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Keith CARLSON Obituary
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Memories and Condolences
for Keith CARLSON
3 Entries
November 1, 2013
Hi Karen and family. I treasure my time with Keith in Big Trout Lake. The Keith and Brian hour on CFTL, poker nights, fishing and sledding, and barbecues at the portage. Memories to last a lifetime. Take care, I'm thinking of you guys. BrianBrown [email protected]
October 30, 2013
Dear Karen, Adam and Jessie,
We haven't met but I share your sadness more than words can convey. Keith was my best friend back in Elementary School in Massey. We met when he moved to Massey in the early 50's. At our Grade Eight Graduation, we switched suit jackets: Keith liked mine and I liked his so we agreed to switch jackets for the evening. Boys will be boys!
We sang in Massey United Church Choir during our Grade Eight year. We attended Tyros before that and, of course, we played a lot of hockey and baseball. Having a background in the Sudbury area, he liked to imagine that he was Johnny Albani, Goalie for the Sudbury Wolves.
Keith's birthday was April 4th as I recall and that made him three weeks older than I. He spent two months at our cottage in Dorset one summer and a couple of weeks the next. He was my BEST friend!
My family moved from Massey after Grade Eight Graduation and apart from a few shared letters in the first months after our departure, Keith and I lost connection. Many years later I tried to locate Keith in Canada and the United States but the Keith Carlsons I found were not the Massey Keith Carlson. Only boys who have grown up in villages as best friends can understand the strength of the bond between us. How unthinkably sad that Keith and I will not get to renew a friendship that left us separated some 54 years ago.
Yet, there are things I want to say about Keith and his family. The Carlsons had class. Mr. Carlson was a handsome and wise businessman and Mrs. Carlson, beautiful and stately, complemented their union. Even as a child, Keith was artistic and intelligent. Mrs. Carlson ordered an instructional kit to teach sketching and cartoon art and I remember sitting at the kitchen table with Keith, trying to match his natural artistic talent as we struggled with the exercises. He had exceptional observation skill and was able to replicate with artistic flair whatever he wished to draw. I wasn't gifted with his artistic talent.
It is a fact that Keith was a gifted learner. He could have succeeded in any academic area and this was clear even in the early grades of Elementary School. I didn't know him in High School but my career in the academic world at University of Toronto leaves me with complete confidence that Keith's exceptional intelligence and personal dynamism opened as many doors for him as he may have wished to pursue.
One childhood story from our time together at the cottage in Dorset area must be shared. It was the summer after Grade Five. We set out on a nature trek, complete with peanut butter sandwiches, cake and freshie. This was a common practice and we both enjoyed looking for ferns, toadstools, bugs, plantings and whatever else was available in the nearby woods. Every now and then Keith would say, "Listen... do you hear that?" We would listen intently, sometimes certain that a lone wolf or a hungry bear was in the vicinity. Knowing no predator would have a chance to harm us since each of us carried a whittled stick-spear, we would return to our nature inspection, albeit with a heightened sense of awareness.
It was on one of these innocent childhood excursions, and remember this was before we paid much notice of the opposite sex, that Keith and I found GOLD! No doubt about it, we were certain we had located a vein of pure gold and the sun's reflection on the rock assured us we had discovered a mine that would make anything in Sudbury or Kirkland Lake pale in comparison. Both of us had met Dr. Nathaniel Parker whose cottage was across the bay from ours. Clearly, he would be the person with whom we had to share our claim. He too would be able to advise us about all matters associated with gold mining. Keith imagined that his Dad would want to sell the restaurant and work with my Dad, High School Principal, at our Gold Mine.
Indeed, we did meet Dr. Parker, (Dean of Theology at McMaster University...) and he handled the matter with incredible understanding, assuring us we had made a great discovery but that mining in this spot could ruin some of the other gifts of nature in the vicinity. To this day I cannot understand how Dr. Parker was able to redirect our intention without our losing excitement regarding the discovery. It made complete sense to us that we should protect the natural setting and abandon ideas of mining our find prematurely; we headed for home full of pride, sworn to secrecy regarding the location of the gold.
As we returned to the cottage, smug and excited, we discussed what we would have done with the wealth to be triggered by the gold. I remember saying to Keith that I would build a long dock with a diving board at the end of it. "Not me," he said. "I want to buy my Mother a new stove." He meant it. He had the maturity to think of others and he thought about his Mother instead of himself. Is it possible that Keith understood the true meaning of "Mother Lode"?
Few will know that Keith was pre-deceased in his childhood years by a sister. One day when we were playing in the basement of the Carlson's new home, I recall seeing a trunk. I asked Keith if there might be some old clothes in the trunk, thinking that we could dress up and scare Keith's older brother Ray and possibly little brother, Randy. Keith stopped at the trunk and said "that's my sister's" and he never spoke about her again. It was clear that he was deeply affected by the loss of his sister.
I can only imagine the many, many ways in which you are missing Keith. I hope that in sharing a few of my treasured childhood memories of Keith, I can convey to you how significantly he impacted my life. Some people pass through one's life and in later years, their impact on you is such that you struggle to recall their names. Not Keith. Keith, his siblings and his parents will never, ever be forgotten. The wealth of memories I retain from our childhood years together so many years ago will not fade.
Karen, Adam and Jessie and your immediate family, please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. We haven't met and I deeply regret that we haven't met but I find abundant recompense in the knowledge that Keith is the bond we share.
J. R. Bruce Cassie
885 Riverlea Road
Huntsville, ON P1H 1X5
E-mail: [email protected]
October 30, 2013
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