farewell, Mister Mayor
Last Saturday, our community and many other folks on Quadra Island met at the Granite
Bay dock in gloomy weather to honour Al the Mayor, who died in his home February 12th.
Here the group starts to gather, sharing coffee, tea and Al stories.
Others spend a moment alone.
Paul flashes by.
The memorial begins, presided over by our regional district director Jim Abram. Al’s widow
Sue is beside him.
The crowd shares more tales of Al.
Jolie and her daughter Maese pay their respects. Maese’s older brother Mowat, busy with
beachcombing and berry picking, was not available for photo or comment.
Al’s siblings Dave, Ray and Jill were there. The memorial was organized by Sharon, Dave’s wife,
with a hearty assist from Jude. After the service at the dock concluded, the family scattered Al’s
ashes in an orchard near Al and Sue’s home. The ashes of several other family members are also
there.
And here’s the man himself.
This wonderful photo was taken by Nina Toulmin for the cover of Al’s book Born to the Wilds,
which Nina also edited. She fully captured his wildness and orneriness. Al gave the shotgun
he’s holding to his friend Lee shortly before Al died. Lee loaned it to us when we were having
our bear visitor. If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you’ll see Jude carrying it.
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Anchor Struck 
For some reason none of the blogs since June 13 popped up on my e-mail as ususal. Glad to meet the Mayor (maybe I could borrow that shotgun to move Congress along over on this coast), glad to hear from you again, and glad to get to review several old blogs in succession. I feel an order for The Wire DVD set on Amazon coming soon. And also appreciate being waved off The Help. I wasn’t rushing to see it, but with all the award stuff might have weakened and wasted time if not money. If you do get a chance to see Bernie with Jack Black, I’d recommend it. Filmed in Carthage, Texas (43 miles from Shreveport) it’s getting only limited distribution away from the multiscreen complexes, testimony in itself that it might be worth seeing. It gives a little more balanced view of the South, placing East Texas behind the Pine Curtain, where, the movie suggests, the South begins. Anyway, it will probably be easer to catch it on NetFlix later, and rather than excrement in pies deals only with a funeral director who shoots a widow lady and stuffs here in her deep-freeze for several months. True story. And a balanced one, I swear.
Anyway, glad my e-mail is recognizing Anchor Struck again. Withdrawl had not been kind.
And did I mention that Rolling Stone liked Bernie too?
I regret the break in service and could promise to investigate, but I’d likely get as far (nowhere) as I usually do with WordPress. I’m glad we got reconnected. I will definitely seek out Bernie. I’d never heard of it, but a check on IMDb piqued my interest when I found out that Richard Linklater directed it. I admire his work, particularly Slacker and Waking Life. Thanks for the heads-up, Gordie.
And if you like The Wire, you’ll feast on Treme — given your love of New Orleans.
Hummm WHere’s the pic of Aunt Jude Holding the rifle HUH????
You should be able to access it by clicking on the word “post” in the paragraph below Al’s photo, then scrolling down past the kayaking and sea star pics on that link. Failing that, thanks to the miracle of infinite scroll, you can scroll down from the current post until you hit the “goin’ south again” post.