And Now ...There was Max ...
In
March of 2013, just days after my online purchase of “And Now Here’s Max ...,” the author and subject of the
book died, reportedly of a heart attack, at the age of 89 in Cobourg, Ontario. I hope the heart attack means it was swift
and not presaged by undue ailment. The obituaries made it clear that Max Ferguson
was loved by many people including thousands who only knew him as a voice on
the radio, but considered him a friend.
The
ambiance of his passing made my review of the tattered forty-six-year-old book
a bit sad. I too felt I was making a
friend, one who was passing away. It
would not be the last such experience for me this year.
Although
his autobiographical book was written before the halfway point of his life, it
provided the substance for most tributes, even those penned by those close to
Ferguson. They relied sometimes
exclusively on “And Now Here’s Max
...” for stories to describe
the man. We like to reminisce and recall happy times when we grieve someone’s
passing, and it was probably hard for anyone to surpass Ferguson’s own upbeat reminiscing
on his life.
Consistent
with the emerging pattern that suggests it takes 20-years-for-happy-nostalgia
to set in, Ferguson wrote his book, which is rooted in mid-to-late 1940s
experience and instigations, in the late 1960s.
With
respect to my compilation of Leacock medalists, I do not want to forget that he,
like Donald Jack, Richard J. Needham, Joan Walker, and maybe others, was born in
England. Ferguson’s birth was in Durham
on February 10, 1924. His family came to
Canada when he was a child and settled in London, Ontario where he was raised. Well educated for his time, Ferguson earned a
degree in French and English at the University of Western Ontario in 1946 with
the objective of a teaching career. This imbedded notion and inclination to
teach might have underpinned his later radio days when he promoted the classics
through parody and introduced new audiences to folk and traditional music from
around the world from his privileged platform at CBC.
Perhaps
more than many other Leacock medal winners, Ferguson and his work echoed the
changing times and the evolution of Canadian culture. He rubbed shoulders and broke bread with the
era’s icons like Lorne Greene, Christopher Plummer, and other CBC fixtures, and
he was conscious of grand political machinations around arts and information as
manifested in the Gordon and Fowler Royal Commissions.
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| Max on Back of My Tattered Book |
I am
not sure if everyone would agree, but as I catalogue my Leacock collection from
this perspective, I am filing Ferguson’s book regionally under Nova Scotia alongside
the Salt-Box. His Rawhide
radio career came out of the region’s Hank Snow heritage encased in the
rise of urban Halifax and the sophistication that comes with an abundance of
universities and colleges per capita. It
was the blend that would demand a daily country music show, but appreciate an
ironic twist.
There
is a better reason to label him and his book as Nova Scotian. Ferguson, who was, for years, also an
interviewer, reporter, and TV host based in Halifax clearly loved the province,
the ocean, and the people. He showed it
in his affectionate accounts of fishing tournaments, travels through the
Annalpolis valley, and the Acadian personalities.
When his Toronto career circumstances gave
him the option of living wherever he wanted, he and his family started packing
for Nova Scotia that day.