The Old Man and The Pony

In 1953, for all intents and purposes, the old city of Toronto only stretched from the shores of Lake Ontario to the southern slopes of the Don Valley at a place called Hog’s Hollow. That was the last stop for the Young Street trolley and from that point northwards patches of urban squalor were just beginning to encroach onto the surrounding farmland.

When I was ten years old, our family moved onto a recently constructed cluster of suburbia a few miles beyond the city limits just north of Steels Avenue. Our subdivision was the first of its kind north of the city. All the houses were brand new white clapboard bungalows, “they were all made out of ticky tacky and they all looked just the same.”

The small country schools in the area needed to be expanded to accommodate all the city kids moving in and although the student population was a strange mixture of city slickers and local yokels we all seemed to get along, although my circle of were almost exclusively comprised of the farm kids. I spent most of my free time playing and helping with chores on the many functioning farms still holding on in the area.

At the time, there was a small convenience/general store located on the southeast corner of Steels Avenue and Young Street, not far from where we lived. It had been serving the farm community for years and shortly after we moved into the area the owner died and it became available for rent. My parents decided to try their hand at shop keeping and because I also spent a lot of time around the store I became even more involved with the farming community.

I recently went to the site of the old store and as I stood in the shadow of the high-rise buildings that now dominate the intersection, it was hard to visualize what it had looked like back when I was a kid. In those days there were a few businesses and houses on the east side of Young Street south of our store, but on the west side Holstein cattle still grazed in a huge pasture. Everything north of Steels, with the exception of our subdivision, was still farm country.

We only lived in the area and operated the store for a short time but I still have many vivid memories of the things I saw as my pals and and I would sit on the steps of the store sucking our purple popsicles and watching the traffic buzz by on the main artery out of the city.

One day something happened that has haunted me for years and I only recently have begun to understand what it was all about.

It was around noon on a warm summer day when two trucks pulled up on the wide shoulder beside the store. My friends and I watched as two men from the first enclosed van got out and opened the trucks back door. They disappeared inside then backed out dragging a shiny red governess cart by its shafts. It was after they had eased it on to the ground and went to the second truck that they really got our attention.

They dropped the tailgate down and revealed the prettiest piebald Shetland pony we had ever seen. The little horse stood impatiently snorting and pawing the truck bed while one of the men slipped in beside him and then backed him down the ramp. While one man held his lead shank the other retrieved a harness from the front of the truck then the two of them busied themselves debating strap lengths and hanging a brass studded leather harness on the little gelding. Shortly, a yellow cab pulled up and the taxi driver helped an ancient looking man out of the back seat. I say ancient because in those days almost all adults looked old to us but this man was definitely in the category of grandfather, if not great-grandfather.

While we watched, the truck drivers put the pony into the shafts and attached the traces. One of them stood at the pony’s head while the other loaded a series of small boxes from the trunk of the taxi, then helped the stiff old man up and through the back door of the cart.

The old man shifted the boxes around a bit then took a seat at the side of the cart and took up the reins, “Thanks, you can let him go now.” we heard him say, and then the truck drivers stood back.  The old man clucked the pony up and they trotted through the intersection and headed west on Steels Avenue.

They hadn’t traveled the length of a football field when for some reason the pony bolted. As the animal took the bit in his mouth and sprung into top gear we could see the old man attempting to stand and rein him in but there was no stopping him and before they got much further we saw the pony leap into the ditch overturning the cart and launching the old man into the bushes beside the road.

The truck drivers leaped into their vehicles and headed up the road toward the scene and we hoofed it after them. When we got close we could see the old man lying on his back and he wasn’t moving.  One of the truck drivers was attending to him while the other was attempting to cut an upside down and wildly thrashing pony out of his harness and get him out of the ditch.

My memory is not clear on what happened immediately afterwards but I do remember police cars and ambulances arriving and seeing the old man taken away on a stretcher. It was what I learned about the old man afterwards that has stayed with me all these years and has become so meaningful as I approach the age he must have been at the time.

The old man and the pony both survived the accident and after a brief stay in the hospital he took up lodgings at a farm very close to where the accident occurred. The Sheppards, a family I knew well because their youngest son was a friend of mine, took pity on the old man and offered him room and board while he convalesced. It was an especially good arrangement because they also had room in their barn for his pony.

My friends and I took it upon ourselves to make sure that the old man’s pony was well looked after while he was confined to a bed in his upstairs bedroom. We fed, watered and exercised the little animal- with the emphasis on his exercise. We took turns cantering the little pinto around the field behind the barn till we had the little fellow run ragged. If it happened that he was put back into harness it would have been very unlikely that he could have mustered up enough energy to run away again. As it turned out that wasn’t to be an issue because one day we arrived at the barn to discover that our pretty pony was gone and a dull looking skinny old bay mare about the same size was in his place. Les Ehrlick, a Toronto horse dealer who had sold him the first pony, had taken pity on the old man and found him the quietest pony in the province as a replacement. The mare wasn’t as much fun as the sparky little gelding but we kids continued to feed and water her.

After a couple of weeks when the old man was able to get around a little better, he started spending his mornings in the stable sitting on a pile of straw bales watching his new pony. We would meet him when we came to do our chores and although we tried to be friendly with him, he didn’t respond to us the way we had hoped. He seemed lost in his thoughts most of the time and almost unaware of our presence.

Although he never spoke more than a few words to us I often heard him talking to Mr. Sheppard when they were together in the barn and that’s when I heard his story. I absorbed all I heard and stored it away in the recesses of my ten-year-old brain not really understanding the significance of what he was revealing.

Mr. Marsden was born on a farm in Yorkshire, England, but as a very young man he was forced to leave his home and take a job in a factory in one of Britain’s industrial centres. He did a stint in the army during WW1 and then immigrated to Canada where he once again took up the lunch box and started working on the production line of an appliance manufacturer in Toronto. He spent thirty years at the same job day after day living alone and, for the most part, keeping to himself. During all those years of loneliness and drudgery he harbored a secret ambition. When he was a boy in Yorkshire, peddlers in pony carts used to travel around from farm to farm selling small dry goods and he was always in awe of the wonderful free way of life they led. Although he realized how impractical the idea was in this new day and age, the boy in him refused to let it go.  

After he retired he spent most of his time in his room on the third floor of a boarding house or feeding pigeons in the park. Several years of this drab existence passed until one morning he woke, shaking off the mist of a rapidly developing dementia and determined to fulfill his dream. He purchased his pony and cart and acquired a selection of small goods and arranged to have them delivered to the city limits.

I heard his story but when I was a boy, it was just a story, with no moral and no lesson to be learned.

His story ended one morning when the two of us showed up to do chores and found him sitting in his usual spot.  It was a while before we realized he was dead. We ran for Mr. Sheppard and then hung around for the rest of the morning while the police and then the undertaker’s van came.

It was a day that an old man’s impossible dream was put to rest, and two boys had their first unforgettable experience with death.

   

The Augean and Other Disasters (Part 1)

Where there are horses there is bound to be horse manure, there’s no avoiding it. One of the first problems I encountered when I started my riding school was disposing of the stuff. My stable was located in a park in the heart of Toronto, and for a time, the mushroom growers on the outskirts of the city were willing to haul the dung away at no charge. That arrangement didn’t last very long, however. The Health Department intervened, demanding that all of the refuse from my barn, and others in the city, be contained in sanitary bins that would be required to be removed and replaced several times a week. It was an expensive proposition and I immediately began to try and figure out a way around it.

I was stumped for quite a while until one day when I was eating my lunch in the kitchen and listening to the TV blaring away in the living room. Johnny Mathis was singing the theme song to the cartoon series “Hercules.” I didn’t mind the song, or the show, but when that annoying little centaur named Newton started screeching “Herc! Herc!’ I couldn’t stand it any more and started down the hall to turn the set off. That’s when it hit me!

I remembered the stories of the trials of Hercules - and in particular the one about his task of cleaning out the massive Augean Stables. As I recalled, it was the fifth task that King Eurystheus had set for him; he was given only one day to muck out an enormous barn. At first the job had seemed impossible, but true to form, Hercules came up with a solution. He bashed holes through opposing walls of the stable, diverted a river to flow through the opening and, Voilà! the poop was gone.

The wheels began to turn immediately. My first thought (immediately dismissed) was that I might make use of the Don River; it flowed by only a few yards from my barn. But, no, I had to be practical, and it wasn’t until I was seated in a location where some of my most inspired thoughts come to me that I came up with the perfect solution. Actually it happened immediately after I flushed and was listening to all that water gurgling down the drain.

My barn had recently been hooked up to the city’s sewer system, so why not create a toilet for the horses too? Yes that was it. It wouldn’t really be a toilet as such, the intense training I would have to put the horses through would make that prohibitive. No, what I had in mind was an immense flushing system that would carry the manure away from behind the horses' stalls and flush it down the city’s drain.

The barn had originally been designed to house dairy cattle and as a consequence had gutters running along behind the stalls. When we converted the space for horses we simply planked them over. As my plan began to develop I realized that these cement flumes could be an important component of the flushing system I was proposing.

My final plan (and I use the term loosely because I never really plan anything I just start doing it and allow it to happen) was to cut access holes into the gutter behind the horses and install a series of high pressure water nozzles to drive the manure out of the barn and into the sewer. The actual feces would not pose a problem, but I knew that the straw I used to bed the horses would probably clog up the system so I didn’t even try to use it. The ideal bedding would have been fine sawdust, but none of that was available, so I decided to try wood chips. I located what I needed in Quebec and had a boxcar load shipped in.

It took me a couple of weeks of tinkering to get ready but finally I had the horses standing in the sweet smelling shavings and all systems were go. I opened the main water valve and the stable men started shovelling the manure into the gutter. Wood chips and dung began flowing toward the entrance to the sewer, where I had placed a battery of super high-pressured nozzles to whisk the slurry on its way. It was working like a charm and in half the time it normally took to muck out the stables we were finished and congratulating ourselves.

We settled in to using the system twice a day and I was so proud and pleased with myself that I went next door to the police stable to try to talk Inspector Johnson into using my invention.

About a week later I was sitting in my kitchen pondering the possibility of patenting my idea when a man in city uniform appeared at my door. He was very polite about it but he informed me that he and his crew were busy trying to unclog a section of sanitary sewer line approximately two miles in length. He said that the offending matter appeared to be horse manure and wood chips and wondered if I knew anything about it. While I remained silent trying to formulate a suitable lie he went on to say that if his crew had not found and relieved the blockage in time, it might have bunged up half the toilets in North York. The evidence was pretty compelling so I decided to ‘fess up and throw myself on his mercy. After a long conversation and a commitment to give free riding lessons to each of his four grandchildren, we were back to shovelling shit... but I heard no more about it.

Tuffy

What the hell was that? It feels like a wad of paper under my bare foot but as I tilt my rocker forward again and look down, the wad of paper has turned into a pile of fluffy green feathers. My God, it looks like Tuffy, our parakeet, only a lot flatter. I reach down and cup him in my hand and his little head droops to one side and one eye stares blankly back at me. Oh Tuffy, what have I done? I feel your little heart beating under my thumb and for a moment I think you might be all right but the faint throbbing has stopped now and I guess you are a goner. I know I should be feeling sad and guilty, old pal, but I’m not. I’m just mad as hell at you. It’s your own damned fault. If you hadn’t been such a sick little pervert, this never would have happened. Your disgusting foot fetish has finally caught up with you. How many years have I put up with you incessantly humping my big toe when you thought I wasn’t looking?  How many times have I been tickled to consciousness while trying to nap in front of the TV only to wake to find you puffing bravely away on one of my lower digits and leaving heaps of regurgitated bird seed as a form of payment? I know you were lonely and were desperately looking for something that approximated a mate, but for God’s sake, Tuffy, my big toe? C’mon! Anyway that’s all over now, pal, your time has come, you are no more, you have passed, you have kicked the bucket, you are deceased, you are no longer with us. All well and good for you, old buddy, you are at peace now but I’m the one who has to break the news to Andrea. She’s out in the kitchen visiting with her friend, Frances. I don’t dare tell her now. They’re both saps for animals and Frances is worse than she is. No, I’ll have to wait ‘till she’s alone. You never know how she is going to react. I don’t even like riding in the car with Andrea, she’s always making life threatening swerves to avoid hitting small animals and if I leave her on her own, every other trip will see her bringing home a stray of some kind.

All of our animals are foundlings or give-aways, even you are - I mean, were - Tuffy. I suppose your original owner will have to be informed, too.  I’ll leave that up to Andrea.  Maybe she’ll put it off for a while, like she did when that obese cat, Tommy, suddenly died of heart attack after just a week or two with us. We knew how much he meant to the sad girl who had to give him up and didn’t have the heart to tell her so, over the next several years, whenever she phoned to see how her pet was getting on; we simply pretended he was still alive. I was always on the lookout for a lookalike cat in case we got a surprise visit.  It was an act of kindness and we fooled the unsuspecting girl, Tuffy, but there’s no way I’m going to fool Andrea about you.  

She still bugs me about the time I let her African Grey Parrot escape. That was easier to handle than this will be because she was up in Montreal at the time and I was holding the fort down here in the Valley. I know I shouldn’t be comparing you to that parrot from hell--you were just a trifle weird and confused but he was a holy terror.  I don’t know how we put up with him. Everybody except Andrea had to wear hard hats around while he was granted freedom of the air on his daily exercise flights. It was that or risk being dive bombed, getting raked by his talons and the hell pecked out of our heads. It wasn’t even safe at the breakfast table.   Sometimes we would forget he was lurking out there somewhere until someone screamed, “in-coming!” and we would have to dive for cover.  Andrea cried like a baby when I called her and told her that Toby had absconded.  I swore that I’d tried everything I could to catch him but she insisted that I have another go at it even though we both knew he would only come to her. I went along with it when she insisted that I record her over the phone doing her famous birdcall. Then she ordered me to parade around the neighbourhood gawking up into trees, cage in hand with my ghetto blaster screeching, "Here, Toby, here, Toby! Come to Momma, Toby!”  It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t also insisted on me wearing one of her old blonde wigs during the search. Some of my neighbors are still looking funny at me. I finally captured that old parrot; actually he turned himself in when the weather got colder. I can still see the old bugger sitting on that icy window sill with a bent beak, his feathers ruffled and looking like an owl or some other large bird of prey had recently had his way with him. He was a beaten bird and when I went out to grab him, he surrendered without a fight.  As it turned out, maybe he should have extended his hiatus a little more because shortly afterwards he was fatally dispatched after rudely waking up our beagle, Dukie, with a peck on the dog’s nose.  “Let sleeping dogs lie.” 

No, Tuffy, old boy, you weren’t like him; there was nothing dangerous about you. Granted you were a bit of an embarrassment to the family and we always tried to make sure that nobody was going around barefooted when we had guests visiting. On the few occasions that you made advances on unsuspecting strangers, we always interceded, made excuses and covered up for you. “Don’t ask and don’t tell.” But now you’re dead, my sick little friend, and I have no beagle to blame. It’s all my fault.  I suppose I could stuff your little body in the toe of Andrea’s rubber boot and when she pulled it on she’d think she did the deed. No, it could be days before it rains again. Hey, you’re starting to stiffen up a bit. Maybe I could wire your little feet to the roost in your cage. It could be a day or two before anyone notices and I’ll be away in Halifax by the time the shit hits the fan. No, that wouldn’t work either;  you’re much too wide in profile and too narrow head-on to be convincing. 

Maybe I should nip off to town and give Andrea a call from there? No! That’s ridiculous. I’ve got to be a man and face the music. How bad can it be? Who am I kidding. I know how bad it can be. There’s going to be hell to pay, Tuffy. Anyway that’s the kitchen door closing. Frances must be leaving. Andrea will be alone now. I guess I better go in and ‘fess up.

The Nicest Little Whore House on Pembroke Street

     Kids will be kids no matter where they live or who their parents are. As a ten-year-old boy living in the slums of Toronto some of my best friends came from families whose occupations were not always on the right side of the law- but in our little world that didn’t seem to matter. 

     Of my three closest friends, there was Marvin whose father was a receiver of stolen goods and kept a still in his basement, Nick, whose father was a bootlegger with mafia connections, and last but not least, there was Terry whose mother owned a 'special' kind of rooming house across the road from where I lived.  

     As kids growing up in a notorious area on the verges of Cabbage Town we saw a lot - but at our age, understood very little. 

     Terry and I, like the other kids in the neighbourhood, spent a lot of time participating in all the normal local after-school pursuits like snaring pigeons in Allan Gardens or dragging big magnets up and down the back lanes seeing what rusty treasures we could snag. 

     As kids will, we had sleepovers. Terry spent nights at my house but I liked it best when we stayed at his place. It was more fun.  His house was a real hive of activity. He had several aunts who lived in the rooms upstairs and there were all kinds of interesting men coming to visit them. It was as if there were a party going on all the time and, best of all, his aunts were always subsidizing our banana splits at the Chinese restaurant on the corner if we promised to stay there for an hour or so.

     After Terry, Nick and I joined the boy scouts we got into the habit of going to Terry’s house after our Wednesday night meetings to have some hot chocolate and finish off the evening with a game of monopoly. 

     We always played at a table located in a kitchen at the rear of the house. It must have been disconcerting for the visiting men to see us huddled around the table in our green shirts and blue shorts with our Stetsons tilted back on our heads. They would come strutting down the stairs from the second floor with cocky satisfied looks on their faces but when they spied our little scout troop they’d quickly hustle off looking confused and guilty. 

     Terry’s aunts sure had a lot of friends coming and going and strangely many of them were Chinese. I felt that that was a little unusual but I had become accustomed to seeing unusual things around Terry’s house. One day when I was about to start up the stairs to the second floor bathroom I was confronted by a legless man swinging down the stairs towards me using his arms to propel himself in a sort of hopping motion.  I say legless but actually his body seemed to end at the base of his rib cage and the way he moved put me in mind of some sort of giant insect.  I returned to the kitchen and told Terry about what I had seen but he just shrugged and explained that the man’s name was John and that whenever the circus was in town he came and visited his aunts. Then Terry pulled a fist full of free carnival tickets out of his pocket and waved them in my face saying, “ Look what he gave me.”

     Terry and I, and two younger boys who also lived in the house, took the streetcar to the CNE the following day and had a great time on the midway. We ended our day touring the freak show spending most of our time in front of 'Kandar The Human Torso' with whom we exchanged knowing winks. 

     There was always something exciting happening at Terry’s house. One evening the three of us were sitting quietly in the kitchen after our scout meeting when we heard a loud bang and a crash as the front door caved in. Then a man came running down from the second floor taking the stairs two at a time. He was given chase by several uniformed policemen who were pouring through the gap where the front door had been. They all made their way down the hall past where we were sitting - first the man from upstairs and then the cops in hot pursuit.  The fugitive brushed passed and made it out the back door, then leapt over the porch rail and ran through the back yard. We leaned over the table to protect the game board as the police men, looking like a version of the Keystone Cops elbowed their way passed us, crowded through the back door then bunched up on the narrow porch. Two of the officers drew their guns and fired several warning shots then the whole group clambered down the back stairs and continued the chase. Nick and I got up from our chairs and watched the group disappear in the distance but Terry remained at the table calm and unimpressed. I think he used the opportunity to move his marker to a better location on the game board. 

     In truth it wasn’t always fun and games around the place.  One day as we sat on the front porch we saw a cop chasing a man down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. The policeman was losing ground so he stopped and threw his nightstick at the guy who was getting away. He missed but a garbage man who was perched levelling trash on the top of a dump truck parked by the curb saw what was going on and decided to intervene.  As the man passed him he swung his heavy shovel down and struck the fleeing man on the head stopping him literally dead in his tracks. We watched as the policeman and the truck driver leaned over the motionless man while a puddle of blood gradually formed around his head. Shortly a little Italian lady from a nearby house came over, shoved them aside then made a little tent with a newspaper and placed it over the man’s his lifeless face. 

The saddest thing that ever occurred at the house and the main reason I stopped spending time there occurred during the summer of 1955. 

     Terry and the other kids at the house had been away for about two weeks when one afternoon he showed up at my place with tears in his eyes telling me that David, an eight-year-old son of one of his aunts had drowned while swimming. They had been vacationing at Wasaga Beach where his mother kept a summer cottage. Terry often invited me to join them there -I never went and hearing about what happened to poor little David I was glad I hadn’t been there to witness it. 

     I attended the funeral for a short time but after seeing the little fellow dressed in a tux lying in a small coffin looking more like a puppet than a person I couldn’t take it. I can still see Terry’s aunts dressed in unaccustomed black, clustered around the tiny coffin weeping.

       I didn’t know what to say or how to act so I just walked away vowing never to attend another funeral- and with a couple of exceptions I never have. I didn’t blame anybody at the house for the boy’s death- the kids there were watched over more closely than I was. Terry’s mother and aunts, when not engaged in their nocturnal pursuits, were normal caring people but somehow I couldn’t face being in the house anymore. Shortly after the boy's death we moved from the neighbourhood. 

     As I grew older, I of course realized what had been going on in Terry’s house- you can’t have lived on Pembroke Street and passed the Spot One Grill on Dundas Street every morning on the way to school, and not have known. During the late 1950’s, that corner was the epicentre of Toronto’s flesh trade, surpassing even the infamous Jarvis district. 

     Terry’s mothers' place was not the only residence on our block that sported a red light in the window, but I can testify from personal experience that it was the nicest little whorehouse on the street.

Reinventing The Wheel

        My Dad grew up on the bald Saskatchewan prairies, son of pioneers. It was an isolated existence with few accessible amenities and if you couldn’t make or repair something yourself, you had to do without.  Family lore has it that even as a very young kid he was already coming up with weird contraptions he felt would be useful around the homestead. What these first innovations were or how useful they proved to be, I have no way of knowing. I can only vouch for what I have seen myself and heard from my mother and older sisters.

        Dad was not one to brag about his successful innovations but he sure enjoyed sharing a good laugh with the rest of the family as we reminisced over some of his more outrageous endeavours. My long-suffering mother did not really see the humour in these recollections because she was the one most adversely affected by his flights of fancy.  My sisters and I would split our sides laughing when Dad told the story of how, in 1937, he brought electricity to a log cabin he had just finished building near Cold Lake, Alberta, but Mom would sit stern faced and was not at all amused. 

        It seems that somehow an old 6-volt generator had come into Dad’s possession -probably salvaged from one of the many cars that in Depression years had been stripped of their motors and converted into horse drawn Bennett buggies.  Dad had a lot of time on his hands that winter so he thought he might have a go at using it to rig up some electric lights. If he could make them work in their little dwelling it would be a first in their neck of the woods.

        The problem was how to power the generator. He was familiar with wind turbines. There had been a few of them back on the prairies, but that was not a practical idea in the still deep woods where they now lived. There were no fast flowing streams nearby so waterpower wasn’t an option either. For a time he was stymied but he did eventually come up with a plan. He knew that his idea might not be all that well received by my mother so he waited for just the right moment to spring it on her.  One morning he found Mom cleaning the soot out of the oil lamp chimneys, a job she hated, and figured the time was right. He seated himself at the table across from her and began pleading his case.  He opened with, “If my idea works out, you won’t have to do that for much longer.”

        As he described what he had in mind, Mom’s jaw started to drop in disbelief and by the time he finished twenty minutes later her mouth hadn’t closed.  When she could bring herself to speak she began her tirade.  “Let me see if I’ve understood you correctly. You propose to generate electricity using our pet dog running on a treadmill and because of the small amount of wire you have at your disposal it will be necessary to have that equipment located in the corner of my kitchen?”  She sobbed audibly and was just about to scream at him when suddenly a perverse notion came over her and she changed her mind. They had been storm bound for several days and cabin fever was taking its toll. Maybe watching Dad fail at yet another crazy project would be amusing and fill in some of those endless winter hours. “After all,” she thought to herself, “It’s not likely to really happen; he doesn’t have anything to work with and hell, there isn’t a light bulb within a hundred miles of here.” So, feigning enthusiasm, she agreed that he should give it a go.

        Dad began scrounging around the countryside looking for the bits and pieces he would require to build his little treadmill. He was looking for broken down equipment with suitable chains and cogs but things were not going too well for him.  A couple of days later, after he failed to find what he needed sticking out of the snow banks around his neighbours’ yards, he announced to Mom that he was giving up on the treadmill. She breathed a secret sigh of relief but as he continued to speak her anxiety was rekindled. He was moving on to Plan B.  “I’ve come up with a better idea,” he said.  “It might take up a little more room in the kitchen but it won’t take so many bits and pieces to build and I think it’ll work just fine.”

        He went on to explain that one his neighbours had donated a large wheel from a hay rake. It was made of heavy steel and cast iron and about five feet in diameter. “All I have to do is add some wood slats for the dog to run on and let the shaft of the generator rest on the rim of the wheel. The ratio should be just about right, providing the dog runs fast enough.” Searching for something, anything she could say that would forestall the madness, Mom asked, “But what if the dog doesn’t want to run?’  “Oh, he’ll run all right,” Dad replied, “I’m mounting the wheel on an angle so the dog will be running slightly uphill and anyway, I’ll have a harness on him so he won’t be able to get off.” 

        Over the next couple of days things began to take shape. The kitchen table was pushed against one wall to make room and the big wheel was installed. Even before he had attached the generator, Dad had his dog in training on the wheel. Initially there was a lot of barking, howling and whining and the dog would only run a few steps then flatten down and remain in that position while the wheel returned him to bottom of the circle and rocked him uselessly back and forth. However Dad’s inventing skills were only surpassed by his animal training ability so it wasn’t long before he had the dog trotting like standard bred racehorse and the big wheel spinning like a top.  A few meaty treats suspended from the ceiling and just out of the dog’s reach had done the trick. 

        He got the generator hooked up to the wheel easily enough but finding suitable light bulbs was another matter. They might have ordered a couple from the Eaton’s catalogue but that would have involved money and they didn’t have any. The only useful purpose that publication had served in the last few years had been in the outhouse. That didn’t stop Dad. He reasoned that a light bulb was just a jar with a glowing wire inside so why not make his own?  He needed some really fine wire to make the glowing filament for the inside of the jar and short pieces cut out of the mesh on the chicken pen seemed to fill the bill. In fact, when he connected his first prototypes up to the generator and elbowed the dog into action, they lit up like the real thing. The only problem was that after a few seconds the thin wire would burn out and he would have to try again. Despite several days of experimenting with different jars and wires he was about ready to give up. The only fun he was having with his new contraption was when he tricked his curious neighbours into holding the ends of the lead wires. He would then give the wheel a spin and it would shock the hell out them.

        He was just about to dismantle the apparently useless apparatus when inspiration struck. It occurred while Mom was ministering to her brother, my Uncle Jack. He had a huge boil on his leg and Mom was applying an age-old technique to relieve it. She poured boiling water into a small glass, emptied it and then quickly cupped the open end of it over the offending abscess. As the glass cooled a vacuum formed and Uncle Jack sighed with relief as the core of the boil was drawn out and the corruption spilled into the glass. “Vacuum,” Dad thought to himself, “There has to be a vacuum in the jars. If there is no air the filaments won’t burn out.”  He had no way of knowing that Edison had run into the same problem when he invented the light bulb and had corrected it in the same manner he was considering.  (Mentes Magnae Pariter Cogitant)

        I won’t pretend that I know how Dad created the vacuum or maintained it in his crude jars and bottles but I have it on good authority that for a brief period during the winter of 1937 a strange glow emanated from the windows of a little log cabin and lit up a snow covered clearing in the backwoods of Alberta.

Show Biz

One Friday afternoon I found myself sharing a few pints with Ron Bond and some other friends at a downtown Toronto watering hole called the Coal Bin. We went there frequently, especially at the end of the week, and we liked to arrive fairly early so we would be ready when the offices in the huge high rises, directly across the road, closed down and all the secretaries hit the bar for a quick “Thank God it’s Friday” cocktail.

We knew that, as good as their intentions might be, when the band started playing their resolve would fly out the window and hurrying home would be forgotten. It was almost impossible to get out of that place alone when the lights began flashing at closing time.

It was the era of free love and it was almost as if gratuitous sex had replaced the handshake as a form of greeting.

On this particular Friday we made an unusually early start, getting to the bar for lunch. Ron wanted to have a little extra time to build up some liquid courage before the lovelies started arriving. He hadn’t been having much luck lately and was determined, as he put it, to cut a weak one out of the herd that evening.

For my part, I was feeling down in the dumps I think I was getting tired of the whole sordid lifestyle. It was just one meaningless encounter after the other. Don’t get me wrong they were all wonderful women but there was so many of them and so little time. There had to be something else.

When the bar started to fill up and the band arrived Ron and my other friends started getting up periodically to chat up some girl and thrash around on the dance floor. I wasn’t in the mood so I kept to myself and just sat frequently refilling my mug from the large pitchers of draft that kept appearing on the table. I guess my mood was infectious because as the afternoon wore on the boys were spending less and less time on the dance floor and more and more time seated around the huge barrel that served as our table.

We had all gone to the same technical high school together and one of the guys happened to mention that he thought it strange that none of us was actually working in the field we had trained for. He made it sound as if we were all failures for not becoming the Draftsmen and Machinists we had planned to be.

I had tried to work as mechanical draftsman for a while but the only job I could find was drawing sewers for the city and I figured that that was about as low as I could go so I quit and finally ended up on the police force before starting a business of my own.  The guys pointed out that my riding school was no small achievement but I was not to be consoled, I knew something was missing in my life and the more I drank the larger the void became.

The other guys started talking about their current occupations and what they would rather be doing and it was truly surprising to listen to their previously undisclosed aspirations.

Ron Bond claimed he wanted to become an author. When I brought it to his attention that I had never seen him with a book in his hand he got all huffy and slurred “I don’t read books, I write books!”

Braving the ridicule, one by one, the rest of the guys divulged their secret hopes. When it became my turn to share, for no apparent reason, I heard myself saying, “ I have always wanted to be an actor!” I just blurted it out. For the life of me I don’t know where it came from. It wasn’t even close to being true, maybe a playbill that had been left lying on the table by a previous customer was influencing me subliminally or maybe it was pure one-upmanship. Whatever the reason I did say it and now was compelled to stick to my story.

Of course my old friend Ron led the attack on me saying, “ I’ve known you for years and you’ve never mention anything like this before, you must be drunk or crazy. I hit him with my favorite W.C. Fields quote. “I may be drunk but you’re the one who is crazy, tomorrow I’ll be sober and you’ll still be crazy!” The other guys laughed but Ron had heard me use that line too often in the past and continued his interrogation undeterred.

He could be pretty relentless when criticizing me and for the next twenty minutes or so he pulled out all the stops drawing all my shortcomings to my attention. He was getting my Irish dander up and I was just about to offer him a knuckle sandwich when he delivered a final salvo that stopped me in my tracks.

“If you were really serious about this you’d go and apply for a job as an actor right now!"
“Maybe I will, you asshole! “ I shot back at him, turning away dismissively and hoping that would be the end of the discussion.  No such luck, one of the other guys, trying to be helpful mentioned that the CBC casting office was just around the corner and that maybe that would be a good place for me to start my career. 

This was just the fresh ammunition that Ron needed and he renewed his attack on me daring me to put my money where my mouth was. I countered with an offer to go up to the casting office as soon as he finished the first chapter of the book he was planning to write but he wasn’t to be put off and I found myself swearing in front of all present that I would go for an interview that very afternoon.

The boys were not a trusting lot and shortly afterwards escorted me around the corner and watched while I entered the main foyer of the CBC building. They were still watching me through the glass doors as I inquired at the receptionists' counter then headed for the elevators.

The receptionist had informed me that the woman I needed to see was located on the third floor. Her name was Olwyne Millington and she was in charge of casting.

I could tell that the receptionist had been reluctant to admit someone in my advanced state of inebriation but I think her sense of humor had kicked in; my appearance at the casting office just might have been preceded by a warning phone call.

 The elevator doors opened to expose a large reception area where a stern looking older woman sat behind a large desk going through a pile of black and white photos. As the doors swished closed behind me she raised her head and looked at me as if I was something that had gotten stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

The elevator had been stuffy and I was feeling a bit groggy so when she asked in a haughty tone, “What can I do for you?",  I simply blurted out; “I want to be an actor” then pursing my lips in a “so there!"  fashion took a step backwards, lost my balance and almost fell down.

It was certainly stuffy in that old office and it was making me dizzy, the secretary was starting to look blurry but I found that if I closed one eye her face cleared up and I could concentrate on what she was saying.

“Do you have a portfolio and head shots?” she asked.  I didn’t know what she was talking about but I told her I didn’t have any of that at the moment but that I was sure that I could get some in the near future. She rattled on for some time about other requirements necessary for applicants and then finished by scolding me and telling me to come back when I was sober and serious.

I found her attitude offensive and was just about to tell her so when her intercom buzzed and she was summoned into the next room. By the time she returned I had already pushed the down button on the elevator consol and was preparing to leave. I was a bit hurt by the reception I had been given and was consoling myself with the knowledge that I had been thrown out of better joints than this.

Then I heard a voice behind me. “One moment Sir!” she said, ” Ms. Millington would like to speak with you.”

I gave her my “Of course she wants to see me!” look while she escorted me into the inner office where a small woman in her early forties sat smoking behind a large desk littered with dog eared scripts. She nodded in my direction and in a lovely soothing British accent said "Sit, please.”

She said that she had overheard what was occurring in the reception area and was curious to know more. After quizzing me about what I did for a living she asked me if I had much acting experience. I thought that a little humor was in order so I told her that, once, I had been a tree in a school play. She was not amused but neither was she deterred because she handed me one of the scripts, indicated a character and a page and ask me to read the lines saying she would cue me. I wasn’t adverse to kinky stuff but this cueing put me off a bit and I told her so, she just laughed and said get on with it.

I closed one eye so that I could read then gave it my best effort. When we finished a couple of pages she asked me to stop and then lit a fresh cigarette and sat and stared at me for what seemed like a long time.

I broke the silence, “So how did I do?" I asked. She threw her head back, inhaled deeply on her cigarette then launched a perfect smoke ring and said, “You were fucking terrible!” Then after a short pause she said, “However that’s just what I need. Are you available tomorrow morning?"

I was a little surprised by her proposal and not wanting to appear anxious or easy I slurred, “Let me check my schedule,” then began fumbling in my in my pockets for a little calendar notebook I sometimes carried to keep track of my mares' gestation periods.

I think she realized that I was bluffing because by the time I finished digging through my pockets and looked up she was standing in front of me and tucking a piece of paper in the breast pocket of my shirt.

“That’s the address, the time and the contact person. Don’t be late.”  She said in a stern motherly tone.

“So that’s it?" I said, stalling and eyeing the big leather couch against the back wall of her office. I guess she had seen some of the same movies about the Hollywood star system that I had because she gave me that ‘You are a naughty boy’ look and spun me around and gently shoved me out her office door saying “I mean it. Don’t be late!”

And so began my acting career.

I wasn’t feeling all that robust when I woke up the next morning. I’d been having nightmares and strange dreams. At least I thought they were dreams until I found the slip of paper Ms. Millington had given me on my bedside table and realized what I had done.

I read the instructions and checked my watch. If I hurried I could still make the appointment on time. But God, my head hurt, and what if it was just a practical joke?  They might be trying to get even with me for showing up at the casting office in the condition I was in. "Maybe I shouldn’t go",  I thought.  It would serve her right for doing business with drunks. Who was I kidding, I had to find out if it was real or not, so I had a quick shower and shave and headed for the downtown location I had been given.

           As it turned out Ms. Millington was pretty good at her job.  She had type cast me as a dumb cop. The wardrobe people got me suited up in a winter motorcycle uniform, slapped some makeup on my face and showed me the couple of lines I would be required to say. The TV series they were shooting was called Wojeck. It starred an actor called John Vernon and was based loosely on the true-life exploits of a Toronto coroner called Morton Schulman. Of course I was too hungover to appreciate what was going on and I wouldn’t have known John Vernon from Adam.

Before we started shooting Vernon asked me to cue him his lines. I was nervous and after I messed up several times he accused me of being flippant and stormed off to the other side of the set. “Screw him,” I thought to myself. "Who needs him anyway".

Then I found out who he was and that the couple of lines I had to say were to be delivered to him. As I shared the shot with him I felt cowed, humble and unsure of myself. As it turned out my tentative approach was just what the director was looking for. The scene called for the overbearing Wojeck to give hell to a dozy incompetent cop at a crime scene. I was perfect for the part.   

Magner and Me (as published in Small Farmers Journal)

I was seventeen years old when I got my first copy of Magner’s Standard Horse and Stock Book.  I found it hidden at the bottom of a box of old books at a farm auction and as I dusted it off and started leafing through the pages I realized that I had struck gold. Every other page seemed to be adorned with beautiful woodcut prints of horses and other livestock: over two thousand illustrations in all. More importantly I could see at a glance that the text was addressing many of the problems that horsemen and farmers encountered when handling and raising various classes of livestock.

I bought the box of books for a song, discarded all but the one I wanted and then found myself a shady spot under a tree and got my nose into it. It was the beginning of a long and, for the most part, rewarding relationship between Mr. Magner and me.

I had spent the previous two summers breaking and training saddle horses for the summer camps in northern Ontario and had had many of the problems that go along with the job of handling young and sometimes difficult horses. During that period I worked in isolation and was forced to improvise with my own solutions when a colt was uncooperative or an older horse presented a problem.  Reading through the horse section of my newly acquired book I realized that I had been trying to reinvent the wheel.  I found page after page of clearly explained, age-old remedies for everything I had struggled with on my own and, in addition, tons of invaluable advice for the future.

Over the ensuing years the book became my Bible and the ghost of Mr. Magner, my mentor. Of course I realized that he was not infallible, particularly when it came to some of the dated equine medical procedures and cures he advocated, but when it came to horse training and dealing with problem animals, his advice was as good as ever.

D. Magner lived in the gilded age of the horse whisperers when men like Prof. Jesse Beery toured the US demonstrating their art to the thousands of farmers and teamsters that required quiet well broken horses to earn their livings. Some of the methods they advocated were harsh by today’s standards and would offend contemporary training theorists like Monty Roberts but I found that I could separate the good techniques from the bad and use only those that suited me. I’ve probably tried most of his training and corrective techniques over the years and some of them have produced some pretty strange results

In 1965, I was working as a police officer on the Metropolitan Toronto Police Mounted Unit and was serving as breaker and trainer for the divisions remounts. The first horse I was assigned to finish training had already had a saddle on him a time or two. He was a big jug headed bay gelding named Monte. I inherited him from my training partner Merle Smith because he claimed the two of them did not get along. That was putting it mildly. Whenever Merle attempted to work with him the big horse would stand quietly while he mounted him but once he was aboard and seated, the brute would refuse to move. That’s not totally accurate because after a while the horse would shake his head defiantly, then suddenly rear, snort and paw the air, standing so tall and erect that my partner would lose his seat, slide backwards off the saddle and continue down over the horse’s rump until he landed in a heap on the ground. Merle was quite a bit older than I was and after several these episodes he figured that my youthful, less brittle bones were more suited to the task so he turned the brute over to me.

I wasn’t too excited about this assignment; I was new at the training job and still looking to prove myself.  Unless I could pull something out of the hat I would be the one to take the rap for our failure. I was also troubled by the knowledge that the horse was on trial with us and the dealer, who technically still owned him, had said that if we couldn’t do anything with him the horse would probably end up in the meat horse pen at the stockyards. I didn’t want that to happen so when I returned to my apartment in the east end of the city that night I dug out my trusty 1907 edition of Mr. Magner’s book and did some careful reading.

The first thing that caught my eye was on page 35- a section where the author attempts to classify the various characteristics of horses using a series of crude sketches of their heads. Figure number 24 suited Monte to a T.

If Mr. Magner’s assessment of Monte was correct what I had on my hands was one big self-willed son-of-a-gun who figured he was the boss and could do anything he wanted. It would be my job to let him know in no uncertain terms that from now on I was calling the shots.

Magner’s method of correcting horses with this sort of attitude problem was fairly straightforward. He called the technique: ‘Subjection’. I would be required to get the horse into a situation where he started to display one of his contrary moods and then, using the type of harness described in the book, throw him and hold him down until he stopped struggling and calmed down. The diagrams that describe the throwing technique appear kind of severe but if the procedure is done somewhere on a soft surface it’s not really that drastic and the horse is not harmed in any way. The result of my first treatment on Monte was immediate and astonishing. He got to his feet a new horse and within minutes I had him saddled and was riding him around the training ring. I had just seen the movie ‘Cool Hand Luke’ and I couldn’t help drawing some comparisons. What we had had was a failure to communicate and as we rode around the ring with Monte responding to my every wish, I could almost hear him saying, “I got my mind right, Boss”.

Unfortunately the cure was not permanent and occasionally, after I turned him over to another officer for regular duty on the street, he would take another bad spell and I would be called to go to the Police Station where he was stabled and give him a tune-up, as it came to be known.  Over the next couple of years I did this so often that I didn’t require any special harness to get him to lie down. I would just lift his near fore and put some pressure on his withers and down he would go. I’d sit on his neck and talk to him for while and after I let him up, he would be good for another week or two.

After I left the Police Force this arrangement became too complicated to maintain so I purchased old Monte and put him to work in my riding school where he performed faithfully for several years only occasionally requiring one of his tune-ups.  Watching Monte trot placidly around in my riding class, often with small inexperienced children on his back, I knew that if he was up there somewhere, the ghost of Mr. Magnum would be looking down on us with a satisfied look on his face.

Mr. Hill's Opus

Back left: Bud Hill, Back Centre: Ron Bond, Back right: Garry Leeson, Extreme Right: Gus ___ Front: Charlie Sullivan

I guess everybody who ever attended school has had one special teacher who stood out from all the others, someone who really affected their lives in a positive way.  I doubt, however, that many could claim that that special person might well have saved their life. There’s an old movie about a wonderful high school music teacher titled Mr. Holland’s Opus.  Richard Dreyfuss plays the part of Mr. Holland but whenever I watch it, and I’ve seen it several times, I always see my old music teacher, Charles Bud Hill, in his place.

Toronto’s Central Technical School was a rough and ready inner city institution that until 1959, the year I started to attend, didn’t have a music program. The word was that they had contemplated starting one for some time but had hesitated because they couldn’t find anyone strong enough to deal with the predominately male, streetwise toughs who formed the better part of the student body.

The first time I encountered Bud, as he insisted everybody, students and faculty alike, call him, he was busy breaking up a brawl in the hallway outside his music room.  I watched with my fellow classmates as he bent over and separated two fist flailing opponents sprawled on the floor, lifted them by the scruffs of their necks, banged their heads together and then sent them on their way. No trips to the office or detentions for him, just instant cursory justice.  We were all impressed; clearly he was the man for the job. There was no messing with the man. He ruled his band rehearsals with an iron hand, beating out time on his music stand with a baton that was more like a thick cudgel and symbolic of the discipline he demanded. We endured his frequent violent outburst when we couldn’t get a tune quite right and the odd swat on the back of our heads gladly because for some strange reason we really admired and respected the guy.

Maybe it was because we knew he was a real working musician who supplemented his meager teaching salary by playing trombone in a Dixie Land Band. I’m not sure that the school managers were all that happy that he was working to all hours at various sleazy joints around the city but for us it just added to his mystique.  He was the personification of “Cool” and it wasn’t long before, if not playing like musicians, we were talking like them. A whole host of new words and phrases had entered our vocabulary. How could you not admire a teacher who called you “Man” and said “fuck” whenever he wanted to.  In fact he was probably the first and maybe the only person to shout the F word out on the hallowed stage of Toronto’s Massey Hall. He had written a beautiful composition he called Overture to Mr. Carter and instead of getting the Toronto Symphony to play it, he trusted it to our high school band. We were understandably very nervous to be performing in front of such a large and august audience and when we screwed up during the first movement of the piece, he slammed his baton down and shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Stop, you fucking idiots!” The acoustics are excellent in the Hall so no one missed his outburst.  He took a moment to regain his composure then smiled at us and turned to the audience and in a more relaxed tone announced “We shall begin again.”  

There was however a down side to our relationship with Bud.  His Svengali-like influence was wont to lure us away from our regular courses of study. Who wanted to endure all those boring academic classes when, with impunity, you could slip down to a welcoming music room anytime you felt like it? I guess we all wanted to be musicians like him. “Money for nothing and the chicks are free!”

Playing my trumpet in one of his bands, to my delight, got me out of serving my time in the school’s mandatory Army Cadet program. I think Bud endured quite a bit of flak from the powers that be for encouraging this sort of exemption to military duty for his students but he felt strongly about the matter and stood his ground.  I don’t see him as being involved in the peace movement at the time but something he later did for me suggests that he had some strong opinions on the matter.

In 1961, during my third year, an awkward set of circumstances developed. In addition to the fact that, other than my music mark, my grades had plummeted to an embarrassing low, my girlfriend at the time informed me that the rabbit had died. It seemed like the time honored tradition of getting out of town was in order. The first thing that came to mind was the Foreign Legion but I was reconciled to the fact that a shotgun wedding might be in the offing and the Legion didn’t accept married men.

I guess I watched too many John Wayne movies; it’s the only reason I can think of that made me decide to join the United States Marines. In any event shortly after receiving the earth shattering news of the impending blessed event I found my eighteen year old self on a bus headed for a recruitment center in Buffalo New York. I arrived late in the evening and my appointment was for the following morning so I spent the night in a cockroach ridden excuse for a hotel in the worst part of town. I didn’t get much sleep; I just lay staring at the naked light bulb that hung from a long strand over my bed thinking that at any moment one of the hookers or Johns who seemed to be conducting a night long sparing match in the hallway might burst into my room.

The next morning, tired and itchy, I made my way over to the recruitment center. I joined about fifty other hopefuls, mostly black and Hispanic, waiting on the street outside the building. When the doors finally swung open we were greeted by a tall manikin of a man in a crisp full dress Marine uniform:  light blue trousers with a narrow red stripe, a navy colored box necked tunic with red piping and polished brass buttons, a wide white belt with an honest to goodness real sword and it was all topped with a white cap with an impossibly shiny black visor. My God, he looked good towering over us.  I was sold and found myself humming the Marine hymn as we followed him through the entrance and down a long dark hall. We wrote short multiple choice tests in a room full of school desks but from then on it was off with the clothes to be poked, prodded and made to cough by a series of guys in white coats.  Later in the day while standing in a vast circle of multicolored naked bodies, each of us holding a glass with our urine sample in it, some smart ass proposed a toast.

I was only back home a few days when I received my letter of acceptance. Because I was Canadian it was required that I return to the States and swear an oath of allegiance. This I did forthwith and two weeks later I was notified that I would be going to Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. My bags were packed and I was ready to go when I remembered that I had left a few important items in my locker at school. I decided to head over and pick them up before heading over to the bus terminal. I thought I was being sufficiently discrete as I slipped down the hallway. Classes were in session and I hoped no one would notice me. My locker was situated in the hall next to the music room. I had just retrieved my things and was closing the locker door when I turned around to see Bud emerging from the music room. As soon as he recognized me he almost flew in my direction and pinned me against the locker. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he spat in my face.  Thinking he was referring to my infraction of the “No access to lockers during class rule” I quickly answered “Just getting my stuff.” “Never mind your fucking stuff, you dolt. What’s this I hear about you joining the Marines?” Obviously my blabber mouth friend, Ron, albeit with the best intentions, had ratted me out. What ensued was an hour long lecture that commenced with the question. “Have you ever heard of a place called Vietnam?” He regaled me with information about the horrors of what was going on over there and what a hopeless cause it was - finishing with, “If you hadn’t been so busy in the backseat of your parent’s car lately, you might have read a paper or listened to the news and already know this.”  Apparently my friend Ron had felt that a full and complete disclosure of my situation had been in order.

I didn’t reply. I just slipped away pondering what he had said. I knew he was right. The TV news was full of clips of the young men of America marching down city streets chanting “Hell no, we won’t go!” and here I was foolishly offering myself as a lamb for the slaughter.

So I didn’t report to Parris Island. I didn’t get sent to Vietnam. I didn’t die face down in a stinking rice paddy and get my name etched on the somber sunken black memorial wall in Washington. Who’s to say what might really have happened? Maybe I would have simply lost a limb or two and ended up in a substandard veteran’s ward; or become a dope addict; or suffered the indignity of returning home to a country who couldn’t give a damn.  Thanks to Bud Hill, none of these things were allowed to happen and at the ripe old age of seventy I am alive and still playing my trumpet and singing with a swing band.  He could be vulgar and profane and was no Mr. Chips but I sure held, and still hold, him in the highest regard. He gave me the gift of music and far, far more.