westlakemusings

Bertie McLam Cole (my grandmother) was a preemie baby. She was born during a particularly cold February night in 1893. For the first tentative weeks of Bertie’s life she lay swaddled up and toasty, sleeping on the open oven door. She was a survivor and carried this determination all throughout her long life.

Bertie came from solid stock. Her father, my great grandfather Noble McLam was born in Norwood. His wife (Roxy Swackhammer) was born in Acton but a descendant of Pennsylvanian Dutch immigrants who came to Canada from the USA at the time of the American revolution. Noble was the local blacksmith of Acton. He and his family were active members of the United Church and Noble was a past Master of the Masonic Order. Bertie lived on the family farm until she married.

John Cole (my grandfather) was thirty-four years of age and already grey headed when he married Bertie. He grew up on the outskirts of Acton, coming from equally long pre Confederation roots. (his grandparents immigrated from Wales in 1831) Apparently, John had a lifelong tendency to move and he changed jobs frequently. Once married, they lived briefly in Detroit and Chatham Ontario where he worked in as an accountant in the young automobile industry. They were a family of six when John and Bertie purchased their first home on Erindale Avenue in Toronto.   Bertie always believed John, an avid baseball fan, wanted this house because it was so close to the Viaduct Park. Baseball games in this particular Toronto park drew large crowds in the mid 1920s.

In 1928, just on the cusp of the great Depression life suddenly turned upside. John Cole died.   Bertie was left on her own with four young children under the age of 10. My Dad and his younger brother Jack were sent off to live with Noble and Roxy until they reached school age.   The Erindale house was reconfigured; kids sleeping together, Bertie on the daybed in the dining room and all of the other spaces including the back stoop were reserved for boarders. For the next forty years, in this house or in Bingham Avenue, even in her Main Street apartment she rarely had a place all to her own.  There was always the sound of strange footsteps coming from the upstairs hallway. The tenant, or a son come home to live.

I think Gramma Cole would have liked to have been defined by her full-time job. Early in the 1930s she began working at the prestigious Women’s Canadian Club of Toronto. She was their loyal employee for some thirty-nine years. This job largely consisted of serving tables at the ladies’ luncheons but in later years she was promoted to the role of Hostess. The Club was located on Bloor Street east and Gramma Cole enjoyed window shopping while she rode the Queen street car to and from work every day.

She was proud of this club and her association with it. She often spoke of what the Toronto society ladies were wearing and who was lunching with whom. I never understand how she managed given that she was quite hard of hearing in her later years.  I recall how angry she was when at the age of 81 the Toronto Women’s club forced her into retirement. That Club had been everything to her.

Money was always tight in this household. All four kids, from a very young age, held down multiple jobs: up before dawn to deliver newspapers, again after school, bagging groceries, delivering for the pharmacy. They all were expected to contributed to the house hold expenses. With rent from the tenants, making do, passing down, this family of five got by.

During World War II all three boys saw action overseas. As a mother, I can’t imagine how Bertie coped during these horrific years. The worst possible news arrived by telegraph just three weeks before the end of the war. Curtis Cole, her eldest son was shot down in France. The family was now down to four.

Life has never been easy for Gramma Cole. She always worked hard, saved for her nice things and always held up her end. A pleasing apartment was one of her few indulgences. She would fuss over the right upholstery fabric to recover a couch or bring home several difference carpets just to try out. If she had any hobbies or interests I don’t recall other than her love of interior decorating.

In my memory, Gramma Cole never changed her appearance. In every one of our family photos her hair is neat and white. She was always pictured sitting inside, wearing a dark simple dress and very sensible black shoes. She is never smiling in any of those photos. Did she ever garden, shovel snow, bake? Did her hair ever blow in the breeze?   I have no reciliation of her having a real life.

I never referred to this woman as Nanny or Gramma. I think that says a lot about our relationship. She was always addressed as” Gramma Cole”. There were no hugs or snuggles. No sleep overs. Maybe she didn’t like kids. She lived in an adult world and we expected to behaved.

She kept a clean orderly home but I don’t ever recall eating a meal there. No running in the halls less we disturb her tenant.  Perhaps her loss of hearing in those later years are partially to blame for our lack of connection.

I think my grandmother can best be described as a reliable employee, discreet at work, sensible, serious and hardworking.

In her mid 80s, Gramma Cole suffered a stroke. Her residence and personality took a change at this point.  She gave up her apartment and moved into a nursing home in our neighborhood. For the rest of her time this independent and proud woman was weepy and fearful. She died less than one year later and was buried in the family plot in Acton Ontario.

I’m the last one who should be writing about Bertie Cole. I didn’t much like her let alone love her as a child normally loves their gramma. I guess that is the point. I am the last one. Everyone else who might have known that young bride, that busy mother, that dedicated employee is now gone. No one else can bear witness.

I believe this stoic proud woman deserves at least one page, typed, spell checked and saved on a laptop file.  At this point, my kids show no interest in their great grandmother, but she once lived and sacrificed and through her came my wonderful father, then me, then them. Such is history. Fading in the dispersing fog of time.

 Art has always been a part of my life. Both my maternal grandparents and my parents collected beautiful paintings.     My father coveted his Asian art but also took an interest in Toronto’s new modern art movement. I was encouraged.  When I was six my parents enrolled me in a Saturday morning community centre program – my first art class. To follow have been countless lessons, clubs, workshops and retreats.  Through the study of colour theory and painterly techniques I have developed a great appreciation for the value of art – achieved through the artist’s skill, talent and dedication.

The Art Galley of Ontario (AGO) feels like an old family member to me.  The first two floors of this art gallery contain my closest and dearest. We usually meet up several times a year. Each painting tells a story.   I breathe it all in. The gold leaf frames, the medieval Christian scenes. How many times have I stood in front of the jewel toned Dutch masters and marvel at those huge old panels? They are a feast for the senses. The fur on the hanging rabbit pelts glistens and the stiff lace collars and velvet folds beg to be touched. So much dewy pink flesh. This art has given me a visual understanding of time and place – history became alive

If you follow the halls of AGO along to the east wing, you will come to the Impressionist.   Such technique. These artists are magical alchemist. Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Renoir all knew how to transform colour into light. So beautiful. So clever. Tiny dabs of pigment sharing the same values, sparkling and radiant. It defines romance.  I never tire of these old friends.

A visit to the Canadian twentieth century expressionist is always my last and favourite stop: the famous Group of Seven, and David Milne. I particularly love the snowy landscapes.  My heart swells with patriotism.

My father shared my love of art. It was our “thing”. I fondly recall in the 1970s we would take trips together downtown to view the galleries. Perhaps my love of art is connected in some way with a daddy complex. I remember him explaining the significance of Mary Pratt’s painting. It was in a gallery on King Street and Toronto was all a flutter over this new feminism movement. The nerve to present pictures of domestic everyday life as worthy art. Mary Pratt’s luminous fish and tin foil were puzzling.

Dad and I struggled to understand the changes creeping into the art world. We both loved Albert Franck. He was one of the first to paint ugly downtown Toronto in the winter. His backyard scenes are quite recognizable, always containing snow, red brick homes and wooden lean-twos in back alleys.   Harold Town’s quirky expressionist style was another favourite. In 1969, Dad and I attended the opening of the Toronto Dominion bank towers designed by the world-famous architect Mies van der Rohe.     International attention was starting to shine on sleepy old Toronto.

The 1960 and 70s were all about Modern Art, throwing out the traditions of the past in the spirit of experimentation. It was the time of pop art classics such as Marilyn Monroe and Campbell Soup Cans. The AGO installed Claes Oldenburger’s giant hamburger installation.   Art was fun.      “Be there or be square”.

In the 70s, 80s, I became aware that art was all around me, influencing what I wore, where I chose to eat and the car I coveted to drive.   Art was in design. Art was in advertising. The outdated AGO went through a massive Frank Gehry renovation expanding to make room for more conceptual artist.   The works of Charles Pachter and Michael Snow were some which I could appreciate.

The contemporary art movement is defined as any art created in our life time.   In the 1980 I worked for a corporation which owned an enormous collection of Canadian art. I my office was a Jack Bush painting.   For ten years I stared at two vertical lime green swatches intersected by an orange stroke. Technically a giant H on a white background. This was my first encounter with the new colour field movement. Ridiculous. Such a rip-off but as the years slipped away I grew to love this piece very much. The purity of these intense colours.   I regretted not stealing it when everyone but me was laid off and the office closed.

These days I rarely venture above the second floor at the AGO and generally do not have the patience for most contemporary art. My focus is still back on the execution of the installation not on the artist’s concept.   Much “Postmodern” art often relies on videos and multimedia. We become a part of the experience and the reaction is the message.   Post-Humanism art or cyborg art interprets the increased presence of technology in our daily lives.   Meta-Modern art is self-reflecting and is often a protest.  I “get” some of it but the message is often ugly. For example –an installation showing a real urinal atop of a marble pedestal. Is the statement that the urinal is art or is it saying art is a urinal?

I want to dismiss metamodern and post-humanism art the way I once ruled out the colour field movement of the 60s. I believe the art world wants to be seen as complicated and intellectual when in fact I see it as hollow and dried up. It all feels like the “Emperor and His New Clothes”. To speak up and say that this is not “real” art would expose you as dull and out of touch. To me, Metamodern art is much like a millennial obsessed with taking selfies in front of a mirror. The focus is on the self-looking out on the self. Totally self-absorbed in the act of self-absorbing.   It feels so narcissistic and ultimately meaningless.

Has contemporary art evolved into a new medium?   Do we need a new word to encapsulate this form of self-expression?   Is it still art?

Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes, has a fitting artist statement that applies to much of art today. He writes:

“my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance”.

We cruised west for some time, Frank behind the wheel, Kiki Dee chirping on the radio. I was relaxed, looking out into the dark. The cast glow of overhead street lights and store fronts flickered past, marking passage like a metronome. We were somewhere out St. Clair West. I didn’t try to figure it out. This was not my part of the city. Streets running perpendicular to the familiar grid. Streets like Scarlett and Rogers Road always confused me. I assumed Frank was driving us over to his place.

Frank. My Italian Stallion. I had met him a few weeks earlier. My two roommates (old school chums) and I were at an upscale dance club called Heaven, in the Hudson Bay Centre boogieing under the glitter ball.   Frank and his two friends Elio and Enzo started buying us drinks. These boys had all the moves and in no time we were paired off: Frank and me, Sue and Elio, Nancy and Enzo. It worked out perfectly. Each of us had our own personal Rocky Balboa.

This was the summer of 1997. Sylvester Stallone was number one at the box office, the Bee Gees ruled the air waves and I was crushing a Dorothy Hamill wedge haircut. Since graduating from university one year previously we had all gotten great jobs, moved downtown and with our combined wages, we easily carried the rent on a three-bedroom walkup in the Annex. We shared our closets, food and wasted our money on Barbara Streisand and Haygood Hardy records, shoes and makeup.

Dancing, Dancing, Dance the night away

I loved the dance club scene. Spinning, twirling on my platform shoes under the flashing disco lights. Energized and in the moment. Music pounding, driving.  Later, much later, we girls would pile into a taxi and head home. I was living a Mary Tyler Moore life.

Frank was like no one I had ever personally known. He was from a different world.   He was very Italian. He was Catholic. He was from the west end. I grew up in south east Scarborough.   I recall his appearance though. Frank was quite tall 6’2 with a line backers body; board muscular shoulders, strong forearms and narrow hips. He had a roman nose and I swear, a cleft in his chin.   Around his neck he wore a gold horn of plenty charm on a chain. I remember this because the top buttons of his shirt were usually undone.   Frank was the first man I had ever lusted after.

That night, as we left the downtown core there were fewer and fewer cars. It was well after midnight and the streets were empty in this strange neighborhood. After several minutes of driving, Frank slowed the car down. We pulled down a darkened road. Bump, bump over street car or rail way tracks.   It was dark all around us now. I guessed we must be in a park.   The headlights picked up on two darkened buildings. Frank pulled the car into an alley. Perhaps it was a deserted industrial area. Total darkness surrounded us. It never occurred to me to be nervous. I was with Frank. I was an independent educated woman.

Frank turned the engine off and leaned over towards me. He glided his big mitt of a hand around my neck and pulled my head closer. The whiskers on his chiseled jaw felt rough. Another new experience. I had never dated anyone who really needed to shave before. He nuzzled my hair with his lips. I recall drawing in his musty scent of Brut cologne and something kind of barnyard. I excused his manly odor I think he worked in construction, and I accepted his kiss.   At the same moment, I was kind of wondering what the game plan was? Where were we and how long were we staying here. This wasn’t high school. I didn’t make out in cars.

Suddenly an unmistakable sound broke the moment. Quite loud, quite clear, and very close. I jerked my head back. That was the sound of a cow.   Mooing. Suddenly more bovines joined in. We were surrounded by bellowing cows in the dark. I screamed. Frank chuckled. He explained that we were parked at the Toronto stockyards. All around us were caged cattle awaiting slaughter in the morning.

To be fair, Frank was a gentleman and promptly drove me home when I asked to leave immediately.  It was over. Our magic dissolved. Sue and Elio continued for the rest of the summer but it seemed that Frank and I didn’t have much in common. We had misread who each other really was.

That experience still stands on record as my worst date ever. In retrospect, I was lucky. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t violated. It didn’t change my love of discos and the music of the 70’s.

I went back to dancing, dancing, dancing the night away …..   but with other partners.

Most Saturday nights you could find us congregated around a coffee table in someone’s rec room or campus dorm. Tethered to our rum and cokes or vodka and orange and always within reach of the ash tray; we would just hang out, talk, play cards and listen to albums. To us music was a necessary; a basic level in Maslow’s life needs: food, shelter, sleep and music. We all smoked in those days, cigarettes and occasionally pot – choosing to ignore the Surgeon General’s reports.

Without a lot of fanfare someone would pull out their bag of weed and pass a burning joint around the circle. If I had the opportunity, I’d often volunteered to roll it. It was my thing: always perfecting my craft – slim and tight with no flying seeds to pop and burn.

The room would fill up with a smoky haze.

I recall one particular evening when a frozen Oreo dairy queen pie made an appearance. It was set down in the center of the coffee table and each of us was handed our own spoon.    We morphed into a pack of wild dogs; shoulders pushing against shoulders, fighting our way into the circle to shovel up our share.   A monstrous scoop of Oreo ice cream was packed into my salivating mouth. I could barely close my lips around it. Instinctively my tongue started to work rolling and sucking the frosty goodness.   Then, for a shadow of a nano-second I time traveled to a heavenly world of sweet and coldness. It is almost orgasmic.   I am blissfully content. Uh… my brains to registers a new incoming signal.  The contents of my mouth have liquefied and slipped away. The afterglow dissolves. Must have more.   I dive in for second and third, and fourth spoonful.   In under two minutes the entitle frozen pie is gone. Nothing as ever tasted that good before or since.

Time for another joint.

Our smiles stretch out and push up into our cheeks; actually, reducing our vision.

“Look at how squinty your eyes are!”

On the table among the glasses, packs of smokes and wet condensation rings sits the sad remains of our frozen pie – scrapped clean of its icy contents. Someone stabs at the packaging with the end of their spoon.

“Hey, this has a secret bottom. Its chocolate graham cracker. Oh My God. I thought that part was cardboard.”

What? We lean in to investigate. It’s like multiple fireworks erupting in our brains at once – revelation!   We had somehow forgotten to eat the sugary chocolate biscuit bottom. It’s crazy. Once again, we scramble to find our spoons. Like human trash compacters we destroy the tasty shell in seconds.

How could we have missed the bottom? Really? We find it hilarious. For the next ten minutes we squeal and roll with gulping out of control laughter. We can’t stop. Its exhausting. Just when we think we are settling down, someone snorts and sets us off into another bout of spontaneous, sidesplitting euphoria.

That’s what weed does to you.

Good times – long ago