John

To me John was all about music.
When we met on the steps of the Forest Insect Lab in Sault Ste Marie, he made some remark about an item he was reading in The Globe and Mail and I called him a cynic. He later told me he had decided right then to marry me.
On our first date, he sang me the whole of The Pirates of Penzance as we walked around the Soo with streetlights shining through the leaves of the trees. He also told me the story of his life, so that I would know all of his good and bad points up-front. I later told him that I married him because of the serenade, and because of his great legs.
The first year he taught, at Riverside C.I. in Windsor, he had 14 different classrooms. He was a science specialist, but he was teaching math, geography and history. The following year he had no more history and he only had 7 classrooms.
We didn’t want to raise children in Windsor, so when we were expecting Chris, we moved to Stouffville. John would spend the next 22 years teaching Math and Sciences at Uxbridge S.S.
His teaching didn’t stop with academics, he taught the students to love musicals. He began with Trial By Jury and continued with 22 more offerings ending with his favourite Guys and Dolls
While we lived in Windsor, we belonged to the W. Light Opera where he was involved in shows from Camelot to the Chocolate Soldier, with his finest performance in another favourite, She Loves Me, as the gypsy violinist! Of course he couldn’t play a note, but he practised with a stringless violin while the real violinist played.
John’s love of performing music began in childhood, continuing into high school where, as a lyric tenor, he began singing romantic leads in G. & S. This led him to Eaton Operatic, Simpson Ave. United Operatic, and other G. & S. companies.
When we met he told me his name was John, (though his family called him Jack), and asked my name. I told him my nickname was Micki. He asked me what that stood for, and I said Michelle, but that I was called by my first name Sharon. Because he was deaf, he didn’t hear the last part, and began calling me Michelle.
When we married I’m sure his family must have wondered who the participants were as Sharon and John, not Jack and Michelle, were pronounced husband and wife.
All through our lives together he tried to promote social justice, awareness of needs of those less fortunate than we, and the love and care of the environment. We always tried to minimize our ecological footprints. This social conscience made him feel very guilty at Christmas, when so few of the world’s population had enough to eat or a safe place to live. Only the shining faces of our excited children made him happy.
When our children were baptised at ten o’clock services, they were usually hungry. They would fidget and fuss, making me a wreck, eventually I would hand them to John, on whose shoulder they would contentedly go to sleep.
His accomplishments in this community were many. When all the town’s waste was going to landfill, he realized that someone had to start a recycling depot. So he spent a year hunting for a place that could accommodate a divided bin, and not make the neighbours crazy. When he located an old garage on property owned by CIBC he wrote an open letter to the Tribune asking people to join him in forming a plan and presenting it to Council. The rest you know.
He helped coach soccer teams and went faithfully to all the games.
Along with other recycling executives, he organized 2 clean-up Stouffville Days, A recycled art workshop at the library (along with his buddy Sheila McLeod) and donated a scholarship to the high school from the recycling profits. With the help of the Spademan Company he organized a recycling float in the Santa Claus Parade. Children of the recycling group stood on wooden bases on a ¾ filled bin.
He was a staunch supporter of People or Planes and of the Save Stouffville group who were trying to save Class 1 farmland from becoming tarmacked runways. Through these organizations we met many like-minded people who wanted to preserve the Oak Ridges Moraine
He also found time to serve a year on the town’s tree committee; to be the ‘Dame’ in several of Sheila McLeod’s pantomimes; not to mention acting and directing several plays with the Stouffville Players.
We were never ‘well-off’ but John thought that he was richest man in the world because he had us. His wife and four wonderful children
There is so much more to him that I could go on about, but your behinds would not last! We loved him. – and by the way the real reason I married him? ……..It was those sexy legs of course!

Sharon Michelle Garbutt