A Coat Tale of Two Cities

Since the days when one was called Mount Royal and the other was known as Muddy York, there has been an intense rivalry between Canada’s two largest cities. Now known as Montreal and Toronto respectively, they continue to be adversaries in every field of endeavor. There are no holds barred when natives extol the virtues of their own city or criticize the shortcomings of the other. And one of the most frequent subjects for discussion or ridicule is the weather.

Because I have spent some thirty years in one and forty in the other, I can speak with some authority about the relative merits of each city including the weather.

I can respect opinions that others may have on certain issues, concerning these cities, and can even debate them in a civilized manner. But where winter weather is concerned, there can be no argument. Montreal’s winter is brutal by comparison. Temperatures are continuously much lower than Toronto and among all cities in the world, Montreal’s annual snowfall is exceeded only by Russia’s St. Petersburg. I can recall many times when snowstorms shut down public transportation, closed the bridges and crippled the city for days. Storms could come as early as mid-October, and as late as the end of April. That makes for a long winter especially because Montreal doesn’t get periodic relief, like Calgary’s mild Chinook winds or Toronto’s January thaw.

Young people, of course, applaud Montreal’s macho winter for its favorable sports conditions and they condemn Toronto’s banana-belt weather as unnatural and unhealthy. It’s truly amazing that there can be so much difference; perhaps it’s the influence of Lake Ontario, but whatever the cause the difference is real. Over the years, I’ve frequently traveled from a snow-covered Montreal, during a particularly cold spell, and arrived in a green Toronto, where it was pouring rain.

When I was transferred to Montreal in 1950, we lived in that horrible Pointe Aux Trembles house, for a while and then moved to St. Michel, in the north end. From there, I traveled on the city bus lines to where I worked in the town of Montreal East. During that time I experienced some unpleasant cold winter weather, while waiting at transfer points. But I had survived.

In 1955, I bought my first car, a 1952 Chevrolet sedan. Thereafter I drove back and forth to work and was thus able to endure long cold winters without being exposed to the elements at street corners while waiting for buses. At the Oil Refinery Office, I was privileged to have a designated parking spot equipped with an electric outlet. I could plug in a heater to keep the car’s oil warm thus providing an easier start on cold days.

In the fall of 1967, I was transferred to the company’s head office, located in the heart of the city. Rather than use the car, I decided to go by bus and subway. It was fast, cheap and it spared me the hassles of too much traffic and too few parking spaces. Public transportation worked out fine and the subway leg of the trip was very fast indeed. I was quite satisfied with my travelling arrangement.

Then came the Montreal winter and the “Snow on my Parade.” I soon found out again what it was like to wait for buses on windy street corners in the cold.

There was no shelter at either, our corner, where I’d wait for the southbound Pie IX Boulevard bus or later, at Sherbrooke Street where I would transfer to a west bound bus that took me to the subway. Waiting at that corner, at the crest of a hill, was particularly bad, because it was wide open to the elements and was always windy.

In spite of the severity of the Montreal’s winter weather, many white-collar workers preferred to be in style rather than to dress defensively. On one occasion, while waiting for a bus in windy below-zero (Fahrenheit) weather, I noticed that the man standing beside me wore no hat, scarf or overshoes.

Needless to say, he was all hunched up, shivering in the wind. When I turned towards him again, a few minutes later, I saw that his ears, nose, cheeks and part of his forehead had turned white from frost bite. God only knows what his toes and feet were like. I warned him and he ran into the hallway of a nearby apartment building. I thought of him often throughout that day and felt sorry for the pain he must have endured when thawing out and how sensitive the frozen areas would be in future cold weather.

In any case, viewing that incident, and knowing how cold I myself, had felt, made me decide that if I was going to continue to be out in that kind of weather, I’d better be equipped for it.

During several winters in the Air Force, at Bagotville, 50 miles north of Quebec City, I had known what cold weather was, and I had endured it. The trick was that in the Air Force, I was dressed for withstanding the cold. I had longjohns, a winter uniform of heavy material, a quilted hat with ear muffs, long woolen socks, boots and overshoes and I wore a real, warm coat; long, high collared and double breasted. It wasn’t just a good coat; it was a GREAT COAT.

I decided that a coat like that was what I needed and accordingly, Helen and I went on a shopping tour. We saw a lot of coats over the period of several weeks and finally we found the right one in the show window of the haberdashery in the Mount Royal Hotel. There it was, a handsome cloth in dark grey. It was double breasted, with wide lapels and it was long. All of the features checked. It fit well in the shoulders and arms; it reached down below my knees; and the wide collar when turned up, extended to the top of my head. Exactly what I wanted.

I already had a pair of high, two buckle overshoes and I needed only one more thing to complete my outfit. I bought a fur hat of grey Persian Lamb which when weather permitted, I could wear at a jaunty angle, with the earflaps hidden. It was the “piece de resistance” and for once in my life, I prayed for cold weather. I gloated about how other people, shivering in the cold, would envy me.

It was the best of times.

I did draw envious glances from even the most fashion conscious dapper Dans who froze their butts in their inadequate gear. It was a great coat and I received many compliments. One man in the office, who had served in the Polish Cavalry, said he admired the ensemble. He remarked about how practical it was, but, on the downside, he said, “Every time I see you in it, I feel the need to salute, army style.”

Four years later, on a very hot Sunday morning, early in August, we got the news that Helen’s mother had died. Baba was in her eighties. She had been in The Toronto General Hospital for several weeks and the bad news was not unexpected.

I went into the office the following morning to let my superiors know that I’d be away for several days. They took the news in stride, muttered condolences, but kept repeating to one another, as if I were already gone, “He won’t be here tomorrow.”

I thought it strange but went about my business so that I’d be prepared to leave at noon. Later I could see that there was a conference going on but I didn’t know that I was involved until the Comptroller called me into his office. He said, “Larry, we’re making an announcement to everyone tomorrow. Since you won’t be here, I’ll tell you today but you must keep it confidential.”

I agreed.

He continued, “You and your office group are being transferred to Toronto in a month’s time. The rest of the department will follow at a later date. We’re already preparing a schedule for employees and spouses to visit Toronto to find suitable housing and we’ve got a lot of planning work ahead of us.”

We had no time for much more detail but he promised to fill me in completely on my return.

I left his office in a somewhat dazed condition. I was happy but it was impossible to absorb the full impact of the news immediately, with so much on my mind. This would be a major uprooting. After all we had been in Montreal for 22 years; we’d bought our home and raised our family here.

There was so much to consider. On the plus side, our three oldest sons had already moved out of the province. Also, both Helen and I had brothers and sisters in Toronto. Another consideration was that the political climate had been deteriorating rapidly in Montreal, under terrorist FLQ threats. There had been some bombings and in fact a government official had been kidnapped and killed. So, all things considered, maybe it was time to leave.

Yet, there were still some nagging doubts about going and I hadn’t thought it through because the news had been so sudden. I was unprepared.

Then I realized that I had a house to dispose of and I knew that because of the political turmoil, real estate prices had tumbled.

A real “Catch 22.”

But for now, I had to put aside my own concerns and excitement. The immediate problem was to face the office personnel, for the next several hours, without divulging the startling news.

Finally, about noon, I was able to leave the office and I immediately “grabbed” the subway. At Pie 1X Boulevard, I strode up and down awaiting the northbound bus. The city was in the middle of a heat wave, and to make it worse, the air was extremely humid. The temperature was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which was bad enough, but it felt more like 100 degrees on that shadeless, concrete corner. As I paced, I removed my suit coat and rolled up my sleeves. I wiped the perspiration off my brow, wishing all the while that I had a hat. Then the thought crossed my mind that this was the same corner where I had witnessed a hatless man whose face had frozen as I watched. How different from today’s weather.

Walking up and down made me feel even warmer but I couldn’t stay still. We’re going to Toronto. Wow. What will Helen, and the boys think about it?

My head was spinning from a surge of questions and speculations, with each new thoughtwave crowding through my mind without pause or punctuation, while seemingly spawning more new thoughts to lap the previous idea before there was time enough for its due consideration.

I rested for a moment to undo my tie and suddenly the flood of ideas entering my mind, stopped. I felt relief for only a second until my mind, refusing to rest, involuntarily raised a specific, lingering question; one that refused to be put aside; one that would not be crowded out by a new one pushing in. Oddly enough, this question seemed so insignificant in the face of all the apprehension I felt. But it wouldn’t go away. It was hard to believe. I had so much on my mind, thinking of poor Baba and her suffering, about her funeral, about moving the office, about where we would live, about how everyone in the family would react?

So many questions through my head, so much anxiety. How then, could I possibly have had this bizarre thought, but there it was.

All I could focus on was, “Given Toronto’s mild winters, what on earth will I do with my GREATCOAT?”

Much later when I was able to look back at my obsession with the greatcoat, I realized that I had had another moment of temporary insanity as was the case when I rented that horrible house in Pointe Aux Trembles. But that’s another story.