POSTING # 22

Update on Project Niagara (aka Tanglewood North); University Reunions; Smith College Reunion; Queen’s University Reunion; Reunions and Aging; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Update on Project Niagara (aka Tanglewood North)

In Posting #7, February 2009, I outlined the plan that would use some lakefront land (now owned by the Federal Government but which could be transferred to the town) to create an outdoor, international music festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I explained that the proposal had both supporters and detractors in the community, the latter concerned mainly about the impact the increased traffic would have on the quality of life in the town.

A community meeting was held this week to consider a consultant’s report on the traffic issue. Many of the participants argued that the study, which was funded by proponents of Project Niagara, was skewed in favour of the Project.

An opponent of the Project has made a proposal to the town council that the land in question should be converted into an eco-park, with a beach and forests.

Democracy is wonderful---but messy.

I’ll let you know what happens.

University Reunions

Pat and I both graduated 50 years ago, in 1959, Pat from Smith College in Northampton MA, while I graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

We started receiving information in 2008 about 50 year reunions that both colleges were planning. Initially, we were uncertain about whether to attend the reunions but later decided to go.

The Smith 50th Reunion was held May 15-17, while the Queen’s one was held the following weekend, May 22-24. In between the reunions we squeezed in a mini-holiday at a favourite resort, in Manchester, Vermont.

We had a wonderful time at each reunion. They were carefully planned and the hospitality was extraordinary.

There was a mellowness among the classmates that was refreshing. At earlier reunions, there seemed to be a certain competitiveness about careers, children and achievements, but at these 50 year reunions, we were just people, happy to see each other again, with nothing to prove.

Each reunion produced some great stories that I would love to share with you but I’m afraid that reunions are like Vegas, what happens there, stays there.

Instead of stories, I’ll restrict myself to some random observations and comments that I hope you will enjoy.

Let’s start with Smith College.

Smith College Reunion

In Posting #13, March 29, 2009, I told about a stroll in the park that Pat invited me to take with her. She walked better than she had in decades thanks to two total-knee-replacement operations.

It was after that success that Pat began to think seriously about attending the Smith reunion. Before that, she was worried about the Ivy Day Parade. Here is Wikipedia’s accurate but dry-as-dust account of Ivy Day:

“Ivy Day, the day before Commencement, is the high point of reunion and a significant event for seniors as well. Junior ushers lead a parade through campus, carrying vines of ivy to be planted by the departing seniors as a symbol of their lifelong connection to the college. Alumnae (and, often, their children), dressed in white and wearing sashes in their class color, line up in reverse order by class along both sides of the route. Seniors line up nearest the end of the parade route, wearing traditional white outfits and each carrying a single red rose. All cheer each alumnae class as it marches past, then fall in to join the end of the parade. Many alumnae classes carry signs with humorous poems or slogans, or hold balloons or wear hats in their class color. Ivy Day festivities conclude in the Quad, where the seniors plant their ivy and speakers address alumnae on the progress of fundraising and the state of the college.”

The Wikipedia account doesn’t begin to capture the emotional significance of this ceremony, of the feeling of sisterhood as the old Smithies and the about-to-be graduated students walk together, showing love and respect for the values and traditions of their remarkable college.

Pat wanted to join the walk but would her new knees carry her?

Now, Smithies who can’t walk can be pushed in a wheelchair by bright, enthusiastic undergraduates.

But Pat was not going to be pushed. She would walk or not go.

Finally, Pat decided to go.

The weather was excellent for the walk---the temperature was pleasant and the humidity was low.

Pat teamed up with a fellow ‘59er and they set off.

They finally reached the quadrangle but couldn’t take their seats immediately because of a backup.

Standing still for long periods is hard on new knees, but the knees came through. Pat took her seat for the speeches looking radiant and triumphant.

Later on, in Vermont, she climbed some hills and at Queen’s she wandered all over the campus.

We are still shaking our heads at what a difference the new knees have made.

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The current economic and financial problems were referred to often at Smith. The College’s endowment fund has suffered greatly and the President, Carol Christ (pronounced Crist), reportedly had to trim the school’s budget by some $30 million dollars through savings and cuts.

Interestingly, she reported to the reunion folks that in finding ways to make up the shortfall, she had studied how Smith had survived the Great Depression.


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Despite these financial problems, Smith is continuing its efforts to seek out and give talented but underprivileged young women from the US and abroad a chance at a first class education.

At the reunion ceremony, a young woman from Afghanistan, Shaharzad Akbar, told about her gratitude to Smith. She had been plucked out of a tribal community and through the generosity of Smith and private donors was about to graduate.

Her account had the large audience in tears.

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The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s famous phrase “creative destructiveness of capitalism” is being played out on the main streets of Northampton.

I saw three large bank buildings---solid stone structures designed to convince the investor that they were a safe place for deposits---that had been converted to other uses.

One was occupied by a web design company.

Another was being used by a home and office design firm.

The third had been taken over by an outfitter for climbing and other outdoor sports.

I wonder if the new businesses will flourish, or will we see them replaced by still other businesses as the process of creative destructiveness carries on?

Incidentally, I saw a Canadian banking interloper in a strip of modest stores, a branch of TD Banknorth. The branch had the same corporate look as our TD offices, and seemed busy.

Several people at Smith, when they found we were Canadian, congratulated us on our banking system and on our relatively good record for public deficits and debt.

Our replies tended to be of ‘the fingers-crossed’ and ‘so-far-so good’ variety.

Queen’s University

When I left Queen’s in 1959, there were about 3000 full-time undergraduate students. I remember the Vice-Principal, Dr. J.A. Corry, saying that the university was an ideal size. It had the principal faculties that a comprehensive university should possess: Arts and Science, Engineering, Medicine and Law. And yet it was small enough to foster close relationships between students and faculty. He said that the university would fight to stay at that size.

It wasn’t long before Queen’s began to surge in size, prodded by the provincial government that was worried about how to educate the baby boomers who were beginning to leave high schools across the province.

By 2008, the number of full-time undergraduates had climbed to about 14,000.

Smith College had about 2300 full-time undergraduates in 1959 but by contrast with Queen’s it has had only a small increase in enrolment---there were some 2800 undergraduates in 2008.

Although there is much construction underway to replace and improve the infrastructure, Smith exudes tradition, stability and even serenity.

While Queen’s has kept alive many of its traditions--- especially those connected with its Scottish heritage (we loved being piped into gatherings!)---it exudes change, growth and hustle.

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Like Smith, Queen’s faces formidable financial problems, some caused by the recent stock market and banking crises, and others, it seems, by some weaknesses in governance over the last few years. We heard that several millions of operating funds have to be diverted each year to pay pensions of retired university faculty and staff who are living 7 years longer on average than the actuarial tables predicted.

Dr. Daniel Woolf, who becomes Principal in September 2009, will have to deal with some considerable financial and governance issues. Happily, he will have the support of a particularly strong Chancellor, David Dodge, the ex-Governor of the Bank of Canada. Both men are Queen’s grads.

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One of the challenges the new Principal will face is to find a use for the old Prison for Women, which the Federal Government sold to Queen’s for one dollar. The Government removed the walls but the agreement of sale requires that the heritage character of the building be preserved----we were told for example that the bars and cells cannot be removed.

People have suggested using the building for the storage of the university’s archives and for office space but no final decisions have been made.

There are no reports of university faculty or staff jumping up and down asking to be moved to the old prison.

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One of the guests at our final banquet at Queen’s was Dr. Alfred Bader who graduated from Queen’s in the years immediately after World War II.

Dr. Bader escaped from Austria before World War II, fled to England and then to Canada.

After the war, he had tried to attend McGill but had been rejected.

Queen’s decided to take a chance on him.

And now Dr. Bader is taking a chance on Queen’s.

And how!

Dr. Bader made a fortune in the US chemical industry and he and his wife, Isabel, have been extraordinarily generous to Queen’s. The gifts include a 15th century castle in England, a number of Old Masters paintings, including two by Rembrandt (Queen’s now has two of the six Rembrandts in Canada). The couple has also contributed large amounts of money to various campus projects. The latest contribution is $14 million dollars toward a proposed waterfront performing arts centre.


Reunions and Aging

Although the turnout at both reunions was high, we wondered why some classmates had decided not to attend.

There was a saying in England in the 1960s that more girls said ‘no’ because of raggedy knickers than for any other single reason.

I suspect that more people say ‘no’ to reunions because of aging than for any other single reason.

First, there is the concern about how others will react to the older us.

Our experience was that after the first ‘oh-my-god-is-that-really-her/him’ reaction things settled down quickly. Yes, the person had aged but there was still the same chuckle, cant of the head, sense of humour and so on.

But, there is also, perhaps, a subconscious fear that seeing our aging classmates will strip away the defences we may have built up to deny our own mortality.


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I liked Bill Smiley’s take on aging. Years ago, Bill was a columnist in a number of Ontario weekly newspapers, including my hometown Arthur Enterprise News.

As Bill entered his seniorhood, he said, “I feel 18 and think I look 19”. And then he said he would look in the mirror and try to figure out who that person was.

I can identify with that!

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Pat’s class put out a book before the reunion showing both the graduation photo and a recent one---before and after---that helped reduce the shock of the first meeting.

A good idea.

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As we were getting on a Smith shuttle, one of the ‘59ers was complaining about how everyone had changed. Pat piped up, “But it’s half a century”.

A bright-eyed woman at the back of the shuttle shouted, “Oh, shut up!”

(Somehow, ‘half a century’ sounds worse than ‘fifty years’.)

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As I was wandering around Queen’s, and thinking about aging, I remembered a meeting I had with Professor Arthur Lower back in 1959. Our class had decided to honour him as professor of the year in our yearbook.

I was asked to write an article about him. He talked and I scribbled down his pithy observations on the world, Canada, Queen’s, Kingston etc. As I was leaving he asked about the photo we would use in our yearbook.

“I am not particularly vain but”, and he pointed to a photo that Maclean’s had used for an article about him, “I don’t want to look like I’ve been dead for two weeks.”

The Maclean’s photo was indeed awful---mouth open, glasses and hair askew.

We were able to get Wallace Berry, who took all the Queen’s graduate portraits, to provide a much more suitable photo for our yearbook article.

Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

This is a variation on the ‘cat stuck in the tree’ story.

While we were in Manchester VT, the power went off in the whole community. I was browsing in the Polo Ralph Loren outlet when the lights went out. We were quickly herded out of the store.

I thought I would use the time to get some money from an ATM but, of course, they weren’t working.

After the power came back on, everyone was asking what had happened. We were told that power outages happened from time to time in the winter because of ice and snow, but not in the middle of May.

Finally, we heard what had happened.

Two men were in a tree pruning branches alongside the main power line coming into Manchester. A big branch fell into the tree instead of onto the ground, making it impossible for the men to get down without touching a live wire. Their colleagues on the ground couldn’t help them.

The only answer was to turn off the power while the men extricated themselves.

Can you imagine the embarrassment of those tough Vermonters when they tried to explain in the local bar that night how they managed to get stuck in a tree!

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NOTE: Some people have wondered whether I have trouble sleeping, given the time the postings are uploaded.

No, I sleep well.

The posting times are Google-time, that is Pacific Time. So, if I upload at 6 AM Eastern time, it is shown as 3 AM. I don’t know why this is---it just is.

Thanks for asking!

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See you next Sunday for Posting #23 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.