When Walter Learning got up to say a few words about his old friend, Richard Hatfield, in Fredericton’s Christ Church Cathedral, everyone knew the well-respected actor and playwright would inspire the audience. It was April 1991, and I was sitting in one of the balcony seats in the Legislative Assembly watching the memorial service for the former New Brunswick premier on closed-circuit TV.
Richard Hatfield was New Brunswick’s longest-serving premier. Among his most significant achievements during his years in office, from 1970 to1987, was continuing the Equal Opportunity program begun in 1967 under the leadership of premier Louis J. Robichaud. Equal Opportunity transformed social services in the province and is considered to be one of Canada’s most transformative and progressive pieces of social legislation.
I had the honour of getting to know Richard Hatfield in 1988. That was the summer I ran the Literary Lawn Mowing Company of Fredericton. I mowed his lawn. When he called me after I’d dropped a flyer off in his mailbox, he told me he liked my paraphrasing of Robert Frost: “The grass is lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep. And lawns to mow before I sleep. And lawns to mow before I sleep.”
I figured anyone who appreciated that tongue-in-cheek marketing approach would be a good customer. He was my first customer that summer, one of many interesting people I had the honour of getting to know. Hatfield had a fine sense of humour, and we had several conversations that summer primarily about American politics, which he loved.
One sweltering July day after I finished mowing his lawn and was loading my lawnmower onto my little red Ford Ranger, he invited me inside for a cold beer. An indigenous artist from Northern BC was visiting, and the three of us must have talked for two hours about art and politics.
I enjoyed getting to know him, and I also appreciated his encouragement to ‘keep on writing’ every time we spoke. I attended his memorial service to show my respect for all he’d done for our province and to express to him in my own way how much I appreciated his encouraging words.
Reading from his old friend, the great New Brunswick poet Alden Nowlan’s poem, What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread, Walter Learning’s powerfully resonant voice lifted the spirits and opened the hearts of everyone in the audience that day.
“… And then too, there are those who are other than they would have been, / because of some small act of mine; / I played a certain record once because I liked it, / and because he liked it too, / a stranger became my friend and, / as such, met the woman he married, / and now they have two children who would not have been born except for my taste in music.”
Transfixed, I watched and listened. In those few moments, my mind flashed back to that summer I got to know Richard Hatfield and how quickly the time had passed. Listening to Nowlan’s words spoken so clearly and with such force by such a gifted performer changed me. It made me appreciate all of the magic that unfolds in my life every day and value those moments that change us. I felt grateful.
“… there must be people in cities that I’ve never visited whose lives have changed, / perhaps not because of what I’ve written but because I wrote: / it might be that they didn’t like my play and so left early and because they left early something happened that would not have happened if they’d stayed – / I put it that way so as not to sound immodest. / God knows, / there’s not a lot to boast about when so much seems to depend upon the time of day a boy goes out to buy a loaf of bread.”
As always the words send me right to the time and place, perhaps sitting by you as you listen and dream of the day you reach the point that you are secure in your gift, and the words just tumble out. Thanks.