The Death of a Canadian Legend

Day 1,937, 17:34 • Published in USA Pakistan • by Frodo Tea Baggins

I have a hard time talking about this, death is never easy, but last week a Canadian legend died. Many will deny his status, Canadians are fickle like that, I can't blame since I think Celine Dion and Justin Bieber are the biggest blights on the land to ever be born. So be that, hate's common. However I wieh to talk about another icon. You probably don't know him, he wasn't that famous for a sense the world derives today.

Stompin Tom Conners was a simple east coast lad. Like many of my old friends he had a guitar and he could play it, nothing grand to start with. In the late 60's he decided he would walk the land, took his guitar and walked. He wrote some songs, nothing grand just what he saw, if he passed through your town there was a song about it. Sure he was a bum, picked up odd jobs and barely survived, how does that make a legend?

It started in a northern Ontario town, down on his luck he couldn't even afford another beer. The bartender had a simple word, take that guitar off your back and play us a few songs, I'm sure I can do something. Timmens was a start, they hired him to play and he stayed in that bar for 14 months. This did not break his journey however and he continued to explore Canada.

He wasn't always 'Stompin Tom' either that was a given name. He was just a poor boy from the east coast, though he eventually got a band he didn't start like that. He stompd his heel on the floor to keep rythum while he stummed to keep tempo, the poor man's metronome. Given a little time it happened in Hamilton one night, the MC introduced him as 'Stompin Tom', not as his monicker but because he had a reputation for 'destroying stages'. Not the tradional sense we know today of willful damage, his little kick from the heel of his cowboy boots had become semi-famous, seems not everyone was happy with the fact he could tear the wooden floor underneath his feet apart while playing. The name stuck and so did the story, in the effort to alleviate wary promoters he took the simpliest and cheapest route. Stompin Tom bought a simple sheet of plywood he laid on the stage and that was where he preformed, the stage was now safe.

Somewhere along the line he wrote the The new Canadian Anthem. At age 71 he passed last week forever a place in history, a simple guy we can't forget. RIP Tom Conners.

Your Goddess,
Aeriala