-by Frank Macdonald
On the day of this writing, it happens to be Father’s Day, a day for reflection, for remembering, even for asking forgiveness. He was, as I suspect most fathers are, many things. A widower, he could feed his three children a fairly diverse menu in accordance as such menu as existed in Cape Breton in the 1950s. There was beef stew, boiled dinners, baloney and curds, and too many bony fish dinners. He never needed to call a plumber or an electrician. Just the general all-round Dad.
But he was a man of many stories, stories he told us about living through the Great Depression and World War II, about our late mother, his association with the Clancy Brothers. Once I asked him why he had so many Irish records and almost none by “Scottish” musicians. His reply was, “Frank, the Scots are brooders. The Irish are merry mourners. Much more fun to be with.”
The story that comes to mind today began on a day when Dad was hanging out at Jimmy Taylor’s Texaco garage (now the Ultramar). They were friends who liked each other as much sober as when they were on a tear. Into the garage wandered Allan J. MacEachen, who had suffered his only political defeat in the previous election and was now special assistant to Opposition Leader Mike Pearson.
In their chat, MacEachen mentioned that Pearson was planning on buying a new car. Jimmy Taylor tore into Allan J., asking why high-ranking politicians always bought their cars in Ontario and not from a someone like him. He also sold cars. Wherever else the chat went, who knows, although I wish I did know.
A week later, Jimmy got a phone call from Ottawa, Allan J. Allan was the bearer of good news. Mike Pearson decided that he would buy his next car from Jimmy Taylor. The deal was, Jimmy and Dad were to drive the new car (brand lost deep in my memory) and drive Pearson’s trade-in back to Inverness.
Inverness was deeply divided political town, Liberals and Conservatives tolerating each other about as much as Catholics and Protestants. It wasn’t the sale of the car to Pearson that interested Jimmy as much as bringing back to Inverness a car formerly owned by Mike Pearson, Nobel Prize winner, now leader of the federal Liberals, and fated to become Canada’s prime minister following another election.
So Jimmy and Dad set off for Ottawa, eventually found their way to Allan J.’s quarters and decided they would crash there for a week before taking the road back home. One day, through Allan J., they got access to the Parliament Building library and using its resources, my father decided to write a letter to his sister, Billie back in Inverness. Dad was good with a pen, and Jimmy crawled through the ancient tomes opening them at large and choosing quotes for Dad to use in the letter.
When the letter reached Inverness, it was apparently funnier than anything being offered at the Victoria Theatre, so Billie allowed one friend, then another, to borrow it. The misfortune of her trust was that the letter eventually disappeared, “fell into the hands of some Tory, no doubt,” Jimmy accused. Incidentally, both Jimmy and Dad were Tories, although Dad in later years told me, “I’ve never voted Liberal, but I always voted MacEachen.” He didn’t think it was a blasphemy to respect a man more than his politics.
One evening all three went to the Pearsons’ home. Mrs. Pearson answers the door, saw only MacEachen, and asked, “Are your sober alcoholics not with you?”
“Yes, we are,” and they were there, standing behind Allan J.
Mrs. Pearson had dealt with worse diplomatic crises than that, I would imagine. She invited them in. The reason they were at the Pearsons’ house, Dad told me, was to watch Perry Mason. It was my father’s conviction that Mike Pearson was such a fan of the show he would probably suspend Parliament for a hour to watch it.
Dad also told me about a grocery shopping trip the three Cape Bretoners in Ottawa made to a supermarket. Dad and Jimmy took a cart each and began wandering up and down the aisles, loading them with more food that they would ever eat during their brief visit. Also according to Dad, MacEachen was notoriously frugal, and as they piled their carts through the checkouts, each of them signalled that the bill was going to the man behind them. Allan J. got hit with a massive grocery bill.
Then, comfortably seated in Pearson’s trade-in, they set off for home. Jimmy parked the car in front of the garage with a “Formerly owned by Mike Pearson” sign on it. That sign lasted probably not much more than minutes before it sold. Gicks MacNeil purchased the car for an undisclosed price, and it sat in his Central Avenue yard beside his confectionary business, and no car ever came out of a Windsor factory with a finer shine.
The fate of the second-hand car wasn’t much on the minds of a man who was soon Prime Minister Mike Pearson, or his star cabinet member, Allan J. MacEachen. Pearson had won a minority government, with the NDP holding the balance of power.
The man holding that power was Tommy Douglas, voted in a CBC poll a few years ago as our Greatest Canadian. For Douglas’s support the price was that Liberals had to introduce a public health care system in Canada. The irony was that both Pearson and MacEachen were only to glad to be “forced” to create, with the provinces, a public health care system, one that has served Canadians well for more than 60 years, but one that needs idealistic revisiting.
As for Pearson’s trade-in, I have no idea what became of its eventual fate. Maybe it shows up at antique car shows, or became a source of rare parts for other antique cars.
Oh, I don’t credit my father or Jimmy Taylor with contributing to the nation’s health care system, but if they had been drinking on that trip, their various hangovers might have become a reason for Pearson and MacEachen to recognize the nation’s need for just such a service.