Vares, Thomas (interview)

Vares, Thomas (interview)

Testimonial about growing up in an Estonian family in postwar Toronto, moving to Ottawa to pursue a fascination with francophone language and culture, and the wild experiences of the first year of study as well as nurturing environment of the Department of History.

2023-11-10

MP4, 1 hour, 20 minutes, 30 seconds

English

oral history

Boogaart, Thomas

Vares, Thomas

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Vares, Thomas Interview


Title: Interview with Thomas Vares
Interviewed by: Thomas Boogaart II
Date of Interview: November 10, 2023
Venue: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada using Teams
Transcription Method: Microsoft Teams
Original Language: English
Translation: DeepL and Thomas Boogaart edits
Tags (English): Ottawa, Toronto, Estonian Immigrant Culture, University of Ottawa, Youth Rebellion, Counterculture Movement, Hair Styles, Sexism, Shoplifting, Francophone Culture, Department of History, Party Culture.

Citation:
• Bibliography: Vares, Thomas. Interview with Thomas Boogaart. November 10, 2023. 1 hour, 20 minutes, 30 seconds. https://omeka.uottawa.ca/lifeoncampus/admin/items/show/1
• Footnote: Thomas Vares, interview with Thomas Boogaart, November 10, 2023, 23:06-23:24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M39RtSf81k


Thomas Boogaart (TB): It is November 10, 2023. We're in Desmarais 9114 and I have with me an illustrious alumni from the class of 1973, AKA a dinosaur generation.
Thomas Vare (TV): The dinosaur generation?
TB: Yes, we're looking forward to hearing some histories, Thomas Vares; did I pronounce it correctly?
TV: Yeah.
TB: OK, so I'm a little bit of a historian of the 20th century, and for an Estonian of that generation, usually when your family came over here (to Canada) it was related in some way to World War Two. So, I was curious how your family landed here.
TV: Very well. So, I was born in Toronto. We lived in the Beach, which is the East End, a very Anglo-Saxon neighborhood, and still perhaps one of the most Anglo-Saxon neighborhoods in multicultural Toronto today. So, my parents came from Estonia, one of the Baltic countries, very, very small, about the size of Montreal, a country with a population of about 1.2 million, one-third being Russian today. And, they were overtaken by the Soviets during the Second World War, and people had basically 48 hours to make a decision. Do they stay and become part of the Soviet occupation, or do they flee? So, my parents fled from different families, and they fled across Europe and my mother, and her mother, fled to Germany. And they were in one of these work camps in Germany. They were actually in Dresden for the fire bombings by the Allies. And you know, they described to me these stories of how all the buildings were burning, and the only way that they could escape the bombed area was to wrap wet bed sheets around their bodies and run between the burning buildings.
TB: Did they use white phosphorus?
TV: I don't know what they used at that point in the bombing, and also my mother and her mother became separated in Dresden at one point. And so people would go to a wall and they dropped their name. And then say, you know, meet me at such and such a place and people could get unified again. So, my mother and my grandmother reunited. And then they came to Canada together.
TB: They were displaced persons in Germany?
TV: Exactly. And, so, they immigrated under that program, and they became maids for the Nielsen family in Toronto. The Chocolate Nielsen family. So, they were made for that particular family. That was the first employment they had. Now my father's story is a bit different. My father was from one of the major cities in Estonia and there was a political problem in that family. The Vares family, where one of the brothers was a Soviet sympathizer, and became the 1st President of the Estonian, of the Soviet version of Estonia, Estonian, USSR. So, my father; he fled with his mother and father and they ended up in New York. And somehow, I don't know the story, but my father managed to come to Canada and established himself in Toronto, where he worked on the railway. And so that's where he met my mother in Toronto.
TB: So, they were both Estonian, but they didn't meet in the neighborhood.
They met at work.
TV: I don't know, they were dating somehow. I don't know how it was, but the immigrant community was very interesting because let's say all of these Estonians that immigrated in that wave after the Second World War in Toronto, all became a network of friends. And you know, my godparents were friends or friends, and it was a very, very tight network.
TB: It's very typical with immigrants.
TV: The street that I grew up on in Toronto, it had 12 Estonian families, but you believe that's the, let's say there were maybe 70 homes on Glen Davis. The street in the east and there were like 11 or 12 Estonian families on that street.
TB: I think Estonian was Catholic.
TV: No, they were Lutheran. So, you have regular Lutheran, and then you have an evangelical branch.
TB: Yes, I'm familiar with that. So, were those church institutions important in Toronto in terms of integrating your social life?
TV: Yes, very much so. The Priest- the minister- would visit our home and talk to my parents, etcetera. And, every year, an amount of money was identified by the minister as to how much the family had to contribute to the church.
TB: The Tithe.
TV: Exactly. So, it's almost like the old-fashioned Catholic way of doing things.
TB: So, growing up in that system, imagine a lot of your social activities would have been in the church.
TV: Exactly. So, I went to the Estonian Lutheran Church in Toronto. I went to Estonian summer camp where we spoke Estonian and it maintained the language. I went to Estonian school once a week in the evenings learning how to read and write, learn the history, and that sort of thing. So one of the things that sort of bothered me was that being brought up in that type of home, European Home Canada was put on a second level and the Estonian way of doing things is always the best, the superior way. These Canadians don't know anything. They don't know how to make soup. They, you know, eat soup out of again. But we European Estonians we cooked from scratch, you know?
TB: It makes sense, right? Because they were forced to flee their home.
So there was a kind of a loneliness for a home.
TV: They couldn't go back, but as you know, very interesting.
Is that what they don't realize?
They couldn't go back really at that point because of the Soviet situation.
You know what is interesting is the home country evolves.
TB: Um-hmm.
TV: And advances yes, and the language advances the vocabulary advances, but the all the exported colony. Yes, is frozen in time.
TB: So, the linguists come to the United States to study the old language because it's frozen.
TV: So exactly this is what happened, let's say with French. So, when New France was established in North America, the people here, the culture, the accent, it froze.
Meanwhile, France, the metropolis it was evolving, right? So the Quebec accent that you have today is very much based on umm, you know exactly that's that same.
TB: So you really grew up in an English Estonian environment?
TV: Yes.
TB: What was your perception growing up about Francophone culture?
TV: Yeah, I believe in another life I was francophone because let me tell you, at the age of five or six, when I was sitting down at breakfast reading and looking at the Shreddies box or cornflakes, there's French and there's English. I was always fascinated. What is the French we used to get orange pekoe tea in a box, right?
And they had a bird card. So, you could make your collection of bird cards.
They were bilingual and the instructions on the box were bilingual, so I was always fascinated by this other language. But the overall attitude of immigrants vis-a-vis French was, well, why did they think they're special? You know, there was a little bit of a, a grudge there about well, well, why, you know, why is that language being given all of this attention to when we
TB: And that's in the 50s and 60s?
TV: Yes.
TB: Before the sovereignty movement?
TV: Yeah. even before that: And that value never changed with my parents. But they much wanted me to learn French, and we learned it in high school in Toronto, it was only in high school that you really started to seriously studying French.
TB: So did you have an idea about Montreal as a cultural scene?
TV: Well, Montreal was, you know, up until 1970, Montreal was the biggest city in Canada and the capital of not only French Canadian culture, but English, Canadian culture, because CBC radio and television English section was headquartered in Montreal. So all of the stars and the writers they were all established in Montreal.
It wasn't until the political situation and people moved down the 4:01 that Toronto overcame Montreal and then CBC and the English Center of Culture shifted from Montreal to Toronto.
TB: But you were growing up in this metropolitan area of Toronto, what was your sense of Montreal as a metropole?
TV: Oh, fantastic because in my mind the first contact I had with Montreal was 1967. Expo 67 and all of the students from Toronto came to Montreal for four days or five days and we stayed at the College in the West End and the Agricultural College,
TB: John Abott College?
TV: Yes, and they had like a dorm. Som we stayed there and then we went to Expo and that's where we met French Canadians for the first time. It was totally amazing and one of the memories I have is they had the Expo train that went around the Expo site and at one point there was this dramatic view of the entire Expo site and there were some students, a class of students from Montreal, French-speaking, that were on that particular train with our class. And the minute they saw this huge view of the Expo, spontaneously, they started singing. Oh, Canada in French. It was a totally amazing moment, but getting back to what you're saying, my affinity and my love for Montreal from that point on was they were European.
TB: Like you?
TV: Yes, I was of European background. Their values of life were similar to the European values, even has a port.
TB: Reading the cereal box you had this sense of affinity for that something.
TV: And then when I met French Canadians for the first time when we came here to Montreal and 67, it clicked and I said, you know what, they are European and (Torontonians) they are not. And I don't wanna be racist or anything, but I always felt that English-speaking values and culture it’s sterile. There was something missing there. And the one that's one thing I agreed with my parents that the European background, we know how to live life and a bit more than just working 9 to 5 going home and that sort of thing.
TB: That's the affinity you felt.
TV: That's the affinity that clicked and then of course coming with my school, my public school, to Ottawa for a tour. Also, that was one of the visits that they organized. It was that whole idea. My God, I just where the government is and I became a political junkie.
TB: Did you have a sense that Ottawa was not a cultural center but more of a political center?
TV: It was not only a Cultural Center, but when we came here with our class from public school. It was the first time I saw a functioning bilingual environment where you could go into a store and you would hear French-speaking in English-speaking people they had a full-time French radio station, and a television station because, in Toronto, it wasn't until about 1970 that they opened up Radio Canada television station service. : What they had was once in a while they would carry French programs on one of the Hamilton stations, but there was no French-speaking television at that point until about 1970.
TB: So you already told me you'll have to do it again. The story of how you came to Ottawa, but I can already see you had a kind of affinity.
TV: Right. So yeah, so, I had this. I had this urge to become French-Canadian; Pierre Elliot Trudeau had a lot to do with it. He was my absolute idol and when I came here with my public school tour, it was the, you know, the end of public school. As such, we bumped into him getting, you know, he was getting into his car, and we got to talk to him. So you know it was, yes. So that was that was the first real step towards Ottawa. So what happened was I enrolled in the French program at Glendon College, York University in the 70s, and late 60s. It was a totally francophone college.
Lawrence and Bayview. Beautiful campus. Nice mansion. That and classes were very small and it was a totally French program. Today I think it's sort of transformed itself into a half-French program, a half York University English program. So I took two years there and learned everything from French Canadian literature to courses in French Canadian history, took courses in French, Canadian politics, nationalism, all of that.
And after two years, I I sat down with my counselor and I said this would have been 1970. I said well, listen, how can I really, really improve my French? Should I go to Quebec City for a summer job, or you know’ what are my options? And they said, well, you know what you could do, you could go to University of Ottawa. They have a fabulous program there where as an Anglophone you can take your history courses in French, but you can write your essays and your exams in English, so you get the best of both worlds and you get really immersed in French.
I said, well, that sounds fantastic. So I spoke to my parents. So, they were all for that.
And I arrived here at Ottawa U in my third year and this would have been 70, 71, 72 and loved it and never went back to Toronto and graduated.
TB: So you did three years?
TV: I did two years.
TB: Two years and then two years.
TV; Yeah, and it was fabulous.
TB: Got a job on thenHill?
TV: It's a student job.
TB: As a page?
TV: During the summer I worked in the post office.
TB: OK, yes, it's important.
TV: Sorting mail for the MP
TB: there was a lot more mail back then.
TV: Yes, it was fabulous. And then I became involved with the Liberal Party. It became a young liberal and that's a whole different story.
TB: yeah, I'd be curious to hear that too, but we should probably leave that. So, what were your first impressions? You talk very positively about your university experience. But I mean you the first time you kind of came off the train where were you, and where were you living? Did you get an apartment?
TV: We were living in residences. Well, you know what I have to tell you, the truth about some of it is rather wild. So, my father drove me to the airport in Toronto to come to Ottawa, and as we were driving to the airport, he gave me the father sons and he said, you know, we're so proud of you. You know, we have absolute confidence in you. We know that you're not gonna be a political radical. Umm, although I was, you know, a child flower child in the 60s and you know, a Beatles fan and you know, so I was a little bit of a cultural revolutionary. He said we have absolute confidence in you and we know you won't do drugs and alcohol and that sort of thing. And I didn't even smoke. So, you know, we know that you're gonna be a good boy. Oh, well, let me tell you about the first week in residence. I'm not even going to go into the details, but all of that just went out the window.
TB: Uh-huh.
TV: Alright, so my first impression of the society is that the society or the culture of the university residence culture was it was really dominated in immersed in the drug culture of the 60s.
TB: OK, you know, so even in this, we're talking about alcohol, hashish, marijuana.
TV: (nodding); LSD was very, very big. Let's put it this way. First week in residence and I was on the Marshawn residence right by the driveway there, the Nicholas Street.
I had marijuana for the first time, and I think it took me 3 mornings to wake up and not be floating above my mattress. I think or whatever it was. So, I indulged in that, but I knew what my limit was after that. And, so, as I saw my friends advancing from marijuana to hashish to LSD and that sort of thing, I would be in the room and I would decline. And quite sometimes it was quite different. Difficult to be the only person in the room that was there. Umm well, everyone else was hallucinating or doing what they were doing, but I don't blame them or anything. But yeah, that was my first impression was now my second impression was, well, coming from Toronto. This was the first time that I met people from small towns.Yes, from Kingston, Napanee, Apine, or whatever it is, they had an entirely different view of life.
TB: Yeah.
TV: And absolutely different values and I found myself to be the goody goody of the bunch coming from Toronto.
TB: From a strict European family, rebelling against their conservative environment?
TV: I don't know. I think it was just values that and again, you know I'm not being critical of these people because they were wonderful people. But for instance, you know, I'll give you one example. So, this you know, Thomas, we've got to shake you up here, like, get you into the real world. So, have you ever shoplifted? I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, you know, shoplifted go into a store and steal something. I said absolutely not. I've never done that, I said. How can you possibly do that without being arrested? So, they said to me they were like two guys from Kingston. OK, where you go to Spark St, there's a there's a Kreski's. Umm, we're gonna show you how to shoplift/
TB: They broke you in?
TV: OK, so we went. So, we go into the store and just one guy from Kingston, the leader of sort of our pack, said. OK, so this is what you do you see that lighter over there? This is winter. He said you have one glove here and one glove there.
So what you do is you pick up the ledger, you look at it and you put it on top of that glove and then when no one's looking, you take the other glove and you put it on top of that and you walk out of the store. Or so I looked at the lighter. I've never and it's just. I'm sorry I can't do it. I can't do it.
TB: you were a good boy.
TV: No, no, I you know it wasn't a question of being a good boy. I couldn't do the dare. It was a dare, I said, you know, like, I'm sorry. I mean you can call me a suck if you want to. I cannot do it. Then the second guy. I won't tell you his name, but he was wearing one of these huge leather cowboy hats that they were wearing in the 70s and it was a winter's day and there was like a Blizzard outside. So, we were the only people in this Kresky store. So, I, you know, defied the dare. So, this other guy said, well, you see the records over there, I'm going to go over there and I'm gonna steal one of the records. And I looked at him and I said the store is completely empty. There's three of us in this store, He's got this incredible hat on.I mean, I just said I said, you know what? I'm outta here. I'm going back to residence. You know, you guys can do whatever you wanna do. So went back to residence and an hour later the phones in the hall and I get buzzed, saying there's a phone call for you in the hall. I pick up the phone and it's the guy. Well, what do you want from me?
Where are you? I'm at the police station. They won't let me out unless somebody comes down and signs for me. And then you know, I can get out. And then I have to go to court, right?
TB: So that's just an example of values and I wish it would call that the teenage rebellion culture like these are wild and maybe they settled down and they're couple years.
TV: I think you know, again, I've never been brought up in a small town. You know, I've been brought up in the big city and I said, you know, a disciplined home, first-generation Canadian from a European family where it's, you know, you know, the father, the head of the family says, as long as you, as long as you live in my house and you he really said this: when I tell you to jump, you jump and halfway up I'll tell you how high. And if you don't wanna follow my rules and you go and get your own house, like, that's the type of, you know, European for general, you know, home that I was brought up and so looking at these people from small towns, I think they just had a different set of values and I think they saw Ottawa as the big city and that, that, and ou're right that here is a chance for them to act up.
TB: Yeah and rebel.
TV: And not be impressed with the bigness college.
TB: That was part of breaking away from your parents. I mean cycle and the value you know (verify)
TV: I must say that you're on to something. I had that same feeling in a sense, but I always had. A desire to push my parents and their insistence on Estonian background to the second level and bring my Canadian to the front level most of my Estonian friends remained in the Estonian culture, and I said to my parents when I moved to Ottawa you and everything I said, you know, this is an important step for me because you know what? I am Canadian first, Estonian background. Second, never, ever question that. So, I'm not gonna waste my time going to Estonian dance. Hmm group or the literature group, I said. I want the Canadian experience, so I'll take that time and I'll learn about French, Canadian literature, and culture. So, that was a little bit of my revolt. But there was a bit of patriotism thing.
TB: I want to go back to something you said because that might help to explain it.
You said, well, you identified as a flower child. Like you were influenced by The Beatles, but what did that mean?
TV: OK, you listen to the beat of people who give me, give you an example.
So classical music at home records, you know, but your parents control the record player. So, it was classical records. The only other music there was Nat King Cole, I think, and I think there were some Sinatra disks. So, one day I went out and I bought one of The Beatles albums. This would have been what, 66-65
TB: 1966 (actually 1964) when they were first coming in with the British invasion?
TV: Yeah. And I put and I put that on the record player in the living room and my dad. My dad walks in. What on Earth is that? What is that stuff, and take that off. And why are you playing this it? Because I like it. I like it and that was sort of it. I was surprised because he didn't challenge me on that. Usually, I was challenged on everything like, you know, they determined what type of haircut my mom bought me, all my clothes.
TB: you had a crew cut.
TV: Yes.
TB: And the Beatles cut?
TV; Oh please you know I was dying for that.
TB: So what?
TV: I'll give you an example of how I broke away out of that mode. So my mom wants in a while would give me Her Simpsons card retail card to go downtown to Queen St to buy her a particular fashion patterner or something, and then she would always say while you're there, why don’t you buy something for yourself? So, this would have been 68 I think. So, I went downtown to do some at the store and I bought her pattern or whatever it was. But by saw the Sonny and Cher bell bottoms with flowers and yellow and orange and checks and stripes and I said I have to be happy.
TB: Wow.
TV: Yeah. So, I bought them. I went home and it gave my mom-- my dad hadn't come home from work at that point-- and gave them my mom. I said to her, Mom, can you hem these pants for me? She's like you just take those things back right now. And when your Dad comes home, I'm gonna tell him, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, what I did was I went upstairs. I've never done any sewing or whatever it is. I went into my mom's sewing kit and I hemmed them, I don't know how I knew how to do it, but I shortened those pants. But I was afraid to come out of my room. So, I heard downstairs my dad was home and there was the usual call. Dinner time to go down. So, I go walking downstairs into the dining room and my dad and my mom were there.
TB: They are at the table.
TV: Yeah, at the table and I'm just like, I'm modeling these Sonny and Cher flower child, bell bottom pants. And you know what? They didn't say anything.
TB; You think they had discussed it?
TV: I don't know. I don't know, but nothing.
TB: No criticism?
TV: Absolutely nothing. From then on, I was able to change my clothes.
TB: You think they came to some sort of an assessment at that point, they viewed that as a threat. They were gonna lose their son, or what was the threat presented?
TV: I think it was cultural. I think it was saying that you know, like we wanted like at this straight European type of child you know a conservative and not into all of this.
You know, cultural revolution and everything, but it was sort of step by step.
So it was the music that I wanted to hear.
It was, you know, getting the bell bottoms.
TB: It seemed like the way you're describing it, you can tell me if I'm right or not for your parents it was a sense of you developing your own identity away from old Estonia, but they didn't see it as like you were becoming liberal, promiscuous?
TV; No, no, I think they also found it to be. A reality, you know, a reality in a sense.
And I think they understood that you know, I was growing and you know, at one point you have to show some respect and acceptance as such. So you know that was so the music, the clothes. And then after the pants, the hair became, you know, I could go to the Barber alone. And I could decide on, you know, but education, strict control. OK. And I'll never forgive my dad for high school. He forced me to take Latin for five years, and my God, I hated that.
TB: It's valuable for history.
TV: Oh please, are you kidding? I've never used it day in my life and and and my dad. You know, it was. Oh, my son, if you wanna be a lawyer, you wanna be a pharmacist? Do you wanna be a doctor?
TB: You have to know latin. . ..
TV: No, please.
TB: Latin died ten years later.
TV: I think the only thing it helped me with is learning French.
TB: Base for languages?
TV: Yeah, German. I you know, I've studied German. I've studied Russian, studied some other languages. You know how to parse sends a subject, adjective, adverb, that type of thing. You can go into different languages and that was the other great thing about the public school system and taking English was that they took. We took grammar. So you would take it was called parsing, so you would take a sentence in English and identify the subject that a squiggly line, the verb with one bracket for adjectives, square brackets for clauses that but the case is accusative, nominative, that sort of thing. And you really learn skills for almost any language, so this would have been about 2015 in Toronto. I took German cases are very important in German and I was the only I was the oldest person in the class I was the only person who understood when the professor was saying, well, in this particular case, this is the object and it.
But it's an object of the preposition, not the verb you know and we went into that and all the younger people in the class of single how do you understand it?
All of this stuff, it just clicked because my brother went to school five years after I did, and the grammar study had already changed from forgetting about subject-verb.
Just look at the sentence and learn it.
TB: So can you go a little bit back to Frosh week? It sounded like all these people, you know, all these people are coming from different backgrounds?
TV: Yeah, all over from Ontario.
TB: They're broken away from the nest of their parents, and it just seemed like it was a wild party. Do you remember what it was like? You were in a dorm, so it was a party?
TV: It was absolutely a party, party, party and you know whichever group that you belong to. You know, it was very difficult to study the group.
TB: You belong to the group, the people on your floor that you were assigned to?
TV: Yeah,, let's put it this way. All right, the favorite thing was let's skip class.
Oh my God.
TB: Right.
TV: You know, high school. You can't. You get a detention. At university, no one is checking it, so they're in this? Oh, it's not good. You know, let's skip class today and you know, go down to the penny for a beer or whatever it is, right? It got to the point where at the end of the second semester in 3rd year where you have to sit down with your professors and decide on what the subject is for your essay or whatever it is. Why would show up and the professor would look at me and say who are you? I have never seen you before, right? And as a result, I was called into the Dean's office and I was told point blank. Sorry, we're not going to allow you to go on to the 4th year program because your marks are a disaster for 30, for 30-year. Ohhh, my gosh, just like Alex Trebek who got a second chance.
TB: you pleaded.
TV; I know, I pleaded. And I pleaded and I said, look, this is would be the end of my world. You know, I could never go back home if this happened to me, you know?
Please, please, please give me a chance. So, they said. All right. Well, put you on probation. So first, first term, 4th year you're on probation. If you don't get over 65% in everything you know we won't allow you to proceed. Well, did I learn no more parties on Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Totally in the library all the time reading, doing my essays studying, regardless of what my friends said. So, the end of the term, uh, the officers were in the arts building the old arts building. That's where you had your nicer things were just starting to be computerized. Admins, admin, admin for administration. Obviously, we didn't.
TB: Ordinary people didn't have computers.
TV; So when I went to meet my advisor, I hadn't received my marks yet, because there's always a month delay before you get the paper thing in the mail.
So I have scheduled a meeting with my advisor. He said, OK, well, this is the moment of truth.
TB: Your marks?
TV: I'm gonna click in your file number, and all of the marks are filed now. So this is the moment of truth, and I'm just sitting there saying oh my God. Then the course they came in sort of what you said, 95, 86. You were a little bit uncertain, even though. No, no, I was just, you know, you know. And she's meeting them 95, 85, you know, 82.
TB: You did it.
TV: I did it, and from that moment on I knew what studying was all about, but that became a very important moment in my life, in the sense of second chances. So, this would have been the year 2004. When I was in Toronto, I had so many different jobs and I don't know if you want to get into that, but at one point I was teaching public relations in a three-year program at Durham College in Oshawa. I lived in Toronto.
I commuted so I had a three-year program and so I had students that just came out of high school or I had people who were adults, who were changing their careers.
So what I saw was there were many, many students in my first-year class that had trouble adjusting to skipping classes the way I did, you know, goofed around and I could have kicked them out of the program. I had that same serious talk with him.
And you know what? Mostly when they graduated, many of them, they were the stars, and won all the awards, and some of the people who were excelling in their first year never graduated in 3rd year, right? So I remember the convocation at one point for after, you know, at the end of the school year and at that college and all of the professors were sitting on the stage behind and then all of the students are named and they come up and they get their diploma and also they get their awards.
So we're sitting there and some of my students are coming up in a say, yes, and well, I kicked her out of my classroom. You know, I suspended him for a week because he, you know, he wasn't adjusting. So the little bit of discipline in the talks worked.
The second chance seemed to be really working, so the big value that I get from audible, you, and my own experience was in life. You need to give people a second chance and apply standards.
TB: Yeah, yeah. Apply standards and have a serious talk.
TV: Yeah, but don't just write them off. You have to explore. You know, an opportunity. So that was one of the big, big takeaways from (the university of) Ottawa.
TB: If I can just go back to the partying of the early years as one subject, I haven't gone into that, and you can feel free not to answer for whatever reason. But you know the hippie, the element of the free love movement, the pill, and everything else you know what I mean, there was a lot of alcohol and campus. You were talking about recreational judge drugs. To what extent was there, OK, a hook-up culture?
TV: OK. Actually, to tell you. OK, so I've always been gay, but I was never active until much later in life and I have to say that in my group. We were not aware that there was any sexuality going on in residence or on the campus. I think we were once in a while. We heard a story about, you know, people, you know, a couple hooking up or here. But in my particular group, no, there was no, no. It was more like goofing off and all that sort of thing, but no hookups, and sexuality was not really that evident in in our group. And it was perfect for me because one of the things that is not really openly discussed in many European families, that generation right- is sexuality. So I never had a discussion with my parents about sexuality until my God, my 40s, when I went home and we had that discussion about being gay.
TB: Do you think they suspected?
TV: You know, of course, parents know their children.
TB: They didn't wanna confirm, but they don't . . .
TV: I think they were just parking, you know, park it on the side and don't deal with it and don't. . .
TB: Yeah.
TV: So, do you want to hear this? I don't know if you want to hear that story, but that's really not related to Ottawa. OK?
TB: Well, you can tell whatever stories you want, but one of the things you mention, you were really a Francophile.
TV: Yeah.
TB: And the impression I got from other people I've interviewed so far, and I'm just at the beginning of the process, that anglophones and francophones, were relatively segregated in the sense that that the class work, there were English and French classes like today. And you know, there was some interaction in the dorms, there was the meeting of anglophones and francophones.
TV: Absolutely. I would say that in residence there was no differentiation between francophones and anglophones. Everyone mixed, particularly if you were having lunch or dinner at the cafeteria, you never knew who you were sitting with, but it was camaraderie. And you know, you had many really interesting situations where you had anglophones who didn't speak a word of French, and you had francophones, you had some francophones who didn't speak a word of French (meant English).
And to give you an example, one of the great things in residence was ordering a pizza at midnight.
TB: That is so universal.
TV: Yeah. So, I remember, one day I was responsible for taking the order and there was one guy in our group who was a francophone, who did not speak any English.
So my friends at that point were more or less high school French with a little bit of advancement here. And I remember speaking to him and confirming with him what do you want on your pizza?
TB: OK.
TV: And he clearly told me that the only thing he wanted on his pizza was anchovies.
And I looked at him again and I said, Are you sure? I'm Schwab, you know, like in this is what you want? So, the orders came in, and he gets his pizza, and he opens his box, and he has a fit because all it is cheese and anchovies and I said, but that's what you told me. And I asked you several times. So once in a while, like you know . . .
TB: Lost in translation.
TV: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other game in residence that was a lot of fun; and the radio stations and the school came on to it, was we would phone the radio station and say this is the University of Ottawa calling, and all classes are canceled tomorrow. It's a snow day and they would broadcast it over the radio saying that all classes were canceled at the University of Ottawa, right, and it caused total chaos. So finally, the radio stations in the university got smart and I think there was a code number that the university would give the radio station to assure them that it was a valid OK, a valid thing, right? So yeah, we got away with a couple of calls about snow days.
TB: You're gonna be a big star for the students. Cause a lot of things you've said are very insightful. We're dealing with society from within, and I just got to go over some stuff that I think I was good.
TB: Yeah.
TV: And then you can get.
TB: Maybe follow up.
TV: I just wanted to say a couple of things. So you know, coming to university; the University of Ottawa, of course, as you said the early 70s was a very important time in the world, of transition and just some of the events that are remembered that are related to that in Ottawa was November 1971, they were doing nuclear tests in Alaska and Chittka was the island and there was a lot of turmoil and anti-nuclear movement. And this was my first political expression, and it happened. And we organized ourselves into a demonstration and went to the American Embassy.
And I remember having this sign that said bomb Washington, DC, not Chittka!
So that was my, you know, first political approach tests.

TV: Then, in April 72, Nixon came to Ottawa and he came from the airport.
And his limousine went by the driveway just down there.
So, all of us ran from the residence down to the driveway to wave as his limo went by. So, I just remember that like a friendly wave, yes, I think it was a friendly wave at that point because, you know, he was the President of the United States. And although we protested this and that Canadians are thought generation was still very much in awe. This was the Big Brother, and we were the smaller
TB: OK, because when Trump and Bush came, they got a welcome too.
TV: September 72, the Russia-Canada hockey game.
TB: Yeah.
TV: We were all glued to the television sets in residence for that particular game, and it came across in the afternoon. I think it wasn't an evening broadcast because it was live and when they won and that final goal was scored, the whole campus emptied out downtown with Canadian flags and people were running all over the place.
So that was an event that I will never, never forget.
TV: Then there was a 1972 the election federal election. Pierre Trudeau was reelected.
But it was, I think, with a minority government at that point. So the political parties were very active on campus and recruiting and I was recruited to work for John Turner in AltaVista. Was that was sort of his writing and that's how I sort of became really involved with the Liberal Party at that point
TB: door to door?
TV: Yes, canvassing and knocking on doors. And you know, it was a really interesting canvassing technique for Turner. So, we as young people would go to an apartment building and knock on all the doors, saying John Turner would be in the lobby in 40 minutes. So, if you want to meet him, come downstairs in 40 minutes and you can talk to him. Then he would come down and we be at the next building, knocking on doors sort of things. So, it was really, really organized and he at that point was looked at as the JFK in waiting like the, you know, they don't of course, you know, Trudeau was the star and everything, but he was already there. But Turner was sort of looked at as the, you know, the leader in waiting.
TB: Yeah, yeah. Let's see. The History Department personnel or what I would love to know more.
TV: The History department, yeah. So, there were three particular professors of note that I remember from the History Department. Canadian history was what I was studying. There was Jacques Monet and I think he was a. . .
TB: an oblate?
TV: Yes, an oblate, leftover, and his specialty was the monarchy and the Constitution.
And I could not get over that because one of the values that stayed with me from my European background was monarchy. What the heck is that? Right? And, so I've always ended very British, so I've always rejected that. So I was sitting. . .
TB: Did they give you Geoffrey Elton to read?
TV: Yes, all those types of history. And he became the specialist on the monarchy in Canada for royal visits, and the governor. And I think he had some sort of a book with the Governor General or something like that. And then there was a Philemon Wallet. I think he was a brother as well. I'm not sure, but his specialty was French Canadian nationalism and politics, so he was the one that really gave me an understanding of the Quiet Revolution and an understanding the October Crisis and that sort of thing. Then there was John Trent, who I think was one of the longest-reining professors at the University of Ottawa, and he was a Constitutionalist as well, so I remember taking constitutional history with him. And then there was Dave Broadfoot from Toronto, and he was the first socialist professor that I really ran into.
And he wrote a book on the Depression and Canada, which is the Bible Broadfoot on Hatch. (verify) So those are the professors that I sort of . . .
TB: There was some Marxism on campus, but it was more in the social sciences?
TV: It's worse than I think, it must have been more in the social sciences because really, it wasn't really that evident in the history side because it was past political history, and since I didn't get any Russian history or maybe it came out of that or I didn't study European history as such. But in Canadian history, although there was socialism and Marxism in Canadian history, it really was social history more than political history. But of course, today we know it was a very significant movement now in in not only in Canada but in the United States, that has more or less been overlooked. But I think that's something that social history is really looking into.
TB: If I could ask you some basic questions that I think students might be very interested in. I mean, one of the things that students need to do in their advanced courses, in their third and fourth years, you have to write a term paper. So describe to me one of the term paper assignments that one of these professors would assign to you?
TB: OK. One good example and this would have been with Wallette. I believed in my studies that the Act of Confederation in 1867 was the Union, you know, of the Canadas. But in my mind, it was the separation of French and English because Quebec became its own province. Previously to 1867, Quebec was part of the Union of Upper Canada on Lower Canada, and he vehemently disagreed with that because he liked to focus on the Union, I wanted to write an essay saying that in fact, in many ways the Confederation Act of 1867 was an act of disunion as much as it was union.
TB: So where did you have this debate?
TV: In his office and his office in the little building with the crooked floors. And.
TB: Yeah.
TV: And he just would not hear of it. And then finally, somehow I guess you know he said. OK, I did so I wrote my essay. I made my point, and if I remember I got a very, you know, I got a very decent mark for it and that was the point that I've always wanted to emphasize in that particular area.
TB: How long was this term paper?
TV: This term paper would have been. 30 pages type double spaced.
TB: How many sources?
TV: Oh, come on. You know all those days, you know what in those days you go into the, you know, you go to the library says, why should, yeah. In those days, you go to the library with an index box, some recipe cards and elastic bands.
TB: OK.
TV: And you spend days and days leading these books and noting on these recipe cards quote page font. You know this. So at the end of your research, you've got like a box of recipe cards like this, and you have to sit down and play exact solid hair.
Map it out on. You know how on heaven's name are you gonna put this together?
TB: Yeah.
TV: OK, that was the challenge. And then in resident support, when is the best time to do this? After midnight, when people and you know, and so you're sitting there and you're typing.
TB: You went to the lounge to find a big table, which to arrange your cards?
TV: Well, no. I had them on the floor on the floor of my residence. And then, of course, you know, at 1:00 o'clock in the morning you're typing because the essay is due the next day and you leave things OK? So, it's like thing your roommates sleeping real people are coming knocking on. They're just, can you please tape your bell? You know, that sort of thing. So yeah, so, that's the way we that's the way you did your essays.
TB: These students are so spoiled they just do not understand. We have to go into detail.
TV: Yeah.
TB: Explain how a typewriter works and how
TV: Underwood was the brand.
TB: OK.
TV: And you know what? And then the only way that you could correct the mistake was by having this liquid, a white liquid that you could put on it.
TB: liquid paper!
TV: Whatever it is. And, oh, but just as an aside, and that was the course of working in government was if you were writing a letter for someone’s signature, you made a mistake in the last sentence. You have to start all over again because you cannot use liquid paper for a formal document. So, in those days it was a pain in the back.
Let me tell you, and then buying ribbons.
TB: What about footnotes when you decide to change. . .
TV: Yeah, I'm just wrong. My God, you have to. And let's put it this way. When I was doing, you know in the mid 2000s and doing my masters in social history and Toronto. What a difference. My God, you've got everything on your laptop and clean, clean, clean, clean. It's there. And now. Yeah, this paragraph and shift
TB: And now you have this, this algorithm, this chat GPT.
TV: Actually, you know what? I've actually tried it, and you know, and sometimes it comes up with an answer. You know, I'm new and I'm just learning about this.
Yeah, or sorry, I don't give medical advice. You know, there are certain, but yeah, but umm, I think I, you know and I know that professors have a very different view of this.
But the chatbot GPT you know, as long as you as the student understand what the chatbot is providing you with and you agree with it and you can source it and then identify that particular source. I wouldn't have a problem with it and I think maybe that's the compromise that, you know, scholars are gonna have to come to say that.
TB: Yes, you can use artificial intelligence.
TV: You can't deny it, but as long as you are able to go back beyond the well-artificial capture
TB: The problem is that the professors are still in the 1970s, the students already looking to 2040 when they don't have to do any work.
TV: You know you have to sort of. When again I wasn't that much of an academic professor. German college. It was more or less a, you know, communications course. And II did teach them communications history. And by the way, Mackenzie King, our first Prime Minister, was the first practitioner. Public relations in North America because who was the rich millionaire with the coal mines in the United States?
TB: Dale Carnegie?
TV: I think it was Carnegie or there was another one. Anyways, he went down.
There were coal mine strikes and Mackenzie King went down and taught him how to treat his employees, how to negotiate the strikes, and as things such as you know, what you have to have family picnics.
TB: The Harlan County War?
TV: Yeah, used to have that family picnics. And you have to do this so our Prime Minister and he was like an incredible Prime Minister during the war as well.
If you go back into actually studying what he did, all of the committees and organizations that he had to set up internally within his government during the IT is like totally amazing what this man did. He's identified as a Kook and all that sort of thing, consulting ghosts and everything. But the man was a genius, an organizational, administrative genius.
TB: Yeah. We were promised some stories about women on campus. That was one big theme, alright?
TV: This goes to orientation week, so orientation week is organized by in residence by the senior guys in the men's residence. At that point, we didn't have, you know, Coed residence. And so I was in Marshall, and I forget what the women's residence was called; Tabaret?
TB: No.
TV: yes, Stanton, and there were two towers. Men, women, and then the cafeteria joined on two towers underneath, right with a pool room. And that's where it was, you know, mingling. So the seniors in the men's residence organized orientation week, so there were a couple of highlights of orientation week. The first one was the panty raid. Talk about sexism. Alright, so the panty raid, so the senior guys in the men's residence, would you know, lined us all up the newbies and we would have been maybe 50.
TB: Hmm.
TV: I said OK, so we are now going to do a panty raid.
TB: So what you need to do is you need to storm the women's dorm and you need to get into a room and steal a pair of panties and come back and you can't come back until you bring some panties back.
TV: Oh my God. So, this I'm telling you, I am not exaggerating, folks. This was totally out of control.
TB: Like storming the castle.
TV: Oh where they project but it was totally unknown. Give control. So, in order to get into some of these dorms for the women to open at one point, I remember being in a hall where the guys got the water hose, and the fire hose out of the wall and started just blasting it at doors. Unfortunately, this one girl opened the door and the fire hose is going like right into her right into her residence room. People storm in and get their panties. At one point I remember looking at another open door and somehow somebody had taken honey or molasses and poured it all over.
Somebody staring.
TB: The women didn’t resist?
TV: Oh well, I don't think we. I don't think we were there long. Yeah, you know, it's like grab and run.
TB: So you hadn't shoplifted before?
TV: Well, no. And honestly, I wish I could say that I got a pair of panties I don't remember. OK, I don't remember, but I think I think in the back of my mind, I really knew that it was wrong because I'll tell you one thing, I've always looked at myself as a feminist because even in the so I started my first employment in Parliament in 1974 full time, and at that point, when women and men had different salaries and you know, but you know what, in my entire life, I have never internally differentiated between a colleague being male or female. They've always been colleagues, so I wouldn't understand the difference in salaries.
TB: So many people tell me that that they, didn't have this gender bias.
TV: No.
TB: But we did hear a story last night. One of the female students was talking about how when she would walk around campus they would whistle and pinch her butt.
TV: Uh, that, you know, like that I that I didn't see that. I didn't see, but again, there were two types of guys. I think there's like the not saying an enlightened but sort of the oblivious to gender type of people that I associate with. But there was always the type of guy, and once in awhile you meet one of these men. Adults today, where they refer to their the wife, Umm. And so, the remember there was one guy in our group who was going out with somebody and he always said my girl never used her name or something. Then I remember one time I said, I said, does she have a name?
Like, why are you always saying my girl? What is her name? Use her name for Heaven’s sakes, right?
TB: What did he say?
TV: He got very angry and told me to mind my own business, but I just found that, you know, or the wave, umm, uh now. So the panty raid was one thing, then let me tell you two things. You're gonna second thoughts about sharing yesterday, so we ran to the market and we got live lobsters.
TB: Oh no.
TV: Somehow we got into the women's dorm and went to the washroom with some of the girls were taking showers, and put the live lobsters into the shower through behind the curtain. And the screen. Can you imagine that? So yeah, I wouldn't wait.
Yeah.
No, that sounds like a plan.
OK.
TV: And I did this. I admit that I did this so 4th year when I was on the team of organizing.
TB: You were studious.
TV: Yeah. Well, no. Would have been. It would. Yeah, I would have been where I had to be studious.
You still?
I don't remember.
So then we said, OK, you know what?
We're gonna do with the with this new crew.
So we went into the washroom toilets and we took peanut butter.
We smeared it all over the seats so it looked like you know what?
Then we called the guys in line them up in the Washington.
Alright, who did this?
This is disgusting that I walked up to the toilet seat like this.
Right.
You know what? It's.
Can you imagine that?
And the other thing in the girl's residence was putting Saran wrap underneath the toilet of seat.
I've asked to be like the oldest joke.
Ohh, you know they didn't notice it.
Yeah.
Well, of course they did, because you know sort of thing before they sat down.
They would know.
Ohh yes, later then just.
I'm gonna give you two other little stories.
One was so these people from small towns, rabble rousers.
Uh.
Fire. Fire was.
I don't know.
They were.
This particular group was just like into fire, so 4:00 o'clock in the residence woman's residents, usually people come back from class, go up the elevator, go to the rooms, dump off their books, come down the elevator to go into the cafeteria.
So these guys went to the second floor and stopped the elevator and I was down on the 1st floor to see what being told to.
You need to stay on the 1st floor and see what happens.
So there's a mob of people waiting on the 1st floor get into the elevator.
The elevator comes down from the 2nd floor.
The people move forward to get in.
They had stuff newspaper on the floor of the elevator and set a fire.
So the doors opened and the leaves are coming up from, you know, and people Ruby forward to get in the elevator.
I could not believe that second fire story.
They took bed sheets and they tied them together and hung them out the window on the side of the building.
So the bed sheets went down four floors, then somebody went down to the bottom of the floor to the floor, where the bed sheet was, and lit it on fire.
So that the bed sheets were on fire all the way up to the, you know, so, these were some absolutely unbelievable. . . I don't know where the ideas came from. I can't believe that these people weren't arrested or expelled from residence.
TB: I have a question about it. It seems like the generation before the 60s generation, they did some of these stunts and there seemed to be a purpose for it, like fighting for social justice. Your generation seemed to be like animal house.
TV: It was just, yeah, playing. So this is, let me tell you that is I've never seen the movie because that's not the type of movie I would ever go to see to begin with, but from what people have talked about, yeah, it was like goons. It was just absolutely out of control.
TB: Craziness and I don't know, is it youth acting out their wild oats?
TV: Sewing up I think. Basically, I think it had to be made. I don't think everyone shared that particular view. I have a feeling it may have been mental problem or you know, psychology
TB: Were they more anglophones?
TV: These well, they were anglophones from small anglophone town. The francophones were more studious, more studious. I would say well from the group that I knew and the group that I would hang out with, you know that was my choice.
But no, I think that though this craziness, I think maybe it was something to do with the they're bup bringing or I can't say that it was like a value by the time other than it was insanity and maybe it was a branch of the orientation week where basically people were told to be crazy.
TB: Bbut they were rebels without a cause. There was no. . .
TV: Yeah, they were. Absolutely. They were. I think they were just crazy out to do. Business type of thing where you've testified very long.
TB: I don't wanna tire you out, but if you have at least 5 minutes, I'd have a few more questions about the department.
TV: No, no, absolutely ask me.
TB: I just wanted to just double check. I just wanted to return to something you mention before about fashion.
TV; Ohh great.
TB: OK, great.
TV: So wooden clogs
TB: Klompen?
TV: Yeah. So the from Europe about two years after everyone was wearing Caso was in Sweden at one point. At that point, Guy family there, everyone on campus was wearing wooden clogs.
TB: You don't see them anymore, right?
TV: But yes, so it wouldn't clogs bell bottom jeans and then cowboy boots and the cowboy boots were very special. They were the brown, tall boots with the square toe. Because the square toe would go into the is sterile.
Disturb.
TV: Alright, but So what? You would have to do what I was taught from these people, from the small town. I had to get pair of these boots to be cool, but to be really cool you buy the boots with the square toe. Then you have to soak the boots in water until they're soft. Take a hammer and then round out the square toe so it's round. So then you end up with the same cowboy boot.
TV: The type of thing food, the highlight of the cafeteria food, you know? Ohh my, it turns my stomach Hawaiian pizza. Can you imagine pizza with pineapple on it?
I don't know, but that was the go to invented, OK? And if you were sophisticated and you went out to a restaurant at that period, you would be ordering schedule Brionne for two.
TB: OK.
TV: Because you it only came for two, you would be drinking horrible sweet matuse wine. And for dessert, you would have Black Forest cake, Black Forest cake. That was like the top of it.
You know, if you're going out on a date with that sort of thing, and I think I have said.
Everything.
TV: So you can ask me 5 the questions that you want..
TB: You're gonna be a star witness, so I wanna go a little bit more into. I just wanna go back to something that you just mentioned like the clothes you wore. So once you came to campus, you were your own person. You could choose your own clothes. Did your hair go down? Did your shave less?
TV: Oh, you know what this where for one year. The rebellious year, when I didn't go to class and all that sort of thing. Yes, the hair came down to my shoulder. I was told when I went home for Christmas by all my relatives about parents that I looked like meathead on what was that program meathead? The American sitcom Edith and Archie Bunker.
TB: Archie Bunker, all in the family.
TV: Yeah, All in the Family. Yeah, meathead was the guy who married his daughter, right? So, the mustache I gained weight to that. I would look like meathead, so that's what I looked like. And then, yeah, the clogs, the bell bottoms and then, you know, basically sweatshirt or whatever it is. And that's how you dress.
TB: So yeah, it seemed like there was a hair war like the teenagers or the the university students would wear it long and their parents would definitely comment on it.
TV: It would be like the first thing when you came in the door, so that was kind of what it was. But Beatles started it right with The Beatles MOP.
TB: Yeah.
TV: Mop haircuts and then it became rather bohemian, I say.
TB: But did the parents generation, did they view that a rejection of their culture?
Or did they worry, what did this signify that you think?
TV: I think parents very much understood. At one point, you know, after The Beatles became accepted that that I think what The Beatles did more than just give us great music and help people like me rebel against my parents’ culture and everything was they made my parents generation, except the shift of generations. I think with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and the long hair and the fashion, the pair, that generation finally realized- the postwar generation-that there had been a generational shift and that they that they no longer were.
TB: So you had the Beatniks before. They were making some of these hippy ideas more mainstream and acceptable. They were transitioning into.
TV: I think that, I think the Beatnik culture that is there was there are two parts to that, the elitist poetry and you know, the artistic group and then the general.
Public kids that adopted some of the you know. So, living in Toronto and the 666768, the Yorkville Village which is now like one of the most expensive areas of the city was where all the coffee houses were. So, we would become weekend. So, what would happen is that you would dress up like a hippie on Saturday and Sunday and go and hang out there.
TB: And then go back home and transform into the regular person.
TV: Yeah, you know, so I think that was it, but no. But I think The Beatles helped and The Rolling Stones helped; the Ed Sullivan show. Yeah, they helped the post war generation to accept that the transition had been made.
And in particular, when Boston Symphony and some of these orchestra started playing classical versions of Beatles songs, because previous to that, that the afterward generation, this is trash, this is garbage. It isn't even music. Well, we're in Arthur Fiedler started incorporating Beatles songs into his Sunday concerts, and they started playing that on the radio. All of a sudden that generation of my parents were saying, well, really
TB: What about the relationship between music and dancing? Did your parents have an issue with dancing?
TV: I think dancing is every generation. I think it's accepted by every generation.
You have to keep up with the changes in dancers. I don't think dancers big as with music, right? Like I think it's an accepted thing that you've got to dance the latest dance craze that's part of dancing.
TB: Did they feel that rock'n'roll was connected to sexuality in some ways, like there was a joke in in Michigan that you didn't have sex standing up because it could lead to dancing, like the ministers would forget if you promote.
TV: Yeah, but isn't that the whole in the United States, the whole thing about, you know, black music bleeding juristic and I don't think we have that in Canada.
I don't think that because you know, like Tian, Warwick and the Motown sound and all that that, you know, I was brought up in Toronto and yeah, it's we worship that.
TB: Yeah.
TV: And there was not a problem with. Don't think that or with Elvis. Maybe with Elvis Presley? From what I've read, you know the hips and all that sort of thing at the very beginning. Yeah, maybe that was a big issue, but that was sort of a little bit before, before my time.
TB: Did you listen to funk music during those times?
TV; What did I listen to? I'm trying to what I listened to was Bob Dylan here on campus and remember having his records, Neil Young, we worshipped because he just came out with his two big albums, right
TB: Harvest?
TV: That was the later one. Canada's Gordon Lightfoot. But definitely which rock wise it would have been Alice to be cool, right? So, you know, I had limited music experience in Toronto. So coming here, I learned to love Alice Cooper. You know that that type of thing, but just to get back to dancing and, you know, I don't wanna the sidetrack.
TB: So you're saying about, we know, did did older generations present the changes in dance music and let's put it this way.
TV: And when disco came in, I was in high school. Sorry, no, I was at Glendon College at that point. And the discos were in Yorkville as well. So I remember going out with my friends to this disco in Yorkville. And so we show up at this disco. We go into this disco, we get seated and we're ready to go on the dance floor.Lo and behold, my mother and father are dancing on the dance floor.
TB: Hmm.
TV: Ohh my God, I said. Let's get the hell out of here. I think it was called Applebee's or Apple bums or something like that. Yeah, that's so, I don't think parents. So they want they want to be cool.
TBL Just five more minutes. Walk me into Monet’s classroom. How many women are there? How many men? How many people have long hair? What is the class like?
TV: OK, so I don't think there were very many women in any of my Canadian history classes that I remember, but it was everybody basically looked the same. I think everyone had long hair.
TB: Mm-hmm.
TV: Or longish hair and most people were wearing clogs or, you know, it was sort of like it's a thing.
TB: how big were the classes?
TV: There were maybe 10 people, 11 people. There were a few classes held in a different building where there may have been 20 people at the most. One of the great things about classrooms and courses that you had to take was you had to take philosophy in order to get a history degree.
TB: Critical Reasoning?
TV: Ohhh my gosh did that come useful in life. Ohh my Lord. Absolutely.
And that's what I've always said to people is you can tell the difference between someone who's taken philosophy and is university educated in someone who is just high school educated, because when you get into a discussion with somebody who hasn't been in university, everything they talk about was from personal experience.
I saw I did. I heard my friend.
TB: Did you know somebody from university?
TV: Its ideas OK, it's not at all based on personal experience. You take an idea from somewhere and then you incorporate it into your argument or your discussion. It's very, very rarely is it based on personal experience, but yet people who don't have that benefit of that post secondary education are very much restricted to the real physical world. What they've experienced, what they've seen, that's the limit to their discussion.
TB: Did you, when you were on campus, did you go to high culture places like the Arts Center, the cinemas?
TV: Yes, that would go to the to the Art Center to see all of the French singers and this little church on the corner.
TB: Sacre Coeur
TV: So I could OK it burned down in 1978. I think when it was still going when I was here. They had a little coffee club in the basement. All and, you know French Canadian artists had a very limited area for gigs.
TB: Mm-hmm.
TV: And they're, you know, and they didn't earn all that much money. So all of the famous Quebec singers would come to this levia cloche, it was called, and they would sing in the basement. So, it was like money from that generation money clairac, he said. They'll Pierre and explode, Claude debois. Robert charlebois.
And you know, so, you know, all these French singers and some absolutely.
TB: Yeah.
TV: And the running anglophones friends know those as well or yes, because the yeah, even the notorious gang, we would go down to, we would go, we we would go to that. But I was sort of the Francophile, leading the group, right?
So, even once I graduated, when I was living here in Ottawa with my anglophone friends, I was always the guy who would say, OK, you know, Salvatore Adamo, you know, Saki is coming to the CNA. We've got to go and see him. Aznavour is coming.
They called is coming. We must go and see, you know, even if you never heard of him, is important to go and see, right.
TB: Yeah., I mean, you're gonna be a big star here.
TV: I don't really.
TBL You got you got us into some really important topics,
TV: But definitely, you know, if you're talking about women and sexism, it was very much evident.
TV: Umm.
TB: In the values that that time, unfortunately, and I don't know what and again I'm trying to think, I don't think there were very many very many. I don't think there was a single history for Canadian history professor who was a female. No, at that particular time and the students who were talking less than 10%.
Yeah.
TV: And I I did have the only female professor that I had during my two years here . . I I took a course in Canadian literature which you believe it. She was from Dallas, TX with a heavy Texas accent and she said alright folks, you know this time of year I'd be at the Cotton Bowl and the Sun would be shining and and you know, blah blah blah.
And now let's open our books and turn to page 59. We're gonna study a poem by Al Purdy. And you know what? And then I want you to read the poem on page 9 to 5. Leonard Cohen. Yeah, it was really interesting to have an American from. I don't know what she's doing. You know how she ended up studying Canadian literature?
TB: Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
95% of Canadians didn't even know who else heard he was at that point. Right?
So yeah, so definitely even within faculty, there seemed to be a big lack of females and it could be the religious background at that point of the a lot of Jesus, the Jesuit tradition, classical studies at that point. But I tell you this university is fantastic.
And I am so proud of it. I want, you know, I'm supporting it because it is contributing a lot and just walk along. Go to the cafeteria. Look at the young people you know.
I was talking to a few of them yesterday when we were having lunch and you know there one guy was studied kinetics. I don't know, I think this is like chemistry, engineering or whatever it is,
TB: It's human kinetics?
TV: Yeah. So I said to him, I said, what in hell’s name do you wanna do with kinetics?
And you said, well, I'm still trying to figure that one out.
TB: Yeah, it's like movement at the body.
TV: OK, there these electrical shocks and no, it has to do
TB: Like we're kind of biomechanical wrecks cause we don't walk properly and everything else.
TV: So, he could get into like sports fitness or something like that makes.
TB: yeah.
TV: Well, listen, I hope that I haven't. insulted anyone. Personally, I haven't mentioned names.

-END INTERVIEW