GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.

51. Too much of this, too little of that

THE 1970s BROUGHT SHOCKS,  SUDDEN CHANGES from all directions in Canada and elsewhere. Timelines on the Internet record life-altering events. Students who were restless at universities in the '60s began to affect businesses and politics. Amazing technologies entered our lives.

Most significantly, money began to be the measure of all things.

The culture of CTV evolved at breath-taking speed after its 18-member Board of Directors approved the hiring of some high-profile men from different departments of the publicly-funded, commercial-free Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. New titles were invented for them and each lobbied to have another one hired. Their intensely competitive attitudes had been honed fighting "the Corp's" bureaucracies and unions.

They were hired to make CTV first in ratings, to beat not only the CBC in cities where Board members ran stations (most owned by John Bassett), but also a third network, Global, launched in Toronto in 1974. Especially, CTV had to compete with American networks and border stations whose audiences and budgets were much bigger.

Murray Chercover, CTV's president since 1967, had one-tenth the budget of CBC but years of theatrical experience: He impressed audiences on minimal budgets. He also had the skills necessary to deal with egotistical and explosive John Bassett. They disliked each other yet kept the Board balanced so finely that the network thrived.

In hindsight I realize that Charlie was unprepared, then overwhelmed by a maelstrom. The newcomers were a breed he observed with distaste in Montreal. He and his Jesuit-trained buddy Frank, who worked for the CBC there, considered them performers, not journalists.

After the hirings began we were invited to some parties. In the backyard of Don Cameron's ultra-modern townhouse (six levels, one room on each, countless stairs) we toasted a lone marijuana plant in the backyard. It was taller than most of us, illegal, ever so trendy. At Harvey Kirck's unique heritage farmhouse we watched him roll himself up in an oriental carpet, ever so funny.

If Charlie received any more invitations, he didn't tell me.

I tried to persuade him that we had to participate in CTV's new culture, that he should lunch with the new men instead of eating breakfast at home, learn their thinking, especially learn to brag about himself and attract attention in magazines and newspapers the way they did. I suggested we have parties. He said our apartment wasn't furnished well enough to impress anyone.

He stopped telling me what was happening at work. Suddenly he was transferred to headquarters downtown and a day job with one assistant. Assignment: Adapt CTV's election coverage protocols to new technology, aka computers.

We always were so busy talking about news or watching newscasts on the three TV sets in the den (CTV, CBC, Global) that we never talked about us. I felt we must, but he withdrew deep into himself.

We both worked weekdays9-to-5 for the first time since our marriage in '62. My health was better than ever. But at age 40 we didn't have "a social set", didn't exchange visits with even one couple. Charlie resisted going out anywhere. He wanted only to listen to music on his earphones while looking at the lake.

I volunteered for election campaigns and Toronto Bonsai Society shows. When a local woman established the Guildwood School of Arts and Crafts in the apartment building next door, I signed up for a course in drawing. The next was in pottery, to make containers for my growing bonsai collection.

I met new people with widely different interests, young couples with or without children, and retirees. I invited people for weekend brunches, which Charlie barely tolerated. When they in turn invited us he resisted going. I progressed alone from making acquaintances to having friends.

The cottage my parents bought in 1969 enchanted me. Mom ran it like a nature preserve for all sorts of critters, and I wanted to spend weekends there. Charlie didn't want to see it. He avoided my parents, believed they didn't like him. Why, I don't know, because they truly did, and respected him a lot. 

He was never interested in my writing, but now I asked him to read items I wrote for various clients of the boss-lady. He said they read like high school essays, that I should read texts out loud, listeningto myself, and rewrite in spoken English.

At the same time, my job was becoming stressful because the boss-lady's insistence on my doing things her way was no longer amusing, rather frustrating. Wanda 1 had left, as had Monty, a recently divorced American who was only with us a few months. He was amused to meet two Wandas at once and treated us like a set, taking both of us out for lunches, movies, even dancing.

Monty suggested that I volunteer to read books on tape for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. I did, and was on the roster for more than 25 years. But nothing could make up for losing him and Wanda 1 from my days at work.

I had never discussed our marriage with anyone, but finally I couldn't cope with the stress of feeling that it made no sense, that we lived incompatible lives. I called Monsignor Hanley, who in 1960 had hired me for The Canadian Register in Kingston, to say I needed an advisor but my current pastor wasn't a good fit.

He'd known Charlie from his school days. He told me to get an appointment with the Marriage Tribunal of Toronto Archdiocese. A week later I sat down with Msgr. Peter Kinlin. I couldn't help crying as I tried to condense the story. He explained that by applying for an annulment I would only launch a process that would shed light on what had happened and engage a panel qualified to study and evaluate it. I'd be in control and could stop the process at any point.

At the end of the hour he said kindly "You still love him, you know". I said "Yes! But I can't live with him".

That was in January of 1978. I told Charlie I felt excluded by his lack of interest in everything aside from his work and I wanted to leave. He replied that I was always free to do as I pleased. I said I would go in May. He shrugged. Women's rights and issues were hot topics in those days. He was among husbands who figured the "fad" would pass.

In response to my application, the Tribunal sent a form letter: First I should answer 60 questions -- 20 about my life before I met Charles, 20 about our meeting and courtship, 20 about the years since we married. Next, I must name one witness to each period. Both I and the witnesses could write statements or have them taped by an employee of the Tribunal.

I found a room to rent in a townhouse with a single mom and her four-year-old son, and did move in May. Wanda 1 had taken up piano lessons and was delighted to store my baby grand for as long as necessary, so it moved too.

It took me two months to type 60,000 words for the Tribunal. It sent a letter to Charlie informing him that I had launched the annulment process and asking him to participate by answering the same 60 questions and providing the names of three witnesses. When he did not respond, they sent a second request. He ignored that, too.

The Toronto Marriage Tribunal comprised a dozen women and men, both lay persons and Religious, with expertise in areas from marriage and parenting to psychiatry and social work. They all read my testimony and those of my witnesses, then brought down a hung verdict. The case went to the National Tribunal in Ottawa, another dozen souls. They ruled that Charlie and I did not have the attitudes or attributes required "to achieve a community of life and love". Our marriage was legal, but doomed.

The process took 18 months. A final letter from the Toronto Tribunal noted that the costs associated with the work of all those people amounted to about $400. That sounded low so I sent $600. 

Their answer wasn't the one I had hoped for. While waiting I realized that I wanted most to go back to Charlie and fight like hell to make our marriage work. He never expressed any interest in my return.

After leaving him, I couldn't talk without stuttering, which irritated the boss-lady. It alarmed my parents so much that Mom suggested we spend the summer of 1979 at the cottage together, writing.

CHAPTER 51 of GLIMPSES -- 30