Childhood 1949-1957
My father and mother ended up to have 3 children. My younger brother died of pneumonia soon after he was born. In the meantime Lena and her daughter Elizabeth returned to Poland where she got a job at the post office as a telephone operator.
My parents had a very glamorous life, as my father was from noble settings and was high ranked in the army. He had important military people in his house for meetings often. One day my mother was pruning her plants on her bedroom balcony and cut thru and damaged some cables from the roof. During the next meeting, they discovered that the roof antenna didn't work properly. It took the soldiers all night to correct the fault.
When the war ended, they had a daughter Ellie. The nurse assisting in the birth remembered my father bringing fresh fruit to my mother in the hospital and remembered how loving he was to her and to the other expectant mothers in the ward. A couple of friends remembered Barnabas and Janina as a fun loving party going couple who suddenly disappeared during the communists' persecution of high ranking Nazi officers, especially ones with noble blood.
One night without telling anyone, Barnabas and Janina fled with their daughter to the neighboring city Szombathely. And soon I was born. Then father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I nearly died at birth and refused to talk for the first 3 years. She took me to many specialists who could not diagnose why I did not talk. Then one day I met some neighbors who were just moving in. I introduced myself and showed them around. When they later met my mother, they told her that they had already met me and found me a nice talkative and friendly boy. My mother sadly informed them that they must have been talking to someone else, because I unfortunately did not talk.
Then I walked in the room and greeted the new visitors again. My mother was shocked and asked me why I didn't speak before?
" ...Because you asked me too much....." I replied.
I remember the horse draw wagons that came in thru the back gates of the yard to deliver coal, and having to carry coal up to the special room by the kitchen where we kept the coal for our heating and cooking needs. I remember the cycle races that they had going thru the square in front of our house every once in a while, and the man on the bicycle with the long stick who rode by the street lamps to turn them on every evening and falling downstairs with my bike and pretending not to be hurt.
I remember playing with the metal rings that we kept rolling by running after them and hitting them with a stick to keep them rolling and going with my grandmother Maria up a hill to a church and walking past the 12 praying spots that were like little chapels. I remember playing school with my sister Ellie who was 3 years older and looking for our Christmas presents that we knew that our mother hid somewhere and our Christmas tree decorated with candies wrapped to look like wings.
I remember 2 big fires, one was an entire building in flames, and the other, the fire in the apartment next door. I remember the kiffly bread roll that my nanny always bought me when I went shopping with her. I remember the big radio in our living room, and the daily radio program with the theme song we liked so much and sang along to. I remember huge hailstorms, and chasing rats with a broom. I remember the circus and being warned about gypsies stealing children.
I remember going to a football game and kicking the ball around with my father. And I remember hiding under my father's big office desk and him finding and chasing me in jest around his desk. I remember falling down a flight of stairs with my cycle and pretending not to be hurt and refusing to cry.
Ellie played a lot with me. And I just played along. She would play the mother getting me ready for school and then she would transform and play the pretend bus driver driving me to school on chairs arranged just like in a bus. She would be up front pretending to be driving and when we arrived in school, she suddenly became my teacher. Then after school she drove me back in her pretend bus and then pretended she was my mother helping me with the pretend homework.
One day she gave me a test and wrote a mark on my paper that she decided in the end to scribble over with ink to hide it from me seeing it. To her dismay, I just washed the ink covering my note by spiting on it until I was able to clearly see the mark she wanted to hide from me.
When I started to go to the real school all I remember is the desks with the ink bottle and having to sit with my hands behind my back all the time and having to sing in front of the class all by myself during a parents meeting.
I was very stubborn from the beginning. I fell down the stairs with my tricycle once and pretended that nothing happened. I remember being warned against being kidnapped by the gypsies whenever the circus was in town and thinking that it wouldn't be all that bad being in a circus. One day my mother reported me missing and some soldiers found me by a river bank washing the underpants of a younger girl I befriended. One day I visited my neighbor and stole one of his little cars. My mother made me bring it back to the boy. I remember how agonizing that was and what a relief it was to have apologized and have the apology accepted. I can also remember that apartment had a big fire one day.
I remember a trip we made once to Poland to see my aunt Lena and seeing a man there and the water from the faucet as cloudy as watered milk. My first year in school in Hungary, I had to sit with my hands behind my back and learned to write in small connected letters using a pen with a nib and an ink well on my desk that you can see only in museums now.
I remember having my tonsils removed under local anesthetics and on eating so much ice-cream that I could not eat ice-cream for a long time. The boy in my room didn't get many visits and my mother always brought the boy something when she brought me something. His mother was very grateful. She ran the local general store, and her husband was the police chief of Szombathely, the city we lived in. The boy's mother was so thankful that she kept insisting on paying my mother back in one way or another but my mother always refused to accept anything from her. My mother shopped in her store and regularly brought her boy my children's books.
When I was 7, Hungary was invaded by Russia and many Hungarians fled. Russian troops eventually were called in to close the border and they were billeted in our city which was close to the Austrian border. My mother was very glamorous and could speak Russian and we had one of the better and larger apartments. The general Vologa and his young family moved into our home, just as the other soldiers moved into the homes of our neighbors. We grew close. I remember the parties with the drunken officers throwing me around like a ball. I remember them jesting me to take their pistols and to fight against the aggressors like many of the other children were doing. I remember the luscious meals with stuff like butter and bananas that we never had before. My first taste of butter and the last for a long time was when my mother unexpectedly stuffed a spoon full of butter in my mouth. I was not very impressed and preferred lard with bread like I was used to have.
Both my parents suffered a bout with cancer at that time. My father's prostate cancer was diagnosed as terminal, and my mother's breast cancer was removed. Realizing that it would be best to immigrate to Canada, my mother finally went to the lady in the general store whose husband was the police chief and who was so thankful for my mother for treating her son in the hospital so well. She told the lady that she needed help in fleeing the country and was able to get a letter of permission to be driven to the village on the border. She went home and packed. When the Russian general saw my mother packing, he told my mother that the borders were mined, guarded by dogs and a "shoot to kill" order, and that it would be impossible to cross them alive. My mother insisted on going anyway and the helpless general agreed to help. He told us that he would follow our car and instructed me and Ellie not to show any emotion or cry when he inspects our car along the way and to pretend that we don’t know him. By that time he was living with us and his family and we were like one close family. He told us we must say our good byes now and asked that we do not cry and be afraid when we walk across the border. I remember having my favorite meal poppy seed and sugar on noodles as my last meal in Hungary.
We drove to the border village escorted by the general. He told my mother that at about midnight, when we heard a series of whistles that we should wait 1 hour before we cross the border. He told my mother that he would call in all his guards and their dogs and get them all drunk. He told her exactly where we should cross to avoid the land mines. I remember my mother carrying 2 suitcases and going under a barbed wire at the start and walking in a forest with the snow on the ground lit by moonlight and a starry sky. A few times we had to hide behind the trees as trucks drove by. I remember my mother arguing with my father in the middle of the way. It was a clear starry winter night, and we were lost as we should have reached the Austrian village we were heading for. My father was convinced by the star constellations that we should be going in a particular direction. My mother's instincts convinced her that we should be going the opposite way. She continued with us, leaving my poor sick and weak father to follow reluctantly. My mother's instincts turned out to be right and we found ourselves in an Austrian border village with the church filled with refugees.
My second year was in Austria where I learned my first English song “Kumbaya my lord” and my first German word “bitte” with the multiple meaning of “please”, “I beg your pardon”, and “you're welcome”. We moved from one refugee camp to another. Some of them were out in the country on farms, and others were tucked away in remote locations. One I remember was close to a castle that was used as a tuberculosis sanatorium.
My father had to be hospitalized at one point I remember riding with him in the ambulance thru the countryside. We stayed 6 months in Austria. My father was put into a hospital. My aunt in Canada sponsored us. Because we had to wait for an available flight able to transport my father who was bed-ridden, I was put into school. All I can remember was wishing that I would be on the airplane every time I heard or saw a plane in the sky. I looked forward to the bicycle Auntie Barbara promised us when we arrive in Canada. We were moved from place to place and eventually ended up in a church in Vienna set up with bunk-beds and each bunk-bed curtained off for a bit of privacy.
My Mother took us all over the city and the nearby palaces with all the golden rooms. I remember one day my mother told us that the first TV sets were starting to appear in stores and we went out to find one to see how they looked like. I had no idea of what a TV looked like and remember looking for a large radio, the kind we had in our apartment. It had a keyhole thru which you could see the musicians inside.
My father was in hospital, and it was not easy to find a flight for our family. One day when a suitable flight for us finally materialized we just happened to be away touring Vienna. When we returned, we heard that we had just missed out on a flight due to our absence. The flight we missed by a few seconds crashed and all aboard died. The flight we finally got on had problems as well. It had to make an emergency landing in the Azores. According to my mother I noticed some spray spaying out of the wings. She pointed it out to the stewardess midway across the Atlantic.
It turned out to be a leak in the gasoline tank. After studying the wind situation, the pilot decided that it would be better to turn around and try to reach the Azores than to continue. We were told that we managed to glide in with empty fuel tanks. It was fun to be stranded in Azores waiting for another plane. We toured the island and saw how the local people were totally self-sufficient building their own homes with their own hands and only mules to help them. I remember one boy my age on a mule carrying water in an overflowing vase. We made eye contact and he smiled as if he wanted to trade places with me. I felt just like he did, wanting to trade places with him.
Growing up 1957-1972
We arrived in Canada in 1957, just at the start of summer. We moved in with my aunt Barbara in a very nice neighborhood in a very nice house. I remember the first night when we arrived. I was put to bed in a bed with white bed sheets that were stiffly starched and very cold. My father was put immediately in a hospital. I had a good time with my cousin Tom. We regularly went around the garbage on garbage days looking for all kinds of neat interesting stuff. We even got lucky sometimes with piles of National Geographic with pictures of naked ladies.
I started school and remember my first day being picked up by my sweater in anger by one of the teachers. I do not know what it was all about as I did not speak English yet. We were all lined up like little soldiers on the first day of school listening to a fat loud and threatening man. I had no idea what he was saying, and suddenly he came over to me and picked me up and carried me back to the front. Then he started to yell and shake me lifting me high up in the air. I never did find out why he did that. That actually ended up to be a great start as I got the sympathy of some teachers who ended up treating me especially nice.
I remember being disappointed at being forced to write words in capital letters when I already knew how to write words and sentences joined together with small letters. To make it more frustrating to my teachers, I insisted on writing the words phonetically, like they do in Hungarian. I remember not believing my teacher when she told me that the word Kumbayya was not an English word. "Kumbaya, my lord" was the first English song I learned from one of the social workers in Austria. And I also had great trouble with, “your welcome”, and "please" after having mastered “bitte" in Austria which means “please”, “I beg your pardon”, and “you're welcome”.
My father refused to die, despite being so very sick. It puzzled the doctors looking after him why he wouldn't die. He was taken to Saint Joseph's Oratory, famous as a place of miraculous healing, not to be healed, but rather to pray that he would finally die and end his great suffering.
Weredale House
In 1957, my aunt Barbara who sponsored us and sheltered us in her house finally had enough of us and threw us out. My mother was able to get work as a cleaning lady in a nearby hospital. As she could not support two children, I was placed into Weredale House, a home for homeless boys, run by English charity organizations and the Child Protection Agency that took care of neglected boys in and around Montreal. Weredale House was situated in a very rich Jewish English speaking neighborhood called Westmount.. We all went to the rich privileged schools in Westmount with the rich privileged Jewish boys and girls.
Weredale House housed 100 boys aged 10-18, a mixture of boys who were orphans, or removed from abusive or negligent parents. Some of them very troubled and some very abused and abusive. Some of the Weredale boys were so aggressive that they had to be sent to a boys farm called Shawbridge up in the Laurentians north of Montreal which had a reputation of being a prison and breeding ground for juvenile criminals.
Some of the 18 year-olds when they left the home had problems integrating in the society they suddenly found themselves in returned to become “staff”. As a 9 years old, I was the youngest. As I spoke no English, I was very quickly bullied by some of the more hardened kids. Fortunately I was just as quickly supported and protected by others. Finding myself being fought over, I learned to be a mediator and a peacekeeper. I was eventually called “Padre”.
There were rumors of sexual abuse but I was too young to really understand what I was missing and strangely enough I felt somehow rejected by not having the attention some were complaining about. I was physically abused by some of the older boys but at the same time protected by others. Because I did not squeal on my abusers, took the abuse like a man, and payed my protectors with my candy, I earned a kind of respect from both sides. One day my mother brought me a bag of paprika potato chips that I did not like at all. I pretended that paprika chips were my favorite. I shared it to the other Weredale boys generously telling them that they can take as much as they wanted hoping quietly that they take it all.
Because Weredale was in Westmount, we attended the public school in Westmount, a rich jewish English neighborhood in Montreal. We were called the “Weredale“ boys and we had a reputation for being tough and rough which we were proud to uphold. The Weredale boys had a reputation for being very poor, hard, crude and cruel. We were very special and were put in their own special classes learning mostly hand work instead of Latin or music. The other “rich” boys and girls had a reputation for being very rich, soft, refined and privileged.
When I was in grade 6 I got very high marks and received a picture encyclopedia as a prize. Mr. McGregor, my teacher, arranged that on my 7th grade, I attend the special music class reserved for special students in the new school building called Westmount High. So I found myself in 7MS playing the double bass.
I felt very privileged and proud except during the yearly most degrading moment I remember. It was going to class with my military crew haircut all Weredale boys had to have before going to summer camp. To make the event all the more unbearable, we were sheared in the morning and the cut hair clinged on my shirt and bit my neck like they were hungry mosquitoes.
We had a large paved back yard that was made into an ice rink in winter, and a baseball park in summer. I hated baseball as I was allways the last player to be chosen for a team because I tended to throw the ball in a totally different direction than I wanted to. We had brushes tied down with chains for polishing our shoes. That is where the boys chose to have their fights usually with many onlookers, much like it was a boxing match. We had a gymnasium where we could play floor hockey year round. We had to take a shower every day. We had to file out in line to be inspected for how clean we were. Boys with any sign of an erection were sent to jump into the pool that was next to the showers.
I was a good student and somehow won the hearts of some teachers who felt sorry for me and was admitted to the special music class filled with the top richest Jewish boys and girls living in Westmount. I was the only Weredale boy in that class. I took on the role of a mediator when sometimes a Weredale boy would threaten or be rude to one of the students in my class. I was considered a “tough Weredale boy” by my privileged classmates and at the same time a kind of “geek” by my Weredale brothers who respected me for having cleared the impossible hurdle of being accepted in a “normal” class. My Weredale brothers kindly played along and let me play the “tough sheriff”. I would protect my classmates by negotiating behind the scenes with the Weredale trouble makers. It was almost as the music class was allowed to be my turf. I was very popular on both sides. One year I was appointed to be class president.
I felt very special and received special attention from many of my teachers. I was chosen by my music teacher Mrs. McKinnon to play a bass solo for one of the school music performances. I was given private French lessons by my French teacher Mrs. Ross's at her home. Once when I got a strapping from Mr. Dyke, my science teacher, I actually thanked him for his punishment and was rewarded for that by being his “favorite” student.
The High school was like a ray of bright light for me and In was inspired by my privileged rich classmates. One was Gary Armstrong who after being told to cut his beetle styled hair or be expelled, he shaved his head in protest. I remember wishing that I could have as much courage that he had.
Despite all the special treatment I got, both at Weredale and at school, I did not feel that I fit in anywhere. I was never invited to go to the private parties of my classmates. I was able to accept that fact as I knew that even if I was invited, I would be not allowed to go. I have bitter sweet memories of the 6 years I spent there. I remember vividly the music practices and performances, especially when we did the musical “The Student Prince”. I vividly remember when Gary Armstrong was told to cut his hair shorter by Mrs. Lancey and he came in the next day with his head shaved. I really ended up admiring him for that. I felt deep inside me very privileged to have around me such nice and talented classmates. I looked up to many of the boys, and fell in love with many of the girls.
There was a Girls Home equivalent to Weredale nearby. I remember the girls from the Girls Home coming up the stairs in the back of Weredale Home and flirting with boys thru the windows of the study room where we did our homework. I was too young to appreciate all this, but not too young to know that the older boys were very receptive to the flirting and as soon as the homework hour was finished, the older ones would be outside with the girls.
I stayed the next 6 years in Weredale House. A new boy was initiated on his first night. He would have to either “run the gauntlet“- running down the length of the dormitory while the other boys hit him, or be “black balled“- having shoe polish rubbed into his testicles. This was to test him to see how he reacts. One of the boys would be delegated as monitor to look out for the supervisor who came around from time to time to make sure everyone was quiet. When the monitor would give the signal to jump back into bed, usually only the poor new comer being initiated was caught out and punished. The punishment was being hit on the behind with the sole of a running shoe. When a boy turned 18, he could leave. Many chose to stay and took on jobs either in the laundry or kitchen, or as councilors.
Two nurses with bottles of Iodine swabbed iodine on all our bruises. Any signs of the flu was met with iodine in our ears, nose and throat. An old lady and an old man who we seldom saw ran the home. They lived on the side of the building where the hospital room and dentist were located. The old lady saw us off to school each morning and we had to file by her one at a time and she would check us that we were properly dressed to go to school. We lined up alphabetically so I was always at the end of the line. We lined up to eat breakfast, to go to school, for super, laundry, shower, and bed time. It was like the army. We had lockers downstairs, a gym where we played basketball and floor hockey, and a swimming pool.
We had 2 game rooms, one for the juniors, and one for the seniors. They were divided by a Kiosk with a TV. The juniors had ping-pong tables, and the seniors had a billiard table. In the basement we had brushes and shoe polish chained to the walls and we had to brush and polish our shoes like we were in the army. Fights were carried out there. There was a huge concrete field fenced off outside that was used as a baseball field in the summer, and as an ice rink in the winter. I developed an early reputation for not being very good at team sports. Whenever I threw a ball it went in a totally chaotic direction. Whenever I had to play, they made teams, and I was always the last to be chosen.
We slept in dormitories upstairs. The younger ones were crammed 20 to a room with our lockers in a separate locker room. The older ones had 4 to a room with bigger lockers right in the rooms and with bed covers to make it more home like. Over the 6 years I spent there, I went thru practically all of the dormitories. The staff was rough, as they were usually older boys who had nowhere else to go, so stayed on to be councilors. The chief staff was a huge fat man that looked and acted like a policeman. He would show his authority when he thought necessary by taking you to the dentist room next to the office, making you take down your pants and hitting you with a belt sometimes until it bled. We had 2 nurses who basically administered iodine on everything. Welts, cuts, bruises, scratches, bites, sore throats, sore ears, and everything else. We were given cod liver oil when sick.
The children were from problem families and were either disowned or forcibly removed from their parents. Some were very rough to the point of fighting with knives. As I was the youngest, and could not speak English so well, I was an easy target. Some took advantage of me and others tried to protect me. I won respect from both sides by being tough and taking the abuse without squealing. A squealer was one who went crying for help and was despised by all. I took it like a game and played along. I remember once my mother got me some BBQ potato chips that I did not like. Pretending that they were my favorite chips, I generously gave it all away to everyone. As I was connected directly or indirectly to so many disputes between the rivaling factions, I became a mediator between them. Someone started to call me "Padre", and it became my nickname while I was there.
Life was very regimented. Each day of the week we had a different meal that repeated every week. We had a homework room where we had to do our hour or so of homework after supper. We had a small library where I spent a lot of my time. In the evening we played in the gymnasium where we would usually play floor hockey a few times a week. We had a shower and could go swimming in the adjacent pool before going to bed. I could never figure out why we had to wait in line to leave the showers and show our front and back with feet spread and arms raised. Friday evening was “movie night“ and we were shown films in the auditorium.
Saturday morning we had to bundle our dirty clothes a very special way, and number everything with tags with our laundry number clearly showing. My number was 70. The socks came first and were tightly rolled up in underwear.. Shirts, sweaters and then pants followed, all rolled up in our towel.. The bundle looked like a doll and the socks looked like hair. Those who had family could go home Saturday afternoons unless punished with house arrest. Those of us punished with house arrest had to stand the entire day under the clock in front of the office.
We had to return in the evening. Some boys ran away, but were usually caught and brought back and punished. There was a girls school similar to Weredale Home and some time the older boys would sneak out whenever some of the girls would tempt them to. In the evenings we could watch TV that was in the kiosk between the play room for the juniors, and the play room for the seniors and spend any money we had on candy and soft drinks. I remember enjoying the NHL hockey games on Saturday night before having our daily shower and swim. Sunday morning we had a church service in the auditorium, and then we had what was for me the worst meal of the week, even worse than the dreaded meal we were fed every Monday - white toast bread soaked in tomato sauce that we called “red stuff“. Sundays we had roast beef that looked, felt and resembled shoe leather with stale mash potatoes all covered by hardened gravy. Then we could go home again for the afternoon. On Christmas, we each got presents, usually clothes.
When we were finished eating we had to hand in our empty plates. Our plates were always checked to make sure that we ate all our food. Some had ingenious methods of hiding the food we didn't want to eat. Some hid them under the table; others sacrificed their bread to put it in a sandwich that they could hide in their pockets for later disposal.
Each cabin had a name of an Indian tribe starting from Algonquians, Blackfoot, Cayugas, Dakotas, Eries, Foxes, Gayugas, Hurons, Iroquois, Jibways, Each had a little balcony, a screen door, 3 beds stacked in each of the front corners, with the floor level reserved for those that wet their bed. 2 beds were stacked on 5 open cubbyholes on each side in the back. The 10 cupboards used to keep our clothing and anything else we had. In the back, there was a window and a loudspeaker for announcements and music.
In the back of the cabins were open wash stalls with cold water where we brushed our teeth and washed out face. The toilets were in a bigger house called the “the birches“ a bit further back. It had about 6 open toilets on one side and urinals on the other. Fights were usually fought behind the birches inside a circle of onlookers who cheered on the fighters. I remember having one fight in which I got beaten up. I ended up leaving the fight with a bruised face, but gained the respect of a few who found me courageous enough to fight. . There was an 11th cabin reserved for the older ones who worked as orderlies in the kitchen. Orderlies set the tables, brought the food to the tables on trolleys, picked up the dirty dishes, and cleaned up the tables and floor at the end of meals.
My first year at the camp was quite rough. One of the Malerek brothers, known for their gangster ways was the cabin leader. He made me do all the dirty work and threatened me if I squealed and told anyone. So I did all the dirty work and didn't tell anyone. It wasn't very enjoyable, but the following years got progressively better. One year, my cabin leader was one of the Carpenter brothers, known for their abilities to protect younger kids like me from the grasps of the Malerek brothers.
The camp was situated on a big lake and occupied a large bay. The bay extended from the Indian camp at one point about 1 km along the shore, to the chapel camping place about 2 km in the other direction. We had sailboats and rowboats and canoes that we could use every day. We had water skiing, archery, rifle shooting, artwork, crafts, hiking and baseball, and games. It was a great time. Every second Friday we had “Indian evening“ and had to dress up as Indians and trek thru the dark woods to the Indian camp where they had a great bonfire in the middle. If we talked, we got clobbered on the head by older feathered supervisors hiding behind trees. Every cabin was able to go off for a week to the camping place near the chapel and enjoy a bit of less regimented pace of life. There were cliffs to climb, and long hikes to explore the surroundings.
I made a friend with a Jehovah witness, Alex Seiko. I was one of the few who listen to him. The other kids used to call him names and hit him and I could relate to what he was going thru. He was from Russia and he knew all the names of the local plants, trees, animals and rocks. He used to talk a lot mostly about his religion, and he just went on and on. He was so zealous, that even on Indian nights he risked getting clobbered for talking. I remember one evening we were walking back. I was behind him, listening to him talk to me. I decided to take a side trail back along the coast of the lake lined with huge boulders as it was lit by a full moon. When the trails met 10 minutes later, I noticed that he was still talking, without realizing that I wasn't behind him for the past 10 minutes.
I invited Alex a few times to visit my home on Saturdays. He helped me vacuum my mother's apartment while I listened to his religious preaching.
My mother had a very difficult life financially and was usually very depressed. She was even critical whenever she thought that ewe did not do a good enough job with the vacuuming looking for any fluff under the beds. Usually I was happy to go back to Weredale house in the evening.
In my last year, I got to be an orderly in the kitchen. As orderlies, we had special privileges concerning free time that we did not have as campers, and despite the hard work of bringing out the food to the 10 tables in trolleys and the cleaning up after, I preferred it to being a camper.
Home
In 1965, I turned 16 and Ellie got admitted to a nursing school. She moved out of the house to live at the school and I was allowed to move in and live at home with my mother. Living at home was very different from living in Weredale House. I had my own room, and most my time was spent studying. We had an apartment above a pizzeria and our apartment was infested with rats and cockroaches. My mother started out as a cleaning lady in the nursery of the hospital nearby. There were a lot of Italians, and she made her best to please all the family visitors by bending the rules and allowing them to visit and handle the babies outside visiting hours. So she was loved and praised by the moms and their family. My mother worked her way up in the hospital. The hospital was a teaching hospital, and she was greatly appreciated by the interns and doctors who remembered her as the one who was so helpful on emergency occasions. She rescued many interns by saving many babies when they didn’t know what to do. Some of those interns over the years moved up to influential positions in the hospital and were able to use their influence to push my mother up to the position of head nurse of the nursery.
She worked the evening night shift, and came home from work past midnight. I studied most of my free time, and played in the school orchestra. Our neighbor was a French speaking lady with her son who was my age. The lady could not speak a word of English, and my mother could not speak a word of French. But they would laugh and cry together sharing their pains and joys that life bestowed on them. It was very interesting to see how one can communicate without knowing each other's language.
One day the plumber came to fix the bathroom and left with my mother's big pink underpants that were hanging on the pipes overhead, and fell on the plumber's back. We were able to see this only because we waved goodbye to him from our 3 rd floor apartment as he was getting back into his car. My mother was very poor and walked 30 minutes to save a few cents on groceries. I continued with my music, and had the opportunity to join the Montreal Junior Symphony Orchestra. I practiced every week in the evenings, and I was very busy with my school work. My mother took a dieffenbachia plant that she got and cut it to small pieces and in a few years, she filled an entire room full of plants. It looked like a jungle and it was my favorite room.
In the summer I got a job as a camp counselor at a camp for crippled and handicapped children. The children ranged from 9-18 years old. We were assigned to a cabin of about 10 kids between 4 counselors. The kids were grouped by sex and age, and we had cases of blind, deaf, amputees, neurological cases, hemophiliacs, lame and paraplegics to take care of. It was very challenging and I worked there 2 summers. My teachers liked me and helped me a lot. My French teacher Mrs. Ross offered me private French lessons at her house. My music teacher Mrs. McKinnon was a substitute teacher from Scotland. She did not stay too long as she married a dairy farmer. She invited me to her new farm home.
Westmount High School
I was very fortunate to have gone to Westmount High School. It was a very enriching experience for having contained the 2 extremes of the “haves” and the “have nots” - the “fine privileged jewish” students and the “tough hardened Weredale boys”.
The privileged students differed from the Weredale boys like delicate thin and light fragile teacups differ from thick, heavy beermugs. As a “beer mug” placed among the finest of “tea cups”, I felt very privileged in my years at Westmount High.
In my last 3 years of high school, I have very fond memories. I was bathing in popularity. I learned to survive in the harsh environment of Weredale House. I played the contra bass in the orchestra. Judy Maier also played the bass in my class. She was also from Hungary and on my very first school dance I asked Judy to dance. We were dancing when I accidentally hit Judy's breasts with my flinging arms, and moved the crumbled paper in her bra out of its place. What made it worse was that a group if Weredale boys were watching and burst of laughing.
I was chosen to play a solo piece for one of the school performances. I remember going to a park with a class mate after a school dance and kissing and exploring her body on the bench late one night. It was the first time for me, and probably for the girl as well, and we never got to know each other any better after that. Living in Weredale was like living in a jail. Many were continually running away and we were not allowed to go out after supper. I was not able to integrate socially with my classmates, and felt alone in the middle, not fitting in anywhere. Later in my life I realized that being in the middle I had contact with both sides and I learned very different things from each side.
University
I finished my 11th grade and was able to enter McGill University in their science program to become a teacher. I was able to join the Montreal Junior Symphony Orchestra and it made my mother very proud, especially when we gave our performances and I had to dress in a black tuxedo like suit with a bow tie.
During the next summer I worked as a bar waiter in a private golf course. It was a horribly difficult time as I developed a very bad case of acne and had boils all over my face and body.
I bought a season pass to Expo 67, the world's fair held in Montreal and spent most my free time visiting all of the nations that had pavilions. I used to stay late into the evening to watch the laser show at the end of the day. It was a musical light show with fountains colored by lights dancing to music which was synchronized with spectacular fireworks reflected on the water of the river. It made a most impressive event that greatly fascinated me. For a while I got a job with my cousin Tom Nycz in the Indian Pavilion as a dishwasher in their restaurant. The only highlight was getting to see Jaclyn Kennedy in the dining room one evening.
I wanted to become a teacher and was accepted in the Art and Science department. My mother convinced me to change over to study to become an engineer. She claimed that I owed it to my father to keep up the dignity in the family. She had some Hungarian engineer friends who helped me get accepted into the engineering department.
The next 5 years of my life were 7 months of studying, and 5 months of enjoyment. I was 18 and had my first love affair with Mary Mercy in Banff Springs Hotel where I worked as a gardener for 2 summers.
It was a great summer job where students from all over Canada were hired to work at the resort in Banff Hotel as chamber maids, in the restaurants and in the gardens and golf courses. We shared rooms and had free time to enjoy the surroundings.
One day a group of us climbed up to Runddel mountain and carried up a 5 meter long dead tree stem and placed it on the peak. The mast we planted was observable from the hotel. We were able as well on occasion attend the special entertainment events the resort offered its guests. On one occasion, a group organized a hypnotist as entertainment. The group was delayed and the hypnotist ended up entertaining the staff. I did not volunteer to go up on stage to be hypnotized, but many of my colleges around me did. They all got hypnotized and did the most strange things while hypnotized on stage and for their post hypnotic suggestions. The friend beside me was told that he would go back to his seat and when he sat down, he would believe that suddenly he was wearing no pants. That is what happened. He sat down kind of gazed just coming from the stage and when he sat down he actually behaved as though he had suddenly realized he was not wearing his pants.
Another incident that stayed with me the rest of my life was when I looked up at a window one morning while I was working on the grounds to see a lady with her big breasts hanging over the window sill. That left me looking up at widows hoping I would see that again.
A few years later, I had my second brief sexual encounter with a Greek classmate also called Mary, Mary Sacha. It all started with us in the library together. She asked me a question and I sat next to her and put my hand under her very big inviting breasts flopped on the table as if I was protecting them from the sharp edge of the table. She was a bit over weight and her breasts were huge and soft.
When we went to a movie and I put my hands up her legs to find out to my surprise that she was not wearing any underpants. Next I invited her up to my apartment and we clumsily tried to make love. She had so many clothes on that just getting her undressed was over whelming. Somehow her father found out that we had made love and insisted that I marry her. Mary agreed with her father, my mother got upset with me, and I couldn't believe what my little romance had blossomed into. Fortunately she was not pregnant. I got away unharmed, except for the “bad luck with women” curse both Mary and her father cursed me with. As I didn't believe in curses, I considered myself lucky.
One day, McGill organized a protest trip to Quebec City and I joined. When I returned home late that night, my worried mother and my angry sister Ellie did not why I was so late in coming home. When I entered, Ellie gave me slap and told me never to do that to my mother again.
Europe
Trips to Europe during the long summer breaks were very popular with the students as they were so cheap. If you stayed in Youth Hostels you could budget your trip to 3$ a day. 1$ for food, 1$ for lodging and 1$ for transportation. I decided that I would go to Europe in the summer and when I told my mother, she told me that I was under age and that she would not give me her permission to go. She would not sign for passport or visa or plane ticket. I ended up surprising her by waiting for my birthday when I turned 18 years old, and was able to get all the papers and the ticket for a return flight to Paris.
In the summer of 1970, I landed in Paris. I checked into the Youth Hostel and heard that you did not need a license to drive a moped and that you can get one for very cheap. I looked around all day in garages and found one that was a best buy. Early in the morning I was the first one to arrive at the garage and even had to wait a while for it to open. It was the first time I drove a moped. Driving back to the youth hostel, I got stuck around the Arch de Triumph and was stuck there the entire day, not being able to change lanes and get out of the traffic circle which had about 4 lanes. Eventually late in the evening when the traffic subsided and my skills increased, I was able to finally exit and return to my hostel.
The next 3 months I toured the Youth Hostels around Europe. I went down to Cote D'Azure, along the Riviera, cut across Italy to Florence, then up thru Yugoslavia to Vienna then thru Switzerland to Germany and Belgium and England. There my moped died. I got so attached to the bike that I put it on a boat in Liverpool to be sent back to Montreal. I hitchhiked up to Scotland, and had to rush back to Paris to catch my flight back home.
My days were very structured, I drove on the back roads and most times it took me an entire day to go from one hostel to the next. I stayed a few days if the hostel was especially nice. Most were at one time old villas or castles. I went to the tourist sights, and ate mostly sandwiches and fruit. I was amazed by how different the breads were from country to country. I lived on 3$ a day. 1$ for gas and transportation, 1$ for the youth hostel, and 1$ for food. A few times I waited outside concert halls for the intermission and went in with the crowd and was the last to sit down, in the best free seat available, usually in the front row. I met a girl from Canada and we exchanged addresses. Sylvia Seymour lived in Saskatchewan and we kept in touch and met again many years later.
During the Christmas break, I went to St Vincent in the Caribbean. Mary Mercy, the girl I befriended when I worked at Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta was working as a teacher there and she invited me to visit her. I went to a remote island in search of big conch shells. My first camp out on a beach alone was unforgettably terrifying the entire night. It was a moonless long night. When the sun set at 6pm as it does in the equator, it suddenly darkened and I knew that it would stay dark till 6am when the sun rises. The entire night I huddled by my fire that I kept going because I saw two shining eyes and heard very strange animal noises. When it suddenly got light, it turned out to be a friendly dog that was just playing with the crabs buried under the sand. Each time he would get one, they would bite him on the nose till he yelped and let go.
One moonlit night, we walked thru a beautiful jungle setting thru the lush valley called Mesopotamia. We visited the island's active volcano that was just in the process of acting up. It was extraordinary. We did a lot of hiking, up to the rim of the volcano and down to the boiling Crater Lake where we boiled some eggs. The National Geographic had a team up there to photograph the smoking volcano, and we were in some of the photos they made.
In the summer of 1971, I returned to the Rockies and worked at Jasper Park Lodge as a wine steward. While Banff Springs Hotel in Banff is along the Canadian Pacific Railway line and is owned by them, Jasper Park Lodge is along the Canadian National Railway line, and is owned by Canadian National. I had my second love affair. Kay Howe was the life guard. She had a car. We used it to drive around the area and make out in her car. One memorable trip I recall was at daybreak to the lake covered with melting ice like a honeycomb. The background noise of the ice melting was like a TV reception of a station broadcasting noise. We fondled each other on a big rock. She climbed into my room one day thru the window and it was very nice to be on a bed with her for the first time.
I knew nothing about fancy dining rooms and wine serving etiquette. The staff found me very naive and played tricks on me that eventually got me fired. One trick they played on me that really infuriated the gardener was preparing finger bowls with rose petals plucked from the most beautiful roses in the hotel greenhouse. The other was advising me to shake the Champagne bottle before opening it. Of course I was standing by the lady and drenched her. The cork hit the chandelier and the bang of the cork and the tingling of the chandelier made everyone focus on the dazed lady drenched in Champagne. I was fired and moved into a campground nearby.
I got a job with some Hungarian contractors putting in isolation, walls, and carpets. I soon learned to speak Hungarian and had a great time. I went white water rafting the first time and got stuck in a tree in the middle of the river for most the day. I was staying at a camp that was getting overcrowded and was starting to have problems with bears. Early one morning I was awaken by shouts of "Hey look at that big bear". Wanting to see it, I opened the flap to my tent just to see the head of a big bear coming in. As he came in, I managed to slip by him and locked myself up in the outhouse nearby in case he would chase me.
When I started McGill University one of the things I had to buy was a slide rule. It was always with me and never ran out of power. By sliding the middle part of the ruler and the cursor to the right positions, I could do all the calculations that are now made using a pocket calculator.
McGill University had a computer center that took up an entire floor of a building. It was air-conditioned to keep all the equipment from heating up. When we were given an assignment, for example to write a program that could convert weight values from pounds to kilograms, then we had to transfer every line of that program to paper cards.
We submitted our pack of punched cards to the computer center and anxiously hoped it would come back without errors the following day. That was never the case for anybody. When there were no more mistakes, the computer rewarded us by printing out on a roll of folded paper our work to be marked.
The studies were mostly theoretical in nature. We had only 2 projects. We could chose anything we wanted to do as long as it was not theoretical. For my first project, I designed and built a prototype of an electronic lock. For my presentation I explained how a row of 10 on and off switches could be switched in 1,024 different configurations. Then I demonstrated it with a demo model using 2 switches. I built a battery powered circuit that operated a solenoid only when the 2 switches were properly switched. The professor was very impressed, as there was no electronic locks available on the market.
The second project was a report on work done in the summer break. When I told my professor that I was working in a resort hotel in the Rocky Mountains, he suggested that I do measurements of a metal detector to test its sensitivity to various metals and earth types and conditions. It was only when I started to dig the holes did I realize how much work there was to do. I planned to use 3 different wet and dry soils, - sand, humus and gravel with 4 different metals of different sizes and shapes buried at 10 different depths from 10cm to 1 meter. Each of the almost 500 measurement required burying and digging the metals out. I took a few measurements and interpolated the rest. I thought it better to be hiking in the mountains, than digging holes. When I submitted my report with the 480 measurements, my professor was most impressed, not knowing that I had fudged 90 % of the results.
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