A Frye Festival Volunteer…

                                             A Frye Festival Volunteer Story

                                                   By Edward Drisdelle

Would you believe it? I've lived in Moncton all my life, the Frye Festival has been going on for eight years, and I had
never been to any of its events. And for no particular reason, I decided to volunteer this year! I was excited, but also a
bit apprehensive, even sheepish ­ people would be asking me questions and I would have no clue.

I do have one claim to fame for the festival, though ­ after Frye died in 1991 there was much discussion about how
Moncton should honour him. Some wanted to rename the public library after him. I sent a letter to the local paper
suggesting a bilingual literary festival, including student activities for "budding Fryes and Frites". The paper made it
their Letter of the Day. So inasmuch as my letter maybe put the festival wheels in motion, I feel some small pride in its
success. Funny thing though, I don't write letters to the editor, and I knew next to nothing about the guy. Maybe he
channeled the idea through me? Who knows ­ no one's sure he even liked Moncton, his praise during his last visit
shortly before his death notwithstanding.

The first event I worked was Harvey Pekar's talk, on a cold, wet Friday evening. Once everyone was in the theater, the
volunteers joined them. Towards the end I slipped out to the lobby to use the bathroom. Great timing, as the lobby was
empty and the technical crew were standing outside in the pouring rain at the locked front door, frantically pounding to
get in. As I crossed the lobby, the huge face of the Frye cutout on the wall glared at me and something on it seemed to
move - the mouth perhaps, or an eye? Was he sneering? I was tired and the lobby was cold, and I shivered. But the
guys outside were glad to see me, so I forgot about it and let them in, then went back inside to my seat.

My second event was a literary brunch at Kramer's Corner the next day. I was perched on a stool next to the door. As
the authors read from their books and a parade of magical images filled my head, I gazed outside at the people
passing by on the sidewalk and at the City Hall plaza across the street. My, how this place has grown even in the last
few years, I thought. Moncton is opening itself to the world ­ ol' Northrop might actually find it stimulating now. Inside
Kramer's, beaming participants listened as an author's voice described a girl in India living vicariously as an American,
through her job in a call center. Frye's face stared at me again from a smaller cutout hung on the wall - same face as
last night, only the expression seemed lighter. Was his presence infusing this place with joy? Or more likely, was this
wonderful moment, the product of so much work and so many open minds, causing him to crack a ghost of a smile?

The third event was at Frye's old school ­ Aberdeen. This is where, to the extent that it was capable, the local
education system of the 1920's had opened a world of knowledge to the young genius. The evening's events were on
the second and third floors, so my volunteer partner and I were posted on the landing of one of the great staircases.
The weather was still miserable, but it didn't deter a crowd of people from tramping in and climbing the stairs to our
makeshift ticket counter, and continuing happily on up to the music and readings above. After a couple of hours
everyone who was going to come had arrived, and there was nothing to do. My partner took her leave and I sat on the
landing alone, waiting for Stéfanie to come get the evening's proceeds.

The music and voices from above seemed to grow fainter and blend with the wind outside. I was sitting under a huge
drafty window staring up at another one of those big cutouts of Frye's face at the top of the stairs, and suddenly began
to shiver again. Well old man, I thought, there's a crowd of people drinking, playing music and reading poems in your
old student assembly hall on the third floor, and on the second floor a bunch of artists are drawing what you would
have called funny pages or cartoons. What do you think of that?

For some reason ­ the chill? ­ I suddenly had the urge to go upstairs to the second floor. A moment later Stéfanie
showed up to take the money and other stuff, and I was free to go home or join the party on the third floor. But it was
the second floor that beckoned me, where the comic book artists were.

I climbed the stairs and drifted past the big cutout. Again that feeling that something on it, some line or shadow, was
moving. I came into the main hallway, where a very large table had been set up. Half a dozen artists sitting around it
excitedly passed each other pages filled with marvellous drawings, and chatted and laughed as each added some
clever new scene. Around them a small gathering of onlookers peered over their shoulders or admired the story taking
shape on the wall, as finished pages were put up.

Then I noticed the young boy, maybe ten, standing at the table with eyes as big as saucers. He had come with his
parents and was the only child in the place. One after another, he lovingly picked up and examined the half-finished
pages lying on the table, all the while absorbing the buzz of activity around him as if in a trance. I got closer and took a
look at the creations spread willy-nilly over the table. A rough story unfolded with many twists and turns, and a galaxy
of funny characters in a variety of drawing styles.

But the most striking thing was the way panels written in English alternated with panels in French and Chiac, and
sometimes a glorious mix of both English word balloons and French word balloons within the same frame. It was then I
realized that the artists around me were chattering among themselves in the same mix, one giving suggestions in
French to another responding enthusiastically in English. They were anglophone and francophone artists from all over,
and they were having a ball.

I turned and looked up at the wall. In one of the panels an artist had drawn a glaring, geeky-looking Frye with an
outsized head and big glasses, pumping up a big gas balloon, in which he then floated over Moncton. The balloon was
in the shape of a huge likeness of Frye, the same face as on the cutouts I saw everywhere these last few days. But the
stern glare of the balloon Frye was merely comical, and a couple of panels later a small anonymous figure took a
potshot at it from the roof of a downtown building, and it deflated ignominiously, falling to earth with a "pffssshh" as the
hapless big-headed Frye character tumbled out of the basket to safety.

So this is what you've been telling me, I realized. You saw it so clearly when you were growing up here ­ the
parochialism and lack of imagination; the prejudice, and the divide caused by the very thing you loved most ­
language. The backwater Moncton you were in such a hurry to leave behind is finally catching up to your own spirit.
The ability to not take oneself too seriously, the importance of a broad and open mind, the love of ideas and images
and words. This young boy could be you. Your Aberdeen was an English school, and later, long after you left, a French
one; and now both your old school and your old town are opened up to artists and writers and musicians from
everywhere, and filled with the things you were so passionate about.

And during this ever-growing festival in your honour, as our children experience these wondrous stories and ideas, the
circle is finally complete. That fleeting, ghostly movement on your pictures was indeed a smile.

Northrop, I do believe you've come home.