1960s Do-It-Yourself--- English Style
We recently met a couple who are in the process of creating a rural 'off-the-grid' home near Collingwood. Using technologies such as passive and active solar power and high efficiency wood stoves, they are trying to become energy self-sufficient. If successful they won't have to worry about power outages caused by ice storms, overloaded circuits, terrorist attacks, or whatever.
Their story reminded me of some much less ambitious efforts I made in the 1960s to replace purchased items with home-produced things.
We were living in Britain for the first half of the 1960s and there was a minor resurgence of the early 1900s Arts and Crafts movement, as some people turned their backs on commercial products in favour of home-produced goods.
I made yoghurt, pickles, wine and beer and convinced myself that they tasted better and had more goodness than the standardized, 'homogenized' items one found in the stores.
And there was a feeling of satisfaction when one replaced something from a factory with something from the home.
So when a Canadian friend living in London came to me and said he had a new idea for a do-it-yourself product, I listened to him.
He said we should try making our own cigars.
Cigars!
Both of us enjoyed a good cigar after a pleasant dinner, especially when combined with a fine glass of port or cognac.
But good cigars were hard to find. The Castro take-over in Cuba in 1959 seemed to have disrupted the flow of excellent Cuban cigars to Britain. As a member of the Canadian High Commission, I was entitled to some diplomatic supplies but the only cigars available were a machine-made brand produced in Canada (I won't mention the brand---it is still in existence---to avoid lawyer's letters) that burned hot and harsh.
The only good thing about them was that they were cheap, really cheap.
As a digression, can I mention that the diplomatic supplies also included a gin made in Canada, which sold for under a dollar for a 26 ounce bottle, The gin was not strong on flavour but was strong in alcohol. During the cold winters in Yorkshire, we used the gin as windshield cleaning fluid in our Ford Anglia---it was cheaper, and better, than the commercial brands available at the service stations. Besides it was pleasant to smell the juniper scent when we spritzed the windshield.
But back to home-made cigars.
I had never heard of making cigars and was really skeptical. For starters, how could one grow the tobacco, given the English climate?
My friend, let's call him Freddy, patiently explained that there was a small, loosely-knit group of people in the English midlands who made their own cigars and were quite happy to share their expertise.
There was also a Church of England clergyman who produced tobacco seedlings as a hobby and shipped them around the country.
And there was someone else who was importing the special gum that one needed when rolling the cigars.
Freddy said that both our rented homes had back gardens with rose beds. We could stick some tobacco plants amongst the roses, and they would do well.
I should have said 'no'.
I am not sure why I didn't, but England in the 1960s was a place where eccentrics flourished. (and eccentricity as everyone knows is contagious---I hope that Thatcherism hasn't killed off all of it.)
So, I chipped in some money for the seedlings. When they arrived, I planted them in our round rose garden, with a statue of some ancient goddess in the centre looking down at me.
I thought she had a disapproving look about her.
Contrary to my expectations that the plants would wither and die in the cool damp spring, they took hold and started to throw out new leaves.
Freddy, who had studied some chemistry and biology at university, had been doing research on how to fertilize the plants.
He claimed that the absolutely best fertilizer for tobacco plants was the urine of pregnant women---something to do with ph balance and hormones and some other stuff I forget.
As it happened, both our wives were pregnant at the time.
I doubted very much that our wives would agree to pee in a plastic bucket just so Freddy and I could ladle the stuff onto the tobacco plants.
But they agreed!!
Pat and I used to joke through the various pregnancies that there was something called 'preggy brain' which allowed mothers-to-be to ignore the small stuff---like your husband asking you to pee in a bucket.
From time to time--- always at night---I would take the bucket out and 'water' the tobacco plants.
The effect was almost magical. Soon the plants were covered with huge, oval leaves.
When Freddy's research suggested they were ready for harvesting, I picked the leaves and strung them on strands of piano wire.
Then I hung the wires from hooks in the garage, above our car, with the leaves hanging down.
Now, I have to insert a technical point. Tobacco leaves are normally 'cured' (a process a little like fermentation) in kilns in which the temperature and humidity are carefully controlled, before the leaves are turned into cigarettes, pipe tobacco or cigars.
The amateur cigar makers in Britain couldn't figure out how to replicate a kiln in the average home so they changed the sequence of things. They let the leaves dry, as we did in our garages, and once they were dry, they rolled them into cigars. They then cured the cigars by storing them in metal boxes and placing them over an Aga stove or furnace for several weeks, if they were lucky enough to have one of those.
I was in the midst of a busy spell at the office when the leaves were dry enough to roll, and we agreed that Freddy would go ahead with some of his leaves and make the first cigars.
Now, here is a second technical point (sorry for all these technical details). According to Freddy, the best Cuban cigars were rolled in hot, humid factories, on the sweaty thighs of young women. This rolling on moist thighs meant that the leaves didn't crack and it gave a certain salty tang to the outer leaves (the 'wrapping') of the cigars.
Looking back, I am not sure that Freddy's claim was based on solid research or whether it was just the product of some erotic fantasy.
In any event, Freddy's wife was adamant. She would pee in a bucket, but she would not roll cigars on her thighs.
I didn't even ask Pat.
So, Freddy rolled some cigars on his own thighs, and put them in a metal box.
Neither of us had a place that was warm enough to cure the cigars, so Freddy talked himself into the heating plant of a major building in downtown London (that's all the description I will give) and placed the box on top of a boiler.
After a few weeks, he retrieved the box and gave me one of the cigars to try.
Freddy was a good friend and I didn't want to hurt his feelings but the cigars looked awful. They were thin in parts, fat in other parts---perhaps his thighs were too muscular (he was a sometime weightlifter).
They looked a little like the cheroots the villains smoked in old-time westerns.
He offered me a chance to light one of them but I declined.
He lit one, took a puff and coughed. He said that it was burning a little hot---not enough filler or something.
I decided that do-it-yourself cigar making was not for me.
That left all the strings of tobacco leaves in the garage.
What to do with them?
Pat and I were getting ready to return to Canada for home leave and then a posting to another country.
Before I had decided what to do with the leaves, the real estate firm through which we were renting the house, announced that an inspector would be coming to check to make sure that we hadn't damaged the premises or the furnishings.
The house was owned by a wealthy couple, who lived in Morocco, and it had some lovely and valuable furnishings, including a painting by Constable.
The inspector was a wiry, short, elderly and taciturn fellow who went though the house checking off an inventory that was prepared before we moved in. He finished with the house and then moved to the garage.
I saw him see the tobacco leaves but he didn't say anything. He focused on the condition of the floor and the garage doors.
Suddenly, he pointed up and blurted out, "What's that?"
I explained that it was tobacco and we would of course remove it before we left.
After telling the tobacco story at the Immigration office, one of the Canadian Officers, a pipe smoker, said he would take the tobacco and try to turn it into pipe tobacco. He and a friend came and collected the tobacco.
We left for Canada in June 1966 and I lost touch with the Officer and never heard whether he was able to produce pipe tobacco.
That was the end of my cigar-making experiment.
But there is a little more to the story.
In November 1979, Iranian students and militants seized the US embassy and took hostage 66 American officials who were kept prisoner until 1981.
Six other Americans were able to escape capture and were sheltered at great risk to themselves and their wives by the Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and a pipe-smoking Canadian Immigration officer, John Sheardown.
Yes, that's the same fellow who took my tobacco.
We all know the outline of what has become known as the Canadian Caper, of how the Canadian Parliament had to hold an almost unprecedented secret session to authorize the issuance of Canadian passports to the six Americans, and of how they were spirited out of Iran with the help of CIA-produced counterfeit visas.
But if you wish to refresh your memory about the ingenuity and outstanding bravery of the Taylor and Sheardown couples, please click here.
After returning to Canada, I decided that cigar smoking was not good for my health and I stopped.
But when I see or smell a fine cigar, say a premium Romeo y Julieta, I get a strong whiff of nostalgia.
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See you on July 25th for Posting #79 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.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
POSTING #77
The Big Bang at Britt
As we drove to Philadelphia last month (you can scroll down to Posting 76), I was impressed with the amount of highway construction taking place---construction that is funded, I suppose, by the US Government's stimulus package.
It was not just resurfacing---although there was a great deal of that---but the building of new and wider roads.
And it was obviously expensive construction, especially in Pennsylvania with huge rock cuts blasted out of the Appalachian mountains.
The rock cuts reminded me of the summer of 1952 when, having just finished Grade 10, I worked for the Drury Construction Company, a firm based in my hometown of Arthur. The company had a contract to build a few miles of the new Trans-Canada Highway, north of Parry Sound, near Britt.
Parliament had passed legislation in 1948 to create a federal-provincial highway system to link the 9 provinces (10 when Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada the next year).
The Drury contract involved improving parts of the existing Highway 69 by blasting rock cuts through the hills, using the freed-up rock to fill in valleys, thus leaving a wider road surface (although still just two lanes) with gentler hills and more generous shoulders.
And blasting the hard Canadian Shield rock was expensive. We were told that the cost was going to be a million dollars a mile---an unbelievable amount to my 16 year-old ears.
My job when I arrived at the construction site in late June was to feed sticks of dynamite into diamond-drilled holes.
I should warn you that there is going to be a fair bit of description about drilling and blasting techniques before we get to the story.
I think it is interesting stuff---but that's me.
Please feel free to skim the next page or so.
I'll tell you when the story starts.
On my first day on the job, I had a 10 minute lecture about dynamite from Davey (not his real name), who was in charge of the blasting operation---his informal title, in accordance with construction tradition, was, 'The Powder Monkey'.
Davey, who was short with a slightly hunched back, was a fussy person---but 'fussy' I always think is good when you're dealing with dynamite.
On the job, he wore a pith helmet that looked as though it had come from a Malaysian rubber plantation. (No one, at that time, worn hard hats---just something to keep the sun off.)
Davey started his talk by showing me the wooden case that dynamite was shipped in. It was made without any nails--- just dovetailed joints and glue---to prevent sparks. (I have since seen those boxes in antique stores, selling for upwards of a hundred dollars---we used to burn them to make our lunch-time tea.)
But, he explained, I shouldn't be afraid of dynamite, it was not really that dangerous. You could saw a stick or burn it and it wouldn't explode. It needed an explosion to set it off.
Old dynamite that was 'sweating' was another thing. It was unstable and unpredictable but we didn't have to worry---all our dynamite came fresh from the CIL plant, up the road in Nobel.
He took a stick of dynamite (an oiled cardboard tube about 8 inches long and an inch in diameter, filled with something that looked like compressed, damp sawdust), punctured the bottom with a sharp wooden stake and inserted a small blasting cap with two long, slender wires attached to it. He removed a wooden plug from one of the drilled holes and, holding onto the wires, he gently lowered the stick down the hole. When the stick hit bottom, he anchored the wires at the top.
My job, he said, was to drop sticks of dynamite into the hole, making sure not to let the wires fall in, until the last stick was a foot or so below the surface. An electric charge would detonate the cap in the bottom stick, which in turn would detonate all the sticks above it. Then I was to fill the top of the hole with sand and replace the wooden plug, to keep the rain out.
Standing up, he described the area that was going to be blown up in the next big blast---about 100 yards long, 30 yards wide and 10 yards deep.
He said that he and the drilling foreman, an East European we'll call Joe, had walked over the area and agreed on the placement and depth of the holes. Joe and his men were in the process of finishing the drilling There were wooden plugs, a yard or so apart in every direction, showing the holes that had been drilled. Meanwhile the drillers were at the far end of the area, completing their work.
Davey said that if he and Joe had got it right, the blast would fracture the rock into chunks small enough to be handled by a power shovel and dump trucks and the whole thing would go straight up and then come straight down into the newly-created trench with a nice crest along the middle of the trench.
If they got it wrong, well, rock would fly all over and there would be huge boulders too big for the power shovel to handle, rocks that would have to be re-drilled and blasted, causing delay and extra cost.
I spent the next several weeks feeding dynamite into the holes. I was wearing heavy, rubberized gloves that were designed to prevent the nitroglycerin in the sticks from being absorbed through the skin and causing what was known as 'powder headaches'. (Nitroglycerin's ability to lower blood pressure causes headaches but can also---as in angina, with nitro capsules under the tongue---ease pain.)
The gloves didn't work.
I suppose that's an exaggeration. Perhaps the end-of-day headaches back at the bunk house would have been worse without the gloves.
At the time, I couldn't have imagined anything worse than the pounding that was going on in my head.
Looking back, and to be fair to the gloves, I am sure I wiped sweat off my face with the gloved hands thus transferring nitroglycerin onto my skin.
An old-timer in the bunk house, a fellow in his late 60s told me that even though I had a headache I was lucky to be working with dynamite, rather than black powder.
When he was a teenager, he had worked on the building of a rail line in Northern Ontario. According to him, the technique was to make a hole in the rock with a huge drill bit and a sledge hammer. Men would hold the drill bit and turn it after each hammer blow. When the hole was several feet deep they would fill it with black powder, light a fuse and run.
The rock would fly off in every direction. Then the men would go back to what was now a deeper hole, and repeat the drilling and blasting until the desired rock had been removed.
He said that much of the drilling and blasting was done by workers imported by the railway company from China. The work was hard and dangerous and a number of the Chinese workers were left alongside the rail line in shallow graves.
This is another aspect of the shameful treatment accorded to early Chinese immigrants ---a part of our history that recent governments have, quite rightly, been recognizing and trying to put right.
As I continued filling the holes I wondered about the signs on the highway near our project warning drivers to turn off radio transmitters. I wasn't then---and am not sure now---how great the risk is of a radio transmission setting off a blast.
I remember thinking that it wouldn't be nice to be blown up because a taxi driver decided he should tell his wife he would be late for dinner.
A much greater risk was lightning.
We left the project whenever a thunderstorm threatened.
Smoking was also seen as a risk and it was banned from the blast site. Every hour or so, Davey and Joe would put a pinch of Copenhagen snuff between their cheek and gum, and after they had absorbed all the nicotine, spit it out.
Not a pleasant habit, and cancer-causing according to medical authorities. Google tells me that young people refer to taking snuff in this way as 'dipping'.
See how reading this blog keeps you current!
When the holes had been filled (and my head had stopped pounding), Davey went around connecting the blasting cap wires together into circuits and then checking with a voltage meter to make sure everything was 'live'.
For those of you who have been skimming, this is where the story starts.
The big day arrived. All the circuits had been tested and re-tested and the master wires connected to a portable generator (the blast was too large for one of those plunger things one sees in cartoons).
Flag persons had been positioned on Highway 69 to block traffic. A horn would sound for a minute, Davey would throw the switch on the generator, and the blast would blow.
A tense Davey was prowling around checking and re-checking. He noticed that there was a couple, with a car and a tent, in a camp site, alongside a small river, about three hundred yards from the blast area. He asked me to go over and tell them to go down the road about half a mile until after the blast.
I went over and said there would soon be a warning horn and then a huge blast. No one could predict where the rock would go and I told them that for their own safety they had to leave. Then I waited as they got in the car---leaving the tent---and drove down the road.
I came back and crouched with some others behind the huge and heavy steel bucket of our power shovel, a few hundred yards from the blast.
Traffic had been stopped, and Davey started his countdown.
Suddenly he stopped the countdown and shouted, "Hunter, where are you?"
I stood up.
He said, "I thought I told you to clear that couple out of the camp site."
"I did."
"Look over there."
There was the couple, sitting around their campfire.
I ran over and asked them what they thought they were doing.
The fellow said that they had decided that since the car was safe, they could return to the campsite. He assured me that they would go inside the tent when the warning horn sounded.
I was flabbergasted.
I can't recall exactly what I said but I remember there was a bit about a hundred pound rock coming through the canvas.
They reluctantly took off down the road. I waited until they were a good distance away before returning to my place behind the power shovel bucket.
The countdown started again, then the horn and finally the BLAST.
We scrambled up a hill and looked down at a perfect trench, with a mound of rock littered with pieces of wire and dynamite casings. The rock had gone straight up and come straight down---just as Davey and Joe had planned.
I looked over at the tent and it was fine---no holes from flying rock.
I spent the rest of the summer driving an open-cab dump truck (called a Koehring
Mule) moving the broken rock to build a kind of causeway over a valley.
One of the items in my ever-growing list of things 'to do' before the grim reaper makes his call is to drive up to Britt and try to find that campsite.
I would like to just sit there, think about the big blast and about the couple who thought that a tent would protect them.
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See you on July 18th for Posting #78 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.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
POSTING #76
The Philadelphia
In June, Pat and I took a 5-day " National Treasures" tour in Philadelphia
We enjoyed the tour mightily.
We had tours to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Constitution Center and a slew of churches and monuments, as well as to historic homes and Philadelphia
My favourite founding father has always been Benjamin Franklin, who contrary to popular culture didn't spend all his time flying kites in thunderstorms.
He was a one-man Silicon Valley of innovation, inventing a huge number and range of items including bifocals, the Franklin stove, lightning rods, an odometer for his carriage, and a flexible catheter to remove his brother's kidney stones. In his spare time he was a brilliant diplomat for the US in France
The tour confirmed my view that the stories told by tour guides are often as good as---or better than--- the sites being pointed out.
Experienced guides re-work their stories using feedback from tourists, cutting out extraneous detail and making sure that the punch line has oomph.
Now it is important, of course, to realize that truth is an 'optional extra' in stories told by tour guides.
Skilled guides subscribe to my Uncle Syd's dictum that it is important for a raconteur (Uncle Syd was one of the best) to " tell a good story and let the truth fall where it may".
In that spirit, I would like to share some of the stories we have been told by tour guides.
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The first story was told by a guide in Florence ---not Philadelphia
As we stood admiring Michelangelo's David, the guide told a story about David's nose.
Apparently, the city council of Florence
When Michelangelo was satisfied with the sculpture he asked the committee to look at it.
All the members of the committee were ecstatic about it except for one pompous, opinionated fellow.
He acknowledged that, overall, the sculpture was fine but he was concerned about the length of David's nose.
"Don't you think it is a bit too long?"
Hiding his annoyance, Michelangelo gathered up his hammer and chisel and headed for the ladder. Just before he started to climb the ladder he bent down---ostensibly to adjust his sandals---but actually to pick up some marble dust and chips.
He climbed the ladder and, hiding what he was doing with his body, began to pretend to chisel the nose, meanwhile letting the handful of dust and chips trickle to the ground.
Coming down, he asked the official what he thought.
The man studied the nose for a time and then pronounced it perfect. He added that it was lucky that he had spotted the flaw.
Michelangelo told his friends what he had done and by nightfall the whole of Florence
000
Turning to Philadelphia
When he died, in 1790, some 20,000 Philadelphians, out of a total population of 28,000, attended his funeral,.
The French Government declared three days of national mourning.
Meanwhile, Congress tried to pass a motion proposing that all members wear black armbands out of respect for Franklin Franklin
The guide rolled his eyes, as though to say, 'with Congress, the more things change, the more they stay the same'.
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In the old part of Philadelphia
There was a problem about living in these tall narrow homes. If you were on the second or third floor and someone knocked on the front door, you had to come down the steep stairs to see who it was (and then climb back up).
The indefatiquable and ever-creative Ben Franklin came to the rescue.
He invented a gadget using two or three mirrors attached to a rod that could be mounted high on the outside of the building, near a window. The occupant would adjust the angles of the mirrors so they would show who was at the door. The occupant could then decide whether or not to go down the stairs.
According to the story, Franklin
The Busybodies are being marketed today by the Ben Franklin Busybody company.
000
The workers' houses had fireplaces but no ovens. This meant that housewives had to take risen loaves of bread to a local bakery to be baked, a service for which they had to pay.
For a half penny, the bakeries would put the loaf on the bottom shelf of the oven, in with the hardwood logs and live coals. Because the heat was uneven on that lower level, the crusts were usually misshapen and sometimes blackened by ash.
For a penny, the baker would put the loaves on the main level, the level on which he baked bread, rolls and pies for his shop.
The 'penny' loaves came out with crusts that were nicely rounded, even and golden brown.
According to our guide, that was the origin of the expression 'upper crust'.
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The visit to Philadelphia
In preparation for a future article about some run-ins my policeman father had with bootleggers, I have been doing some research on the term.
There are conflicting explanations.
For example, American settlers are supposed to have got around the prohibition on selling liquor to native people by sticking bottles of booze down their boots when they rode out to a reservation.
Or, longshoremen unloading cases of whiskey hid bottles in their boots when leaving the docks.
And on and on.
One of our lecturers on the tour had a different explanation.
I should begin by setting out her credentials.
She is a Quaker, a graduate of Harvard, was shot by the Klu Klux Klan while fighting in the 1960s for civil rights for African-Americans, and a professor of history. (As Pat and I discovered in a chat with her, she also knows an enormous amount about Canadian history---she can discuss the 19th century Fenian raids into Canada!--- and has visited and adores Niagara-on-the-Lake.)
Sounds trustworthy to me!
She claims that 'bootlegger' comes from colonial America
If you knew the courier, he might shove your letter down his boot, and carry it for free to the destination.
Perhaps that explains the old custom of adding a drop or two of perfume to letters---it may have been needed to mask the smell of the boot!
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Death was common in 18th century Philadelphia
Interestingly, death by fire was not common because William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, remembering London's Great Fire, insisted that houses in Philadelphia be built of brick and that there be large parks sprinkled throughout the city as refuges for persons fleeing from a fire.
People had an understandable fear of being declared dead, when they were just in a coma, and of being buried alive.
Lengthy---and noisy---wakes were designed in part to give the 'corpse' lots of time to come to.
But Philadelphians didn't think that was enough protection.
So, when a person was finally put in a grave, one end of a cord was placed in the coffin while the other end was tied to a bell in a nearby tree. If the 'deceased' came to, he or she could pull the cord.
And according to our guide, that's how we got the expression, "Saved by the bell".
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See you on July 11th for Posting #77 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.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
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.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
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.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
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!
000
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'.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
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!
000
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'.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
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".
000
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!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
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".
000
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!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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.
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