It happened early last spring. With just a few days remaining before I led one of my annual tours to the battlefields of Europe, I paid a visit to the man who regularly supplies me with this country’s greatest calling card.
Bryan Petry was ready and waiting for me. At his All Seasons Display office in Markham, Ont., he had three full-sized Canadian flags I planned to use as official gifts. He had bags of Canadian flag pins we would give as souvenirs to French and Belgian acquaintances, and he had bundles of paper Canadian flags we would plant in front of Canadian military headstones at Commonwealth War Grave sites.
“Plant one for me, would you?” Bryan asked me.
His request caught me a little off guard. “Of course,” I said eventually. “Anything for my favourite custodian of the flag.”
I guess I didn’t realize how telling that moment in his office really was. Though I would see Bryan Petry a few more times later that summer and into fall, his request to be remembered during one of our cemetery visits turned out to be the last favour I was able to return to him. On Monday, Bryan died of complications caused by cancer at Toronto East General Hospital. He was 54.
Bryan and I were not close friends. In fact, he had many more tight friendships cultivated through his son’s hockey, his volunteer service with youth and adult hockey, and most particularly, his longtime association with the Islanders Oldtimers Hockey Club in Uxbridge. You won’t be surprised to learn that Bryan and I met via hockey.
One year we happened to be on the same team in Uxbridge’s Sunday night men’s recreational hockey league. He was the team rep. As usual, he quietly took on the responsibility of assembling the team in the fall, doing all the associated paperwork and then representing the team on the executive. He even took his share of jabs in the dressing room about being “a member of management.”
“Somebody’s got to do it. And I’m just as competent or incompetent as the next guy,” he would say.
But it’s mostly as an ambassador of Canada’s national emblem that I think of Bryan Petry. Do you remember that incident a few years ago, in which an Uxbridge resident had his Canadian flag torn down and stolen? Within hours of the incident, Bryan suggested he and I call and offer to replace it. I think the folks at the Legion were the only ones to make the same offer faster than Bryan did. Then, there was the Vimy flag.
During another of my annual spring visits with Bryan at his flag shop in Markham, back in 2007, I happened to mention that I needed not just any Canadian flag, but a Red Ensign. It had been the national emblem that 48 regiments of Canadian troops had carried up Vimy Ridge during the famous First World War victory in France, I told Bryan. I thought it would be a classy touch to have a replica of the Red Ensign on display at our annual Oilies Remembrance Day tournament in November 2007 (the 90th anniversary year of the historic 1917 battle).
A few days before I flew to France to attend the special observances at Vimy in April 2007, Bryan called to inform me he had two Red Ensigns for me – one for the Oilies’ tournament and another that Don Mason of the Islanders had requested. I made sure that both flags were photographed at the base of the twin towers of the monument as evidence of their journey from Uxbridge to Vimy and back. Of course, all members of both oldtimers teams were pleased to see the images. But I remember Bryan’s face especially. It lit light up brightest.
“Like gems against that Vimy marble,” he commented. “Nothing ever looked better.”
A few weeks after I’d shared the photos with my Oilies teammates and Bryan’s Islanders teammates, Bryan had another emblem to contribute. He’d created a pennant we could hang from the same pole as the Red Ensign. The pennant had an inscription embroidered into it:
“This Canadian Ensign retraced the path of the 116th (Ontario) Regiment from Uxbridge to France and the site of the First World War battle at Vimy Ridge, in which the regiment participated. It visited the Vimy Memorial on April 9, 2007, the 90th anniversary of the battle.”
I’m going to miss my annual visit with Bryan Petry this spring. I’ll miss his eagerness to share Canadian emblems in our community, across the country and beyond. And whenever I see that perfect Maple Leaf on a lapel, a backpack or a flagpole, I’ll remember the gentle patriot who helped put it there