11-01 A New Career
My father essentially pioneered what was called editorial advertising, which meant combining political, religious or social commentary with the sale of products and services.It was November 1969, and I had just read the White Paper on Tax Reform published by Edgar Benson. This was during my period as a teacher of Finance at the Ryerson…
11-02 Paintings and Photos
"Now take three of your basic colours – red, green and blue. Mix this with this, and you get fuchsia. Mix this with this, and you get puce." This was Dad's art teacher at our old cottage on Lake Simcoe, showing him how you make hundreds of different colours by mixing the primary colours in…
11-03 Stocktaking
There is nothing magical about stocktaking in a business establishment that sells goods from inventory. You need to count that inventory to determine at the end of the year your “cost of goods sold”. But it was the special memories associated with stocktaking that are worth recounting as part of our father’s legacy. I started…
11-04 Plymouth Brethren
If there are any terrifying, funny memories of our father, they would be his entry into the Plymouth Brethren. I was about eleven. Mother wanted him to come with her to the United Church so the kids would develop some kind of moral underpinning. He agreed as long as it was to the Brethren, something…
11-05 That Was A Good Ad
Nothing in my memory is more vivid than the extreme reactions to father’s Globe and Mail advertisement that combined religion, politics, or social commentary with the sale of custom clothing. “Stop that, stop that.” That was the wife of the owner of the grocery store across the road on Hayter Street, reacting to a group…
11-06 Father’s Ads, Part One
In the 1950s, while working on a degree in Engineering, I was driven to U of T every morning by Dad. I was always back at the store after water polo practice to get my ride home. At that time, he had not really gotten into what is called editorial advertising, which made him such…
11-07 Father’s Ads Part Two
In the 1960's Dad asked the Globe and Mail to provide him with a desk at one of their offices where he could work on his ads without me trying to edit them. It was all pretty funny at the time. Of course, by the 1970s, I was running the CFIB and could not in…
11-08 Dad Gone
It was Monday, January 13, and I received an urgent call to come down to the tailoring firm and pick up Dad. He had collapsed on the job, and the staff had lifted him up and laid him on one of the cutting tables. I took him straight to the emergency department at Sunnybrook Hospital….