POSTING #75

Peter Appleyard and His Vibraphone

One of our first dates---after Pat and I met in the summer of 1959---was to hear Peter Appleyard perform in a lounge atop the Park Plaza Hotel on Bloor St. in Toronto. (Click here for his website and here for an excellent article about him.)

The bell-like notes of his vibraphone were mesmerizing---soft, loud, fast, slow, giving a new and exciting interpretation to familiar melodies.

(If you were wondering, the vibraphone has rather long flat metal keys while the xylophone has wooden bars that are usually shorter.)

Appleyard introduced the selections with a soft English accent and a puckish sense of humour.

We left the lounge shaking our heads at his skill and the beauty of the performance.

We got married in 1961, went overseas and lost touch with Appleyard but always treasured that magical performance.

A couple of months ago, we heard that Peter Appleyard was going to perform last June 6th at a jazz festival to raise funds for the Willowbank estate in nearby Queenston.

My first reaction was that we had to go to hear him.

Then I began to have doubts. He would be in his 80s (I found out later that he was born in 1928)

How would age have affected his playing?

Would it be like going to an old-timers' hockey game with former stars showing some flashes of the old brilliance but missing easy passes.

Would it be a case of paying tribute to something that was, but was no longer?

In the end we bought tickets and began to hope for good weather. The musicians would be performing in a marquis (or marquee, if you prefer) with some seats for the audience but the rest of the spectators would be outside.

The morning of June 6 was dreadful. The temperature was around 10C, with a steady, cold rain and a nasty wind from the North.

At noon, the weather hadn't improved much. The concert was to start at 12.30 pm with Peter Appleyard performing at 2.45. We decided that we would miss the opening performances but would try to go for 2.45---if the weather improved.

At 2 pm it was still miserable but we decided to go for a few minutes. We put on winter parkas, scarves and gloves.

When we got to Willowbank the rain had stopped and the wind had dropped a little. We found two seats in the marquis and listened to the end of the first group's music.

As that group removed their instruments, we saw Appleyard standing on the grass, near the stage, next to his vibraphone. White haired with bushy white eyebrows, he was chatting with musicians and fans. He seemed in good shape.

Just then someone hoisted one end of the vibraphone to move it onto the stage. To my surprise, Appleyard took the other end, and together they lifted it up the steps to the stage.

"He shouldn't be doing that, not at his age", I said to Pat.

Peter adjusted the height of the vibraphone tried a few notes with a pair of mallets. Satisfied, he nodded to the John Sherwood trio (John Sherwood on keyboard, Pat Collins on bass and Terry Clarke on drums).

The three of them started a tune, with a relaxed Peter standing behind the vibraphone.

Then he joined in, and it was wonderful.

I shut my eyes and his playing sounded as good, or better, than it had 50 years before. For two hours, with some short breaks, he enthralled us.

I kept asking myself how can he do it---the standing, the physical exertion of pounding the mallets, the concentration, the timing.

In the cold.

During one of the last songs, he became playful. He left the vibraphone, slid onto the piano seat and he and John Sherwood played a duet with his fingers seeming to come down a hundred times a second. Then he moved to the drums, took the sticks from Terry Clarke and hammered out a fiery beat.

Returning to the vibraphone, he grinned shyly and picked up the melody with his mallets.

At the end, there was a standing ovation---that went on and on.

Photo, courtesy of Peter Appleyard, showing him performing at another concert.   

Afterwards, when Peter was packing his car to return to his home in Rockwood, 50 miles west of Toronto, Pat and I told him about our date at the Park Plaza.

He smiled, shook our hands and said, "The Park Plaza was a great place to play."

In some research after the performance, I learned that Appleyard once told someone, that in his native Lincolnshire he had loved to play with local bands. "At 16, I was playing with various dance bands, I had a bicycle and a trailer behind it and would ride 10 to 15 miles just to play a gig."

He came to Canada in 1951 and since then has played with many of the twentieth century's greatest musicians including Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Duke Ellington & Oscar Peterson He has had his own television programs, been honoured with the Order of Canada and continues to perform around the world.

As he drove away from the Jazz Festival, he left us marvelling and rejoicing.

And feeling a little guilty.

Even people of mature years---like us---can engage in ageism.

If you hear that he is performing anywhere near you, please go and enjoy this remarkable and---apparently----ageless artist.

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See you on July 4th for Posting #76 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #74

Stories about Assorted Celebrities: Prime Minister St. Laurent; Duncan Hines; The Mystery Man in the Hotel Room.

I have been mulling over the word 'celebrity' lately. It used to mean, of course, a person who was well and favourably known.

Now the poor word is getting pushed, pulled and stretched.

It sometimes seems as though anyone who has had Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, is automatically a celebrity whether the fame is due to a crime, outlandish behaviour, or whatever.

And now 'celebrity' is being used to cover the state of being well known as in: "He has celebrity.", "He wants celebrity," "He uses celebrity well."

Oh well, English is an elastic language. What can one do?

Here are some stories about people I have come in contact with who were legitimate celebrities.

Prime Minister St. Laurent

The General Election in June of 1949 was Mr. St. Laurent's first campaign as Prime Minister after he had succeeded Mackenzie King. His campaign organizers seemed eager to expose him to as many people as possible so they arranged whistle-stop tours of many centres in Canada, including my home town, Arthur, Ontario.

There was a good-sized crowd at the Arthur Fairground waiting for the Prime Minister to arrive. He was obviously running behind time and we waited.

Then we saw a cavalcade of dark autos led by Dad in his black and white Ontario Provincial Police car. Dad had 'picked up' the Prime Ministerial entourage in a nearby town, escorted them to Arthur, and was going to take them on to the next town.

The Prime Minister, his wife, the local candidate and assorted officials mounted the platform. (I was impressed by Mrs. St. Laurent who was dressed attractively in navy and white and smiled pleasantly at the crowd.)

Mr. St. Laurent's speech was short, avuncular (it was during that campaign that he was nicknamed 'Uncle Louis") and demonstrated that this person with the French name spoke English as though it were his mother tongue (which in fact it was---someone once asked how he had become so perfectly bilingual and he replied that it just occurred, When he spoke to his mother he spoke English and to his father, French.)

The ceremony was soon over and the Prime Minister and his party moved to their cars. I saw Mrs. St. Laurent walk over to Dad and say something. I saw Dad nod, and wondered what she had said.

Then the cars moved off for the next location.

That night Dad told us what had happened. When he had 'picked up' the Prime Minister's party, in I think Fergus, the organizers told him that they were running late and could he please 'step on it'. Which he did, although Dad didn't like driving fast.

Apparently, Mrs. St. Laurent when she spoke to him asked him if they could drive a little slower on the next leg of the trip.

Dad was very happy to obey.

Although a lifelong Conservative supporter (he didn't of course show his political views in public because of his job), Dad was, I think, impressed by the Prime Minister and his wife.

But I am sure he voted for the Conservative leader, George Drew.

Mr. St. Laurent won the election easily, being returned to power with a huge majority.


Duncan Hines

During two of my high school summers in the early 1950s, I worked at the Royal Dairy in Guelph helping make ice cream (my brother Jim who was in charge of the ice cream section had helped me get the job).

During that period the Royal Dairy obtained a license to produce a premium ice cream named after Duncan Hines, and Hines himself came to Guelph to promote the product.

Younger readers may not know much about Duncan Hines, apart from the cake mixes that still bear his name (but no longer his picture---that was removed when he died). With your permission I will digress a bit to fill in some of the history.

Hines, who was born in 1880 in Kentucky, started travelling all over the US in 1900 as a salesman on behalf of a Chicago printing company. In an era before travel guides, he kept very precise notes on which restaurants and hotels treated him well or badly.

He decided to self-publish these notes in the form of travel guides. The guides were a great success.

In 1936, he published "Adventures in Good Eating". the first of what was to become a series of best selling cookbooks.

An entrepreneur, Roy Park, contacted him in 1947 and suggested that they form a company to take advantage of the Duncan Hines reputation by lending the name to foods and food-related products.

The company flourished and both men became millionaires---that was when being a millionaire really meant something.

That brings us to the visit by Duncan Hines to the Royal Dairy. Brother Jim always kept the ice cream room spotlessly clean but we gave everything a special rub on the days before the Hines visit.

Hines, who was in his early 70s, had the look of a man who liked food---not obese but 'comfortable'---and people. He shook hands with Jim and nodded in a friendly way to the rest of us. And after a short look at the ice cream machines was on his way.

The Duncan Hines ice cream and sherbet flavours were more expensive than normal products of the time but were rich, creamy and quite delicious. Jim remembers that the recipes that came from the Hines organization were excellent and easy to work with.

I remember that brief encounter with a celebrity but I also remember an article that appeared in the Guelph Mercury, the city's daily newspaper, following the visit. In an interview with one of the paper's reporters, Hines talked about food.

When asked what he liked to have for breakfast, he said corn flakes---nothing strange there.

With ice cream!

I don't know whether this was a way of plugging the Royal Dairy's new Duncan Hines ice cream or whether he was serious. Sometimes when I have nothing better to do I try to figure out how one would eat corn flakes and ice cream.

Do you let the ice cream melt until it is like a thick, sweet cream, or do you take a spoonful of ice cream covered with crispy corn flakes and munch it down?

I know.

I don't have enough to do.

I should get a life.

At another point in the interview he talked about European cuisine. He was not complimentary. He said that when in Europe he always asked that the meat be well done, because, as he added, you never know what animal it is from.

As I remember the 1950s, 'well done' was the secret to 'good home cooking', whether it was roast beef, steak, carrots or asparagus.

It may be that Hines was just reflecting the prevailing North American view, rather than any real concern about what animal the meat came from.

I remember hearing people say in the 1950s, when they saw a rare roast of beef, "It needs a Band-Aid".

Anyway, Duncan Hines died in 1959, a very wealthy man.

The Mystery Man in the Hotel Room

In the 1980s I was working for Employment and Insurance Canada and involved in an effort to introduce more sophisticated performance measurement in our organization.

One of my staff and I flew to Winnipeg to speak at a conference of officers from the Manitoba region about mission statements, objectives, goals and all that good stuff.

Arriving late in the evening after a full day of work in Ottawa, we were 'dismayed' (that's a polite way of putting it) to learn that the hotel was full and had no record of our reservations. We checked with the Government's travel service and they said that the hotel had confirmed the reservations.

"That doesn't matter", the clerk said, "we just don't have any rooms. I'll try to find you rooms in another hotel."

It has always been my experience that no hotel is ever fully booked---there are always a few rooms that the manager keeps available for unexpected celebrities or whomever.

Working on that assumption and to make a long story short, we created quite a fuss (e.g. "We will recommend that the Canadian Government never book here again", "We will sleep in the lobby if necessary" and so on.)

Finally, the clerk found two rooms, on the same floor.

My colleague opened his door and found a larger-than-normal room. He was delighted.

I carried on down the corridor to my room, stuck the key in the door, and as I did so thought I heard a TV playing.

Curious.

I pushed open the door and there was a dark-haired man sitting at the dressing table, naked to the waist, looking at me.

I apologized and quickly shut the door.

Back in the lobby, I slapped the key on the desk and told the clerk there was someone in the room.

"No, it is not possible", he started to say as he rifled through some papers, then he finished, "Oh my god, I gave you Jean Beliveau's room. (I later learned that Beliveau was in Winnipeg for a sports dinner. For non-sports fans, I would just say that Beliveau spent 18 full seasons with the Montreal Canadiens---that's a hockey team--- and had an amazing record of 507 goals and 712 assists in regular season games.)

Vanquished, the clerk gave me a luxurious VIP room.

The next morning I started my speech to the performance measurement conference by telling about bursting in on Jean Beliveau.

A wit from the back of the room shouted out, "Well that's appropriate. This whole thing's about goals, right?"

That got us off to a good start.

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See you on June 27th for Posting #75 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #73

From Pointe-au-Père to Quebec City by Passenger Liner

After joining the Immigration Foreign Service in June 1959, I spent 16 months in different parts of Canada with a small group of new recruits studying the Immigration Act, Regulations and (voluminous) Manuals, and learning how to select and counsel the foreign workers who wanted to come to Canada.

Part of the training, in the fall of 1959, took place in Quebec City, studying how immigrants coming to Canada by sea---most immigrants came by sea in those days---were handled.

Passengers on smaller ships disembarked and were examined at the Immigration office at the Quebec City harbour but the Canadian Government had an agreement with the large passenger liners so that the examination was carried out on board the ships as they sailed down the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Quebec City. This was more convenient for the passengers and allowed the ships to have a faster turn-around time.

One day, after several weeks of useful but dull classroom sessions, we were told that the next day we would accompany experienced Immigration officers on one of these ship-board examinations.

We recruits were delighted. You join the Foreign Service to see the world and then spend months studying Acts and Regulations---just like university. This trip promised a bit of excitement.

We took a ferry across the St. Lawrence River to Lévis, and then the train to Pointe-au-Père (we called it 'Father Point' in those pre-bilingual days), about 200 miles east, along the south shore of the St. Lawrence, near Rimouski.

If Pointe-au-Père (or Father Point) seems to ring a bell, it may because of its link with the infamous Dr. Crippen. The good doctor killed his wife in England and in 1910 fled to Canada with his girl friend, who was dressed as a boy, pretending to be his son.

The alert Captain of the ship became suspicious early in the voyage when he saw Crippen and the 'boy' behaving amorously toward each other. He sent a message on his Marconi radio to Scotland Yard (one of the first instances of the radio being used to catch a crook), the Yard then sent an officer to Canada on a faster ship. The officer arrived in Father Point ahead of Crippen's ship and waited.

When Crippen's ship came into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Scotland Yard detective went out in a tender, boarded the ship, and was taken to Dr. Crippen's cabin. At that point he is supposed to have uttered one of those understated greetings that the British are famous for, "Good afternoon, Dr. Crippen".

Crippen was found guilty and hung while his girl friend was found innocent, changed her name and emigrated somewhere.

Sorry for that digression. (Google will produce lots of Crippen hits if you would like to follow up on this fascinating story---some articles even claim that DNA tests show that Crippen was innocent.)

At Pointe-au-Père, we boarded a small tender and sailed out into the choppy Gulf of St. Lawrence to meet an incoming liner. The liner crew opened a door in the side of the ship, and dropped a ladder down to our boat. Carrying our briefcases in one hand and hanging onto the ladder with the other we clambered from the heaving tender onto the liner.

We were taken to one of the first class dining rooms so we could have dinner before starting the examination of passengers. The liner didn't want us doing our work on an empty stomach.

There was a menu with suggested meals but we were told that the kitchen would be pleased to prepare whatever we liked. The regular officers knew exactly what they wanted and proceeded to order caviar, smoked salmon, filet mignon and so on.

I remember feeling awestruck (gob-smacked!) by the crisp linen table cloths and napkins, the elaborate place settings of shining silver and crystal and the instruction to have 'whatever you want'.

I forget what I ordered (probably something like grilled salmon and a salad) but I remember very well the fresh-baked dinner rolls. I had never tasted anything so delicious. (I have simple tastes.)

After dinner, we set up examination stations (tables with all our stamps) in a large lounge and began interviewing the passengers.

It was the fall and there were many Canadians returning from holidays in Europe. Although immigrants generally tried to arrive in the spring when the job situation started to open up, there were a fair number of new-Canadians. Most of the immigrants were, understandably, apprehensive about their life in a new country and we tried to spend some extra time, after the normal review of documents, in giving them some information about what would happen to them next.

After finishing with one such couple, I called out 'Next' and did a double take. Coming toward me was one of my favourite Queen's professors, John Meisel, with Mrs. Meisel.

After we got over the mutual surprise at seeing each other in that setting, Professor Meisel got a disturbed look on his face.

I had seen that look once before.

We were meeting in his office in a large old brick house that served at that time as the home for the Politics Department. We were standing by a window that overlooked a garden discussing a paper I was working on. Professor Meisel suddenly interrupted himself and pointing at a black bird said, "Look, there's a boat-tail grackle."

I looked and said, "I thought it was a starling."

"Oh, Hunter, I'm so disappointed."

The disappointed look on the ship, was---it later turned out---because he thought that all his efforts to implant some understanding of political science into me were going to be wasted--- I was going to spend my career stamping passports.

I explained that this was training for work overseas. He seemed a little mollified, but not totally.

There were many passengers waiting to be seen, so I stamped the two Meisel passports (they had been on vacation in Europe). Later on we got together for a drink and I think I was able to reassure him that all his efforts weren't necessarily going to be for naught.

I am happy to be able to say that Professor Meisel, now in his late 80s, is still active in the political science department, as a professor emeritus.

All his former students wish the courtly, kindly professor many more years---what an excellent teacher!

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There is a story about the Pointe-au-Père to Quebec City immigration trips that Jack Manion likes to tell (Jack started off in Immigration and then went on to a most remarkable career in the public service).

It is important to note here that Immigration had the most fastidious expense account checkers of any department I ever encountered. Everyone I knew grumbled about those 'blank, blank bean counters'.

In those days, it was not possible to lump expenses like taxis, laundry, tips into a daily allowance. They all had to be listed separately. For example, we had to justify tips to sleeping car porters and bellboys (bell-persons?) by listing the number and type of bags we had with us.

I remember once claiming for the laundry of 5 shirts and having a claim returned with the note that the trip was only 4 days long. My explanation that we had got caught in a sudden downpour and had to change my shirt was---reluctantly---accepted.

According to Jack Manion's story, an Immigration Officer was climbing the ladder from the tender to a passenger liner when a gust of wind blew his hat into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

After the trip, the officer had to buy a new Immigration hat. (Officers received a free hat that was supposed to last for a certain number of years. If something happened to the hat, they had to pay for a new one.)

Feeling that the hat had been lost while he was on duty and through no fault of his own, he included the cost of the hat in his expense account.

The claim came back with a notation that the money for the hat had been deleted---the hat had been lost due to his carelessness and was not therefore a legitimate expense.

Instead of getting angry, the officer decided to bide his time.

On his next expense account, he added a note on the bottom, below his signature. "The hat is included above. Try to find it."

The accounts clerk checked the claim again and again but couldn't find anything out of order and eventually had to approve it.

But the clerk was left to wonder whether the officer was playing mind games with him or whether he had indeed found a way to include the hat.

Immigration officers relished the thought of that clerk lying awake at night stewing about 'the hat'.

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See you on June 19th for Posting #74 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@gmail.com.

POSTING #72

Back in the Saddle; Crisis in Europe; Lawless in Niagara

Back in the Saddle

It is good to be back!

I've been able to whittle my 'to-do' list down enough so that it no longer distracts me when I'm trying to draft a story. (What would life be like if we didn't have a 'to-do' list hanging over us?)

Thank you for your patience.

Now, back to stories.

Crisis in Europe

While I was 'off-line', two major events occurred: the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the European debt crisis.

The oil spill looks as though it could become the Western Hemisphere's Chernobyl.

As with Chernobyl, much damage will be done to the environment and to the lives of thousands of people.

I don't have any stories about the spill.

It is just too awful for stories.

The European debt crisis, on the other hand, has brought back several stories.

In the summer of 1958, while I was working on an Ontario Hydro dam project north of Kenora, Ontario, I met a young German who had recently immigrated to Canada.

He told me he had worked as a technician in a German factory that designed and manufactured x-ray equipment.

Everyone in the plant was expected to work long hours and the pressure to produce was enormous.

Feeling that he would likely have a nervous breakdown if he stayed in Germany, he had opted for an easier life in Canada.

I remember feeling a little insulted. I had always assumed that Canadians were as hard working and productive as any workers in the world.

It was clear, however, that we couldn't match the German workers.

Now, flash forward 44 years---to 2002.

I was on a flight from Toronto to Frankfurt to take on a consulting assignment.

Sitting next to me was a computer engineer who had come to Canada as a child with his family in the 1970s, as part of one of the Canadian Government's immigration programs for refugees from South-East Asia.

His mother and father had settled in Ontario, and worked hard in menial jobs so that he and his brother could go to university.

After graduating, he had decided to take a few months off for a tour of Europe. In Germany, he met a young woman from his native country whose family had been accepted by Germany as refugees.

The young people decided to get married, their plan being to stay for a few years in Germany---where his wife had a good job and where his job prospects were excellent---but then to move to Canada.

He found a job, and as time passed they had two children.

He told me that he and his wife and the two children had just finished a visit to Canada, a visit that was designed to help them decide when and where they would settle.

After seeing life in Canada, they had decided that they would be staying in Germany.

They found that jobs would not be a problem but they were put off by the pressure on workers in Canada.

He said that his brother and his wife left home at 7 AM and often didn't get back until 8 PM. They also had to work frequently on the weekends.

His brother and sister-in-law were tired most of the time and weren't able to enjoy their children.

In Germany, by contrast, he said that he and his wife had good salaries with generous leave and vacation provisions.

He said that when you analyzed it, he worked for 10 months and got paid for 13.

Canada had been good to him and he felt guilty about not returning but he couldn't see joining the rat race here.

Life was better in Europe.

We said goodbye in Frankfurt and I flew on to another city for a meeting with the consulting firm that I would be working for.

At the end of a meeting with a senior executive of the consulting firm, I was satisfied with the terms and conditions of the job but concerned about how to reach the firm in an emergency---the assignment was in Azerbaijan.

I asked if I could have the office and home telephone numbers of a head office person whom I could contact if there were any crises.

The executive explained that one contact wouldn't work. Because of all the vacation and leave time that employees were entitled to, it would be hard to be sure who would be on duty. He suggested that I get the names and phone numbers of at least three employees.

That reminded me of the young man on the plane and I told the executive about him, and about his claim that he worked for 10 months and got paid for 13.

He nodded, "We get a lot of money and a lot of leave".

Then he added with a smile, "I don't know how long this will last, but I'm going to enjoy it as long as it does".


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I am not sure what conclusions, if any, should be drawn from these stories.

It is interesting, however, to think about the changes that have taken place over the last few decades in how work is viewed in Europe and Canada.

Lawless in Niagara

On a lighter note, a recent article in the Hamilton Spectator reminded me of a message that was left on our Denwycke House at Grimsby B&B phone shortly after we moved from Ottawa to Grimsby.

A man's voice said, "I paid my money and I want my pot."

Pat and I listened to the message several times and agreed that someone had obviously misdialed, and was trying to reach an antique store about some kind of porcelain or earthenware container that he had purchased.

We tried to return the call but found that it had been made from a pay phone.

I told one of our boys about the puzzling call. He started to laugh, "It's about marijuana, Dad, not an antique!"

It is embarrassing to realize how naive we were 12 years ago about matters relating to drugs.

Our only defense, I suppose, is that we had lived a sheltered life for many years in 'law-abiding Ottawa'.

We soon learned that the Niagara Peninsula produced not only peaches and grapes but also substantial quantities of pot, raised hydroponically in grow-ops in the basement of rented houses.

The Spectator article was about a raid on a grow-op in the basement of a home outside Grimsby. The police reported that they had seized plants worth $300,000 and equipment worth $4,000.

What really caught my attention, was the name of the Niagara Regional Police unit that had carried out the raid.

'The Guns, Gangs and Grows Unit.'

In my work in the Federal Government, I sometimes had to come up with names for new programs and organizations.

I must say that I never came up with anything to match the name chosen by the Niagara Regional Police.

It is short, sharp, pithy, accurate---with the nice gloss that alliteration can give.

Well done!

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See you on June 13th for Posting #73 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@gmail.com.