I first learned just after noon last Saturday with my 20-year-old step-son coming downstairs and saying, “Terrill is dead.” Then a text from my almost 30-year-old daughter: “OMG. Terrill died!”
It was the kind of response I’d normally expect to hear about the famous. Terrill Patterson was Squamish-famous. Like Bono, Marilyn or Ronaldo, he could be identified by a single name. Say “Terrill” and among a certain segment of the Squamish population, there was no question about whom you were talking.
At Halloween, people dressed as Terrill; he was a regular feature in the sketch comedy of Skitz to the Hitz; and Christmas pantomimes were not complete without a reference to Terrill.
Patterson was Squamish’s Boo Radley, the enigmatic character in To Kill a Mockingbird who was subject to community gossip and speculation.
I’ve heard that Terrill was, in reality, an extraordinarily rich miser. People have told me that he memorized Squamish’s policies and by-laws and, like some municipal preacher, could cite them at will; and there is a story from the 1980s, when he served on municipal council, he answered the door to a television reporter with a bag over his head.
Are these stories only apocryphal? I don’t know. I interacted with Terrill for 25 years and have spoken to him dozens of times, but I never really knew him.
He could be full of bluster. He could be incredibly rude. He could grate. But he also had a side to him that was very shy and self-effacing.
One time, when he was running for school board, I attended an all-candidates meeting and invited any candidate who wanted to visit a classroom to come by. A few days later, there was a knock on my classroom door and in walked Terrill. He sat through the grammar lesson and then I asked him if he wanted to say anything to the students. Instead of talking about himself or the election, he said to the students in almost a whisper that grammar was important and they should stay in school. Then he left.
When talking about Boo Radley, Atticus Finch told Scout that you had to “climb into someone’s skin and walk around in it” if you really want to understand them. I’m not sure I’m tough enough to live as Terrill did, I do wish, though, that I had taken a little time to get to know the man beneath the gruff exterior.
Paul Demers is a long-time local and high school teacher.
