Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
The student residences at the University had been turned over to the Royal Canadian Air Force as billets for the men studying to become pilots and service crews. They were all gone soon after the end of the war and the university spent the summer redecorating. I was bunked that fall of 1945 in Room 305, at the southeast corner of the north wing of Athabasca Hall. At first I shared the room with Merv Stewart (whom we called Alan Ladd), but once they had completed the renovations he was moved to his own room.
A few years after my deparure from the halls of learning the Student's Union were paying their President an annual salary and had completed the construction of a lovely-stand alone building that had an impressive meeting room and a private office and secretary for the Student's Union president. Fortunately none of these 'perks' were available to spoil my attitude when I had the position. The Student's Union office in those days was a small room in the basement of one of the residence buldings. It must have been near the kitchens because when the door was unlocked and opened and the overhead light switched on one could watch as the dozens of silverfish fled from the surface of the floor seeking cover below the wainscoating.
After standing quietly listening to the dreamy simulated 'soft-shoe shuffle' of the fleeing silverfish I decided that there was nothing in the office to draw me back; I managed to make it through the year with a minimum of night time visits. I thought in retrospect of the superabundance of silver fish but the scarcity of cockroaches. Was it possible that they had eaten so many silverfish they had become jaded? Nah!
It was my responsibility to appoint a proctor for the residence. I appointed Harvey. This was admittedly an exercise in perverse psychology. Using the the theory that 'it takes a thief to catch a thief', I figured that if anyone were plotting nasty behaviour and impertinent actions, who better to anticipate and deal with him than the nasty and impertinent Harvey himself?
Do you remember me telling you about Harvey when I was talking about the 'old' days in Scarboro? He lived across the alley from the McInnes boys and across the street from Billy's. We were standing at the curb in front of Harvey's house one day when he picked up a plum-sized stone and rattled it off the side of Billy's house.
'What'd you do that for?' I asked incredulously.
'Because it's there!' he replied, with a diabolical smile.
The year I spent in residence at Athabasca Hall was in no way boring. Was it testosterone or innate mischievousness that inspired the pranks that took place that year? I was studying quietly in my room one afternoon when I heard a jet-like 'whoosh' and a wave of heat that seemed to come from the door of my room. I turned my head but could see nothing, although there was a faint odour of burnt gasoline in the room. I adjusted my chair so I could watch the door out of the corner of my eye. I didn't have long to wait. About three minutes later I was astonished to see a plume of flame shoot into the room from the vicinity of the door handle. It stretched about four feet into the room, then disappeared as quickly as it had come.
I shot across the room and yanked the door open. There was a grinning Jerry 'Wiggie' Wiggins kneeling by my door with a hypodermic needle in one hand, a can of lighter fluid in the other.
'Oh, hi there,' he said. 'I just happened to be passing by..!'
'A likely story,' I said. 'You could burn the whole goddam place down with a thing like that--where did you get it, anyway?'
'I borrowed it from Lawrie.' Lawrie was his older brother in his final year of Medicine.
'Fascinating!' I said. A short time later I was working my way down the hall with him, vandalizing various items we found in other student's rooms. We injected Tom Ford's orange with a syringeful of Quink ink and a nice ripe banana of Gunner's was even more plump after an injection of hair oil. The hypodermic needle left no perceptible mark on its victims. We felt quite clever following our depredations and only wished we could have been present when the lads decided to devour their goodies. We wanted to see the looks on their faces.
Another resident I was having difficulty disciplining was the residence's proctor, Harvey, ostensibly in charge of discipline. Ironically, it turned out that Harvey's room was directly above that of his old quarry, yes, you guessed it, Billy, who else? He plotted his next provocation for several weeks until one weekend when he learned that Billy had gone home to visit his parents.
The windows at the residence were of the old counterbalanced sash weight type, so the top portion of the window could be opened partially and the bottom portion closed. Billy had left the top portion of his window open about a foot, ideal for Harvey's Rube Goldberg-type plans. He had lined an old beer case with plastic and fixed ropes to each of the flaps. He had an associate station himself on the sidewalk below the north side of the building to guide the water-filled box into position outside the window. When the signalman indicated that the carton was perfectly positioned Harvey pulled up slowly on the outer rope and watched gleefully as the water poured systematically out of the box through the upper window opening.
When Billy returned from Calgary he took one look at the soggy mess in his room and stormed immediately upstairs to Harvey's room.
'Somebody deliberately wrecked my room!' he shouted.
'Good heavens! Wrecked your room? How could they do that? Didn't you lock the door?' Harvey asked compassionately.
'Of course I locked the door! Do you think I'm stupid?' Harvey chose not to answer.
'All my physiology notes are ruined!' Billy moaned. 'You're the Proctor; you better find out who did this and do something about it!' The irony of the situation was almost laughable--on second thought, it was laughable.
'It rained quite heavily for a while last night,' Harvey said, thinking with machine gun rapidity. 'You didn't leave your windows open, did you?'
'Um,... as a matter of fact, I did!' Billy said guiltily.
'Well, there you go! That's your answer! By the way, I can't tell you how sorry I am about your notes.' Meanwhile, his inner devil was laughing uproariously. Billy left the room unconvinced.
There were side entrances to the residences at each inner corner and I was just about to enter the one on the north side one afternoon when I sensed something whistle past my head and land with a SPLAT! on the sidewalk. I glanced down and saw the remains of a latex condom lying in an expanding puddle of water. I didn't hesitate. I climbed the stairs to the third floor and went directly to Wiggie's room. I entered without knocking. He was sitting at his desk with his head bent over an open text book. I just stood there without speaking. He slowly turned his head and looked up with an expression of childish innocence which gradually merged into one of quizzicality. I remained silently staring at him. Finally, he could restrain himself no longer and his face broke out in a wide smile followed by a rumble of laughter.
'Suspicions confirmed,' I said, 'I knew it was you, you cunning prick!'
'Sorry I missed!' he said, 'I guess your head was too small a target!' And so began the Great Water Bomb Wars. In retrospect I realize that exam time was imminent and as any former student knows this additional stress seemed to release otherwise inactive hormones that affected the behaviour of all involved.
I hadn't made paper water bombs for many years but the ability seemed to return quickly with a bit of practice. The paper is folded in a manner similar to the 'origami-like' construction of a standard paper hat with a few modifications. The glossy paper from a high quality magazine is preferable for fashioning the ideal bomb. The glossy paper prevents early sogginess and leaking and the bomb itself, slightly smaller than a standard baseball, is ideal for throwing.
It was decided that the preferred initial targets for the bombs were the students returning from class at noon and walking along the entrance sidewalk into the front of Athabasca Hall. All that was needed was an appropriate launching site. Just by coincidence, Room 305 seemed ideal. That was my room! Naturally I agonized over whether I should participate in such a mischievous scheme.
When I had agonized for some time (about five minutes) I found myself able to involve wholeheartedly in the endeavour, assuring myself that 'the Devil made me do it!' I blush to admit that I even contributed one or two suggestions that would 'fine tune' the operation. For instance, if we left the bottom portion of the window closed and opened the top section sufficiently to allow the unhindered flight of the missile we could effect an almost perfectly undetectable launch. As soon as the water bomb was thrown, co-conspirators would draw the roll-based blind down to the top level of the lower window, giving the impression from outside that all was tranquil, if not deserted, on the third floor. Three or four interested participants were usually on hand for the noon ritual but, of course, all were required to stand well back in the room to allow them to judge the accuracy of the flights without being observed. Persons in the 'incoming' missile zone would look up, startled, as each bomb landed on or nearby them, but were unable to determine the origin of the attack. It was great fun!
One day the Senior Proctor, a member of the faculty, rose to make an announcement at the lunch hour.
'It has come to my attention' he said, 'that the prankish anonymous water bombing that has been taking place for the past week has become a nuisance. The 'empty shells' as it were, are littering the front lawn to the extent that the exercise must be stopped. In my discussions with the Warden, Mr. Reg Lister, we have agreed on the following conditions: if the perpetrators, whoever they may be, will undertake to clean up the paper debris littering the front lawn within twenty-four hours, no further action will be taken. Thank you!'
I glanced slowly around at the faces of my co-conspirators. All were wearing looks of angelic innocence. 'Who me?' they seemed to be saying. The following day, instead of lurking in the launching site prior to lunch, our group was out on the front entranceway ignominiously doing soggy paper 'stoopwork' It was somewhat embarrassing for the proctor of Athabasca House, the person responsible for discipline, to be gathering up the results of his misdeeds, not to mention the fellow who had appointed him!
Reg Lister permitted himself a slight smile when I saw him the following day. 'I suspected all along that you were involved.' he said, in his modified Cockney accent..
'Really?'
'Yes, really!' I suspected that he had more to say, such as 'Not setting a very good example for the other students, are we? And you President of the Student's Union! Tsk, tsk!' but restrained himself. And why did I think he restrained himself? Because, knowing Reg, I believe he thought it was a great prank, and would have loved to have been in on it himself.
Reg Lister was a memorable figure for many students who passed through the University during his many years as Warden. He came as close to having total recall as anyone other than Frank Foxlee. He always remembered a resident's name even years after the latter's departure, and what's more, he always followed the name by the number of the room he had occupied!
'Ah, Helmer, 305!' he would greet me after not seeing me for several years.
Speaking of 'Buck' Foxlee, telephone numbers were his specialty. No one ever bothered writing down a phone number, in fact I don't remember there being a list of popular numbers on a card by the 'phone. He needed to hear a phone number only once and it was recorded forever in his memory.
'What's the Pi Phi number, Buck?' someone would shout and it would come rattling out immediately. The Tuck Shop, the Phi Delts, the Drill Hall--it didn't matter, he remembered them all. Once when he was taking one night to explain in easily understandable form the Law of Mass Action that old 'O.J.' Walker had buggered about with for four weeks he told us about his memory capabilities. He claimed that if he were in an exam and he needed to recall a certain formula that had been written on the board by Dr. Sandin, he needed only to close his eyes and think back to the day it was wrritten, then simply copy it from his memory as if he were reading it from the classroom board. And, of course. we believed him.
One of the more frightening but usually harmless pranks committed at the residence was called 'Singeing the Turkey'. There were civilized closed cubicles for the toilets and sometimes a 'turkey' would be noted going into one for a period of rumination. A couple of low comedians would then interrupt his ruminations by standing outside the door and lighting the four corners of a double sheet of newspaper. When it was blazing nicely they would let it drift slowly into the cubicle from above. The fact that it was ablaze made its descent appropriately languid. We never learned any new words but some of the more common ones were frequently repeated. We thought of it as therapeutic, our theory was that anyone who might have gone into a cubicle suffering from constipation was immediately cured.
And then there were the self-inflicted injuries. One morning when I was standing next to the north windows in the washroom shaving in front of one of the washbasins there was a thundering roar overhead. Mitchell bombers!
Deliveries of aircraft to Russia began soon after the enactment of the Lend Lease Act in 1941. Our introduction to what was happening came some time later. Dawn Fairbairn and I were heading back to the fraternity house one afternoon in 1944 and were just passing St. Stephen's College when three Mitchell B-25 bombers roared overhead, not much more than three or four hundred feet above. The two ten-foot diameter Wright propellers on each bomber made a deafening roar as they passed overhead. They were headed for Alaska and Russia via the Aleutian Islands. The airport was just across the river and the aircrew were obviously flying low so as not to miss it. We got in the habit of looking up every time a flight came through, mainly to see how close to the ground they were.
This was my automatic reaction when a flight roared over the residence one morning while I was shaving. Regrettably, I was much closer to the steam heating radiator than the planes were to the ground. I was also stark naked. As I leaned against the window and craned my neck to see upward, the tip of my most precious possession rested precisely against the top of the steam heater. As I told my derisive audience later, I would have reacted sooner if the pain hadn't had so far to travel! (Loud laughter!). I was rewarded with not one, but two blisters, one on each side of the sensitive penile orifice. I avoided vigorous physical contact games for at least a week.
A few weeks after the Christmas break I was notified that the estimable Dr. Robert Newton, President of the University, would be pleased to have a short meeting with me. I came to the ingenuous conclusion that he wanted to congratulate me on my election as Student's Union President, albeit belatedly, and pass the time of day over a congenial cup of coffee.
His name and credentials were clearly marked on the door in gold letters, no less!
ROBERT NEWTON, M.C., B.S.A., M.Sc.,Ph.D., D.Sc. F.R.S.C.
He was the gentleman with whom I was confronted when ushered into the Presidential Chambers by his grey-haired secretary. A man who appeared to be of medium size, he was seated behind a large mahogany 'authority' desk. Thinning grey hair covered a well-shaped head with a receding brow. Circular wire-rimmed spectacles sat on a normal nose but his mouth and lower jaw struck me as somewhat simian in appearance--and unsmiling. Perhaps that seems rude and uncharitable (however, I expect the monkeys would forgive me!). I noticed that he did not rise to greet me nor extend a hand. I forgave him for that, of course, bearing in mind that he was an Easterner!
I had not laid eyes on the arrogant bastard previously and was not enjoying what I was experiencing at the time. Nor did I realize that he would quote Leviticus from the 'Good Book' in his message to the students in the annual yearbook, 'The Evergreen and Gold', to be published later in the year. This is part of the quotation: "...thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God. Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;..." LEV. 25: 17-18.
I wish I had known at the time; it might have made my comments more substantive. Mind you, it's a question of whose statutes and judgments we were talking about--God's or Bob's! Now that I think of it, I don't remember being offered a cup of coffee--probably not!
'I called you in to discuss an insertion in the latest issue of the Gateway.' (the student weekly newspaper).
'I'm pleased to hear that you're a regular reader of the Gateway, sir!' I said provocatively.
'I don't read it as a rule' he said dryly, 'it was brought to my attention,' he said. Stiff-necked prick! I thought.
'I see an item which claims to declare a free morning next month in order to allow the student body to listen to speeches by various contenders for elective positions, including Student's Union officers.'
'You read real good, sir,' I said cheekily. If looks could have killed, Newton would have annihilated me on the spot. The situation was becoming tense.
'I'm afraid I won't be able to permit that!' he said sternly. His complexion had reddened perceptibly following my previous smart-ass remark.
'Really, sir? How so, may I ask?'
Dr. Newton regarded me contemptuously. 'Because I say so,.. are you not aware there's a war on, son?'
It was my turn to be contemptuous. 'Let me tell you something, Dr. Newton. I'm not your son! I wouldn't have you for a father if you paid me! And yes, I'm quite aware of the war situation. You may have noticed that I'm wearing the uniform of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. I also have two older brothers on active service with the Canadian Navy, one on corvette patrol in the English Channel even as we speak.'
'Well, I'm glad to see you're doing your bit,' he said grudgingly.
'That's just the point,' I said. 'I'm not "doing my bit"! I'm involved in a forty-four hour academic week like all engineers, plus "who knows" how much study time, and some genius has us running around playing soldier just to satisfy the politicians and the folks across the river; then every couple of months we have a visit from the Wartime Bureau of Technical Personnel telling us how important it is to the war effort for us to complete our studies. Certain people should put an end to this farce!'
'And just whom did you have in mind?' he said coldly.
'You should know who's responsible; you're the President of the University!'
'You've adroitly changed the subject, Helmer. You're here to explain the meetings you've scheduled.'
I'd come to the conclusion that the man was a would-be 'bully'.
'With all due respect, sir, I don't have to explain anything to you. The provision for the meetings is clearly spelled out in the University Constitution. Perhaps you could take time from your busy schedule to aquaint yourself with the section I refer to!' I noticed that Dr. Newton's face had become a fetching shade of red, although the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped several degrees. The meeting seemed to be headed for a frosty conclusion.
'Perhaps I'll do that,' the good doctor said shakily.
'If you're finished , sir, perhaps I'll be on my way.'
The president made no further comment as I made my departure. During the following weeks I checked with Bill Hudson, the Chief Building Superintendent, to make sure our Con Hall reservation date was secure. I never saw the University President again despite his inimitable congeniality.
— The End —