On the final day of Back History Month, 2021

 

The passing of a giant always leaves a shadow on the sun

My parents took me to The Sound of Music in 1966. It was showing at a grand, gilded cinema in Beirut—the kind we used to have, with stills from the film posted throughout the lobby. Although I must have been four at the time, I was spellbound. The scene at the start of the film before the credits, with the alps, meadows, and, finally, Salzburg coming in out of the clouds, still fills me with a nostalgia that borders on vertigo. 

Mum and Dad were at first amused, then baffled, the finally annoyed when I insisted on seeing it a dozen times before it left the theatre. Needless to say there was some delight on my part when, decades later, they read in some respectable magazine or other that an obsession with The Sound of Music in childhood was very common among gay men of a certain age. 

That said, my favourite memory of that first viewing wasn't even the film itself. It was my father taking me across the street to a record shop an purchasing the soundtrack album—maybe my first record shop, and certainly my first soundtrack album. It's difficult to explain in this age of digital streaming and iTunes how magical it might have seemed to a four-year old boy that the transformative experience of watching The Sound of Music could be extended by crossing the street and taking an LP off the rack. 

The film iteration of the von Trapp family became people I felt I knew—the children notwithstanding, as I could never keep them straight, except Liesl—and Plummer's Captain von Trapp almost as much as Julie Andrews' Maria. 

It seemed therefore unremarkable, though truly lovely, when my best friend Ron Oliver came to direct Mr. Plummer in his third film, Liar's Edge, in 1992, more like a family occurrence than excellent casting.

As to his passing today, I've been relieved not to see the usual level of ostentatious boo-hooing on Facebook that so often accompanies the death of a film legend, even one in his 90s. 

Speaking for myself, and, I suspect, a few others, it's likely because Mr. Plummer felt like a beloved member of our families, someone we grew up with, someone we loved, and someone who never failed to delight us, impress us, and inspire us. If he'd really been a member of our family, he might have been the uncle who taught us to tie a bow tie properly. 

And now, at the lofty, leonine age of 91, and in all his power, he finally has left us. Fortunately we can all mean it this time when we utter the platitudinous phrases Thanks for the memories and Rest in peace. This time, we get to be dignified, the way he always was. The passing of a giant always leaves a shadow on the sun, even briefly.

Remembering Olympic gold medallist in the Decathlon and pro-football player Milt Campbell during Black History Month, 2021

This is Mario Geo's 1967 Toronto Star photograph of American Olympic gold medalist and ex-pro football Milt Campbell and his family, residents of Cooksville, Ontario, moving back to New Jersey to join in the Civil Rights movement following the Newark Riots that year. 

Campbell was the first Black decathlete ever to win the gold medal, in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Campbell played one season of football for the Cleveland Browns before being fired by the team's coach Paul Brown, according to Campbell because of his marriage to a white woman. Determined to continue to play football, Campbell found himself welcomed by Canada and the CFL, playing for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts until his retirement from football in 1964. Upon his return to the United States, he started a community centre and co-founded the Chad School in Newark, which had a specific focus on Black history and culture.

Campbell was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1992, and he died in 2012, in Georgia, from complications related to prostate cancer. 

Campbell's life and career were extraordinary, and should, in all fairness, have been the subject of a major biopic by now. Perhaps one of the brilliant young screenwriters and directors making films today—in either of our two countries—will rediscover this story, and start writing. Check out this excellent video here. 

Remembering Canada's Black Loyalists during Black History Month, 2021

A detail from John Singleton Copley's "The Death of Major Pierson, 6 January 1781" (1783) features a Black Loyalist soldier fighting on the British side. During Black History Month in Canada, it's worth remembering that the Black Loyalists—former American slaves who joined the British side in the War of Independence—were among the original non-Native Canadians, and should be counted among Canada's founders and settlers, in spite of the terrible struggles they endured, against everything from the violent weather to various forms of institutionalized racism, in a new country that promised them acceptance and land, and frequently shirked on both counts. Many of the Loyalists eventually left Canada, travelling to Africa and settling in Freetown, in Sierra Leone. Those who remained, and established themselves in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada, contributed to the evolving fabric of the new nation. Until relatively recently, their achievements and histories have been downplayed in favour of Canada's (predominantly white European colonial) history.

The coat of arms of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society of Shelburne, Nova Scotia were granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority in 2006, and the elements are as follows—

The shield: "Sable between three Loyalist civil coronets a ship’s wheel with four spokes in saltire Argent." The crest: "A demi-lion Or gorged of a Loyalist military coronet and holding between its paws an anchor Sable." The supporters: "Two lions Or each gorged of a Loyalist civil coronet Gules, the leaves Vert, and standing on a rock set with mayflowers proper."