When the light went on

It was in "Religion 101" class in 1965, Carleton University when the light went on in my 18-year-old adolescent brain. Although I had liked English in high school and was a pretty good writer, I had no clue about literature, save the mandatory Shakespeare, the predictable "The Lord of the Flies" and the usual prescribed poets. That all changed when our professor announced one Friday afternoon (I even remember the day of the week) we had a special guest lecturer and in walked Northrop Fry.

I had no clue who he was. All I thought was, "Great, I can pretty much zone out for this guy." He was very tall and very patrician, with an abundant shock of grey hair, thick glasses and a three-piece suit. I now know he was 53 years old because I now know this is the centenary of his birth; he looked older, but when you're 18 who doesn't. Our professor sat down and the U of T Professor began to speak. But when he began to spin his tale of our world, I snapped out of my dead "zone". I became mesmerized pretty quickly.

Northrop Fry was a renowned literary critic and writer and what he laid out amazed me. He began pretty well at the beginning of time and without notes, wove his way through history, literature, psychology, sociology, science, religion, politics......you name it.....to the present day. He described the civilized world in terms of the literature it had produced and I was dumbfounded. Oh, so this is what it's all about, I said to myself. It's all about people, what they wrote about and what they passed down -- it's all about society, civilizations and tribes and how they all wrap together to get us where we are today. And Fry did it quietly in an hour. Suddenly I knew English was what I had to major in.

All this came back to me this morning as I listened to our beloved CBC and Jian Ghomeshi, who was doing his "Q" from Moncton. Who knew Northrop Fry had grown up in Moncton? But as Ghomeshi began to interview the woman who headed up the annual "Fry Festival", I stopped what I was doing, sat down and listened closely. It all came back to me, as I realized just how privileged I had been to actually be in the presence of the brilliant Professor, "Norrie" Fry -- the man who changed my life.

Fry insisted on teaching at least one first-year class every semester -- even when he was very famous. Thankfully, I was one of the lucky ones to have heard him before I knew what I was doing. He turned my world into a sort of crystal, enabling me to see clearly the many differing facets that make up the whole. How very lucky I was.