BOSTON, NEW YORK & NASCAR

We left home on September 16 after a too-short visit with Jacques, Isabelle and Lucie.  What a cutie she is!  We drove to Bangor on Sunday and settled in for the night.  The next morning, we drove to our hotel in Newton, which happens to be where my mother’s first cousin, Sadye, and her husband, Charles Galloway, lived.  I have fond memories of them both.  They visited Wellington on at least one occasion and, more importantly, they sent me $1 for Christmas every year!

We bought our five-day subway passes and followed the map from the Boston Common to Faneuil Hall and the Quincy Market the first day, also strolling along the city’s impressive waterfront.  The Market is a great place to eat, with an abundance of culinary choices, all at reasonable prices. 

The second day in Boston, we went to Harvard University where we took a guided tour and visited the natural history museum.  It was impressive to imagine how many world leaders had passed that way, and how many spoiled brats! 

We then walked from downtown to the USS Constitution historic site and took a tour of the ship and the interpretive museum.  Unfortunately, my feet were blistered already, and the damn things would plague me the whole trip.

After a hectic first day, we slowed our pace, going into the city at lunch time and taking in one attraction.  

On Wednesday, we drove to Weymouth to visit my cousin, Steve Demaggio.  Steve and I met through a genealogical forum.  I was looking for descendants of Germain Gaudet, my grandfather's brother, and he responded to my post.  It was our first meeting and, hopefully, it won't be our last.  He drove us around his hometown of Quincy, and took us to meet his mother.  It was a special day for me.

Our last evening in Boston, we went to see a play, Paris Commune, the story of a peasant uprising in Paris in 1871 which was brought to a violent end by the French authorities.  The play was just OK, but I found the story interesting.

We left Boston on Saturday morning and drove northward to Gloucester.  I wanted to see the town as it had once been home to the main US East Coast fishing fleet.  I knew the challengers to the Bluenose sailed out of the port and that the movie The Perfect Storm had been set there.  We had a pleasant walk along the seawall and boardwalk and ducked into a restaurant which turned out to be the eatery of choice on a Saturday morning, Sugar Magnolia’s. 

After a delicious brunch, we continued our drive around Cape May, arriving at a charming village called Rockport.  We stopped there just long enough for Elva to do a bit of shopping and to take in the sights.  It’s a place we’d like to visit again.

We continued our drive along the coast, crossed into New Hampshire and passed through the ugly beachside towns of Salisbury Beach and Hampton Beach.  As with past trips, it made us appreciate what we have on our island even more.  At our Days Inn in Kittery, ME, we were immediately struck by what we saw: the shittiest room I’ve stayed in in a long time!  It was gross, and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.  We hit the road as early as we could on Sunday morning for the drive to Loudon.

The New Hampshire International Speedway is located in the middle of nowhere.  Traffic going to the track was heavy, and it took us at least an hour to get into the parking lot.  The wait was worth it, however, as we saw a very interesting race.  My driver, Jeff Gordon, finished third; the race was won by Denny Hamlin.  Leaving Loudon, I thought I had the route to our next stop, Stamford, CT, memorized.  But I didn’t.  So, we took out the GPS and punched in the address.  After driving through heavy race traffic for an hour or so, we stopped at one of our favorite restaurant chains, Cracker Barrel, for a late supper.  We hoped to get to the La Quinta in Stamford by 11:00, but we hit a couple of traffic jams, thanks to paving crews working on a Sunday evening.

The next morning, we drove to Port Chester, NY, parked the car and took the train into the Big Apple.  Arriving at the massive underground terminal at Grand Central Station, we found our way to 45th Street and walked a few blocks to our hotel, the St. James.  Our room was not the greatest, but $200 a night doesn’t get you much in downtown New York City!  Finding ourselves less than a block from Times Square, we went for a stroll, found Broadway and walked up to 59th Street where we crossed into Central Park.  It was everything I’d seen in movies and on TV and more; an 850 acre oasis in a world-class city.

The next morning, we took the subway to Battery Park and boarded the ferry for a visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We found the audio tours impressive and were moved by the stories of immigrants arriving in the US at Ellis Island.  Next, we walked to Ground Zero and toured the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, shedding more than a few tears at the stories told there.

We got in line at the TKTS site at Times Square and bought tickets for that evening’s performance of War Horse at the Lincoln Centre for $145, less than half the regular price.  The Centre is a huge complex featuring the finest entertainment New York has to offer: opera, ballet, symphony orchestra, theatre, and cinema.  It’s across the street from the famed Juilliard School.  The play was incredible.  Elva had seen the movie; not the type of story that appeals to me.  However, the colt and full-grown horse puppets were unbelievable.  They’re a challenge to describe because of their uniqueness.  It’s hard to imagine that a structure could be designed to resemble a full-grown horse, and be manipulated by three operators, two underneath and one holding and moving the head.  The legs move naturally and in sync, and the structure is strong enough to hold a rider!  I was in awe.

The next day we took the subway to Coney Island, New York’s original beach and amusement park.  It was a cloudy day and not too many people were there, the high season being past.  The place has obviously fallen on hard times as people’s entertainment preferences changed, but one could imagine how it must have been at the height of its popularity.  We had lunch at Nathan’s Famous Frankfurters and took a stroll on the expansive boardwalk.  Along the way, we encountered many well-dressed people who I thought were speaking Russian.  We asked a group of ladies what the occasion was, and it turned out they were celebrating Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish religious calendar.  The celebrants were speaking in Hebrew and killing time after attending a service at the local temple.  The day calls for fasting from sunrise to sunset.

Thursday was our day to visit the American Museum of Natural History, located on the western edge of Central Park.  We’d decided that Elva would take a guided tour and that I would go off on my own.  Elva is not particularly fond of museums but, since they figure among New York’s major attractions, she agreed to accompany me.  After her tour, we met for lunch, and I listened as she excitedly related her many discoveries.  She took me to the displays that had most impressed her, especially the dinosaurs and the undersea hot sulphur springs.  We parted again and I rushed through a number of anthropological displays featuring indigenous peoples from around the world.  It is a fascinating place, but would require several days to see properly.

On our last day in the big city, we walked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the eastern edge of Central Park and joined the hoard of people visiting that incredible place.  We rented an audio device and took the Director’s tour which provided a fascinating glimpse of the immense collection.  There are dozens of individual galleries in the Museum, each one containing a collection worthy of its own museum.  The history of the building is fascinating, as are the collections themselves, not to mention the lengths to which the Museum has gone to collect and display items. 

For example, Egypt donated a temple to the Museum when it built a dam on the Nile River, flooding the valley where the temple was located.  The Museum dismantled the temple on the spot, transported it piece-by-piece to New York, built a new section onto its building at a cost of many millions, and set up an incredible display featuring the reassembled temple.  The things that impressed us at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are too numerous to mention, and it deserves a visit lasting several days. 

We’d definitely go back to New York.  It’s a crazy, chaotic and exciting place, and with so many attractions, it’s hard to resist.  There’s lots of good food to be had for a reasonable price in small cafés and delis, and getting around is cheap and easy by subway.

Saturday morning, we took the train back to Port Chester, picked up our car, and headed towards Newark, DE; not to be confused with Newark, NJ.  Next morning, it was off to Dover International Speedway.  The site is easy to get into and out of, compared to Loudon, and we parked at the nearby mall.  The track is impressive, simple but effective is how I’d put it.  The banking is higher than Loudon’s, making for much higher speeds in the corners, and the surface is concrete.  But the noise level is deafening, so much so that we had to buy earplugs halfway through the race. 

The only negative comment from my corner is that I couldn’t find a smoked turkey drumstick for love nor money!  The race was good, if rather uneventful, and we left with about fifty laps remaining in order to get ahead of the traffic.  At that point, it looked like Denny Hamlin was headed for his second victory in a row.  Gordon was in fifth but running well; he’d short-pitted and had enough gas to make it to the end.  As it turned out, Gordon finished second behind Keselowski when three of the leaders had to stop for fuel.  It moved him up to sixth in the Cup chase, but still too far back in points to contend for the championship.

We made good time and stopped for a bite along the New Jersey Turnpike.  It being a Sunday evening, we thought we might make it through New York unscathed.  Wrong!!  It took us over an hour to navigate a monumental traffic jam caused by the Washington Bridge toll booths.  Getting through the Bronx wasn’t too bad, but then we hit another big one in, of all places, Stamford, CT.  We stewed for an hour there and, by the time we got to our hotel in East Hartford, it was almost one o’clock in the morning.  Needless to say, we were zonked. 

But, we had a good breakfast and got on the road by eight.  Things went well until we hit yet another jam just outside Boston but, mercifully, this one wasn’t too bad.  I was finally able to turn the wheel over to Elva when we reached the calmer confines of the I-95 in Maine, and the rest of the 1,300 km. trip to Halifax went well.

So, once again, a busy, interesting vacation.  Lots to remember and some places and attractions we’d like to see again.  However, note to selves, we need better navigating technology to avoid the major traffic tie-ups.  I just don’t have the patience for that anymore!

SCHOOL

I started school on August 29, 1959, two months before my sixth birthday. This made me the youngest of six in Irène (à Théodore à Léon) Arsenault’s class. She was the kindest, gentlest teacher I ever had, and she gave me a good start on what wouldn’t always be a smooth path through academe. I liked school from the first day, and I did rather well academically and socially.

The only Bs I got through the first few years were for ‘Sits, stands and walks correctly’. I was born with crooked feet but, truth be known, also sat on my foot, so I suspect this was the real reason for the Bs. The crooked feet caused me much anguish, and more than a little bit of pain. Every year, Mom would drive me to Charlottetown to see Dr. Todor Gencheff, the foot specialist. He would examine me and fit me with ankle-high shoes that made me look like a total freak in the schoolyard. By the time my feet had grown to size 7, Dr. Gencheff broke the news that he couldn’t have special shoes made for me anymore; I’d have to start wearing ordinary, store-bought shoes. This was great news, until he told us that I’d have to wear them on the opposite foot! Imagine the teasing that generated when I got to school the next day?

The Wellington French School was made up of two classrooms: la petite école and la grande école. Mme. Irène taught Grades 1 to 4, and Mme. Orella (à Julien) Arsenault taught Grades 5 to 7. I breezed through Grades 1 and 2 and, by the time I got to the end of Grade 3, began to sense that something was up. My mother had a hushed conversation with the two teachers one day after school and, next thing I knew, I was told I was to skip Grade 4, and make my way directly to la grande école. I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea, but I wasn’t given much choice. The teachers told Mom they’d keep an eye on my performance and, if it proved too hard for me, they’d send me back to Grade 4. As it turned out, I thrived in la grande école.

My two favorite subjects in Grade 5 were History and Geography. I can remember to this day the story of Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky. We were told that the story was based on Norse legends, but it was very unlikely that their ships had reached North America. I wanted to believe the Norse had gotten here before Christopher Columbus and, as it turned out, they did; they beat him by about 500 years! When I’d finished my assigned work, I’d ask Mme. Orella if I could go up to the map with another student and demander des places. This is how I learned about the continents and the oceans, and memorized the names of the countries and their capitals.

The best part of the year, other than the last day of school, was the week before the Christmas concert. Mme. Irène and Mme. Orella would develop a program and assign us our roles. Sometimes it was a song, sometimes a play, and sometimes a recital. But my best memories are of pushing all the desks to the back of the room, and climbing on top of them to play cards, Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders, while others practiced at the front of the room. Having our parents in attendance when the big evening came was a big deal, as was Santa Claus’ visit!

The teachers always sent us outside during recess and at noon, unless it was raining or snowing very heavily. I can’t remember any of us having an allergy, and most of us were very healthy, happy kids. In the fall, we played baseball, football and soccer. In the winter, some of us brought our sleighs and toboggans to slide on the snow banks. As soon as bare ground showed in the schoolyard, we traced out places to play hop-scotch. When the field dried out, it was back to baseball, until the last bell rang on the last day of school.

We didn’t have structured sports or music programs, just occasional visits from Mr. Hitchcock, the Phys Ed teacher, or M. Poirier, the Music teacher, le chanteux, as we called him. Mr. Hitchcock was every inch the jock. We liked him because he brought us new equipment every year, and he introduced us to new sports like soccer. As for M. Poirier, we generally made life quite miserable for the poor unfortunate. Our favorite trick was to let the air out of his tires, and this we did more than once! I know he meant well, but we were hopeless.

One year, probably when I was in Grade 6, the big yellow bus stopped in front of our school, and out stepped the most frightened group of kids I’d ever seen. The Saint-Raphaël school had been forced to close, either because of a decline in enrollment or the lack of a qualified teacher, or both. So, the dozen or so remaining students were bused to our school and were expected to integrate with our group. There were no school counsellors in those days, but those poor kids needed one; most were totally out of their element. The one exception was the late Wilfred Arsenault, who would become a friend of mine and a damn fine politician. He stood out from the crowd and seemed more comfortable than the rest in his new surroundings. Academically and socially, the new group faced tremendous odds and, jerks that we were, we didn’t make it easy for them.

I didn’t know it then, but as I neared the end of Grade 7, I was being scouted by my future tormentor, Soeur Marie-Jeanne-d Arc, principal of École régionale Évangéline. I later learned it was her practice to compile a list of the most promising students from elementary schools in the district, and that my name was on it.

My first year at École régionale Évangéline was a disaster. My troubles started in Grade 8 when I arrived as a timid and immature eleven-year-old, surrounded by thirteen and fourteen-year-olds. Judging by my report cards, I must have seemed a child prodigy, and maybe I thought I was too. But Grade 8 was a nightmare, as I struggled to adjust to the bigger school, nuns and their archaic ways, older students, tougher subjects and the stresses of adolescence. I was a shy, overweight kid and I didn't fit in particularly well in this strange environment.

Although I tried my best, my average dropped more than ten points from what it had been in Wellington, and Mom always had bad news when she returned from the parent-teacher interview. To make matters worse, I was in Jeanne-d'Arc's doghouse from the moment I arrived at École régionale Évangéline. It seemed every time I acted up, she would appear miraculously at the door of the classroom or around the corner of the schoolyard. Everyone was older and bigger than me and, since I was mostly inept at sports, I got pushed around a lot.

Grade 9 began on an ominous note as I was assigned to the classroom of Béatrice Arsenault (aka La vieille B), a terror in a teacup. She was the meanest teacher I ever had and she sized me up right from the start. Fortunately, I had learned a few life lessons in Grade 8 and I took great pains to stay out of her line of fire. I never was one to suck up to any teacher and I did my best to make myself invisible. Those who couldn't tolerate her just quit, some of them needlessly. I would later discover a kind and self-conscious woman hiding behind a stern exterior, and eventually came to like her and to appreciate her dry sense of humour.

In the fall of 1967, just after starting Grade 10, we had to participate in a fitness test that involved running around the quarter-mile track behind the school. Mr. Hitchcock lined up the fifteen-year-olds, and had them run around the track to see who was fastest. Then, he did it with the fourteen-year-olds. Then, it was my turn; the only one left. At thirteen, I was quite chubby and, never being a runner to begin with, I struggled to make it the full distance around that goddamned track. When I finally did, Hitchcock made an issue of how out of shape I was, in front of everybody. I never forgot that!

As Grade 10 progressed, I was finally starting to grow up. We had an excellent home room teacher in Velma (à Arcade) Arsenault. Although there were still a few of the old teachers around, there were new and younger ones as well: Léo (à John) Arsenault, Soeur Florine Brun, Florence Bourgeois, Ronnie Gallant and Edmond Gallant. I particularly enjoyed Velma's History classes, Jim Praught's Science, and Edmond’s English. Instead of having to stay in the same classroom all day, we occasionally moved to the lab for a change of scenery! I think I progressed through puberty that year and began to feel somewhat better about myself. I had spent a couple of weeks at Expo '67 and I was beginning to get my weight under control. I was also beginning to notice the girls in the class and to understand the dirty jokes the older guys told.

But my nemesis still had me in her crosshairs. One day during our free period, I decided to walk over to the l’École consolidée to talk to Mr. Hitchcock. In those days, the high school and elementary school buildings had not yet been joined together. I hadn't realized that I had to seek permission before doing so and, when Jeanne d'Arc discovered my absence, I found myself summoned to her office to face whatever punishment her warped sense of justice reserved. I was ready and in a defiant mood: she had terrorized me for over three years and I wasn't about to take any more of her shit. I vehemently argued my innocence and walked out with my head high knowing I had won that battle of wills. I knew she wanted a bigger piece of my hide and I was ready and willing to face the next confrontation, but it was not to be. The next year we had a new principal, Léo Arsenault, and Jeanne-d'Arc was nothing but a bad memory.

The day Léo became principal was the first day since Grade 7 that I took more than a passing interest in school. Bottom line, if it hadn't been for him, school sports and my growing interest in the tough girl who slapped me in the face with a dirty rag the day we cleaned out our desks at the end of Grade 10, I don’t know if I’d have made it through high school at Évangéline. At the time, I hated Soeur-Marie-Jeanne-d’Arc. I realize now it wasn’t her I hated, but the regimentation, favoritism, and narrow-mindedness that marked her régime. It resulted in my total rejection of the concept of control as an approach to interacting with people; in that sense, she did me a backhanded favour.

I have only happy memories of my last two years. I worked hard through Grade 12 and managed to salvage an otherwise average high school career with a strong last semester, finishing third in a class of twenty-seven. Mom responded by buying me a brand new 1970 Yamaha 175 cc Enduro motorcycle, my constant companion and primary mode of transportation over the next couple of summers.

In those days, scholarships and bursaries were few and far between. The girl who finished at the top of our class chose UPEI and claimed the entrance scholarship, so that shut me out. Plus, I was ineligible for any kind of assistance from La Société Saint-Thomas d’Aquin because I’d chosen to attend an English institution. So, I had to content myself with a $100 bursary given by the Catholic Ladies Aid to the student from Wellington Parish with the highest average. I happened to be the only one eligible, as it turned out!

One of my regrets is that I was never given the chance to develop any leadership skills. In the five years I spent at ÉRÉ, I was never chosen to serve on even one committee and, partly because of my shyness, I left high school poorly prepared for university life. I chose UPEI, mostly because I preferred to study in English. I later regretted that decision, but made up for it by doing my MBA in French at Université Laval.

Finally, I consider that I’ve done OK for one who had such a mediocre high school experience. It taught me to always be suspicious of authority and to be very careful how I exercised it when given the chance. I learned to think independently and that it’s possible to succeed even if you don’t quite fit the mould. I learned that there are many paths to learning, and that it is right and natural to question what others present as the truth. I learned never to let another gain control over me. Most importantly, it taught me that there are two kinds of people in this world: victims and survivors. These are some of the important life lessons I’ve tried to pass on to my children.

GRAN FONDO GARNEAU

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a passionate cyclist, and have been for the past thirty years or so. Because of my bad knees, I’m limited to low-impact exercise like cycling and cross-country skiing. I actually got into cycling as a way to stay in shape for skiing.

In 2004, I was invited to join a cycling group called the Over-the-Hill-Gang; OTHG for short. The original members are brothers Ira and Richard Birt, Russ Melanson and Gerry Ridgeway. Gerry and his wife, Phyllis, moved to Wolfville last year after retiring from the provincial public service. Our newest member is John MacQuarrie. Annually, we travel to an off-Island event and, this year, we chose the Gran Fondo Garneau, a 110-kilometre ride along Route 138 from Trois-Rivières to Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, where the Garneau factory is located.

A gran fondo is a short to long distance, organized, mass-participation cycling event, typically held annually.

We left Charlottetown bright and early on Saturday morning after loading five bikes and our gear into a seven-passenger van. After an uneventful trip marked by too many pee breaks, we arrived at our destination, the Motel-Miami in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, a down-on-its-luck establishment in the poorer part of town. We never travel first-class, but this place makes any Travelodge look like the Ritz-Carlton! If you don’t believe me, check out the photo below!

After getting settled in, we set out to look for a place to eat, since the restaurant across the street was closed. We eventually stumbled upon a very good Cuban restaurant downtown, the Café-Bistro Le Paladar. After satisfying our hunger, we came face-to-face with a thunderstorm, one of those where the rain bounces off the pavement, and we waited for half an hour for it to blow over. When it became obvious it wouldn’t, Ira made the supreme sacrifice, and ran through the rain to pick up the van. 

After loading up on beer, we returned to the motel and watched a recap of the Olympics, seeing a heartbroken Jared Connaughton take the rap for the 4x100 team’s disqualification. Knowing I might wake myself up snoring, I brought along my best beeswax earplugs just in case and shoved them into my ears before retiring.

Sunday morning, Gran Fondo day, we got up bright and early and crossed the street to the finally-open Café Rétro, hoping to get a bellyful of some decent pancakes and coffee. The café was practically empty except for a few decrepit-looking men sitting at a table, one of whom announced reassuringly that we’d be served tout de suite. Along came the waitress, who’d seen better days and looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. The place was decorated with all manner of 50s memorabilia, including an old juke box, the front end of a ‘57 Chevy, and images of Elvis. The torn leatherette seats had been lovingly repaired with duct tape, which made us wonder whether Red Green had been there! A couple strode in dressed in their best black shirts and jeans complete with bejeweled guitar-shaped belt buckles. She sported the nicest black curly mullet I’ve ever seen!

Our bellies filled with greasy pancakes and good maple syrup, we donned our kit, prepared the bikes, and rode up to the start line. We stood around for a while, and then a reporter from the magazine Info-Vélo took this picture of us. 

Soon after, an official-looking guy came along and told us we’d have to ditch the OTHG jerseys and put on the ‘mandatory’ Gran Fondo ones. So, we pedaled back to the motel and put them on, arriving back at the starting line just in time to take our places at the back of the 30-35 km/hr group.

At 10:00, the 40+ km/hr group got the order to start, and we made our way slowly up to the start line, waiting for our turn. A few minutes passed before the 500 or so riders ahead got up to speed. It was decided that I’d lead out because “You understand the language”; whatever the hell difference that made is beyond me. But, as usual, I did what I was told. At least a dozen riders had mechanical breakdowns before we even got out of town; they looked disgusted as we passed them kneeling on the side of the road. Traffic control was awesome, and spectators lined the circuit.

We stayed to the far left of the eastbound lane, sometimes crossing over into the westbound lane when things got hairy. Bikes were at least three across, sometimes four, and we didn’t want to get boxed in. At every opportunity, we jumped from one group to the next, getting behind someone’s wheel to draft for a little while each time.

At about 20 kilometres, we came upon three crashes, with riders down on the pavement. We reached the 60 kilometre rest stop, disappointed to say goodbye to a couple of really good riders who’d decided to stop. From that point on, we had to work a little harder, as the groups got smaller and more spread out. We caught and passed a number of lone riders who’d run out of gas, and got into a few nasty little hills. People cheered us on all along the route.

Each one of us took a ‘pull’ on the front and we began to anticipate the end of the ride. It was a perfect riding day: no wind, dry pavement, a relatively flat course, and no breakdowns. We had the road mostly to ourselves for the last half of the ride, and were in the company of experienced riders for the most part, none of whom did anything stupid. The cycling culture is very strong in Québec.

As we got to the outskirts of Saint-Augustin, traffic control tightened up, and we prepared mentally for what we knew would be a nasty little climb to the finish line. As we came around a bend in the road, the wall appeared, at least a 12% grade, short but tough. John took off, with Ira and Richard not far behind, leaving me in their wake. Russ was cramping up, and told us he’d be taking his time. I’m not a climber but I gave everything I had left and, by the time I got to the top of the steepest part, was in range of the front three. I caught up to them before the finish line, and we crossed at just under 3 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed to 36 km/hr. It’s the fastest we’ve ever ridden over any distance.

The fastest riders came in at just over 2 hours and 30 minutes, comfortably over 40 km/hr, and well out of our range. We finished in the top third of male riders and in the top 25% of riders in the 50-59 age range. Russ finished 15^th out of 101 riders in the 60+ category; an impressive result! We passed at least 500 riders along the way.

At the finish line, we ate what little provisions we had left and rehydrated. It had turned into a very hot day as the sun came out. We showered in a trailer unit provided especially for the purpose, checked out the results, checked in our bikes for the return trip, and boarded the bus for the ride back to Cap-de-la-Madeleine. Our bikes arrived safe and sound not long after we did, and we rode gingerly back to the Motel-Miami, not much the worse for wear.

The next priority was to get some food into our famished frames. But first, the boys had to have a few ‘pops’; as the designated driver, I stuck to the Perrier. We made our way along the main drag, Rue Furey, and wandered around until we found a table at a terrasse, the Bistro Bar Fusée. The food was basic but good, and Richard had his first taste of poutine, Québec’s national dish. He professed to liking it. Russ put the moves on a female Elvis mannequin, but to no avail! 

After a couple of pitchers of draft, we headed back to the flashing lights of the Motel-Miami, watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, and engaged in male-only contests of the kind that naturally follow consumption of copious amounts of beer and greasy food.

Monday morning, we awoke bright and early and walked down to McDonalds, opting to forego the nearby Café Rétro. We were on the road at 7:45 and had a leisurely eleven-hour drive back to the Island. Our butts were a little sore, but we all agreed that it was a good trip, highlighted by our participation in a first-class event, and one hell of a ride!

À la prochaine!

THE JOBS I’VE KNOWN

　
What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

Many people have told me they chose their career path very early in life, and have followed it to retirement.  When I was eight years old, I chose to be what we’d call today a ‘heavy equipment operator’.  I was fascinated with ‘road machines’: graders, rollers, pavers, snowplows, trucks, and, most of all, bulldozers.  As a boy, I hung around every major construction project in Wellington: paving the main street; building the dam; installing the sewer system; and watching the arrival and departure of the Esso oil drilling rig in 1958.

I tried to get to know the equipment operators, harbouring the fervent wish that one would invite me to climb up onto the seat, and watch him move the levers to make the machine go.  As it happened, two men by the name of Bob and Ivan, from Mount Stewart, worked on building an earthen dam to replace the old Barlow Mills structure after it was destroyed by a spring flood.  I don’t know the exact year, but it was in the early 1960s. 

I got to know Bob and Ivan, and I spent hours watching their twin bulldozers move back and forth as they piled the shale ever higher.  And I got my wish!  One day, Bob asked me if I wanted to get on.  I eagerly climbed onto the treads and, from there, up onto the seat beside him.  I watched as the big blade pushed the shale along in front of it, smoothing it out, effortlessly.  It was magical, and I was hooked.

What I Actually Did

But, I guess I got off track.  I’m on my seventeenth job!  How this happened, I’m not sure, but it did.  I’ve saved my business cards in a folder, and here’s the story they tell of what happened after I graduated from UNB in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry:

·                     Market Development Representative – CIBA-Geigy Canada Ltd.

·                     Agricultural Chemicals Inspector – Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry

·                     Weed and Pest Control Officer – Forestry Branch

·                     Development and Research Director – Forestry Branch

·                     Operations Director – Forestry Branch

·                     Director – Forestry Branch

·                     Director of Employee Relations – Treasury Board

·                     Director of Planning and Development – Dept. of Agric., Fisheries and Forestry

·                     Acting Executive Director – Veterans Appeal Board

·                     Chair – Federal Task Force on the Feed Freight Assistance Program

·                     Executive Secretary – Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship

·                     Senior Advisor Resource Land Use – Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry

·                     HRA – Consultant and Partner

·                     Project Manager PEI Field Unit – Parks Canada Agency

·                     Director Human Resources Eastern Canada – Parks Canada Agency

·                     Executive Secretary – Commission on Land and Local Governance

·                     Member – Veterans Review and Appeal Board

So, seventeen jobs in thirty-seven years!  The shortest lasted one year and the longest, my time with the private sector firm, HRA, eight years.  Included in this, from 1988 to 1990, I was on educational leave, doing an MBA at Université Laval. 

But, not one of them involved operating heavy equipment.  In fact, the joke among my colleagues in the Forestry Branch was that I was named Director by default, because I showed the least aptitude for the operational side of things.  In other words, I didn’t understand machinery!  They were right…

I’ve given a lot of thought to the jobs I liked best, and why.  Here are my top three: Director of Forestry, Executive Secretary of the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship, and Member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. 

The Good Ones

I wasn’t ready for the position of Director of Forestry.  I was 29 years old and caught in the whirlwind of a major restructuring.  The previous Director had left under a cloud, and the new Minister was not at all fond of our program.  I had to oversee the work of thirty permanent staff and as many as two hundred seasonal employees.  None of us had any job security.  I was told that the job was to be mine only until a more experienced person could be found.  Five years later, mission accomplished, I left to do my MBA.

I learned more about myself in that challenging position than in any other.  I learned to respect diversity, to promote initiative, and to admire those who did their best with the skills they were given.  I learned about teamwork, not just at work, but away from work.  For example, I jumped at the chance to play goal for the Forestry Branch hockey team.  I wasn’t that good, but the guys admired me for standing up to their slap shots as they whizzed by my head during the warm-ups, and they knew I never gave up.  We had a lot of laughs, and we shared a few pops together after the games.

When my mother was killed in 1990, I had to drive my family home from Québec City, where I was attending Université Laval, to look after the arrangements and attend the funeral.  All of my former colleagues from the Forestry Branch called at the funeral home or attended the funeral mass.  One of my most vivid memories of that sad time is seeing them at the church, dressed in their uniforms, as we walked down the aisle behind Mom’s casket.  You can’t buy that kind of comradeship, and you never forget it.  This afternoon, I stood in line at a funeral home to pay my respects to a former Forestry colleague whose wife died far too young.  Joining me were many old friends I worked with thirty years ago…

I remember the day my Deputy Minister, Rory Francis, introduced me to the Chair of the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship, Elmer MacDonald.  I was in awe of the man, but he didn’t know me from Adam.  During the eighteen months we worked together, we never disagreed about anything, and he learned as much from me as I did from him.  We were fortunate to work with fifteen other sterling citizens.  All of them were determined to come up with strong recommendations for government on how to improve the state of our primary resources, and to strike a better balance between the agriculture and forestry industries and the environment.

The process turned out to be just as important as the outcome, and although we nearly lost a couple of members along the way, all sixteen signed the final report.  Sadly, fifteen years after the Round Table reported, few environmental indicators have improved, and many have regressed.  We still have fish kills regularly, because of landowners’ greed, and their inexplicable ignorance of the sound land stewardship practices advocated by the Round Table.  But, I’ll never forget those fascinating moments spent with committed people, determined to arrive at a consensus despite their differences.  I remember how proud we were the day the report was made public, and it is truly one of the most enriching experiences of my career.

I was reluctant to apply to become a member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board when the ad appeared in The Guardian.  But, I wasn’t enjoying my HR position with the Parks Canada Agency, and spending my weeks in Halifax didn’t compensate for the good money I was making.  So, I decided to enter the competitive process, not knowing where it might take me.  I made it through the initial screening, the written test, and the interview.

One day, I got a letter telling me that my name was on a list of potential members and that I might be contacted if an opening occurred.  Eighteen months passed, and then I got a call from the Privy Council Office asking me if I’d accept the position if it were offered to me.  Duh!

Because of my previous experience with the Veterans Appeal Board in 1994-1995, I had some idea what I was getting myself into, and some of the staff were known to me.  But, as with all new members, I had to get comfortable with the legislation and the process, and I had to learn to write good decisions.  The thing that makes this one of my top three favorite jobs is that I felt respected from the moment I walked in the door.  For the first time in my career, I didn’t feel the need to prove myself.

The Not-So-Good Ones

I’ve gained something from each of the fourteen other jobs I’ve known but, in truth, several of them were real stinkers.  They weren’t the right fit for me, or vice versa, or they fell short of my expectations.  Other times I learned, to my great disappointment, that I was working for an incompetent manager.

My first job was the worst.  I am not cut out for sales, and learning to work and live in Toronto proved too great a culture shock.

When I returned from Laval in 1990 with a hard-won MBA in hand, I expected to be given a challenge.  Premier Joe Ghiz had promised me that, but I wasn’t expecting to be named Director of Employee Relations, the provincial government’s chief negotiator with the nine public sector unions.  In my seven previous years as a manager, I had never opened the collective agreement and, suddenly, I was expected to live and breathe collective bargaining, and endure all the crap that goes with it.  Three years was enough, and I was damn glad to get out.

My time with HRA was a learning experience, my first foray into private enterprise as a part owner.  When the company president invited me out to lunch one fine summer day in 1998, I’d had enough of the provincial government.  I wasn’t satisfied with how the Round Table’s recommendations were being implemented, and I needed a change.  I jumped in with both feet, but on condition that I wasn’t to work in the company’s bread and butter business, employee relations.  This meant I had to start from scratch, without too many client prospects.

Looking back, I think I gave a pretty good account of myself as a consultant.  But, when I was asked to invest a considerable sum of money to become a partner, I did so with the expectation that I’d be compensated for taking the risk.  While I loved the work, the return on my investment wasn’t up to my expectations.  So, as we say in French: J’ai décidé de rouler ma boule ailleurs!  In truth, my experience with HRA convinced me that I’m a public servant at heart, not a businessman.

I got a call out of the blue one day in October 2008 from a senior official of the Prince Edward Island government.  He asked me if I was interested in working with Ralph Thompson, head of the Commission on Land Use and Local Government.  The Human Resources job with Parks Canada was killing me: I had staff in three locations; was on the road over 100 days a year; flew 95 times in a twelve-month period; was travelling from Charlottetown to my Halifax apartment most weeks; and wasn’t getting along with my boss.  Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity.

Ralph and I worked very hard and put out what I consider to be a damn fine report, in French and English, in less than twelve months.  I loved working with him and we remain good friends.  The report was made public in January 2010 and has been sitting on the shelf ever since.  Yesterday’s Guardian editorial chided the provincial government for failing to act on the Commission’s recommendations.  I am disappointed that this is so, but I was well paid for what I did.

Final Thoughts

So, as I near the end of my career, I look back with great satisfaction on the things I’ve done and the many fine people I’ve met.  I’ve been very privileged to get to know my Island province like few others.  I’ve worked in a variety of fields and, while not expert in any, can discuss many matters of public policy with some degree of knowledge.

One of the worst bosses I worked with told me once, as he neared the end of his career, that he considered a couple of infrastructure projects he was working on to be his legacy.  The use of the word ‘legacy’ struck me as very strange, coming as it did from a public servant, and I considered it most improper in this context. 

My legacy is the many relationships I’ve had with co-workers, and it’s the people I meet as we go about our everyday lives, sharing memories of good times and bad.  Each positive working relationship was an accomplishment, and it provided all the satisfaction I ever needed.

Most importantly, I’m thankful for the support of my best friend, Elva, who has had to endure these career changes.  Many times, she wondered why I was leaving a good job.  She had good reason to question my decisions, but she always accepted them in the end.  Not every partner would have stood beside me, and her unfailing encouragement gave me the confidence I needed to succeed at most of the assignments I’ve been given.

In a way, I envy those whose career path was clear from the beginning.  But, for me, I’ve never quite known what I want to be when I grow up.  I hope I never will…