By Jim Mandle
(Ed. note: At the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association’s Annual Assembly, the theme was solo canoes and Tom MacKenzie. Tom was a founding member of the WCHA (Member #2…), as well as one of the initial forces behind the development of FreeStyle Canoe Techniques. Jim Mandle prepared this Tribute to Tom as a talk to be given at the event, but was unable to make the trip at the last minute. He asked if we could publish this.)
I wish I could be with you all this evening honoring our friend Tom MacKenzie, but unfortunately last minute family issues made that impossible. My name is Jim Mandle and I was one of the early FreeStyle paddlers and so very lucky to be able to call Tom my friend. I know that there will be many others this evening who will speak to Tom’s contribution to the canoeing community, his extraordinary skills as a canoe builder, and the huge impact he had in the development of solo paddling, especially the art of FreeStyle paddling. But, I would like to add also a glimpse of
my friend and the character of the man I was honored to know.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
I believe this paints a good picture of Tom. Tom was always upbeat, positive and definitely in harmony with what he did. Tom and I first met in the late 1980’s. We met as the FreeStyle discipline was just beginning. There were just 4 or 5 of us “students” who attended the first ever “FreeStyle” event here at Paul Smiths where nine people would later become the initial instructors – Tom, Charlie Wilson, Sue & Steve Tunnicliffe, Mary Lou Greene, Lou Glaros and his wife, and one other couple from Florida who unfortunately I have forgotten their names. Here they were demonstrating and developing the language and strokes of what would become FreeStyle canoe paddling. We received instruction while these future instructors were being watched by Tom Foster who headed the ACA instructional committee at the time. We “students” got to play while all the time watching in awe the finesse with which these paddlers glided over the water. I had been keenly interested in learning this style of paddling since the early 80’s having seen a demonstration by Mike Gault in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, along with my whitewater paddling friend, Harold Deal. Here in the Adirondacks, that summer, I met Tom who was
living in Madison, WI. Little did I know then that Tom was more than an extraordinary paddler, but a gifted and skilled canoe builder, and a man who would become my dear friend. But what a character!
How so? Well, let me give you a couple of examples. When Tom & I did a non-stop road trip in his van pulling a trailer load of canoes, probably 8 with at least 2 or 3 more on the top of the van from NJ to New Orleans where we were going to teach a FreeStyle Symposium, you only had to gaze at the dashboard and see the collection of napkins from all the fine culinary establishments – Arby’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, McD’s, etc. These were the only stops we made on the entire trip to “LaLou”. I don’t think Tom ever realized that there were any other kinds of food available like regular restaurants or grocery stores. Three meals a day for three days! Enough “junk” food chemicals that will probably preserve me for another 50years!
Another time, I had invited Tom to join some other paddling friends on a wilderness canoe trip. All the other guys had completely filled their packs with pots, pans, stoves and assorted food. Not Tom! He arrived with a plastic bag from McDonald’s he had gotten on the way to the put in. He ate his chicken fingers for dinner and the salad the next morning. To Tom, it was no fuss, no muss, he really had only come to see the gang and paddle.
When Tom and Karen moved from Madison to Parsippany, New Jersey, I was in heaven! I lived in New Jersey and had a client only a few miles
away. So each week I would stop by and see Tom and often share lunch – bread and a slice of cheese. Tom’s bread made in his own machine. If I had a picture for you, you would laugh seeing the two of us. A corporate guy (me) dressed in a suit and tie having just left a Fortune 100 meeting and his good buddy Tom, dressed in his business attire – blue jeans that showed what he had been doing that morning. Either glue spots where he wiped his hands on the jeans, or the color of the latest canoe he was painting. Jeans to Tom were just a handy rag. In addition he wore what my wife used to refer to as “Tom Homeless Shoes” (smooth bottom L.L. Bean moccasins) year round – snow, rain, or whatever. They were his most “dress up” shoes, plus he most often wore an old plaid shirt. A true laid back guy who was comfortable with himself and with life. This was the corporate attire for the master craftsman who built the most gorgeous canoes, and they didn’t hide the most caring and thoughtful guy you would ever meet.
Tom was the master of his craft! Whether he was building a birch bark or a Loonworks solo canoe it was spectacular. I learned more from Tom on how to paint and varnish than I ever did in all my college studies as an industrial arts teacher. And was he patient. Hand sanding for hours in the tiny small spaces between each and every rib, and only in the direction from bow to stern so there would be no scratches prior to his varnishing. He hung so many lights and mirrors in his paint room it was brighter than day light allowing him to see the tiniest flaw or imperfection. He even went as far as using a watering can wetting the floor before donning his white medical coveralls and head net so as not to have any dust particles in the air when he painted.
When Tom built my Button canoe, “His Honor”, he made it exactly as I asked, as he did with each of us lucky enough to own one of his masterpieces. For me, the exact colors, three pin stripes the length of the canoe, filled walnut strips between the gunnels of Cherry and Ash, special “fancy seat” and he even took my weigh and then filled the floated canoe with barbell weighs so that the waterline stripes were exactly positioned at the waterline when I paddled and healed the canoe over to the gunnels exposing the cream color of the bottom! He even went with me to an antique boat show in Wisconsin so I could take pictures of the various color combinations of the yachts noting all the smallest details I hoped he could incorporate into this little canoe. When he was done, it was art! Mirror finish inside and out, wood grain pieces put in specific order and direction with each rib, and finished like glass. And boy it paddles so sweetly; he even had a custom sewn case made for it in the same blue color.
The non-canoeing side of Tom was very different. Here it was often function over artistry. He thought nothing of drilling holes right through the roof of his new car or tearing out the headliner completely so he could install roof racks. “Hey, it’s just a car” he would tell me as we both laughed. His shop was the same way. It made sense to Tom, but you would never have thought looking around at the simple boards nailed together to form benches that these masterpieces were created in his simple, yet functional shop. It all worked.
Tom would listen intently to any problem a friend or a new acquaintance might share with him. Maybe he would offer a suggestion, but more often than not, he would just be a great listener whose face said he got it and really cared. He knew everyone in the entire canoeing community and loved them all. He was “just Tom” a friend to all who he would greet with a warm hug and if you caught him early in the morning, you got the hug while he was still in his canoeing bathrobe, wandering the grounds smoking his pipe while studying some small detail of a canoe or explaining for the millionth time how to do a specific canoe stroke.
As a canoe instructor you had to be patient. While Tom knew the most minute detail how to make a canoe move or “dance” on the water, as a
student you had to slow down and listen to a few stories before you actually got to lift your paddle and practice. It was just that Tom worked at a different pace and one we all should emulate. Maybe that’s why when he paddled it was magic.
Like you, I have so, so many fond memories of Tom. I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to call him a dear friend.
I know if he were with us tonight, I am sure his wish would be for us to get out and paddle on this magnificent lake in the moonlight, listening to the loons and slowing down just a bit to be more human.
Thank you.