Wait for it: Joke builds to punchline after 30 years

CALGARY • A stone worker’s practical joke lasted almost 30 years until a city controversy brought it to light this week.

Gioachino (Jack) De Marchi was a tile setter in Calgary in the 1980s and one of his jobs was to help lay all the bricks inscribed with patrons’ names in the walkways being built in Olympic Plaza in 1987. Calgarians had ponied up $19.88 each to buy a brick as a fundraiser for the Olympic Winter Games set to hit the city a year later.

When a Calgary Herald photographer approached the workman carefully laying the 20,000 bricks in a Saint Simon pattern, the worker — famous for his sneaky schemes, according to his son — gave the name of a longtime co-worker, Pietro Bordin, instead of his own.

“He did not tell anyone what he did, but you can imagine our surprise and those of his co-workers when the very next day, we saw my father’s picture with his friend’s name on it. An excellent joke that has now lasted 30 years!” Less than two years after the photo was taken, De Marchi died of cancer.

“This photograph has become our family’s lasting memory of our father working. About 10 years ago, my father’s good friend Pietro Bordin passed away as well. To this day, when we do run into the family members, we still reminisce about this photograph and the name switch joke.”

The joke only came to light this week when the Herald reran the photo alongside an article about the city possibly removing all of those legacy bricks.

When Gianni De Marchi saw the story, he felt compelled to correct the unrecognized error and add his voice to the growing chorus of opposition to the bricks’ removal.