by Craig Campbell –
My father was born, bred and raised, as was I, in our small Ottawa Valley town, though a major difference was he had intelligence, wit and charm, traits he must have felt not worth passing on to his only progeny. What he did share was a love of drink, so perhaps not all was lost.
His intelligence both helped and hindered his life. Able to read, write and do sums by age six, he was catapulted into grade four on his first day of school, entered high school at 10 and spent a finishing year at Upper Canada College, a posh private school in Toronto, before attending Queen’s University where he took mathematics. He added four-figure columns in his head faster than most could with a calculator and once tried to show me how easy it was. Indeed.
A quiet man for the most part, with a drink in him he could weave a tale that spelled his audience, or recite long poems, often Robert Service, at will. He could sup, or more likely share a drink, with prime ministers or the common man.
But it was in the getting of his nickname “Sculler” that perhaps best personifies the man.
A popular dance hall was located in the cottage country of Norway Bay across the Ottawa River from the hamlet Sand Point and serviced by a ferry. It was common for the Arnprior lads to foot passenger across the river to enjoy the dance hall and avail themselves of the gorgeous young Ottawa lasses whose parents owned cottages there.
It was on such a night that Alan, by which he was still known, had pursued the favour of one of those beautiful young women found at the hall. Such was her grace and manner that he dallied so long, succumbing perhaps not just to her charms but maybe, just maybe, due to the added influence of the flask he no doubt kept in his suit jacket, that he missed the last ferry.
Ever the resourceful swain and needing to be home for church the next morning (I may have added that last phrase) he decided to “borrow” a rowboat to cross the Ottawa, three miles wide at that point. In doing so, and unwrapping the chain securing the boat to the dock, he, in his own words, “made a little noise,” alerting the cottage owners to the theft. Off he went, pulling mightily to gain the far shore (remember it is three miles across) and escape the enraged father/son duo. At this point, Alan always claimed he had a lead so large he figured his pursuers would never catch him, for he must have been a quarter of a mile distant before they got organized. He thought he was good until one: he realized they had a canoe and no single man rowing a scull could ever beat two paddling a swift canoe, and two: they began shooting at him with a rifle. Apparently the bullets striking the water around him vastly increased his impetus to reach the Ontario side and he redoubled his efforts. But beat them he did, though he also claimed they could have hit him with a rock by the time he reached shore so tired he could barely climb the bank and escape into the brush, eventually walking the six miles home.
And from that day he was known as Sculler, a single rower who survived so I could tell the tale.
