That’s what friends are for
Special lunch at St.Joe’s leaves Fern Viola with a song in his heart
There’s something that the close presence of enduring friendship does to the muscles of the face and the thrust of the spirit, making them strong enough, despite the gravity of hardship, to launch through the pain ... with the energy of a smile.
And this past Thursday Fern Viola was smiling, broadly and buoyantly, as he sat at the head of the table, eight floors high, his whole city at his back, and a dozen good, apostolic friends in front of him, there for him — Leonardo da Vinci should’ve painted the scene but, hey, Spec photographer Gary Yokoyama’s even better.
He hasn’t had much to smile about lately. But Fern, the man with an instrument for a last name, an instrument for a voice and an instrument of charity for friends, looked like there was no place he’d rather be.
Even though the hospital is not where he’d rather be.
Especially as he’s been there since last summer. But Thursday it felt like old times.
The “alumni,” as they call themselves, of the now bygone Seratoma Club in Hamilton have been meeting every third Thursday of the month for lunch at the Scottish Rite since the local branch folded in 2008.
“I call it the ‘remnants’ club,” said Bert Allen, of the group who might be getting long in the tooth, as the expression goes, but still have a lot of bite, and they dug into a hearty meal of sandwiches, pizza and cannoli that they had brought in for their old friend.
Said Ray Busby, “We decided if Fern couldn’t be with us, we’d bring the meeting to him.”
Fern, the city’s great anthem singer at so many Hamilton Tiger-Cats games, has missed much the last year.
November was especially hard as he couldn’t sing at the Remembrance Day ceremonies at Gore Park, something close to his heart as he worked for decades at Veterans Affairs in Hamilton and was instrumental (there’s that word again) in getting proper recognition for Canadian Korean War veterans.
He misses the St. Anthony of Padua church choir with which he’s sung for decades. What he’s missed most is his beloved wife Josephine, who died just a year ago, Feb. 4, 2017.
It was not long after when Fern began having health complications that put him at St. Joe’s, where he’s stayed so he can be close to a dialysis machine.
And so there he was with his friends from Sertoma (shortening of service to mankind) on the eighth floor of the Juravinski Innovation Tower at St. Joseph’s Hospital, with the window overlooking the city and affording a beautiful view of his hometown.
“I’m so proud of my dad,” said Rocco Viola, Fern’s son. “When I’m not listening to Sinatra I’m listening to him. He wished me a Happy Valentine’s yesterday and to my mom in heaven.”
The fellows reminisced about everything, especially Sertoma.
“We used to meet at the Golden Steer,” said Jim McEntree. And the Wentworth Arms and old Hamilton yacht club.
Sertoma began in Hamilton in 1955 and did they ever do great work, first with disabled children, then the hearing impaired (mostly children), the annual fireworks at the old Civic Stadium and reviving the Around the Bay Road Race when it was moribund.
Fern joined in the 1970s, as did Bert, but some of the members there on Thursday hitched up much earlier, Jim Brown being the first, having joined 1957.
“I was in the transportation provision business,” Jim told me winkingly. “He sold used cars,” Al Thomson elucidated.
In attendance were Ed Cummings, Jim Kennelly, Mike Wilcox and the others already mentioned, along with non-Sertoma friends Al Veri and Pat Ottolino.
Fern regaled me about singing in front of big crowds, and how he started with Viola’s Groceteria and Butcher Shop but gave it up to work for John Munro.
It was a terrific time. Fern was glowing. And the cheer flowed. Good to see him his old self. Among friends.