Category Archives: Stories of a Life

Stories of a Life | 1978 | A Lone Activist Voice for Children

June 23, 2018Stories of a LifeRaymond Tomlin

Universal Child Care is Possible | The Fight for Universal, Publicly-Funded Child Care Continues

At the outset of 1978, Cathy and I moved from the Interior to Vancouver, in order for me to begin a Master’s programme in Education at Simon Fraser University, the Master’s a requirement for me to assume the job of Principal at the school where I’d been teaching for the previous 2½ years.
For Cathy, life in the Interior had proved challenging. While I taught school during the day — my life all but consumed by my teaching and involvement in the politics of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation — although for a time Cathy had worked at the Ministry of Human Resources in town, it had become increasingly clear that life in a small, Interior rural town was not for her; Cathy wanted what life could offer in a thriving metropolitan centre.

Leaving my job in the middle of the school year was not easy — for the children in my class, for the kids’ parents, for my teacher colleagues and for our friends, all with whom I had become close. If we were to preserve our marriage, though, a return to Vancouver is what was required. For many years, Cathy had sacrificed much for me — now it was her turn.

2182 East 2nd Avenue, in the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood of Vancouver

My father had found us a house at 2182 East 2nd Avenue, right across the street from my childhood home, and nearby Garden Park. Our furniture was moved down in two big trucks. I left in the first truck, Cathy in the second truck a few days behind, as she wrapped up our affairs where we had lived for the previous 2½ years. The second truck arrived at our home on East 2nd Avenue on January 1st, our belongings were disgorged from the truck, and preparations were made to set up home in our new surroundings.
Odd thing, though: Cathy never moved into that home on East 2nd Avenue.
Megan was all of eight months old at that time, while Jude was 2½ years. Cathy took Megan, who was still nursing, and moved in with a friend. I was left with Jude. Now, Cathy had a history of long standing for leaving for weeks at a time, only to return home as if she’d never been gone, our relationship returning to the bliss that had almost always been the case.
Although we weren’t living together, we still communicated every day.

Before returning to Vancouver, Cathy had enrolled me in classes at Simon Fraser, and in early January despite the upset of Cathy’s and my unusual relationship, I began school. Cathy was unwilling to care for Jude, would keep Megan only because Megan was still nursing, Cathy advising me to find child care for Jude. I was unable to secure child care for Jude up at SFU, but was able to find child care at nearby Grandview Terrace DayCare (not the child care centre in Grandview Woodland that goes by that name today), on East 7th Avenue, just north of Vancouver Community College. I would drop Jude off at 8am, head off to classes on Burnaby Mountain, returning to pick him up at 5pm. The routine worked, and we were fine.
A couple of weeks into my new school year, and Jude’s tenure in his first child care centre, when picking him up from daycare one afternoon, upon entering the child care facility, I became aware of the supervisor of the centre roughly manhandling a crying three year old boy, and was even more startled to see her slamming the distraught young boy against a wall.
I immediately moved to intervene on the boy’s behalf, expressing grave concern to the daycare supervisor on her rough treatment of the boy. The supervisor turned to me and told me to “Fuck off,” threatening that if I didn’t step back that my own son would be subject to similar treatment.

An aside, in addition to holding a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology, I also have a Bachelor of Education, with a specialty in Early Childhood Education, and was granted and held a daycare supervisor’s certificate, awarded automatically to all those graduating with an ECE BEd. I knew what I saw was wrong. I had noticed rough treatment of the children earlier, while dropping Jude off in the morning, but nothing as injurious and alarming as I’d witnessed that chilly, unnerving afternoon.
As I was preparing Jude to leave, putting on his coat and galoshes (it was winter, after all), I witnessed the daycare supervisor pulling a small chair out from under a young girl, and saw the same supervisor kick, yell at and threaten another child. Again, I intervened on behalf of the abused children, and again was told to “Fuck off” by the supervisor. A couple of parents present to pick up their children, and two other child care workers saw both the conduct of the supervisor, our interaction, and her response.
Jude and I exited Grandview Terrace DayCare as quickly as we could.
Upon arriving home, I called Cathy and told her of what had happened that afternoon at Jude’s daycare centre. Here’s what Cathy had to say …

“Pull him out of that daycare, don’t go back there again. Find him new child care.” I expressed concern to Cathy about the welfare of the other children enrolled at Grandview Terrace, to which Cathy responded, “It’s none of your business. You’re always tilting at windmills, looking for problems to fix. You have this ‘save the world’ complex that, although I found it moral in the early years of our marriage, I now find it tiresome. Pull Jude out of Grandview Terrace, find him new child care, and leave it at that. Get on with your life, go to school, and let someone else fix the problem. Jude’s not going back there, so it’s no longer your concern.”

I was dumbfounded at Cathy’s instruction — as my wife of nearly a decade, and given my activism on child care issues, she had to know that I wouldn’t just walk away; it simply wasn’t then and isn’t now and to this day in my nature to walk away when any person, child or otherwise, is in jeopardy.
Within 48 hours I’d secured new child care arrangements for Jude, at Hastings Townsite Child Care, run by a young woman named Sue Stables.
Contrary to Cathy’s instruction to me, I did not forget what I’d witnessed three days previous at Grandview Terrace, on East 7th Avenue. I made arrangements to speak with the Grandview Terrace supervisor, meeting with her one afternoon. Upon entering the facility, I again witnessed her abusing a child, in fact several children, before moving over to meet with me. Again, I expressed a concern respecting her “handling” of the children, and again I was told to “Fuck off.” An unsatisfactory response all around.
I had a list of the Grandview Terrace parent phone numbers, and a Board of Directors membership list. I contacted the President of the Board that evening, and made arrangements to meet with the Board later in the week. I met with the Board, told them of what I had witnessed, expressing concern as to the welfare of their children. The Board members listened intently, with the Board President, a man, finally speaking up, asking …

“What do you want us to do about it? Sometimes children get out hand. Sometimes children need a little bit of rough justice. We know how the supervisor approaches her job, and we approve. Quite obviously, you don’t, and you’ve pulled your child from Grandview Terrace. As a parent group, and speaking on behalf of the Board, we’re quite happy with the existing circumstance, and will do nothing to respond to your concerns, because they are not concerns that we share. Now, if you could just leave so that we can get on with other business, we’d all appreciate it.”

I spoke with Cathy that evening, told her that I’d met with the Grandview Terrace Board, to which she responded angrily, “I told you, it’s none of your business. If the parents are happy with what’s going on, let it go.”
Anyone who knows me would know that I would not “let it go,” never have, never will. Children’s well-being was in jeopardy, and I wasn’t going to walk away. The very next day, I made arrangements to meet with the supervisor of Daycare Information, an office operated by the Ministry of Human Resources. As it happened, I knew the supervisor, a woman with whom I’d worked closely in the co-operative movement some years earlier, and with whom I’d worked toward creating child care in British Columbia.
My friend and former colleague listened to what I had to say, and after asking me a few follow-up questions, she committed to the conduct of an investigation into my concerns. Over the coming months, the two of us kept in touch, working together from time to time. The results of the investigation were published, and made public, in November 1978.

Note should be made that there was no reporting legislation on issues related to child abuse, and the Socred administration of the day was not about to bring in any such legislation. People turned a blind eye to child abuse, including teachers, who throughout the 1970s (and earlier), 1980s and early 1990s in British Columbia were not allowed to report child abuse, or intervene on behalf of a child, as instructed by district administrators, arising from a fear of suit being brought against school districts by irate parents. The same discouraging ethos existed in the realm of child care.
In point of fact, it wasn’t until 1993 in British Columbia that a BC NDP government made it the law that adults witnessing, or who were aware of, child abuse would be compelled by law, and under penalty, to report it.

Here’s what occurred from the time of my reporting to Daycare Information on what I had witnessed at Grandview Terrace Daycare …

1. A Daycare Information staff person was sent to meet with the supervisor, her staff, and members of the Board at Grandview Terrace. Each denied any wrongdoing, and were unco-operative with the Daycare Information staff person, as was recorded in the final report;

2. An undercover investigator was assigned to work at the Grandview Terrace, as a “student” from Langara’s Child Care Programme on a work practicum. The investigator brought both audio and video equipment with them. Over a period of six weeks, video was filmed of the ongoing abuse of the children enrolled in the centre by all three child care staff, as well as by parents;

3. By April, Daycare Information secured a Court Order removing the daycare supervisor and child care staff from the centre, as well as the members of the Board of Directors. An administrator was assigned to run the affairs of the child care centre, and a new supervisor and staff were hired and installed;

4. The Vancouver Police Department and the Ministry of Human Resources worked together to further investigate what had been occurring at Grandview Terrace;

5. In June, the Crown charged the daycare supervisor with child abuse, and child endangerment; the child care staff were charged with child endangerment.

The case was brought to Court in September, the outcome of which was this: the supervisor was found guilty on both charges, but given a conditional discharge and a probationary period of five years. The lawyer for the daycare supervisor and the Crown made a joint recommendation to the Court on the conditional discharge that would stipulate that the supervisor would never again work in any capacity with children, not as a child care worker, a teacher or in any other capacity in which she might come into contact with children. The judge so ordered.
The abusive and unrepentant child care supervisor continued to maintain that she had done nothing wrong, and proved as verbally abusive to investigators as she had been with the children. At no point did the supervisor admit wrongdoing, or come anywhere close to accepting responsibility for placing the safety interests of children in jeopardy.
The two other child care staff were given an absolute discharge, and instructed that they could return to work in child care only if they were to complete a one-year child care course at Langara College, under the strict supervision of the administrator of that programme.
The Ministry of Human Resources apprehended three children who had been enrolled at Grandview Terrace, agreeing to return the children to their parents on the condition that the parents enroll and complete a three-month parenting course provided by the Ministry, their children to be returned only on the satisfactory completion of the course. Such was ordered by the Courts, and it was carried out in full I was to learn later.
The remaining parents who had been aware of what had transpired at Grandview Terrace but had done nothing to intervene to maintain the welfare of the children enrolled at the child care centre were also ordered to take the parenting course, the order also stipulating that each of these latter parents must meet with a social worker from Daycare Information once a week in each of the coming three months.
Throughout the entirety of the process above, Cathy was adamant that, as she said … “You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong,” adding, “I don’t know what it is with this complex you seem to have where you feel the need to rescue the world, but I’m sick and tired of it.”
In the early years of our marriage, the refrain I heard daily from Cathy …

“You are the best person I have ever known. You are kind, and honourable and a good person. I know that anything that you set out to do will be the right thing, the moral thing. I trust your judgement in all matters, I love you, and I will always support you in whatever you do, whatever cause you champion.”

I sometimes think that for the years of our marriage, Cathy created something of a monster, someone who truly believed he could do no wrong — which, as we all know, is impossible, because all of us are fallible, all of us no matter our good intention are likely to commit an act, however unwittingly and however unintended the consequence, will cause someone else anguish and pain, and will disrupt their lives in ways that are hurtful.

As for my activist and leftist friends, none were in the least supportive throughout the entire investigatory process and my involvement in it, as they were focused more on the “bigger picture” of social change and not, as they explained to me, “the picayune concerns of one child care centre.”
And so it is, most often with some activists on the left — it is ideology over practical concern of remediation respecting the lives of individual persons, even children, and their personal circumstance, and their personal pain.
In November, I was contacted by Daycare Information and was told that I was to be given a Humanitarian Award at the Annual General Meeting of the Early Childhood Educators Association, arising from my activism for child well-being. In fact, I was awarded the next month, in early December, where I was called a “hero” by the President of the ECE Association.
Let me be clear: there’s no heroism involved when an activist simply sets out to do the right thing, the moral thing, whatever the trying conditions that might accompany the fight for what is humane and proper, and that which serves the human interests of an individual or groups of persons.
Upon hearing of the proposed award, Cathy was no more happy with me than she had been at the outset, critical and, as it happened, well on her way to divorcing me, now leaving me with custody of both Jude and Megan.
As to my friends there was, as I expected there would be, a round of, “I knew you were doing the right thing. I’m glad to have stood by your side to offer you the support you needed these past months,” which declaration was a re-imagining of the truth, and what had actually transpired.
In the coming years, I would continue to advocate for the interests of children, both on a global scale, and as an educator working in classrooms across Metro Vancouver, often at much expense to myself, and rarely if ever with the support of my contemporaries, nor with Cathy’s support, nor for that matter the support of administrators in school districts in our region.
Throughout my life, I have always sought to do the moral thing, whatever the cost to myself — and, often, it has proved to be at great cost to me.

At month’s end, with great reluctance I will cut back on my ongoing coverage of the 2018 Vancouver civic election, in order that I might work on the correction of a circumstance that has long been of grave concern to me. Once again, I expect little or no support for my endeavours — save, perhaps, that of my friends David Eby and Spencer Chandra Herbert, two of the most moral men I know, good and great on issues of societal concern, and much beloved by many, and just as good on issues relating to personal crises. Both are amazing men of grit and compassion, and I am fortunate to have both men “on my side” — which, as you surely must be aware if you know me at all, is not an easy task, nor one which is entered into lightly.

Stories of a Life | 1972 – 73 Movements | The Douchebag Story

June 16, 2018BC Politics, Jude and Megan, Politics, Stories of a Life, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

In 1972, upon returning from our two month sojourn to Mexico, Cathy and I became vegetarians. While traveling through Mexico, we were uncertain about the provenance of much of the food we ate, but were certain that far too much of what we consumed as “meat” was not meat from a cow.
Once back in Vancouver, Cathy and I were made aware of a “buying group” that had been formed by a friend of a friend, a sweet-natured, calm and centered, energetic and idea-filled fellow by the name of Murray Head. Murray had put together a group of 10 couples who would order food each week collectively, mostly produce, top quality from the best suppliers, as well as cheeses and a vast array of food staples of the very highest quality.
Cathy and I joined up with Murray and his wife, and eight other couples in May 1972 into this new, largely vegetarian collective buying group.
As word spread throughout the community about our newly-formed “buying group”, friends, neighbours, dope-smoking Cosmic League baseball players, and activists wanted in, and joined with us to create a much larger buying group, which by mid-July had become the Tillicum Food Co-operative.
With the support of Dave Barrett’s groundbreaking and leftist provincial government — a grassroots-based government if there ever was one, in Canada or elsewhere — $300,000 was granted by the government to the nascent group of activists who were organizing for change around food.
Norm Levi, British Columbia’s first Minister of Human Resources, was assigned the task of liasing with the members of the now burgeoning Tillicum Food Co-operative. A warehouse on Vancouver’s eastside was secured, two blocks north of the Waldorf Hotel, just off Hastings Street.
As the new Tillicum Food Co-op was realized, the food-buying club was re-organized into neighbourhood collectives, organized, run and operated by family groups with friends and neighbours in each of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods, each collective run autonomously, but coming into the Tillicum Co-op warehouse each week to pick up their weekly food order.
Initially, collectives collated and submitted their orders for bulk pre-ordering with the other collectives. Responsibility for ordering and sorting the food for the whole club rotated among the various collectives.
As it happened, and quite fortuitously, the founders’ experiences with activism and community organization brought forward a skill-set that proved useful to starting a co-operative. Together, our collective experience brought communication, group decision-making, and leadership qualities.
Through trial and error, good-naturedly we learned how to start, manage and operate as a truly democratic, grassroots, member-run co-operative.
By September 1972, though, with dozens of collectives now spread across Vancouver, and beyond, moving into all of the cities across Metro Vancouver and into the Fraser Valley, a decision was taken to hire a “co-ordinator,” someone who would oversee the growth of the burgeoning grassroots co-operative movement in Vancouver. The “Co-ordinator” would be the de facto Chief Executive Officer, responsible for liaising with suppliers, organizing the collectives, overseeing the distribution of food, publishing a magazine, and working with all levels of government to grow the movement into a much larger social-environmental justice movement.
The individual who was chosen as the Tillicum Food Co-operative’s first co-ordinator was a 22-year-old Simon Fraser University student, a fellow by the name of Raymond Tomlin. From the time of his hire and over the course of the next year, Tillicum grew into a province and nationwide co-operative movement, with collectives in every town, village, community and city across the province, into the prairies, as well as into Washington state.
The thousand dollar a week buying club that had begun in May 1972, by September 1973 had become a thriving, two million dollar a month business, working with government to create British Columbia’s first co-operative child care centres, securing funding for our province’s first recycling depot, creating the Wild West Organic Co-operative (western Canada’s first organic food distributor), going on to purchase farms, setting up furniture building, tool and automotive co-operatives, and working with the provincial, and more, the federal government, to create a made-in-Canada solution for the provision of member-run affordable housing.
And thus by 1977, Canada saw the approval of our nation’s first housing co-operative, the Amor de Cosmos co-op in Vancouver’s Champlain Heights neighbourhood, followed by the creation of the Kitsun Co-op on West Broadway in Vancouver, Canada’s first solar-powered housing co-operative.
Halcyon days those, when all you had to do was come up with an idea, and with the support of Premier Dave Barrett’s and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s governments — federally, Mr. Trudeau initiating virtually all of the policies of David Lewis’ federal New Democratic Party — there were jobs aplenty, significant funding for federal job creation programmes for activists, federally administered job programmes like the Local Initiatives Programme (LIP) that gave priority to “funding non-profit organizations that would provide useful services or facilities to the community,” and the longer term Local Employment Assistance Programme (LEAP) that not only created hundreds of thousands of jobs for activists across Canada, but in Vancouver funded almost all of the jobs at the Tillicum Food Co-operative.

1972: A fuzzy picture of a long-haired Raymond Tomlin, and exquisite Cathy McLean

Note should be made that the always brilliant and phenomenally talented Cathy McLean (my spouse and love of my life) wrote all of the grant applications — of which there were hundreds — every single one of the grant applications she submitted approved by the federal government.

1973: Grandview United Church, Venables & Victoria, became Vancouver Free University

The LIP and LEAP programmes were also responsible for helping to acquire a closed and forlorn church at Venables and Victoria Drive, which first became an open university, and soon after became known as the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, and then simply, in recent years as, “The Cultch.”

Paul Phillips, one of the founders of Vancouver’s Fed-Up Food Co-operative Wholesaler

A group of activists lead by Dana Weber, Ros Breckner and Paul Phillips left the now thriving Tillicum Food Co-operative to form the Fed-Up Food Co-op Wholesaler, importing food stuffs from across the globe, and acting as a supplier to the Tillicum Co-op. Fed Up was the first North American wholesaler to sign a contract that would bring sultana raisins from Australia onto this continent. Where Tillicum remained responsible for distributing food throughout the Metro Vancouver region, Fed Up took on the job of distributing food across the province, western Canada and down into the United States, and growing the food co-operative movement globally.

Simon Fraser University’s Louis Riel House, student family 1 + 2 bedroom residence

Meanwhile, there was nascent women’s and LGBTQ movements that were just getting underway. Throughout the 1970s, I recall that each Wednesday evening that Cathy would leave our apartment to meet with almost every woman who lived in Louis Riel House — the 148 one-bedroom and 61 two-bedroom student apartment residence located at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby Mountain campus — for what was termed consciousness-raising.
The “consciousness-raising” of the day was not limited to white, cis-gendered women, however. No, as I wrote above, there was along with the women’s movement, a burgeoning & activist LGBTQ movement in our city.
And thus, finally on VanRamblings, the raison d’être as to why I am writing today’s Story of a Life, because today’s story is one that has remained deep within me all of my adult life, and helped to define my involvement over the past near 50 years in both the feminist & LGBTQ social justice movements.

In the autumn of 1972 I made the acquaintance of a group of activist women who had formed their own collective in the Tillicum Food Co-op.
Young, bright, passionate, articulate, as I am wont to do, I fell in love with each of these women who supported me in my various endeavours, tough, strong, take no guff women who were surprisingly gentle and supportive of me, giving instruction to me as it was necessary (which was probably more often than I would admit even now). The group of us became fast friends, as we worked together to build a fairer, more just and inclusive society.
Now, each of these women, average age about 22, were strikingly attractive in the most usual sense, and drew a great deal of unwanted attention from men. To say that the early 70s were the days of rampant sexism is to understate the matter. These were antediluvian times in the history of the women’s movement, and in our collective history. The women in the Women’s Collective were able to handle whatever situation came their way, though, and nothing too untoward ever occurred, until …
The Women’s Collective was an overtly political collective. Not only were they progenitors of the women’s movement in Vancouver, they also wished to be progenitors of the LGBTQ movement, although all the women were white, educated and decidedly heterosexual.
The Women’s Collective, though, still took on the goal of championing LGBTQ issues, and lesbianism in particular, by adopting lesbianism as a personal and political endeavour. To thwart any interest by men, a decision was taken by each woman, who when I first met them weighed in at about 110 pounds sopping wet, to gain 60 pounds apiece — and they did.
By February 1973, each woman weighed in at about 185 pounds.
In addition to gaining weight, and becoming an overt, in-your-face lesbian collective, the Women’s Collective undertook a military-style training regimen, a three-month long boot camp that even though the women were now of hefty frame, they were also as strong, in actuality much stronger, than any man involved with either Tillicum or Fed Up Food Co-operative.
From autumn 1972 to winter 1973 I saw the transformation, and it was something to behold, a form of experiential personal theatre made live that was amazing to watch unfold. The women continued to be kind, tending to a quiet and less boisterous nature — although fun to be around, and at the monthly drunk-a-thon dances we had in the Tillicum warehouse, great dancers each and every one of them, lithe despite their new bulkiness.
Still, as I say, these were sexist and regressive times in the early 1970s.
Women were undermined as a matter of daily intercourse in the life of our society, tended to have what they said readily dismissed, and were regarded by most men of the time as little more than sexual playthings.
Not so for the politically active lesbian women in the Women’s Collective.

In Vancouver this past year, a new movement of change has emerged, the sort of revolutionary change many of us felt and lived in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this new Vancouver-based movement identifying themselves as TeamJean, a cadre of activists who have organized around Order of Canada recipient and veteran community and anti-poverty activist, Jean Swanson. What I find so becoming and hopeful about the, mostly, young people involved with TeamJean is not just their revolutionary fervor and their work towards creating substantive change in our society, and change now, but in how much fun they’re having in organizing for change, how each of them see the necessity of theatre as a necessary communications tool to get their ideas across in a humanist and non-threatening manner.
There is an excitement within TeamJean that is wholly inspiring, an excitement I haven’t seen, felt and experienced in more than 40 years.
In the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, I have been writing that Derrick O’Keefe, working with organizers within TeamJean like Sara Sg, Chanel Ly, Fiona York, Maddie Andrews, Duncan Martin, Selina Crammond, Riaz Behra, Luis Porte Petit, Ngaire Leach (the graphic designer behind the Jean Swanson logo, and all of TeamJean’s visual design), Shawn Vulliez, Aiden Sisler, Darlene Alice Bertholet, Beverly Ho, Devin Gillan, Alex Kennedy, Ishman Bhuiyan, Jorj Tempul and Qara Maristella believe not just in activism and activism with a conscience, but in the transformative power of theatre, art, song, dance and plain good fun towards changing and helping minds grow, to bringing people along with them into a new era of peace, social justice and inclusion, that aims to serve the many over the few.

In February 1973, a meeting of the collectives involved in the Tillicum Food Co-operative movement was called, the meeting taking place in a workshop space on 2nd Avenue just west of Main. These meetings were held monthly, chaired by me, where we shared ideas on how to grow the co-op movement, not just the food co-op movement, but movements in general.
Of course, a cadre of my favourite women in the Women’s Collective were present, all bulky and fine and in good spirits, on their home turf in their workshop space, and ready with a plethora of ideas on a panoply of activist fronts. The Women’s Collective had proven central to the success of the Tillicum Food Co-op, and the soon-to-be Fed Up Co-operative — without their support, counsel and energy, I’m not entirely sure that the Tillicum Food Co-op would have grown as it did in the first year, and beyond.
So, there we were on this chilly Tuesday evening in early February 1973, in a dimly lit workshop space, approximately 75 chairs set out, me at the front, collective members from across the Lower Mainland settled into their chairs, the women in the Women’s Collective “patrolling” the meeting, none of them seated, almost a security force, in case such was needed.
There was talk of forming a camping and adventure equipment co-operative, which eventually became the Mountain Equipment Co-op. There was talk about working with the provincial government on creating child care in our province, which occurred in 1974, when Norm Levi assigned $100 million to the creation of child care centres throughout the province. As usual, the meeting was positive and directed, orderly and respectful.
Except …
There was one man, sitting off to my left, in the second row who, when one of the women in the Women’s Collective offered up an idea that met with support, but debate from some of those present, that when it came time for this man to speak, he looked directly at the woman who had made the suggestion, and started off his address to her, saying, “Hey, douchebag …”
In a millisecond, a woman in the Women’s Collective who’d been standing behind him, pulled his chair back on its back legs, his feet now dangling, while another woman in the collective approached him, pulling down his pants and his underwear, and when this was accomplished, yet another woman in the collective grabbed his flaccid penis, pulling it taut while also pulling up his scrotum, and then placing the tip of a knife under his scrotum in the perineal region midway between his anus and his genitals, the woman who had pulled down his pants and underwear now looking directly at this now formerly recalcitrant man, and asked, “Did you want to repeat yourself? Did you want to address my friend using the pejorative you employed just a moment ago? You called my friend what? I’m waiting …”
All of the above had occurred in much under 60 seconds.
The formerly surly man of intransigent nature was mute, not frightened exactly but more contemplative than anything else. He shook his head, and finally uttered, “No, I have nothing to say other than, I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. I promise.” And, in all the time to come it never did.
As quickly as the errant man had been approached, the women withdrew, his chair let down, aid given to pull up his pants, those 75 Tillicum members in attendance acknowledging what had occurred between the Women’s Collective and the disagreeable man, for what it was: theatre.
Of course, change doesn’t happen in a day, it is long and arduous and hard fought for — but occurs most often with action and a degree of humour.
Some year later, I recall working in the offices at the Fed Up Food Co-op on Scotia Street, and walking down into the warehouse, where 80 pound sacks of oatmeal were being carried from one end of the warehouse to the other. On one memorable occasion, I saw a young, petite woman quite easily carrying an 80-pound oatmeal sack on her back, as a man came up to her and, gallantly I’m sure he thought, looking at the woman, saying to her, “I can do that for you. I’ll take the sack, if you’ll let me.” And she did.
The man took the cumbersome 80-pound oatmeal sack, and struggled to carry it across the warehouse. Meanwhile, the woman who had given up the oatmeal sack had gone back to pick up a 100-pound sack of wholegrain flour, and as the man continued his struggle with the heavy oatmeal sack, the woman sailed on past the man with a light as a feather 100-pound flour sack on her back, glancing back at the struggling man saying, “Thank you,” and then proceeding to the other end of the warehouse with her burden that was not a burden at all, but a metaphor for change and growth, and the doctrine of a necessary and revolutionary change of consciousness.

Stories of a Life | An Impromptu Trip to Mexico | February 1972

June 9, 2018Stories of a Life, Travel, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

An early 1970s Mexican Adventure, Part 1 of 4
Simon Fraser University to Los Angeles, then Mexico
I loved university. In the 1970s, I loved attending classes at Simon Fraser University, talking hours on end with classmates sharing obscure insights into arcane literature, or why anarchism is the most humanist political philosophy, or spending hours in the library, or finding some quiet corner to type out the dozens of essays that were due each semester.
Surprising myself, I was so curious about the world around me, so committed to learning everything I could on any given subject presented to me by my various approachable and erudite professors and radicalized teaching assistants, in the books I was reading or from folks in the pub at whatever stage of their university career, who over a beer would good-naturedly engage with me in philosophical arguments, whatever the topic of the moment. Attending classes and living at Louis Riel House — sometimes not leaving Burnaby Mountain for months on end — attending Simon Fraser University was for me the happiest and most rewarding time of my life.
Not so much for Cathy, my long-suffering wife.
Ever since we had met, and as would remain the case for years to come, there was no disappointment to be found in our love-making, when we arose from our overnight slumber, between classes or when I came home for lunch. Before and after dinner. And, of course, before bed, which was always the longest period we dedicated to connubial bliss. Quite simply, we couldn’t get enough of one another. And that was good, for the both of us.
Still, after Cathy left her employment at Grayce Florists, and although Cathy worked with me and our friends publishing weekly at The Peak, where I was the Arts & Entertainment Editor, writing 10,000 words each and every week, in addition to my regular daily afternoon radio programme on CKSF, and all those classes, and tutorials, and essays, Cathy often attending classes with me, attending protest rallies and reviewing my essays before I handed them in — given that Cathy had consciously chosen not to re-enroll in school, to continue her university into its third year, there was something missing in her life and in her wanderlust nature.
Travel.
Cathy made no secret of the fact that she wanted to get away, to explore new lands, to be adventurous and anonymous thousands of miles away.
In February 1972, I was enrolled in my fifth consecutive semester at SFU, having early on identified my areas of interest for my studies — political science, sociology and anthropology, part of the radical PSA department at SFU, as well as English literature.
Much to my astonishment, I was achieving straight A’s in school, my grade point average past my first year 4.0, and in this fifth semester I was on a roll, most of my course work completed by early February, as I prepared to ready myself with the reward of five more A’s, bursaries and scholarships, and further down the academic road enrollment in a Master’s programme.
Arriving home mid-afternoon Tuesday, February 8th, 1972, opening the door and walking into our student apartment, Cathy standing in the living room, rather than approaching me to give me a kiss, she stood stock still, looking down, then looking up and directly at me, and said, “We’re leaving for Mexico next Monday, for two months. Get your head around it.”

Cathy and I traveling along the Oregon coast, headed to California, and then Mexico

I knew there was no arguing with her about her dictum. Cathy had sacrificed so much for me that it was quite clear: it was her turn now. The next Monday morning, early, we jumped into our 1970 Datsun 510 — a wedding present from her mother — and only hours later we found ourselves barrelling down the coast of Oregon heading towards Los Angeles, where arrangements had been made to stay with our friend, Bachi — with whom I had attended almost all my classes my first four semesters, and who was my best friend, Manuel Vittorio Esquivel, handsome, swarthy, adventuresome, and the best friend anyone could wish for.

While in Los Angeles, Cathy & I listened to KRLA, southern California’s rock ‘n roll giant

Cathy didn’t like driving, so I drove the entire 1500 miles (I love driving!) to our L.A. destination, arriving two days after we’d left our Burnaby Mountain home, as we found our way to the Chicano area of Los Angeles, a Latino and Latina East L.A. of boom boxes and low-riders, a vibrant Mexican community with which we fell in love, as we did Bachi’s mother’s cooking — eating mole chicken and lime-cilantro rice for the first time while consuming gallons of fresh-squeezed orange juice available at farmer’s markets in two quart containers, for only a dollar, driving along the freeways in the jasmine-scented night area, KRLA radio at full volume blasting into the warm night air, free and in love, and enjoying the time of our young lives.

The sunny, open air shopping mall located in wealthy, beach-fronted Santa Monica

All was not perfect, though. One afternoon while awaiting dinner and sitting in the living room, Bachi’s 18-year-old sister, Maria — one of the most beautiful and self-possessed young women I’d ever met, who was enrolled in her second semester at a nearby college, and who worked as a sales clerk at a department store in a mall in the wealthy Santa Monica neighbourhood to help pay for her tuition — came home crying, sobbing, inconsolable, wracked with pain, broken and disconsolate, collapsing onto the sofa, curled up into a heaving ball of sobs and pain, bereft of hope, for the moment not of this world, not of any world, alone and withdrawn.
Maria worked in the shoe department at Macy’s. Earlier that afternoon, a wealthy woman in her early 30s had arrived at the shoe department, miserable, abusive, racist, on the attack and demanding service — now pointing at Maria — to “that dirty Chicana over there, who oughta be sent back to where she came from, but if she’s gonna be here, she damn well better serve me, and get her ass over here. Now!”
The manager stood nearby, but didn’t come to Maria’s aid, instead directing the abusive woman over to where Maria stood, now quivering, saying to the irate-for-no-good-reason shopper, “Of course, ma’am. Maria is here to serve you. She will find you anything you need. Now hop to it, Maria.”
The situation devolved from there, with Maria finding one pair of shoes after another for this racist and abusive early-30s woman, responding to the demands of the woman to, “Get down on your knees, don’t look at me, put those shoes onto my feet now, don’t look up, and you better be careful when fitting those shoes, or I’ll have your job.” The woman remained in the shoe department for an hour, loudly and abusively making Maria’s life a hell on earth, before finally leaving the department store harrumphing, having made no purchase. Maria finished her shift, and drove home.
Once home, after her mother intervened, Maria spent the rest of the evening in her bedroom, while Bachi, Cathy and I left his home, leaving Maria — whose young life had been a litany of the kind of abuse she had suffered that afternoon — in the care of her mother, as the three of us drove to a nearby drive-in for a burger and fries, staying away until late.
That evening, Cathy and I decided we would leave for Mexico the next day.
After an early breakfast of heuvos rancheros prepared by Bachi’s mom, Maria still in her bedroom, not wishing to join us at the kitchen table, leaving our car in the garage attached to Bachi’s home, Bachi drove us in his own vehicle to the Mexican border, just north of Tijuana. Cathy had mapped out our journey, involving us taking a bus to Mexicali, where we would board a train for the 2,000 kilometre journey to Guadalajara.

The train above, very much like the train Cathy and I traveled on throughout Mexico

Both Cathy and I, once we’d boarded the train in Mexicali for the first leg of our Mexican adventure — we were planning on staying in Guadalajara for a few days, then planned to make our way over to the coast, and come back to Guadalajara before heading to Mexico City, but it was still a largely unplanned adventure, where we both felt secure that we’d meet good folks, and learn something about a country about which knew little — were surprised that there were 20 young Americans traveling in the same car as us, hippies who’d shorn there hair, as I had, in order to get a visa, the men letting their hair and beards grow once we’d made it across the border.
As is almost always the case when traveling in a group — not that any one of us knew one another, or anyone else in our car — one of our 20 ‘fellow travelers’, in this case a gaunt young man with an adventurous spirit who’d traveled to Mexico before, suggested to us all that upon arriving in Guadalajara, we immediately make our way over to La Peñita, along the coast, 72 kilometres north of Puerto Vallarta, where we could stay for as little as a dollar a day, swim, get to know the townspeople, and enjoy ourselves away from the hubbub of the tourist trap to the south.
Sounded good to all of us — we now had a destination.
Now, traveling as a financially itinerant train and bus traveler in the 1970s was fraught with adventure. Why fraught? Well, because revolution was the order of the day, throughout Europe, throughout central and South America, and most certainly in Mexico, where guerilla groups fought with the Mexican army, farmers led by ex-teacher Lucio Cabañas fighting against landholder impunity and oppressive police practices in rural Mexico, the guerillas carrying out ambushes of the army and security forces, and blowing up train tracks throughout northern Mexico — as proved to be the case on the first leg of our collective journey into the heart of Mexico.

Above, a contemporary photo of Benjamin Hill, in the northern Sonora state of Mexico

Upon arriving in Benjamin Hill, in the northern Mexico state of Sonora, approximately 714 kilometres south of Mexicali, the train conductor informed us that there’d be a day or two layover in Benjamin Hill, as the tracks 30 kilometres south had been blown up by guerillas. When we arrived in Benjamin Hill, midday, the sun was bright, the day sweltering. We all alighted the train to take a look around at the dusty little village.
We debated whether or not we’d each rent a room in one of the mud shacks off the main street. One of our companions, who had kept a close watch on me since we’d boarded the train in Mexicali, a ‘sexual freedom leaguer’ traveling with her boyfriend, she a stunningly gorgeous Asian woman, her boyfriend a nerdy-looking, quiet guy, looked at me and looked at Cathy, and then set about to announce to everyone gathered around in the boldest possible fashion, “I want to fuck him,” then looking at me said, “I want to fuck you. Let’s go find a room in that building over there.”
I looked over at Cathy, who was rolling her eyes, looking heavenward, then looking at me, exclaimed, “You want to fuck her, go ahead. I’m not fucking her boyfriend, though.”
Me, I’m not good in situations such as the one I was now being confronted with. Would I liked to have gone off with this beautiful young woman for a sweaty afternoon of sexual frolic? Sure — but that would mean leaving Cathy behind, and I wasn’t prepared to do that, so I just said, “You’re invitation is very kind, and I appreciate it, but I’m going to stay with Cathy,” at which statement the young sexual freedom leaguer grabbed her boyfriend’s hand, marching off to rent a room in a sun-baked mud building.
As it happens, the twenty-two of us remained in Benjamin Hill for only about six hours, as the authorities had identified an alternative route to get around the tracks that had been destroyed. By late evening, we were all on our way again, the night chill, Cathy wrapped securely in my arms, under a blanket we’d purchased in town for about three dollars.
Two days later, we arrived in Guadalajara, the twenty-two of us alighting the train, seeking food and drink. “No water,” our appointed leader told us — ”Stay with Coke, you’ll be better off. You can trust it because it’s bottled by Americans under strict standards. Drink the water, or anything washed in local water, and you’re going to find yourself in trouble.” So, we found a food cart along the street — all along the way from Mexicali to Guadalajara, we’d fed ourselves from the food carts at stops along our journey south.
We looked for, and found the bus station, all of us purchasing tickets to La Peñita for the five-hour, 262 kilometre pilgrimage to our coastal village destination, arriving around 7pm, by which time it was night, although the near full moon above shone bright. Once in La Peñita, we secured our accommodation — spacious houses about 200 yards back from the beachfront water, several of us staying in each of three houses we rented for what would be our one-week stay in the rural village, our new home.
Having left our pack sacks in our new domiciles we all went back into town, where we were accosted by a group of 6, 7, 8 and 9-year-old boys who wanted us to play foosball with them, for a peso a game — if they won, we gave them a peso (equivalent to about one cent), the game free to play.
The first game I played was with one of the 6-year-old boys, who wasn’t tall enough to even see the top of the foosball table. “This is gonna be easy,” I thought to myself, “Poor kid.” I meant to win, and show this boy how it’s done — although I’d never played foosball before. Five minutes in, the game was over, I hadn’t scored once, the boy’s facing beaming, looking up at me saying, “De nuevo, señor, de nuevo.” Over the course of the next hour, I played each of the boys, as did the men in the group, losing each game successively more quickly, as was the case with each of my companions, now 20 pesos poorer than when I’d begun the night, the women standing nearby by shaking their heads, going off to look at the “shops” nearby (stalls, really), the young boys now gleeful.

Our leader, the gaunt young American man, rounded us all up, and said, “Let’s go for a swim,” and we did, some of the women going back to our new homes to find blankets to lay on the sand, but not swim suits, as this was to be a naked swim in the ocean, all twenty-two of us running toward and splashing in the warm, sparking water, the moon above glistening in the purple night sky, the light of the moon reflecting off the water.

Stories of a Life | My Mother’s Frustrated Dreams | Country Music

June 2, 2018Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Mike, Mark & Jack, New Westminster’s The Rhythm Pals, Canada’s best country group

In the 1950s my mother sang with the The Rhythm Pals, a New Westminster-based country music trio that was all the rage in the late 1940s, 50s and into the 1960s, in 1965, 1967, and 1968 winning the Juno Award as best Canadian country group, a few years after which they were inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Honour, in 1989.
In my household growing up, it was Mike, Marc and Jack this, and Mike, Marc and Jack that, my mother keeping up her friendship with The Pals throughout the entirety of my young life. My mother loved to sing, sang all the time around our home and in the car, loved music of every description — when she was home there was always music in the house, Patti Page and Teresa Brewer her two favourite 1950s singers, later turning to Patsy Cline, all of whose music invested almost my every waking moment for years.
Looking back on it, I suppose my love for female vocalists originated with my own mother’s, if not exactly angelic but still melodic voice, her entire demeanour the very definition of joy when she sang. Driving around with my parents in the family car, the radio was turned up loud, my mother singing along with all of the artists of the day, save Nat King Cole, who she worshipped, and would not as his daughter did years later, ‘duet’ with him.
Above all else, though, my mother loved country and western music, a mix of Americana, folk and roots music that spoke of struggle and love lost, of tragedy and wont and lives not fully realized, the heartfelt music I grew up on and which, later in life, would emerge as my favourite musical genre, coming around to appreciate country music, after having as a teenager and for many years after rejecting the music my mother loved, finally coming around in my early 40s — I’ve loved Iris DeMent, Alison Moorer, Shelby Lynne, Kasey Chambers, Lucinda Williams, Lori McKenna, Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves ever since. whose music has become the melancholy and thoughtful soundtrack that has informed my life this past 30 years.

In the late summer of 1958, my parents moved the family to Edmonton, to be closer to family and to be closer to the soundtrack of my mother’s life, roots and classic country music being far more popular on the Prairies than would ever be the case in the Lotusland Vancouver has always aspired to.

12221 81st Street, in northwest Edmonton, my family home from late 1959 through 1961

In 1960, with the help of my tall oak of a grandfather, my parents bought a house in northwest Edmonton, at 12221 81st Street, a working-aspiring-to-middle class neighbourhood, where I attended Eastwood Elementary for Grades 5 & 6, the new school and neighbourhood a step up from inner-city Edmonton, where we had rented for a year, and where I attended Sir John A. McDougall school in Grade 4 befriending all of the tough kids in school, helping them with their in-class & their homework, in exchange keeping me safe — to say it was a rough neighbourhood is to dramatically understate the matter. Still, I made it out in one piece, and was glad for the move.
As I say, my mother loved country roots music, the music of her youth, the music she sang, and the music that most spoke to her, that I believe kept her alive and her mind and spirit active — amidst the three back-breaking jobs she always held down, working at a puff wheat factory overnight for the entirety of our three-year tenure in Edmonton, working at a local bakery during the day, and the Swift Meat Packing Plant in the late afternoon and throughout the evening, ambitious and anxious to get ahead, or at least keep hers, and our heads above water, my father continuing his work at the Post Office, and surprising to everyone stepping up to the plate as our increasingly competent and loving father, to whom I’d help teach the ability to read, and with whom I’d spend endless hours quizzing him on aspects of his employment, in preparation for the quarterly tests of competence imposed by a draconian employer, the Canada Post Office.
Every now and then, though, my mother would get an evening off — she didn’t want to sit around the house “wasting time”, as she put it, she wanted to go out into the evening, be with people, to live and to feel free and to feel a part of the community, and if there was a country music concert at the nearby and walkable Edmonton Fairgrounds, all the better.
My mother loved to walk. One early Tuesday evening, she told my sister and I to put on our coats, that we were going out, saying to my father, “You’re coming along, too, to keep the kids out of mischief, to keep an eye on them so they don’t run away” — not that my sister and I ever did, we were homebodies, most evenings both my father and mother off at work, my sister and I at home watching TV or doing our homework, or visiting with friends in the neighbourhood, but back at home never later than 8pm.
On this particularly chill October 1960 evening, we made our way down to what appeared to us to be a deserted Edmonton Fairgrounds, although once inside the grounds and the closer we got to as our yet unknown destination, the clearer were the sounds of guitars being tuned up, and voices testing microphones — until we found ourselves arriving at a small tent, chairs for about 75 people, over the course of the half hour we waited for the evening’s festivities to begin, much to our mother’s displeasure, kicking around the sawdust on the floor, while looking around at the others who were in attendance, a few ragtag kids, but mostly adults in heavy, working class clothing, most drawn and seemingly weary with life, until …

Classic country music artists extraordinaire, The Wayfaring Stranger, Burl Ives; Montana Slim, otherwise know as Wilf Carter, and the Singing Cowboy himself, Hank Snow.

“Howdy, my name is Burl Ives, and this here to my left is Wilf Carter and standin’ next to him, the singing ranger himself, Hank Snow.”
And with that introduction, the small but fervently enthusiastic crowd came alive, as we were treated to a concert, and musicianship the likes of which I would not hear again till 1998, at a Lucinda Williams concert at The Vogue.
For the first and only time in my life, I saw my mother happy, in her element, dancing off to the side, a look of bliss on her face, her tired and aching bones revitalized with a renewed energy and strength, two and a half hours in my mother’s life that neither she nor I would ever forget, one of the best nights of my life, when I felt safe and loved amidst the music that had long been the soundtrack of my life, as it still remains to this day.