by Mary-Jane Egan for the Sarnia Observer

(Editor’s Note: Story written at time of Mayor Saddy’s death in 1988)

No, he was no saint. Even Bishop Sherlock said so, and he ought to know.

But he really was something, wasn’t he? And it’s hard to believe he’s gone.

The first time I met Marceil Saddy, we weren’t formally introduced. I was 12. It was Hallowe’en, the year you decide you’re too old to do this next year, so friend Cecilia Mallon and I were going for broke. We were determined to set new records for the ultimate Hallowe’en cash-in.

To us, the corner place on Brock Street was just another door. Until it was flung open.

He was wearing a white sheet. I realized later the reason it billowed like it did was because he had a fan behind him. The boooo-oo-ooo-booo sounds, I also rationalized afterwards, were coming from a stereo, and the lampshade on his head was, after all, just a lampshade.

But he scared the living daylights out of us.

We screamed and went tearing down his front walkway to the street.

That’s when he started laughing, loudly. He shouted something about how, if we could scare him, he could scare us. He did come clean with a treat, by the way, once we ventured back to the door.

He was an alderman then, serving his first term. I only found that out afterwards when I was telling my parents about the crazy guy whose door we’d gone to (in retrospect, if he was the first politician I ever met, it was probably a fitting introduction).

The man loved life. And he lived it to the fullest. I often saw his wit displayed, less subtly, as I came to know him as our mayor.

You couldn’t help but like the guy, even when you disagreed with him. He had a straightforwardness about him that simply commanded respect.

As an ambassador for the city, he was a natural. It didn’t matter how many 40th anniversary parties the man attended, he could get up and spin the tale about the night he and the party’s host visited the old farm widow, as if he was telling it for the first time (I know because I heard it for the umpteenth time at my parents’ 40th).

He had a fondness for reporters, having been one himself, and liked to give us a little fatherly-type advice from time to time. His handle for The Observer as the “old grey lady down the street” was legendary. But I remember him telling me what terrific experience you get at a “good little daily.”

His newsman instincts never left him. He was always the first to go to bat for the reporter who was stuck trying to cover a meeting without the benefit of an agenda or written report. And he’d see to it that the material was provided.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it was his idea to give the media a reserved section of the church for his funeral. That would be like him, making sure we had no excuse to mess up on the last story.

We’ll be referring to somebody else as mayor in the next few weeks. But it sure won’t be the same.