As all Sunday morning I try to write my diary for the week, this week even if it is a bit different it is no exception. This day is the day my little boy was born in the middle of the night in Moncton hospital. He is 25 and will be arriving this afternoon from seeing his grandparent in Ontario.
So on Gregorian chant music, voz de la tranquilidad,( the voice of tranquility), the poetry of Pablo Neruda, and the song of Jacque Brel, I want to write a few word about the legacy and the greatness of the effect of the legendary Tom Scarrow on my life.
This came about as yesterday I saw a posting on Facebook from Charlotte, Tom grand daughter, one of Laura daughter about Tom, she was mentioning she was loving him every day, and was missing his presence.
The picture brought back lot of memory of a past time , I could remember 2004 when I received a call from Shurly, informing me that Tom had passed away in a Horse accident Manitoba.
The next night I was on a plane to Regina. This happen all in a week after I heard that my friend from Katimavick Geraldine from Cape Breton had passed away a year before from breast cancer.
I made it late in the night after the plane ride and a 2 hour car ride to Arcola at Shurly place. The next day I assisted at the funeral in the Arcola rodeo park, with a large crowd, we heard the eulogy from Jack and Bud Fenix, which I had not seen in the past 25 years, it was emotional and tear came to my eyes many time remembering this great man that had influenced me at the same level as my own father had done before, also as I saw Florence accepting with the greatest of difficulty the immensity of the pain of a lost one and to see the emptiness left by her partner.
After the Funeral I went to the reception and had the chance to see Liz my former Katimavik coordinator, Jack from Saskarie foundation and Bud Fenix a former rodeo man one of many good friend of Tom , also the christens family had give me a ride to the cemetery, remembering there involvement in the Saskarie project as it was totals in those days. I also had the chance to meet several person that I had not seen for a long time, it was very pleasant to reconnect with them .
At the end Shurly invited me to go to the farm for the evening, but I felt it would be better to leave them among family, so I promised I would meet them in the morning at the farm, I was also so tired from the trip in the night as I had arrived only at 4:00 Am New Brunswick time, so I went to Shurly’s house to try to sleep but could not but remembered and relived so many of the greatest moments of my life, to finally fall asleep for a large part of that night.
The next day I woke up bright and early and drove to the Saskarie gate in the mist of the morning, I left the rental car at the gate that had seen me for the first time on that summer night of 78.
as I walk back to this camp every point seem to bring back so mush memory of this summer and the different encounter. When I arrived at the lodge I went to tour the camp and as it was a bit different from the last time I had seen it in 97, the last time I saw Tom alive. I could easily recognize my sleeping place in the far corner on the right side. Shortly after I took the small path and walked down to the well by the lake, as I walked down my step seem like a repetition of a time passed , I could sense and clearly remember going down this very path in July with Heidi going to the well and suddenly I felt a hand on mine and as it had happened one evening in July long time ago. The presence of Heidi accompanying me down this path as she had in 78, holding my hand and kissing me for my first time was as clear as if it had been a few moments before. I was living for a second time those same moment as they had been happening more than 25 year before.
From there I retraced many of the tracks I had made in 78, as this was the first time I was in Sakarie in the summer since that famous summer of 78. Saskarie and a whole new family had welcome me in that year, I had a new group of friends in that summer, but above all my reason for this summer to be part of the legend of life, was clearly the Scarrow legend. 
It was as if we were back then, even if it all happened in the profoundness and the immensity of the solitude of the hill of Saskarie , I felt the presence of legend hovering all around me. As I walked back to the car I had left at the gate in front of the Saskarie field I decided to walk back to the Scarrow farm, instead of driving around and then back to Scarrow place. The walk back was as many place as memorable place that I had walked so many time in 78, so it brought back so many memories of that summer. When I arrived on the top of the Break your neck hill, I went to sit on the rock that had saw me many times when I was felting a bit sad, failing to understand the world or society around me . 
Even If the panorama of view was profoundly different of 78, as the gold of the wheat that spread itself from left to right as far as the eyes could see, had profoundly changed to a variety of colors ranging from that golden color of wheat to the yellow of canola to the blue violet of flax, and many other. The feeling of Love had not moved one iota, the unconditional acceptance without question, the encounter of that night of July 78, from this big man and his family was all over me on that day of 2004. As I was there sitting on the rock all kind of memory was passing through my head as It was him that had asked my group coordinator if participants would help load some bale in the field close to the tool shed, and then asking me if I would cut some hay for him in the evening. On that day of 2004 he was there right in front of me, and all that was missing was the touch. That day had all the ingredient for a very sad day but there was something in the air that prevented that from happening. The presence or the aura of Tom in these hill was everywhere I felt surrounded by him, his joy for living and his need for encounter was filling my life with so much love as the summer of 78 was playing in front of me, on that incredible I Max screen that was the prairie scenery that stood in that magnificent sunny day of August 2004 . The smiling face of Tom was everywhere filling the air with all the things we had done together, I could see the teaching of cutting with the saw mill in Saskarie, the starting of the grader, the teaching about the wheat, the handling of calf to tag them, the riding of horse, the stories of riding, getting a escaped horse at Harold in the August morning, the drinking of tea by Tom sitting at the table, the incredible meal with potato, green oignon tops and cream, the pie ,the doughnut with glace, prepared by Florence and all this sharing of food and ideas was flowing in front of my eyes, as life was unfolding with the Scarrow patriarch that was Tom. Of all those things that Tom thought me one remained so memorable even if it was filled with so much simplicity for Tom.
On the second night that I went to cut hay at the farm there were a few knives missing on the sickle bar and so Tom brought 4 or 5 with him and a handful of rivet to secure them to the bar, but they were way too long and in my experience it was impossible to rivet them on, as they were going to bend before riveting, so I thought we will have to go and get some other rivet and come back but Tom took one of the rivet and set it on the back of the mower and set a knife on it and hammer it and cut it to the right length on one blow. I was flabbergasted and so impressed with that action, that, from then on this young farmer from the maritime told himself that he had a lot to learn from this big fellow and needed to listen a lot more and had so much need to cultivate friendship.
From then on my life was never the same as I always saw this as a very pivotal moment of life. I made sure to tell Tom the last day when we were setting at the bus station in Carlyle in late September as it had so much importance for me. 

After sitting for what seemed like a very long time on this rock and reliving strong moment shared with Tom in that summer of 78, I got up after I saw what seemed to be the back of a brown horse in the distance. 
I started to walk down the hill and making my way back to the farm . A few moment later I arrived to the place that I had plowed in that early fall to prepare the new land I had never seen how it looked like, since as I had never been there in the summer of that initial time.
The land was nice and seemed like it had been farm several year after. Again in the distance at the end of the curve , I could again see the brown back of this horse with rider in front of me , and I accelerated the pace to try to reach the rider, but it seemed to have vanished in the distance. When I got close to the barn I could hear the crack of some branches in front, so I went by the way of the field to make it to the house where all the family were, but when I reached the field that very place that I had cut the hay and thereafter plowed with Tom, I could see far at the end this silhouette on the top of the small hill going to Coyote slue , against this brown horse with a big man riding and he turn toward me for a few seconds , sitting on his horse he turn toward me and waved at me with his hat then slowly disappeared in the light and mist of this August morning of 2004.
It came clear that even If I was sure I had seen this horse it probably was the reflection of light and morning mist on the ground, or perhaps the beginning of the legend of Tom on Snort saluting me in the distance for a last time. He had been my first teacher in riding horse and so many other things in that so memorable summer that made the individual that I have become. In so many ways Tom had not been so different from my family he had just been a confirmation of the values put forward by my mother and father all true my existence.
Of all the encounter that seem so important in that summer of 78 , the beauty and niceness of Heidi and her beautiful body, the discovery of a new world in the prairies , the friendship with many new friends , none we ever part of a lasting bond like the one with Tom, Florence and their offspring.
The need for Tom to connect with others was so great , perhaps because of his triple ethnic origin , French, native and anglophone, created his incredible need for being loved, and to give so much to other. 
That summer was and will remain so memorable in my life, as it was in so many aspects of my life. First time that I had found some older adults outside of my life that really liked me, first time that many women were interested in me , first time to kiss a women and to have intimate relation. To find a new course of friends outside of my community, first time to see truly Saskacthawn, it’s immensity how it was welcoming, it was also the first time that I had had the thought that it could have been possible for me to live somewhere outside of Rogersville. 
My rapport with the legend of the Scarrow clan arises more often than one in the years but it is impossible for me not to be reminded of this legend, as spring arises and it is calling the time, how many times have I repeated to a cow, the phrase if Tom would be here you would have been rung in a second.
It it also impossible for me to forget Florence and her immense magnetism and the perfect soulmate that she was for Tom and the Scarrow clan . Every year in the fall I feel I must make choke cherry jam to remind my taste bud how good life was on that summer and I let it, transport my memory in and eternal youth, nearly 40 years ago and every time I tasted some choke cherry jam I cannot but be reminder of this incredible person that was Florence. I have no doubt that what Tom was and his existence was in so many ways a tributes to Florence her love and her immense need to share and to love. If there are so many great memories of Florence the one that constantly comes to mind, as she had made sandwich for all group and more than a 100 doughnut for the going away of the Katimavick in the fall of 78.
Over the past 35 years I have been to Saskarie several times but only once since Tom past away. For the several times that I went to Saskatoon for NFU meeting in the cold weather of end of November, it had been too demanding to make it to Saskarie but often I dream of being back on a 06 of July one of these years, certainly to see Florence and the family , also the young one that are perpetuating the legend of the moose mountain, but beyond this, I want to feel the magic as I felt it in that summer of 78. I want to see the moose mountain as I saw them in that first summer, to walk in the trail around Saskarie around the farm, to sit on the top of the break your neck hill, have this overview of the prairie, to bring me back in and eternal youth. Beyond all of this I know I will feel this presence that will surround me as it did back then and still live inside me and that I will cherish for the rest of my life, this mythical presence of the greatest legend of my time, which I can call the legend of Tom Scarrow.