June 13, 2023 6:52pm

It was a beautiful sunny Wednesday morning at the Ameliasburgh library – The Al Purdy library. One of the oldest building in the county I am told, circa 1841 once a one room school house, a very basic white washed stone building with its bell tower intact, sans bell.  Gisa the long time Librarian, offered a warm hello and pointed to the back of the library where I could find the sink and water.  I turned away from the circulation desk and two and half steps, almost walked by the glass-face of the display case mounted on the wall to my left.

I was stuck.

These where the objects, the actual awards that where once placed around Al’s neck. The numerous and varied medals Al was awarded in his lifetime, keys to the city, honorary degrees, a centennial medal, both the order of Ontario and the Order of Canada and many other medals of distinction. It was so fitting and yet, surprising these highest of honors sat here in this tiny library. But why not, where else SHOULD they be?  And what is a medal after the fact, anyway? Testimony perhaps? Gratitude of the highest order I would say.

What are the facts exactly you might ask:

33 books of poetry

1 Novel

1 autobiography

9 collections of essays

This does not even take into account all the forwards and afterwards, plays, commentaries and 10,000’s of other words written for other various papers, correspondence and the like.

That is the ledger.

What is not in the accounting are the worlds of imagination and inspiration that those millions of words are able to conjure in us - long after those medals have been awarded, now cold metal.

The day previously I had made the compulsory pilgrimage down the narrow gravel road named Purdy Street, which ends appropriately at the cemetery where his ashes now rest. As I entered the gates to the cemetery it was like meeting old friends or people I had once known.  When in fact I have never meet or actually knew anyone buried here. Owen Roblin and his family in red granite I nod my head respectfully in their direction, I walk slowly down the sloping graveyard past the Eley’s the [former] neighbors of Eurithe and AL on Gibson road - I get chills. I wonder who else…?

This familiarity is only because of Al’s writing commemorating lives lived and relationships, gossipy, regularly plain, working people – though, it is like I KNEW them, through his words and here, are their markers the final ending to the poems. Each and everyone of us has A story or many; 100 million stories in each one of us, some see them clearly, others well, they are busy with other things, I guess? Not knowing or caring that everyday can be a story, framed properly, highlighting tensions or simply focusing on the mundane, but untold or shared, disappear, gone, now only names slowly eroding off headstones – it is the stories that live on and become lore, tall tails, his/herstories, family remembrance’s and aural genetic way-finders and for some, epic stories shared and retold through the centuries.

That is the power and magic of words, I have a connection to people I have never met, they were real people, they lived and died, some before I was even born and here I stand with a small fragment of someone else’s life however fictional, however real – their spirits continue as that small “ivory thought” still warm, it lingers…

But what about the Tintypes you made Paul, you might ask?

 Yes well, after getting the water and forgetting my camera back at the A-Frame, returning, setting up – again, an idea had formulated in my head. I will never [obviously] get Al’s portrait but how could I stage something that was as close as I might ever get. The library has one of Purdy’s cigar boxes, which I felt was a good prop and it became the stand-in on the studio chair which I take everywhere.  It just so happens to be an saloon style chair from an old tavern in Ottawa – or so I was told.

Perfect right?

I wanted one more thing – I am just going to ask, I said to myself, I trotted back in and over to the display case staring at it I asked, “Hey Gisa, could I use any of THESE things in my photo?”

“Depends”, she says “which one?”

“Well the Order of Canada of course!” I say comically flippant

Pause.

“Normally we do not even allow them out of the display cabinet,”

 “…but I understand this is an extraordinary case.”

I had already gloved-up and was now picking up what will probably be the closest I ever come to actually holding this distinction. Sorry, museum slut here, this happens to me with objects of all kinds – all the time. Mind you some more than others. This was definitely MORE then others.

Well the rest is just logistical, as I reverently draped the Order of Canada delicately over the cigar box and spent about 35 minutes making two plates. Giza was circling doing the locking up ritual, she calls to me, “Hey Paul, I need my medal back,” comically, like I was about to steal it or something…

I fit the medal back into it’s silk concave impression, noting the number on the back 619, folding the red and white sash gingerly, Gisa remarks over my shoulder, “Wow, nobody has every done it so neatly before,” we both share a laugh, “Sure” I snicker.