“In your story, just call me ‘Fish.'”
“I’m not calling you Fish.”
And so began my first interview with John Earle, years ago when Cornwall still had restaurants like Mexicali Rosa’s and bands like Rapunzil’s Tower – a pair of city icons from the past that he helped put on the map, in one way or another.
Sometimes in this life dreams are just too big and the ideas so overwhelming that any one person cannot experience them.
But John enjoyed them all, and then some.
We reported, very painfully, John’s death Saturday night following a scuba-diving incident. To say that his passing has sent shockwaves through the community is a profound understatement.
John was, and still very much is, one of the most creative people to call Cornwall home in some time.
He ran for political office, made movies, performed on stage and ran a business.
John even helped invent a board game that is still, I think, tucked away in some closet in my home (Concatenate, is its name). If there was a project, an idea or a task that needed to be done, John was your man because chances are he had been dreaming that dream long before you had.
John knew everyone and everyone knew him.
Grief and condolences have flooded the city, most of which cover the fact that John Earle was full of life, and dreamed big – bigger than most, and achieved only by a few.
When I learned of his passing the first thing that entered my mind is I would no longer have someone to wave while on the way to work, picking up groceries or just out for a ride. For whatever reason, John could be found passing us in his little blue Beetle, or that red SUV.
Like, every day…it would almost be creepy if it hadn’t become so routine.
And every time he passed by there was a toothy grin and a cheerful wave. It illustrates how closely-knit our community has become, and how we often take each other for granted until one of us is gone.
When he ran for office last year, his first attempt at a political run against MPP Jim McDonell, John knew he was in tough. But you would never know it from the way he carried himself both on and off the record.
I had set up a time to interview John at his Pitt Street campaign headquarters, where I happened upon him speaking to a bunch of school children that had congregated on the sidewalk. I snapped a photo of the exchange, and afterwards asked him what was going on.
“Oh, nothing. They were just walking by with their teacher and asked me what I was doing,” he said with a laugh.
John was also aboard the same hot-air balloon as my wife and I during Lift-Off a few years ago. He was completing another of his film-making projects for the local tourism office and had hitched a ride to see our region from the air.
He took a picture of my wife and I and some of our family, and made more than a few cheerful wisecracks during our flight…including one that will live forever on a short video I happened to take when we landed (some might say crashed) into a corn field.
John never missed a beat, and loved every minute of that flight, his political run, his business, his movies, his friends and his family.
The stories and memories related here are nothing compared to the wealth of goodwill John helped to spread in our community.
Jamie Carr, Frank Burelle, Ron Piquette and a host of others with whom he partnered on projects will no doubt find the days ahead to be both long and arduous.
His family is likewise feeling a pain no one should have to endure.
Perhaps my favourite tribute this week came from his best friend, Frank.
“My greatest adventures were with John,” he said. “What makes me sad is we didn’t just lose John…We’ve all lost out on what he was going to do next. What other insane projects or ideas did he have? We’ve lost that. You don’t know how big his dreams were going to get.”
You got that right, Frank.
May John rest in peace, and his family and close friends find strength.
