Chapter Six:
Growing Up in Niagara Falls
The expression “never a dull moment” does not begin to describe what it was like growing up in the household of Henry and Bella Muller. Firstly, all the phone lines from Muller’s Meats also rang into the house. At all hours of the evening and into the middle of the night, truck drivers were calling that their refrigeration units had broken down or that they had a flat tire, customers were calling looking for their product, the night watchman at the plant was calling because the hot water tank burst, or an employee was calling confidentially to inform Henry of the latest union organizing effort.
And that was only part of it. For decades, Henry was President of the B’nai Jacob Congregation and President of the Hebrew Burial Society. As such, he fielded calls daily from congregants and from others in need of help – including being buried when the time came!
And that was only part of it. There was a constant stream of visitors with new business ideas looking for financial backing, ranging all the way from evangelists looking for a backer to make Christian videos (he said yes to that!) to a group wanting to make a new type of wallboard (he said yes to that too!) to a group wanting to make hydraulic lifting systems for the back of trucks (he said yes to that too!). We have a warehouse filled with files called “Aborted Projects.”
And that was only part of it. For decades, the house was a central point for magicians, illusionists, spirit mediums, magic collectors, and aficionados from the world over. David Copperfield, David Merlini, The Amazing Randi, Doug Henning; Walter Gibson, Milbourne Christopher – all guests in the Muller household over the years.
My Earliest Memories – Learning Math and Reading at a Young Age
In December of 1963, our family took a vacation to the Concord Resort in the Catskill Mountains in New York State. My father had the idea that he and my mother would go skiing, even though neither of them knew how to ski. Understandably, my mother was hesitant when she was at the top of the hill. My father decided to give her a little push to help her down the hill, whereupon she fell and broke her leg quite badly.
This was a life-changing event for me but not in the way that one would expect. My mother was in bed for six months as a result of her broken leg. As my older brother and sister were already in school it was just my mother and me at home. During those six months she taught me how to read. This gave me a tremendous advantage when I started school. On the first day of kindergarten, I read aloud to the principal the introductory letter he had written for the parents. He had me tested and I tested at the eighth-grade reading level.
At that age, I was also fascinated by numbers and was able to memorize phone numbers. This was a source of amusement for my older siblings who showed me off to their friends. Our number was ELgin 8-9337 on Brookfield and then ELgin 6-0753 on McMillan. My grandparents’ was ELgin 4-8740 and my great grandmother’s was ELgin 8-9504. The plant was ELgin 8-3285. One day I went with my Dad to the barber and I told the barber his phone number. The barber told that story for a long time thereafter. I also memorized the Jewish Community phone list (residences and businesses).
During the time I was in my first decade, my father was trading penny stocks quite actively, using a broker named Bill Jones – nicknamed Jonesy – whose office was called Greenshields and was located on Queen Street in Niagara Falls. I used to tag along with my father – and later with my grandfather Opi – to Jonesy’s office. I was fascinated by the numbers running along the electronic ticker tape. Unlike the older gentlemen who were sitting there watching as well, I was able to remember for each stock the price of the previous trade, which was also a source of amusement for all around.
I started to learn about stock valuations and especially about charting, of which father was a big proponent. My father got involved with a penny stock promoter named Bill Coldoff in Toronto. Companies Coldoff promoted like Capri Mining became a part of daily family dinner discussions and family lore.
For my bar-mitzvah in 1974, Opi bought me ten shares of IBM Corp at $224 per share. This started a fascination I had with IBM. I became knowledgeable about all their new machines – Correcting Selectrics – cutting edge at the time, as well as Quip and Quix, new technologies they were trying to work on which would let people send words in print over telephone lines – very early versions of what later became fax machines. I wrote to IBM offices all over North America and they sent me back brochures and flyers which I read voraciously.
This early interest is what led me to want to work in Equity Trading after business school. Having said that, my father’s increasing risk-taking with higher and higher stakes as I got older turned me off to the whole world of retail trading in capital markets. This was solidified during my summer at Goldman Sachs when I saw first-hand – not in Fixed Income Trading where my job was but rather in Fixed Income Sales where I also spent some time that summer – how money is sucked out of small investors for the benefit of the Wall Street firms. Years later this was portrayed beautifully by Leonard DiCaprio in the scene in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street where he sold an unsuspecting investor 10,000 shares of Aerotyne International (watch it again on YouTube!).
My fascination with numbers and arithmetic led me to an interest in something called the Trachtenberg System of Mathematics, which was a system of doing complex arithmetic in one’s head. I still use the system to this day. I was also fascinated by the writings of Martin Gardner, particularly his books about numbers. I also was fascinated by odds, and particularly by horse racing. As a kid, I read the horse racing results in the paper, particularly comparing the predictions made in the previous day’s newspaper with the actual results the next day. I encouraged my Dad to take me on some Sundays to the horse races in Fort Erie, and he did. I loved it, and honestly, he did too. Decades later I wrote my college thesis on how people assess – and incorrectly assess – probabilities and I wrote my thesis in Business School on how people behave in casinos. This was decades before this became popular lore in best-sellers such as Freakonomics and Thinking Fast and Slow.
In later years, when Opi was responsible for making the business’s bank deposits, I would go with him down to Queen Street to the Bank of Montreal branch where we did our banking. He was loved by all the employees there, especially Helen Gemmell. He would stop off at Jonesy’s briefly and then head over with me to the My Country Delicatessen next door to the bank. They loved him there and he loved it there. He would pick up some European delicacies as well as a pound of lox for my mother, some Carlsbad Oblaten for Magdi Omama and Salmiak candies for Lilly Omama. We would also go “over the river” to Niagara Falls, New York, to the Marine Midland Bank to make our U.S. dollar deposits there. At that time, one did not even have to show identification to get over the Rainbow Bridge. They just saw him and waved him through.
It would be hard to imagine a closer relationship between a grandfather and grandson than the relationship I had with Opi. I had the good fortune of having Opi in my life until I was twenty-six years old. Opi and I spent hours sitting together in the two green rocking chairs on the front porch of his house on Brookfield Avenue. It is not an exaggeration that much of my weltanschauung – including the use of that word – derives from these hours of conversations. Like many Eastern European Jews of that era, he always had some gold ingots hidden in his home, “just in case” he needed to get out quickly. As I have described elsewhere in this book, this attitude led to him escaping Europe with his family just in the nick of time, when almost everyone else in his town did not. Thus, this attitude served him well, and it has been passed down to his progeny, including me, and my children as well, even though they were born too late to know him personally.
It was very important to Opi that one earns a good living and is able to provide for one’s family. He respected people who achieved this, and he instilled this value into me in a deep and meaningful way.
By the same token, Opi was very generous to the less fortunate, in a very quiet way, but in a way that I knew of only because we were so close to one another.
For many years while I was in high school and in college, I would spend my winter vacations with Opi and Omama. For many years, it was at Larry Paskow’s Harbor Island Spa in North Miami and then for even more years at Century Village in Deerfield Beach. How I long for just one more of those vacations with them. I still know the twenty-six sections of Century Village in alphabetical order. I wonder if they still have early-bird dinners.
While Opi was alive, I had a much closer relationship with Opi than with Omama. Omama was the one in the kitchen making the csirke paprika or rakott krumpli or eper krem, or all of them. It was after Opi died in 1988 that I really became close with Omama. She lived another twenty-two years until she was 100-1/2, and she was really well until the end, amazingly so for such a big woman.
Even after Opi died, I spent vacations with Omama in Century Village. But truthfully, it was not the same, for me, and certainly for her. What a love story they had.
Ferdinand and Magda endow a Youth Orchestra in Israel in Memory of their Late Daughter Alice, 1973.
Magdi Omama with David and Joyce and Their Children, Ancaster, Ontario, 2005.
Opi and Omama cruising.
Opi and Omama (Philip and Esther Zuker in background).
Opi and Omama, Larry Paskow’s Harbor Island Spa, Miami Beach, Florida
Opi and Omama at the McMillan Drive house, early 1980s.
Opi and Omama, Pesach, early 1980.
Winter break at Century Village, Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Opi looking at my Europe photo scrapbook, Deerfield Beach, Florida.
The lovebirds at Century Village Lyndhurst K-4048 (tel 954-427-5406).
My parents at the McMillan Drive house, early 1980s.
Our Home and Neighborhood
In 1958, my parents moved to a home that was custom-built for them by Leslie Weisz (or Lutzi Bacsi as we knew him) at 1953 Brookfield Avenue in Niagara Falls Canada. In 1970, 4000 was added to each of the addresses in Niagara Falls so our house became 5953 Brookfield Avenue.
Across the street from us were the McClellands. Brian was my sister’s age and Billy was my age. The Rollses, Robert and Barbara, lived across the street. He was a Reverend, she was a night club singer, and they had a couple of daughters around my age. They later divorced.
One year in the early 1970’s, a house was wheeled down Lundy’s Lane and placed on a foundation on the lot next door to our house. The family that moved in there was named Lenchyshyn and they had a daughter Donna Lenchyshyn who had Apert’s Syndrome. One day our family came home after having been out for dinner, and found that Donna had gone into the house, removed our food from our fridge, and put it all out on the floor for our dog Lhasa to eat.
My father drove a station wagon. In addition to transporting our family, the car was also used as a delivery vehicle for beef products from Muller’s Meats that were being delivered to local restaurants. As a result, it always smelled like meat.
The Synagogue in Niagara Falls
The Jewish community played an important role in our family. My father was President of the B’nai Jacob Synagogue from 1974 to 1993.
Rabbi Isaac Gross was the Rabbi of the congregation and he played an important role in my education, so much so that I gave the hesped (eulogy) at his funeral. I started the hesped as follows (I gave it with no notes):
“In the siddur (prayer book) which was used in the B’nai Jacob Congregation in Niagara Falls, the opening berachot were on page 45. Mizmor shir was on page 60. Ashrei was on page 76. Shochain Ad was on page 86. Barchu was on page 88. The morning shema was on page 92. The Amidah for Shacharit was on page 96. Taking out of the Torah began on page 117. Beriech Shmai was on page 118. Yekum Purkun was on page 128. Musaf began on page 137. Ain Keloheinu was on 157, Aleinu on 158, and Adon Olam on page 162. Now I have not seen that siddur in thirty-five years. So why is it that I know every page of the prayer book as though I used it this morning? The answer to that is Rabbi Isaac Gross.”
“Even though Rabbi Gross has passed away from this world, in fact he lives on. He lives on in me, who thinks of him three times a day, and he lives on in dozens of students in Niagara Falls whose lives he touched. May his memory be a blessing”.
During my years of grade school, I studied with Rabbi Gross at Hebrew School on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, first from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and then in later years from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I also learned separately with Rabbi Gross for an hour on Saturday afternoons. He taught me to speak Hebrew, to lead the prayers and to read the Torah. To this day, I read my bar mitzvah parsha, Shelach, each year, which he taught me.
The synagogue was located at 5328 Ferry Street, between the Admiral Motel and the Cadillac Motel. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we would rent a room at the Cadillac Motel for Lilly Omama to stay in because she did not want to drive on Yom Tov. Lilly Omama would bring with her to shul an apple or pear filled with whole cloves and smell it throughout the day, as a method of helping with the fast. She and Magdi Omama had prayer books in Hungarian, Gebetbucher
The community produced a sizable number of luminaries in fields of business, law, medicine and journalism in Canada, although almost all of those had left Niagara Falls by the time I was growing up. Those include Eddie Greenspan and Brian Greenspan, probably Canada’s two most famous defense lawyers ever, as well as Barbara Frum, Canada’s most famous and beloved journalist and newscaster, and Dr. Ronald Zuker, one of the world’s foremost reconstructive plastic surgeons.
On Saturday mornings, I would walk to Leslie Weisz’s house on Barker Street, along with my cousins Bobby and Danny. Mr. Weisz, or Lutzi Bacsi as we called him, would drive us to shul in his big orange Thunderbird. People who were at the shul on Saturdays included Tommy Dale, Irving Milchberg, Paul Greenspan, Irving Feldman, Earl Parker and Larry Cohen. There was a family from Lebanon named Srour. They had two girls, Francine and Cybelle. They would stand when their father had an aliyah. He ran a souvenir store in the lobby of the Skylon Tower.
Lutzi Bacsi died in 1974 suddenly of a heart attack. It was an enormous loss to our family, especially to Opi as he and Lutzi Bacsi were very close friends. I slept at Stefie Neni’s house for a couple of weeks after that so she would not be alone. Leslie and Stefie had two children, Eddie and Judy. My parents fixed up Judy with Norman Bennett, the son of my mother’s cousin Marian. Judy and Norman married. Their daughter Marianne lives in Boca Raton and we are close friends with her and her husband Eric Altschul to this day.
Irving Milchberg had been, as a child, a gun runner in the Warsaw Ghetto, and has an amazing book written about him called The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square by Joseph Ziemian. If you have not read that book, I highly recommend doing so. Irving’s children, Howard and Anne, were a bit older than me. Howard became a professor of physics in Maryland and Anne became an accomplished architect in Toronto. I had a very close relationship with Irving, especially during the years that Joyce and I were first married and living in Niagara Falls. It is not unreasonable to say that after Opi died in 1988, Irving took his place in my life as my elder confidant. I so enjoyed spending time with him. He had a worldview similar to Opi’s – and justifiably so, given his history.
The High Holidays were a really big deal in our family. First was the hiring of a cantor for the synagogue. Several candidates came to town to audition for the job. The congregants would listen to each cantor and then make a decision on whom to hire. As my father loved chazzanus, and he was the president of the shul, usually the one he wanted was the one who was hired.
B'nai Jacob Synagogue
Rabbi Isaac Gross
I recently edited a book about the history of the Jewish Community of Niagara Falls, entitled Let’s Go Look at the Golden Book.
Chevre Kaddishe (Hebrew Burial Society)
The Chevre Kaddishe (Hebrew Burial Society) in Niagara Falls played an important role in our family. My father was the head of the Chevre Kaddishe for over thirty-five years. For centuries, there has been no more important role in the Jewish community than being a member of the Chevre Kaddishe. It is the one mitzvah one does for someone for which one expects no thanks; in fact, by definition, the receiver cannot give thanks to the giver.
My father assembled a group of people to do the tahara (ritual preparation for burial).
My father’s role also involved making all the arrangements with the deceased’s family for the burial and the shiva. Many of the congregants were not aware of the intricate and important laws regarding burial and mourning; thus, much of my father’s role was educating the bereaved, in addition to comforting them.
The community purchased a demarcated plot of land within the Lundy’s Lane Cemetery which is the Jewish cemetery.
My father would often say, “I have buried every Jewish person who has died in Niagara Falls in the last 35 years”.
When my grandfather Opi passed away in 1988, my father led the team that performed the tahara. I know that he felt a great sense of satisfaction in doing that. This led me to do the same when my father passed away; more on that later.
The Concord
For many Rosh Hashanahs, our family went to the Concord Resort in Kiamesha Lake, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. Great family memories were created there. We heard the great chazanim Richard Tucker and then Herman Malamood; the choir was led by Sholom Secunda.
We attended shows in the Imperial Room by the great borscht belt comedians, Buddy Hackett, Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Topo Gigio and entertainers like Tony Bennett and Tom Jones.
The dining room was a highlight. Regardless of which main course you ordered, the waiter brought you all of the main courses.
We played shuffleboard, horseshoes, ping pong and of course played Simon Says with the tummler. Tummler is such a great word. I know of no other word that connotes a time and place like that one does. Just saying it takes me back there. Cue Mary Hopkin.
As a young kid, I “worked” the elevator, asking people what floor they were going to and then pushing the button for them. I was all of six years old.
Opi and Omama, and Lilly Omama joined us at the Concord on some of our trips there.
One year, Joyce’s parents joined us as well.
Many decades later, Joyce and I were sitting in a classroom for Parents’ Night at Hillel Day School in Boca Raton, and I started to make conversation with a man sitting next to me who I didn’t recognize. He said that he had just moved to town and I asked him where he was from. He replied, a small town in upstate New York. I asked him what town and he responded, Kiamesha Lake, New York. Kiamesha Lake, I said, wow, that brings back such great memories for me; our family used to go to the Concord Resort Hotel for Rosh Hashanah and I have such great memories of those vacations. He responded, well I probably checked you in, because I owned the hotel. It turns out he was Robert Parker, who took over the hotel after the passing of the famed founder of the hotel, his grandfather Arthur Winarick!
My Education
There is no question in my mind that there is a direct line to be drawn from my mother’s care of me to my Phi Beta Kappa key and the Summa Cum Laude imprint on my diploma. From the time I was three years old, when she broke her leg skiing, she spent countless hours with me educating me, first teaching me how to read and do arithmetic, and thereafter nurturing my love for literature and math. Our house full of books (and hers) are both a result of that. My shelves of Martin Gardner books are a result of that. I was given such an enormous head start, and also was such a willing recipient of her teaching, and her love, that it provided for me a base and a level of self-esteem which certainly served me well in my school years and also to this day. Thank G-d she is still around and well to see my children get married and build their own families.
Also at that time, my mother had me going to Mrs. Dingman’s twice a week for piano lessons, and practicing at home every day. I won the under age five city-wide piano contest two years in a row.
I attended Miss Wilson’s Nursery School for one year. I then was to start kindergarten at Diamond Jubilee School. In fact, on the first day of kindergarten the teacher handed out to the parents a letter which I took and read to the principal. He couldn’t believe it and he had me tested and I tested at an eighth-grade level of reading. I left the kindergarten and went straight to first grade. As a result, throughout school, I was one year younger than everyone else.
I went to Diamond Jubilee for four years from grades one through four. Then for fifth grade we were moved into the Enrichment Class taught by Glenna Ingold. Of all my teachers growing up, it was first and foremost Miss Ingold who took the baton from my mother so to speak and nourished my love of reading and of math.
I have tremendous respect for and gratitude toward those teachers who made a difference in my life and in my children’s lives. Being in education is really one profession where one can truly outlive oneself; that is to say, when done right, one lives on in one’s students. This is certainly true for Miss Ingold, and I would be neglectful if I did not add Mr. Al Scott to this category as well. Moving forward a generation, the same holds for Morgan Comart, who has made a life-changing difference in education.
The Enrichment Class was at Battlefield School for my first year and then moved to James Morden School for my second year. Then at that point it was time for me to go to Princess Margaret School which was for grades seven and eight. That was the first year that the Enrichment Class extended to middle school. It was called .078. One year the teacher was Mrs. Lynn Cairns and the other year the teacher was Mr. Al Scott; both were great teachers.
High School – Stamford CVI – September 1973 to June 1977
For high school, I went to Stamford CVI on Drummond Road. At that time, high school in Ontario was five years: grades nine through thirteen. I did the five years in four. Combining that with the fact that I had skipped kindergarten, by the time I got to my last year in high school, I was two years younger than everyone else in my class. I was just turning sixteen at graduation whereas everyone else was eighteen. My high school classmates did a lot of drinking, much of it at a place called the Bon Villa (known as the Bonny) on Lundy’s Lane. I was not a part of that and thus was not in the socially cool crowd.
The highlight of my high school years was most definitely playing chess. Under the tutelage of Mr. John Mrmak, the physics teacher, the chess team was provincially ranked and I, and Robert Manherz, competed for the #1 and #2 spots. We played for hours after school every day, both amongst ourselves and against other schools. We also studied the history of chess and reviewed myriads of famous games.
In 1972, when Boris Spassky played Bobby Fischer for the world’s championships in Reykjavik Iceland, I was riveted to every game. Decades later, Joyce and I took our boys to Iceland and visited the Bobby Fischer Chess Center in Selfoss, easily the highlight of our Iceland trip, for me at least!
One of my great take-aways from high school was my friendship with Altaf Mawji, now Dr. Altaf Mawji of London, Ontario. Altaf and his sister were children of first-generation immigrants from Uganda whose parents were Nizari Ismailis who in 1972 had fled oppression and tyranny of Idi Amin. They owned and operated the Admiral Motel, located right next to our synagogue. Having spent a lot of time in their home, I learned from Altaf and his family who the Nizari Ismailis are. For the reader who is unaware of the Nizari Ismailis, please Google Nizari Ismailis in Canada or Industrial Promotion Services in Markham. They are a unique group of people under the tutelage of the Aga Khan. They all take care of one another, on a world-wide basis. This extends to many facets of their lives, all the way up to and including putting newcomers into their own businesses. After the newcomers become successful, they in turn become a part of the collective that then helps other newcomers. I admired their work ethic, their world-view and their sense of commitment to their community.
The Cavalier Motel
In the mid 1960’s, my parents built a motel from scratch. It was at 1019 Centre Street (later 5019 Centre Street), two city blocks from the main center corner of the tourist district of Niagara Falls. It had two floors and thirty-nine rooms. They called it the Cavalier Motel and the sign was a huge cavalier.
We spent many weekend afternoons at the Cavalier Motel pool and created many distinct memories that have become part of our family lore. There was a pop machine (soda machine) that sold Canada Dry products like Canada Dry Ginger Ale. As our family were the owners of the motel, we were in possession of an Allen wrench type tool that opened the side door so that we could get sodas without having to put the quarters in the machine. Each room had a Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed. If you put a quarter in the machine, the bed would vibrate for three minutes.
One day a boy almost drowned in the pool. The manager took off his shoes, put his wallet on the side of the pool, jumped in and rescued the boy.
For many years, it was managed by Dave and Simone Kierstead. Vince DeLorenzo, owner of the Mama Mia’s Restaurant, was a customer of my father’s meat business. He became my Dad’s partner in the motel.
Niagara Falls Flyers
For many Canadians, hockey is a second religion – or first, as the case may be! In Niagara Falls, this revolved around the Niagara Falls Flyers. They played at the Niagara Falls Arena at the corner of Centre Street and Lewis Avenue. The Emms family who owned the team were local dignitaries. The father Hap Emms owned the team, and his son Paul Emms was the coach. Many of my earliest memories are of my father taking me to Flyers games. Unfortunately, the home games were played for the most part on Friday nights, which meant that our Friday night dinners were rushed in order to get to the game on time, much to the consternation of my mother.
The stars of the Niagara Falls Flyers were local heroes, and many of them went on to become stars in the National Hockey League. These included Don Awrey, Don Lever, Ricky Ley, Jim Lorentz, Phil Myre, Phil Roberto, Derek Sanderson, Jim Schoenfeld, Bernie Parent and Doug Favell.
For several years, my father organized a promotion at the games called the Houdini Hat Trick. A Hat Trick in hockey occurs when a player scores three goals in one game. The Houdini Hat Trick was an offer made by the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in which the player who scored a hat trick was given a $100 prize by the museum. There was a seat in the arena which was painted its own unique color and which was designated for the person that night – usually my father or an employee of the museum – who would hand the player the money right then and there when he scored his third goal. Literally almost everyone in the city of Niagara Falls knew what the Houdini Hat Trick was! It was a great source of fun and publicity. Whether it ever increased the revenue of the museum even by one dollar is another matter entirely.
My Bar-Mitzvah June 1974
My bar-mitzvah was a big deal. Shabbos morning I led all the tefilot – pezukei dezimra, shacharit and musaf – and I also leined the whole parsha Shelach – and the haftorah. It was all taught to me by Rabbi Gross. I wore a red tallis with a matching yarmulke. My cousin Joel Yellin had a matching set in green.
That night there was a big party at the Sheraton Brock. My Mom planned it all. The highlight was a candle-lighting ceremony. A different set of relatives came up to light each candle, accompanied by songs that my Mother wrote especially for that candle. We had orange benchers, each of which had the couple’s name and table number handwritten in it by my mother. She really made me feel like I was having the most important bar-mitzvah of all time.
Move to McMillan Drive
In 1974, we moved to 7046 McMillan Drive. The house was about six blocks from our previous house on Brookfield Avenue. My parents bought it from a psychiatrist for a song.
In the center of the home was a four hundred square foot glass atrium with a glass roof. My parents redid the entire atrium with the assistance of Frank Paonessa, the gardener for the Niagara Falls Parks Commission. In one corner was a waterfall with fish. In another corner was a cactus garden. There was an orange tree that provided oranges for the family, although they were sour. There was also a night-blooming cereus, which bloomed only once a year for a single night. Frank also tended to the outside grounds. It seemed like Frank was always at the house.
My parents hired Schwenker Pools to build a pool in the backyard. This endeavor was the cause of no end of strife in our household, as the workers seldom came as promised and the project took many months longer than it was supposed to. It was supposed to be finished for my bar mitzvah, but in fact it remained a construction site for the bar mitzvah celebrations, much to the consternation of my mother.
My parents also added a great dry sauna and in-ground whirlpool off their bedroom.
It was a fabulous house. Jerry and Sharon got married there in 1977 in a wedding in a Soper’s Tent in the backyard.
My parents at the McMillan Drive house, early 1980s.
Pesach at the McMillan Drive house, early 1980s.
Young Judaea
Canadian Young Judaea is a youth movement devoted to the ideal of moving to Israel – making aliyah – and thus fulfilling the Zionist dream. Young Judaea was an important part of my childhood. We would have local Young Judaea meetings, and in the summers would attend Young Judaea summer camps. I went to Camp Shalom in Gravenhurst, Ontario for seven summers from 1967 to 1973. For the summers of 1974 and 1975, I would have gone to Camp Solelim in Sudbury, but I did not. Instead I stayed in Niagara Falls and worked selling magic kits at Houdini’s. In the summer of 1976 I went to Camp Biluim on Lac Mercier in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, and in the summer of 1977, I went on Camp Biluim Israel, a program run by Canadian Young Judaea for juniors in high school. All the other participants were going back to finish high school, but I was finished high school already and stayed in Israel for my gap year after the summer program was over. People I went with included Naomi Jacobs, Anne Saks, Shelley Cohen, Tova Goldberg, Cheryl Richtiger, Lisa Talesnick, Bonnie Lebovic. Two of my bunkmates who later became famous were Blayne Lastman, the son of the mayor of Toronto who took over his father’s furniture business Bad Boy Furniture and was on TV commercials for years, and Alan Feld, who founded Vintage Investment Partners, one of Israel’s leading venture capital firms. Madrichim at the meetings included the Blackstiens (Gary, Paula and Susan) and the Greenspans (Barry, Larry, and their cousin Barbara). My counsellor at camp was Neil Applebaum. The division head was David Zifkin – we called him Zippy. Decades later Lenny Baranek did law work for our family. I was always impressed that camp had such a big impact on Lenny that for the rest of his life, he devoted his time and energy to making sure that the camp flourished forever.
In the summer of 1970, Lyle Isaacs, one of the leaders of the movement, died in a car accident near Camp Biluim. That had a big impact on us all.
To this day, I have so many indelible memories of camp: the feel of the water on Brydon Bay, the smell of the baby powder we used to line our walkway for pre-Shabbat inspection, the taste of the Baked Alaska that George Barbeau made for us for closing banquet.
Although as it turns out I did not make aliyah, nonetheless, my years in the movement did instill in me the dream to do so, and I went on my gap year to Israel directly as a result of my involvement in Young Judaea.