Remembering Lorne 3 – Happiness at Last

Lorne always had a girlfriend of some sort but nothing permanent until one day in the early 1980’s he showed up with Coral. She was a keeper. She wasn’t frightened off by anything anyone told her about Lorne and obviously believed Lorne could be much more than most gave him credit for. They were married in 1984 and the next 22 years made up for the first 36. She loved him and expected him to do the right thing and he delivered the goods. Within a year his seizures were under control to the point he had his driver’s license back. He was working as close to steady as Lorne ever worked. They lived in his home town for a few years and then Coral took a new job and they moved to to a small town about 150 km away.

In Coral, Lorne found love and stability. In their new town, Lorne found a home and acceptance. They bought a house which took time and money to renovate. They went to church. Lorne sang in the choir, built props for the local Little Theatre, served on the Museum and Bowling Boards and visited with everyone in town. He worked as a building maintenance person, or for a local plumber when there was work, or at North Battleford or Pierceland when there wasn’t work locally. Coral’s family loved Lorne and he loved them. Lorne and Coral spent summers at their cabin in Northwest Saskatchewan surrounded by her family and enjoying every minute of it. Lorne put his woodworking and carpentry skills to use making cabin signs, renovating or repairing anything anywhere. In 2001, when I was working in China, he insulated, drywalled and put a bathroom in our basement.

Because Lorne and Coral had no children of their own, they adopted great numbers of other people’s children into their hearts, including my four. Auntie Coral was always loved unconditionally but when the kids were young, because Lorne was such a terrible tease, they sometimes weren’t sure how to take him. LynnieC, who was about four years old at the time, was quite excited to learn that Auntie Coral was coming to visit us “but did she have to bring ‘that man’”? After which, Lorne was always “That Man”, though occasionally he was also
referred to as “Uncle Buck” after the John Candy movie.

A voice was stilled on Earth but the Heavenly Choirs have been sweeter since for Lorne’s rich tenor. If there are lessons to be learned from Lorne’s life, they are “Never give up on anyone” and “The love of a good woman makes all the difference, if you let it”.

The world is a better place for his having been here. He is missed and remembered. In song and story, as the legends grow. And quietly in the hearts of those who loved him.

Remembering Lorne 2 – The Lost Years

Lorne went to Tech and took plumbing, following in his father’s and brother’s footsteps but didn’t stay long in the family business, instead drifting from town to town and job to job. He worked at motorcycle repair in Saskatoon and also as a hotel maintenance person in Saskatoon and Edmonton. He worked in Vancouver doing plumbing, Westburne in Calgary and was in Red Deer, doing wood working when he lost his finger in a power saw.

Lorne never missed a beat with that lost finger. Besides using it to frighten small children with the perils of searching for errant boogers, he relearned piano, trumpet and 12-string guitar and then used the gap in his hand to hold the steel and taught himself to play Dobro guitar.

Lorne could do anything but hold a job. Epilepsy and alcohol took their toll. Lorne drank to escape the demons of the Grand Mal. Nights were the worst. Lorne hated to go to bed because he knew what would be waiting for him. I remember one night in our early 20’s we shared a bed somewhere for some reason and I lost count of the seizures he had. The lifestyle was killing him and for a time I don’t think he cared. But the prayers of a faithful few, in particular his Mother and his Grandmother, kept him going. He joined AA in 1979 and started trying to turn his life around.

Rumour has it that his middle name “Beverly” was hung on him at the suggestion of his brother, after George Beverley Shea, the great gospel singer who for many decades sang with Billy Graham Crusades. If true, Lorne was well named, as music, in particular Gospel Music, filled his life, pretty much from first to last breath. He loved Gaithers and Slaughters and Cathedrals and many more groups I never heard of or can’t remember.

Where ever there was Lorne, there was music. He jammed with everyone. In Saskatoon he jammed with Saskatchewan jazz greats, Gordie Brandt and Barney Kutz. All over the country, in night clubs or concerts, after performances he would wrangle an invitation backstage and end up at a party somewhere jamming with names we’d all know. Sylvia Tyson and Tommy Banks being two; the others I can’t recall and will leave for his biographer to dig up.

But mostly he sang and played with Christian people playing Christian music. At church camp his trumpet was out at every service. Nothing pleased him more than when Doug from Nebraska brought his trumpet. They didn’t need to communicate; there was that natural flow between them that rare musicians have. They would cut lose with When the Saints Go Marching In and you waited for the walls of Jericho to fall. Then one day, his nephew joined him on trumpet and Uncle Lorne was so proud he could burst.

Lorne never met a person he didn’t like, to quote Will Rogers. Or who didn’t like him. He visited with everyone and would think nothing of driving three or four hours to visit with someone in hospital who needed some company. Sometimes visiting got in the way of gainful employment. It wasn’t that Lorne didn’t like work per se, what he didn’t like was anything that started at 8:00, finished at 5:00, had to be done every day and for which you got paid. But if someone needed something done, Lorne would work day and night to do it for them.

Remembering Lorne 1 - The Early Years

My cousin Lorne would have been 61 today, Dec 1st but he died of cancer three years ago, and went to be with his Lord and Savior, one week after his 58th birthday. I want to remember him by telling you about his life. Lorne’s life pretty much divides into three almost-even parts. I’d call them “Growing Up”; “The Lost Years” and “Happiness at Last”. I will publish them in three parts on my blog. This is the first

Lorne and I were the same age and grew up as close friends and co-conspirators. Lorne loved to come out to the farm, mostly because we had horses and also because he could get out of sight of his mother who tended want to "spoil his fun" (his words). We were usually in some kind of trouble, whether pushing the elevator agent’s car down a hill and hiding it in some bushes, or sticking firecrackers in a jam-filled donut and persuading another cousin to hold it in his mouth to see what would happen.

Lorne took piano lessons from the Sisters at the convent and learned trumpet with the Community Band but he was self-taught on the guitar. When he and I were just learning the guitar (We played the “Carter Lick” before we knew what it was called and I never progressed past it), we’d sing hymns we knew like What a Friend We have in Jesus and Just a Closer Walk with Thee over and over. Of course, we also sang about The Little White Washed Shanty by the Barn – “where you sit all day at ease with your elbows on your knees” and several Homer and Jethro numbers. However when we got to sit together in church, (which wasn’t often for some reason), we would sometimes rework the words of the old hymns, singing of “Royal duodenums” and “Angels’ fallen prostates”.