feldmanlarry

In August 1968 I had just recently turned 17 and started at McGill University as a French and Russian major. Since I was a foreign student, they didn’t have room in the dorms so I had a one-room apartment in the heart of downtown Montreal just 5 minutes from the university. I knew no one in Canada. I had almost never cooked before and did not plan to eat out. This should have been quite a scary experience. Looking back it seems scary to me now but it didn’t then. I quickly made a friend in Alvin, who had the apartment next to mine. He and I also shared an apartment with two others in my third year. Alvin was a big help during this time of my life, helping to keep me up with what was happening in Montreal.

When I did a local university radio show (called “Got the Blues”) a few years ago, my old friend from Montreal, Alvin, had found me and called in during the show. We have been in contact since then and we made arrangements for him to meet me when the train stopped for four hours in his current hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Alvin was waiting for me at the Winnipeg train station at 8 AM today. Alvin has really impressed me. He decided he didn’t like his weight so he took up bike riding, but in a big way. Every year he takes 600+ mile rides through the west as part of a group that raises money for Habitat for Humanity. He had recently come back from a bus tour with his girl friend through Spain and Morocco. He does this type of tour frequently. He’s retired as a school psychologist but works part time. He has an enormously upbeat attitude.

Margaret was looking for a place to run in Winnipeg since it was difficult to go without running on the train. Unfortunately, the best trail by the beautiful downtown train station was flooded. Alvin and I ate breakfast and Margaret joined us after her run. Alvin took us on a sight seeing trip of Winnipeg. This was like the personal guides I had in my 8 weeks of travelling but much better in that it was a friend.

Flooding in Winnipeg where Margaret wanted to run

My old friend Alvin who met me at the station at 8 AM (left), keeping my tradition of touching water, in the Forks area in downtown Winnipeg (right)

An unrelated story is in that first year in Montreal, there was a massive (10,000 people or so) demonstration to turn McGill into a French speaking university as part of the movement for Quebec independence from Canada. The apartment building where Alvin and I lived was right in the thick of things. I was standing on the stairs with friends when suddenly the police attacked the crowd and everyone was running wildly to avoid getting hit by the police. We climbed the stairs to re-enter my building but they had put undercover police in each building to make sure the demonstrators didn’t go in. I started to explain that I lived there when I felt a police baton hitting the back of my legs. I turned around and realized my only option was to run away with the demonstrators. We were now behind the police lines. For several hours, demonstrators set bonfires in downtown streets, taunted the police, and regrouped in new locations. After a few minutes, we could have gone back to the apartment but it somehow became fun. We ran around with the demonstrators, not getting too close to the police but had a good time and didn’t go back until well after midnight. You can find a brief reference to the demonstration at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGill_University#Language_Policy. Some of the sites I found when googling “McGill Francais” spoke of how peaceful the protest was but the following site had a live broadcast from that night in French that described the police movements and the protestors throwing burning placards (archives.radio-canada.ca/c_est_arrive_le/03/28/).

Small part of the McGill Francais marchin 1969  to turn McGill into a French University. I started as an observer, then got my legs hit by a police baton, then became a participant.

We had from 8 AM to 11:30 AM in Winnipeg and Alvin took us all over. I was impressed with Winnipeg. Alvin showed me the downtown, including the famous intersection of Portage and Main, which has been called the windiest in Canada. They had converted the ugly train yards downtown to a sculpture area and small shops. They are building the bizarre looking Canadian Museum of Human Rights. I really enjoyed Assiniboine Park’s Leo Mol Sculpture Garden www.manitobaphotos.com/mol.htm. We almost saw the Governor-General’s visit to the Manitoba Parliament, which would not have been a big deal.

Sculptures in downtown Winnipeg (left), the most famous intersection and the windiest in Winnipeg, Main and Portage. (right)

The future Museum of Human Rights

From Assiniboine Park’s Leo Mol Sculpture Garden

A really pleasant moment in Winnipeg

A highlight of Winnipeg for me was finding the bushy area where I slept under in 1970 while travelling across Canada. I distinctively remember that it was right downtown and near a fountain. We found such a place and Alvin told me that it could be a scary place to be late at night, which is exactly how I remembered it. There were nasty critters, both of the flying side and of the human side. I could be wrong but the place Alvin took me, right by the Parliament building struck me as the exact spot.

I mentioned in my blog about Israel that there really is no way to know if many of the famous sites are really the correct locations. We will never know if Jesus was really born at that exact spot in Bethlehem. Many things in life are like that. We guess at memories and choose to celebrate them on certain dates and at certain locations. Not that my sleeping behind a bush in Winnipeg was momentous but if I choose to call this picture the spot then in one sense it is. Who knows, maybe it really is the spot.

What feels like the area where I slept in 1970 while traveling in Winnipeg with lots of bugs and scary people around (left), the Manitoba Parliament just across the street from where I slept (right)

We got back on the train in plenty of time for the noon departure, with all new crew. We then passed through the flat prairies, which were made more interesting by the massive flooding. The farmers have lost many of their crops and will be suffering, along with there being higher food prices. Although it was exciting to see the flooding, the tedium of the similar views for hours on end got to us.

Flooding in Manitoba and Saskatchewan as seen from the train

To break the tedium, fortunately Robyn Dell’Unto was playing again in one of the activities areas. She wanted me to play the tambourine with her and I had the courage to say no. She met someone on the train to play with her who came late. They clearly had not had much time to practice together but they sounded really good. Robyn was a real treat. I enjoyed talking with her on a few occasions about the old days and about her career. One of the great things about Canada is that they fund the arts much more than we do. She has received some funding to help her put out her CD, to travel on this train, and in many other ways.

Robyn Dell’Unto could be a real star. Check out her website at robyndellunto.com Click on the video for a wonderful song where she dresses as a bird.

Screen shot of Robyn Dell’Unto singing her song “Just a Bird”, from robyndellunto.com

 Not the kind of audience Robyn’s used to but very appreciative nonetheless

Robyn singing with a friend on the train without the bird costume

Besides Robyn, today’s highlight was clearly visiting with Alvin in Winnipeg. Going back to what I wrote about on Canada Day 2, Alvin showed me that someone from my circle of friends can go through the craziness of that era and maintain respectability without becoming boring. I like the sound of maintaining respectability without becoming boring. Is that enough for a life goal?

Neither of us slept really well on the train. The room is tiny and can be set up in two configurations. One is upper and lower beds, with a steep ladder to the upper. In this configuration there is a very narrow aisle to get to the door to the tiny cubicle for the toilet. The other configuration has the two beds folded into the wall and replaced by two comfortable chairs. We checked most of our luggage but kept a small bag and two backpacks in the cabin. There really wasn’t space for more than that. Surprisingly it wasn’t a claustrophobic feeling. There’s certainly much more room than an airplane plus there’s a quarter mile of train to walk through including 3 dome cars, 3 activity areas and dining cars.

As soon as we got in our room, they summoned us to a champagne reception in the nearby activity car. The train left Toronto at 10 PM and it felt good to be relaxing with a drink with the shakiness and rhythmic bumps of the train. After we got back, I was mesmerized lying down and watching the forests, lakes, and tiny settlements go by. It was difficult for Margaret to sleep, since it was so late for her and the adjustment was tough. At 12:22 AM I took the following screen shot with the blue pin showing our location, right next to Lake Simcoe. We left from Toronto, near the bottom of the screen. Soon we would be passing near Sudbury, near the top of the screen.

Going back to 1970 – Steve and I picked up two hitchhikers’ early who stayed with us almost all the way across Canada. When it was getting later in the day, we would take a side road off the Trans-Canada Highway, then take a side road off that side road. We’d keep going until we found a good place to camp. We’d all huddle around the campfire in our sleeping bags and one person might sleep in the station wagon.

A tiny crossroads town called Wawa, Ontario was filled with hitchhikers some of whom had been waiting for days. In 2011, we did not go to Wawa but we passed a town called Gogoma as compensation. The people traveling that summer we met were mostly in their late teens or early 20’s. They ranged from dropped-out druggies to college graduates on a once in a lifetime journey way out of their comfort zone. I remember eating carrot sandwiches with nothing besides carrots and bread. We scrounged whatever we could find and didn’t eat much.

2011 – The food on the train is wonderful. The whole experience is like a cruise on tracks instead of on water. We share travel stories with many couples but we were among the few who were not retired. Most though were in very good health and many knew a great deal about the regions we were passing through, like the people below that we kept running in to. They were retired middle school science teachers from Red Deer, Alberta and we enjoyed hearing their stories.

Couple we sat next to many times from Red Deer, Alberta, retired science teachers

Most of the people were older than us. I wondered if they were the same type of people I met in 1970 or if they were the ones at home working the jobs and staying out of trouble. For the most part, I think they were not the type of person who I would have met in 1970. This makes me wonder if I have not just aged with my peer group but if I have changed peer groups from the type of person who would take a whole summer at 19 and travel with little money, little plans, and little common sense. Had I become part of the peer group of mildly interesting responsible adults. Ultimately, I think that’s exactly what has happened, except that I do keep a bit of the old me.

I never liked the fact that my official name is Lawrence. I much prefer Larry. It’s annoying to have to use Lawrence on official documents. In my trips to the Middle East and East Asia, I was called Lawrence or Mr. Lawrence, or Lawrence Mark until I was able to convince them to call me Larry. However, I love that the name Larry is not unusual and also not overly popular. We chose the name Keith for our son because it does not have a long and short form like Lawrence and it is also not unusual or overly popular.

It was a thrill to me that the couple joining us for lunch this day had a Larry and our server was named Larry. It’s about the first time in my life I’ve been one of three Larry’s and had to get the following picture.

Larry (left), Larry (middle), and Larry (right). One of the first times in my life I have experienced this. If you were going to assign us to the three stooges, who would be which stooge?

One of the best parts of the trip was the singer they had hired to perform for us. Her name is Robyn Dell’Unto and she’s very good. She writes her own stuff on the CD I bought but on this trip she sang mostly folk rock songs from the 60’s. She rightly guessed that that would be what this greying audience would like but I also liked very much her own songs. I heard her sing two times and would have gone to see her all 4 times she was playing but the other times conflicted with our meal sitting times. I told her about the concerts I saw in the 1960’s including one of her heros, Janis Joplin.

Robyn Dell’Unto, excellent folk singer from 2011 singing songs like Neil Young’s “Helpless” (left), seats in the economy class like the ones I sat in for 3-4 days in 1970 (right)

On the train coming back from Vancouver in 1970, I distinctly remember getting out at a place called Sioux Lookout, Ontario and hearing Neil Young’s “Helpless” on a radio. “There is a town in North Ontario …” This was one of the few times in my life I have seen the Northern Lights in the sky. When Robyn sang that song in 2011, it made a real impact on me. In 2011, I stayed awake longer than I wanted to in order to be sure to get out at Sioux Lookout in memory of that incident in 1970. I had to plead a special case to be allowed off the train and had to walk all the way to the front of the train to get back on but it was worth it. Unfortunately, no one was playing “Helpless” and there were no Northern Lights. The town looked a little depressing.

The train station at Sioux Lookout where I saw the Northern Lights in 1970 while listening to the song “Helpless”

Nothing happening this night in Sioux Lookout

We also had a stop in a tiny town called Hornepayne, Ontario. It seemed to be a dusty slow town but it felt good to get fresh air. It was in the 70’s (or 20’s Celsius). We walked outside up to the very front of the train. There are 19 large passenger cars, including cars with economy class seats, the sleeping cars, activity / dome cars, and dining cars. There were also 2 engine cars and a baggage car. They told us it’s 1/4 mile to get from one end to the other.

We were not tempted to abandon the train for the charms of downtown Hornepayne, Ontario.

Looking to the back of the train (left), looking to the front of the train (right). About 1/4 mile long altogether.

Two engines and baggage car at the front

Everyday while we were out eating breakfast, the porter in charge of our car came into our cabin to put the beds away and set up the chairs. At dinner or whenever we asked for it, they would change the cabin to the other configuration. We were able to get pictures of her setting it up one day.

Opening up the wall in our cabin to get the beds out (left), finishing up setting up the beds (right)

Getting through Ontario took over a day and over 1000 miles. When we left Ontario, we were west of Minneapolis. Going through Northern Ontario was fantastic. The population we saw after getting out of the southern part was probably less than one thousand. It’s basically all rolling hills, lush forests, and lakes. It was easy to find camping areas in the woods in 1970.

Just one of the beautiful views of Northern Ontario from the window of our cabin.

My first impression of the people on the train with us was not overly positive. They seemed like possibly boring straitlaced old people (like us?). It turned out they were really a lot of fun. Most were retired like I said but almost all were adventurous and filled with interesting stories to tell. Possibly the most interesting person was the person below. She was on a year trip around the world, starting in her native England. She had plans to go to Hawaii, Australia, somewhere in Southeast Asia and who knows where else. She had made few plans and definitely had the spirit I had in 1970.

In a dome car, the most interesting person I met, on her way around the world for a year, with a passion for “trance” music”

Her passion was “trance” music, of which the only type I had heard of was “techno”, which has an almost monotone, hard-driving electronic sound. She educated me on the various types of trance music. In its purest form I think you try to get truly into a physical trance.

Forms of “Trance” music (a type of house music) as explained to me by the woman above.

Since my return from my last trip, I’ve alternated between guilt about not finishing my blog, doing some work, and just enjoying doing nothing. Today marks the start of my fourth and last international trip in the past 6 months. The first was with a week with Keith and Margaret in London. The second was by myself for 4 weeks to Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and Greece. The third was by myself for another 4 weeks to India, Korea, and China.

Our main reason for the trip is to celebrate my 60^th birthday (June 18) and our 25^th anniversary, two years late, otherwise known as our 27^th anniversary (June 30). Not that I need an excuse to travel but it helped in convincing Margaret to go.

One of the big themes of my trips has been self-discovery, which is of course a big theme of most people’s lives. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do a blog on this trip but memories of a trip I took in 1970 kept pouring out and I decided to dedicate this blog to bringing back that trip. I’ll get to the details of the 2011 trip in just a minute.

I’m going to jump back and forth from 1970 to 2011 in this blog each day. In June of 1970, I left Montreal after finishing my second year at McGill University for Ithaca where I bought a 1963 Rambler Station Wagon for something like $200. I then returned to Montreal to pick up my friend Steve, who kicked in for half. Our goal was to travel across Canada with the tiny amount of money we had. I remembered Steve’s parents’ telling him that he could not survive a whole summer with our ambitious plans on the pittance of money we had.

We took the important stuff in the station wagon like a mattress to lay out in the back with the seats folded down, a battery operated record player, and sleeping bags. We planned to always have hitchhikers with us. We felt like we were living in luxury since we weren’t hitchhiking ourselves.

Going across Canada or the US was a very typical activity in 1970 for people my age (19). My world was dominated not by the split between Republicans and Democrats that we have today but by the split between hippies and left wing politicos. Virtually everyone I knew was either heavily influenced by the counterculture or by radical politics. These two groups tended not to like each other although at times people moved from one camp to the other or tried to merge them.

That summer I was definitely in the counterculture camp. I had dabbled in leftist politics such as hanging out with tear gas in DC in an anti-Vietnam War march in November 1969. Later on I would move decidedly into the radical politics camp. The summer of 1970 though, was not for politics for me. I was one of thousands of young people looking to explore the delights of the road while experiencing personal change without too much concern for changing political or social structures.

The 2011 trip includes the following:

• A 6 hour drive to Toronto (today)
• 3 nights in a cabin for two on the train to Jasper, Alberta in the Rockies
• 1 night each in famous resorts in Jasper and Banff, Alberta
• 5 nights in a ski resort just over the border in Panorama, British Columbia where we’ll meet up with Margaret’s brother Greg from Iowa
• 1 night in the famous resort in Lake Louise, Alberta
• 3 nights on the train coming back to Toronto
• 1 night (maybe) at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto
• Home after being gone a little over 2 weeks

On our first day in 2011, we interrupted our 6 hour drive from Indiana, PA to Toronto, Ontario with a stop in Buffalo. I lived in Buffalo for 7 years and had some important events occur there like meeting Margaret and getting my Ph. D. Buffalo is best known in the culinary world for Buffalo Chicken Wings but Margaret and I are almost more fond of the way fish fries are cooked there. Nowhere else I’ve been has fish fries that are as good as Buffalo’s. The fish itself is flaky, moist, and very flavorful without a strong fish taste. The batter is crisp and thick, and almost a meal in itself.

We went to one of our favorite places, Hoak’s. Unfortunately, it was too windy to sit out on their deck on Lake Erie. When Margaret was growing up in Buffalo and to a large extent still while I was there (1978-1985), fish fries were only served on Fridays. This was keeping with the pre-Vatican II edict against eating meat on Fridays in what was a heavily Catholic city. We called ahead to check whether they were serving fish fry on this Tuesday. My guess is that fish fry’s are served every day now in most if not all restaurants that serve it.

Lake Erie and Buffalo in the background from Hoak’s (left), the best fish fry in the world (right)

As we were finishing our fish, I looked right across the road to St. Francis High School, where I taught math from 1979-1981. I have an enormous amount of bad feelings about this experience. I usually can handle adjusting to worlds in which I’m an outsider but St. Francis was more than I could handle. The dark buildings dominated by scary religious figures both living and on the walls, created an atmosphere that was too intense for me at that time. The students were all boys, all white, all Catholic, and just about all suburban middle class. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (thanks, Seinfeld, for that phrase). I felt the extreme lack of diversity led to narrow thinking from students.

St. Francis High School, where I taught from 1979-1981

I could not adjust to the discipline procedures, which consisted from some (not all) of slapping kids around and humiliating them. I was supposed to start every class with a prayer and would occasionally get in trouble for not doing so. The students had to wear a tie and either the sweater purchased from the school or a sport coat, which led to a sea of 30 or so red sweaters and ties in each class. I still have a large tie collection in a closet somewhere from those days. I have hated ties since I was very young.

The Assistant Principal should have been an actor. I remember when an obscene drawing was discovered in a classroom and no one confessed to being the owner. He brought the class into the chapel and as I was passing by, I overheard him say that he would use the bodies of everyone in the class as mops to clean the floor. I was scared and I’m sure the students got the message. Another incident of discipline I remember occurred in my friend Sean’s English class. He was being observed by the head of the department, who was a priest. A photographer for the yearbook came in to take pictures and a student put his middle finger up as a joke. After the class, the priest pushed that student against the lockers, slapped him, and screamed at him. My friend felt betrayed since it was his class and his problem.

Since then, I think there are no more priests teaching there since there is such a shortage of priests. My friend Bruce from graduate school at the University of Buffalo has been a teacher at St. Francis for many years and really loves it. I’m sure it is a better place now. I was tempted to cross the street and see what the place looked like after 30 years and if Bruce was there or anyone else I knew.

I gave into this temptation and entered the school for the first time in 30 years. Immediately, I felt the dread of the dark corridors with pictures of previous principals and religious figures. I found someone in the guidance department who she said Bruce still teaches there but the school was in their testing phase and most teachers were not there. They had put in a cheerful entrance with a fountain. I left my business card with a note for Bruce and am hoping to hear from him.

The place might be truly wonderful today, I shouldn’t prejudge it. I did have some good experiences, such as an elective for seniors oriented around mathematical games. I had many wonderful students. Shockingly, I was the tennis coach for a year. Fortunately my brother-in-law. Greg helped me out. I had never been on a sports team of any time in my life and knew nothing about being a coach. If someone became injured I would have just watched them die. My pay was something like $200. The athletic director asked if I could make do with 2 balls per match for home games rather than using all 3 balls in a can. Fortunately, I knew enough to say no to him.

I left St. Francis after two years to return to graduate school. I spent the next four years as a graduate assistant before getting the job at IUP. St. Francis was an important part of my life and career and certainly points out how you can learn and grow from mostly negative experiences. I wonder if I would still be teaching high school if I was at the public school nearby where I did my student teaching. That school had much better discipline policies, better equipment, much more diversity, and at least to me a healthier environment. I’m sure that the people paying to have their children go to the Catholic school would not agree with me.

Father Leon, Principal of St. Francis when I taught there

Back to the 2011 trip. We finished the drive to Toronto. I’m still angry that the US insists that visitors to Canada have passports. While Europe was eliminating border crossings, the US made it very difficult for families to take a day trip over the border. There are few borders that are less problematic than the US / Canada one. Fortunately, we have passports.

I love Canada and Toronto. I had the equivalent of a green card in Canada and would be very happy to be a citizen there. Having a really good job in the US is more important. Certainly, the US is a good place to live so I’m not complaining. OK, I do complain about many things in the US.

We parked at a garage just 2 blocks from the train station that I had found on the internet. It’s $18 a day, which will add up over 2 weeks but for a downtown garage, it’s relatively cheap. We were only allowed to bring 2 small bags per person into the tiny cabin so we checked 2 larger bags through on the train. We won’t see those bags until we get off in Jasper.

We had maybe 4 hours until we could board so we walked to the Eaton Centre to do some shopping and then saw the old and new city halls, which are spectacular. For me, the old city hall is much more impressive.

Toronto’s Old City Hall (left), New City Hall (right)

The waiting room for the train was not quite as nice as the business class airplane lounges I had been on and was full but it was quite nice. We commented on how we were probably slightly younger than the average age. Probably the people who were riding on a seat rather than a sleeping cabin like we were, were younger. This crowd seemed to be mostly leisure travel oriented rather than people needing to get from one city to another. We boarded at 9:15 PM and the train left exactly on time at 10 PM.

I’ll describe the train on the next day’s entry. Beginning to relive my 1970 trip and my 1979-81 teaching experiences has been cathartic. Just like getting my orange soda after 50+ years at the Taj Mahal and rediscovering my Jewish roots at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, I’m gluing long lost parts of myself back to the book of my life today.