Part 2 / Chapter One ⥈ Explorers
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| Karen 1976 |
We set off in a top-end, elegant black 1974 New Yorker Brougham in the first week of July, 1976. My sister and I had certainly never been inside such a deluxe vehicle. We’d driven west, across Canada from Quebec, a couple of times with our parents, brother, german shepherd dog and our cat in a 1958 Chevy Impala with a rust hole in the floor under the carpet behind the driver’s seat. When bored us kids had great fun twinging various small objects through the hole as we took turns watching out the back window to see it come shooting out from under the car.
Chicago was the final destination for David and his young son David Jr., John’s target was Trois-Rivières, where he would attend a writer’s conference and us girls were, of course, going to the city of my sister's birth, Montreal. The car was to be delivered to an address 4, 572 kilometres away in Hamilton Ontario. The five of us didn’t know each other well at the start of the trip, but travelled harmoniously and although David Sr. did most of the driving because he was over the age of 25 and the car was in his name, John and I took turns. We had a five-day deadline to make. Somewhere between Calgary and Medicine Hat the brakes failed and it took a good part of a day for David to negotiate between the car owner in Hamilton and the small-town Alberta repair shop to get them fixed. My sister was helpful at entertaining 6 year old David Jr. with colouring, songs and ‘I-spy games’ during a couple of 10 hour driving days.
Stopping for an early dinner we were able to time things so as to avoid full-on Toronto rush hour and arrived in Hamilton at the specified address around 7:30pm. After several empty minutes, the door of the distinguished estate house opened, revealing the owner’s nephew who was confused as to our identity until he noticed his uncle’s car in the driveway. He invited us in for a drink. We had dropped John off at his mother’s apartment in Toronto, but the four of us gingerly stepped onto the Carrara marbled floor, noting the gleaming white curved balustrade leading to the second floor with a glorious silver chandelier cascading down from the second story ceiling. We were seated in an open den with white sofas so soft I just wanted to curl up and sleep for three days after the intense cross-country drive. My sister was blinking rapidly with wide eyes, seeming stunned at our sudden change of scenery. David Jr., usually quite chatty, appeared tongue-tied. Our host reemerged with a tray of fresh lemonade over ice and vodka on the side. Fortunately, David Sr. was skilled at multi-layered conversation and did most of the talking. In the middle of the pleasantries, it suddenly hit me, what exactly were our plans for getting back to Toronto tonight?
The following day the five of us toured the newly opened CN Tower. At 147 stories it was the tallest building in the world at the time. My sister and I were fascinated with the sky pod computer screen showing the eerie amount of sway. A plaque explained: The force of wind against tall buildings can cause the top of skyscrapers to sway or twist more than a meter. Flexibility is key to the success of the CN Tower’s structure. Besides concrete and post-tension cables that help the Tower resist sway frequencies, the CN Tower’s antenna has two heavily weight rings called tuned mass-dampers. These counteract the sway of the Tower.
By mid afternoon after dropping the two David’s off at the bus depot, we left Toronto, heading toward our next stop. Trois-Rivières was about a 7 hour drive. As John expertly navigated through the eight lanes of the 401 Super Highway he commented “You had a wild ride back to Toronto last night!”.
My sister and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. I whistled, “We had to surrender our lives to the Almighty. It was downright terrifying. David asked him to stop so he could drive, but our host was on a mission.”
“He was drunk”, my sister added. “Good thing we didn’t get pulled over. We could’ve all been in trouble.” A little bit later she had fallen asleep, now having the back seat all to herself. I looked at her through the rearview mirror noting how serene she seemed. As the week went on, she had relaxed and seemed to be enjoying our trip. I was so happy to have her along.
Trois-Rivières was situated on rivière Saint-Maurice, flaunting three mouths to the mighty St. Lawrence river. It is the second oldest city in Quebec with records dating back to the mid 1500’s. Populated by Indigenous Algonquin and Abanaki peoples raising corn until the fur trade arrived, in the more recent past the city had been a world-producer of newsprint via its pulp and paper mills. The grain windmill which had graced the edge of the river since the late 1700’s had recently been relocated to the grounds of the Université de Québec.
We reached our target about 10pm and wearily pulled into a neon-signed motel. I recall being secretly amused at the name, ‘Le Moulin Rouge’, although I cannot verify it. Once inside the basic room with one double bed, an awkwardness hung in the air, until John voiced the core issue.
“So who’s sleeping with who?”.
Being a young man in his early twenties with two young women at close quarters, I guess he had to at least give it a try. Part of my mission in travelling with my sister was to ensure no uncertainty in this regard, give her time out from the wildness at home with my mother and her current lover. John, of course, didn’t know any of this. Looking at him, I suggested, “You can sleep on the floor and we’ll take the bed.” I know it was the 70’s and no one knew what the next person’s rules might be, but boundaries in my sister’s day-to-day world had already been stretched into territory I’d never had to deal with when I was her age. Resigned, John rolled his eyes and in the end he and I shared the double bed, he being a perfect gentleman while my sister set up an air mattress and sleeping bag on the floor beside me.
Precisely at 7am the next morning Karen and I boarded the bus bound for Montreal. We were looking forward to finally being just the two of us, now able to set our own pace and share the details of our personal thoughts more privately. Since I'd left home, this was the first time we had achieved an intimate connection and we were longing to get to know each other. Without having to voice it, we were aware that although we were produced by the same parents, the culture of our family had changed. When I was fifteen our parents were in a stable phase of their relationship.
It had been arranged that we stay with a long time family friend, Willie, who’d been a colleague of our dad’s. He offered us a bedroom to share and the key to his apartment. Most of the time he stayed with his girlfriend and we had the place to ourselves. On foot we explored downtown Montreal for a few days. I took Karen to the apartment building we had lived in when she was a baby and then we met a high school friend of mine on her lunch break at St. Joseph’s Oratory, a few blocks away. Most of my chums had also moved away after high school to jobs or other schooling, in large part due to the political climate in Quebec. It felt like my cohorts had scattered, like leaves blown in a wind.
Finally, with slight nervousness we made our way to the neighbourhood we had left four years before, knocking on the door of my sister’s closest friends, two brothers very close in age. The youngest sister answered. She was about twelve now and only vaguely remembered Karen. Neither Tad and Sam nor their parents were home and she couldn’t say when they’d be back. She’d tell them Karen had come by to say ‘hi’. After, to improve her disappointment, we walked to the bakery we had frequented as children and splurged on two heavenly napoleon squares. We also bought some real Montreal bagels for breakfasts. Finally, before heading back to the apartment we walked by the elementary school we had attended. By strange coincidence it had the same name as the school Karen enrolled in when we first arrived in B.C.
The next day we boarded a bus again, this time as tourists. A round, stocky man wearing Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt with a camera around his neck bellowed
“Is this the bu-us to “Qu-ee-bec Citay?” Settling in for the three hour drive, we watched the scenery awhile before nodding off. We savoured the closeness and the chance to be sisters travelling together. I particularly wanted Karen to see The Chateau Frontenac. Our parents had taken us there, but I suspected she was too young to remember much. Moreover, from a grade eight field trip I recalled an unusual feature at The Plains of Abraham. I was eager to show my sister an old gnarled tree housing a canon ball in its trunk, lodged from the ferocious battle in 1759, which meant the tree was over 217 years old. We felt carefree that day and had fun.
Nearing the end of our time in Montreal one last special event was about to open. The first ever Olympic games were to be held in Canada that summer and although we couldn’t afford tickets to any of the competitions, we wanted to at least see the brand new Olympic Stadium. The Métro line had been extended for this milestone and we got off at the brand new Pie IX (Pronounced “Pee nuhf”) station arriving in a vast mezzanine. Unexpectedly, the entrances to the new, modern colosseum were closed off to sightseers and we ended up walking the circumference through the park grounds, well guarded by army personal carrying rifles. The federal government was on guard against a repeat of the massacre inflicted on the Israeli team by terrorists four years earlier in Munich. Although we bought postcards showing it, the famous arm, meant to retract the the stadium roof had not even been finished! Strikes, other disputes and the like had delayed construction to the largest event venue in all of Canada.
My sister was beginning to get home sick and on our last collect call to mom, she teared up. I told mom that Karen was ready to come home. We arrived at the Dorval Airport a few days later a little nervous about finding my sister on the passenger list for the next plane out to Vancouver, but sure enough it all went smoothly and through tears we hugged and kissed good-bye and then she boarded the plane. We never realized at the time how much this trip truly sealed our relationship, and how that would come into play in the future.
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