by Mayor Mike Bradley
(2015) When people pass away, their lives are usually frozen in time in our memories. If younger, then forever young. If older, over time the memories are usually nostalgically positive. Sometimes looking back at the lives of those we have lost, through the telescope of today’s world when new insights in their lives are shared with us, our view changes. (I) had that experience recently about the late Marceil Saddy, who was elected as Mayor of Sarnia in 1980 and passed away in office in 1988. I have written in the past that he was feisty, intelligent, complex and acerbic. Most Sarnians knew him as the fiery co-owner of the Sarnia Gazette and as a take-no-prisoners politician. He lived in both careers by the motto “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I knew him as a mentor, as his campaign manager, as a friend and, for a brief time, as a councillor colleague. He was a fighter for the “little old lady on Brock Street” who became the litmus test for any tax increase. Could she afford it? The “little old lady” is now 160 and often cited to this day in Sarnia political life.
Marceil was a “character” in the fullest sense of the word. If he fell in the St. Clair River his body would be found in Thunder Bay – he was that stubborn. A political consultant’s worst nightmare at a little over five feet high, (he) often dressed like a WW II French Guerilla fighter, wearing a leather coat and black beret. He cut his own hair and in the summer would cut his long-sleeved shirts into short-sleeved ones – both with uneven and hilarious results. He smoked too much (which eventually led to his death) and liked a wager or two. After his first victory as mayor, his friends bought him a “mayor” suit to wear, which he promptly returned, going back to his patented “hobo with a tie look;” a tie that over a month would give a CSI team clear evidence of where he had eaten lunch daily. His tongue and typing were sharp, and he was a magnet for libel and slander suits. In public session he once called city Council “a bunch of horses’ asses,” and when challenged to apologize, said “no,” the truth was an absolute defense.
Another time, in the Sarnia Gazette, he wrote, “Half of Council are crooks.” Threatened with a lawsuit, his “retraction” the next week was, “I apologize. Half of Council are not crooks.” In elections, his opponents would outspend him big time and Marceil would respond about his frugal campaigns, “I look after my money like I look after yours.” The populist mayor would then go on to win every election by a landslide.
The above past thoughts about Marceil reflected his public image and, to some degree, his private one; an image I helped to paint after his passing. Then a citizen shared recently a little-known column of Marceil’s that I had never read, written five years before his death.. The reader had kept and treasured the thoughts, called “Life is a Miracle.” I read and re-read the column, that was sprinkled with sensitive and thoughtful reflections so different from the image he liked to portray of being the independent contrarian. He was often an enigma within an enigma and now, for me, he always will be.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE A final column by Marceil
In a day and age when most of us are preoccupied ; yes, even hypnotized by the state of world economics and global strife, it is most easy to lose track of some very basic facts.
- We are inhabitants of a tiny planet, whirling around in an unending sea of eternity. We live on a mere speck of dust floating in a Universe so large, so vast, that it is virtually incomprehensive.
- Any reference to being alive….the Universe….the vastness of space and time must lead to the existence of God. It didn’t just all happen.
- Each one of us traces back, back, back in time, through generations of human beings who had hopes, aspirations, emotions, trials, joy, tears, laughter. Just look back at your parents, grandparents, and, for those who can remember their great-grandparents. At most, that is a 90-year span.
I suppose one of the points I am trying to make, is that life itself is quite a miracle, and an orderly one at that. Even the most blatant atheist will have to admit that this machine of ours that walks, talks, sleeps, loves, cries, and chortles is an absolutely fantastic assembly that Science will never duplicate, but can only stand and wonder at the marvel of it all.
They can dissect, biopsize, analyze, measure, medicate, take inside picture of, but never can build a human body.
Add to that the complexities of the Human Mind….it defies description! Books have been written about it; doctors and scientists spend whole lifetimes analyzing how it works. Christian doctrine simply says that it makes man and woman “supernatural,” i.e., above the natural things like cats, tigers, reptiles and cows. Can you imagine a herd of cows discussing the plight of their fellow beasts at the abattoir?
So the fact that we communicate, discourse and speak, certainly makes us “supernatural” (and not in the science fiction movie sense either). Despite all this marvelousness, my….what we do to our body and mind! I could go on for miles on diet and smoking, worry and stress, abuse and overindulgence.
New Year’s resolutions are quite indicative that we do have the awareness, since most of them deal with temperance of one kind or another….”I won’t get angry so often. I will stop smoking. I will go on a diet.” Of course, as they say, the “spirit” is willing but the body is oh…so weak.
I am a very fortunate person and I know it. I am blessed with a fairly even temper. I do not brood over losses (or gains). I do not take my day’s work home with me: I can fall asleep in a puddle; haven’t had a sleepless night in years; my body machinery is faulty, but it gets around and I do not dose myself with pills and capsules. I accept the situation and sometimes try to improve it, but not (to) the point of worry.
I am a contented person; I cannot think of a thing that I want and dream of. I have worked hard, reaped substantial harvest for that, and if and when the time comes, I shall be prepared to retire and eventually die. There is nothing we can do about the latter. We all share that destiny, be we rich, poor, young and old. We get only one run around the track….it is not a practice run. It is the one and only. How we choose to do it will determine the balance of our lives.
We can pass the milestones of life either with joy or with anger; we can stop and weep over the beauty of a tree while others see it only as a big green obstacle. We can treat one another with kindness and love, or we can run the course full of suspicion, hatred and aloofness.
You cannot feed every hungry child in the world; you cannot correct every ill, but if that child or that situation crosses your path and you do nothing about it….then, it must be apparent to you that something is missing in your life.
In fairness, though, we all have different breaking points and that must be acknowledged. What I cannot bear….perhaps you can. And what I can foresee….you perhaps may not. Let us understand, then, that we are all “wired up” differently. Is it not another miracle that no two persons on the face of the earth are identical, either in make-up or appearance, interests or pursuits?
Let us hope that the New Year will give us impetus to change the negative things into positive things: to change our attitudes and our actions; to stop and smell the roses and lilacs….to think of one another in warm and human terms.
If we can all do that, or try to do that… then we shall have added to the joy and peace of this tiny speck of dust which we call “home” for such a wee fraction of time.