Dawson College, McGill's Annex 1948-50

Sports, Pranks, Social Events vs Education and how I almost screwed up

These stark frame buildings were quickly thrown up in 1941 as an RCAF training base. The base was undoubtedly a replica of many others and ideally set up for this purpose with barracks, a large canteen, class rooms, lecture halls and an array of indoor facilities for physical exercise such as a gymnasium, weight room, and bowling alleys. The flat and barren outdoor areas undoubtedly provided ample space for marching, shooting and whatever else military people commonly dream up. The objectives were clear and the recruits were disciplined, trained, acquired some physical conditioning before moving on to take their part in the war.

In May 1945 the war in Europe came to  an end and a few months later the dropping of two atomic bombs ended the war in the Pacific. I was 16 and working as bell hop in a summer hotel in Knowlton, Quebec when I heard the news that the bombs had been dropped, Many of the guest in the hotel were airmen and soldiers just back from the war in Europe and with their wives and girlfriends. We realized that the war would soon be over and we celebrated late into the night. It was a few days  later when the horror of those bombings began to sink in and I remember weighing and discussing with others whether a major crime had been committed..

With the troops coming home the RCAF training base was closed in 1945 and then reopened as Dawson College to handle the overflow of science and engineering students at McGill .The students were a mix of adolescent kids away from home for the first time, and war veterans catching up from several missed years of schooling and many with a family to support.

For the veterans they were clearly there for an education and Dawson College was no different from any other military facility they had to put up with for the past several years. They were a serious and hardworking group of students and had little patience for the fun loving adolescents.

For the adolescent students (overwhelmingly boys taking science and engineering back then) it was, and still is, a difficult period for many of handling the freedom that goes with escaping from family constraints, discovering beer drinking,  late nights, girls, sports, and sharing the general exuberance and spontaneity of teenage life with others. I recall being told by a professor at the start that from past experience 40% could be expected to drop out in their first year and only about one third would end up graduating. Are these figures correct? I don't know, but certainly the classes were much smaller in the final two years and many of my classmates had either left school or switched to take other courses.

Clearly some adolescent students came better prepared to enter university than others. They demonstrated study habits and a mature sense of purpose that I was still lacking. They had fun too but they knew why they were there. I had always taken for granted in high school that I would maintain a superior average without much effort. My dad would comment, "I'm worried because I don't see you spending enough time to prepare for your exams." and I would answer,"I'm ok. Stop worrying."


I confess that in that first semester I pursued sports, pranks and my social life with a vengeance.  I was failing to complete assignments, skipping some classes - often just to shoot baskets in the gym, and generally screwing up. I was abruptly and bluntly advised by the Administration following the marking of the Christmas exams that my marks didn't justify remaining in school. Facing failure a light bulb finally came on. I had worked in lumber camps and the mines to help pay for my education, What a waste. I would leave many good friends behind. What kind of career opportunities and life experiences would  I be missing? What would I say to my parents who had sacrificed so much? My priorities now were all wrong.  I had never experienced failure in any course up to now and now realizing that I was facing being asked either to leave or straighten up it was clear that I was being given a chance and it was obvious what I had to do. It would mean a lot of catching up to overcome those lousy first term results.

When the Winter Carnival was over at the end of January I attended all my lectures and even took notes rather than reading the newspaper at the back of the room, hit the books and began to study in earnest between lectures and late into most nights. In May I passed the year with a high second class average which must have meant a lot of A's considering the failing grades of that first term.

For the remaining three years leading up to graduation it was smooth sailing. My character and interests didn't really change that much but my priorities clearly had. I guess I was finally leaving part of my childhood behind.

Dawson College, McGill's Annex 1948-50

Murray Bretschneider

How Bretschneider won the Public Speaking Contest

The university decided  that first year engineering students desperately needed an additional course for one term  to improve their skills in communicating before an audience. I recall the course was an afterthought and not leading to any credits. A lecturer, from the arts faculty in McGill met with us once a week.  We were expected to prepare a short lecture for about 5 minutes on a subject of our choosing and to include some visual support on an easel. The students in the audience were expected to rate the performance after each presentation.

It soon became clear that the audience wasn't taking  their responsibilities very seriously as many had their heads resting on their desks while others had raised newspapers to read.

Most presentations had to do with technical subjects close  to their interests such as for example: heat pump designs , screw thread standards or features of combustion of some kind or other. The lecturer coming from an arts faculty found this very boring and said the presentations were lacking in lively expression and enthusiasm. In fairness it was clear from their behaviour that the audience agreed with him. When they raised their heads from the desk or laid down their newspapers to vote they graded these performances very poorly.

It was then my turn and I had failed to prepare anything (typical of my behaviour in the first term). I fortunately however happened to read while waiting my  turn in the barber shop a very interesting article in the National Geographic on Emperor Penguins.  In a bit of a panic I mounted the platform with my blank tear sheets and announced my talk was entitled The Difficult Sex Lives of Emperor Penguins. The lecturer seemed relieved that he wasn't going to endure listening to another complex technical lecture and even some sleepers in the audience raised their heads. I quickly drew a cartoon of a penguin and proceeded with an impromptu and disorganized ramble on this very difficult subject (since all penguins look the same and it is amazing how they figure out what's what and as you know they also face great hardships in the Antarctic). I was given a good rating but was criticized for drawing a belly button on the penguin,

It  was now Bretschneider's turn and heads again rested on desks and newspapers were raised. He looked out nervously at his audience, wavered a bit, uttered something that sounded like 'glock!' and fell in a dead faint to the floor with a loud thump.

Newspapers were lowered, heads raised and cheers went out as two students helped him to his feet and raised his limp arms in victory. Despite the lecturer strongly disagreeing with the verdict  Bretschneider was voted the outstanding speaker of the day. I wonder how the lecturer responded to his Dean back at McGill when he was asked, "Well how did it go?"

M. Bretschneider 1952

Bretschneider was a member of our graduating class in 1952. From the stories he told me his parents were poor garment workers in the St Urbain area of Montreal. He shared a very small flat with his parents and younger sister and whatever money they could save went to support his education. Soon after he received his diploma he boarded a bus en route from Montreal to St Anne's. A truck  hauling a large bulldozer passed the bus in the other direction and the blade caught and sliced opened the left side of the bus like a can opener. Bretschneider and several other passengers who were seated in window seat on that side of the bus died instantly.

Dawson College, McGill's Annex 1948-50

Moving in and the Water Wars

During the summer of 1947 upon completing my junior matriculation at West Hill High School in Montreal , a schoolmate, Dick Fleming, and I took a train from Montreal to a location about a hundred miles north of Sudbury that was essentially a hamlet in the forest for a railway siding, sawmill, lumberyard, barns for horses, and a small cluster of log cabins that would be our living quarters (You can read about this experience in the five previous essays in this blog published in March). In the following summer when I worked in the mines in Sudbury there was no room in town with the troops coming home so I had to share an uncomfotable bed with someone who worked on another shift. In short, I was used to Spartan conditions when away from home.

I arrived at Dawson College a few days after returning home from Sudbury. My initial shock was seeing for the first time these desolate surroundings and ugly spartan buildings. It was like returning to the bleak flat and treeless landscape I had just come from.

I was encouraged, however, to find on entering these buildings on a tour of inspection that I was moving up in luxury with indoor toilets (instead of the camp's 10 hole outhouse) and showers and barracks where I at least had my own bed I even had my own chair and table by the bed. The picture opposite will give you some idea of this accomodation. Note that Dick Fleming is in the background; it's early morning and he is still in his pyjamas.

The barracks (dormitories) came fully equipped with water filled stirrup pumps in the event of a fire. Unfortunately in the hands of some they were quickly perceived as Weapons of Mess Destruction and no one was safe. In this picture opposite is an example of two pumpers (is it Maurice Max and Bill Magyar?) spraying innocent passers by in the hallway. Why do adolescent males behave this way? I do not know.

For the first several days following the discovery of these weapons the environment was lawless with random attacks on innocent unsuspecting victims simply because the the pumper felt like it or in response to the normal level of sarcastic observations floating about the room.

As an example of an innocent unsuspecting victim here is a picture below of Maurice Max attacking John Mikulec who is just waking up. I recall that he was thoroughly soaked.  In fairness to Max it is entirely possible that John made an offensive remark like "Buzz Off"

Attacks and counter attacks as expected led to mutual Mess Destruction with no winners and the barracks and much of its contents like clothing and mattresses became thoroughly soaked.  Fortunately the steam heating system (that made a constant banging noise) grossly overheated the chambers and a steam bath or sauna like atmosphere arose that was soon followed by a drying action similar to what you would expect from a typical clothes dryer. When we returned from our lectures the room was thus relatively dry, at least until the next attack.

An emergency meeting was held by my roommates and it was unanimously agreed that we should declare a truce and turn our attention to attacking students in other dorms in the building.

Who was our leader in all this? I don't clearly recall  but you will note in the picture opposite our paparazzi and photo journalist, Don Beauprie, who always had his cameras at the ready. He certainly encouraged these events (and some others I will discuss in another blog). Note his sorting out his photos and making his plans.

When the attacks and counter attacks between other dormitories blossomed into a full  scale Destructive Mess the College gendarmes arrived to hunt for the ringleaders.  Don and others fled to lie in the rafters until the all clear was sounded several hours later. I have always assumed that  this was clear evidence that he was a ringleader.

Ross Hammond was the one roommate who stood aside from all this,  He was a serious weightlifter and bristled with bulging muscles; a gentle giant who always had a vase with a single rose on his  tidy desk. He was not amused and we thought it wise to not interfere with his tranquility. His quarters remained dry throughout our struggles although he did share the sauna effect in the dormitory from the drying out.

In the meantime our pumpers continued to invade other dormitories and made the serious error of dousing several from the dorm above where the residents were war veterans who took their studies seriously and were fed up with the noise and trouble caused by the adolescent students in the dormitories below. They decided to assemble a posse and go down and do something about it. They entered our dorm unannounced and grabbed the student nearest the door.



It was their big mistake. The student nearest the door was the innocent Ross Hammond who on being grabbed, grabbed the grabbee and carried him in his arms like a baby out of the dormitory, up the stairs and onto the balcony. He then lifted him over the ledge and dropped him into the snow drift below. Stunned and alarmed by this treatment of their leader the veterans' posse returned and said that  he could have been killed or seriously injured by this violent assault. We asked if he was ok and they said fortunately yes and left. But the veterans had won because a truce was declared and the Weapons of Mess Destruction were put to rest.

When Ross returned from this misadventure he was silent and remained outwardly calm. He did not wish to discuss anything, sat down and  resumed staring at his rose,




*A special thanks to our resident paparazzi, Don Beauprie,  for these photos. I confess to the cartoons.

Dawson College, McGill's Annex 1948-50

Chapter I - Oh What a Beautiful Campus for Study and Play!

What a shock when I first  set my eyes on Dawson College in September 1948.. Before me, as far as the eye could see, was a flat treeless and silent landscape only disturbed by a cluster of barn like two storied buildings covered with drab grey shingles and bordering roads with open ditches leading up to a very large flag pole with Red Ensign fluttering at its top. My view of this bleak landscape was only disturbed by my observing some tumbleweeds passing aimlessly by. Later when winter finally came the tumbleweeds gave way to drifting snow drifts that gathered around the buildings. With the first sign of spring this white mass melted into a grey slush thus harmonizing with the rest of the landscape. The students quickly nicknamed the college Lower Slobbovia after a faraway and desolate country invented by Al Capp for his popular cartoon, Li'l Abner.

to quote from Wikipedia:

As wretched as existence was in Dogpatch (the home of Li'l Abner), there was one place even worse: faraway Lower Slobbovia. The hapless residents of frigid Lower Slobbovia were perpetually covered with several feet of snow. Icicles hung from every nose. Polar bears stalked the homeless. There was no visible civilization, no money, no hope. Conditions couldn't be worse. Astute readers knew that Capp's Slobbovia was a thinly disguised Siberia.


Actually it was a fair description of Dawson College although I have to admit I don't recall encountering any polar bears. I did however observe from time to time vultures hovering about.



A bit of history:  Dawson College was opened in 1945 to accommodate the greatly increased enrolment due to the return of students from the armed services and was housed at the R.C.A.F. base at St-Jean, Quebec. All first year science and engineering students were transfered there. The number of students enrolled, both veterans and recent graduates, reached a peak of 1687 in January 1947. The College was closed in 1950
 

As for the flagpole I should add that some inebriated persons returning from a night of celebration in the nearby town of St John's decided that the flag pole had to be cut down. It's fall made a thunderous sound. The next morning as it lay on the ground with it's sad Red Ensign lying in the slush, several professors called a snap meeting in an auditorium to find out who had done this dreadful deed. We learned later that these same professors were the culprits and they must have been thoroughly hung over as they stood on that stage.The secret was kept so nothing came of it except the pole was gone.


The war was over and the troops had returned home. For thousands of them, ably supported by Government grants, their immediate gaol was to complete their education. The universities could not handle this huge additional influx so temporary emergency facilities had to be found. Now empty military barracks provided an answer: Dawson College for McGill and Ajax for the U of T

As you will read in the chapters that follow I recall that studying and playing in these bleak and spartan surroundings represented some of the happiest and carefree moments in my life.



*Special thanks is due to a friend and fellow student, Don Beauprie, who supplied these photos

My Brilliant Job at Eatons and the Zoot-Suit Riots

 Santa and the Escalators

During the Christmas Season in 1944 I worked each Saturday and the Christmas holiday sseason at Eaton's Department Store in Montreal. Only 15 at the time I had two challenging assignments. One was to supervise the long line up of children, usually accompanied by their momma or a big sister, as they waited their turn to visit with Santa to assure him they had been very good so that they could count on him to deliver on his flying sleigh the many presents they believed they so richly deserved. The other job was to stand at either the top or bottom end of the escalator because at the time they were a new and somewhat rickety and noisey innovation and many people looked for assistance to avoid tripping and falling.

I don't recall receiving any training or instructions so I had to innovate and do this the best I could. At the Santa assignment I had to keep my cool of course because some kids liked to pinch or poke me, or grab the back of my jacket when they thought I wasn't looking. I found keeping some sticky candies to hand out was helpful. Occasionally I had to grab a kid, while always smiling, when the brat was sneaking into the line and each day had to answer a thousand times how long it would take before Santa could finally see them. I was honest and said no when they asked me if I was one of Santa's elfs. The line ups were usually very long so there were several of us controlling the line. On reflection the girls were much better at it.

The Escalator was a very different assignment. There was a button I could push . It gave me power because  could stop it if someone fell down - which happened just about every day.  I also reached out my hand regularly to assist elderly people to step on and step off. Often elderly people simply wanted to talk to me, wanting to know my age and how I was doing in school. The young kids were often the opposite and one way or the other insulted me by asking how I managed to get such a dumb cushy job.  The best time was when school friends said Hi! as they passed by, especially if it was some girls that went up and down a few times just to giggle and say Hi! again.

I can't recall exactly what I was paid, it was something like 30 cents an hour. A day's wages was enough to take a girl to the movies including street car tickets, pop corn and maybe a milkshake at the soda fountain. It was worth standing all day by the escalator for that.

The Escalator and the Zoot-Suit Riots

The Zoot Suit was a strange kind of suit. It was a fashionable fad among some young men in the 1940s. In general, a zoot suit consisted of a long, loose coat with wide, padded shoulders, ballooning pants worn very high above the waist, an over sized bow-tie, a wide-brimmed hat and a long, hanging watch chain. These flamboyant outfits were meant to attract attention and those wearing them were commonly referred to as "zoot-suiters" or "zooters". This fad was most common in North America .
It was a suit symbolizing rebellion. In Quebec the Zoot-Suiters rebellion was against the call to be conscripted to fight the war in Europe. Many saw it as a British call to arms and they wanted no part of it. 

 


This became a source of tension in Montreal between the the Zoot-Suitors and military personnel with roving gangs fighting throughout the city starting in late 1943 and continuing throughout the first half of 1944. When a sailor and his girlfriend were severely beaten in May hundreds of sailors left their ships, roamed the city looking for Zoot-Suiters and pitched battles took place on the main streets and in the parks. When trapped the Zooters clothing was ripped off, and badly bruised they were left in their underwear or less. Hundreds of the Zooters and military had been injured in the battles, military personnel were finally confined to barracks, only 40 people were arrested (37 of them sailors) and, amazing by today's standards where guns and deadly knives are commonplace, no one was killed. 

It started out as a pretty routine day at my post at the foot of the escalator. I had to stop a group of kids who wanted to go down while crowds were going up, an old man stumbled and scattered his Xmas chocolates and walnuts on the escalator that messily finally arrived at the top, so it just stated out as a normal day. Suddenly three sailors rushed to the foot of the escalator rudely pushing others aside and proceeded to rush up taking two steps at a time. I simply shouted Hey! but they didn't look back. Within seconds about fifteen colorfully dressed Zoot-Suiters arrived in hot pursuit up the escalator. The comments and oaths uttered at this point by the startled patrons of the stores are too numerous and impolite to list here. No sooner had the Zooters disappeared to the floors above when a large number of sailors arrived - my guess about fifty or so - and demanded that everyone stand aside as they jammed their way up the escalator, Then all was quiet and we all wondered what was going on up there but ordered to stay where we were. A little while later a disheveled group of warriors came down the escalator and the elevator doors disgorged more of them. Badly outnumbered the Zooters had lost the battle and they were a sad and angry lot with their clothing removed and wrapped in sheets generously donated by Eaton's. But they had been valiant warriors because although badly outnumbered I observed that many sailors shared their torn clothing, bruised, faces and swollen eyes as they all shuffled out the door to waiting vans with oaths, whoops and hollers. When I think about it now it reminds me of a typical rugger match. 

The job wasn't so dumb and boring after all and I now I had something to talk about. 

Working in the Mines - Summers 1948/49/50

 Chapter IV - When I wasn't working

 

Sudbury

Sudbury was still a sort of frontier town in 1948. It had wooden sidewalks along the main street and the landscape looked like a moonscape because of the poisonous fumes emanating from the smelters' chimneys killing all vegetation and covering the area with a continuous rain of sulfurous dust that turned to acid when it rained. The area was a Moonscape, in fact astronauts came there to test some of their space vehicles.  A few caring citizens carted in fresh earth from miles away to enjoy a brief season of flowers and greenness for the season. My boarding house was directly across from the jail so my view from the porch was the men walking about in the yard in their pyjama like suits.  

 There was a lot of racial tension at the time because newcomers were arriving from northern and eastern Europe. Many came with good a education but at that time were required by the Canadian Government to serve time in remote parts of Canada before going down to the cities, My three Finnish friends were a good example; two would work for a year in the mines on a rotational basis to finance the university education of the other. They didn't much care for the work rules set by the the militant Communist Union ( Int'l Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers) , and they had a reputation for working harder to maximize their bonuses. The company naturally took advantage of this by raising bonus standards thus angering the mining population. Some fighting took place in town over this.

My main meal each day was at a large workman's restaurant on the main street. I recall its name was something like Klutajats. It had two or three long tables, and no menu. We jammed in one of the long rows of settings and ate the meal they served, and it changed every day. I recall the food was always fresh and tasty with plenty of meat, potatoes and vegetables, lots of bread and usually a pie or cake. The restaurant was always packed so they were doing a good business. 

How I used my leisure time depended on the shift I was working, The day shift left me with the normal late afternoon when I often went to the beach at Ramsay Lake that bordered the town and where I could swim and meet some friends. I also remember endless walks back and forth along the main street mostly for watching and often saying hello to girls who were doing the same thing. We didn't spend much money because we had to save up enough for our school tuition and books. On a few occasions I took my landlady's daughter, Iris or a girl I met on my walks to a movie and then ended up having a few beers or a stop at a soda fountain  before heading back to the boarding house. Iris was a bit dull but a convenient friend to pass a limited amount of time with. Her mom was always there at the door waiting for her when we returned,

On the afternoon shift, work finished at midnight and I didn't go right to bed but went out with friends for something to eat till about two in the morning before going off to sleep until about 9 AM. A big lunch at Klutajats and then off to work again, The grave yard shift from midnight to early morning was better because I could sleep to about two in the afternoon and then had the rest of the day free until midnight. I'm not sure how years of facing weekly rotations like this affects the health of these shift workers. It ransacks your bodily functions, disrupts the rhythm of sleeping and your meals.  

 

  Rouyn-Noranda

In Noranda the following year the shift changes were much the same as in Sudbury. It is always night in the mine so down there it didn't make much difference. Working days left the evening free and it was quite different than in Sudbury. Noranda was more of a middle class town with many miners having modest homes and invariably a summer camp by a lake not too far away. I soon met up with friends from the town at the tennis club. I played regularly with Dollard St Laurent whose brother was the coach there. He was just learning tennis for the first time but was soon beating me regularly, The second year I was in Noranda he joined the the Montreal Canadians and became a star defense man between 1950 and 1958. I also met with many student friends working in the mines and girls that were home for the summer from universities and nursing schools.

 

One girl that I met at the club, Lenore McLean, became a steady friend that I subsequently dated off and on later in Montreal up until I finished university.  Her father had come to Noranda in 1923 as a canoe man for Ed Horne who played an important role in in the discovery and formation of the Horne Mine that later became Noranda Mines. Mr Mclean had the first dollar he was paid by Horne in a frame on his living room wall. He was by then a very rich man and co-owner of a heating and ventilating company that was dominant in Northern Quebec and Ontario at the time.  He and his wife treated me like family and seemed pleased that I was spending time with their oldest daughter who was about my age. He generously offered to have a select number of young university students who worked in the mines to feel free to enjoy Sundays at his summer home by Lake Dufault. a few kilometers away. A similar number of the young women from the tennis club arrived as well so every Sunday a good time of swimming, canoeing and barbecuing was had by all. Students were generally welcomed in the homes of many families of the business and professional class who had daughters home from school for the summer.

Marriages and engagements resulted from theses events including three eventual marriages I recall between three mining engineering students and the Mayor, Mine Manager Mine Superintendent's daughters. Clearly the managers and business owners and their wives in the town engineered and kept a watchful eye on these events to ensure that their eligible daughters would meet acceptable suitors. 

 Looking back on it you can say that this was a snooty way to isolate the daughters of professional and managerial families from the sons of the common miners. you might say a mining town parallel of the coming out parties of the wealthy families in large cities. I was always contemptuous of those events among the rich in Montreal but most of the young students I worked with were broke like I was and saving every penny to go back to school, so we set aside our conscious and enjoyed this generosity.

 

 

In Noranda the students and many of the foreign workers (we called them DP's meaning displaced persons) boarded in the company bunkhouse, an ugly barracks with a canteen with tolerable food. I made many friends with the DP's and learned a lot about their terrible lives during the war, particularly in Eastern Europe. Surprisingly to me at the time these men took pride in their musical ability and could form instant choirs often accompanied by one or more accordions. When there was a marriage their wedding celebrations went on for days. Everyone was welcome  and it was a rotation from the ceremonies to work and then back to the party again. The bride and groom were soon long gone but that didn't stop anything.

We led a double social life! There was the social life I described in the above and then there were those visits to the hotel bars late in the evening in Rouyn, the adjacent town. We sometimes went there with our student friends to have a few beers and to watch the lively action in progress. The bar was always filled at that hour with many single men from the town and from the remote and isolated lumber and mining camps in the region.

 

The 'ladies of the night' were waiting for them and a thriving business was taking place with the stairs and elevators kept very busy. These ladies knew we had no interest or need for their services and some viewed us as friends to sit and chat with while taking a tea break from their strenuous activities. My observation was that most of them had little education, came from an unsettled background  and had made a choice to escape unemployment or a lowly paid job in a laundry or diner by working as prostitutes in the hotel either full or part time. For most it was just a job until something better came along or until they were too old to continue. Some ending up marrying one of their clients and I often saw them accompanied going to the movies or out dining somewhere. Frankly I saw them as providing a much needed service to the many lonely single men working throughout the region. It wasn't legal but it was run like a legal business in the hotel and the police stayed away if there wasn't any trouble from drunken behaviour. The Salvation Army volunteers were always silently there and the ladies and their patrons knowing the help they had given to less fortunate friends, gave generously.  

 

My Great Victory

Nothern Quebec held a track meet in Noranda during the second summer I was there. Aspiring athletes arrived from the surrounding area dressed in their shorts, running shoes and numbered sweat shirts. I came with friends from the tennis club just to watch. I was particularly interested in watching the high jump. I quickly observed while they practiced that despite their fancy outfits  they were a lousy bunch of jumpers using the scissor kick so I asked an official if I could participate. He said yes but they were about to start so I had no time to change and get my running shoes. I simply kicked off my shoes, rolled up my pant legs and to my surprise in my bare feet won the event. I recall using the Western Roll. I only jumped 5 feet 6 inches but that was enough. My inspiration came from my cheering section from the tennis club. A happy moment.