An Ode to Pat

I first came to September Camp at Ahmek 55 years ago, in 1952, when my best friend, Bob Hawke encouraged me to join him for a fun holiday. It was because of September Camp that I met my wife, Pat. For it was here that I learned to enjoy horseback riding. And it was on the way back home from here one season that I stopped at a stable in Bowmanville for a ride. There in the barn was a lovely young Pat. Clearly, much has happened since then.

I turned eighty in May of last year, and I could scarcely believe that I had attained such an age. It struck me that eighty is so much older than seventy-nine. It was as if I had entered another dimension. For a number of days thereafter I found myself repeating to myself and especially to Pat “eighty!” as if in a state of disbelieve that I could have lived so long: longer than my father, grandfather, great grandfather, or any male bearing our family name.

Then on August 17th, just past, it happened again. It was not unexpected, but it was for me, a seismic shift in life’s circumstances. I rolled over in bed, looked at Pat and exclaimed, “Fifty years. We have been married fifty years!” Then, over breakfast and the morning paper, and again at dinner “Fifty years!” “Fifty!”

It is not as if we came out of the Arc or were holdovers from a long ago Victorian Age. But we have been married for a very long time. Over the years, of course we have changed physically and mentally. Our family circumstances have changed. If you like, it has been rather like Ahmek and Canoe Lake – they change from season to season, and yet, they remain the same.

I can stand on the bridge over Wigwam Bay in the early morning, totally absorbed by a loon calling somewhere in the mist rising off the lake. At such a time, age and years become meaningless. I have stood there and watched the same scene repeat itself on any number of mornings for more than fifty years. For one brief moment in time, I am ageless. I could be sixty, fifty, or forty. We are obliged to live with the passing years, but something in myself, my marriage and this place remains the same.

So it was that fifty years ago that Pat and I honeymooned here in the cabin just the other side of the Wigwam Bay bridge. At the time, there was no ladder leading up to the door. Having to scale the rock face, I was unable to carry my bride over a threshold. Since then, we have spent many late summers tucked into a cabin together, just a little further up the Mountaineer path.

I would like to quote to you from a poem written in 1774. I know of no other words in all of English literature that, for me, better describes the enduring love of a man for his wife.

This was penned by Scotland’s iconic and most cherished poet, Robert Burns.

And, now, as fate would have it, we have a descendent of that distinguished family and our son-in-law Leo Burns, with his pipes, to play Amazing Grace.

(Leo and Tori are also celebrating a big milestone: they honeymooned at September Camp in Pansy Palace, twenty years ago in 1987.)