miss him.
David Scott, Western Alumni Gazette editor, is the playwright of The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom.