Issue 152 Is Online!

search index
of all issues

Search This Site Enter word(s) to search for:

I first met George Sanderson in the late sixties while attending St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The word at the Co-op Coffee Shop was that he was a hip philosophy prof who used Playboy Magazine as one of his texts. Turned out that he'd xeroxed the Marshall McLuhan interview for one of his classes. Years later, under his guidance, I devoured McLuhan's ideas, and Bergson's and so many others.

I was introduced to George by his good friend, Father Rod MacSween, founder of The Antigonish Review. The first thing George ever said to me was, 'What are you reading?' Unaware at the time that he was using the British academic vernacular, I said I was reading de Saint Exupery's, The Little Prince. I asked if he'd read it. 'Yeah, when I was four,' he laughed. George was always laughing. And his laughter demanded an echo. Some years later I was talking to him about Flannery O'Connor's commentary on "A Good Man is Hard to Find," how the grandmother conveniently dismissed the fact that she was about to enter eternity, and like all of us, was ill prepared and wanted to put off the event, indefinitely. George stopped me cold and asked me to repeat the comment. When I did, he said, 'My God, Leo, you're becoming my mentor.' And we howled. That's what I'll miss so much about George Sanderson - the hard laughter.

I last spoke with him several days after his heart surgery. His wife, Gert, said she would pass him the phone but that I could only speak for a minute as he was very tired.

'George,' I said, 'I'm not gonna keep you long but I'm not hanging up 'til you laugh at least five times.'

He laughed.

'That's one,' I said, and he laughed again. 'Two! Jeez, I haven't said anything funny, George.'

'Stop it,' he laughed.

'I gotta great cartoon idea for you…"

'Leo, this is painful,' he said, laughing.

We chatted for a minute and Gert took back the phone.

George was a great laugher because he had the uncanny knack of being able to see things as they really are. Like all natural born poets, he had a great eye. He always looked directly at life, affirmed its intrinsic goodness and celebrated its wonder with every chortle. Like the great Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock, he knew instinctively the value of kindly contemplating the incongruous.

In his wonderful comedy, A Thousand Clowns, a play George admired, Herb Gardner describes this poetic gift when Uncle Murray tells us what he wants for his nephew:

I want him to know it's worth all the trouble just to give the world a little goosing when you get a chance. And I want him to know the subtle, sneaky, important reason why he was born a human being and not a chair. I will be very sorry to see him go. He is a laugher, and laughers are rare. I mean you tell that kid something funny - not just any piece of corn, but something funny, and he'll give you you're money's worth. It's not just funny jokes he reads, or I tell him, that he laughs at. Not just set-up funny stuff. He sees street jokes, he has the good eye, he sees subway farce and cross town bus humour and all the cartoons people make by being alive. He has a good eye.

Thanks for giving the world a little goosing every chance you got, George. And thanks for helping us understand why we were born human beings and not chairs. We'll miss your wit, your wisdom, your marvelous sense of wonder. But most of all, we'll miss your gift of laughter.