YYZ-YVR, the summer of 78’

Memoirs of a travelling ten year old

I have written a bit about this in the About feature on my Substack profile, but growing up my daycare was basically a weekly newspaper office. Before he left us to go to Andorra when I was three, my father was the Editor. My mother was the Publisher. I knew my way around a typewriter, and the ins and outs of the newspaper’s day to day operations well before grade one.

Part of the newspaper business it seemed was going to two conventions a year. At one point, our newspaper, The Times Review, from Fort Erie, Ontario, had been an award winning publication.

The OWNA (Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association) conventions were always in the fall or winter months in Toronto, Ontario. The CCNA (Canadian Community Newspapers Association) conventions were always in different locations in Canada during the summer months. Some of the places we had been to were Halifax, Edmonton, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and this year we were going to Vancouver.

It was August 1978, I was ten years old.

Pope Paul VI had recently died. I remember, I always checked out the newsstands and magazine racks at the airports, or in the gift shops of the hotels. I was mesmerized to see a picture of his dead body lying in state on the cover of a magazine. I spent time every day looking at it, I should have just bought a copy.

It was the first time in my life that a Pope had passed away. It was a huge news story that summer. So was the process of choosing his successor who would be Pope John Paul I, who would become Pope on August 26th, 1978. Sadly, he passed away thirty-three days later making his reign the shortest in papal history. It was the first time since 1605 there had been three Popes in one year.

It was an August morning when we went to fly out of Pearson International airport in Toronto, Ontario on CP Air Empress of China 747, piloted by Captain Wells. (although the Empress of Japan is pictured) I had flown quite a bit but I had never been on a 747 and I was absolutely stoked. It could have been one of the happiest days of my life. We taxied down the runway, took off and no sooner had we made it into the air, than the inside engine on the left wing blew up.

I remember seeing flames on the wing as we circled. The plane leaned to the left, then to the right, left, then right, left, then right and the pilot eventually steadied it. I know now that when this happens the plane, which would have been flying with just two engines at this point, circles and dumps its fuel. The fuel most likely went into Lake Ontario. We made a very smooth, excellent landing on our first attempt.

I remember seeing greenish yellow fire trucks along the side of the runway as we made our approach to the runway to land. We were seated in the middle row of seats on the plane but somehow I was able to see things out of the windows of the plane. We were stuck sitting on the plane for hours after we landed. I told Captain Wells I thought he had done a wonderful job when a stewardess took me up to go and see the cockpit a few hours after we were grounded.

Another passenger let me sit in their seat for a while where I could look out the left window in front of the wing and see men working on the burnt out remains of the engine that had blown. It was blackened and they were removing what looked like long metal blades from it. My youthful optimism was hoping they could maybe fix the engine in an hour or two and we could still fly out to Vancouver on the 747. It just wasn’t meant to be and reality would deal me a cold hand. But hey, we were alive.

I swear this is true, a stewardess came to check on my anxious mother and asked if she wanted, and administered a Valium to her. Right there on the plane.

Eventually we were released from the plane and taken to a hotel where I actually saw a news story about our short flight on the TV. I tried unsuccessfully to grab an afternoon nap as I was instructed to. I don’t know where my sister was, she might have been in the room with me, but I do know that my mother and stepfather were in the hotel bar.

When we did finally get onto a flight after dark that evening we were delayed as they loaded some tires onto the plane that were needed in Vancouver for Prince Andrew’s plane. When the plane took off one of the tires must have shifted because something caused a loud thump underneath the cabin and I swear you could tell who had been on the flight that morning by how erect they sat up and how shell shocked they looked.

When we got to Vancouver, BC after our four hour flight, it was past four AM local time. I was too tired to sleep. I remember the cab ride from the airport to the Hotel Vancouver. While everyone in my family, sister, mother and stepfather slept in the hotel rooms, I went for a walk to explore downtown Vancouver.

I saw a huge fountain in a fountain park, courtyard type thing across the street from our hotel. I had been walking around a while and the sun was just about to come up. I remember a lot of concrete and fountains. I went to a corner store that was open and bought a box of laundry detergent and poured the contents of the box into the fountain and had fun watching the bubbles bubble out of the fountain. I didn’t expect that many bubbles though and retreated to the safety of the hotel room.

It looked even cooler from the windows of our rooms. My mother, now awake, looked out the window of her room and wondered out loud who would do such a thing. When queried about where I’d been I answered that I had been checking out the gift shop in the hotel. I had spent a lot of time in hotels and was very comfortable in them.

One of the evenings we were there we took a bus to a Japanese restaurant where we sat on the floor at the table and I was served, and drank sake. More than a few. Did I mention that I was ten years old? I left the restaurant with a decorative Japanese straw hat. I don’t remember whether it was given to me, or if I simply took it. I remember we were in great spirits when we left that restaurant and were very loud, giddy even. I felt a little fuzzy, but happy on the bus ride back to the hotel.

Some of the kids went on a bus trip somewhere one of the days we were there. I don’t remember where we went but an older balding man went on the trip with us. It was weird having an old man along on a kid’s activity. Some of the girls and my sister said he had done something, or had said something inappropriate to one of, or some of the girls on the bus.

I decided to sit behind him and started to tell him off and he said he was going to tell my mother and that I would be in trouble. I remember telling him I wasn’t scared of him and slapping him on the shiny bald part of the back of his head which made a very loud smack sound. Man did his face ever grow red after I did that. By now we had the bus driver’s attention. He never ended up telling my mother anything. I doubt he even knew her. He didn’t act up for the rest of the trip that day though. Just sat there quietly.

On another day, I know my mother was on this trip, we went on a bus tour of Vancouver. It was a small bus. The man who was our tour guide talked through a PA and I remember him being pretty funny and informative. As we drove by an unassuming looking building on one street he told us that the building to our right was where Lord Stanley, the former Governor General of Canada, had the Stanley Cup commissioned. This little shop was where the Stanley Cup was built. He also quipped that the cup hadn’t been back to Vancouver since then.

When the convention ended we flew on a small plane with propellers on the wings to Vancouver Island. Part of what I remember from that trip was my cousin David driving us around sightseeing.

One place he drove past looked like a port and there were ships there. David explained that there were a couple of these ships, but the big white cruise ship we could see docked was the sister ship to The Love Boat ship of TV fame.

Soon enough it was back to Vancouver, and then back to Toronto. Thankfully it was an uneventful flight home. There wasn’t much time to recoup before school started. A few months of school and it would be off to that year’s OWNA convention in downtown Toronto. I always had fun watching Toronto from way up high up from my hotel room window.