1

report to the captain. When I could offer no acceptable excuse for having been absent from the
bridge while entering port, I was confined to the ship for two long and empty weeks.
I eventually went ashore only to learn that Marina was involved with someone else, and I got so
ripsnorting drunk that when I realized I'd missed the midnight ferry from Dartmouth to Halifax, I
wobbled and crawled my way along one of the construction catwalks strung shore to shore over
the three hundred and ten foot high pair of towers for the Angus L. MacDonald suspension bridge,
which was then being erected across that splendiferous seaport.

I think it was in September of 1955 that I was drafted to H.M.C.S. Star, the shore establishment in
my home town where Id originally enlisted. The house where my family still lived smelled sour
with sickness, but it didnt cross my mind to live elsewhere for they could make good use of my
room and board allowance. My mother had been bedridden for weeks with a serious leg ulcer and
my father had recently been injured by a car while riding his bicycle to work one morning. It took a
fair degree of argument to convince mom to enter a hospital in order to have her leg properly
treated, and even more argument to persuade my dad to stay home from work long enough to
give his torn muscles an opportunity to heal.
My fourteen year old sister, who was unusually big for her age, had started working as a waitress
at Woolworths, and the Department of Education later helped to get her back into school so that
she could at least complete grade eight. Of course, she was understandably unhappy about
sharing the bedroom with our parents when I moved in and took over her room.
My naval duties were almost nonexistent by virtue of the fact that there was absolutely nothing
whatever to be done. I rarely saw the other photographer stationed at H.M.C.S. Star, who was
senior to me in rank, and whenever he did happen to appear he projected the attitude that I should
only be entrusted with such responsibilities as sweeping the darkroom floor. Ive no idea about
what he did, nor where he spent most of his time, and his demeanour suggested I should never
ask. At some point I met a reserve officer whom I assumed was in charge of both of us, for he had
no qualms about telling me to take some pictures of the reservist's Christmas party; and I noticed
that one of the party snapshots that I turned over to him later appeared in the Hamilton Spectator.
The entire base consisted of only four meagre buildings, and I dont imagine that more than
eighteen regular personnel were actually stationed there. So its really not surprising that Id have
a pretty slack schedule. I spent much of my time reading, gazing out across Hamilton Bay, or
playing cards with a friend in victualling stores. He was engaged to a student nurse at St. Josephs
Hospital, and between the two of them it was arranged for me to meet Sonya.

My take home pay then, complete with living allowance and whatever else I was rightly entitled to
collect, was in the area of $165.00 a month, so I sold the Pontiac coup6 because I couldnt afford
to keep up with its constant need of repair. As a result, when Sonya and I met I was pushing my
old light blue three-speed, with my bell bottom trousers bound up in stout pant clips. She would
later tell our friends that an autobiography of Albert Einstein was tied to the fender rack.
I distinctly remember the wondrous smile she glowed as she briefly dropped her eyelids in
bashfulness to cover her clear brilliant blue eyes. She was appealingly dressed in the finest of
mid-fifties fashion, complete with white bobby socks, saddle shoes, and short lustrous blond hair
brushed back on the sides of her head. Sonya had just begun her first year as a student nurse,
and in addition to being bright and energetic she also had an outstanding figure. We were the
same age, she didnt seem to find me uninteresting, and Id have been a perfect fool not to ask
2
her to go steady.

Her Scottish father was not overjoyed about her going out with a sailor, but her equally Scottish
mother politely invited me to feel welcome while visiting their very normal, middle-class Canadian
home; where I saw, for the first time, a twenty one inch black and white television set framed in a
walnut console.

In February of 1956, I was drafted to Photographic Headquarters at H.M.C.S. Bytown in Ottawa,

and advised by my superiors that Id been enrolled in a six week course in motion picture
photography, which would take place sometime before the advent of summer. My beautiful Sonya
bid me a passionate farewell, and amid many promises to write and telephone one another I
repacked my kit bag and headed toward our Nations capital.

About a month after Id settled into one of those clean furnished rooms with no hotplate privileges,
Sonya called with the news that she was pregnant. She also said that she missed me and I said
that I missed her, and when I asked her if it was her wish to get married, she immediately replied
in the affirmative.

Her father did his utmost to talk Sonya into having an illegal abortion. However, when he became
convinced that her mind was made up against that alternative, he joined with her mother, her
older sister, and her remarkable grandmother, and did his best to show his support of our
decision.

Meanwhile, I had been assigned to darkroom production work, on an Omega enlarger, in the
basement of the (old) Military Headquarters building. Most of the work consisted of printing
quantities of 8" X 10" black and white images of various ships in the navy's fleet. I wasnt told what
was to become of the pictures I printed, but I believe they were destined to be part of press
release kits. Although the job was fundamentally tedious I was pleased to be finally given
something specific to do, and I enjoyed the challenge of reaching for the highest print quality that
could be attained from the flat greyish tones of the negatives, which hinted at the outline of a grey
coloured vessel, blending with a grey sea and a grey sky.

In my spare time I tracked down a three room third floor flat in the area, and made arrangements
with the landlord to carry a number of garbage pails out to the back alley every week, in exchange
for a small reduction in the $80.00 a month rental. I also emptied out my meagre bank account to
make down payments on the few sticks of furniture which newlyweds usually require.

Sonya's parents arranged for us to have an April wedding, and they generously provided a
reception at which my parents beamed with pride. And then they all waved us on our way back to
Ottawa, in a rented van filled with gifts such as three silver plated chafing dishes; two of which I
left with a pawnbroker and never did redeem.
We got married during a four day holiday weekend, and what with the emotional impact of the
momentous event, combined with travelling from Ottawa to Hamilton and back, plus all the
packing and unpacking, I overslept the morning I was to return for duty and consequently reported
back to work an hour late. It was indicative of the sad rapport which existed between me and my
superiors that this minor misdemeanour, in a branch of the service which had long proven it lacked
anything much of importance that it needed me to do, should lead to me being placed on Captains
Report. My punishment consisted of an order to raise and lower the flags of all three services,
(army, airforce and navy), up and down three tall flagpoles located on the Military Headquarters
 3
roof, in downtown Ottawa, every day for one full week. They were to go up their respective poles
at exactly 7:30 AM, and be lowered at sunset.

By nature, I've never been an early riser, and my orgy of indulgence in the first week of marriage
brought out the most and the least of me; and six semi-sleepless nights later I was five breathless
minutes late in hoisting the proud ensigns into the cloudy morning sky. For having so erred I was
sentenced to two more weeks of flag detail.

Again, one week and six mornings further along the line I overslept. However, while tumbling down
our three flights of stairs and setting out to run eight or nine blocks and then up five flights of stairs
to the empty Headquarters rooftop, I realized the only way anyone on those nearly vacant Sunday
streets could possibly know the exact time that I raised the National banners, would be by the
moment I entered into Military Headquarters, when the guard on duty recorded the time and
purpose of my visit into the daily logbook. Accepting that I was already in serious trouble for once
more being late, and being somewhat familiar by then with the weekend rotation routine for the
guards and the duty officer, I gambled that no one could do anything much to anyone if the time of
my appearance was not actually logged. So I turned around and went back home to my cosy bed.

I was indeed very lucky, for when I strolled into Military Headquarters that evening and logged in
with the guard for the purpose of bringing down the flags, no one knew that they hadnt even gone
up that day. To celebrate this grand conclusion to our honeymoon Sonya and I bought tickets to an
Elvis Presley concert.

Summer ended and I graduated from the navys motion picture course. It consisted of being
involved in the shooting of a three minute 16mm colour film, depicting how to load and unload the
16mm Bell & Howell movie projector. I thought it to be a rather strange project and many years
later I would tell people that that was my first concept piece, because anyone who knew how to
use the projector would hardly have need to see the film, and those who didn't couldnt.

During that course I became friends with another navy photographer by the name of Charlie Greg,
and I may well have learned more about the art of photography from him than from any other
single person. Both he and I were kept on at Photographic Headquarters when the course ended,
and for many weeks we worked late into the night - long after other Government employees had
left for the day - pouring over Yosuf Karsh's new book, Portraits of Greatness, and taking turns
setting up the studio lights in an effort to analyze the lighting techniques Karsh had employed. It
was Charlie who encouraged me to submit one of the shots Id taken, in my days aboard H.M.C.S.
Quebec, for entry in the 1956 Annual RCN Salon of Photography; and he wasnt a bit surprised to
see it win an honourable mention.
Charlie boarded with Sonya and me for a few months. He slept in a single bed we set up in the
kitchen, behind the fridge and a cupboard that we rearranged to create a room divider. That was
around the time that I read about Houdini, the American escape artist, and every weekend I talked
Charlie into tying me up in a hundred feet of white rope. He helped me to practise the trick until I
could perform the escape in just under 30 seconds; while also handcuffed and locked into an
oversize mailbag which Sonya laboriously stitched up on her portable sewing machine.
Sonya and I easily learned to care for each other, and we happily applied ourselves to embracing
the wonders of one another. We not only survived the shock of our unplanned marriage, but we
also began to look forward to the birth of our child. Of course it wasnt all roses. Her pregnancy
was not entirely without problems and twice she was hospitalized with toxemia; and in her eighth
month she nursed me through pneumonia.
4
Shortage of money was a constant problem. My salary was far from adequate to support the both
of us while also confronting monthly bills for medical services and furniture payments, etc. Even
with the marriage allowance from the navy, and my part-time job as a night desk clerk at the
YMCA, we reached a stage when buying food became a treat. To alleviate some of the economic
pressure we decided to move into a shabby two room basement apartment in lower town, and we
made the move by means of fifteen trips with a wheelbarrow that we borrowed from a startled
neighbour.
In November of 1956, (just before John Diefenbaker was elected prime minister of Canada),
Sonya gave birth to the healthiest, softest, sweetest smelling little baby that I had ever seen, and
we named her Sandra Lee. I dont know how we ever managed it but over that Christmas period
we entertained Sonyas parents, my aunt Hilda, Sonya's pregnant sister and her husband, Charlie
Greg, and professor William Pugsley, whom I'd met while he was serving as a reserve officer on
board H.M.C.S. Quebec, and who lived in his familys Ottawa home when he wasnt teaching
economics at McGill University.
By early spring Id traded in my two evening a week job at the YMCA for a three evening a week
job as a short order cook at the (old) Capital House delicatessen, and had begun to finish up my
last three months with the RCN working as an office messenger at photo headquarters, on the 2nd
floor of the historic, sandstone, Elgin building. Needless to say, the military offered no program on
how to prepare for civilian life, so any spare time I could find was dedicated to contemplating the
want ads in a couple of newspapers. Had I the necessary resources to set up a small store front
studio, I believed it was possible to scratch out a living in the wedding and baby picture business,
and although I saw this as a possibility at some future date, when it reached the point where I
could look forward to only one more Government paycheck I had to make a pragmatic decision.
While reading the weekend newspaper cartoons I happened upon a sketch of a police
photographer in the Dick Tracy strip and I was overcome with a revelation. Sure, it would take
some time to learn the various quirks of that particular craft, but a simple enquiry made clear that
the Hamilton Police Department could use someone with my background; and they also had a pay
scale bigger than any other for which I could qualify.
Of course, a senior police officer gently explained that Id be required to walk a beat for awhile, in
order to learn a little about the profession before jumping right into the crime lab. Besides, I had yet
to turn twenty two years old
.

6
CHAPTER FOUR

The first Saturday morning in August, 1957, I swore an oath to uphold and enforce the Criminal Code
of Canada, both the Liquor Control Act and the Highway Traffic Act for the Province of Ontario, and all
the Civic By-laws for the City of Hamilton. I wasnt required to know what any of those laws were
about before making the said oath, but I was at that time supplied with mimeographed copies of
some of them, along with a loaded 38 calibre revolver, two police uniforms, and some other bits and
pieces of law enforcement gear; all of which I packed into a matching pair of brown paper shopping
bags, and carried onto the bus for home.

My dramatic change of career had been eased by Sonyas family, who kindly reshuffled their own
lives to give us temporary use of a second floor apartment in their Stoney Creek home on the
outskirts of Hamilton. Id been instructed to report to Central Police Station, (next door to the yellow-
ochre teddy bear), at 10:45 PM on the coming Monday, when I would begin six straight weeks of
night duty, during which time I would walk a beat in the company of an experienced police constable.
Over the weekend I was expected to read a mimeographed Police Handbook, and generally acquaint
myself with the other stuff in the brown paper shopping bags.

I took the "Handbook" and a bottle of beer out on the front porch, to catch the afternoon sunshine,
and settled upon reading a section about stolen cars. I read, "Car thieves can sometimes be
identified as a result of their unfamiliarity with the stolen vehicle. For example, they may not know
what is in the trunk when questioned, or they may not be able to open the engine hood because of
not knowing the exact location of the hood latch." While pausing to sip my beer I thought it was really
a matter of common sense, and noticed that a grey 1953 Monarch had stalled at the foot of my in-
laws driveway, and that the driver of the car was fumbling about in an apparent attempt to find the
hood latch. I quickly returned to my reading, while purposefully shunting my chair to face more in the
opposite direction.

I went on to read, "A car thief can sometimes be recognized by the number or arrangement of the
keys they might carry. For example, the car keys may not be kept on the same key ring as house
keys, or the driver may be in possession of an unusually large number of car keys." My reading was
interrupted at that point by a loud clinking sound coming from the area of the stalled Monarch, and I
looked over to see the largest ring of keys Id seen since serving as a storesman aboard the Maggie.
I stood up immediately, went into the house, and pretended I had to use the bathroom. But, like a
moth drawn to a flame, I peeked out the side of the window curtain while wondering whether Id given
my oath to investigate that sort of thing.

I therefore decided to go upstairs and rummage about in the brown paper shopping bags, looking for
the police badge Id been issued, while nudging my brain cells into a rerun performance of all the
cops and robbers movies I could remember, in search of some modus operandi that I could adopt. I
found the chrome plated shield, with the number 260 stamped into it, however, not wishing to stick
the pin of it into my relatively new leather wallet, the way they appeared to do on TV, I just tucked the
open pin behind the drivers license compartment and carefully held the wallet closed on the badge
with my sweating fingers, as I opened the front door and strode toward the teenage driver who still
continued to fiddle with the Monarch.

I drew sufficient courage from his frail build to identify myself as a police officer, whereupon I

1^I

25
flipped open my wallet to expose the badge - which came loose with the flipping motion - and we both
watched it arc through space and land in the middle of the road. It hadn't occurred to me to bring
along the revolver, nor did it cross my mind to frisk him, and I guess he thought Id found the badge in
a box of Cracker Jacks because he wasted no time in picking it up off the road and handing it back to
me with a grin.
During the course of the weird conversation which followed, I learned that he was carrying no drivers
license nor ownership papers for the car, and because I couldnt think of what else to do, I invited him
up to the front porch and gave him a bottle of beer. Beyond that I had no idea of what procedure to
initiate, and I could only wonder why he didnt get up and walk away. In order to provide him with that
opportunity I went back into the house and looked up the telephone number for the Hamilton Police
Department. (In those days the 911 emergency dialing system did not exist, and not until much later
did I happen to find out that police constables can dial a special number which will put them directly in
touch with a police radio operator.)
After telling my story to a switchboard operator, who sat in front of an upright arrangement of
telephone jacks, like those I had earlier used while working as a night desk clerk at the Ottawa
YMCA, I was then asked to unfold my yarn for the amusement of other bored office staff, before
someone told me to summons the driver for failing to produce and failing to obtain. The voice on the
telephone sounded most upset when I confessed that I didnt know what that meant, nor how to do it.
From a kind of despair the strange voice then said, "Well send out a car." As I hung up the phone I
heard my mother-in-law ask, "Why dont you invite your friend into the house? Its not polite to leave
him alone on the porch while you chat on the phone." At which point I returned to the screen door and
announced to my very patient friend, 'Theyre sending out a car." And because he sat there quite
calmly, with the large ring of keys in his lap, I fetched him another beer.
In a matter of twenty minutes a Stoney Creek police car pulled up behind the stalled Monarch, and
the lone officer who looked to be fourteen years old, explained that my father-in-laws house was fifty
feet beyond the Stoney Creek boundary line, and that he would radio the Saltfleet Township Police
Department. While getting back into his black and white car he made it clear that it was up to me to
write the summons for failing to produce and failing to obtain, and my refusal to do so left the
situation entirely beyond his jurisdiction.
I began to ask myself whether the Saltfleet Police may be enroute for the purpose of arresting me
around the time that Sonya enquired if my guest was staying for dinner. So when the Chief of the
Saltfleet Township Police Department eventually drove into the driveway I was much relieved to hear
him say, "Have you stolen another car young man? I thought you just got out on bail!"
All things considered, Sunday was a reasonably quiet day, but on Monday morning the following
article appeared in the local newspaper:
OFFICER LAUDED FOR FAST ACTION -

An alert young Hamilton constable received praise today from the Chief of
 Police, for his quick action which resulted in the recovery of a
9 stolen carone minute after the alarm had been turned in.
Constable Robert Downing noticed a young man tinkering with
a car at the outskirts of Hamilton early Saturday evening. When
the man was unable to produce an ownership card for the car
Constable Downing telephoned the station and learned that the
car had just been reported stolen. The Chief of Police went to
the aid of Downing and arrested (Billy the Kid), age eighteen,
who has been charged with theft.

Barely had I finished reading the ridiculous article when the phone rang and a voice told me there'd
been a change in plans. Instead of reporting to Central Station that evening, I should go to a
suburban police station where I'd walk a beat alone.

People don't tend to believe me; but I felt foolishly conspicuous getting on the bus to go to work in a
police uniform, and I became even more self-conscious when I shuffled my freshly ironed presence
into a room full of dishevelled, card-playing veterans of the force. I hung against the wall of the room
until a white haired sergeant appeared at the door and uttered the word "garage". At which point I
tagged along behind the seasoned veterans and fastened myself to one end of a semi-circle they
formed around the old sergeant in the centre of the police garage.

I then mimicked the others and showed off my various concealed weapons for the sergeants
inspection, however, by the time Id succeeded in returning the loaded gun, the chrome handcuffs,
and a long wooden (Billy) club, to their assigned reposal about my person, the other members of the
semi-circle had begun writing into their notebooks groups of number sequences that the sergeant
was reciting. I no sooner figured out that they must be automobile license numbers when each
member of the party was allocated a single digit number; upon receipt of which each individual
withdrew from the gathering and departed out the garage door. I was awarded the number 2 which I
diligently inscribed on the first page of my empty notebook, and then experienced a surge of panic
when I saw that the white haired sergeant was on his way back to the front office.

As I watched myself running out of the garage door on the heels of one of the slower policemen to
leave the area, it crossed my mind to go back home and go to bed, for it was 11:15 PM, and anyone
as uninformed as I saw myself to be, most certainly did not belong on the streets unattended.
Nonetheless, when I caught up with the man I was pursuing, I asked him as best I could, to please
tell me how to play my number. In the voice of a cop giving out street directions he informed me that I
needed a beat sheet, and from one of his many pockets he produced a small bundle of tattered
paper secured with a brown elastic band. He selected one sheet from his stack and handed it over to
me along with the request to be sure and return it to him in the morning.

The tiny bit of dog-eared paper displayed a kind of code which read something like this: N. on Kenil.
to Bar. 11:40. E. on Bar. to Parkd. 12:10., and so on. It didn't take much for me to understand that I
should proceed on foot north along Kenilworth Avenue, (which was quite near by), and arrive at
Barton Street at 11:40 PM. But after being late to arrive at the first point on the beat, I found myself
arriving at all the subsequent beat points earlier, and ever earlier, regardless of how slowly I walked.
The problem was solved by the old sergeant, who appeared out of nowhere driving a well tuned dark
blue sedan, and called out the window to me, "You're not trying the doors - try the bloody doors -
fronts and bloody rears." He then disappeared back into the night leaving me to sort it out; and by the
time I realized that I was supposed to be checking the security of all the business premises along the
route, I ended up by reporting into the suburban station nearly twenty minutes late for my 3:00 AM
lunch break.
At 4:00 a.m, I returned to the five mile foot patrol comforted by my knowledge of where to find all the
front doors, and even some of the back doors. I considered myself to be doing quite well until I
reached for a doorknob Id tested earlier that night, and observed that it and the padlock which had
1
been resting above it were both missing. My first instinct was to run for a cop, but when I noted that I
was the closest policeman for miles around my only recourse was to lapse into another rerun of
everything I'd ever seen on the silver screen. I opted to try a John Wayne approach and kicked the
door so damn hard that it came loose from its hinges and smashed up against the far wall of a0dark
space which quietly yawned in front of me. Inside, at the other end of my flashlight beam, even more
frightened than me, stood two teenage boys with their fingers in the cash register drawer.

Of course, I still had no idea that police officers could dial direct to the dispatcher, so with the two
prisoners laying outstretched and trembling, face down on the floor, I used the phone on the
premises to outline my latest caper to the switchboard operator downtown. After some degree of
discussion the sound of sirens slowly descended upon the hole where the back door should be, and
the two kids and I were all whisked off to the suburban station, where a detective placed me alone in
a little room, with instructions to prepare a Chiefs Report, and a Crown Attorneys Report, as well as
a white haired old sergeants report expounding upon why my gun had been bolstered when he
arrived at the scene, and not pointed toward the suspects.

At the conclusion of my first nights work I boarded a bus for downtown, and at 8:30 AM on the dot, I
knocked at the door of Deputy Chief Morreaus office. Although I was not in his office for more than
five minutes, he convinced me to report to Central Station that coming night, rather than resign. And it
came to pass that I worked six straight weeks of night duty, walking a beat in the company of an
experienced constable. I found it strange that I didn't witness a single arrest during that entire six
weeks. However, I did learn how to make out a summons for failing to produce and failing to obtain a
driver's license, and I also became friends with a couple of other rookies who joined me in exploring
facets of the city which none of us previously knew about.

By the time Id started regular shift work I had also found a modest second floor apartment across
from Gage Park, and Sonya, Sandra and I had become residents of Hamilton, which was a
prerequisite to remaining on the citys police force. It was my intention to keep our living expenses
low, while gradually saving toward the acquisition of my own photographic equipment. But, I was
soon made aware that Sonya and her parents had concocted more ambitious plans. They felt it
would be better, over the long term, for me to use the security my job offered to borrow a sum of
money to invest in a house. And Sonya engineered it so that I agreed to go out and look at new
housing developments up on the mountain, where the farms had surrendered to progress as much
as two miles back from the brow of the escarpment.
The idea of being a property owner certainly was attractive to my ego, and seeing the high
basements under the houses I easily envisaged a studio/darkroom layout that would be suitable to be
shown on the cover of Popular Photography magazine. Nonetheless, it was not until Sonya
confirmed that she was pregnant with our second child that our apartment became unexpectedly
small; and not until then did we arrange for her parents to drive us back up on the mountain for a
closer look at the new houses.

It was so remarkably simple to borrow the down payment and arrange a couple of mortgages that we
then found that the only way we could survive was for Sonya to take a part-time job as receptionist in
a Stoney Creek doctors office. The house we bought cost in the area of $17,500.00. But making this
commitment involved the financing of a second-hand car - in order that we could both go to work -
and also a small allowance for a baby sitter. We were then so strapped for cash that we couldn't even
afford to paint the plaster white walls, and when we discovered that our new secondhand car needed
an overhaul, and that I must make improvements to my wardrobe for a plain clothes assignment, I
just resigned myself to borrowing more money.

Sonya always manifested boundless energy and an unwavering sense of direction, and I never saw
these traits more clearly than during the time to follow, when she was so completely content with the
shape her life was taking. She worked two evenings a week and all day Saturday at the doctors
office, took full responsibility for the everyday care of Sandra, as well as helping with outdoor chores

1
such as snow shovelling; while also keeping up with the washing, grocery shopping, cleaning, and
preparation of all meals - regardless of what shift I might happen to be working - and she was still
able to read Gone With The Wind from cover to cover three times.
1
Into the new year, when the police department had gathered enough recruits, and when the summer
holidays didnt cut away the manpower, I began a ten week police training course which covered
topics like first aid, self-defense, an introduction to the legal system, and an outline of the prevailing
view of the police officers role in society.

In May of 1958 Sonya gave birth to a robust, active baby boy, whom we named Daniel Robert. As a
gesture of pride in having fathered a healthy son, I performed the customary ritual of distributing the
contents of a large box of cigars among my colleagues and friends.

During the first eighteen months in which I served as an officer of the law, the magistrates court
awarded me something like five commendations for outstanding police work. More important, through
the cooperation of a large number of people I was privileged to become co-founder of Canada's first
police choir. (Now a chorus of about two dozen dedicated voices who continue to contribute actively
to the community through a broad number of channels.)

I was a member of what is now called The Hamilton Wentworth Police Department for roughly thirty
months, and the first year and a half remained relatively calm and uneventful compared to my last
twelve months on the job. And nothing I might say could satisfactorily describe the kind of tension
which seemed to increase with each passing day.

For example, while working the tail end of the night shift I was driving a classic, noisy, Harley-
Davidson three wheeler "yummy wagon," east along the very same Main Street I had once travelled
while delivering telegrams for the CPR, and thinking about how the burden of debt on our house left
us so tight for money that we couldnt seem to afford to clean up the mess Id made of our property.
You see, in an effort to keep up with my neighbours Id planted four or five wild cedar trees in a row,
directly in front of the house; and in the process I inadvertently infested the house with clover mites.
They are tiny, essentially harmless bugs that inhabit wild cedar trees, when they don't decide to move
into your home, Sonya had found them in the old red chesterfield her parents had given to us when
they bought themselves a new one.

Not knowing a clover mite from a dung beetle, at that time, I put a few into a plastic pill bottle and
took them to the Citys Health Department for identification. A clever young chap with a beard and a
lab technicians white coat, scrutinized them under a magnifying glass and then told me to put DDT
on all the window sills, in addition to painting the outside of the house, all around the basement, with
black roofing tar. A sensible person would have recognized that he was a practical joker and would
not have believed one word he said, and everyone told me that after I did it, of course. Nevertheless,
compared to the landscaping at the rear of the house it didn't appear that much out of place for the
backyard was ruined beyond belief.

When we bought the property the rear yard tapered downhill away from the back of the house at the
kind of angle that made the backyard totally useless. Because one could neither walk nor sit on the
lumpy ground without feeling that one was about to topple over and roll up against the back
neighbours charming vine covered fence.
Having looked through some old copies of Better Homes and Gardens, I got the idea to go more into
debt for the price of three big truck loads of top soil, which I shovelled and raked into terraced steps
to form a patio, come play area, complete with a tubular swing set for the growing children. I tamped
it all and rolled it down in a manner to create a lower level vegetable patch at the very bottom of the
garden. It looked so attractive that I went deeper into debt and planted grass seed, which everyone
said was essential to prevent the soil from eroding and also to enhance the overall mood of the
landscape.
1
The very night Id finished inserting the last grain of grass seed into the moist ground, Southern 2
Ontario was struck by the worst rain storm Id seen since my days on the good ol' Swansea. Sonya
and I just stood in our bedroom, at the back of the house, and watched through the window as
mother nature and father time carved deep canyon ruts into our home improvement plan; washing
great gullies of rich dark soil, grass seed, and bits of tubular swing set, all the way up our neighbours
charming vine covered fence.
That tremendous rain storm also added a rather sculptured character to the front yard. When I
planted the wild cedar trees I rounded off that phase of the landscaping by planting grass seed, from
Kentucky, in order to make a nice front lawn. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm I sprinkled it with
sufficient fertilizer to burn each delicate young seed to death. So it was no problem for the wet
shifting mud to drag one of the frail little cedar trees around to the side of the tar covered basement.
I was thinking about the remarkable fact that the storm did not appear to touch any of the other
properties in our well kept neighbourhood, and wondering what might be done about my island of
visual turmoil, when I noticed a car coming in the opposite direction with the headlamps turned off. I
responded by flashing the motorcycle headlamp on and off a couple of times in order to remind the
apparently sleepy driver that it was four o'clock in the morning. Since the road held no other traffic
apart from him and me, and because the driver of the car seemed so determined to ignore me, I did
a U-turn and pulled up beside the vehicle, directing the driver to pull over.

After parking the motorcycle I had only to get a whiff of the drivers breath to realize that he was quite
possibly intoxicated. When he couldn't produce a drivers license I went back to the bike and radioed
the dispatcher with the drivers name and other pertinent information. Inside of three minutes the
dispatcher informed me that the subject in question had recently had his drivers license suspended
by the court, because he had injured a child while driving under the influence of alcohol.

I then observed another car without headlights proceeding along the street in the same direction I'd
been going before doing a U-turn. I tilted the three cell flashlight in the ring on my belt and cast a
beam of light onto the face of the young male driver of that car as it passed; but he and the other
young lads in the car diligently tried to pretend that I did not exist. I thereupon handcuffed my
inebriated prisoner to the parking meter beside his car, and remounted the motorcycle. As I restarted
the machine the driver of the departing vehicle burned rubber to leave me behind. Taking pursuit, I
watched the red traffic lights and stop signs begin to pass by me at sixty miles an hour while I
shouted against the wind a description of the car - and the route we were travelling - into the radio
microphone which I held close to my mouth with my other hand. Reaching a spot in the road where
everything turned to slow motion, I saw the car I was chasing shear through a transformer bearing
utility pole, and then shoot up the front steps of a house sitting beyond the severed wooden pole. I
drove the last few feet to the scene with the bike squirming into a slide, while I spieled into the mike
an urgent request for police assistance, the fire department, an ambulance, and an electrical repair
crew. Somehow, I then tackled two running youths to the ground, and pulled another from the wreck
of what turned out to be the remnants of a stolen car.

Even with all the help the city could offer it still took until sunrise to tidy up the mess, escort one boy
to the hospital for examination, and book the other two into detention cells. And it was not until I sat
down to start work on umpteen police reports that I remembered the prisoner that I had handcuffed to
a parking meter.

During the months before the 1959 Christmas holiday season got into full swing, the septum of my
nose was shattered by an unfriendly drunk who took displeasure at the sight of my uniform. Sonya
and I endured the painful decision for her to undergo an illegal abortion. I carried my left hand in a
cast for six weeks; and I watched my mother die from a stroke, after living out the last few days of her

1
life imagining that her grandchildren were kept tied to their beds.

One night after working the 3 to 11 shift, I was laying in bed staring at the unpainted white ceiling,
with3Sonya asleep beside me, and thinking about the heart attack victim Id helped deliver to the city
morgue that afternoon, when I gradually became aware of a transparent rose tinted aura of warm
light all around me. I was conscious of my physical body, but felt myself to be extended into and
penetrated by that radiant glow, which simultaneously overwhelmed me with rising pulsations of a
supernatural state of supreme bliss. It was as though Id transcended normal understanding of the
earthly plane, and for one intense fleeting moment experienced a hint of cosmic ecstasy.

The sensation of rapture slowly passed and I was left with uncontrollable tears of joy streaming from
my eyes, and the unshakable conviction that Id been granted a most holy, majestically explicit
glimpse of eternity. Although I had in no way appeared to change, I felt transformed; and yet when I
jubilantly awoke Sonya I couldnt explain what had happened, and she suggested that Id simply
awakened from a dream.

For several days after that religious experience I felt so elated that I found it impossible to be overly
concerned about those things which had previously preoccupied my thoughts. It seemed like a veil
had been lifted and Id been suddenly given to perceive exciting new dimensions in life. Looking at
snowflakes, for instance, I actually experienced them as crystallized water droplets, and had to ask
why I would not have seen nature quite so vividly before. My entire being seemed to be rejoicing, and
the only expression that made any sense was thank you, Thank You God, Thank You, and thank you
some more.

Apart from my adorable children, every person I knew was fairly certain that I was either having, had
had, or was about to have, some sort of nervous breakdown. Sonya and our friends tended to
approach me with extreme caution, for they were concerned about my rejection of ideas and objects
which had been so much a part of who I was, and quite surprised by my sudden new interest in
Shakespeare's Sonnets, the Mercury recording of Tchaikovskys 1812 Overture, and an exhibition of
painting at the (old) Hamilton Art Gallery.

Sonya had to exercise all her patience with me when I showed her how the pages of my police
notebook had changed into poetic sketches of metaphysical insights. And I in turn had to bite my
tongue when she told me that shed spoken to the doctor, and arrangements had been made for me
to undergo psychological testing.

In the midst of that confusing period I wandered into a small bookstore which had recently opened
around the corner from the (old) Central Police Station, (and the fading yellow-ochre teddy bear);
where I was delighted to meet the yoga practising proprietor, William Davies, who kindly consented to
serve as my guru. I walked out of his shop and into the early signs of the 1960's carrying a hard cover
copy of Dr. Maurice Buckes 19th edition of Cosmic Consciousness.
 1

Within the two months that followed I resigned from the police force; sold the house, for $500.004less
than wed paid for it; and I began eight months of Freudian psychotherapy with Dr. Otto
Weininger,CHAPTER FIVE
The doctor soon convinced me that I was insane to think I could go for the rest of my life without
working, so I took my first step toward rehabilitation and went in search of some new way to support
myself and my family. In view of my "police record," I was hired by Union Acceptance Corporation,
who sent me up and down the highways and byways of Southern Ontario in pursuit of delinquent
accounts. Apart from the opportunities the work provided to explore the glorious spring countryside,
the flexibility of the working hours allowed time to visit twice a week with both my shrink, and my
guru.

A friend from the police department helped to move me and my family into a four room cottage in
Stoney Creek, where the rent was cheap and it was not too far for Sonya to drive to her ongoing
part-time job as a doctor's receptionist. A lesser woman would have complained about her fate but
not Sonya, even though I tended to lose my temper over the most insignificant incidents.

In the throws of some deep inner frustration I picked up a hatchet one day and began chopping my
way through hunks of driftwood Id hauled home from the beach. By early spring it became obvious
to everyone around me that I craved some form of expression beyond my family and a normal paying
job. And when I naively confessed a desire to become an artist Sonya was among the first to bravely
offer her support.

Members of both our families, our old friends, our new friends, as well as both doctor and guru, all
discussed the problem of how I might fulfil my wish when my grade eight education didnt entitle me
to enroll in any available education program, other than grade nine night classes at the local high
school. Committing myself to that sort of long-term plan at the age of nearly twenty five was more
than I chose to consider, particularly when I already thought that so much of my life had been
dissipated by doing everything under the sun aside from art. However, when the question of returning
to photography was raised, I began to save every spare penny I could find toward the purchase of a
camera. By the end of an extremely long month Id managed to save just enough to buy a paperback
copy of Allan Ginsberg's beat generation poem, "HOWL", which I sacrificed to the fires of my burning
soul.

When it began to look as though the riddle of my humble existence might never be solved, the
Hamilton poet David McFadden passed word through Bills bookstore grapevine that an artist had
moved into the city, and was offering art classes from his newly rented store front studio out on good
ol' Main Street East. His name was Robert Ulman, and he was born in (Bohemia) Czechoslovakia,
between the two Great Wars.

I gathered up all the courage I could muster and entered Mr. Ulmans studio/gallery to find him sitting
with his feet resting on the corner of an old oak office desk which had clearly been rejected by some
growing institution. Robert Ulmans long black hair was combed back over his head, to touch the
frayed collar of his clean, unironed shirt, which he wore with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows.
His seasoned dark dress pants were also rolled up at the cuffs, to expose a pair of well worn oxfords
which he wore without socks. He glanced at me with shining black eyes and held up the book he was
reading so that I could see the title: "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones." And I standing still in the image of a cop
said, "Ive come to take art lessons."

Although his eyes were facing my direction he gazed more within himself than at me, and answered,
'They cost one dollar an hour." I reached for my wallet and then passed him a one dollar bill, which
 1
5
he accepted, folded in three, and deposited into his shirt pocket with a quick movement of his right
hand; while asking, "What do you want to make?" When I replied that I didn't know he reached into
his shirt pocket and handed me back the dollar, along with the statement, "Come back when you do."
He then redirected his attention to the book which he held in his left hand.

As I started out toward the sunlit July afternoon, reverberating from the shock, I recognized that my
destiny was apparently in my own hands, so I turned around toward him saying, "I want to make a
hand." We once more exchanged the dollar bill and he pointed to a galvanized garbage pail sitting on
a plywood dolly in the corner, and without moving from his position, instructed me to wheel it out to
the back room where Id find a sculpture pedestal upon which I could set to work. He again returned
to his book, and I alone in the back room removed the lid from the garbage pail to discover it
contained grey modelling clay.

As the daylight began to fade I became aware of Mr. Ulman standing beside me and an over life size
clay reproduction of my left hand, as though torn from my arm at the wrist, and visually fastened to
the top of his square sculpture pedestal, palm upward, by a phallic looking railroad spike Id also
fashioned from the malleable clay. Following a silent pause, he made a gesture of attempting to give
back the dollar while commenting, "You dont need art lessons." Nonetheless, within three short days
hed taught me how to make a three piece waste mold, pour a plaster casting and apply a shellac
patina, while also starting me off on life drawing classes that he conducted in his studio on Thursday
evenings.

One week after my twenty-fifth birthday Bob Ulman announced that he'd found a vacant farm house
and empty barn for rent near Grimsby - a mere stones throw from Lake Ontario - and I was
overjoyed when he invited me and my family to share the place with him, his wife, and their eight
year old son. Neither his wife nor mine were overly excited about the idea; but the house was large,
with lots of windows, and both he and I were enthusiastically convincing. So in mid August everyone
agreed to give it a try and we moved in, complete with ten chickens and a rooster which Bob
acquired at the Hamilton market.

Being a master stone carver, Bob earned part of his income by repairing gargoyles and diaper work
on older buildings. In fact, he was later hired to do restoration work on the Federal Parliament
Buildings in Ottawa, and his facility with stone gave credence to the idea that a sculptor reveals the
forms already existing in the material; for he would disclose a human face hidden inside a course
rock with just a few simple taps on the pointing chisel. In addition to sharing some traditional
techniques for carving sandstone, granite, limestone and marble, he taught me how to develop a
basic visual vocabulary, while also helping me to better come to terms with the startling change in
direction that my life had taken. For example, at some point when I impatiently asked, "What the hell
is an artist, anyway?" - he wasted no time in replying that the answer varied according to where,
when, and to whom the question was put; but that he favoured the notion that art was something
which occurred when a person actively combined their hands, head and heart in balance with the
Divine Creator of All.

He never ceased to amaze me by his capacity to step beyond the accepted boundaries of art, and
spontaneously delve into new areas of creative experiment. Having learned to compress my bill
collecting job into three and a half or four days a week, I was in the attic studio one afternoon,
exploring two-dimensional pattern systems, (or plane tessellations); when I heard the rattle of Bobs
old car pulling into the driveway. It was early autumn by then and the preceding night had brought
one of those damp snowfalls that covers the ground with a half inch of sticky snow, and I heard him
stop to scrub his boots on the mat in the back porch, before climbing the three flights of stairs to the
 1

attic two steps at once. He dropped a bundle of lumber and canvas from under his arm, and began to
6
gather up tools from all four corners of our studio attic. By dinner time hed built a sturdy stretcher
frame five feet high and eight feet long; stretched a canvas over it, added a size coat of clear satin
sealer; and mixed a palette of earth coloured acrylic paint which he vigorously brushed onto the
surface in lyrical strokes, to manifest a birds-eye view of measured bulldozer tracks cutting through
the virgin snow white field of the spacious canvas.

No one among us laboured more valiantly to adjust to communal living than did Sonya. The well ran
dry twice before we realized that the furnace grate needed to be repaired if we wanted heat; and
never once did Sonya express the true depths of her discontent until the day my mentor - who had
an uncanny affinity with animals - appeared in the yard with a
young black bear that someone in Peterborough had given to him.

We left the farm house more quickly than we moved in, because Sonya was anxious to get into a
Stoney Creek cottage for rent on the lake front, even though it had no bathtub and we would later
take turns bathing in the kitchen sink. The place also lacked storm windows, so in the process of
tacking up a roll of polyethylene plastic to reduce the drafts, I covered in a small sun-room to use as
combination play area for the children and studio for me.

No more than a few days after we'd settled in the doctor declared an end to my psychotherapy and
Sonya surprised me with a gift of Walt Whitmans "Leaves of Grass."

I carried that book of poetry on one of my regular jaunts to Niagara Falls in quest of payment upon a
ninety day delinquent account. And while reading the poem, "Song Of The Open Road," I was
inspired to telephone my boss and tell him that I was quitting my job; and then call Sonya to tell her
where the car could be picked up, and that I needed some time alone to think out a few things.

The icy wind penetrated my bones as I walked across the border and into the United States of
America, with nothing more than a few dollars and a book of poetry in my pocket. I arrived in
downtown Buffalo in the midst of a clogged rush hour blizzard, and from a desire to be
warm I bought a bus ticket to Indianapolis, and spent the remains of my travel budget on a

toasted western sandwich. By seven the following morning I was tucking myself into an M.G.
convertible driven by a schoolteacher who was determined to be in St. Louis in time for his supper.
And then after hitching another ride it was just a matter of hours before I was gliding into the Midwest
in the company of a Burma Shave salesman, and staring in wonder at a sign which read, "Real Live
Buffalo."

Embraced by the boundary lines of (old) Route 66, the sights sang a carol to me in the cab of a
sixteen wheel truck, bouncing into the New Mexico sunshine on the longest, straightest stretch of two
lane potholes in the entire world, when the driver of the truck spotted a female figure standing alone
at the side of the road in the empty distance, and began to work his way down to low gear; but as the
truck slowed alongside the weather wise face of an elegant Navajo Indian woman, resplendent in
silver and turquoise charms, the driver grunted, "Screw the old cow," and accelerated ahead two
gears, while I watched myself pass Sonyas gift of Walt Whitman through the open window and into
her outstretched hand.

The wind blown sound of desert sirens wailed chords of tears to the midnight stars, and I cruised
through Arizonas churned up years of cross marked hills looking for the sunlit warmth of Californ I A.
 1
7
I asked and wanted for nothing when I washed four nights of road grime from my naked body in the
crystal blue waters of the mild Pacific Ocean, and then dressed and headed back to my own front
door, fully convinced that I should immerse myself in the business of making art, and simply live off
social welfare.

However, Sonya believed that sort of attitude implied social failure, and her fears for our future
together caused me to once again seek the advise of the doctor. He probed deeper into the cells of
my brain with his sterilized spatula, and two weeks later I started working as a darkroom technician
at the downtown Toronto advertising agency of Pringle & Booth; who entrusted me with the task of
printing pictures for Eatons spring catalogue.

Over the course of the following month I moved Sonya and the children into a three room, second
floor flat, reasonably close to where I worked. But Sonya found it impossible to replace the job shed
left behind in Stoney Creek, and as hard as we all struggled to adapt ourselves to the confines of a
city apartment, none of us were finding it easy to cope.

I used any spare time I had in the evenings, and on weekends, to build a small workbench in the
corner of our tiny living room, in order to provide a place where I could continue working upon a
couple of small sculptures Id brought along when we moved to Toronto. Unfortunately, that gave the
landlord sufficient reason to serve us with notice to vacate the premises.

For the very first time Sonya and I visited the doctor together, and that same day, after nearly five
years of marriage, I left my dedicated wife and our two trusting children with Sonyas parents; and I
slowly walked into the early spring rain with everything my sad heart could bear to carry, resting in
the bottom of a brown paper shopping bag.
CHAPTER SIX

The ensuing weeks are woven into my memory like yo-yo string tangled up in a pocket comb, and to
unravel even a part of the yarn is not an easy matter.

I remember going back to Toronto, surrendering my job, picking up my last paycheck, and then
forcing myself to make a brief stop at our vacant apartment where I collected a cardboard box of
small sculptures. Once having retrieved them I didn't know what to do with them; but I recall leaving
two on top of a green mail box at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets, and another with Mr. Jack
Pollock, who had recently opened an art gallery in the (old) artist's village, near the Gray Coach bus
terminal on Bay Street. Then, yearning for some relief from the knots in my stomach, I decided to
hitchhike to Montreal.

Warm weather had come earlier to Montreal than Toronto that year, and while hanging around the
outdoor cafes on Stanley Street, watching the awesome skill of some chess players, I got to know a
group of Hungarian Freedom Fighters who were studying at McGill University. They introduced me to
cafe au lait, and let me sleep on the floor of their basement submarine, amid stacks of books by
authors whose names Id never seen before.

Ridiculous though it may seem, it was through the Freedom Fighters that I learned about a newly
carved tree sculpture by Arman Vaillencourt; as well as Bens Delicatessen, where I met a
photographer called Max, who ate only yin-yang foods and was friends with Leonard Cohen. I think it
was Max who introduced me to Don McGowan, who knew a lot about the churches in Montreal, the
Ottawa architect Humphrey Carver, and also a book titled "Fanny Hill".
 1
8
In less than a fortnight my cup was filled to overflowing, and the next thing I knew I was gazing out
the casement window of aunt Hilda's guest room, breathing in the scent of fresh cut spruce that
wafted up from the mill to mingle with my childhood memories of Portneuf. I was there, but I wasnt
there. And my body ached so much to see my wife and children that two days later I was back in
Hamilton confronting yet another level of disorientation.

Sonya permitted me to visit with Sandy and Danny for only one hour in a public park, under the
watchful supervision of her appointed guardian. I openly wept from the shameful agony of being
policed while visiting with my own children; and as a result, thereafter, the telephone was hung up in
my ear whenever I called to speak with either Sonya or the children.

In desperation I consulted with a local minister who agreed to speak with Sonya upon my behalf.
However, all he got for his efforts was a discourse regarding my immature behaviour, and directions
to communicate to me that my reappearance in Hamilton had given Sonya's family sufficient cause
to prohibit me from being in contact with Sonya, or the children, under any circumstances whatever.

In an emotional frenzy I went to the home of a mutual friend to plead for his intervention, and the
message was clearly stated, amid physical blows to my head, that Sonya had had enough of me and
I would be well advised to stay away forever.

I remember sitting in a park that night, holding a razor blade in my hand; but I lacked the courage to
cut my wrists and decided instead to grind my head along the curb all the way to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, across the Angus L. MacDonald Bridge, and then all the way back to downtown Montreal.
My memory of events immediately after that remains a bit muddled. Nevertheless, I remember the
Freedom Fighters gently mopping the blood from my bleeding heart, and I recall picking up the
sculpture from Jack Pollock in Toronto, and giving it to the minister in Hamilton who had tried to help
me. I also know that I sat on the edge of a bed beside a half undressed prostitute in the (old)
Terminal Hotel. So that my father-in-law could take pictures, with his new Polaroid camera, in order
to contrive the kind of grounds for divorce which were required in those days.
Above and beyond those specific details, I remember my guru muttering something about birth and
rebirth, and my doctor telling me that if I couldnt cope perhaps I should consider committing myself
to the hospital where I learned how to play tennis. And then, while being admitted to the Hamilton
Mental Health Centre, wondering whether or not I'd be placed in the care of the big male nurse who
had tried to fuck me when I was an innocent teenager.
It was a different male nurse who escorted me into the showers and watched while I scrubbed from
head to foot, before he gave me a pair of grey pyjamas and a couple of pills. And it was a different
nurse again who sat me in a chair on the edge of a group of patients watching an afternoon TV
program, showing Milton Berle dressed up in a bunny rabbit costume.

I encountered three other patients in the hospital whom I knew. One was from my evenings on the
tennis courts, one was from my days in police court, and the other was from my five year stint in the
RON. During the eleven odd weeks that I was in the hospital those friends were immensely helpful in
that they shared many valuable tips for institutional living. The latter six weeks of that sojourn were
really quite pleasant in view of being assigned to work in the garden, and also being granted the
luxury of a private room; where I carved a plaster sculpture which I later reworked for a sculpture
symposium at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Toward the tail end of my treatment I was given the
freedom to leave the grounds in daytime, and when a photographer friend offered me a part-time job
 1
9
as his darkroom technician I made the down payment on a motor scooter.
I was riding the scooter to work one morning, along the scenic brow of the Niagara Escarpment,
when a dark green sedan pulled up beside me and the familiar faces of two morality officers from the
Hamilton Police Department motioned toward the side of the road, in a gesture for me to pull over.
They sat me in the back of their dreary police car and told me that the prostitute with whom Id been
photographed had revealed to them that she didn't actually have sex with me; and therefore, they
held a warrant for my arrest on the charge of colluding my divorce evidence.
Once they had confirmed that I was already under the care and control of another Government
agency, and as a result could not be tried in a court of law for the offence, they were quick to let me
go. However, they made it clear that the warrant for my arrest would be

kept on file awaiting the time when I was released from the hospital. Needless to say, I discussed my
predicament with the senior psychiatrist for my ward, and on the day when a large team of doctors
declared I was legally sane, I drove the scooterthrough the
back streets of Hamilton with my sights set for London, England.
My first stop was Ottawa, where I phoned Mr. Humphrey Carver and introduced myself as an
acquaintance of Don McGowan, whom I recently met in Montreal; and explained that I was hoping to
sell a piece of my sculpture toward my fare to England. He warmly invited me to visit his home and
although he was not enthralled by the plaster sculpture of my hand - with a nail sticking out of it - he
did give me $100.00.
I then headed to Montreal and contacted Dr. William Pugsley, whom I mentioned earlier, and

who was still a professor of economics at McGill University. Bill Pugsley placed a phone call upon my
behalf and the next morning I started working as a general labourer at a construction site in
Westmount.
I rented a $12.00 a week room near McGill, and left my scooter standing outside with a for sale sign
fastened to it. The net outcome of these efforts enabled me to buy freighter passage to England
within three weeks of leaving the hospital.
I spent my first night on board the freighter composing a poem which I later sent to Robert Fulford,
who was then the editor of Canadian Forum Journal for the Arts, and he saw fit to publish it:

ST. LAWRENCE GOODBYE

Purple clouds,

with pink bellies,

Hanging in a state of

suspended animation;
Were watching

blue black hills Trying to

look foreboding, Between the
red ring
 2

of the blue bowl,

0

And the nacreous edge of the blue

green, incandescent, motioning
mirror - While the mass moved
away From the great orange
dynamo; To face the wrinkled,
silvered,

Old man of the night - Waiting

patiently For the last shutter to
close On the golden windows
below.
As you know my previous visits to Great Britain were on the umbilical cord of the Royal Canadian
Navy; so arriving alone in the City of London enhanced the exhilarating experience of once more
walking upon the same soil which nourished my family roots. I went directly to #10 Downing Street,
(because it had haunted me since the age of seven, in spite of what the encyclopedia had to say
about it), and while I was in the neighbourhood I payed my respects at Westminster Abbey,
contemplated the glory of the Parliament Buildings, and listened to the mythological chimes of Big
Ben without the aid of a radio.
The only address I carried was that of a Hamilton friend whom I'd met in Bills bookstore, and who
was known to regularly consult the IChing. He had settled in the Kings Cross district a couple of
months earlier and when I called upon him he invited me to share a small bedsitter at the top of five
flights of stairs. I gratefully accepted his offer, even though the bathtub was down on the third floor,
and the lavatory - with a pull chain flush-was down on the second floor. Each floor had a separate
hall light switch wired into a timer designed to turn off the hall lights before one could find the location
of the switch hidden in the darkness on the next floor; regardless of how fast one may try to run.
The room itself was wide enough to allow only one person at a time to walk sideways between the
pair of metal barrack cots, and it was precisely the right length to permit one antiquated kitchen chair
to rest in a cosy arrangement with the door, a coat rack, a gas ring, and a set of shilling gobbling
meters, which governed how warm one may heat the water carried up from the sink on the fourth
floor, and also whether or not there would be adequate energy emitted by the ceiling light bulb to
facilitate the reading of a newspaper. My portion of the rent for those lavish digs amounted to over
half the little pay packet I received each week, working as a shipping clerk in the basement of
Simpsons of Piccadilly; who advertised themselves as being clothiers to various members of the
Royal Family for countless number of years.

In the midst of that heavy dose of culture shock I was inclined to spend many of my off hours sitting
in St. Jamess Park, in a melancholic mood, watching the children at play. However, the magnificent
historic architecture of that great city motivated me to gradually engage in longer walks. And it was
inevitable that I should stumble into such places as The British Museum, the Tate Gallery and the
National Portrait Gallery, various libraries, church organ recitals, antique stores, palaces, and of
course, the unique culinary ineptitude of the quaint tea shops.

I would not attempt to describe the feast of sublime power exuding from a Turner painting when
viewed face on, and it would be pointless to pretend I could define the impact of encountering, for
the first time, works by such artists as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson; to say
nothing of Rembrandt, Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci, or even the Canadian sculptor David Partridge.
 2
1
Suffice to say, I was blown away.
When it reached the stage where I couldnt bear the thought of looking at one more stunningly
beautiful Greek marble, or another exotic Japanese sword guard, or a scrap of some exquisite
ancient fabric; I met Brian Miller: a writer from British Columbia who consented to loan me the money
for my return fare to Canada. I don't remember whether we met in the pub down the street from
where William Blake once lived, or in Hyde Park at a Ban-The-Bomb rally. Nonetheless, he was
heading back to Canada himself and he agreed to adance the cost of my passage provided tickets
for the both of us could be obtained with the money he had on hand.

A week or so after our first meeting we hitchhiked to Bristol and boarded a freighter bound for
Churchill, Manitoba.

During the six day voyage we entertained ourselves by writing the draft of a musical satire about a
sculptor who uses a Canada Council grant to form a new political party which is 100% dedicated to
support of the arts. The phantasmagorical party is elected to office on the basis of the slogan: Dont
criticize, condemn or complain, Keep all things the same; as well as a campaign song proclaiming:

Less interest is our motto,

less interest from us all.

It simply is much simpler to

keep our thinking small.

When the newly appointed government must find ways to finance their policies they decide to:
Plough up the tundra and make it produce, buckets and buckets of coconut juice; while reasserting
the belief that wholescale subsidization of the arts is the best of all possible socioeconomic solutions.
The farce comes to an end with the countrys fate being expressed in a modified version of the
National Anthem:

0 Canada! You're going down the drain;

0 Canada! its useless to complain.

There's all those miles,

and theres all that space,

From B.C. to Newfoundland;

And on top of this, theres old Quebec:

Shes what we cannot understand.

Poor Canada! Troubled and grieved;

Poor Canada! You've been out maple leafed,

 2

Poor Canada! You've been out maple leafed.

2
Brian had a knack for composing tunes to suit someof our other
little ditties,and the last
evening at sea I consented to perform the piece for thethird passenger
on board, and two off
duty ship's officers, who crowded into one end of the tiny wardroom to endure all three acts.
When Brian and I landed on the shores of Hudson Bay, with less than ten bucks between us, we not
only recognized that there was little hope of finding local support for our musical comedy; but we also
discovered that the only way for us to leave Churchill was with a costly ticket for a train that shunted
south to Winnipeg twice weekly. Through the guidance of the district office of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police we succeeded in finding work with a construction company attempting to complete a
section of pipeline in advance of the impending winter. Neither one of us was equipped with the gear
to work in those rugged conditions, however, the foreman in charge of our crew loaned each of us a
pair of heavy rubber hip waders, and outlined a simple trick for making any dungaree jacket
windproof.

Soak it in water, take it outside, count to ten, and then put it on over a sweater. By the time its
buttoned up it's frozen into the shape of your body, and keeps out a high percentage of the freezing
wind.

Slugging it out in the cold knee deep muddy waters of a never ending twelve foot high trench was
made bearable through knowing Id earn enough to repay my debt to Brian, and also the price of a
train ticket to Winnipeg, within three gruelling weeks of ten hour work shifts.
On the day when we collected our final pay, and were ambling through town toward the train station,
we came upon a one room museum that housed a small collection of authentic Inuit artifacts. We
found it interesting to learn that the early Eskimo carvings were no more than two or three inches
long, and that they often portrayed the mermaid image. Of course, once wed seen them it became
obvious that a nomadic people, living in that harsh environment, would hardly be so foolish as to
make a talisman that couldn't be carried in their mitt.

It had been agreed between Brian and me that when we reached Winnipeg we would hitchhike to
Toronto. Partly because I was again short of cash and didnt wish to arrive anywhere without a
weeks room and board money in my pocket, and partly because neither one of us had an urgent
desire to do anything more than enjoy the formidable scenery.

Upon our arrival in Toronto we took a furnished room on Beverley Street, near the Ontario College of
Art. I was amazed to see how quickly Brian set to work writing short stories for a CBC radio program,
while I in turn considered myself lucky to be hired to repaint the white walls of Avrum Isaacs' new
Yonge Street art gallery. The job didn't last all that long, but it presented an opportunity to observe
the comings and goings of artists in Av's stable; such as Michael Snow, Graham Coughtry, and Greg
Curnoe. And it also enabled a friendship to be struck with Don Jean-Louis, an artist who had recently
moved to Toronto from Montreal, and one who readily shared his perspective of the Canadian art
world while lounging in the comfortable upholstered atmosphere of the (old) Pilot Tavern, which then
sat a couple of doors south of Av's gallery.
Needless to say, Toronto was a much different city in those days. The tallest building was still the
Royal York Hotel, and the subway only ran its shiny new, almost empty cars, up and down Yonge
 2
3
Street, between Union Station and Eglinton Avenue. For some of us, one of the most exciting places
in town was Don Cullens newly opened (old) Bohemian Embassy, on St. Nicholas Street; where the
price of a cup of coffee allowed one to sit in a shoddy, smoke filled, second floor warehouse space,
and be entertained by such performers as Ian & Sylvia Tyson, and Al Cromewell.
Im sure there was lots happening in other parts of the city; but for me there didnt seem to be all that
much demanding my attention, beyond sitting in Grange Park in the afternoons, attempting to write a
poem or two. Therefore, as much out of boredom as anything else, on the spur of the moment I
decided to take a chance that the heat would be off in Hamilton.
With nary a dime to my name, I hitchhiked my way to the door of Bill's bookstore and walked in to
meet David Lightstar Livingstone; psychic, philosopher, student of ontological pharodynamics, and
messenger of the upcoming Aquarian age. He required no introduction from me, for he had already
intuited my name. And before Id barely the time to even sa
yhello hed plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the table of the restaurant around the corner,
and pulled an orange and purple ball point pen out of the air, to cast a mandala depicting the
twelve keys to creation:
WILL DESIRE ACTION

PHYSICALLY MENTALLY SPIRITUALLY

ENERGY SUBSTANCE
He pointed out that INTELLIGENCE
each word is interchangeable with the other, because, he claimed, they all
interrelate with the formula of rrxxnn, which
TIME
PLACE
represents theSPACE
possible combinations of positive,
negative and neutral powers; including double positive, neutral negative, and neutral neutral et
cetera, etc.

Granting me the time to dwell no further upon these magical mysteries he then asked how I wished
to serve humankind. Although I knew that I wanted to be an artist I wasnt in the least sure of how to
go about it; but I knew one usually required a studio, some tools and basic art materials - not to
mention food and clothing - and so I replied by saying Id like to open a creative centre where
unrestricted access to space, tools and materials would be supplied free to all who may ask. He
thereupon delved into his numerological charts and cosmigraphs and selected the letters A & Z,
which he said were symbolic of the beginning and the end, and then he subtracted the letters OLO
from the name Solomon, and decreed that the creative centre would be called The House of AZOLO.

After hed paid the 30 cents bill for our two cups of coffee he revealed that he was left with a grand
total of thirty three cents, and he proposed that this amount be viewed as a mystical quotient, as it
was equivalent to the number of vertebra in the human spinal column. Then, while walking out into
the street, he announced that Scheherazade would be the musical theme of this innovative new
centre for the positive, creative and constructive exchange of ideas.

Inside of twenty four hours hed tracked down a vacant two storey house for rent at 23 Walnut Street
North, (around the corner from Bill's bookstore), and while underscoring his conviction that life
provides exactly what one is destined to have, he passed the hat in front of those friends who
frequented Bills bookstore, and collected the one months rent requested by the owner of the
premises. Sufficient additional money was donated in support of the venture to enable us to make
our entrance into the building bearing a candle - ceremoniously lit while chanting OM - as well as a
young ivy plant which was placed beside the front window in a gesture of respectful appreciation for
lifes many wonders.
 2

Cautioning me to be concerned with only one step at a time, we

4
prowled the alleys in search
of a large glass jar, and when we found one which he liked, he withdrew a stub of red wax

crayon from his pocket and carefully inscribed the big bottle with the word - DONATIONS, before
standing it beside the entrance door. The first two dollars deposited into that container was used to
register The House of AZOLO with City Hall, as a non-profit creative centre
dedicated to the free expression of ideas. It quite naturally followed that the centre would
soon be thought of as an artists commune by some, and by others as Canadas first drop-in haven
for young people in search of themselves
.

From the start it was prohibited for anyone to stay in the building overnight; but there was a core of
about ten people who showed up almost everyday to help clean and tidy up 'The House" with
whatever soap, brooms and other cleaning paraphernalia could be found. At some point one of the
"volunteers" brought in an old portable record player, and sure enough David appeared with a thirty
three and a third recording of Scheherazade. He also managed to talk a local piano tuner into
accepting a $5.00 deposit on a secondhand upright piano, with one ivory key missing; and I
organized the muscle to drag it up to the second floor of 'The House", where most visitors tended to
gather because it offered the largest available open space within the four room building. That piano
was put to good use by the Hamilton composer (and painter) Robert Daigenault, who had no other
means by which he could practise at that time.

In an effort to raise funding for other essentials I approached the Hamilton Spectator staff and they
did a brief article under the byline, "House of Azolo Serves The Arts." News of "The House" also
passed through Torontos Bohemian Embassy grapevine and reached Don Cullens ear, and he
graciously invited me for an interview on his regular Saturday morning CBC radio program. However,
when the second months rent came due we had enormous difficulty meeting it, in spite of the fact
that about one hundred and fifty people had passed through the front door during the preceding thirty
days, and most of them had freely offered their opinion about how the project might be financed.

Over the three month period in which I remained involved with 'The House," I was privileged to meet
many sincere and generous people who did everything they could possibly do to help make the
concept succeed. Nevertheless, we seemed to be surrounded by many fence sitters waiting to see
what would happen, and your run-of-the-mill pessimists who hoped nothing worthwhile would ever
happen. In any event, early into the new year David Lightstar Livingstone no longer cared to sustain
the rising level of verbal abuse coming from those participants expressing their desire to see the
centre managed without what they termed, 'The trappings of mystical hoopla;" and he was inspired,
therefore, to return to the west coast.

Not necessarily as a result of that turn of events, but more like a simultaneous occurrence, I became
disenchanted with playing out the roles of building superintendent, security guard, counsellor, social
club convener, and financial scrounge artist, (at which I was the most ineffectual). At the end of
January an open meeting was held and The House of AZOLO was turned over to a group of
members who wished to express their own ideas about how the place should be run.

In order to broaden my horizons, and also because I was desperate for an income, I then enrolled in
a six week civil defense course with the Canadian Army, which was designed by the Federal
 2
5
Government to teach unemployed artists how to react in the event of nuclear holocaust. In between
lectures and parade drills I found the time to read through some of Henry Millers essays, glimpse a
copy of John Cages controversial new book, Silence; and temporarily move in with a lovely young
lady who was reading the Kama Sutra,

Not too long after Id turned in the khaki uniform, I was served with a package of papers which
disclosed that Sonya was filing suit for divorce, and I realized that a private detective had been on
my tail for an indeterminate length of time.
2
6
 2
7
If my memory serves me correctly it was the spring of 1962 that Nat King Cole was all over the
 2
8
If my memory serves me correctly it was the spring of 1962 that Nat King Cole was all over the
2
9
Pavilion. When we'd reached the point of saturation we hitchhiked south to the Catholic monastery of Mount Angel where
we enjoyed a brief retreat from the world.
Sometimes travelling together and sometimes alone, Michael and I continued south along the Pacific coast to San
Francisco and I made contact with a clairvoyant who knew David Lightstar Livingston. She made sure that we didnt want
for either food or shelter, and made it possible for us to explore many facets of that grand city. On the day I elected to
depart Davids friend read my teacup and told me that Id soon pass through a gate under the protection of a guardian
angel.

Having arranged to meet Michael in Los Angeles I made my way alone to the northern tip of Big Sur, intending to spend a
day or two at a Carmelite monastery. However, I encountered such difficulty in locating the side road which led up a hill off
the Coast Highway toward the monastery grounds, that it was well past curfew by the time I reached the top of the hill and
groped my way through the pitch black night in the direction of a single burning light; which I discovered shone from the
window of a building contractors construction trailer. The night watchman inside was not too happy to see me appear at
his door, but he brought out a lantern and took me to a newly completed retreat cottage, where I felt myself lucky to doze
off to sleep between freshly ironed sheets.
At 6:00 AM I was awakened by a Brother from the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and informed that the monastery
was not receiving guests in view of the construction in progress, and he asked that I prepare to leave immediately. He
was waiting by the door when I came out, whereupon he escorted me to a chapel filled with scarlet robed mendicant friars
who startled me by turning as a group to stare directly at the space I occupied. Much embarrassed, I shuffled out my
apology for having intruded upon the grounds uninvited and began to head toward the road. At which point my escort
announced that hed accompany me to the gateway because everyone was most interested in knowing how I got by the
trained guard dog chained to the gate post.
The mysterious Big Sur changed into the magic of Hollywood, where I joined up with Michael and hitchhiked to the town
of Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach became an art community in the early 1900's when American impressionist painters
settled there to partake of the unique quality of light in the area. It is one of the few places in North America where the
intensity of the sunlight resembles that found in the Mediterranean region: most particularly the south of France, made so
famous by the French impressionist painters.

In terms of distance, Michael and I thought of Laguna Beach as the midway point of our trip, and although
we knew it to be illegal because of being visitors to the United States, we found ourselves paying jobs
working as gardeners and handymen. The summer beach town atmosphere was so hospitable that it was
with some reluctance that we tore ourselves away from those talented California girls at the Laguna Festival
of Arts; and hitchhiked across the border into Mexico to walk among the renowned craft shops of Tijuana.

We liked the change of culture enough that we hitchhiked to some place a day south of Ensenada where the
Baja motorized vehicles, and much of the road, just seemed to evaporate in the dry summer heat and leave
us standing in the middle of a dream.

Out of the dusty distance strode the broad bare feet of a smiling peasant clad man in his forties, adorned
with an ancient sombrero and carrying a well honed machete in his sisal belt. He turned off the dirt road and
walked into a thicket of young green bamboo, growing right beside us; and easily harvested a bundle of
cana much larger than it appeared he could possibly carry. However, paying no regard to our quiet presence
he reached into his back pocket and produced a round flat stone which he placed under the ball of his left
foot while in the process of squatting next to his fresh cut mound of willowy stalk. Then, using his right hand
to hold the cutting edge of the machete in place between the flat stone and the sole of his foot, he put his left
hand to work feeding the bamboo shoots under the heel of his foot and through the sharp blade, to emerge
from betwixt his dexterous toes as long even strips of flat waxen fibre. When he had counted his way up to
precisely the number he required, he wove them into a tall oblong basket exactly the right size to hold the
balance of his harvest. Pausing only to freshen the hone of his machete with that same round smooth stone,
he then returned his tools to their respective abode beneath the shade of his hat - hoisted his supply of
weaving material onto his back - and disappeared within the some hour from whence hed come.

Neither Michael nor I had need to exchange a single word as we slowly raised our knapsacks off the ground,
crossed to the other side of the roadway, and hitched a ride north with the first automobile to appear over the
horizon of that busy afternoon.

We reentered the U.S.A. at San Diego, turned east toward the desert furnace of Phoenix, Arizona; went on
to pay tribute at the Alamo mission in Texas; and then opted to take independent trails near the soul beat
deep within New Orleans Latin Quarter.

By the time Id walked through the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, I looked so totally rough around the
edges that my only hope for a meal rested with a mens hostel, where I asked whether I might also do a
days work in exchange for a nights sleep. The gentleman on duty at the desk by the dormitory entrance
explained that one night of rest was free, and that all subsequent nights would cost $1.00 each. But he did
offer me a days work, to commence in the morning, and I was so pleased that I neglected to ask what the
salary would be.
 3
3
He shook my cot at 5:00 AM and I washed and dressed in time to lay out bowls and spoons on two rows of tables, and
then dish out a breakfast of grits to twenty men who loitered over their coffee while I stripped down all the beds and began
funnelling the sheets through a set of washing and drying machines. I wound up the third or fourth load in between
clearing the tables, washing the dishes, and mopping the dormitory floor. A brief rest was provided while the boss man
drove me to an empty three storey church, to supply me with a push broom and instructions to sweep the building from
top to bottom. I finished filling a big garbage pail with the dust Id collected when my benefactor called me back out to the
truck in order to return us both to the yard behind the hostel, where he handed me a large tin of paste wax and a bundle
of clean rags while pointing at a thirty-three seater Bluebird bus.

He made it clear that he was disappointed in me for not being able to get the entire bus to shine before the onset of
darkness; but, none the less, he gave me a free supper and paid me three U.S. dollars in cash. After returning a dollar to
him to pay for a well earned night of rest, I was left with enough money to get a badly needed haircut, buy a package of
razor blades, and arrive at the city limits with 25 cents.

A year or so earlier Id read "Only In America,"by Harry Golden; and I knew that he was the editor and publisher of The
Carolina Israelite, and that his office was not too far away from where I then stood. It was not that easy for me to bring
myself to do it, nevertheless, I knocked upon his door and told him that I was destitute. He very kindly made me a gift of
$10.00 and that money enabled me to make my way to The Duke University Centre For Studies In Extra-Sensory-
Perception.

Id acquired a deck of E.S.P. cards from that centre, through the mail, following the catalytic religious experience that spun
me around when I was a policeman; and I was interested in learning to what extent, if any, I might manifest legitimate
psychic ability.

After a short interview Dr. Pratt arranged to book me into a local hotel, in addition to providing an allowance to cover my
basic expenses during the three day period in which I was invited to participate in a variety of scientific experiments. The
Director, Dr. Rhine, had recently returned from a trip to Russia and I was privileged to attend the informal lectures he held
at the beginning of each day, regarding Russian research in parapsychology. At the close of those talks I was assigned to
one of his many associates who would conduct one experiment with me in the morning, and after lunch I would undertake
one or two other experiments with different researchers. The final results of those "tests" indicated that I could hold no
claim to any unusual powers, excepting in one specific area which served to yield something to ponder.

think it was the afternoon of the second day that I was ushered into a spacious room containing nothing more than a kind
of simplified pinball machine, which I was not permitted to physically touch at any stage throughout that experiment within
the realm of mind over matter. (The use of only the consciousness, or mental concentration, to effect the play of physical
space). The apparatus which I confronted consisted of a glass topped steel box, bolted to the top of a sturdy wooden
table mounted on levellers. The grey painted metal box was approximately 16" wide, and 32" long. The glass top sat on a
slant of about 10, with a maximum height of roughly four feet above the floor at the far end. Some two inches or so
beneath the glass rested a parallel opaque white surface running flush to the inner walls of the box. On the wall at the far
end of that visible interior space a 1/2" round hole was drilled in the middle of the 16" width, directly above the suspended
white surface; and in the middle at the bottom end was affixed a six inch sail makers needle, pointing up the 10 slope
toward the centre of the 1/2" hole. At the front end of that rectangular box, on the exterior surface, were fastened a pair of
pedometer type counting devices; and closer examination of the inner wall revealed an opening to either side of the
triangular sail makers needle. An electric cord was neatly taped along a path down the right front leg of the table, across
the floor and halfway up the wall, where it was wired into a standard (old fashioned) round push button.

My guide informed me that I'd be shut in the room alone with that symmetrical space age arena, and that when I felt so
inclined I could push the button on the wall - at arms length from the base of the simple machine - at which point a cycle
of one hundred ball bearings would be discharged from the 1/2" round hole, at the rate of one per second; whereupon
they would roll down the 10 white surface to strike the sharp tip of the needle, and then be counted as they disappeared,
one at a time, into either the left or right internal openings at the bottom end of their contemporary work of art.

It was further explained that the counters were set to zero, and that I must decide for myself how I might choose to
influence the little steel balls to perform, using nothing more than will power; and that I would be allowed to run through
the 100 second experiment only once. As the scientist closed the door with final instructions that he did not wish to know
what I intended to do, and that he would wait outside during the experiment, I decided that Id use telepathy to convince
all of them to bounce left off the needle.

After pushing the button I focused my full attention upon the first ball bearing to appear through the hole and mentally
communicated that I wanted it to disappear on my left, or its right; and as I began to roll my eyes down to the point of
visually sweeping them off the tip of the needle, I realized that I could also work with my ears to listen for a steady click on
the left hand counter. I lost track of twelve which voted to wander off to the right; but the remaining eighty-eight either
favored my wishes, or else I precognitized their fate before the lest" began. The scientist never did tell me what
preliminary adjustments had been made to the levels on the feet of the table; but, on the other hand, it seems to me that
there was no way that anyone could know whether or not Id simply observed what transpired, and then said that's what I
wanted to see happen - apart from good faith.

Peter, Paul & Mary were on the airwaves singing their freedom song "All Over This Land," while I rode north through the
Gettysburg Civil War cemetery in Pennsylvania, resolving to make a beeline to the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre in
Montreal.

When I introduced myself to the venerable Swami Vishnudevananda, author of The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga",
he handed me his plastic Eatons credit card and told me Id be welcome to attend the evening meal at the St. Lawrence
Street Centre, after obtaining some decent clothes to replace the dirty torn rags I was wearing.

I lived in that yoga monastery for a period of three months, studying yogic breathing, diet, and physical postures; in
harmony with karmic duties and the practice of meditation.
The winter of 1962 was underway when I once again returned to Hamilton and found work with the Spectator, dropping off
bundles of newspaper from the back step of a rapidly moving truck. That job provided the wherewithal to rent a small
unfurnished flat in which I twisted copper wire and whittled scraps of mahogany into a dozen pieces of jewellery. I sold
them on the downtown streets, and in such places as Bills bookstore and the (old) Black Swan Coffee House; where I
happened to meet a blue eyed wombat upon whom I eagerly showered the full $20.00 profit realized from a month of
artistic effort.

On the day that I was bounced off the rear step of the newspaper delivery truck, and rolled through a maze of city traffic
toward a bus stop, I hobbled into Bills bookstore to find a letter from Michael de Courcy, inviting me to share the use of a
rent-free house in Jamaica. Merely for the sake of the adventure, I sold off some quasi-antique sticks of furniture Id
gathered, and raised the money to make a bond deposit upon a car which I drove from under the bleak January skies of
Southern Ontario, and delivered to the sunny beaches of Miami, Florida.

Through an advertisement which appeared in the newspaper, I was signed on with the crew of a two masted schooner
sailing to Nassau, and those wages allowed me to procure an inter-island plane ticket to Kingston, Jamaica. I hitchhiked
the tropical road to Mandeville, at the centre of the island, and then took a colourful bus ride south to the crossroad town
of Rosehill. When I tracked down my hermitic looking friend he gave me a choice of six totally empty rooms in a
dilapidated old plantation house that he shared with a resident bat which hung in the hall rafters.

The property belonged to a family friend who'd evidently acquired it as a long-term investment. What with the isolated
location of the place and the fact that Michael and I had almost no money whatever, a state of laid-back contentment
slowly settled upon me like none Id previously known. It took me awhile to get used to sleeping on the bare floor, and
water was so scarce that indulging in anything much more than a daily sponge bath with a damp rag remained completely
out of the question. However, I kept reminding myself that it was snowing in Canada and worked hard at getting a sun tan.
Several citrus trees grew in the front yard and we survived on the fresh fruit they so generously supplied, combined with
such essentials as rice and saltfish, which we obtained from a happy lady who ran a two shelf grocery store at the
Rosehill crossroads.

Every two or three weeks wed journey to Mandeville where we made use of the public library, browsed through the
extensive local market, and bought a few feet of heavy grey wrapping paper upon which we would attempt a few
sketches, using charcoal produced by our kitchen fireplace. Long after Id forgotten what it would be like to have the
luxury of electricity, two car loads of husky cops roared into our lazy lives and sped us off to Kingston, so that we could
spend the night sleeping on a bench under a light bulb hanging from the ceiling of the immigration office.
The authorities made it clear that they saw no reason to import poverty, and although Michael was
in possession of a return airline ticket to Miami, they talked about arrangements being made for
us to work our way to the northern shores of British Columbia aboard a ship loaded with
aluminum ore. Unexpectedly, they changed their minds a day later, gave us each ten U.S. dollars,
and put us both aboard a plane heading to Miami. I felt sure the American authorities wouldnt
want us either, considering the length of our hair in a time before fashionmade long hair socially
acceptable. But our ragged, unkept appearance didnt seem to impress the immigration officer on
duty, so we rather abruptly found ourselves loose on the streets of downtown USA.
Before nightfall we'd each expended our ten bucks on showers at the YMCA,
haircuts, and a drugstore sale of plain white T-shirts, rubber beach thongs and
sunglasses, which transformed us into average looking tourists.
Through the generosity of a local sculptress we were able to make a bond deposit
on a Ford Thunderbird for delivery to Toronto. A destination we may never have
reached were it not for a twelve dollar donation toward the cost of fuel, which was
given to us by the Pennsylvania branch of the Salvation Army. After we had turned
the car over to its owner Michael hitchhiked to his home in Montreal, and out of
habit I went back to Hamilton.
Following two short weeks of driving a cab I determined that the day had come to
turn over a new leaf, so I used the $25.00 Id earned to pay the rent on a two room
shack with an outdoor toilet, close to the Queen Elizabeth Highway in Burlington,
Ontario. There's no doubt that I didnt move very far away from Hamilton; but it
signified a definite change of pattern and granted me the freedom I needed to
solemnly promise the budding spring trees that I just wouldn't worry about starving
to death, and that Id use the obvious means society provided in order to generate
works of art. In other words, I became a garbage picker,
CHAPTER EIGHT
I owned no clock nor calendar then, but there was an eclipse of the sun in late spring or early
summer, and by the time that cosmic event took place Id lost just the right amount of weight to
make me look like a starving artist. I didnt seem to lack energy, however, for I did a routine of
yoga exercises at least every other day, and although I passed many ecstatic hours contemplating
the birds, insects and plants which flourished in the fields behind my retreat, I also managed to
churn out several sculptures. The smallest of these resembled a flattened bonsai tree, and it was
fashioned from a couple of pounds of lead that was given to me by the soldier who lived with his
family in the farm house next door. He also gave me the rope which I used to support the twelve
foot high "found object" I erected in the large front yard which sat between the front of my
uncurtained shack and the Queen Elizabeth Way. If I wished to visit Hamilton I had merely to
climb over a low fence and stick out my thumb, and it was simply a matter of walking to the far
side of the highway if I desired a ride to Toronto.

Earlier, while writing about my involvement with The House of Azolo, I made mention of the
Hamilton painter (and composer) Robert Daigeneault. Well, shortly after I left for Jamaica he and
his girlfriend Eleanor both moved to Toronto. They rented a third floor warehouse space at the rear
of 328 Spadina Avenue, (two doors north of the original Switzers Delicatessen); and as far as I
know Bob Daigeneault was the first artist ever to move into the (old) Jewish garment district. (That
neighbourhood is now considered part of Chinatown, but in 1963 Toronto's Chinatown still
consisted of only those three or four blocks of Dundas Street which run west from Bay Street.)

Anyway, when I lived in Burlington Id sometimes hitchhike up the Q.E.W. to visit with Bob and
Eleanor in their Spadina Avenue studio/apartment, and they would sometimes hitchhike down the
Q.E.W. to visit with me in the two room shack with the outdoor toilet.

It was through these visits that I learned two thirds of the second floor at 328 Spadina had been
rented to a sculptor named Ted Bieler; and one sunny afternoon Bob Daigeneault introduced me
to his new neighbour: an unusually tall and good natured man who bowed his broad smiling face
down to my six foot height, so that he could look intensely into my eyes while pumping my hand
with warm greetings. He was younger than me, and I discovered that he was from Kingston,
Ontario - had studied art at Cranbrooke in the USA - and that he was to begin his first term of
teaching sculpture at the University of Toronto, come the autumn. The second or third time that I
dropped in to visit with Ted Bieler he let me know that although he was operating under a
restricted budget, he would readily pay me a small salary to work over the summer as his part-
time assistant; in addition to granting me the use of a corner in his studio and access to his wide
range of specialized tools.

Meanwhile, unbeknown to me, the artist Ann Suzuki introduced Bob and Eleanor to Catherine
Boudreau, and they introduced her to Ted Bieler; which marked the beginning of a long and vital
relationship between Ted and Cathy. It was not until I returned to my Burlington shack after dark
one evening, carrying a chipped enamel wash basin containing shards of red reflector glass Id
picked up from along the shoulders of the Q.E.W., that I first encountered the name of Catherine
Boudreau, signed to a note left on my kitchen table, beside a bag of fruit shed delivered on behalf
of Bob and Eleanor. Her brief note also invited me to have supper with her the next time I was in
Toronto.
I soon learned that Cathy was born a few years before me, in St. Catherines, Ontario, and that
she'd lived a life in many respects more interesting than that of any other woman I'd previously
known. Among her many accomplishments she had been the first wife of the Canadian writer
Mordechai Richler, and she had recently returned to Canada after some number of years
travelling in Europe. When I met Cathy her black eyes glittered with delight over Ted having asked
her to share the newly renovated living space adjacent to his studio at 328 Spadina.
The week that I started working for Ted, Cathy moved in with him, and she gave me the use of her
apartment where the rent had been payed in advance. Simultaneously, she introduced me to her
sister Tess, who was married to the well known Dutch-Canadian photographer Krin Taconis; and
they helped me through the transitionary stages of moving from Burlington to Toronto by giving me
work painting their back stairs, as well as purchasing an old chest of drawers Id redesigned with a
blowtorch and a wire brush, while furnishing the two room shack on the Queen Elizabeth Way. I
left the majority of my junk sculpture standing in place on the Burlington property, waiting to be
demolished by the wave of industrial development that was slowly building up in that area; and I
moved only a few essentials to Toronto.
Ted was preparing to build a series of cement fondu sculptures and reliefs using hand poured
sheets of microcrystalline wax for the waste molds, and he allocated specific tasks to me through
until the autumn when it became necessary for him to start teaching at University of Toronto. But
the six week period in which I worked with him was packed with awakenings.
I was privileged to gain new insight into the concentration of disciplined energy and careful
scheduling which is required to evolve a variety of commercial materials toward a state of creative
conclusion. (In that same time frame Cathy talked me into teaching basic yoga classes to a small
group of friends who gathered in Ted and Cathys huge open living space, where we would all
stand around on our heads.)
While working as Teds assistant in the building of rather complex art works which I didn't fully
comprehend, he guided me toward books in his personal library about such artists as Brancusi,
Pevsner and Duchamp, as well as architects like Gaudi and Le Corbusier, and the Italian engineer
Pier Luigi Nervi who had developed the cement fondu process we were then using. And I
considered it an honour when I met Teds charming father Andr6 Bieler, who had a formidable
reputation as a fine artist, and had helped to establish the Art Department at Queens University in
Kingston, Ontario. (He was later awarded the Order of Canada for his contribution to Canadian
art.)
Needless to say, I was happy for Ted when Avrum Isaacs agreed to exhibit his richly coloured
organic studies of negative space; but I was unable to attend the exhibition because prior to the
date when the show was booked to actually take place I moved to California.
ft

To supplement the part-time salary that Ted was able to pay me I took a job as dishwasher at the
(old) Halfbeat Coffee House, which was located on Avenue Road around the corner from what
later became known as Yorkville Village; and on the second night of work I met Francie. She was
a dancer with the National Ballet Company of Canada and she was in a word, gorgeous. Born in
America, where her family still lived, she was a twenty one year old petite dynamo of well toned
muscle, ever so perfectly painted with lightly freckled skin. She could flash a smile as radiant as
the morning sun, and her soft blue eyes were oblivious to my gormless conceit.

She owned the kind of attributes found only among those who spend almost every day of their
youth practising an art form. Her Scottish grandmother had been a dancer and her mother was a
dancer, as well as also being a ballet teacher; and she had started training Francie at the age of
three in preparation to be enrolled in the National Ballet School of Canada when she reached her
early teens. Within a month of meeting her, however, Francie announced that she'd resigned from
the Nationals corps de ballet, making it clear that she wished to step outside the dance world and
explore other aspects of life.

Soon after my twenty-eighth birthday I exchanged my dishwashing job for a license to drive a
Toronto cab, and Francie and I moved into a furnished one and a half room apartment on Jarvis
Street, directly across the road from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. During the
unforgettable erotic month which followed I learned that Francie could bake an outstanding pecan
pie, and that she had bought a vast quantity of grey New Zealand wool and begun knitting a
Norwegian style turtleneck sweater for me. In the midst of all that activity she sat still for as long
as it took me to sculpt a reasonable clay likeness of her head, and thanks to Ted Bielers help I
managed to transform it into a bronze powder and fibreglass-reinforced-polyester casting, which
Francie later gave to her parents.

Through one of Francies friends I met the Toronto film producer Larry Hertzog, and he kindly
awarded me my first commission to do a similar type of portrait of his (first) wife, Lynn. She was a
strikingly beautiful woman and I didn't feel the results did her justice; but they were satisfied
enough to pay my unimaginably high fee of $100.00.

The Canadian National Exhibition had barely reached its annual Labour Day Weekend closing
date when Francie began to fret over what her parents may think of her for living in sin. She knew
that I couldn't afford to look ahead more than one day at a time, and I knew that she was trying to
shame me into getting married. But knowing that did not seem to alter our need to cling to each
other so answering her wish, in October, 1963, I supplied her with a custom made silver wedding
ring.

Her father's sister, who lived in Toronto, arranged for a minister to conduct our wedding service in
her Rosedale home. Ted and Cathy graciously served as our witnesses, and a week after the
ceremony Francies mother flew up from Los Angeles and gave us a stylish rug. Like so many
others, in November we reverberated from the shock of President J.F. Kennedys assassination.
During the month of December I spent most of my time wrestling with snowy streets and traffic
from behind the steering wheel of a taxi. And in early January Francie and I decided to leave
behind everything Toronto offered us and move to Southern California, the wrong place.

We moved into a semifurnished three room cottage built over a large double garage. It sat on the
side of a hill in South Laguna and the rent was $75.00 a month. I used the garage as my studio.
The double doors opened onto a twenty four hour view of Santa Catalina Island, resting at the
prow of the entire Pacific Ocean. Francie had gone to school in Southern California, so she
renewed her friendship with girlhood companions and also visited regularly with her parents, who
lived a fifteen minute drive up the coast, in an exclusive housing estate to which no one was
permitted entry without the approval of an armed security guard. Her parents garage housed a
new Lincoln Continental, a classic Porche convertible, the first of the Ford Mustangs, and one of
the popular Volkswagen Beetles. Because Francie's brother and sister were away at school her
parents kindly loaned us the use of the VW to help us get started in a part of the world where a
car is essential.

Francies mother owned and operated a well respected ballet school in Newport Beach, so she
added a couple more classes to the school and thereby created a part-time teaching job for
Francie. Her father was a highly qualified engineer who had specialized in locomotion systems,
and after twenty minutes of conversation he confessed to finding me atrociously uninformed and
said that he would buy us a years subscription to Time Magazine. As a result, in the year to follow
I learned that the Johnson Administration proclaimed a war on poverty, and that the Beatles
invaded the U.S. while the U.S. was setting out to invade North Vietnam. (The first of the hippies
also started to invade San Francisco, but more about this latter invasion a bit further along.)
Truthfully, I was happy to receive the news magazine every week for it reminded me of how stupid
I was to think that I could apply for landed immigrant status in the States when in fact, as a
Canadian, even though married to an American, I must return to Canada to apply for my Green
Card.

That meant I was legally prohibited from taking any form of employment in the U.S. However,
being faced with the problem of how to raise the money needed to get my body back to Canada,
Francie and I decided to go into business. Amongst everything else we'd done during the month
we were married, we watched Cathy Boudreau use the batik dyeing process to turn out a number
of beautifully bright, abstract designed silk scarves. Of course we couldnt afford silk, but we did
find some Mexican cotton on sale quite cheap, and we succeeded in rounding up enough paraffin
wax and coloured dye to eventually fill the cottage with cord drying lines which sagged under the
weight of our somewhat muddy coloured, almost abstract assortment of matching table napkins
and place mats.

Francie valiantly ironed the napkins into squarish shapes, but the only alternative to save the
place mats turned out to be some earth coloured burlap which she hand stitched to them as
backing, while I frayed the burlap at the borders until they each took on the appearance of
rectangles. We expended every last red penny we could muster to drive our wares throughout the
whole of the Los Angeles basin, attempting to sell them to all the pretty boutiques and gift shops
that we could possibly find. We ended up by selling the best set in the batch to the owner of a
store in Corona del Mar, who hired Francie to work as a part-time sales clerk on those days when
she wasn't working as a part-time ballet teacher.

I retreated to my studio - with the fantastic view - and invested my time converting 200 pounds of
plaster into a dozen or so funky sculptures, expressing the positive and negative relationships
between everything from burned driftwood to crinkled aluminum foil. A few local artists came to
visit, including Tom Blackwell, Robert Young, Dion Wright, and the jeweller Everett MacDonald;
and although none of them believed I was doing anything terribly profound, they encouraged me
to believe that the direction should be pursued. At some point along the way I accidently did two
pieces that were considered worthy enough to be exhibited in a group show at the Wooden Horse
Gallery.
The day after Francie managed to finish my Norwegian style charcoal grey turtleneck sweater,
she and her mother drove me to the northern edge of L.A., and I started hitchhiking up the west
coast to British Columbia, where the authorities decreed it would be possible for me to make
application to reside in the United States of America.

I arrived on the rainy streets of Vancouver with the money to pay only one weeks rent on a
furnished room, plus the amount required for the application fee at the American consulate; but
before I had a chance to give thought to the next step I should make, I ran into David Lightstar
Livingstone and Michael de Courcy, sitting in the corner booth of an all-night diner.
Michael had recently moved to the west coast and was sharing an apartment with a shapely
young woman who had worked at the Hamilton YMCA coffee shop back in the days when I was a
policeman. And since last Id seen David hed diversified his ontological interests, acquired shares
in a couple of step-ladders, and set himself up in business as a painting contractor.

Needless to say, as the sun rose on a fine new day I found myself working as foreman to some of
Canada's finest cafe philosophers, budding poets and unemployed artists; hired to paint the
insides of two city core hotels in specified shades of mute dull green and soupy grey. We juggled
the redecorating of hotel rooms by day against the roller coating of beverage rooms by night, and
every second Thursday I knocked at the door of the American consulate and also mailed a letter
off to Francie, still working hard to hold down our South Laguna cottage.

Although I'm not in the least sure about when it happened, I do know it was during a prearranged
telephone call to Francie, at her parents place, that I learned our birth control system had failed
and that Francis's father had contacted Californias Governor Brown (Senior) to request his
assistance in expediting my scrawny immigration file.

Gripped by ten thousand different emotions I wandered about town in a daze for a night or two,
and almost considered enlisting in the Canadian navy again. Nevertheless, it was no more than a
fortnight later that I bid farewell to my old friends and boarded a bus for Los Angeles. In my
pockets I carried my Green Card, the $200.00 Id saved, and a paperback copy of Salinger's
"Franny and Zooey."

Within a few days of arriving back home Francie's parents requested the return of their
Volkswagen so we were obliged to spend much of my Canadian savings upon a white 1947
Plymouth and I was, therefore, stimulated to get out and about in search of a paying job. In the
week which followed I started work on my first architecture related sculpture commission, and the
month afterward I was awarded two more.I soon learned that Cathy was born a few years before
me, in St. Catherines, Ontario, and that shed lived a life in many respects more interesting than
that of any other woman Id previously known. Among her many accomplishments she had been
the first wife of the Canadian writer Mordechai Richler, and she had recently returned to Canada
after some number of years travelling in Europe. When I met Cathy her black eyes glittered with
delight over Ted having asked her to share the newly renovated living space adjacent to his studio
at 328 Spadina.

The week that I started working for Ted, Cathy moved in with him, and she gave me the use of her
apartment where the rent had been payed in advance. Simultaneously, she introduced me to her
sister Tess, who was married to the well known Dutch-Canadian photographer Krin Taconis; and
they helped me through the transitionary stages of moving from Burlington to Toronto by giving me
work painting their back stairs, as well as purchasing an old chest of drawers I'd redesigned with a
blowtorch and a wire brush, while furnishing the two room shack on the Queen Elizabeth Way. I
left the majority of my junk sculpture standing in place on the Burlington property, waiting to be
demolished by the wave of industrial development that was slowly building up in that area; and I
moved only a few essentials to Toronto.

Ted was preparing to build a series of cement fondu sculptures and reliefs using hand poured
sheets of microcrystalline wax for the waste molds, and he allocated specific tasks to me through
until the autumn when it became necessary for him to start teaching at University of Toronto. But
the six week period in which I worked with him was packed with awakenings.
I was privileged to gain new insight into the concentration of disciplined energy and careful
scheduling which is required to evolve a variety of commercial materials toward a state of creative
conclusion. (In that same time frame Cathy talked me into teaching basic yoga classes to a small
group of friends who gathered in Ted and Cathys huge open living space, where we would all
stand around on our heads.)

While working as Teds assistant in the building of rather complex art works which I didnt fully
comprehend, he guided me toward books in his personal library about such artists as Brancusi,
Pevsner and Duchamp, as well as architects like Gaudi and Le Corbusier, and the Italian engineer
Pier Luigi Nervi who had developed the cement fondu process we were then using. And I
considered it an honour when I met Teds charming father Andr6 Bieler, who had a formidable
reputation as a fine artist, and had helped to establish the Art Department at Queens University in
Kingston, Ontario. (He was later awarded the Order of Canada for his contribution to Canadian
art.)

Needless to say, I was happy for Ted when Avrum Isaacs agreed to exhibit his richly coloured
organic studies of negative space; but I was unable to attend the exhibition because prior to the
date when the show was booked to actually take place I moved to California.
* * * * *

To supplement the part-time salary that Ted was able to pay me I took a job as dishwasher at the
(old) Halfbeat Coffee House, which was located on Avenue Road around the corner from what
later became known as Yorkville Village; and on the second night of work I met Francie. She was
a dancer with the National Ballet Company of Canada and she was in a word, gorgeous. Born in
America, where her family still lived, she was a twenty one year old petite dynamo of well toned
muscle, ever so perfectly painted with lightly freckled skin. She could flash a smile as radiant as
the morning sun, and her soft blue eyes were oblivious to my gormless conceit.

She owned the kind of attributes found only among those who spend almost every day of their
youth practising an art form. Her Scottish grandmother had been a dancer and her mother was a
dancer, as well as also being a ballet teacher; and she had started training Francie at the age of
three in preparation to be enrolled in the National Ballet School of Canada when she reached her
early teens. Within a month of meeting her, however, Francie announced that shed resigned from
the Nationals corps de ballet, making it clear that she wished to step outside the dance world and
explore other aspects of life.

Soon after my twenty-eighth birthday I exchanged my dishwashing job for a license to drive a
Toronto cab, and Francie and I moved into a furnished one and a half room apartment on Jarvis
Street, directly across the road from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. During the
unforgettable erotic month which followed I learned that Francie could bake an outstanding pecan
pie, and that she had bought a vast quantity of grey New Zealand wool and begun knitting a
Norwegian style turtleneck sweater for me. In the midst of all that activity she sat still for as long
as it took me to sculpt a reasonable clay likeness of her head, and thanks to Ted Bieler's help I
managed to transform it into a bronze powder and fibreglass-reinforced-polyester casting, which
Francie later gave to her parents.

Through one of Francies friends I met the Toronto film producer Larry Hertzog, and he kindly
awarded me my first commission to do a similar type of portrait of his (first) wife, Lynn. She was a
strikingly beautiful woman and I didnt feel the results did her justice; but they were satisfied
enough to pay my unimaginably high fee of $100.00.

The Canadian National Exhibition had barely reached its annual Labour Day Weekend closing
date when Francie began to fret over what her parents may think of her for living in sin. She knew
that I couldn't afford to look ahead more than one day at a time, and I knew that she was trying to
shame me into getting married. But knowing that did not seem to alter our need to cling to each
other so answering her wish, in October, 1963, I supplied her with a custom made silver wedding
ring.

Her fathers sister, who lived in Toronto, arranged for a minister to conduct our wedding service in
her Rosedale home. Ted and Cathy graciously served as our witnesses, and a week after the
ceremony Francies mother flew up from Los Angeles and gave us a stylish rug. Like so many
others, in November we reverberated from the shock of President J.F. Kennedys assassination.
During the month of December I spent most of my time wrestling with snowy streets and traffic
from behind the steering wheel of a taxi. And in early January Francie and I decided to leave
behind everything Toronto offered us and move to Southern California.

We made a bond deposit on a new Buick that was to be delivered to a West Coast car dealer, and
everything we owned fitted nicely into the trunk and spacious back seat. We hooked up with Route
66 south of Chicago and I settled into a kind of peaceful enthusiasm, wherein I felt more
pleasantly pulled by the future than pushed by the past, while Francie laboriously unravelled the
back of my Norwegian style sweater because the arm holes were inNone of them could be
thought of as being very grand, and all three commissions together didn't realize a net profit of
more than $300.00; but each one of them gave me a chance to explore aesthetic issues and
materials which interested me at that time, while providing my first opportunity to work on a lifesize
scale. One piece consisted of rectangular redwood frames and open square box shapes that I
layered to form a floor to ceiling lattice structure, which served as a room divider in a swanky
Newport Beach restaurant. The owners were so pleased that they invited me to bring three guests
for dinner on the house, and I proudly asked Francie and her parents to attend what became the
only night out we were ever to share together.
The other two works were also geometric in nature, and both of those were done for the architect
Jan Wallace with whom we had become friends. Id found twenty pounds of discarded rusty
roofing nails, and using them as basic design elements I constructed variations of head to head
and toe to toe circular arrangements, and imbedded goups of those - along with a few selected
beach pebbles - into transparent light green tinted acrylic; set between precut openings in both, a
burned and brushed cedar door panel, and a matching entrance table, built to specifications for a
house in Apple Valley.
Looking back now of course, they all seem very artsy-craftsy. (And even then a chap who
frequented the beach front ice cream stands talked about nothing but computers.) However, those
works were completed in the happiest summer of my early adult years, for we enjoyed a vita!
social life among people who seemed to be of like mind and spirit. Between about a dozen friends
I think there was only one person with a phone, and maybe three who owned temperamental cars,
and yet a day wouldnt pass by without some of us getting together in groups of four or more,
somewhere within the ten square miles of ever changing coastal and canyon terrain in which we
were all so casually domiciled.
That was the summer in which I discovered the work of the sculptor Kienholz, who had a piece in
the Laguna Beach Museums annual summer exhibit; which also showed a work by the Canadian
sculptor Gerald Gladstone and, the same summer that someone handed me a book by Timothy
Leary & Richard Alper, titled, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based On The Tibetan Book
Of The Dead." That was also the summer I tackled the last portrait commission that I was to
undertake until twenty three years later, when I agreed to do the heads of Einstein and Newton for
the Singapore Science Centre.
In August of 1964 I was invited to sculpt the likeness of the ten year old daughter of an L.A. dentist
whod rented a cottage near the beach for the summer. I assented mainly because Francie had
reached that stage in her pregnancy when it was purely ridiculous to continue teaching ballet, and
when the pressure of the monthly rent payment teetered upon a point of
crisis.

The clients child had the kind of large petulant features that sometimes combined themselves into
a prepubescent synchromesh of sulky, puffed ugliness, and I had to prompt the clay under my
hand with extreme courage in order to manifest that facet of the young girl as a quality. It required
over a week of one hour daily sessions for me to find the relationship betwixt the position of her
eyelids and the corners of her mouth that would suggest the charm of her unique sense of
humour. When the penetrating innocence of her years finally dropped into place with a lock of
falling hair I withdrew my fingers from the clay and declared I was satisfied with the degree of
likeness expressed in the moist grey image.

tt was understood that I would provide her parents with a bronze powder and
fibreglass-reinforced-polyester casting for the price of fifty bucks over the cost of our rent,
and
they were delighted to learn I intended to fulfil that commitment within the six short days remaining
until the 15th of the month when the rent fell due.

It took half a day to transport the heavy, fragile head to my studio, and then flatten and file my
used brass shim stock before inserting it into the clay head in an even line up both sides of the
neck, in front of the ears and across the top of the hair, to join the boundary lines for a two piece
plaster mold; which took another half day to mix and apply. I used the remainder of that first day to
go shopping for supplies, but by lunch time of the following day Id still not tracked down a
teaspoon full of powdered black pigment, which was needed to subdue the metallic bronze glitter,
especially in the recessed shadow areas of the face. However, rather than waste precious time I
spent the afternoon of that second day opening the mold, removing the clay, and cleaning both
negative parts with a soft brush, before putting them to bed in the kitchen oven overnight to give
the plaster some time to dry out under a low heat.

On the morning of the third day I bought an ounce of lampblack from the clerk in the Capistrano

hardware store, and before midnight arrived I had carefully prepared a gooey mixture of deep
bronze coloured resin and gently brushed it inside the mold sections, between layers of
overlapping 1" squares of 7 oz. woven fibreglass cloth, and lashed both halves of the mold
together in advance of the time that the resin was due to set hard.

In the same morning that I went to bed I arose at five oclock to check upon the path of the
plastics' cure, only to find portions of the interior still sticky - when I inserted my bare hand through
the neck opening - so I put together a hot gel coat and swished it around the inner surface of the
fifty pound mass, sat it out in the early sunshine and went back to bed till almost noon. By 1:00
PM of that fourth day Id sharpened my chisels and begun cracking apart the plaster mold, with
crisp mallet whacks calculated to cut away V shapes of plaster all the way down to the last colour
coded plaster layer: designed to inform me that the chisel was approximately one millimetre from
the surface of the child's fragile face. The confidence in my ability was quickly eroded when I
carved away a one inch hunk of plaster resting upon her cheek and in the process pulled out her
whole right eye. It took the better part of a minute before I diagnosed the sad fact that the
lampblack was an oil base pigment and that it had upset and retarded the delicate thermo-setting
properties of the polyester resin; and by then Id removed some of her nose.

Amid silent chants of ShalOM, Shalom, I placed the tortured looking head, half covered with
broken chunks of sticky plaster mold, back into the kitchen oven; and carried the kitchen sieve
down to the beach to gather up fine grains of sand, which had to be washed and then thoroughly
dried, in order to make up a paste mixture of resin, excluding the lampblack, in a bold effort to
repair my shoddy example of optimism. After I succeeded in removing the remaining bits of
plaster from the warm head, I prodded my memory into evoking the specific differences between
her right eye and her left ear; and by noon of the fifth day Id almost disguised the more serious
injuries and also filled in two ulcerated sores which had broken out beside her mouth.

Undaunted by its patchwork appearance I spent what was left of the last day before our rent came
due preparing what I considered to be an opaque green finishing coat of resin, devised to create
the illusion of an ancient malachite patina, which should serve to blend the repair work
with those remnants of the original surface that remained intact.
When I stumbled out of bed on the sixth and final morning I found that my chemical composition
had, unfortunately, solidified into the bright, glassy shine of a lime green candy. The startled
clients easily accepted my admonition not to touch it, in view of the surface still being mildly tacky.
As I placed it in full view upon their coffee table they came to see themselves as the proud owners
of a very avant-garde psychedelic work of art.
Of course, Ed Lutz, who was involved building a nine foot high figure of a man by packing
together tiny balls of aluminum foil that he picked up wherever they could be found, made it quite
clear that he thought the proper name for my folly was schlock art. While Richard Remington the
Third, who had just returned from a hitchhiking trip up the coast to San Francisco, where he
believed some new kind of future was about to break loose, said that he didnt think it was any
kind of art at all.
Suddenly, the annual Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts came to an end and the summer was
gone. I looked at the lingering stragglers on the empty beach and saw the approaching quiet of
the winter season as warning that the time had arrived to look elsewhere for some way to take
care of Francie and our soon to be expected baby.
 5
2

San Francisco seemed like as good a place as any to look for work so, without much ado, we sold
off everything we owned that would not fit inside the rear end of our rundown old car, and at the
last moment Richard Remington the Third decided to go along with us for the ride.CHAPTER NINE

The car brakes began to fade at dusk, while driving through that part of Big Sur where the Pacific
Ocean collides with the high jagged cliffs to which the Coast Highway clings - in a manner that
causes the ocean floor and the Rocky Mountains to appear as one and the same thing, - and by
midnight when we reached the peninsular hills of San Francisco, I was reduced to manipulating
first gear and the handbrake whenever the bright city streets demanded that our overladen, bald
tired car should come to a stop.

Our friend Richard directed my course to the Haight-Ashbury districtwhere he introduced us to

someone who gave Francie and me the use of their apartment for a few days, enabling us to sell
the car to a scrap dealer and also to track down a two room apartment of our own. We moved
onto the third floor of a building at the corner of Pine and Powell, immediately beside the clanging
cable cars, and the only furniture we had was the Murphy bed which stood on end in

a special cupboard built into one wall.

I felt that I must surely qualify for some sort of quasi creative employment as a window dresser,
paste-up artist or assistant stage hand; but as we dipped into our last $100.00 I had to admit that I
appeared to be the only person in town who seemed to feel that way, and recognized that it was a
matter of either brushing up my talents as a dishwasher or opening up my own business. While
roaming about the city in search of work I couldn't help noticing the large quantity of furniture that
was being thrown away as garbage, particularly beside those buildings under renovation in the
ever expanding Chinatown district, where a truck sized disposal unit might even contain an
unwanted brass bed. Some of what I saw had gotten damaged in the process of being discarded,
however, a quick tour of the Salvation Army and Crippled Civilians outlets disclosed an
abundance of socially rejected items selling for under $5.00, with free delivery twice each week.
Much of the available supply consisted of furniture which had been shipped west by the Chicago
based Sears Roebuck and Company during the early 1900's when they dominated the world's
catalogue mail-order business. Over the intervening years some of the furniture had received as
many as five coats of paint, reflecting the various decorating trends through which theyd passed;
but the straightforward design of certain pieces remained quite striking. For example, a plentiful
b. number of three foot long, pine drop-leaf kitchen tables, with lathe turned legs, possessed classic
lines that none of the second hand dealers regarded as being worth more than $3.00; and yet it
was clear to me that they would each fetch $19.95 once the old paint had been removed and they
were restored with a coat of linseed oil.

In those days the idea of paying both first and last month's rent was unheard of, so for $60.00 I
rented a thirty square foot ground floor space with a big front window, on California Street a half
block east of Polk, and divided the store into a rear work area and front display area by threading
wire, floor to ceiling.through a few dozen grey egg crate trays which I retrieved from the garbage
of a local grocer. Remembering my dad's moving system I fastened four used castors to an
abandoned old door, and then, with the purchase of such essentials as paint remover, steel wool,
sandpaper and boiled linseed oil, I was off and running for sixteen to eighteen hours a day;
knowing full well that my only hope to make the venture pay depended upon turnover.

In the midst of finding, transporting, stripping and refinishing one or two pieces of furniture every
5
3

day, I managed to serve customers and also erect a sign above the window. When Francie and I
left Laguna Beach our friend Everett MacDonald gave us a copy of Antoine de Saint-Exuperys,
'The Little Prince", and the philosophy expressed therein inspired me to borrow the books title for
the store. Using knotty pine boards for the background, I combined sheet copper and copper
tubing to advertise the store as 'The Little Prince Furniture Shop." Fortunately, the business
generated the money required to cover our basic daily living expenses, and on the 14th of
November, 1964, Francie was admitted to the San Francisco General Hospital where she gave
birth to a healthy boy whom we named Michael John,

By Christmas our apartment was fully furnished, complete with an antique birds-eye maple crib
for our son, and Id begun building up a stock of restored and redesigned pieces to permit
expansion of the store. I didnt restrict myself to merely refinishing old furniture. Sometimes Id
repaint specific parts of objects in bright colours, or even take the liberty to restructure some
pieces if I felt it might improve their appearance. For instance, a solid oak mission desk that I
salvaged from a disposal bin had had one leg so badly shattered that the piece could only be
converted into a coffee table by wrapping the shortened square legs in the scrap copper sheeting
left over from the sign. One of my favourite stunts, which proved to be reasonably popular, would
be to restore the hardware and the cabinet of a chest of drawers while letting the drawer panels
retain the chipped, scarred history of the many paint jobs theyd been awarded over the years,
and simply dress them up with a coat of clear satin varnish.

Come the beginning of the new year I was able to implement a series of changes to the business
in view of Francie being willing to take care of Michael and the shop simultaneously for part of the
day. To facilitate matters we moved into a one and a half room apartment on California Street, just
a few doors west of 'The Little Prince and directly thereafter I rented a vacant garage in the rear
alley, to use for the messy paint stripping work, refinishing and storage. That work area allowed
me to take down the egg tray room divider in the shop, cover the black and white tiled floor with
redwood boards, and convert the entire store into display space, with the exception of a small
partitioned counter area, behind which there was adequate privacy for Francie to nurse the baby.

The early spring disappeared into a rush of activity that leaves me uncertain about the exact order
in which the changes transpired; but I think the significant turning point came when the owner of
the Bay Areas Bix paint stripper franchise offered me a deal wherein I would help him soak and
scrape furniture in his huge tanks of liquid paint remover for one evening a week, in exchange for
unlimited use of those tanks from midnight to dawn of the subsequent day. There's a mammoth
difference between spending almost a full day stripping paint from an oak kitchen cupboard by
hand and soaking it in a vat of paint remover for twenty minutes, and the amount of money I
gained from dramatically reduced paint remover expenditures went toward the down payment on
a 1962 VW pickup.

The truck not only permitted me to carry a full load of furniture to the stripping tanks once a week,
it also granted the freedom to scour a greater area in search of potential merchandise, as well as
providing the means by which surplus items could be sold at Sunday flea markets.

Although I spent very little time in our small apartment it was far from satisfactory, particularly
because it lacked a decent size window. While looking about the neighbourhood in quest of off
street parking for the truck I came upon a spacious, bright three room apartment, with a parking
space provided, on Broadway near Powell. Francie and I liked the place enough to give it two
coats of white paint, and after I rented a floor sander to resurface the pine floors we sorted
through the stock of furniture on hand to select those pieces we wished to move into our new
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home.

There was no other stage of my life when I so consistently exerted the kind of intense physical
energy that I put forth throughout that period, but I dont believe it would have been possible to
accomplish nearly as much had I expended the same energy just six months later, because we
were unwittingly living on the periphery of a rapidly advancing social tidal wave of such bizarre
proportions it can never be clearly described. Another two years were to pass before the news
media reported (in 1967) that hippies high on L.S.D. had invaded the Haight-Ashbury district of
the city. However, I had experimented with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Laguna Beach the
preceding summer and I could see the flower children coming into bloom whenever I happened to
drive past Golden Gate Park. People were racing into a uniquely outlandish timeframe. An
astronaut walked in outer space for the very first time (in March of 65) and yet all of the local
gossip appeared to revolve around a tavern declaring itself to have the first topless waitresses in
America. The comedian Lenny Bruce was warming up to unleash his final wave of obscene
humour, and over on Fillmore Street kids would soon start dancing for another first time to the
strobe lit pulsations of the Jefferson Airplane; even though Gracie Slick didnt join the band til the
following year. The Vietnam war still remained an ocean away, but the Sexual Freedom League
was abruptly born in Berkeley and in a single star spangled night it swept across San Francisco
Bay and seeped between the cracks of social convention everywhere. Within what seemed to be
less than a week topless bars became so commonplace that it wasn't surprising to see that
bottomless waitresses had also appeared on the scene.

Around the time that I introduced a window display combining some antiquated kitchen utensils
with a consignment of contemporary ceramics, I was approached by a businessman who offered
to rent me two stores as a package deal. One of the stores was located at 1418 Grant Avenue in
North Beach - a few blocks from the famous City Lights Bookstore, the first topless bar, and
Kenneth Angers film studio - and the other, larger store, was situated on a corner in the
neighbouring city of Oakland. My initial response was negative, but when he returned to tell me
that the Oakland address could be managed by a sandal maker who would use only a few square
feet to practise his craft while paying half the monthly rent for that store, I was unable to refuse. It
meant that I would have to shut down the California Street shop, but the Grant Avenue location
had much more pedestrian traffic, a front showroom freshly panelled in redwood boards, as well
as a rear workshop and an empty second floor useful for storage and possible future expansion.

In order to raise the necessary capital I advertised a moving sale and slashed all the prices by one
third. Then, to compensate for the reduction in stock when so many more items were needed to fill
two stores, I set up the Oakland store with nothing other than furniture, and at the Grant Avenue
store I modified my merchandising pattern by including an assortment of interesting objects of
virtue which I rounded up for a minimal investment at flea markets, and plucked from the dusty
shelves of second hand stores in the Market area. Needless to say, I had to be quicker at
rummaging about town among a diminishing supply of inexpensive, well designed old furniture,
and in between making two new signs and improving the look of the business cards I also had to
learn how to strip paint and apply paste wax twice as fast as I ever had before. Nevertheless, on
August 1 st when my thirtieth birthday rolled around, we had to give up our spacious, bright three
room apartment, and I was forced to move Francie and the baby onto the dark and dingy second
floor of the Grant Avenue shop, where we lacked not only a decent window but also every other
living convenience beyond an erratic toilet and a square metal sink with one cold water tap.

The business had started to turn over almost as much revenue as it had prior to my big leap
forward. Unfortunately however, all the money coming in was a result of what Francie and I were
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selling at the Grant Avenue shop; in spite of the fact that many of the sort of pieces on the floor in
Oakland had previously found a customer quite easily. A bit late perhaps, I decided to play
policeman once again, and after 48 hours of surveillance through a cheap pair of binoculars I
concluded that the sandal maker held no concern for furniture sales whatever, and suspected he
was involved in selling marijuana. Therefore, over the course of the next 48 hours I trucked all the
furniture out of that store and stacked it and packed it into every nook and cranny of the Grant
Avenue shop.

A week or so later, while maneuvering a restored bin table into position beneath a set of deer
antlers, upon which were hung an assortment of old bead necklaces, the bronze bell suspended
from a coiled spring above the front door announced the entrance of a well dressed man with the
poise and physiognomy that suggested he was a Japanese-American. Glancing around the store,
his eyes came to rest upon a group of sixteen wooden food mashers, or pestles, of differing dates
of manufacture, in various sizes and styles. I had put the set together during the length of time Id
been in business and had refrained from giving them a price tag because the calibre of the
collection represented the best I was able to find in the Bay Area. Besides, no one appeared to
show the least interest in their sculptural merits, apart from me, until that gentleman began a
careful examination of their distinguishing features. Seeing someone enjoy their charming
qualities so thoroughly helped make it easy to accept his invitation to negotiate a price, and when
an amount we both considered fair was agreed upon I didnt pause to question how they might
ever be replaced, but simply opened the sales book while asking him for his name. It was Isamu
Noguchi: a true giant among the worlds leading sculptors.

The paint remover must have begun to pickle my brains for I was struck dumb and rudely
neglected to tell him how much I admired the spiritual magnitude of his outstanding work. None
the less, our brief encounter served to shock me into asking myself what had happened to my
ambition to become a fine artist, and the very next day, while having dinner in Chinatown, I told
Francie that I wished to sell the business. At that point I really didnt know precisely what it was
that I wanted to do so I could only tell her that Id lost all desire to strip the paint from one more
stick of furniture. My sudden proclamation rather stunned her, of course, and it took several days
and nights of tossing this, that and the other thing back and forth before we both reached a
consensus that we should let the business go and take a short holiday in Euiope while formulating
new goals.

I thereupon placed an ad in the newspaper and in late September, one year to the day after I
bought my first can of paint remover, I sold the business lock stock and barrel for a net profit of
approximately $3,800.00. (I found it to be a remarkable coincidence that near the end of Antoine
de Saint-Exuperys book - the little prince says, 'Tonight, it will be a y e a r . . . my star, then, can be
found right above the place where I came to Earth, a year ago . . .in some respects my behaviour
seemed to then resemble that of my mother's after she sold the house her father had bequeathed
to her; only she didnt go so far as to book her family into a hotel and buy 2nd class tickets on an
ocean liner destined to sail from Halifax, Nova Scotia to England in early December of 1965.
Merely to hold the oversize tickets in our hands caused us to feel inordinately rich, for the heavy
rouge coloured paper upon which the one-way passage was so elegantly printed encouraged the
belief that money was no object, and that we were among those select few privileged to travel in a
special world.

We kept ourselves busy for almost two weeks preparing for the voyage because it would hardly be
fitting to set out on such a journey without the proper wardrobe, to say nothing about the warm
clothes we all required to survive the Canadian winter, toward which we were getting ready to
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leave with unbridled enthusiasm. That was the first time in my life when I had the cash available to
buy a camera, and in order to take full advantage of the opportunity I bought two: a 35mm SLR
Pentax, and a 2Vi" Yashica reflex; complete with a fancy black gadget bag in which they and their
accessories could be properly transported. (The cameras clearly represented much more than a
means to record the adventure upon which the three of us were about to embark, for it was
psychologically imperative for me to feel that I had some form of creative vehicle at hand and I
was understandably motivated to pick up a vaguely familiar thread from my past).

I solved the problem of how to travel from San Francisco to Canada by purchasing a deep green
MG Magnet (sedan), with brown leather seats and a walnut dashboard. It crossed over the line of
being just another car and qualified as an automobile classic. Although made in Great Britain it
had always been driven in sunny California and I knew it would sell for more in the Northeastern
States than it cost in San Francisco because the body and undercarriage had not been rusted out
by snowy salt covered roads which were known to shorten the lifespan of such motor cars in the
days before undercoating was developed to present standards. So, when we reached Buffalo,
New York, in the midst of one of those late October wet blizzards, it took just three days to sell the
car for sufficient profit to nicely cover the expense of fuel, motels and food while driving across the
magnificent U.S. of A.
We could not have travelled as comfortably were it not for Michaels pleasantly serene disposition.
He simply never cried nor complained in any other way about being on the road. He has always
been an extremely sensitive person, and from birth he was blessed with a stoic nature which
enables him to quickly adjust to any environment into which he is introduced. It was a wonderful
experience to enjoy the affection that increased between the both of us with each passing day.
Our first major stopover was in Toronto, where we stayed with Francies aunt, in the same house
in which we were married, and where Michael was soon to observe his first birthday; with the aid
of a small homemade cake supporting one stout, six inch high white candle.
I looked forward to seeing my father and my sister again for Id lost all contact with them long
before Francie and I were married, as a result of dad having such difficulty accepting the changes
to my life when I resigned from the police department. It took a couple of phone calls to ascertain
their new addresses in Hamilton, but it turned out to be a memorable reunion because dad warmly
expressed his willingness to let bygones be bygones." My sister Donna greeted us with much
enthusiasm and we were able to meet her lovely young daughter, who resembled her mother in
many respects. They were not having an easy go of it at that time and it became obvious that dad
was contributing toward their support. While visiting with my family I learned that Sonya had
remarried and that she and the children from our marriage were well and happy. Of course, before
leaving the city I made a point of dropping in to see my old friend and guru, Bill Davies.

I could see signs of a new vitality in Canada and the sense of magic in the air was confirmed to
me upon our return to Toronto, when Ted Bieler and Catherine Boudreau invited us to dinner and
shared the news that Ted had been awarded his first major commission, to create a poured
concrete sculpture for the administration building - designed by Irving Grossman - for the
upcoming worlds fair in Montreal, called Expo '67. It appeared that 1967 was to become a
spectacular year for my homeland in view of Expo 67 being just one of many events scheduled to
take place across the country in celebration of Canadas 100th birthday. The significance of the
activity leading up to the centennial was evident in the fact that the Federal Government was
actually discussing ways in which to implement the design of a Canadian flag, and finally end the
country's long standing dependence upon the United Kingdom's Union Jack.

I attempted to explain to Francie that I didnt feel we should proceed with our journey because I
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believed that a once in a lifetime opportunity for my development as an artist was emerging in
Canada. However, she argued that it would be silly to waste the tickets to England and convinced
me that a few weeks here or there couldn't make all that much difference. Wed previously
planned to travel by train from Toronto to Halifax, with arrangements to stop in Portneuf for a few
days, and because I lacked any tangible proof substantiating my claim I thought it best, all things
considered, to acknowledge her wishes and, therefore, I agreed to obtain the train tickets.
Visiting with aunt Hilda revived all the happy memories of my childhood, and the peaceful
atmosphere of the town I had once felt to be my second home even caused me to relax enough to
stop fussing over the fibres of steel wool that remained imbedded in my fingers; and I spent a
glorious week taking pictures of the wondrous snowscaped surroundings.
* * * * *

We docked in Southhampton a couple of weeks before Christmas and it seems to me that no one
could ever have been more thrilled by their first glimpse of Great Britain than was Francie. During
the train ride to London she gushed a running stream of comments about absolutely everything
she saw and any concern I had before leaving Toronto was temporarily forgotten when I saw the
light in her happy eyes. Her American blend of naive confidence permitted her to view England
with a romantic innocence and she thought the drafty, cramped bedsitter we rented was charming,
and that crouching to cook on a small gas ring was quaint. Her admiration of all things British soon
merged with the enchantment Christmas brings; when she created the sort of warm and cosy
mood that made it easy to agree that we should stay in London to soak up the sights for at least a
month.

Faced with the reality of a rapidly shrinking nest egg and the high cost of the rent for the lace
curtained room that the three of us occupied, I proposed that we move to a slightly cheaper yet
larger bedsitter in the Putney Bridge area, and in the process of studying the colourful, intricate
subway maps Francie became even more enamoured with our bohemian way of life and after we
resettled she announced that she'd found herself a part-time job as a nude model in order to help
supplement our deficient budget.

During the tranquil hours I spent caring for Michael I whittled him a set of five wooden toys, (two of
them have survived the changing seasons over the past quarter century); but wishing to do my full
share toward helping to carry the ball, I also started working as a school janitor five mornings a
week, from 5 to 7 AM. However, our daily expenses still exceeded our total income so in mid
February, shortly after wed made the effort to further reduce our living costs by moving into a
shabby bedsitter in a rather desolate part of London known as Worlds End; I let Francie know that
we had not a farthing more than was needed to pay our return fares to Canada.

At that stage a somewhat heated debate ensued, in which Francie took the position that it was
ridiculous to be that close to Continental Europe without venturing forth to explore some of it;
because heaven alone knew when we might be on that side of the Atlantic Ocean again. And it
was impossible for me to sound more saliently logical when my fundamental argument was based
upon some nebulous aspiration to return to Canada for the purpose of making art.

We appeared to reach a stand off for we still didn't depart for either continent, but no time later the
worst of things happened and the best of things happened: I met Sally and promptly fell in love -
again. Although I couldnt have seen Sally upon more than seven occasions in the fourteen days
following the party at which we met, we experienced an astral union far beyond anything a casual
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flirtation might bestow. Theres no doubt that I was angry with Francie, and deeply frustrated by
her apparent inability to be sympathetic toward my inner need to seriously pursue some form of
artistic expression, however, I didn't see how that condition could be confused with the feelings
that Sally aroused in me; just as I did not believe it was possible for me to feel any less love for
Francie and Michael than I did the day we left San Francisco.

To prove this to myself, as well as to Francie, who was not ignorant of my affair with Sally, I sold
my highly prized cameras in order to raise some additional cash, and escorted my wife and son
aboard the ferry to the coast of France, where we caught a train bound for Paris.

I tried my utmost not to think about Sally and made every effort to be sensitive to how subdued
Francie had become, and so we stayed at a nice little hotel in Le Quatier Latin, a short stroll
beside the banks of River Seine from Cathedral de Notre Dame. Somewhere along the way we
acquired one of those back pack type of aluminum framed canvas seats for Michael, which made
it possible to take turns carrying him about on the leisurely walks we quietly traversed along the
warm March streets of that city d'amour. Most mornings of the long week we spent there I sat
alone in a local cafe, mulling over the kinds of questions that anyone in my shoes would be
obliged to ask of themselves. But no sensible answers arose to dispel my somnambulate state of
stupefaction.

Our pace was geared to get us to an agreed destination of Rome before the last of our money
was completely gone, and although neither Francie nor I had the courage to ask what we then
should do, on the appointed day we began hitchhiking to Cote dAzure, pausing en route to breath
in the serene Aix en Province landscape made famous by the artists of France. On the sunny
afternoon when the three of us walked across the Italian border I could sense Francies deep sigh
of relief to have a whole country sitting between Sally and me, but, nonetheless, I couldnt decide
whether I was changing countries more often than I changed my socks, or whether I was bent
upon zooming through relationships faster than I seemed to zoom through countries.

The day we arrived in Rome we payed down a weeks rent for a side street pansioni and then
vigorously applied ourselves to as much sightseeing as time would allow. When we had worked
our way down to barely enough food money to keep us alive for another two days I informed
Francie that I could no longer hope to fulfil her expectations of me and that our two and a half
year marriage had come to an end.

That same evening she placed a collect call to her mother and arranged payment of airplane fare
to California for herself and our staunch little son.

After they departed I made my way to the Canadian Embassy, where my passport was taken as
collateral against an airline ticket to Montreal and a Canadian ten dollar bill; whereupon I retired
to a nearby park and scrawled a lovesick groan of passion which I posted off to Sally.
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CHAPTER TEN

I hitchhiked from Montreal overnight, reaching the suburbs of Toronto the

morning of April Fools Day, 1966, and I used the first telephone booth I
encountered to call Ted Bieler, who had that many commissions he hired
me on the spot to work as his full-time assistant, at the rate of $2.50 per
hour.

While living in Southern California Id bought a ring designed by my friend

Everett MacDonald, for the price of the gold it contained, so I expended
the remnants of the $10.00 Id been given by the Canadian Embassy in
Rome to pay my bus fare to the downtown pawnshop district and
borrowed $25.00 on that ring. After walking over to see the new City Hall
and the bronze Henry Moore sculpture which had been mounted in front of
the west tower, I then walked up to the University of Toronto area and
rented a furnished room three blocks away from the U. of T. Sculpture
Department, where Ted conducted his classes amid two huge rooms of
plaster caked sculpture pedestals, - on the ground floor of the old Borden
Building. Before the clock struck noon I walked down to 328 Spadina and
knocked on Ted and Cathys door to discover that Francie decided to
change flights in New York, and that she and Michael were living in the
same furnished one and a half room apartment on Jarvis Street, directly
across the road from the CBC, that she and I had rented soon after we
met. For a fraction of a second I was caused to wonder in which direction
time was moving.

Recently, I heard someone say that if you can remember the sixties you
probably weren't there. Well, maybe I wasn't all there because I remember
noticing, when I went over to visit with Francie and Michael, that the
apartment walls still bore the same coat of paint that she and I had given
to them back in the days when I consented to our marriage in the first
place; wishing to alleviate the anxiety she nurtured by going on about what
her parents might think of her for living in sin. It could be said that our
marriage ceremony was performed to glorify our sense of guilt, and when
she chose to move back into the bridal chamber with our son it looked to
me as though I was expected to pass beyond the stage of being just a
culpable cad and graduate to the level of feeling grievously ashamed.
However, it wasnt all that simple - nor that easy to do - and I appeared
more ruthless that an egregious monster when I emphatically told Francie
that I was emotionally transfixed by the sensation of a tantric fire
awakened in my heart by Sally.

Im unable to fathom why it was so necessary for things to have happened

precisely as they did, particularly in view of the fact that, ludicrous though
it may seem under those circumstances, I continued to be in love with
Francie. Nevertheless, the damage our relationship had suffered was not
easily rectifiable and I believed that regardless of what I might say I
couldnt succeed in communicating my sentiments in a manner that would
be perceived as being fair by the both of us. Therefore, aside from
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expressing my gratitude for the opportunity she provided for Michael and me to visit
together on the weekends, my feelings toward her remained essentially torpid for
most of the four month period she decided to live there.
it it it it it

The school year was moving into the end-of-term phase and Ted asked me to begin
work by clearing space and arranging tools and materials in preparation to confront
the heavy work load
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to which he was committed over the upcoming spring and summer school recess. Given in the
order of their project deadlines, the following three commissions were confirmed:-

(1) A pair of coloured cement fondu "sail-like" forms, approximately 6H. X 12W. X 1 1/2D.
overall; to be mounted on the exterior wall beside the Art Department at Queen's University in
Kingston, Ontario.

(2) A set of some two dozen 32" square by Vz" deep "wave-like" forms, built from fibreglass-
reinforced-polyester, with a rusted steel powder surface; which were to be suspended on
concealed wires in front of about nine foot by twenty foot of brick wall, in the foyer of the Whitby,
Ontario, Medical Administration Building, designed by the architectural firm of Craig, Zeidler &
Strong.

(3) Approximately thirty six "bubble-like" translucent forms comprised of fibreglass-

reinforced-polyester on 3 X 9 X 1" tubular stainless steel frames in the shape of hyperbolic
parabola; which would be arranged the following spring upon a network of steel cables under
tension, above a large pool of water - in accordance with the scale model that Ted had already
completed - adjacent to Macy Duboises "tent-like" Ontario Pavilion design, which was then under
construction on the new island that the city of Montreal had built to house Expo '67.

We had barely begun to cut the negative styrofoam molds for the Queens University piece when
Ted invited me to participate in resolving a "Gaudi-like" sculptural treatment for Mr. Zeidler's open
floor plan, poured concrete, design proposal for the new Whitby Hospital. Ed Zeidler had
consulted Ted because he felt that the building which he and his assistant Harvey Cowan had
designed on paper, reflected a mechanical harshness that could be reduced by the introduction of
rounded corners and softened edges, and he wondered if Ted might be able to generate an
inexpensive solution in view of his expertise in evolving curved surfaces, or saddle shapes,
through calculated manipulation of the various straight line, hot wire styrofoam cutters that so
much interested Ted. A few days of experimentation with that technique revealed it was not a
feasible process for attaining the desired objective, so Ted resorted to forming and carving sheet
wax in quest of an answer conforming to the many aspects of the building. During the early stages
of that exploration I was unable to offer anything much more than my skills in melting wax, while
admiring Teds sentient rapport with the degree of curve and twist emerging on the inside and
outside corners of the scale model we gradually constructed. However, I was pleasantly surprised
when all those involved decided to incorporate my suggestion of making centre slits up the entire
front face of the vertical support shafts; in order to provide a structural space for ventilation
hardware, while visually diminishing the overtly monolithic appearance of those three storey high
columns. (See illustration)

Come the beginning of May, Ted rewarded my increasing usefulness with an increment of fifty
cents an hour, and he also paid me a bonus of $300,00 for my contribution toward the Whitby
Hospital project. That provided the revenue to redeem my ring from the pawnshop and my
passport from the Canadian Government, as well as the first months rent for a studio and living
space at 227 Spadina Avenue; above Ontario Display Supply, just down the block from the (old)
Victory Burlesque Theatre and Shapiros lunch counter drugstore. I signed a two year lease
because I estimated that I'd slept in 500 different places in the preceding five years and I very
much wanted to have the same address for awhile, The rent was slightly under a hundred a month
for two almost identical 13 X 24 front rooms, with 12 high ceilings and a matching pair of
windows overlooking the street. One room was on the second floor and the other was directly
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above up on the third floor. That top floor also had a washroom with a grey marble corner sink and
a toilet with an ash wood seat, so I added a tin shower stall and coated the tired old floor with a
mixture of fine grain sand and polyester resin, for I planned to use the upper floor as living space.
The landlord supplied enough white paint and gold flecked linoleum to turn the living area into a
clean fresh environment, and after a week of burning the midnight oil I was able to move in a new
double mattress, complete with sheets, pillows, and a tangerine coloured blanket. On the floor at
the opposite end of the big empty room, I rested a pine board upon a pair of weathered red bricks,
and installed an electric hotplate and a set of everything two people in the western world seem to
need in order to share a basic meal together.

On April 6th Sally celebrated her twenty second birthday, and that was the day she wrote an
answer to the letter I'd mailed to her from Rome. She had attended the West of England Academy
of Arts in her home town of Bristol, England, where one of her favourite subjects was calligraphy,
so her superb penmanship delighted my eye while her words elated my spirits. Her reply made
clear that since wed met she had grown increasingly discontent with her marriage of nearly three
years, and she offered me every possible support by poetically extolling the merits of being a fine
artist. In my response I stated how much I would like to have her live with me, saying that I would
place an overseas call to her a couple of days after she received my special delivery letter. When I
did telephone her she disclosed that shed saved the cost of her air fare to Canada and that she
would send me a note as soon as she was able to book her ticket.

Sally arrived the morning of May 10th bedecked in the first pink and blue flowered Carnaby Street
mini-dress to ever be seen in Toronto's Kensington Market district. That week the temperature in
Southern Ontario suddenly shot up 30 Fahrenheit and meteorological records will confirm that it
stayed in the high nineties for ten scintillating days. However, the balance of that torrid spring was
not all sunshine, and once the temperature returned to something called normal I found myself
gazing into the misty depths of her brilliant blue eyes, and watching the play of light in her brandy
coloured hair, while contemplating how much I missed the familiarity of my wife. As a result, one
thing lead to another and within two weeks of her arrival she packed up her exquisite aroma and
moved out.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered that shed moved into the
furnished one and a half room apartment on Jarvis Street directly across the road from the CBC,
and that she, Francie, and Michael were all crowded together around my nuptial bed, while I
wandered alone with my shadow through two big hollow rooms on Spadina Avenue; trying with all
my might to be concerned about fine art.
Meanwhile, the venerable Buddhist Bhikku Ananda Bodhi made his appearance in Toronto, and
when I heard how much Cathy was impressed by his lectures I took the liberty to request a
personal appointment with him. He quickly pointed out that being emotionally involved with two
women at the same time was not unique to human history, and suggested I consider resolving my
predicament by going with both women for awhile. This news did not please poor Francie, who
angrily insisted that I make a choice between the two of them; and the tension it caused poor Sally
was such that she asked Cathy Boudreau for help in finding more suitable accommodation. Cathy
then stormed over to my place to lecture me on how abusive I was being to Sally, and generally
whip up the right measure of "responsibility" for having enticed the slender waif to leave her poor
husband and move to this vast and desolate land.
 6
4

It was all too preposterous to be believed. I had literally pressured Sally into leaving me because
as much as I was drawn to her I wondered whether Id made a horrendous mistake in regard to
Francie; and yet from the moment Sally left 227 Spadina she was seldom out of my sight for very
long, and I simply cant recall being alone with Francie even once during the whole distressing
episode. It's a total mystery to me how Francie and I have remained fond of each other all these
years, since it was Sally - who could always astound me with the shy tilt she sometimes gives to
her head when she smiles - who ended up moving back in with me at Spadina Avenue; where
time began to happily disclose how fortunate we were to have stumbled upon each other in such a
wide, wide world.

In the latter part of June I learned that Dorothy Cameron was travelling across Canada selecting

n
works to be included in the National Gallery of Canada Centennial Exhibition titled Sculpture '67,
which was to be held in Nathan Philips Square, at the front of Torontos new City Hall, during the
summer of Canadas 100th birthday. Ted was planning to submit a sculpture concept for her
consideration and he urged me to also present a scale model, along with a breakdown of costs
involved to realize my proposal full scale.

By then Sally had installed burlap curtains on the third floor windows and our living space was
sparsely furnished with semi-antique furniture culled from local junk stores, and refinished in the
*
second floor studio; which Id equipped with built-in work benches, shelving and three portable
electric tools: a drill, a sander and a hot wire styrofoam cutter patterned after those that Ted had
designed. (A voltage regulator reduces the electric feed through a few feet of chromel resistance

p
wire, stretched between two spring mounted insulators attached to a "C" shaped wooden frame.
When the wire is heated it melts a narrow path through the styrofoam).

Apart from the influence of Teds aesthetic interests, and my recent travels in Europe, I felt an
affinity with the work of a group of artists in Los Angeles, especially Tony Delap, whose work was
then being discussed and illustrated in the magazine "Art Forum," which was available in Toronto
for $1.25 an issue. Suffice to say I was motivated to explore a newly born fascination with
interrelated modular conditions, or interlocking forms, and the syncretistic interplay of interior and
-
exterior space. (One may observe, for example, the phenomenon of joining together two hands
and the resultant creation of an interior space between these two complex structural components,
or modules; and then observe, by slowly drawing the hands apart, that the interior space and the
exterior space is one and the same space, and that the shape of the space is defined by the
position of the hands).

Working on a scale of one inch to the foot, I cut a squared off "S" shape through the length of a 6"
X 6" X 9" block of styrofoam, and then cut a variation of that line through the other pair of parallel
rectangular faces; which generated four interconnected sections that could be reassembled in
several different ways, or arranged in relation to one another in multifarious combinations. I
painted the six exterior faces of the block of white styrofoam with a red water base paint, (to
match the recently chosen colours for the new Canadian flag), and titled the piece "Red & White
Box."

I planned to build each segment full scale from 1" thick plywood, and then coat those units with
fibreglass-reinforced polyester; with a matted texture on the white interior areas, and a smooth
6
5

finish on the red exterior surfaces of all four elements. I felt that the 6 X 9' numerical proportions of
the work contributed toward the spacial flexibility of the sculpture in terms of its potential for
change, or manual rearrangement over the course of time. I also believed that one of the major
strengths of the full scale work would be its size relative to children, who should feel comfortable
climbing on the lower, bench level portions, and thereby actively participate in the visual and tactile
properties of that environmental space frame concept.
History shows that Dorothy Cameron not only accepted the work for inclusion among the sixty
eight sculptures in that important exhibition; but she also graciously consented, as did Ted Bieler,
to support my first application to the Canada Council, requesting a grant of $700.00 to defray half
the cost of constructing it. (See photographs)
* ****

The rear room on the second floor at 227 Spadina came vacant in late July and the landlord
rented that 13 square space to us for an extra fifteen dollars on top of our previous rent. Wed no
sooner repainted it when Francie enquired if she and Michael could temporarily live there. Sally
didnt hesitate to let it be known that they were welcome and I was so astatic that I dont
remember where the crib for Michael came from, nor any of the other furniture used to make the
room comfortable for them. They had barely settled in when Sallys husband appeared on our
doorstep, fresh from England, asking to unroll his sleeping bag on the floor of my studio and none
of us could refuse him. Francie and I had met Tony at the London party where we first met Sally
so he was not a total stranger to any of us, and we were not astonished to learn that hed decided
to leave his job as a graphic designer with an international fashion magazine and immigrate to the
United States.

On his second or third day in Canada he came into my studio much disgruntled, carrying a
deflated wet life raft. Hed evidently bought it for the sole purpose of paddling over to one of the
small islands that help to form Toronto's harbour, and he was most frustrated by the fact that the
harbour police had dragged him and his inflatable boat out of the water, explaining that people
werent permitted that sort of freedom for safety reasons. Although Toronto was just a step along
the way for him, he wasnt in town more than a week or so before he found himself a prestigious
job, as well as his own apartment, and rolled up his rubber dinghy and moved out of my studio.
Not too long after he departed Francie announced that she and Michael were also leaving the
premises, in favour of a large apartment further up the street that she liked.

In the midst of that slice of life Ted Bieler hired two more assistants for the summer: Alan Barkley,
one of his former students who later went to study sculpture at St. Martins School of Art in
England; and Bryon Shore, who was the only artist to ever hold a solo exhibition of painting at The
House of Azolo. I was secretly appointed straw boss and Ted raised my salary to $5.00 an hour.
As a result, August flashed by in sweat soaked toil, forming the translucent hyperbolic "bubbles"
for Teds breathtaking Expo sculpture, and before I had time to think about it the school year
began - Ted's commissioned work was moved to the back burner - and my job was suddenly
reduced to a part-time position.
Sally came to the rescue. She started working three days a week managing the darkroom for the newly organized Canadian
Magazine newspaper supplement, and she earned more money in those three days than I ever dreamed possible.
6
7
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ive been fortunate to live in some great places over the years; but none of them came close to
giving me the kind of feeling I enjoyed at 227 Spadina Avenue. It wasnt just the place of course, it
was a special time in my life. A time when I audaciously believed that miracles were waiting to
burst open and fly all around me. Its been said that writing about happiness invariably makes it
seem corny. None the less, I was so much in love with Sally - who served breakfasts of fresh figs
in cream to me in bed - that I can picture the morning sun shining through the front windows in
spite of the fact that they faced west. The windows of the back room on the 2nd floor faced the
rising sun, and we outfitted that room with a wooden drafting table, a used metal filing cabinet,
and a refinished oak desk with a matching swivel chair, which turned the entire 2nd floor into
functional studio space for both two dimensional and three-dimensional studies. (The larger front
room was equipped with a white enamel sink, and that essential fixture had established the use of
that room as a sculpture studio from the day I moved in).

By mid autumn my studio manifested an aura of desultory exploration showing such diversity that
I was forced to ask in which direction I seemed to be heading. Aside from the experiments leading
up to the maquette for Red & White Box, and the results obtained by the logical progression of
making similar cuts through a block of styrofoam as many as six times, the studio also
accommodated a half dozen small sculptures assembled from wooden hat blocks that I'd found in
a garbage pail; a plaster cast of a dried sunflower; something I called "Growth Box," which
resembled a rusted metal 16" cube with grey potatoes bursting from it; a 36" long egg form built
from W steel rods, into which was imbedded a large pair of cement fondu lips; a life-size plaster
relief portrait of Ananda Bodhi; and a six foot high slab of something I called "Astrological
Thermometer." Many of these pieces were later given to friends, and some of them were thrown
away, however, none of them were sold. Whatever it was they all amounted to stays unanswered,
excepting that the work clearly reflected a lack of focus, which prompted me to begin asking
myself some serious questions about what it was I was trying to say or, indeed, wished to say.

Whilst so engaged, or disengaged, depending upon ones point of view, Ted informed me that The
Globe And Mail drama critic, Mr. Herbert Whittaker, was directing Aristophanes "Lysistrata" for the
University of Torontos Hart House Theatre Group; and that he was looking for someone
experienced with styrofoam to build the stage sets. (Mr. Whittaker was later awarded the Order of
Canada for his contribution to Canadian theatre). I was rather taken aback when, at our first
meeting, Mr. Whittaker told me I had a budget of $500.00 to build a flying backdrop depicting the
front of the Acropolis, and to design the sculptured surfaces on a pair of 18 long reversible wall
units mounted on wheels.

While researching the ancient Parthenon temple, which sits on top of the Acropolis Citadel in
Athens, Greece, I was amazed to discover that much of Greek design was regulated by a sacred
canon of geometric principles, and that Greek philosophy embraced the notion that the universe is
ordered by mathematical constancies. In the process of attempting to digest the significance of
this Sally and I attended a lecture by the inventor of the geodesic dome, Mr. Buckminister Fuller,
wherein he made mention of the atomic bonding of binary compounds such as table salt, and how
that ionic bonding creates cube shaped crystals. I gradually came to realize something known to
every intelligent person who ever lived. Namely, the square is not an invention of the human mind:
it is a manifestation of divine laws in nature - a scientific structural fact of life on
74
earth - which inspired artists of many different cultures, not just because it is a convenient
symmetrical design system; but because it expresses a dynamic (spiritual) truth.

I don't believe the eventual results of that awakening would have turned out to be quite so
dramatic had I not been earnestly searching for some way to give direction to my fundamentally
primitive imagination. On the other hand, Im not sure that I would have been looking nearly so
intensely for a vehicle upon which I could focus my creative energies were Sally and I not also
attending, during that same period, the weekly lectures and meditation classes then being offered
by Ananda Bodhi.
In any event, an interval of gestation followed that insight, and because I was still at the stage

of my artistic development where it remained necessary for me to look for "ideas" in other
peoples' work; I went snooping through the University of Toronto bookstore seeking stimulation
that might grant me the confidence to tackle the sculptural treatment on Herb Whittakers pair of
18 floating walls, and I was attracted to a copy of Eli Bernsteins "Structurist" magazine,
Some
of the illustrations bore similarity to the room divider I'd earlier constructed for that swanky

restaurant in Newport Beach, California; and the underlying attitudes espoused in his magazine
were sufficiently compatible with my own views that I solicited the aid of a fellow student of
meditation, Rodney Malham, who worked with me for a week of nights to generate a stage set
that was so powerful Herb had to ask us to tear parts of it off, and then to give it a coat of beige
coloured, flat latex paint, because he felt it overshadowed the group of amateur actors who were
performing the play.

* ***

If ever I made the effort to absorb the contents of an art journal it was for the October, 1966, issue
of Art Forum. That month it seemed to echo everything the editors thought modern sculpture
ought to be, and the fact that it contained articles about two Canadian born sculptors - Ronald
Bladen and Robert Murray - certainly helped give that issue additional meaning for me. It also
featured Carl Andr6, Lucas Samara, Sol Lewit and the architect/sculptor Anthony Smith; and it
was a photograph of one of his works that I tacked to the wall beside my drafting table. The title of
his sculpture is "Die," (as in the die is cast), and that small black and white picture image showed
a six foot square welded sheet steel cube. In effect, I was mesmerized. To me it represented the
presentation of a found object, much like the standard building bricks that Carl Andr6 used in his
modular construction of "Lever," which was also depicted in that issue. However, the important
difference for me was that "Lever" depended upon objects found in a brick factory, or at a building
supply store, while "Die" depended mainly upon geometric phenomenon found in nature. Although
it was not the artists expressed intent, to me the Tony Smith sculpture could well have been a
song of praise to Gods handiwork, because it resembled a magnified view of a salt crystal, or
sugar crystal, or a gigantic iron pyrite mineral specimen, and it could not have weighed more
heavily upon my consciousness had it been composed of solid cubic galena (or lead) crystals.
Before that month ended I started a series of pen and ink dynamic symmetry studies exploring
some fundamental properties of the square, discovered the Cabinet Projection perspective
technique, and also began a work titled 'Topological Picture," in which I meticulously portrayed,
within a golden rectangle, the left and right handed cuboid nets of eleven ways that the six faces
of a cube may be transformed to the second dimension. (See photocopy)Needless to say, I knew
nothing more about mathematics than I could legitimately claim to know about art; but after
completing that drawing I had it photographically reproduced in both, black on a white
background, and white in a black foreground, and then mounted that pair of positive/negative
bromide prints side by side as one integrated art piece. (Those original, signed photographic black
and white negatives are among the 142 examples of my work that were donated to the Art Gallery
of Hamilton by Mr. Michael Overs - in 1987).

Ive never been able to actually finish that first set of simple two-dimensional studies, which got
set aside when I attempted to build a tiny cardboard working model expressing some readily
apparent aspects of that mysteriously versatile member of the five platonic solids: The Cube. For
it was as though I'd been given a peek into a cosmic kaleidoscope designed by God, that
suddenly revealed myriad interconnected harmonic laws at work in the heavenly galaxies; all the
way through to the bubbling deep in the fluid fires ten miles beneath the floating organic crust of
our flying planet.

For starters, I recognized that each of the cuboid nets Id recorded in the 2nd dimension - in
'Topological Picture" - could be easily cut out and folded into three dimensional space; and then I
noticed that mother nature and father time don't bother to make hollow cubes without the direct
assistance of human beings. Meanwhile, I began to conceptualize what was later to be termed
'The Exploding Cube Series." And some of those were photographed properly when Mr. Hugh
Robertson of Panda Associates used a correctional view camera. (See pictures).

To backtrack a bit, I was intuitively motivated to turn the original tiny cardboard working model,
which had helped to trigger my pathetic mystic vision, into a sculptural statement specifying my
intention to continue contemplating the cube for a protracted length of time. The result was a work
which I titled "Alpha & Omega." I rudely borrowed the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet in
the belief that they would be understood as symbolic of the beginning and the end. With such a
title Id hoped to convey that that sculpture was only one part of a given time/space frame exhibit,
or mandala, by through which I might reflect and quantify my cubistic path of study. (See 2-D
image - note equilateral triangular matrix of open corner spaces that the cubic formation of discs
automatically demonstrates).

I thought maybe Id begun to wade my way through the river of molten lava in which I imagined
myself to be standing, and then I remembered that the physical realities of life do not exist in the
2nd dimension. Yes! People are generally gifted with the facility to communicate in, on, by and/or
through the two dimensional plane, like we normally experience upon the surface of say, a movie
screen, or a sheet of paper; but all animal, vegetable and mineral matter lives in the three-
dimensional domain. That staggering insight meant that I had to think about coming to grips with
cubic volume and the down to earth gravity of mass. And completely forget about hollow cuboid
box forms for awhile.

My son, who is currently a proud member of The National Ballet of Canada corps de ballet, would
visit with Sally and me during holidays, and every other weekend for two and a quarter "bet your
bottom dollar" days of unlimited joy; and we all felt fortunate that Michael happened to be visiting
227 Spadina one weekend in November, when my dad finally got around to answering our letters
and surprised us by showing up at the door. He brought along his mouth-organ of course and,
because his grandson was about to turn into a two year old, he also carried in one of those
vacuum formed toys that's made to look like a motor scooter, in precisely the right size that
Michael could sit on it while we each took turns driving him around the roouuuom roouuuom
roouuuom. Im happy to say that my honourable father enjoyed his visit with us enough to begin
riding the bus between Hamilton and Toronto several times a year, taking full advantage of having
grown eligible to draw his hard earned old age pension benefits.
Anyhow, I believe it was a few days after dads first welcome visit that Ted Bieler asked me to help
out at the University of Toronto sculpture studio during one evening. I didnt work for Ted on a
regular basis. He would give me a specific job to do on the occasional Saturday, or he might
assign a minor task which could be done when it seemed to be convenient, so it was unusual to
be asked to assist him on a week day evening.

I arrived at U. of T. to learn that Anita Arrons, an Australian born artist and arts administrator,
teacher, and later Director of The Harbourfront Civic Gallery; had then recently moved to Toronto,
and shed organized a group of about ten architects to visit three artist's studios. I believe Anita
took her group to meet the sculptors Ziggy Blazeje and Michael Hayden first, for it was nearly ten
oclock on that snowy evening before they got to the Old Borden building. Among the group was a
relatively young man by the name of Peter Goering, and he introduced himself to Ted and me as
one member of a large team of architects involved in the design and construction of the University
of Torontos new Medical Sciences Building. He explained that a pair of back to back ground floor
walls on either side of a 44 wide utilities shaft, located beside the main entrance to the building,
were being considered as possible sites for sculpture; providing such sculpture was built as part
of the precast concrete panels which were to be used on the building, as opposed to being
sculpture that would be fastened to the walls after they are in place. In other words, it cost so
much per square foot to put up the building, and if Ted was interested in making sculptural forms
into which the concrete could be poured, (much in the manner he had done for the Expo 67's
News and Administration Building), in that case the Medical Sciences Building planners might be
willing to use that system for creating sculptures, because a budget had to be allocated for
precast concrete regardless of what the general configuration of the "standard" form work might
be. When Ted replied that he could only consider adding to his heavily booked calendar under the
condition that the contract was drawn up in fifty-fifty joint partnership with me, I was flabbergasted.

I had about 36 hrs. in which to ingest Teds gratuitous invitation, as early on the morning of the
second day to follow, we met with Peter Goering and Norm McMurrich at the offices of
Sommerville, McMurrich and Oxley, where Mr. McMurrich proposed that Ted and I present a
package estimate to design sculptures for the two walls that Peter first mentioned to us; plus a
nine foot square relief for another area of the building, as well as two free standing sculptures,
and a number of designs for the facing panels that were to be used as an exterior curtain wall
over the entire five floors of the city block sized structure.

Come the beginning of December Ted and I agreed to be subcontracted to the cement contractor,
and for a total combined fee of roughly $70,000.00 we committed ourselves to contributing toward
the largest complex of sculptured precast concrete in the world.
 CHAPTER TWELVE

n
Never before had I been privileged to be part of the sort of national celebrations which took place
throughout Canada New Year Eve of 1967. Yonge Street, the main north-south thoroughfare
running through Toronto, was so jammed with people and traffic that on the first bell flared tone of
midnight, drivers and passengers stepped out of cars to participate in the singing and dancing

that the heavens decreed must become everyones immediate priority. Even the weather was
clear and refreshing. Whole neighbourhoods of people living in cities and towns across the entire
country gradually joined up together in celebrating the dawn of Canadas 100th birthday party.
Each unique district of Toronto was decorated with coloured lights and open smiles; and crowds
n of untold numbers moved all about in rhythm to the well practised musicians playing at the many
different indoor and outdoor multi-cultural gathering places. You simply couldnt be present
without feeling delighted to be included in the National fete, and there wasn't a living soul who
didn't appear to be part of it all.

n
It was the start of a year in Canada which came to personify for me, the kind of special feeling
sometimes associated with the glorious 1960s. An era when contented people walked peacefully
hand in hand through city parks and streets 'til the sun arose. A time when television didnt tend to
keep people locked indoors quite so much, because video systems had barely began to be

n developed.

None the less, Sally and I did acquire an 11" black and white TV. And when the rear room on the

third floor came vacant we were happy to rent that room as well, giving us full use of both the
upper floors at 227 Spadina. We converted that additional space into a kitchen, complete with a
reproduction of an old fashioned rocking chair, and a daybed for visiting family members and
friends. We also laid down wall to wall carpet in the front living room, while adding a colour
matched couch and chair done up in a fabric that looked like it had been designed by the

j
American artist Andy Warhol. The green and blue flower pattern woven into the fabric had gotten
accidently misregistered during production, and when we found the set on sale in a local bargain
centre we thought it was a bargain and a half.

To round off our modernization program Sally made Chinese red curtains, I made a big coffee

* table, and we bought something that almost qualified as a hi-fi. Oh Yes, we also arranged to rent
a new style push-button telephone for each of the two rooms on the 3rd floor living level, and for
both rooms on the 2nd floor studio level.

The designs for the precast concrete main facing panels on the University of Torontos Medical
Sciences Building, grew from an (eighth inch to the foot) architectural drawing of two plain,
ordinary rectangles - approx. 14'9" high X 4'6" wide, in the full scale. One of those simple, vertical
rectangles was marked A and the other was marked B. The one marked B' had a squarish
opening in the bottom half, indicating a space for a window. That panel automatically suggested a
potential design plan by virtue of its thick window fins, which projected forward from the 4 or 5
inch deep panel surface; as could be seen in the side view also shown in the architectural
drawing. The side view of B panel revealed the estimated depth, or amount of material required
to carry the load between the upper and lower divisions created by the window hole. (Please
refer: Medical Sciences 2-D picture images).
Our first tiny step forward resulted from Teds suggestion to call up the major precast concrete
producers in Southern Ontario, and ask them how many panel molds they would consider viable
to fill at one time, should there bid on the upcoming tender be approved. The average number
was six. We then mumbled something about an interrelated modular design system, embracing a
pair of edge components that must interconnect with each other around all the inside and outside
90 conditions designed into the building's outer skin.

After we formulated a basic design concept, Norm McMurrich introduced Ted and me to the chief
architect on the project: Mr. Vern Langley, who was with the firm of Goven, Kaminker, Langley,
Patrick, Melick, Keenleyside, Devon & Wilson; and Mr. Langley gave us the encouragement to
proceed with a one third scale model of our structurist oriented solution . . .

The job supervisor was Mr. Harvey Self, of Canadian Bechtel Corporation, and he and the various
clients he represented seemed to be content enough with how things were moving along because
the architects presented us with rectangular drawings of two more categories of panel: a shorter
balcony panel, and a taller penthouse panel. Ted prompted me to generate the pair of balcony
panel designs in the negative, i.e.. by cutting the design into the background depth of those
panels; not only saving on concrete, but also reducing handling and shipping costs. That design
also visually complimented the corrugated diaper work which covered most of the building in what
the architects termed a tapestry effect.

Soon after the balcony panel designs were resolved and approved Teds attention was temporarily
drawn to other matters, so I tackled the penthouse design more or less on my own. After Mr.
McMurrich fully explained that the foundations and superstructure of the building had been
planned to accommodate the addition of five more floors, at any given time in the future,
I undertook to draw design proposals for the penthouse panels. Having used the diameters of the
window fins as the prevailing element in the main facing and balcony panel design systems I
opted to use the window space itself as the predominant feature in that final phase of the facing
design.

Around the time that someone asked which panel was supposed to go next to which panel, most
thankfully Ted reappeared on the scene and we made it clear that the construction crew could
make that decision, as the design allowed for the fact that the panels would get shuffled - like
cards - in the process of being pulled from the molds and stacked on the factory floor, and then
out to the storage yard, to later be loaded onto trucks and then mixed up again when unloaded at
the construction site - and that it really didnt matter in what combination they were affixed to the
building.

I think it was then that the precasting contract was awarded to Beer Precast, in Scarborough,
Ontario, and the problems of converting our design concepts into reality were taken up by that
companys president, Mr. Fred Beer; who told us to get on with the business of making models for
the two free standing sculptures, and the three sculptured walls. Ted and I agreed that both the
free standing sculptures would be his responsibility, and that the sculptural treatment for all three
wall areas was to be my responsibility. Needless to say, whenever I later required the shining light
of Teds remarkable brain, he willingly shared his technical expertise.I feel it is important to state
that I've never considered the precast concrete panel designs as works of fine art. From the very
start I always thought of that phase of the Medical Sciences commission to be nothing more than
a foray into the field of industrial design. I believed then, as I do now, that I was granted an
opportunity to exercise specific creative problem solving skills because it became impossible for a
small group of people to remain idle when they envisioned how mirthlessly ugly that building might
look, if covered in a blank sheath of flat precast concrete panels. Quite fortunately, my life
experience up to that time helped to convince me that I could best express my gratitude for having
been given such a unique design opportunity by directing almost every dollar earned on that
project toward the unfolding of my own inner definition of what fine art could become. Therefore,
Im still deeply thankful for the economic freedom it bestowed upon my cubic meditations.
In December of 1966, before any real 3-D work on the Medical Sciences project had even begun,
I started evolving an early stage maquette for a work that kept me actively occupied, off and on,
for nearly two years: The Cube Turned Inside Out. (See photo).
For some reason or another I was not given to approach the cube as a solid in the manner that an
average math text on solid geometry may advise; and instead, I viewed the elusive entity as a
primary fluid volume of physical space. That attitude of consciousness led me to divide the
volume of a given cube into equal halves; mentally rearranging one portion into a square shape of
specified depth, and the other portion into a golden rectangle of matching depth. Each of these
units I then constructed as chipboard models, based upon the premise that the interlocking centre
axis they created at 90 should delineate the spacial cubic volume from which both portions had
been derived. The polished aluminum sphere was not added to that "crystalized moment of
insight" until I later hired a welder to fabricate the first aluminum scale model for Six Spheres To
The Cube: a kind of "Alpha & Omega" turned inside out, expressing a cubic occurrence
encountered at the atomic level. (See snapshot)
One of the many reasons it took until 1968 to bring that first sculptural exploration of volumetric
displacement to a stage of completion, can definitely be attributed to a second play of cubic
volume concept that seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and give itself the title of 5832. (See
photos).
That title represents the volume in cubic inches displayed in each of the three components of that
sculpture. The 18" square cube, the cantilevered golden rectangular frame, and the internal space
it describes; each amount to 5832 cubic inches.

Although I believed it was essential for each separate sculpture to be assessable upon its own
individual merits, I would like to repeat that I saw each piece of work as being merely one
segment of an ongoing study, intended to manifest the divine mystery of life that was so readily
apparent to me in the dynamic structure of the multifaceted cube. In other words, just as the four
distinct parts of Red & White Box reflected the oneness of the geometric form to which they owed
their existence, so too were each of the eventual 108 sculptures of the cube study meant to be
interpreted as a humble song of praise to the infinite powers of the Omnipotent God capable of
creating such wonders as the cube phenomenon.

Because of feeling that way I considered it imperative that the first public presentation of any
sculptures generated from those meditations should include more than one work, and hopefully
no fewer than three. As a result, I thought it was a gift of mana from heaven when I discovered,
early in 1967, that the Province of Ontario Council for the Arts was inviting submissions of up to
three works for a competition to be adjudicated by Mr. Bryan Robertson, who was renowned in the
international art community for the high degree of respectability he had conferred upon
contemporary art, as an esteemed art critic and Director of The Whitechapel Art Gallery in
London, England.

After consulting with Paul Bennett, who worked with a staff of two people as Head of Visual Arts
for what is now called the Ontario Arts Council; I submitted a written proposal and photographs of
the scale models that were then in progress for Alpha & Omega, Exploding Cube #1 and 5832.

I didn't seem to be overly concerned about what my work might mean to others; but instead tried
to concentrate more upon the meaning which the work held for me, especially in terms of what I
personally believed it to signify. Anyway, I had little time to dwell upon even those thoughts in view
of the fact that during that same period I was supervising the construction of Red & White Box for
the National Gallery Exhibition, as well as becoming more intensively involved with the evolution
of the three sculptured walls for the Medical Science Bldg.

Those three sculptural reliefs always tend to remind me of a slice of bread, for as soon as one
seriously asks the question of where bread comes from, one is obliged to consider the farmers
who plant the seeds in the ground - for the skies to soak with sunshine - and also the bakers
baking, the packagers packaging, the truckers trucking, and all the administrative assistants
typing, stapling and filing, and so on and so on, ad infinitum.

However, from among the dozens and dozens of people who contributed toward the three-
dimensional realization of the Medical Science sculptured walls, they could not have turned out
looking the way they do were it not for the active involvement of Rodney Malham, whom I
mentioned earlier, and who went on to become a full-time arts administrator. And also his friend
and mine: Jim Bell, another student of meditation, and an ex-Canadian Airforce photographer who
was later ordained a Buddhist monk by Ananda Bhodi; who in turn became a Rinpoch6.

In addition to the help I received from Rod and Jim, (now known as Kema Ananda), I also enjoyed
the benefits of the assistance given by a Spadina Avenue neighbour: Richard McNeil, who was
then a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art, and later became an instructor of sculpture at
Torontos Central Technical College.

The simple truth of the matter is that I was lucky to be surrounded by many vibrant people who
made it possible for me to feel that all three Medical Science sculptured Cube Walls just fell into
place without me appearing to lift so much as a finger. (See photos)

When most students of solid geometry set out to analyze the cube through a process of
dissection, they normally find that a platonic solid called the tetrahedron sits at the centre of every
cube; but Rod Malham, Kema Ananda and I did it all wrong and we ended up with six funny
looking forms, each one composed of two 45 triangles and a pair of triangles which I later
learned are 54.735 degrees. The magic properties of those "modules" became evident when I
recognized that three of them are left handed and three are right handed. Hence, I accidently
stumbled upon a set of gloriously versatile units that I christened the left and right side of the