REMEMBERING PIT MARTIN AND RECKLESS RESURRECTIONS
My Sunday Reader reaches the half-year mark. Yay! In this edition, your nostalgic correspondent reflects on a backyard encounter with a 18-year NHL veteran and outlines the hazards of children’s sermon time in church.
This week: a 5-minute read, with an attachment that's a 6-minute read.
ANOTHER BRUSH WITH FAME
Following up on the theme of last week’s opening item, I’d love to share a story of the time hockey great Pit Martin came to fix my pool pump.
Yup, you read that right.
This is a tale first published in my former blog and is still available in full in the Essays portion of terrymcconnell.com. After it was published, Pit’s wife and other family members wrote to tell me how much they appreciated it. That meant more to me than I can say. What follows here is a part of that essay.
Many of us have had our encounters with celebrities doing things you don’t normally think celebrities do. Defining what constitutes a celebrity is, of course, largely subjective—but the encounter itself can be an extraordinarily powerful memory.
For me, the celebrity was Pit Martin, and the extraordinarily powerful moment was in that most ordinary of settings: my house.
Hubert Jacques (Pit) Martin was a gifted hockey player who recorded 800 points in 1,100 games during an 18-year career in the NHL. I first saw him in the flesh when I was still a kid. At the time, he played for the Boston Bruins and came to my hometown’s minor hockey banquet with Paul Henderson, who then played for the Detroit Red Wings. From that point on, I followed his career from Boston to Chicago—he went to the Black Hawks in exchange for the legendary Phil Esposito—and then to Vancouver.
When his playing days were over, Pit retired to Windsor, Ontario, where he had lived when he first broke into the NHL with Detroit. He operated a prominent restaurant there for many years, but it was through one of his other business ventures that I came to meet him.
It was in the 1980s, and my then wife and I lived in Stoney Point, a small village on Lake St. Clair just east of Windsor. Like many people in that part of the country, we had a backyard pool to help cope with the extremely humid southwestern Ontario summers. Pit was in the swimming pool business then, along with a partner who also lived in Stoney Point.
One day, the pump for my pool up and died. It was not the first time this sort of thing happened, so I called Pit’s partner to ask if he’d come have a look. The person who answered the phone said he wasn’t available, but they’d send somebody else to have a look.
The next day, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and found Pit Martin standing on my porch. Within a few minutes, he and I were in the pool shed, taking apart the offending pump, with him trying to figure out just what the problem could be. I, on the other hand, was absolutely giddy, an unusual reaction given that service calls—even from professional hockey players—don’t come cheaply.
What was particularly memorable for me was how comfortable he was in his own skin as he went about his work. He may have played hockey with Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull, but on that day, he was focused on doing a job for me. Just me.
I would never hose down that pump again.
Since then, I’ve met many celebrities in the course of my work—people whose names carry far greater cachet than does Pit Martin’s. But it is the memory of my afternoon with Pit, working on our hands and knees, that has stayed strongest with me. Few people who gain a measure of notoriety retain the humility and decency he so easily showed that day.
Pit Martin died on Nov. 30, 2008, when his snowmobile crashed through the ice on Lake Kanasuta near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. He was 64.
To a select few people, Pit was a cherished friend or family member. To most, he was simply a hockey player they remember from the Saturday nights of their youth. For me, however, Pit Martin was more than that. He was my introduction to the fact celebrity can come with a common touch. I won’t forget that, or him.
MORE ‘DEAR TERRY’ LETTERS
Re ‘First Brush With Fame,’ Jan. 19. I fondly remember that hockey banquet as well, Terry. I believe the NHL guests were Red Wings’ Marcel Pronovost, Andre [no relation] Pronovost, and Parker MacDonald. It was a night I have never forgotten. Robert White, Tilbury, Ontario
What an honour for you, Terry. Your pure honesty—Johnny Bower! Love it. David Mailloux, Nanaimo, B.C.
Your story about Marcel Pronovost brought to mind my first brush with greatness. I got to meet the legendary George Reed in my uncle’s living room in Canora, Saskatchewan. I believe he was in town for a banquet. I was young but still have the autographed photo he signed for me. Tom Pura, Grande Prairie, Alberta
If you want to drop me a note (and risk me publishing it here), just reply to this email or, if you prefer send it to mysundayreader@gmail.com.
NOT THAT RESURRECTION!
How about a Harry Stemp story on an otherwise bleak winter day?
While the local pastor was presenting a children’s sermon during his Sunday church service, he asked if the children assembled knew what the Resurrection was.
Now, asking questions during the children’s time is important as it keeps the little ones engaged. Yet doing so in front of a congregation can be a minefield of hazards. As it was, little Charlie Baumann raised his hand in response.
“Yes?” nodded the pastor.
Said Charlie: “I know if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours, you’re supposed to call the doctor.”
It took a full 10 minutes before the congregation had sufficiently quieted down to resume the service.
THIS WEEK’S SHAMELESS PLUG
In the past, my friend and former colleague Claudio D’Andrea was, at different times, the award-winning editor of all three of our family’s newspapers in Tilbury, Belle River and Tecumseh. During that time, the Tilbury and Belle River papers placed first and second as the best newspapers in their circulation class in Canada, and that was in no small part because of Claudio’s work. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Jack Webster Award of Distinction during his time working for newspapers in suburban Vancouver and, for a long time now, he has been a features editor at the Windsor Star. He is also a published author with his book Stories in the Key of Song now available in bookstores and online.
In whatever spare time he finds, Claudio is also a book reviewer of some notoriety and recently tackled my book with Michael Bradbury, Law & Disorder: Confessions of a District Attorney. That review is available here on Medium.
Law & Disorder is available at terrymcconnell.com in hardcover and ebook formats. And I thank you.
See ya next week. / T.
