Dear Bill:
Gordon wanted me to send you this chapter. I was too busy nursing him and too distracted by his sickness to do so before he passed away, but I hope you will enjoy it. I will gather up all his writings and bind them together, eventually, when I have the heart.
Mrs. Witteveen
At first immigrants, coming to Canada from Europe arrived by ship in either Halifax or Montreal depending on the time of year. I came on a propeller-powered Super Constellation for a quick get-away to escape my enlistment into the Dutch Army. The plane was completely full with babies in baskets hanging from the luggage rack. It was not a direct flight. The first refueling stop was in Reykjavik, Iceland and then in Gander, Newfoundland before reaching our destination, the Dorval airport. From Montreal I took a train to Toronto. At Union Station I was to be met by my brothers whom I had not seen in seven years and I was apprehensive. Had they changed? I certainly had, and I worried that I might not recognize them. There was no sign of my brothers at Union Station. I looked at lots of strangers but none of them remotely resembled my brothers. Eventually they showed up. Apparently they had been side-tracked to a bar on Jarvis Street. I was not aware of its reputation at that time. They seemed quite cheerful and we had a happy reunion and a speedy ride home to St. George. That's where I spent my first night in Canada. When I woke up the next morning I was put to work plastering and painting my brother's house and practicing my English on my sister-in-law. It was a challenge.
A few days later I went to see my sister in Guelph, and at her place I met a veterinary student who took me to the college on the hill for a meeting with Mr. Pettipiere, the dean of admission. Mr. Pettipiere glanced briefly at my carefully translated high school diploma and marks and then casually pushed them aside. "We don't recognize these," he said. The only acceptable documents were those from the British Commonwealth and the United States. So much for that plan I thought, but then he continued: "There is another way. I can have you take a written test and if you pass, you're in." The next 3-4 hours I spent writing the answers to questions about everything I had learned at high school. My English was still somewhat limited, but I managed, and much to my surprise I passed the test. I asked Mr. Pettipiere if there were any jobs for someone like me on campus and he sent me to the horse barns where I was put to work cleaning out the stables at 75 cents per hour. Everything was fine until I came to a fierce-looking, black stallion named Panatomic, who snorted and scraped his hooves defying me to enter. Panatomic and I never did become friends but I persisted. For the next few weeks I worked and saved my money, and with the help of my family managed to pay for my tuition and room and board. It came to just under $300.
On September 8 of that year, a young woman became the first person to swim across Lake Ontario from Queenston to the beaches in Toronto where she was loudly cheered on by a crowd of 300,000 citizens. It took her just over 30 hrs. She became an instant Canadian hero. Her name was Marilyn Bell. Subsequently she also crossed the English Channel and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. 1954 was a special year.
A week or so later I moved into residence, the third floor of the administration building and I met my classmates and my roommate, a young man from Woodstock, the son of a medical doctor. That first week of school was rather traumatic. It was a period of initiation during which the second-year students lorded it over us, the Frosh! They made us do all kinds of horrible and humiliating things. Once they woke us up in the middle of the night for a "Pee Parade." Except we had to do it sitting down, at which time we discovered that the toilet seats had been smeared with corn syrup. During that week we were not allowed to make left turns anywhere on campus. The finale of initiation was a huge tomato fight between us and our tormentors. We were a mess by the time we ran out of tomatoes.
Then school began seriously. We took lectures in large rooms with amphitheater-type seating. I made it my business to sit near the front, so I could hear the professor better, and back in residence I compared notes with those of my roommate because my English was still very inadequate. Early each morning I would go to the horse barns and look after Panatomic and his friends. I hated that damn horse and the feeling was obviously mutual. Then I had a healthy breakfast and back to the lectures.
Most of my classmates came from Ontario, but there was also a sizeable group from the West Indies and a contingent of six from The Netherlands, as well as a German and Raymond Soong from China. We took subjects much as we had done at high school with an emphasis on Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English, but more intense and with laboratory work in the afternoon. We also took some agricultural subjects such as Animal and Field Husbandry and even Apiculture, the study of bees and honey. One of our professors during that first week of lectures stated: " Look to your right and look to your left. One of the three won't be here next year." I believe it was Dr. Raithby in Animal Husbandry and he was right on the mark.
Living in residence provided ample opportunity to make new friends and among others, I latched onto John Quinn from Toronto, Orville Seaton from Jamaica, and John Bouman from Holland (like me, a recent arrival). There was a bus from the campus to downtown Guelph and we often did so at a minute's notice when we got thirsty. The rate was three tickets for a quarter. When we boarded the bus we asked for a transfer that we could use for the way back. Then we headed for the Royal Hotel and drank draft beer for a dime a glass. We mostly drank only one glass because we were on a budget.
In early October of 1954, Hurricane Hazel struck Toronto and caused extensive flooding along the Humber River and adjacent lowlands. More than 80 people were drowned, some of whom were washed up among the silt and debris on the Lambton golf course. Their bodies were recovered by the maintenance staff. Even in Guelph, the Speed River flooded beyond its banks.
Influenced by Pete Regan, several of us joined the Newman Club, an association for Catholic students and we attended dances at the Knights of Columbus hall and met the opposite sex. A number of our classmates made a beeline for MacDonald Hall where young women studying Home Economics, stayed in residence. Relationships developed, people fell in love, got married and are still married more than fifty years later.
All too soon the end of the first semester loomed and I had to earn some money during the Christmas Holiday. My brother found me a job at a place he worked in Brantford and I learned to eviscerate turkeys at 25 cents a bird. If I worked hard I could do six birds in an hour. I felt rich!
Then it was back to school and sure enough Professor Raithby had it right: I had lost my roommate. He failed the first semester, while I who had copied his notes, passed, but barely. As John Bouman said in retrospect, we could not afford to fail or it was back to the factory. Guelph and the OAC was our portal to a better future, and it was never easy.
By now we knew the ropes and felt at home at OAC, and made more friends. The study program became a bit more complex and we had to work a bit harder but we still found time to dance with the girls and have a beer at the Royal Hotel. I passed my first year and found work at a factory operating a punch press. It was repetitive and boring and I had trouble keeping my mind on my work. After too many mistakes, I was fired, the only time ever in my working life. I did some landscaping for a while and then was hired at the Guelph Junction to replace a vacationing railway worker. I became a switchmaster and had to deal with angry conductors preparing switch list of box cars to various destinations. I loved the work and almost quit school, but my family prevailed and my brother took me back to Brantford where I picked tobacco. That was the hardest work I had ever done. Bent over in 90-degree heat, my sweat mixing with tobacco juice, I swore that I'd never think of quitting school again.
In September I was back at school with a new roommate: John Quinn. He was an intelligent fellow with a wide vocabulary and I admired his way with words. Some weekends he took me along to his family, who lived on Erskine Avenue near Eglinton and Yonge in Toronto. His father was somewhat deaf and spent most of his time writing letters to the editors of various newspapers. Obviously that was where John's ways with words and his political insight had come from. While in Toronto we played street hockey with John's friends and took a bus to Hoggs Hollow and drank draft beer at the Jolly Miller, one of the few watering holes in North Toronto. Once I took John's attractive sister to a stage play. I tried to impress her but nothing came of it. But John and I remained friends for many more years.
In our second year we took a number of new courses, such as Soils and Genetics. The latter became particularly interesting when we bred fruit flies (Drosophila) and recorded the characteristics of the second generation. Then we dumped the fruit flies in a flask of formaldehyde and after a month or so it became a potent mixture that looked absolutely gruesome. Someone challenged Ken Russell, my roommate in the second semester of the first year, to drink and swallow the "Drosophila cocktail" and he said he would for $50. With everyone pitching in a buck, we soon collected the money and sure enough Ken raised the glass and poured it down his gullet --- and then barfed it up in a sink. He was none the worse for wear. Ken did not complete the four-year program. I think he lost interest. His father was a wealthy beef farmer near Unionville and probably needed him at home. Years later I met Ken on a ski lift at Osler Bluff near Collingwood. We chatted about old times. He looked quite prosperous. The beef farm had been sold and subdivided.
Meanwhile at OAC, Quinn had decided that he would not attend classes in Organic Chemistry, a compulsory course. He attended neither lectures nor labs for an entire semester. "Let me see your notes," he would say back in our room. He looked at my notes and glanced at the textbook and passed the exam. After graduation he took his PhD in Chemistry at MSU.l
Professor Ross in the English department was one of my favorites. I never missed any of his classes. He taught us essay writing and exposed us to Canadian literature: Hugh McClennan's The Two Solitudes and other books.
March 17 1955, a hockey riot near the Montreal Forum. Maurice, " the Rocket," Richard is suspended.
Also in 1955, MacDonalds opens its first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
When the end of the second year drew near we worried not only about passing our exams, but also finding employment and saving enough money for the third year. On a bulletin in the Horticulture Department, I noticed that a golf course in Noranda, Que., needed workers for the greens. John Bouman and I applied and were accepted. After exams we hitched a ride with a senior student, who drove us all the way to Kirkland Lake and from there we took a train to Noranda. We were to report to the bunkhouse where all the miners lived. It was a depressing place and John and I decided to explore the city on foot.
Between us we had exactly one dollar left till our first paycheque and decided that it was best spent on a beer. We checked out the watering holes in Noranda but they did not look very promising, and drifted down to Rouyn, the French-speaking twin city. And there we had better luck. On a side street we found a place that looked to be within our budget. In we went with our lips smacking, sat down and ordered our brew and tasted the Nectar of the Gods, as Quinn would say. And then we noticed that at adjacent tables, single women sat, scantily dressed and making eyes at us. We had entered a bordello but our virginity was perfectly safe because of our limited budget.
The next day we went to work on the golf course and learned the rudiments of greenkeeping: topdressing, fertilizing and cutting the greens. It was all new to us but we learned quickly and as we applied ourselves, and in spite of the ancient equipment, conditions on the golf course improved and the golfers began to appreciate our efforts. Except for the drunken golf pro who was hard to please, but we learned to avoid and ignore him.
With our first paycheque we moved out of the dreadful bunkhouse to an apartment in town. Rouyn was a wild place in those days, full of thirsty and sex-starved prospectors and miners, and the bars and bordellos were open till all hours. There was fighting and brawling in the bars and on the streets, and half-naked women being chased by men. We did not know what to make of it all but fortunately our early working hours on the golf course prevented us from participating much. On Sundays we attended church and met pretty French-Canadian Catholic girls and took them out for lunch but never met their mothers. I guess we did not measure up or perhaps it was a matter of 'The Two Solitudes.' John bought a small motorcycle and together we toured NW Quebec as far north as we could go, where the road ended. From there it was swamp and bush all the way to Moosonee on Hudson Bay. Years later I took a train to Moosonee, the Polar Bear Express and I was glad I had missed it the first time: nothing but drunken Indians and with doors and windows barred in our hotel to keep the natives out.
All too soon September came and we headed back to Guelph. We had worked hard and for long hours and saved ample money for our coming year.
During 1956:
Egypt took over the Suez Canal from the English and the French.
Hungarians rose up against their Russian oppressors, unsuccessfully. Many Hungarians escaped and took refuge in Canada.
The bestselling book of the year: Peyton Place by Grace Metallious.
The third year was option year and we selected courses in our major fields of endeavor. I could never figure out why Quinn, a city slicker, should want to take Animal Husbandry. He looked ill at ease among cows. I suspect Charley Gracey may have influenced him. Bouman took Agricultural Science and I selected Horticulture as a result of my recent exposure to greenkeeping. During our third year we also had to live off campus. That's when a little stroke of good luck came my way. The greenhouses behind the Horticulture building needed a night watchman to check on the temperatures and keep the plants alive during the winter. In lieu of a wage, a rent-free apartment was made available. And so it was that Quinn and I became roommates for yet another year. It was a comfortable place, peaceful and quiet with glassed-in gardens and tropical plants and a small bench under the palm trees. Quinn and I eyed each other and it was obvious that our minds were on the same wave length.
I had my eyes set on a girl in Mac Hall by the name of Kay Overs, whom much to my disgust, Quinn irreverently referred to as "Kay Ovaries." I planned to take her to the Green Rooster, a restaurant in Guelph, which Quinn renamed "the Purple Cock." Next I was to guide her back to the bench under the palm trees for the ultimate conquest. On the designated evening, everything went according to plan. Kay seemed charmed by my attention and when we returned to campus, I casually guided her to the greenhouse. She may have been apprehensive but did not show it. After all, it was the age of innocence and she had nothing to fear. We entered the greenhouse and found our way to the bench under the palm trees, with the moon shining through the glass above. Nothing could have been more romantic. We held hands at first and moved a little closer and just when I was about to kiss her, an apparition, covered in a white sheet drifted from out of the darkness slowly towards us. Kay took one look, screamed, disentangled herself from my arms and rushed for the exit, never to be seen again. That damn Quinn, I could have strangled him.
During our four years on the campus several pranks were carried out by students, and some of our classmates were involved, but we did not know that at the time. The first one occurred in the common room of Mac Hall. In the dark of night, a bull from the livestock buildings was led to the girls' residence and let loose in the common room. It had been fed on fresh grass and as it leapt over the furniture, emptied its intestines. It was a heck of a mess and caused all kinds of commotion.
On another night some students pulled the switches in the power plant, which immediately resulted in total darkness. At the same time there was a call to arms and all of us males invaded the girls' residence and went on a panty raid. We entered the building through back doors and windows and I remember pulling a classmate up through a window, while Dean Ian White was pulling just as hard at the other end. Once inside we rifled through girls' drawers looking for souvenirs. Then the lights came back on and we disappeared with our "treasures."
Every year in March on St. Patrick's Day, the Royal Hotel in Guelph served green beer in honor of the Irish. This inspired some students to color all the water green flowing from the taps on campus on St. Patrick's Day. This prank required lots of planning and subterfuge to be carried out. It was only recently revealed how it was done. It seems there was a trial run. Barney Moore with the agility of a monkey, climbed the water tower in the dark of night, loosened the lid on top and dumped a quantity of green vegetable dye into the water. Obviously Barney received help to accomplish this hazardous mission. The result was disappointing. The water remained clear, not a trace of discoloration. Evidently, the concentration was too low and the mission had to be repeated. This time the culprits acquired a 50-lb bag of colorant that they tackled up to the top of the tower and emptied into the reservoir. Soon afterwards everyone on campus was drinking and bathing in green water in honor of the Irish and St. Patrick.
Pete, the campus cop, was supposed to prevent these pranks from happening and to arrest and charge the culprits. He was not up to the task; the students outsmarted Pete time and again.
John Diefenbaker became Canada's Conservative Prime Minister in June of 1957, much to the chagrin of John Quinn who was a died-in-the- wool Liberal.
Sputnik 1, was the first satellite to orbit the earth on October 4, 1957, launched by the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of the Space Age.
The lectures during the third year in Horticulture were more relaxed and frankly, quite a lot easier than what we had experienced during the first two years. We took courses in plant materials and landscaping. Our favorite teacher was John Weall, who was an artist with colored chalk for the blackboard. John also took us on field trips to parks and gardens to study landscape design. Once in early April when the dandelions were in bloom, John took us to some houses where women were removing the dandelions, bending over but with straight knees and with their posteriors sticking up in the air, exposing themselves to a bunch of lecherous college students. From such field trips we learned early, that there was a connection between landscaping and sex. Afterwards, John Weall would stop at a pub and buy us beer. Among the plant material we studied was a shrub that John called a "deeking bush." It was a dense shrub with lots of foliage, behind which boys and girls could hide and kiss and do the things boys and girls do quite naturally. John Weall taught us all this long before sex education became mandatory. John lived in a modest home on the Cutten Club golf course till he was 100 years old.
There was an addition to our third year who joined our Horticulture option, an OAC '56 student who had dropped out and then returned two years later. Ken MacLean was a bit older than we were and he was married and experienced. He became our leader in class, and at times we visited at his home and met his wife, a Mac Hall graduate. Another mature fellow was Sam Lougheed, who always scored the highest marks and ended up taking a PhD in fruits and vegetables. Barney Moore, a prankster and an expert on aquatic plants, worked in his father's nursery in Port Stanley and still does. Larry Sherk was into plant materials. He knew the Latin names of all the living things on campus. He went to work for Sheridan Nurseries and wrote a book on the subject of garden plants. Stan Leuty was into apples and orchards and operated a processing plant near Thornbury, Ontario for many years after.
Socially we did pub crawls in downtown Guelph. There was still no booze on campus. We played cards and attended dances, looking for partners. We watched "clear-the-track" Eddy Shack and Frank Mahovolich play hockey at the Guelph Arena.
During March of the third year I attended my first turf conference organized by the RCGA (Royal Canadian Golf Association). In attendance was a rowdy bunch of superintendents from various golf courses in the province and addressed by experts from Penn State and MSU. It was impressive, except for the hard-drinking delegates who congregated at the Royal Hotel where they were plied with free booze provided by suppliers.
All too soon it was spring again and the end of the third year. I travelled back up north to the Noranda Mines golf course and sharpened my greenkeeping skills and received a raise in the process. It was an uneventful summer except that I bought my first car. Actually, my ever helpful brother procured it for me. I had to fly back to Ontario and drive it all the way back up to Noranda. It was a boxy little Ford Prefect and it cost me all of $200. On the way back I noticed there was some activity in the back seat near the rear window. It turned out a nest of mice had come with the car. We all arrived safely in Noranda.
In that part of Quebec during August, a prolific blueberry crop sprouts forth in the hills surrounding the golf course. A group of women were picking them. I took a closer look and by golly, they were the same bunch that we had met on our first day two years prior, having a beer in the bordello. Shortly after I left Quebec and drove back to Guelph for the final school year.
That first week at OAC was always very special since we became reacquainted with our friends that we had not seen since April. We moved back into residence, Mills Hall opposite Creelman Hall. We quickly settled back into our social activities and our classes. Those in engineering and the sciences had to apply themselves diligently but being in Horticulture was a breeze. Having my own car gave me freedom to get around. I often parked near Memorial Hall and once, the Prefect jumped out of gear all on its own, rolled down hill, across College Ave. and came to rest in some bushes in front of the Veterinary College. It was never the same after that, and I disposed of it.
1958: The year the Ford Edsel made its first appearance on North American roads.
In early January, Bill Kendrick took me and Owen Townsend to his parent's farm in Essex County. It was as flat as Friesland and we went crow shooting. It seems that crows from all over Ontario, wintered in Essex instead of flying further south. After graduation Bill became a lawyer and an avid golfer at Essex Country Club. During our final year we all had to make decisions about what to do with the rest of our lives. Some chose postgraduate work leading to a PhD. The engineering students completed their final year at the University of Toronto. Still others attended Teachers College and became high school teachers. John Bouman worked for a year on campus in the physics department before becoming a teacher of the subject in Caledonia, Ontario. Ken MacLean sold nursery stock for a while, then joined an oil company, and then operated a Canadian Tire store in Red Deer, Alberta for many years. He has since retired to Victoria, "doing as little as possible." Orville Seaton took off for a position in London, England, where he died young. John Quinn went to MSU to get his doctorate in Chemistry. Armed with that, he did research in Ottawa, married a Quebec girl, raised a family and operated a strawberry patch as a sideline. One day he took a heart attack and died. For me I chose the golf course.
On a beautiful sunny day in May we received our degrees in Memorial Hall. And that was the conclusion of the best four years in my life.
