Elephants in Kelligrews

By Ivan Morgan

This week I keep a promise.

A very long time ago I had a buddy named Jim Wade, who for a while was a columnist in The Telegram. An arts columnist. He was the first columnist I ever knew personally.

Raised up in Avondale he suddenly appeared in my downtown circle. He was a difficult guy. Very bright, very intense and a fine writer. Jim had the ability to communicate complex ideas in simple terms, getting his point across to the average reader (you and me.) He felt very strongly about art and was deeply committed to the craft of writing. His column made me care about art.

The title of this column was one of my favourites of his: Elephants in Kelligrews. How are you not reading that? What a title! (It was about a circus passing through Kelligrews). He wrote about painting, sculpture, architecture and writing in this town. It was his great passion. Maybe some young person will dig up his stuff and republish it. I am pretty sure it would stand the test of time.

Jim died of lung cancer at the age of 41 in 1994. His sickness, and death, hit us hard. There’s a book about it, which I still haven’t read. I was too close. I was there. Read about it? Hell, I still don’t want to think about it.
In his last days I sat with him in hospital. All he wanted, as he lay dying, was to watch his little daughter grow up. He didn’t get to. I did.

One afternoon shortly before he died, we were talking and he said he was sad he would be forgotten. Not on my watch, I promised. Hence this column.

At the time I didn’t see him as an influence, I saw him as a friend, a cool, eccentric, clever friend. But as the decades have passed, I think more and more of an encounter we had when we were young.

Back then I was unsure of what I wanted to do to make a living (I’m still not). Jim would encourage me to write. He was caught up in mysticism, and spiritualism and art and a bunch of other things I thought were wackadoo, but he loved writing and had a wonderful way of explaining his thoughts. His quiet passion was infectious.

One incident stays with me. I had written a radio play – strictly for the money (it paid $2,500 in the mid 1980s). Weeks after it aired, I was sitting in a bar with my buddies when he walked in.

Let me paint the picture. This was a high-end downtown bar for lawyers and professionals. He was a sight. He was always a sight. Rough black cloth coat, rubber boots (really), unruly black hair, intensely blue eyes. Let’s just say he stood out. Ignoring or unaware of patrons’ stares, he strode right to my table and plunked himself down, ignoring my buddies, who thought he was a freak. I bought him a beer (he had no money). I asked him had he heard the play and what did he think of it.

Not much. Fixing me with his cold blue eyes, he called it derivative, cynical, exploitative, contrived and predictable. Trouble was he was bang on. There’s nothing worse in this world than well-reasoned abuse. He wasn’t being mean or egotistical. He was trying to be helpful. His general tone was one of, “Why are you wasting your time doing this?”

So many people had told me they had loved the play. People are nice. Jim told me what he thought. It was exactly what I thought.

For the price of a beer Jim Wade set me straight and pushed me off in a direction in my writing from which I have never wavered. He didn’t tell me something I didn’t know. He had his eye on the ball and thought I should too. I owe Jim for that.

Jim downed his beer and left. One of my buddies was angry. How could you let that artsy freakshow talk to you like that? With his mouth full of your beer!

My friend just didn’t get it.

I have lots of stories of Jim and they are all intense. He was a difficult, moody, opinionated, passionate, dry-witted, deeply intellectual, deeply spiritual man. I promised him I would try and keep his memory alive, so here you go.

Truth be told, I doubt he would have thought much of this column. He set the bar high.
I’m tryin’ buddy, I’m tryin’.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com