Woodstock Rising. Tom Wayman
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attempting to solve the inevitable problems of co-op living, such as who should clean the mess in the kitchen, an unexplained spike in the electrical bill, or how to make up the shortage in rent this month. VLF commune members were expected, in the name of the revolution, to fully confess their personal deficiencies and cheerfully accept the complaints of others about their transgressions. “The people” expected no less. I had concluded I didn’t know enough yet about the theory and practice of social change to adopt some variant of Marxism-Leninism, whether Chinese, Cuban, or North American in origin. On the one hand, I approved of the ability of disciplined organizations — or, at least, disciplined members of such organizations — to initiate actions, to produce publications, to show up when and where they said. On the other hand, the largely humourless earnestness of many of the people advocating adherence to an inflexible belief system was a turnoff. The music, light, and colour of the freak world pulsed with energy, the kind I wanted whatever new world we were fashioning to be flooded with.
As far as I could see, the sometimes scattered, always exciting, enthusiasm of young people was responsible for sparking the revolutionary environment we were in. “The more I make love, the more I want to make the revolution” was one of the previous year’s Paris May Day slogans that summarized the feeling. So far I hadn’t seen evidence of such energetic, transformative goals on the part of Leninists of any stripe. Whatever the possibilities of a future hippie-political alliance, currently SDS for me represented the amalgam of radical vision, high spirits, and effective social action.
Despite my careful preparation for my meeting with Dr. Bulgy, I received a shock when I stepped over the threshold of his office. Both the man and the room had undergone alterations since I had last stood here in early June. The professor’s customary shirt and tie had been replaced by a short-sleeved turtleneck garment. A large gold-coloured medallion was suspended from his neck by a chain, the ornament resting atop the upper slope of his protruding stomach. His hair, once crew-cut to near-military precision, was shaggy.
The brown wingtip shoes he previously wore were gone; his feet were sandalled. I could take in such detail about his appearance because his massive desk had been shifted. The office bookshelves that formed the perimeter of the room remained as overloaded as ever, but previously Dr. Bulgy’s desk had been situated to make a barricade in the middle of the room, enabling him to address students from safely behind it. Now the desk had been rotated against one wall. When Dr. B. faced me, nothing was between us but air and an uncharacteristic lopsided smile.
Only after I left his office did the thought occur that somebody over the summer must have turned Bulgerak on. Or maybe he had simply decided to get “with it” — I could imagine the quotation marks around the phrase in his mind. When I stood in front of him, and a moment later sat stunned on the chair he waved me to, the unexpectedness of the changes evident before me nearly derailed my well-laid plans. I fumbled mentally for a few seconds, spouting an inane query about how his summer had gone.
As I regained confidence, I handed over my draft pages, presented my this-time-for-sure list of deadlines, and described the Vancouver experiences I had chosen as fit for his ears. I noted while I did so that his new medallion displayed not the peace symbol but the yin-yang linked tadpoles. Was his a religious conversion then rather than a cultural or political one? Dr. B.’s approving expression didn’t alter as he accepted the papers I handed him. He swivelled briefly away to lower them into the papery ocean on his desk. Far from grilling me on my failure to achieve the production goals we’d set at the end of the previous term, he nodded encouragingly as I spoke of my new timetable, and why I felt confident that this one would be adhered to. I was so disconcerted by his alteration in demeanor that I forgot to ask his advice about Ph.D. programs.
“Seems like you had a useful summer and are on top of everything” was his comment when at last I stopped babbling. He didn’t ask me a single question in response to my depiction of Vancouver’s Red workers and their views. Instead, he inquired if I’d seen much of my parents when I was back north. I assured him that, though I was living in Vancouver itself, I’d driven across the harbour inlet bridge to visit them several times.
I didn’t mention my father’s puzzlement about why, since I had a guaranteed job at the Sun, I was intent on acquiring a graduate degree — and a degree in history, to boot. Nor did I speak of my mother’s worries about my involvement with, as she phrased it, “civil-rights causes.” My difficulty lay in conveying to my parents my pleasure at uncovering layers of complexity associated with historical events, occurrences often popularized into two-dimensional, cartoon-like episodes. And since my parents had come of age during the Great Depression, I found it hard to explain why the routines of a shift in the Sun newsroom — steady salaried employment, in their eyes — just didn’t cut it in comparison with being immersed in the thrilling changes emerging around me in California. I never enjoyed the deep-seated cynicism of the lifer reporters and editors and photographers I worked among. Nor was I excited by the ceaseless round of punching out three paragraphs on the latest traffic fatality in the Fraser Canyon, or on a Rotary Club noon-hour speaker who detailed the establishment of a fabric export enterprise in rural Peru. Did I really want forty years of phoning the city planning department for a comment on a provincial government press release that outlined a proposed review of residential property assessments?
“As I recollect,” the new incarnation of Dr. B. observed, “we had agreed you’d take Dr. Bonder’s grad seminar this semester. That’s the one on the post-frontier U.S., some of which might be useful to your project. Although I rather think we’re past the research stage.” His eyebrows lifted. “Your other course is —”
I reminded him we had decided I would sign up for the new American Culture grad course, an interdisciplinary venture involving English, history, philosophy, and anthropology.
“Right, right. The one designed by Dr. Shoemaker. Our house Marxist, if you will. I hope it’s not a waste of your time.” He sighed. “‘Interdisciplinary’ is the latest ‘in’ thing in the Humanities Division, I’m afraid.”
The last was the sort of comment I was used to hearing from Dr. B. I felt a surge of gratitude that he hadn’t totally refashioned himself. His new embodiment was disconcerting, as if after three years I was meeting him for the first time. I was braced to hear him declare, “Just call me ‘Sid,’ man, not ‘Dr. Bulgerak.’”
His dubious attitude toward interdisciplinary studies conveyed, he spun toward his desk and pivoted back with my revised timetable in his hand. “Shall we meet again on … hmm … first week of October?”
Moments after, I was free and clear, sauntering from the Humanities Building toward lunch down a pathway between undulating lawns speckled with freshly planted eucalyptus saplings. The heavy weight of a potentially hideous interview had lifted away into the flawless Gold Coast sky. As I strolled, I checked out the hordes of students I travelled among, watching for Janey, or anybody else I knew.
Ahead on the paved walk that led to the lunchroom in the lower level of the Commons Building, a trio ambled more slowly than I. Two of them were young women, gorgeous in sundresses that left a lot of shapely leg bared to the hot sun. Their long hair oscillated slightly down their mostly exposed backs as they spoke animatedly or tossed their heads to laugh. One of them clutched a heavy-duty stapler.
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