Pubdate: Wed, 02 May 2012
Source: Guelph Mercury (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 Guelph Mercury Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://news.guelphmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1418
Author: Troy Bridgeman

REMEMBERING MY COMPLEX FRIEND: WALTER TUCKER

I first got to know Walter Tucker in 1984.

My family was in a court battle with Puslinch Township over a music 
festival we threw on our farm aptly named Farmfest. We carried on 
with the show in violation of an injunction filed by the township and 
were facing contempt of court charges.

My brother Tim, the quintessential free spirit in the family, had 
befriended Walter some time before but I was initially reticent about 
associating with the controversial pastor of the Church of the 
Universe. He offered to help us prepare our case if we would stage a 
campaign party on the farm for his run as the Libertarian candidate 
for Wellington County in the 1984 federal election.

We wanted to challenge the injunction as a violation of our rights to 
freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association but 
launching a Charter of Rights case was very expensive. Walter was 
going to help us in return for us doing the one thing we were good at 
in the 1980s, throwing a giant party.

Walter was a polarizing public figure. But in person he was witty, 
charming and disarming. He was one of the most intelligent people I 
have ever met. I can understand why many people, especially parents, 
were concerned about the youth attending a rally for a pot-smoking, 
nudist preacher. But short of a couple philosophical differences, 
Walter was a man of his generation and had more in common with the 
parents than many of the rebellious youth who mythologized him.

He preached a philosophy of individual freedom and legal self-defence 
and had a grasp of constitutional law and a way of explaining it that 
was empowering.

What got him in trouble was his advocating for marijuana 
legalization, a platform of the Libertarian Party but also a campaign 
he had taken up as a religious right many years earlier. I find it 
curious that many of the arguments he made back then, against drug 
laws and the failed war on drugs, are being repeated now by some 
former drug enforcement officers and prosecutors.

Despite the wind and rain, the campaign rally was a success with more 
than 800 people showing up to watch 12 local acts perform, but Walter 
ultimately went on to lose the election.

The campaign was over but our court case was just beginning.

I admit, it was unusual to be discussing obscure points of 
constitutional law with a long-bearded, naked man in a cloud of 
marijuana smoke. Clearwater Abbey, a nudist colony located on a 
decommissioned lime quarry in Puslinch, was his legal office and home 
where he and his wife, known by all as, Sister Joanne welcomed us 
with open arms. Preparing our charter arguments was a lot of work but 
we gained a level of knowledge and respect for our legal system that 
was priceless.

We took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Ontario and lost 
but I had never been more civically engaged in my life before that 
election and court case. It was a crash course, by immersion, on our 
legal and democratic rights.

After my brother Tim's death I lost contact with Walter for a while 
until he moved into the abandoned IMICO Foundry on Beverly Street 
that the church bought for $1.

I was in college studying journalism and Walter agreed to give me an 
exclusive interview about him and the controversial issue for my 
first magazine feature.

I visited him at the foundry where he shared a genuine and 
unabashedly honest account of his life.

The press tended to focus on his eccentricities and there were many, 
but that presented a one-dimensional image of a complex 
multi-dimensional person.

Nevertheless, I sometimes neglected to admit I was a friend of Walter 
out of fear of being stigmatized by association. I am embarrassed to 
admit that now.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom