A lot of the stories that make up the legend of Stompin' Tom have been told so many times, they've become mainstream - the hitchhiking across Canada, the ubiquitous beer and cigarettes, working the fields in Tillsonburg and on and on. These are unique to Tom.
But on a more personal front, the Gate and Tom stories merge, another bond between brothers. Their family lives were unstable and often violent and ...the families moved a lot. These weren't moves for the better. As Gate tells it in his memoir, even a move from one part of town to another left permanent scars...
“It’s a sad day for me. I sure don’t want to leave this place, the friends I have and the school I love to go to. But I have no say in it and we moved across the river to what is known as Mountjoy Township. By the bridge.
Dad owned and operated a taxi business with a lunch bar and juke box. Mom operates the lunch bar. It’s called Riverside Taxi and Lunch, and I miss my friends. I begin to feel lonely and become a loner as days go by. I walk along the river and hide under the bridge when it rains. I spend hours behind the Riverside Pavilion (dance hall). Mom and Dad are busy. I also work at the lunch counter and I have other chores to do. I’m 12.”
This is a story about a life filled with every imaginable victory and failure, extreme highs and lows. Yet, I can’t help but wonder how it might have been different had Gate stayed with his friends and continued to do well in school.
On September 1, I go to St. Dominque School. Day one in school, I am in two fights. I lose the first battle and I win the next. It’s a rough gang here and I quickly learn to fight back or else. I don’t like the “or else” so I quickly become the tough guy. I’m in lots of fights and no one tangles with me. I’m the bully. I need to be for survival.
If Martin Scorsese were to solicit a script for Gate’s life, it might look like Rebel Without A Causem or perhaps Walk The Line. This move to Mountjoy Township would likely be an event early in Gate’s story that would set the table for the rest of the movie. The timing of this move couldn’t have been more damaging. Preadolescence is a hormonal mine field. Cultures have created archetypal ceremonies to help young boys and girls make the move to adulthood with their confidence and dignity still in tact.
Dreamer’s Rock on Manitoulin Island for example has been used by First Nation people as a rite-of-passage. Native youth would be taken to the rock to spend a night in quiet meditation. Symbolically, they’d arrive a child and the next morning, after visions and dreams, they’d return to the village as a man.
Gate’s transition to manhood wasn’t nearly as romantic. His fists and his anger became his rite-of-passage and as with the Natives on Dreamer’s Rock, would define much of his adulthood.
The arrival of Gate’s new life was immediate.
“At home, it’s a mess. Dad’s drinking is a bitch. When he drinks, all hell breaks loose. Mom gets moody and pots and pans start flying. The shouting matches begin. The yelling - then the damn silence is worse. This can last a month and we are not allowed to talk. SHUT UP are the first words I learned at home.
Then the jobs begin. Dad puts me in the taxi stand to answer phones. After school I head to the stand with my books and work until 11 or so. When I’m not a dispatcher for the taxi, I’m in the lunch bar next door making hot dogs and shakes. Plus, I had countless other jobs, such as piling slab (split wood) for the wood shed, filling the coal bin. We heat with wood and coal, and use a wood stove to cook. I’m not short of jobs.
At school it’s the shits and I’m going nowhere fast. When I go to school, I often pass right by and head for the woods where I would spend the day with squirrels. At least I have less problem with these than the Squirrels at school.”
Gate titled his book Hard-Knock Graduate. Smarts are universally measured by our success or failure with formal education. What’s a very intelligent young boy to do when he’s denied access to this? He educates himself.
What allows one person to survive a hellish life and find hope and solace where none seems to exist, while a similar life destroys another through despair and meaninglessness? I don’t have the answer but it is clear that self pity and blaming others are not part of Gate’s mindset. Whatever is happening to him, he owns. There’s an inner strength there that will serve him well. His will is formidable.
When most young men are going to school, flirting with the girls during recess and playing sports with their buddies, Gates is living the life of an adult. He bypassed his teen years.
I failed grade six and had to repeat grade seven. By grade eight, I’m out. Between the principal, the priest and my dad, they decided I was too tough and must be out of school, and probably in reform school. I recall that five of my so-called pals went to reform school. Dad took me to reform school to show me where I’m going, unless…..
Unless, at the age of 14, I go to work as a man. I pay my own room and board cause no more damn problems or it’s reform school for me. So he got me a job where I worked for ten cents an hour. This job is in a service station. I start at $17 per week, then up to $20 and $24. All the time, it’s $15 per week on the table, or I’m out. Period.
The boss was a gambler and drinks some. Often I was left to handle the whole business by myself. I learned to drink. Now I’m a loner. No more hockey. No more so-called friends. I was beginning to steal booze here and there and at home. With a dollar or so left after working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, I learned tricks and street smarts - by working the taxi and lunch bar business.
The street across from the taxi stand where we lived was called Ronald. It’s gone now. It followed the river. On this street were five bootleggers, The Blind Pigs some called them. Lumberjacks would drink there after hours and on Sundays. They sold booze around the clock. On the same street was a few whore houses. You learn quick in the school of hard knocks. I knew about this.
I used to go at night by the river, under the bridge and across to follow a path that led to these bootleggers. With crow bars and an empty potato bag, I would creep into the sheds where I knew they had some booze piled up inside. I’d pry a few planks loose and crawl inside to get some cheap wine (Kabata and Jordan. Good stuff. 99 cent wine). I would hide my stash in a safe place and I would drink it until I got drunk and sick as a dog. I graduated to beer, then whiskey. By the age of 16, I was an expert at drinking booze. That’s the way it was. At the lunch bar when the poker games were on, I’d hang around with mom and I’d punch in that juke box.
Here I get to hear Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzel, Earnest Tubb, Johnny and Jack, and I get the urge to learn guitar, sing and even write songs. My love for country music grows stronger and stronger each day. I’d get the guitar and a taxi driver would show me the basic chords. I began to sing by myself, then at the lunch bar, I’d sing in front of some folks. My second dream comes in - after hockey is out of my system - music comes into replace it. Strong. It holds me somehow.