Part 1: A Beginning
Lois 6th birthday
I asked for a pen & pencil set and a watch.I was asked by June Coxon to write about jobs and decided to make a list of the different jobs I’ve had. I was surprised to discover that my list was long: 86 jobs. Of course, the first jobs were the kinds that any kid might have: mowing the lawn with some friends, pulling out weeds, and babysitting. I also taught a young girl how to play the accordion. One summer, I worked for my father steaming clothes or filling shelfs with food in his stores. He once had the bright idea that I could work in one of his dress shops. Disaster. I had no idea what I was doing. I was a tomboy and wore the same types of clothes all my life… button down shirts & simple pants with no fancy designs. My father named one of his fashion designs after my younger sisters: “June/Carol.” He didn’t name any clothes after me.
Dude Ranch: Estes Park, Colorado
Lois far left with sisters and friends.
I wanted to be a cowboy
You never know what jobs you might fall into. In junior high school, I only did well if I liked the teacher. I went from straight A’s in math with one teacher to failure with one who I now realize was abusive. I was too young to complain to the school counselor who asked me why I was failing. She suggested that I move to another class. That worked. My grades recovered. As a teenager in high school, I had to take a geometry class. That didn’t work either. The school counselor who knew me, suggested that I write for the school newspaper instead. I was into sports. I became the first woman sports editor of my high school newspaper, and I took photos for the paper with a polaroid camera.
Other jobs I had: Camp counselor – I got into trouble for declaring a “Scarecrow Day.” All the kids in my 6th grade group dressed as scarecrows and ran around the camp scaring the other children.
As a student at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio (Appalachia country), I had a paid job working for the Ohio University Post, the daily rag. I started as a reporter, then became a copy editor and finally a feature writer at the request of Joe Eszterhas, the editor of the paper. Joe Eszterhas became a senior editor for Rolling Stone. In 1992 Eszterhas set a Hollywood record as the highest paid screenwriter after he sold a script for the sex-thriller “Basic Instinct for $3 million dollars. He also wrote the screenplay for the film “Flashdance.” We used to call him “God.”
Lois (glasses) – Ohio University Post – see arrow
You never know where experiences will lead you. At Ohio University, I met Rainer Schulte who was teaching Comparative Literature. At first, I sat in on his classes, and then I took every class I could from him. He was brilliant.
Rainer Schulte
Schulte was starting a literary journal, and I became Assistant to the Editor of Mundus Artium – A Journal of International Literature and the Arts. My work included organizing a special issue on photography. I contacted every well-known photographer in the world and asked for possible contributions to this edition. I received letters from everyone: from Diane Arbus to Ansel Adams. It was wonderful seeing all the submitted photos.
So that I could earn a living, Rainer Schulte arranged for me to teach Freshman English. I wasn’t happy with the way English was usually taught, so I brought in guest speakers – kids teaching at the theater school, dancers, pantomime artists, filmmakers – to talk about their work and to get the students to try pantomime in class or dance. One guy pretended he was Holden Caulfield from “Catcher in the Rye.”
And I taught Advanced Composition: Creative Writing. This course was usually taught by some grey-haired guy but I was only about a year older than my students. We had an avid discussion in class about a film showing in the local theatre… a porno film. There were arguments… so I assigned everyone in my class to write script for a porno film…..which led to Interesting class discussions.
As a graduate student, I went to Paris one summer to the French Summer School at the Sorbonne. My father told me not to travel anywhere, so I sent him a postcard from everywhere I travelled. The next summer, I wasn’t allowed to travel to Europe.
Then I needed a language for my master’s degree. Schulte, my mentor, told me that people spoke French in Montreal. I knew nothing about Montreal, so I went there the following summer to attend the McGill French Summer School. That was terrific – an amazing city to explore. By the second year there, I was given a scholarship from the school because I organized showings of photos I had taken during the day of students and others, and I had started a photo club. At night, the photos were projected on a large, white bed sheet at the guinguette (small outdoor cabaret). It was a place where all the students and faculty hung out at night and talked. I also got in trouble there – for taking bed sheets from the residences for photo shows, and again for posting a photo of the rear-end of a student under the clock in the cafeteria where everyone ate, including a group of nuns.
I survived there for four summers and then decided to stay in Montreal. I had no money, so I had to find a job……
Part 2:
A good friend of mine who worked at the French Summer School, Claude Paradis, had an arts workshop in Old Montreal on St. Paul Street that he shared with another artist. He allowed me to live there until I could figure out what to do. Claude lived in the Plateau with his family.
In the workshop building, there was an old-style freight elevator that sometimes got stuck between floors, but I soon figured out how to crawl out. There was a drunken janitor who had to be avoided, and there was a bed made of a plank of wood. That was fine. You can get used to anything. Best of all, there was a hot plate. I found just enough money to buy a box of pancake mix. That’s all I ate for weeks. I can’t even look at pancakes now…. From up high, I could watch the crowded festivities on the street heading towards Place Jacques-Cartier.
Claude Paradis was scheduled to have an arts show at a gallery across from the Bonsecours Market. He said I could also do an exhibition with him. I remember the area we created where you had to step inside to see some abstract images. I still had some photos from the time I was at the French Summer School.
Eventually, Claude’s wife found me a job where she worked: Teaching English to Federal Government workers. This is an Apple, That is an Apple…. I could walk from Old Montreal to Saint-Catherine Street W., near Phillips Square in town. I remember receiving my first pay check and being able to eat in the restaurant in the building before my class. ??
I also remember that the first time it snowed, my students rushed me over to the window and laughed tauntingly, telling me what I was in for when a blizzard would hit the city. I was from the States. I hadn’t been in Montreal for a winter yet. I had no idea…. in those days, the blizzards were treacherous and often no one could move. People would ski down the streets into town.
I could now rent a small 41/2 apartment on St. Urbain & Joseph. My friends from the art workshop helped me move late one night, after one of them finished working as a taxi driver. I had landed. All I wanted was a piano and a desk. I found a little store that sold used pianos in the neighborhood. I was able to pay by installments for an old, upright piano. I was delighted.
My next job was working as a substitute teacher in the Montreal high schools for the Protestant School Board. I applied and was accepted. I didn’t have a car, so I had to take a bus to the schools. I would be woken up by a call stupidly early in the morning and be told I should go immediately to a school somewhere in Montreal. I was given directions, I’d get dressed and fly out the door to take a bus to the school. Because I looked the same age as the students, I could pay ten cents for the bus. That was what school-age kids paid those days. I would somehow find the school and be told to go to a specific classroom.
If you know anything about kids and substitute teachers, think back to your school days. It was free-for-all-day for the kids. About the best
I could do was to keep them from jumping out the windows; and of course, one kid did! So I had to figure out how to deal with them. It should be noted that when you were assigned to teach a class, it was often not in the area of what your specialty was. I was an English Teacher. They would give me anything you can think of…. I was once given an art class. I handed out lots of drawing paper and other materials. This worked fine, except I got into trouble having used up about an entire semester’s supply. I was learning the hard way.
My favorite school was Byron Bing, a city centre school with kids representing a multitude of nationalities. One of my friends who was a substitute teacher there was so freaked out because she couldn’t handle the class, she ran out screaming and never went back. I loved these kids and spent lots of time talking to them about their lives. Lunch time was amazing. They were all secluded in a basement room. They brought all kinds of ethnic foods from home – things I hadn’t seen before and strange shaped rolls.
Then I heard that a CEGEP had opened in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. A CEGEP is a publicly funded post-secondary education system – pre-university, collegiate technical college, exclusive to the province of Quebec. A Diploma of College Studies (DEC) is required for university admission in Quebec. Pre-university programs re typically two years in duration, filling the gap between secondary school and undergraduate degrees.
I decided to apply!
To be Continued…