Underdog (2 page)

It was like a flip of a switch. His arrogance and dismissiveness made me so angry I walked up to Joe Pantalone in Toronto city council during a break in 2008, looked him in the eye, and told him off. Deputy mayor at the time and a long-serving politician, Mr. Pantalone – who had taken on the job of council's first Tree Advocate – had just stood up and delivered a blistering attack on a poor, innocent semi-retired couple for allegedly allowing their tiny home to “deteriorate.” Mr. Pantalone, clearly suffering from short man's syndrome, blamed their home's lousy foundation for the problems they were experiencing with an out-of-control Norway Maple tree. The weed tree's aggressive roots had infiltrated the home's foundation, their pipes, and basement. When I happened on the scene, Perry Thompson and his wife had already spent $17,500 on repairs to rectify the damage. They were beside themselves because their insurance company had warned them their policy might be cancelled if the tree
didn't come down. The couple felt they were being “held ransom” by this crazy out-of-control tree. And they were.

Toronto's tree police – drunk with their own power to decide what stays and what goes in the city's urban forest – had flatly denied the couple's request to take down the tree, dismissing the clearest evidence of the damage it had done. For heaven's sake, it was a weed tree known to be invasive, to have a highly aggressive root system that smothers other plants and wildflowers, and to even have the power to raise sidewalk pavement. Yet the city's tree police and Mr. Pantalone had passed judgment without once visiting the couple's small house, as I had. Shaking with anger at his arrogance and the way he'd abused his power, I approached Mr. Pantalone and told him he had no right to judge the couple that way and that he owed them an apology. Taken aback at the reprimand, he tried to defend himself and then beat a retreat as hastily as he could. That wasn't the only time I'd reacted like this; the misuse and abuse of power, not to mention the city's often bordering on irrational intransigence, had and has a way of setting me off.

Whether it was this couple with a weed tree, or the Ontario seniors who'd been mistreated, students who'd been bullied while the school principal and teachers stood by and did nothing, or what I clearly came to recognize as a homelessness industry happy with keeping its pawns (street people) living out on the sidewalk or in the city's parks to guilt the politicians into spending more money on shelters, drop-in centres, and social workers, with no desire to reverse the cycle of dependency – all of this made me (and continues to make me) crazy mad.

Helping the underdog became a crusade because I could relate to each and every one of the people I've featured in a
column or story. That's not to say I've ever been homeless, but I've known, from a very young age, what it's like to feel intimidated, bullied, mocked, helpless, powerless, and betrayed by those in positions of trust. Once I found my courage and the voice to go with it, I was determined to speak for others, remembering what it was like to be that little girl from Hamilton, the one who for many years felt she was on the outside looking in at others who seemed to have it all.

That feeling of being powerless became evident to me at the young age of twelve, when I was outed by a religious school teacher. Yes, a Sunday school teacher. I'm not referring to the fact that he revealed I was gay. He could have hardly known that. My coming-out story would unfold many, many years later. I'm talking about being labelled an outsider. One Sunday morning, when he was supposed to be teaching us lessons from the Bible, this teacher decided, instead, to sit us in a circle and analyze us. When he got to me, he announced to my fellow twelve-year-olds that I was an “outsider.” I'm really not sure to this day what caused him to come to that conclusion. Did I appear vulnerable or lacking in self-esteem? Or was it already clear that I didn't fit in? It doesn't really matter. For an awkward, chubby twelve-year-old desperately trying to be accepted by her peers, that day became forever burned in my memory because of the collateral damage it caused.

I came home in tears, absolutely devastated by what had been said. My father Lou, livid at the idea that a Sunday school teacher would overstep his authority in this way, angrily complained to the principal of religious studies at our synagogue. I'd been labelled very publicly. The kids who heard the word “outsider” felt empowered, or at the very least enabled, by what that teacher had said. As kids will do, my circle of
religious school peers carried on their bullying unchecked. Those years in junior high school are a blur to me now except for my attempts to run away from the constant insults my tormenters hurled at me. They called me fat, they called me “four eyes” for wearing thick glasses to correct my extreme nearsightedness and even for being an A student.

Because I developed physically earlier than some, the rabbi's daughter was fond of telling everyone who would listen that I stuffed popcorn in my bra, joking that she could hear it crackling as she chased after me. I can laugh about it now, but at age twelve I was mortified whenever she said it. (Ironically, popcorn has turned out to be one of my favourite treats.) That marked the beginning of my attempts to prove my peer group wrong, to be the best I could be at whatever I did – and to stand up for what's right. The shift certainly didn't happen overnight. It took me years to recover from the verbal abuse and the many, many other obstacles that life threw my way, but in the process I developed both a strong work ethic and an unshakeable self-esteem. I was no longer the underdog. The Sunday school teacher ended up teaching me something other than religion, but a lesson just as important: That those in positions of authority cannot always be trusted to do what's right; that respect for one's elders should be earned and not simply given. I'm convinced that my irreverence with politicians and others in power and my constant need to question authority grew from being let down by those in positions of trust, starting with that teacher.

I did have strong, loving influences in my life that showed what it was to be compassionate under the most difficult of circumstances. Whenever I could, I sought comfort and unconditional love at the home of my father's mother – my Bubby
Becky. Every Thursday I'd walk the twenty minutes from my junior high school to her house, eager to be embraced by her warm hug and to hear the same words week after week, said in her thick Eastern European accent: “You vant chips?” What she meant were french fries, lovingly made from scratch – as was every dish served in her home. We both looked forward to those weekly lunches. She didn't care that Thursdays were her busiest day – the day she prepared gefilte fish and her sweet, chewy bagels for her weekly Shabbat dinners using the techniques she'd brought from her native Poland. Most often when I'd turn up I'd find her kneading the bagel dough or pounding the whitefish into gefilte fish. Her home was a safe harbour for me. She was in her late sixties and I was not yet thirteen. But we had an undeniable kinship. She was not just loving but incredibly sharp. I admired her for her strength, her forthrightness, and her kind heart. One afternoon, because she wanted to buy me a Hanukkah gift, we took the bus together down to the old Eaton's in downtown Hamilton to purchase the latest rage at the time – white go-go boots à la Nancy Sinatra. I'm sure they looked ridiculous on me, but my Bubby Becky knew my heart was set on those boots. I can't remember if I ever ended up wearing them that much.

She had a hard life but did what she felt was right. There was no casting her husband aside when my Zayda suffered a serious stroke. She was in her late seventies when that happened, and she cared for him at home until she could no longer continue to do so physically. Her strength, compassion, and loyalty to her loved ones have undeniably rubbed off on me, and I'm a better person for it.

When I got to high school, barely thirteen after accelerating a grade in elementary school, I found comfort with a rather
eccentric group of “browners.” What we lacked in athleticism and grooviness, we made up for in smarts. One old friend with whom I've renewed acquaintance in recent years I fondly named Frigga Factfinder the First. I probably did it back then because I was envious of her brilliance and ability to retain facts. I can't for the life of me say why I came up with Frigga, other than to speculate that even then I was fond of alliteration. Gwen Rousseau (Gwen Roper in those days) was serious about her studies. But she was always a good sport with a genuine twinkle in her eye and a zest for life, which she has to this day. And she was brilliant – destined to spend most of her career as a nuclear engineer. Another close friend, Rosemary Euringer (née Reid), and I shared a passion for languages as well as many, many laughs about our similar family situations. Both of us had outspoken and at times demanding mothers, both of them married to men who were nurturing fathers.

I served on student council and on house council as social and publicity coordinator. I even fulfilled a term as senior representative on Hamilton junior city council, unwittingly setting in motion a lifetime of political involvement. Quickly bored with the less than creative and often tedious instructional methods of many of my high school teachers, I said what was on my mind and challenged them continually, probably to the point of rubbing every last one of them the wrong way. Many years later, in the mid-nineties, when I covered the education beat for the
Toronto Sun
and started writing about teachers who went the extra mile, I had trouble remembering any in my own high school who had inspired me. I sought my challenges outside school, filling up my spare time by playing roles in amateur theatre productions,
taking voice and piano lessons, and competing in the voice category in the yearly Kiwanis Festival.

My favourite sub-category was Broadway show tunes. As I stood up there competing – usually I won silver because there was another young lady who always captured the golds – I imagined myself on the Broadway stage performing in some musical, preferably from the fifties or sixties. What I lacked in talent, I made up for in bravado, although I joke that I'd never have made it on the Broadway stage because I lack rhythm. But I didn't feel the slightest bit shy performing a role on stage.

Nevertheless, my maternal grandmother, Frances, who was amazingly well plugged in to the world long before the Internet, found out about a music camp in northern Michigan called Interlochen. With her urging, I spent three summers there as a camper. It was pure heaven for me. I not only studied drama and voice but spent the summer immersed in classical music, developing an appreciation for it that I maintain to this day. For someone used to being bullied and mocked by my peer group in Hamilton, the summers offered a sense of freedom. It was refreshing to be the underachiever in a sea of highly talented overachievers. It was hard to single out anyone for their appearance when we all looked less than stylish dressed in the Interlochen uniform of blue corduroy knickers, red knee socks, and a bland blue blouse. The knickers certainly weren't kind to those with an extra twenty pounds either, and they could be impossibly hot in the summer. But I didn't care. My three summers there expanded my horizons and helped me develop a sense of independence. I found myself bunking with fellow campers from all over the United States and from as far away as Japan. I still have the Japanese
prints my friend Natsuko Oshima, a talented violinist, sent to me after we spent a summer together as cabin-mates.

At camp and at school – wherever I went and whatever I did – I hid my inner frailties with an outer toughness, a constant habit of questioning authority, a sarcastic wit, and a need to say exactly what was on my mind. My use of sarcasm and my unfiltered tongue were even noted in reviews from camp counsellors and particularly by high school teachers, and would get me in trouble many times over the years. When I was off for two months in grade twelve because of a serious illness and missed my initial set of exams, my teachers were forced to estimate my first-term marks. Most treated my extended absence as if I'd cut school, giving me barely passing grades – even though I'd been an A student for the first three years of high school and had been in an enrichment program for four years. I still can't help but think those estimated grades – some of them barely passing ones – constituted payback from some of those teachers who'd been subjected to my sarcasm. Perhaps they felt it just deserts. Nevertheless, knowing what I know now (after years of covering the education beat) about how some teachers bring their personal and political agendas into the classroom and try to poison impressionable students, I would bet that I was caught on the wrong end of that same vindictiveness. Still, recognizing that those first-term estimated marks would preclude me from graduating with an 80 per cent average or higher and from having my name permanently inscribed on the school's walls as an honours student, I marched into the vice-principal's office and pleaded with him not to take them into consideration. I pointed out that I had raised my marks to well over 80 per cent in the second term. Alas, I did not manage to move him.

To satisfy my thespian aspirations, I adopted the habit from the age of eleven or twelve of rewriting my favourite Broadway musicals and performing them – with my brother in a supporting role – to honour family members at special occasions. At my Bubby and Zayda's fiftieth anniversary party, my brother and I performed many of the songs from
Fiddler on the Roof,
rewritten in their honour. The title song, “Fiddler on the Roof,” became “A Bubby at the Stove” and “Matchmaker” was rewritten as “Clothesmaker, Clothesmaker,” a tribute to my Zayda, who eked out a living as a tailor in a dusty shop in the north end of Hamilton. When I couldn't think of a suitable musical to adapt, I'd write poetry for my family members and recite it to them on their special occasions. It may sound rather hokey now, but it was all done with love and creativity. My maternal grandmother, the same one who encouraged me to go to Interlochen, noticed how much I loved writing – and that I seemed to be talented at it. Not wanting me to “end up waiting tables as a would-be actress” she encouraged me to redirect my desire to attend drama school into a career in journalism. Sadly, Frances lived long enough to see me finish journalism school but not to see me become a successful journalist. She died of advanced breast cancer at the young age of sixty-six.