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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-07-01, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1987. PAGE 5. There was never a dull moment around 'The Kansas Farmer' Jack Thynne, the “Kansas Farmer”. BY TOBY RAINEY Throughout its entire 115-year history, the village of Brussels has produced more than its share of “characters”: in fact, a clipping from The London Free Press, dated May 25, 1967, claims that of the population then of 846 souls, at least 150 were more than 70 years of age, with each and every one of them adding colour to the local landscape in one way or another. But never was there a more colourful, or more outrageous, character than the late Jack Thynne(pronounced “Tine”, as in pitchfork), a home-grown enter­ tainer who billed himself as “The Kansas Farmer” throughout the travels which took him from Newfoundland to the Rockies for more than 40 years, with frequent and generous forays into the U.S.A, at the beginning of his career. He did comic monologues, sang, and sawed on his fiddle at county fairs, local entertainment nights and “medicine shows”, poking fun at everyone and everything, holding nothing sa­ cred or safe from his biting humour, which on more than one occasion threatened to get him into serious trouble. His widow, Annie, still living on her own in Brussels, remembers that at one time Judy La Marsh, a colourful character in her own right in federal politics in the late 50’s and early 60’s, wrote to Jack in Brussels demanding that he re­ tract something he had said about her in one of the popular columns he used to write for the now-de­ funct Brussels Post. “It didn’t bother Johnny at all, but I can tell you, I was pretty scared for a few days, ’ ’ Annie says. “I used to say ‘Johnny, you’re going to get hung if you keep on writing stuff like that,’ but he’d just say, ‘heck, they’d be disap­ pointed if I didn’t write about them’. ” And it was true. Many local people remember him best for the weekly column he used to write for the village newspaper when he finally quit travelling and settled down in his home-town in his early 70’s, and there are many who will still say they took the paper just to see what he had to say about his fellow-townsmen from week to week, and there are some who are convinced that some of the truths he exposed about the town with cornball humour even changed the face of Brussels, always for the better. “You couldn’t get upset about the things he said,” one Brussels old-timer remembers. “You see, he wrote the truth. If he says somebody got drunk too often, well, it was true, and maybe people would even change their ways because of him.” And yet neither The Kansas Farmer’s weekly pennings or his comic monologues on the stage were even slightly sordid. It was all good, clean fun, with never even the hint of a smutty line or story to mar his reputation as a family entertainer. People may have been outraged at the first sting of some of his wit, but it never lasted, and everywhere Jack appeared, he played to a packed house. A nephew in Brussels still has a letter from the secretary of the Rockton, Ontario agricultural show where Jack had appeared for many years, begging him to return in a year when other commitments madeitimpossible. “Pleasere- consider,” the letter pleaded. “The Fair just won’t be the same without you.” Born on the third line of Morris Township in 1897, on what is now the Peter Dorsche farm, Jack Thynne only helped out on the family farm when he absolutely had to. (“Never seen a Thynne that liked farming,” his wife says). Completely self-taught on the fiddle, with never a lesson in his life, Jack began entertaining at an early age, playing on his own at local parties and weddings to earn a little extra cash, and, of course, to escape the farm. Jack and Annie Little were married in 1920, when he was only 23, but it wasn’t until about eight years after the marriage that Jack decided to take his show on the road, leaving Annie to raise four children virtually alone, through what must have been some lean and lonely times, although Mrs. Thynne, a quick wit herself still at theageof87, is reluctant to talk about them. “He was always home for Christmas, never missed a year,” she says, adding that he would then stay on the Morris Twp. farm for the rest of the winter, but would be back on the road again at the first hint of Spring, leaving the family to carry on alone. One of his daughters, Barb (now Mrs. George McCutcheon of Brussels) inherited much of her father’s talent, and in later years the pair developed a witty act called “Crossfire,” which they performed locally a number of times, but Mrs. Thynne was always adamant in that she’d never let the children go on the road with The Kansas Farmer, nor would she goherself. “Heavens, no,” she says. “I’d have never been neither useful nor ornamental out there.” Led by Jack Thynne and his dancing fiddle, The Clover Hullers consisted of five other young men on the guitar, ukelele and mando­ lin. The group became widely known, but disbanded after a few years when Jack wanted to go farther afield than did the other members, and struck out on his own. He travelled widely in the Canadian west, and also spent much of his time in the Maritimes, performing a vaudeville act with thefamousDonMesser. Hewas indeed related to Don Messer, although Mrs. Thynne says she was never sure of the family connection. The Kansas Farmer even appeared once on the Charles Templeton television quiz show, in which the panel of experts failed to guess either his name or his occupation in the allotted time. Mr. Thynne gave up travelling in the late 1960’s, coming home to stay. But he remained The Kansas Farmer to everyone, entertaining to packed audiences at local fairs and other occasions, even after his health began to fail in the early 70’s. He was diabetic, and he was nearly blind towards the end of his career; but he played on, although he often had to be led to the stage and seated before he could begin to fiddle. His last public performance was at the Brussels Legion in 1974, and people had to be turned away at the door, so great was their demand for the entertainment that only their “Johnny” could provide. Shortly afterwards, he suffered a stroke, and spent nearly 11 years in the Callander Nursing Home in Brussels, where he died in 1985. Mr. Thynne is buried in the Brussels Cemetery, home at last. The International Scene The art of learning a foreign language BY RAYMOND CANON One of the things about me that seems to fascinate people the most is my fluency in eight languages; I continually get questions about the best way of learning another language. Needless to say I have written about this in the past but there always appears to be some updating to do on the subject. At any rate, here is the latest effort. First of all it helps to be motivated. If you are being forced for some reason to learn a language at school or elsewhere, you have two strikes against you. On the other hand perhaps your motiva­ tion level is weak because you think that it is a hopeless task. In this case I have good news for you; it is not nearly as hopeless as you think. If you go about the job systemati­ cally, the results will show it. Since French is a national language of Canada, I am presum­ ing that this is the one you are trying to learn. However, the same techniques can be applied as much to Russian or Swahili as to French so it really doesn’t matter. At any rate if it is French you have a real bonus since about 50 per cent of the words in both languages come from a common source and thus make learning vocabulary a whole lot easier. Remember that in any language you are expressing ideas, not words. Try not to make a word for word translation of anything you are saying but use what French words you have to express the ideas you want to say. Each language has its own way of expressing these ideas and those are the ones you have to try to learn. Sometimes they may not make much sense to you but what is logic for one linguistic group is not to another. Russian, for example, doesn’t have any word for either ‘the’ or ‘a’ but we do. Many languages make their adjectives agree in gender and number with the nouns or pronouns that they modify. We don’t but remember there is still a great deal of truth in the old adage that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. For this reason don’t fight or complain about the differences. You can be sure that somebody learning English for the first time finds a great many wierd things to try him. Don’t waste time learning long lists of vocabulary. Rather, learn a few words at a time and try to use them in sentences. One technique that I found very helpful was that of sitting down, looking at a number of objects and try to describe them out loud or else use some of the new words you have learned in senten­ ces and mean something. It is going to be the continual using of the words that will do the trick, not the learning of long lists of isolated words or expressions. I once taught a course in German at University of Western Ontario for science students. Included in the class were eight Chinese students and I wondered what I could do to make it more manage­ able for them. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to teach them simple German songs and so our classroom rang each day with these melodies. It worked beauti­ fully; at the end of the course they agreed that the singing had been one of the highlights and not just for its amusement value. Try to get some records or tapes and go to it. You may not be the best singer in the world (nobody has ever suggested I should take up singing as a career) but who cares. You will be pleasantly surprised how many words and expressions you will pick up. Please, oh please, do not be afraid to make mistakes. This seemstobeaparticular hangup with English speaking people and one that I wish they would forget. When you do make a mistake, have a good laugh and plough on. Just keep in mind that you did not learn your native language overnight; it took many years and even now you make mistakes from time to time. I’ll bet, for example, that you have trouble with sit and set, lie and lay, its and it’s. Most people do, but that doesn’t stop them from learning English. Do the best you can with the pronunciation. You are not going to learn to speak the language without an accent so don’t worry. After all your goal should be to make yourself understood ade­ quately; not make an acceptable speech in impeccable French for the Nobel Peace Prize. Set yourself acceptable goals and standards, not unattainable ones. Finally, if you can get the chance to live in a French speaking community, by all means do so. Three months in such an environ­ ment and some hard work on your part will do nothing less than wonders to your fluency. If you can’t do such a thing, try to get as much practice where you are - in a night-school class or with a friend etc. I even have several friends who insist that I speak to them in French when we meet. Let’s face it; every little bit helps. Alors mes amis, ayez courage! Someone once said that learning another language will open a thousand doors that would other­ wise remain closed to you. Even if you don’t get the whole thousand, there will be enough to make your life that much more fascinating than it was!