COLUMN: Hey, Big Julie - Beware the Ides of March

My heart aches today almost as much as Calpurnia’s must have when she got the bad news some 2,066 years ago that her husband had been assassinated at Rome’s Theatre of Pompey.

The source of my sadness is that I won’t be getting a telephone call this morning with a frail voice at the other end of the line warning me: “Hey, Big Julie – Beware the Ides of March!” 

Cora Cond turned the tables on me last year by making that phone call. I had been calling her with that message from my alter ego – Big Julie - every March 15 since her “Sweetheart” passed away in 2016. “My Sweetheart” is how Cora referred her husband Glen – the finest English teacher to ever grace the halls of Sault Collegiate Institute, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Cora died in her mid-90s last December – and with her died a tradition that I had shared with the Cond family for decades: a telephone call with the cautionary advice ignored by Julius Caesar when he’d received it from a soothsayer as well as from his long-suffering spouse just before he donned his toga and took off for a Senate meeting.

I owe my writing career – and part of my code of ethics – to Glen – or Mr. Cond as I called him respectfully even long after my high school days. When he finally gave up his long battle against Alzheimer’s Disease, Cora became the new recipient of the annual telephone call I had made to him for years on this date wherever in the world I happened to be.

The day I walked into Mr. Cond’s home room at SCI as a Grade 10 student, I had no idea that I was about to learn invaluable lessons not only about the intricacies – and sheer joy – of the English language but also about the importance of sticking to one’s word. 

That year we studied Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and Mr. Cond cast me in the title role when our class performed an excerpt from the play in SCI’s Clayton Auditorium. As it happened, the Canadian comedy duo, Wayne and Shuster, had recently parodied The Bard’s scribbling on their CBC Radio program, calling the segment “Rinse The Blood Off My Toga!” – and would turn it into a blockbuster presentation on The Ed Sullivan TV show a few years later.

One iconic scene had Toronto actress Sylvia Lennick, in the role of Calpurnia, spout the line: “I told him – Julie don’t go!” Several years earlier, the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls” had introduced a gangster called Big Julie and, inevitably, some wag at Collegiate put the two names together and I was cursed with the name Big Julie for the balance of that school year.

I revived the name when I started making my annual calls to Mr. Cond in tribute to all I had learned from him. His only failure during the years I had him as a teacher was trying to get me to say “going to” instead of “gonna” – a clanger that made him wince and that I still use today. But one other thing he had been successful at was teaching me a valuable life lesson that I have been grateful for – and have tried to adhere to – ever since.

At the end of Grade 13, I was one mark short of getting a grade average of 75 percent that would earn me the coveted school crest and pin (it’s complicated!). Anyway, I had handed in an English assignment a day late and Mr. Cond had docked me marks for my tardiness. Needing that one extra mark, I bearded him in his home room late on a Friday afternoon and explained the situation, pointing out that if he gave me my original mark, it would more than do the trick. He said he would think about it over the weekend.

Bright and early Monday morning, I popped into his classroom and asked him if he had made a decision. “Yes, Tom, I have,” he replied sadly. “I can’t do it. You knew the rules and you broke them and as much as I like Tom Douglas, I just can’t do it!” Disappointed, I thanked him and walked out. But little did he know that he had gained even more of my respect by adhering to his principles.

One of my proudest moments occurred years later when I had self-published my first book, Some Sunny Day, featuring tales about our family life in Wawa after my dad returned from the Second World War. I gave a reading at the Sault Library and Mr. and Mrs. Cond were first in line to purchase copies of the book at the end of the session. 

Tragically, the dreaded Alzheimer’s soon reared its ugly head and Mr. Cond was eventually institutionalized. Cora would visit him every day to have lunch with her “Sweetheart” until his demise. 

One nice memory I have of my telephone relationship with Cora – we chatted often, not just on March 15 – happened after I told her one time that I was heading to Switzerland on a travel writing assignment. She sighed and said: “Ever since I read the book ‘Heidi’ I’ve wished that I could hear my name echoing from the Alps. I guess it will never happen now.” I promised her I would do it for her – and I sent her a Christmas card that year featuring a photo my Swiss guide had taken of me calling Cora’s name, with the Alps in the background.

Cora was a very religious person, attending Central United Church almost up to the time of her death. I know she fully expected to be reunited with her “Sweetheart” in heaven. I hope she said hello to him from Big Julie.