Me and the NDP; a little bit of history

I have never been able to relate to people who — during an election campaign — say, "I always vote for the candidate. It doesn't matter to me which party they belong to — if I like them as a person and I think they can do a good job, that's who I'll vote for."

I said to Dan earlier today, "I don't care if I'm madly in love with a candidate. If he's running for the Liberals — or even the Conservatives — I wouldn't vote for him." Dan said, "Thanks for the heads-up."

I vote for a Party. I've voted for the same Party in every election — federal and provincial — since 1965. I've voted NDP in all three Maritime provinces, in Ontario and in Quebec.

More than once, I've voted for the Party when the candidate was a name written in on the ballot, just to fill the space. I remember voting in two different New Brunswick elections at the Bay du Vin Rural High School — once when the leader was J. Albert Richardson, the other when the leader was John LaBossiere. I'm sure I knew something about them at the time but I have no memory of their campaigns at this point.

We always enjoyed looking at the poll-by-poll results in the newspaper because in the poll where we voted, there it was recorded for posterity: NDP — 2.

In Prince Edward Island, I remember waking up in the morning following the election that saw Brian Mulroney become Prime Minister. I can still feel the cold chill that gripped me when I tried to comprehend a political world that already included Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Mulroney wasn't my fault; I had voted NDP which was then led by Ed Broadbent. It wasn't enough.

I moved to Nova Scotia shortly after that and have voted NDP many times, both provincially and federally.

But my very first election experience was in Montreal in 1965. I would have been 22 so it's possible I voted somewhere earlier but if I did, I don't remember it. But I remember 1965.

We were living on Aylmer St. in what was then called — probably still is called — the student ghetto. It was a lively neighbourhood with a lot of flavour, near McGill, near downtown, not that far from Park Ave.

I'm not sure how we became aware of our NDP candidate. It might have been something as simple as seeing a poster on the street. But of course it seized our interest because the candidate's name was Frank Auf der Maur. Auf der Maur was already a household name in Montreal, not Frank but Nick. Frank was Nick's older brother. When I was looking for some information about him earlier today, I found the write-up from his yearbook when he graduated from the Royal Military College in Kingston:

1956 No. 3525 C.S.C. FRANK SEVERIN AUF DER MAUR D'Arcy McGee High School. On October 6. 1934, the city of Montreal delighted in the birth of a favourite son marked by the hand of destiny to become one of the honoured members of the Graduating Class of '56 at R.M.C. After a successful stay at D'Arcy McGee High School, Frank decided to abandon the worldly pleasures of city life and retire into the more ascetic surroundings of Kingston.

During his four years at the College, Frank always maintained the same happy, debonair attitude which made him many friends and a reputation for being always ready for a party. Always an active competitor, Frank was for two years a solid bulwark of the Junior Football team before graduating to the Seniors in his final years.

Frank is a devoted Chemical Engineer and his future along this line is very bright indeed in the light of past achievements. After graduation from the College, our friend talks of entering McGill and possibly U. of Alberta. It seems that the west also presents certain definite social attractions difficult to neglect. His last summer's training in Edmonton has turned his ambitions westward. The very best to you, Frank.

We decided to go to one of his campaign events. I don't remember much about it. I think it was in a community hall of some kind — it was nice, not a bad venue. There were very few people there and I think a table where there was cheese and fruit and some juices. Unless I'm remembering badly, the candidate was a little tight. I didn't blame him. I would guess that by this point in his campaign, he would have loved to disappear.

His Liberal opponent was a handsome young lawyer, often described as Montreal's most eligible bachelor, John Turner by name. His campaign was high-profile, lots of media, lots of hangers-on, big crowds. He was a star. There was no crystal ball to foretell that Pierre Trudeau would come along and wring the life out of John Turner's political future.

He won that time anyway and was off to Ottawa and later, off to British Columbia where the rest of his political career unfolded.

But I voted for Frank because I believed in his Party. I most certainly believed in his leader.

Tommy Douglas was a star too. His platform that year was pretty straightforward:

New Democratic Party:

1. implement a national medicare program by July 1, 1967;

2. eliminate university tuition fees;

3. provide grants for universities' capital costs;

4. increased funding for technical training;

5. increase the minimum price for wheat;

6.increase the old age security payment from $75 per month to $100 per month at age 65;

7. implement economic planning program that lays down guidelines for wages and prices;

8. halt unjustified price increases.

Who wouldn't vote for that?

The NDP is an organization made up of humans and it can make mistakes. Sometimes they're stupid mistakes, sometimes they're terrible mistakes, sometimes they're both.

I've written this today to assure myself that in spite of the mistakes, in spite of my shock and anger at some of the things the Party does, I'm not abandoning the NDP and I'm not going to punish it. I'll still vote NDP and I'll hope it can find a way out of the fix it's got itself into.

I am angry though.

Feline escapades: a brief, incomplete report

The cats are always happier than anyone when the springtime weather arrives and they can bask in the sun, go hunting, and they don't have to worry about their paws touching snow. These little snowstorms that keep happening take them by surprise but they do seem to understand that the end of winter is at hand.

Grizzly is the older cat and he minds the cold. In the winter, we can go for days when he doesn't go out but in the good weather, he becomes just like a normal cat. When he goes out, he has much broader scope to pursue his long-time hobby.

Grizzly loves "found water." Never mind that he has a bowl at his feeding station in the kitchen where the water is changed regularly. When he scoots out the back door, he makes a mad dash for a puddle, an up-turned plant saucer, a little patch of melting snow on the deck table. He settles in and drinks and drinks as if he's been trekking through the desert and he's come upon a life-saving oasis.

It's a pastime he enjoys inside the house too. He stalks the person who waters the plants always in hope of a little overwatering that might fill up the catch basin under the plant. And when the forsythia was brought into the house for Easter and set up in the dining room, Grizzly thought it must be some kind of a special festival for cats. Just look at the accessible water in that vase.

We indulge Grizzly as much as possible but there comes a line he must not cross.

Every night, I put a glass of water — about half-full — on a low table by my bedside. A few mornings ago, I was still dozing, still wearing my sleep-mask, when I heard an unusual sound that I couldn't identify. Is it rain? Is it a bird tapping on the verandah roof, right outside my window? It was regular, rhythmic and I suddenly realized, it was "lap, lap, lap, lap. . ." I turned over and looked and there he was — Grizzly — quite happily settled in enjoying some new water that he'd just discovered.

I had to shoo him away and from then on, I have to put a cover on my glass of water. Grizzly and I are close — but not that close.

Meanwhile, his little brother keeps busy too.

One of our friends is having problems with a few mice in her house. This past week, I wrote her this note:

We have our mice brought in from the outside. A couple of days ago, Junior scratched vigourously at the door and when I opened it, he streaked in as fast as he could. It’s not like him as he’s an ambler but I soon saw that he was bearing a tiny gift. He went to the middle of the kitchen and dropped it quite ceremoniously and said, 'What a good cat am I.'

Mice tend to play dead – that’s why I can often catch and liberate them – but it was pretty clear to me that this one was already beyond any help I could give it. It was very tiny. Junior played with it a bit, tossing it high into the air, pouncing when it landed. He put on quite a show. Then he ate it! I mean it – actually ate it! Urban domestic cats rarely eat their prey because they’re too well-fed but what do you know? It happened.

Mustard: the tangy edgy condiment

I was born in Newcastle Creek, New Brunswick, on the shores of Grand Lake, and I lived there until I was five years old. Newcastle Creek was a hamlet. The nearest village — the place with a few stores and services and small businesses — was Minto.

When I was a tiny girl, my mother used to take my sister (she's four years older) and me to Minto on the bus — I can still smell the exhaust fumes from that rickety old bus — so she could do some shopping, get her hair done, maybe visit a relative.

Sometimes, she would take us to the lunch counter in the five-and-ten and we could order whatever we wanted. I remember Marilyn ordering a banana split or a sundae and Mum probably had some tea, maybe with a piece of pie.

I always ordered a mustard sandwich.

The waitress and/or my mother would always try to get me to add something to the sandwich but I graciously declined. I didn't want any ham or lettuce or even a piece of chicken.

I loved mustard sandwiches.

I think Mum was a little embarrassed but at least the waitress knew that I was allowed to order something else if I wanted to. I doubt that mustard sandwiches were on the menu so I don't know how they figured out what to charge. Probably the same price as a side order of toast.

I still love mustard and although I definitely have that squeeze bottle of French's, I've branched out into lots of different mustards.

When I'm in a tourist-y type town and we go to one of those lovely little shops that have local crafts and souvenirs and specialty foods, I always gravitate immediately to the mustard section. People have learned to bring me mustard as gifts too. Dan brought me this one from a trip to Saskatchewan for meetings:

The Saskatoon berry looks like a blueberry but it's related to the apple and its mustard is, indeed, fruity and delicious. I've used it in vinaigrettes but it's also good in marinades for meat or chicken or to brighten up a sauce.

Valerie brought me this one from Dijon, France:

It's mustard with figs and it's sweet and. . . figgy. I used it most recently at Easter as a base for a glaze for the leg of lamb:

It wasn't the only mustard I used for Easter dinner. The vegetables were actually called "Mustard Roasted Vegetables."

As you can imagine, the mustard — along with lemon juice and zest — added a sharp, tangy edge to the vegetables. The mustard of choice for this recipe was grainy:

I have other mustards in my pantry:

The seeds and the powder are used mostly for pickles although I have done some experimenting mixing the powder with various ingredients to make a condiment with a difference. Dan and I can both remember a comprehensive search all over town looking for brown mustard seeds. We can't quite remember what they were for but we think it must have been for a chutney and we must have decided that yellow seeds just wouldn't cut it.

I think that it's a rare day that I don't use mustard for something — sometimes just to give the boys a hot dog, other times to add an elegant finishing touch to a sauce or salad. I'm delighted to know that yellow mustard is not coloured by something awful and artificial but gets it bright hue from turmeric, a spice that happens to be good for us. I've learned — from 13 things you probably didn't know about mustard — that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used mustard. It's believed that the Romans were first to pound the seeds into a paste to use as a condiment. Trust the Romans.

And even though the mustard bottle may say Dijon, France, mustard is a plant — an herb — and much of it that's used around the world is grown in Canada.

So there you are: more than you ever wanted to know about my relationship with mustard!

Soup's on: making the most of delicious leftovers

We're very good to make lots of homemade stock at our house. Every bone and uneaten meat scrap that passes through our kitchen goes by way of the stock pot. They all go into the freezer first and when there are enough of them to make it worth-while, they get boiled up.

The stock is strained and put into the fridge where the fat rises to the top and solidifies. We take the fat off, put the stock (if it's rich enough, it will have gelled) into ice cube trays and then transfer the frozen cubes into a zip-lock bag where they're handy for making sauces, gravies, stews.

Every now and then though, soup is the only reasonable end product of the stock-making process.

One of our Easter dishes this year was a delectable bone-in, local, organic, smokey ham. This is how it looked the day we served it:

on the counter

on the table

We've had some good meals with the ham since Easter — with pasta, potato scallop, in sandwiches — but it was time for its final act.

Yesterday, I boiled the ham-bone and all the scraps which had been conscientiously saved. The stock went onto the fridge, the fat was taken off, and it was time to make a traditional split pea soup.

I'm one of the people who got one of Jamie Oliver's utility knives in the recent coupon-collecting promotion. It's the one on the upper right (above) and on the left (below). I really like it but the serrated knife has been a favourite for a long time. I also have a large chef-style chopping knife but the truth is, I find it big and it doesn't suit my hand as well as these smaller ones.

I always forget how long it takes to soften those dried peas and if I had it to do again, I'd start them earlier. In fact, if I had it to do again, I'd soak them overnight and then start them earlier.

Everything worked out though. I used the immersion blender and the soup was smooth but still had some texture.

Before serving, I added some chopped ham that had fallen off the bone after the boiling.

It was hearty and filling and we both enjoyed it. I served it with fresh biscuits. This is not a new photo but the biscuits looked much the same today as they did the day this was taken.

I hope you had something satisfying and tasty today. I had fun, not only cooking but taking most of these photos! (Dan took a few also.) I won't do it every day but it's fun now and then.

Into the light: the post-"asylum" experience — 3

Here are Parts One and Two.

Psychiatry as it was practiced in the cheerful bright wing on the fourth floor of the Montreal General Hospital was, to quote myself, "leaping ahead by a couple of centuries" from our experience at the Verdun Protestant Hospital. I'm pretty sure there's been another great leap ahead since then but at least at the time, we felt we had very much moved into modern day.

My most vivid memories of the fourth floor are not so much the dramatic treatments still in use — electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and insulin shock therapy — but the relaxed atmosphere and the emphasis on talking. The patients weren't nearly as ill as the patients in the Verdun and individual psycho-therapy and group therapy were widely used. A lot of the therapy was private between the patient and her psychiatrist but we got to sit in on certain group therapy sessions and it was endlessly fascinating.

We were also encouraged to sit and talk with our patients as much as possible and they really meant it in this case. In theory, we were supposed to talk to our patients on our other floors but in practice, we never felt quite comfortable with that. We felt there were more points to be scored by looking busy even if we had to invent extra tasks.

But on the fourth floor, talking — listening really — and taking and recording copious notes, were both expected and evaluated. Many of the patients, suffering from what is now known as bi-polar disorder (known then as manic-depressive disorder), depression and schizophrenia were often pleasant and good conversationalists. Our notes were expected to be detailed, reporting dialogue, facial expressions, hand gestures — we were to paint a word picture so a psychiatrist reading it would feel all aspects of our encounters.

Our patients also were prescribed lots and lots of drugs. Many of the psychiatric drugs were in their infancy so much of our job was also to watch what happened after the drugs were administered — behaviour, thought and speech patterns, side effects.

I have specific memories of only a few patients; the great majority have become anonymous beings that I remember only as treatments or as room locations. One of the patients I do remember was a 17-year-old boy, a very smart boy who was bi-polar and who was barely in control when he was manic but who also spent whole days in bed. It was always very mysterious to see a brain working two very different occupations.

Even though the listening and the talking and the writing are the most memorable, most of our patients also were treated with ECT and insulin and these were major events in our nursing week. Both these treatments were labour-intensive for the nursing staff, in the preparation stage, at the height of the treatment and probably most importantly, bringing our patients back from a sometimes terrifying trip. After ECT particularly, the patient's memory would be mostly gone with even the simplest functions forgotten as the brain waves had been zapped and fragmented with the electric shock. The patients were also usually sore after having had violent seizures. It took days to recover.

Following the insulin, they were often sick and disoriented.

My goodness. What they went through all just to try to feel somewhat normal and to be able to function out in the world.

The treatment I haven't mentioned, which in fact I only encountered once, was the lobotomy — a procedure almost too painful to think about.

The purpose of the operation was to reduce the symptoms of mental disorder, and it was recognized that this was accomplished at the expense of a person's personality and intellect. . . Following the operation, spontaneity, responsiveness, self-awareness and self-control were reduced. Activity was replaced by inertia, and people were left emotionally blunted and restricted in their intellectual range.

The woman I saw who had had a lobotomy appeared to me to be simply a shell, looking straight ahead out of empty eyes, not reacting to anything around her. No one knew quite what to say.

There was a very dramatic incident during my time on the fourth floor. We had a patient who was suffering severe post-partum depression. She had spoken not a word since the birth of her baby and was non-reactive to everything around her. She was admitted because she was considered a severe danger to herself and was on high suicide alert. This meant that anything that could cause any harm was removed from the room and someone popped into her room every 10 minutes or so.

Shortly after one of the routine checks, there was a mighty crash from her room. Now you have to remember, this was a woman who hadn't spoken or moved or reacted to anything in weeks. This crash was unfathomable.

But apparently, someone had left a heavy glass ashtray in her room.

That is thick glass and it must have taken superhuman strength to hurl it with such force that it broke on the tile floor. But break it did and by the time staff reached her room, she had used a piece of the glass to cut her wrist and was bleeding heavily. Staff sprang into action, got the material needed to stop the bleeding, called emergency and within a very short time a stretcher arrived and she was taken down to the emergency department where she was met by a team to deal with all aspects of the care that was needed.

As far as I know, she survived and I've always hoped that she defeated the post-partum depression and was able to enjoy her family and the new baby.

My "asylum" experience continues: Part 2

Here's Part 1.

I've written only about the women's ward in the psychiatric institution called the Verdun Protestant Hospital but part of our group also worked on the men's ward. I have no real impression of what their work was like. In a way, there was such a feeling of intimacy with some of our patients on the women's ward, I wonder what could possibly duplicate that feeling on the men's ward? We were warned of — and experienced — dangerous situations with the women so I can only imagine what it must have been like working with the men.

I do remember that our whole group — and maybe some other groups — were taken on a chilling tour of the locked ward where the most dangerous patients were kept. These were people who had come through the criminal justice system, who had been charged with serious violent crime and who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity. This was maximum security; we were accompanied by a contingent of security staff and doors were unlocked and re-locked as we approached and passed through.

It was scary and sad and it was also a bit mesmerizing, in the way of a horror movie.

When I was looking up a few facts about the Verdun hospital, I came across a survey that had been done in 1937, detailing the state of the hospital, the staff, the patients, the food, the dress, the recreation, the care. It makes for interesting reading and although I'm sure many of the changes that it recommended had been implemented by the time we came along, there were some descriptions that sounded very familiar.

Without enumerating the details of all the wards, certain general remarks may be made. As has been stated before, there is very serious overcrowding in all of the wards devoted to public patients, and at least one ward now in use, namely "A" and "Observation", which is located in the basement, is not at all suitable for the care of patients.

In spite of that fact, 70 male patients, of various types, are housed there at present. The beds are crowded much more closely together than should be the case, with the result that the ventilation which even under ideal conditions of ward population would not be entirely satisfactory, is decidedly inadequate.

So far as could be observed, the housekeeping was reasonably good. The beds were clean and in spite of the woeful lack of bathing facilities, the patients appeared clean and the wards in general were free of odor. The natural lighting of a number of the wards is poor, and the arrangement is such that adequate supervision of the patients could not be obtained without a large addition to the personnel.

It's so polite and tactful, isn't it?

I think the main impression that comes across in the survey is cheerlessness and that's definitely one of the feelings I was always left with. My memory may not be terribly specific about the conditions in the hospital but my impression is that it was dank and dark and lacking in cheer and colour and hope.

At some point in our training, we were taken on a field trip to another "asylum" — the vast institution in the East End of Montreal called Saint-Jean de Dieu.

We went there on a bus and I remember being taken in by a back entrance to a sitting/waiting room until our guide appeared — a nun in full habit. Saint-Jean de Dieu, run by the Sisters of Charity, at that time housed over 5,000 mentally ill patients. I didn't know it then but I found out later that it was, in fact, an incorporated municipality and the Mother Superior was also the mayor. The hospital/town had its own police force, fire department, post office and its own polling stations during elections.

It also had shops and small businesses along its big main hallway — shoe repair, bakery, sewing and weaving — all operated by the patients. You couldn't help but think of that old observation that "the inmates have taken over the asylum" — but in a good way. I don't know how it looked to the patients and their families but to me it seemed bright and cheerful and hopeful. It was clean and well-lit.

That hospital was so big, it had a tramway inside to transport goods and patients from one place to another. Do you see the rails?

Most people remember — and she was memorable — the patient who believed she was Queen Victoria and dressed and behaved accordingly. She had a regal wave that Queen Elizabeth II would surely envy.

(This is the look she was going for.)

You can only conclude that the difference in the two hospitals was the presence of the nuns. There would have been a good population of nuns in Quebec at that time — this was still pre-Quiet Revolution — and nursing nuns were dedicated to service and to their patients. The survey I mentioned above about the Verdun centred in so many areas on lack of personnel.

I learned a lot from comparing these two settings.

We did eventually get back to the Montreal General and it was like leaping ahead a couple of centuries. I'll come back and tell you about that.

---

Here's Part Three.

Incurably insane to treatable psychotic: my asylum experience

There are times I look back on the psychiatric training we Montreal General students got just after the middle of the last century and wonder if we somehow fell into the Middle Ages. We were right on the cusp of some major changes but we were still in a time when the hospitals were called asylums and some of our mentally ill patients still had the diagnosis "incurably insane" written on their charts.

It was the early 1960s, but a couple of those patients had been admitted to the hospital back in the '30s and I think there was one — her name was "Baby" — who had been there since the '20s. I think she had been admitted as a teenager after being accused of killing someone. (I'm saying "I think" quite a lot here because it was a long time ago and the nature of some of the memories I have are almost dream-like.)

Our hard-core psychiatric work — I'm not sure I can honestly call it "training" — was done at what was then called the Verdun Protestant Hospital. It's now called the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. We referred to it only as "the Verdun" and my memories of it — of the actual hospital — are spotty. I remember the large grounds, with laid out walkways, because we were allowed to take certain patients outside for walks and I remember it being pleasant out there.

If this is how the hospital looked, this would have been much earlier than my time. I can see it being like this however, before those trees matured.

Dr. Heinz Lehmann, who became very well-known for his work in psychiatric drugs, was director of the Verdun and in some of my reading, I see that he described the hospital before some of the big changes that were to come, as a "snake pit." Oh yes.

I worked on the women's ward. Most of the women had been there for years, some for decades. When we had some spare time, we could go into the record room and read some of the charts. There were thousands and thousands of pages written about each patient although we were astonished to discover that some of the charts had ended years before. It was as if there was nothing more to say.

Some of the patients were harmless but we were warned that most had a very dangerous side. A couple of them, we were cautioned, were cleverly manipulative and they would behave almost normally around us, smiling, being helpful and conversational. The more experienced among us watched carefully because those patients regularly attacked young nurses after lulling them into feeling secure. It didn't happen to me but I saw it happen once; it was horrible and involved alarms going off, burly men appearing on the scene, our patient being held down (not easy, even for the burly men) and a vast amount of a tranquilizing injection administered under indescribable duress.

It was scary and I realize, looking back, that there were a lot of things to be scared of there. We had to go through a tunnel to get from our residence to our work. That tunnel was awful and if we ever found ourselves alone down there, it was a nightmare. We did try to stick together.

It was surely a stressful place to work but there were pleasant times too. Some of our patients were adorable, child-like almost (I guess we would be too if we'd been there for so many years, being treated like a child), wanting approval and loving hugs and hand-holding.

There were two patients called Tilly. One was Tilly the White Rabbit who had been walking hurriedly up and down the same small piece of hallway all her waking hours for many years. She had worn a groove in the floor.

Tilly the Police Officer walked purposefully around the ward, not looking as if she were noticing anything but in fact, aware of every little detail of what everyone was doing. If we needed to know something about one of the non-communicative patients, Tilly was our woman.

But we always had to be careful. There was one patient, much much bigger than I, who liked to wrap young nurses in a bear hug. She got me in her grip one day and wouldn't let me go. I quite literally couldn't move and could barely breathe. I tried talking to her calmly, saying everything we'd been taught to say, but I finally had to yell for help. It caused quite a crisis on the ward. She was a difficult patient and she clearly enjoyed having the upper hand. I was never sure after if she remembered having done that. That was scary in itself.

Our patients — as far as I know, looking back — were psychotic and they were being treated with massive doses of anti-psychotic drugs. I think this was a fairly new development and it was probably why the patients were able to function — in their own way.

The thing that got me thinking about all this was reading lately something that referred in passing to electro-convulsive therapy — which we were ordered to say — also known as "electric shock treatment" which we were ordered never to say.

Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and deep insulin coma therapy were both used at the Verdun but not so much on our ward. I think they must have been used in areas where the patients had a better prognosis. I only remember seeing the treatment once or twice but I do remember this: the shock was administered with no general anaesthetic and the thought of that is another kind of shock. (I assisted with ECT many times in the psychiatric unit back at the Montreal General where the second part of our affiliation took place and there, we did use general anaesthetic. It was still shocking — sorry, it just seems to fit — but a little easier to take.)

I was still a few years away from being able to look at the incarceration and treatment of the women at the Verdun with a feminist analysis. For Her Own Good hadn't even been written yet. That will be a subject for another time.

But I obviously have more to say about life in the asylum and being a nurse to the mentally ill so I'll be back with Part Two.

---

Here are Parts Two and Three.