LETTER

The Jack Couture page! 

I hope readers respond to Sam C. Lab on his recent Bulletin article, “Phantom-Memoir of the legendary Jack Couture”, wherein he asks people to send in stories about Couture. Even eight years after the publication of Poolroom and Politics, I hear stories about Jack Couture that I hadn’t heard before. Most focus on an outrageous act performed by Couture that gets better with each retelling. The irony is that the stories probably contain only a sliver of the truth, which was also his approach to history.

Jack Couture would take a kernel of truth and build a rich tapestry, surrounding it generally celebrating a fantastic feat or person having an Aylmer theme. In contrast he would also be engaged in producing newspaper articles or, especially, letters to the editor, in which there were no heroes and an abundance of bad guys. I suspect Couture would be pleased that people are reading his stories 50 years after his passing. I think he would be even more pleased that his name is the masthead of the Letters to the Editor page in the Bulletin d’Aylmer.

This is where Jack Couture excelled, by employing his own brand of wit and wisdom commenting on the issues of the day as an everyman. Usually each week we can find Couture being channeled by one or two local scribes. Letters to the editor are wonderful for getting issues brought to the forefront and oft times the more tongue-in-cheek the author is, the more enjoyable the read.

So, here’s to all letter-writers and to the Bulletin for publishing “basse couture”!

Michael Macdonald

Aylmer