Reminiscences of a Military Brat - Part 13 - University of Toronto

In September of 1974, I began my four year university career, commuting from my brother's PMQ at CFB Downsview. His place was unique as for the most part, the military housing was on the complete other side of the base. He lived in duplex off of an open field on Sheppard Avenue. Besides his house, there was a small house for the Padre and then the Base Commander's house. Other than that, it was just empty fields. As well, it was closer to the Yonge Street subway than the rest of the housing units.

University College Campus.

I went to University of Toronto's downtown campus and was part of University College. If you ever watch the original Black Christmas or the Class of '44, for the most part they were filmed in this area of the university. It was a lovely campus and when I eventually moved into university lodgings, my rooms were just behind and to the left of the Campus building.

But for the first 3 months, until I finally heard from the military about my ROTP scholarship, I commuted daily. My schedule wasn't too hectic. I planned on majoring in Political Science. For my first year, I took to Pol Sci courses; Intro to Canadian Politics and Intro to Political Philosophy. I also took an Intro to Economics course and an Accounting course and as my 'bird' course, I took a Spanish course. I figured it would be my easy course as I had been taking it all through high school. Wrong!! I generally started my day at the cafeteria in the basement of the University campus building and then was off to class. My most strenuous period was when I had to dash from one course on St George Street and try to get into my Political Philosophy class across Queen's Park in time. It rarely happened.

I didn't mind the commute, except it meant that I didn't really partake in the activities on campus. My commute was usually about an hour each way, so if I wanted to get back home early enough, I tended to leave early. Canadian Politics was interesting, not outstanding. Political Philosophy was interesting; mainly because our prof, Allan Bloom, made us read his book for the class. He was the expert after all. He was funny, intelligent and interesting. However, it was still Philosophy. Economics was basically boring. I skipped one week of classes in my second term and that was the one week we were taught a formula for microeconomics. Needless to say, I didn't do very well on that test, eh?

Accounting and I were not good friends. When I thought I understood it, I did poorly and when I hadn't a clue, I got great marks. I didn't continue with Accounting, as you can well imagine. And, when it came to my 'bird' course, well, let's just say, while I might have thought I had a pretty good grasp of the language, I was quite wrong. I passed the course, but over the course of the year, I kind of stopped attending my tutorials and just went to classes, but started feeling guilty about not attending tutorials and my classroom attendance also became somewhat haphazard.

I enjoyed the university experience. Classes were interesting and the campus was lovely for the most part. There was a mix of old and new buildings. The Robart's Library was designed like a sailing ship, most interesting. I spent many hours there, not only searching for books but also using the typing room to finalise my essays. (Yes, this was in the days before laptop computers when we actually wrote our essays by hand and then typed them for submission)

Do you remember this from Black Christmas?

From the new to the old, was Hart House, which was a sort of community building, consisting of pubs, restaurants, gymnasium facilities and other rooms. A beautiful building, just in behind the University College building.

The best newspaper on campus was The Toike Oike, the Engineering student's paper, basically a paper full of jokes against Artsies, Med students, jocks, etc. It was a nice counterpoint to the more sedate, The Varsity.

So I plodded along, commuting to my courses and spending my evenings and weekends with Rick and Heather. But as the year went on, I was getting nervous about ROTP and whether I would actually receive an offer. In November or December, I decided that if I wasn't going to get my offer, I would quit university and just enter the military as a Direct Entry Officer. One afternoon I went to the Recruiting Centre and asked if I could join in this fashion. At the time, the only careers with vacancies were Armour, Artillery or Infantry. I gulped, went home to think about it and within a couple of days, called and said that I would like to join up. Now, I'm told that the only career with vacancies was Artillery. Egads! I'm now thinking. I didn't think I really had a choice, so I accepted. The Recruiting Centre then advised that I would go to CFB Downsview in the next week for my medical and then fill out the necessary paperwork and lo and behold, I would now be a recruit in the Canadian Armed Forces as a potential Artillery Officer.

With some trepidation, I accepted this offer and went back to school to finish off my last few weeks. One day, shortly after, as I sat in my Canadian Politics class, a class with some 100+ students in it, the professor walked in, looked around and asked if there was a Mr. Dumoulin present. I thought, 'now what have I done?'. I'd barely talked with this professor and he's asking for me. I raised my hand and advised that I was Mr. Dumoulin. He looked at me and told me that there was a phone call for me in his office. Now I'm astounded and flabbergasted as I could not for the life of me think who might know I was in this class, know who my professor was and call him. So away I go, wandering around the building where the class was held and find his office and pick up the phone.

It was the Recruiting Centre, asking if I still wanted to be accepted in ROTP! After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I indicated that I was still interested. The Recruiting centre individual indicated that it was an easy process. I just needed to make an appointment for a medical, to which I told him, I already had one scheduled for next Wednesday. OK, then, well, I just needed to come down to fill out the necessary paperwork. I said ok, I already had an appointment for that. So that was that. I don't know how it happened, maybe by trying to enrol as direct entry, it tweaked the system to remind them I had an ROTP application in. Maybe some god somewhere was terrified of me being anywhere near a cannon as an artillery officer. Whatever it was, I was now accepted into ROTP. My brother Rick went to the Recruiting centre to swear me in (there is a picture of that somewhere and if I can find it, I'll post it here). I went to the Base to clear into the military. The cashier said that my entry would be back-dated to the beginning of the school year and proceeded to give me nearly $1,000.00 in twenty dollar bills. I went to Base Supply (where Rick worked) and picked up my new bottle green uniforms. I was told that I got one pair of shoes and one of boots and then I could choose a second of boots or of shoes. Shoes I picked. What did I know? I also realised that as I had been clearing into the base, that I had given the wrong Social Insurance Number, a nine digit sequence, and I'd mixed up the last six. So I had to go around all over and get that corrected.

We all wore green back in 1974, the middle one.

But for all of that, I was now an Officer Cadet, a future Logistics officer, in the Canadian Armed Forces. This meant that I could now afford to continue with my University education. My tuition was paid for, my book purchases reimbursed and I got a monthly salary to cover my living expenses. My tuition at the time was around $600 per year. In 2013, an Officer Cadet received about $1600 per month. Back in 1974, I'm sure it was more like $400 per month and when I moved into residence, which I did in January 1975, was $1,300.00 approximately per year. This included enough meal cards to get you through until about March if you ate every meal a day starting in September.

Whitney Hall, University College, U of T.

But that was nothing to worry about. I was still at university and I was in the military. I checked with the University College Registrar and was told that I could get room at Cody House, one of four houses in Whitney Hall.

My roommate, Chris Bradford

I thanked Rick and Heather for putting up with me for the past 4 months and in January, after the Christmas holidays, I moved into residence. This is what greeted me. Chris Bradford, a loud, brash, but great guy was to be my first roommate. More to follow.. :0)


Reminiscences of a Military Brat - Part 12 - Moving on to University and the Military

In my last entry on this subject I opined about my final years of High school and my life in North Bay. The summer of 1974 was an important one for me as I had to sort out where I would go to university and if I would join the Regular Officer Training Program (ROTP) or try to fund my own way through university. While I sorted this out, I spent the summer or '74 working and enjoying myself. I managed to get two jobs through the job centre. I first got a temporary job stripping and waxing the floors of a special school in North Bay. It was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks but when I finished, the temporary job, they kept me on for the rest of the summer, doing after school cleaning and general duties. I would show up around 3:30 Mon through Fri, just as all the students were being picked up by their parents, then spend the next couple of hours, cleaning the classrooms and bathrooms and buffing the floors. Not to strenuous but it was a job nonetheless. After this I'd head home for dinner and then a couple of nights a week, back to the base for the intersection fastball league as this was my last year playing for the teens.

This used to be the Continental Hotel

Luckily for me, the job centre offered me another job opportunity as a night clerk at the Continental Hotel (I'm sure that's the name of the place. It's now called Cecil's Eatery). I showed up in the afternoon one day, the owner was having lunch and a meeting in the dining room and she showed me the cash register and how to use it and then tried me out for an hour. She was pleased with how I worked and hired me. I worked 3 or 4 nights a week, the midnight shift and the Sunday afternoon shift. On my first night there, a Friday night, as I nervously walked up to the front door, the bouncer was in the process of throwing out some rowdy fella. I approached the glass door just as the bouncer was pushing this guys face up against it and then guiding him through. It wasn't a fancy hotel, as you can tell, mainly busy on Friday nights when they would have live music (I'm sure that one of the bands that played there was Heart, when they were first starting out, but it could have just been a band fronted by two other attractive ladies.)

Anyway, that was my summer, at times tedious, but I earned some money and started planning my future. I had applied to University of Toronto, Carleton University and on a whim, University of BC. I also went to the Recruiting Centre to look in to the ROTP. They had me fill out a bunch of paperwork, do some tests and then go up to the Base and have a full medical. I remember the doctor, as I was going through this medical. He started of by saying, ah, you wear glasses, I hope you don't plan on being a pilot. I replied in the negative. Then we did the colour vision test, which I failed and he then said, ah, I hope you don't want to be an Air Traffic Controller, to which I once again replied in the negative. Then the almost crushing blow to my potential military career, before it even started. "Did you know you have a heart murmur?". Cautiously, I replied, 'No, I didn't, what does that mean". Well, it could have been strike 3, I'm out, but for some reason, he let it pass.

Now the application I filled out gave two options on the bottom of the page; military college or civilian university. I checked off civilian university, as I had already applied for my civilian universities. In fact, I was accepted by University of Toronto, maybe Carleton as well, but my preference was U of T, especially as my brother Rick, who was stationed there and living in Military housing, said I could live with him and, his wife, Heather, while I got started. It all looked pretty good. I just needed to hear from the military about ROTP.

Royal Roads

Well, I did hear from them. I got a phone call one day and was told that I had been accepted into Royal Military College on Vancouver Island. Now this was a twist I hadn't anticipated. I thought about it for a few days or maybe just hours and was intrigued about going out West and getting to wear that fancy red and blue uniform and having a salary and my university costs all covered. But, on the negative half of the page, I was a bit sick and tired of school and wondered if I wanted to spend 40 hours a week in classes and then the rest of my spare time, doing compulsory military and other activities. So I was definitely leaning towards U of T and I phoned the Recruiting officer back and asked what would happen if I turned down Royal Roads, as I had been accepted by a civilian university. He said that it shouldn't be a problem.

So the summer moves on and I still haven't heard anything else from the Recruiting Centre and I'm getting a mite worried. I call back and the Recruiter who answers tells me, "Well, you turned down the best (meaning military college, of course), why would we pay for you to go through civilian university." Now I'm panicking and I tell him that if that's the case, then please let me go to military college. Of course, now it's too late to go to Royal Roads or Royal Military College, as the vacancies are all filled up. The only slim possibility is maybe if they didn't fill the Francophone quota at College Militaire at St Jean, Quebec, they might be able to give me a vacancy there. I ask them to check into that, please, but, of course, this also falls through.

So I'm back to square one. I'm going to University of Toronto, can afford to pay my tuition for one year and I can stay with Rick and Heather and their dog and I can hope that eventually the ROTP offer might come through. Now I don't remember thinking that I could also get a job while I'm in Toronto to help pay my expenses. I have this habit of flying by the seat of my pants and hoping that things will work out. Oddly enough, quite often in my experience, that has been the case.

At my very finest

So it's September 1974 and Rick and Heather and their dog, Nasha, have come to North Bay to pick me up and deliver me to University of Toronto. I say an emotional good-bye to my parents and younger brother. Mom was working at the Post Office, so we stopped there to say good-bye to her. There were tears shed, by me anyway; crying isn't really a Dumoulin trait. I now began my big adventure at University of Toronto, University College, entered in a Bachelor of Arts program.

More to follow.. :)