Orange Cake

Orange Cake

I’m just here to report the facts:

“..historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells's history, but history nevertheless."”

John Huston

..and it's not for everyone.

If you have neither interest nor comprehension of any past beyond your own - well, don’t waste your time reading this. It has no more relevance for you than yellowing newspapers, where positions; if not honestly held, were at least factually defended; nor old tv series, so compelling, they were eagerly anticipated and seen ‘by appointment viewing only”, not by a subscription provider’s whim; nor by ancient radio broadcasts, where, god help you, your own mind painted a stunning reality; one far more intense and utterly personal than what any set designer could divine.

Judge this if you will - but now – after everything, your input...., well, maybe..just perhaps your opinion can add a new facet to the story –because I know – absolutely - it will be something that will happen to all of you - eventually.

But its immediate relevance is for we the special; the cold-war kids; the digitally preconscious; the broad history cognoscenti: those among us who are now lined and rare – that residual breed – we are the ones that may find this most resonant.

Cold war Toronto didn’t demand much for you to have it all - and all of it was almost perfect: if you were a white, middle class, suburb-living kid.

Like every other kid, from every other similar environ that you had no idea existed, you thought it was fine: you just didn’t know better because frankly, there wasn’t any “better” to know - just like every other kid in the world, forever.

And yes in the pre-digital world, there was The Star; The Telly; The Globe (if you were high end) and Larry Henderson at Six for the CBC News – but who bothered with them ? No one of my 12 year old acquaintance, I assure you!

Then you could be a boy anywhere - in Dublin for instance - during the troubles – and yes, there was upset but that was where you lived and grew up and the troubles, while present, were excluded from everything that actually counted for anything: a bothersome irrelevant, tiresome intrusion - nothing more.

It was the same with every kid - in all the troubled areas of the world.

Yes, of course, it was filled with hardship there was no denying that - – but you still had your friends; the special places you went, out of parent's sight to do the stuff you did you shouldn't have - and that made those secrets all the more worthwhile! Memories forever!

That, regardless of where you lived- was universal; the very truth known to every boy and girl – despite the narrow mindedness or - back to the home land - polite Canadian bigotry.

Toronto, then- was white – and white was all - and as hard as it may be too hard imagine now, there were classes of “white”.

If you intended to work in any government function, you’d better be Protestant, Orange preferably: Catholics need not apply. And while it was awkward for Catholics, if you were a Jew or any other Ethnic – or worse “of colour” - well, you literally as often as not went straight to the back of the line. 

The bigot’s bromide of the day:

“if you’re white, you’re alright;

if you’re brown – well you can stick around;

but if you’re; black -stay back!”

was not only commonly expressed but blithely accepted – unbelievably without embarrassment - as employment standards across this land.

This was, embarrassingly, our country then, and thank you very much.

But it was the mentality of the dregs of post war Canada and its suspicious attitude towards “foreigners”. Not that anyone minded who arrived – but it was where they 'landed' people cared about: because you knew College Street Italians were too loud – too clique-y and likely criminal; anyone from Europe was a “DP”. a displaced person and here by the grace of God and the King likelt ti take yy job biut hopefully they'll go to Israel if they wanted; the Irish were unreliable drunks, the Russians we're reliable spies.

The entire gamut of stereotypical dismissal was applied to anyone and everyone – not white.

Looking back – by God, it was white. It was bland as the supposed “butter’ that was actually by law, ‘margarine’ – and to get ‘colour” in it – you needed to burst an ochre pustule and furiously kneed it like your first girlfriend’s breast, to make it a pale, yellow-y, semi-viscous globular spread. That was not only what the food was like; that’s how everything was in 1957’s ‘Uncle Louis’’ Canada.

And 1967 Toronto as well – not much had changed until the breathtaking success and awareness by Canadian’s of “Canada’ and Montreal’s brilliant iteration of  Île Notre-Dame with the revolutionary “Man and His World”- ‘Terre des Hommes” - and for 1967 the night-and-day, eye-popping, breathtaking revelation compared to every other previous self-serving ,“worlds fairs” trade shows - into some thing truly spectacularly forward looking and globally encompassing, with a level of sophistication previously unknown to almost any other resident of this country !

Soon after, another hidden jewel revelation even more stunning as to upset and change our perceptions forever — certainly those of our revered: Canadian fictional guideposts; small towns like “Manawaka, Mariposa, Jubilee, Port Ticonderoga, Tyndal”- and all the rest of the cultural centerings - venues of literally - our cultural awakening. 

Before, the totality of all colours of our understanding was white: now, that sum was mercifully lesser than the whole and the country ushered in a new vibrancy and energy. “New people” - despite uncountable thousands being here for generations - had suddenly been recognized, were now embraced in the purportedly new post-centennial multiculturalism ethos.

Yet shockingly these days, many in other countries, one’s not very far away, would like that lamentable attitude back: if you were here, it was by deference and if you didn’t like it, you’d better damn well shut up about it.  

Flash-back to 1970 Ottawa – I went there to see a friend of mine – and frankly, to get to Hull as fast as we could and get wasted with the (hopefully) endlessly obliging French girls.

I got to Pete’s parent’s house – where he was temporarily staying. There a large, and to me, an exotically swirling, charmed family revolved back and forth, in and out of each room, and traveled endlessly past - on the way to somewhere far better; I knew it had, had, to be better than where I came from.

Pete’s Mom though, was like every other Mom I knew then; nice, thoughtful, chatty, paino playig, super-talented and interested in me of all people –even though I contributed nothing to any of her complimentary qualities. 

My sitting sullen taciturn, yet so much wanting ‘to be with’ this clearly better collection of humanity. His delightful Mom- far more used dealing with ‘taciturn and sullen’ youth - carried on with tea and sympathy.

Of course, I was anxious to leave but the dreaded phrase, “You’ll stay for tea..”( sympathy implied) halted our progress to the imagined delusion of a Gallic Paradise and I sat down to make awkward, ungainly conversation for 20 minutes.

Tea things brought out: mugs, sugar, milk and finally a plate of homemade cake of some sort. Sipping the tea, I yakked about the tedium of the drive down to Ottawa and the lamentable state of the roads. While listening about one daughter's success in the news business, and another father’s avidly appreciated radio broadcast tales, I absently picked up a piece of sliced cake shoved in front of me. It was light orange on a pure white plate, placed on a yellow and periwinkle blue tablecloth: it looked shockingly like a Matisse tableau.

It turned out to be far more valuable than any painting from that Master. I bit into this homely confection and my life changed. 

I had never tasted anything as intense, as fresh, as utterly infused, in my entire life: never. It was as though it were the very essence of orange -. I could not speak I could barely swallow, I was utterly aghast. 

They thought I was either choking or challenged.

Their perceptions were not far from the mark.

Swept away were endless creamed onions and unbuttered mashed potatoes; fish-eyed tapioca and rice puddings, bland, rolled oats, the junket of fish, sole and the very definition of whiteness desserts blanc mange, of the remnants of Tory compact blandness Canada……… rushed in was a tropical dreamland of such a culinary revelation -I was all but blinded from it. 

Never had I ever tasted it’s equal in my life.

Finally, we left for what was supposed to be the ‘free love’ separatist haven - and, on the way in the car, I tediously – and very un-coolly could not shut up about his mother’s orange cake.

“What’s the matter with you? It’s my mother! Shut up!”

It wasn’t his mother I was fixated upon, but the doors of perception she unwittingly had burst open.

The evening progressed as usual: and it wasn’t long before the wrong thing was said, feelings were hurt, tempers raised and we, maudit anglais. hit the road back… back -but not the same – not in the least.

Fast forward 40 years: and the white bread culture of my origins forever erased by wave after benign wave of immigration inculcated so slowly...initially with the ersatz ‘passported’ Caravan; to city blocks, slowly overtaken by mosques and minarets; to entire city quarters with businesses and street signs they don’t even bother to put into English anymore: entire old world civilizations enfolded and insisting on old world cultural observance upending whatever distinct Canadian ethos we once possessed: with those accommodations made, ethnic nuances accepted, abided and embraced – and here I was, a 69 year-old salesman in the middle of it- and frankly, had had enough…. enough of all of it. 

While life had not been unkind – it had hardly been the cornucopia of ‘flavours’, I had anticipated in 1970. 

I was getting past my time - but still, to be honest, it was a life better than most – though I was getting tired keeping up with what was new. Truly - and be honest - are there any of the my current generation that are not? ( You need not answer, you know it yourself)

All this was just last Thursday. 

I had finished a sales call and made no more than dead-slow headway with a new Teutonic-Euro-sophisticated client on a media sale.

On leaving, rather than sit in cross-town highway 4:30 traffic for 2 hours to get home, I turned off at Jane Street and went south for mile or so and pulled into a local donut shop. I can’t remember the name of the store – but the name tag on the waitresses’ breast was ‘Shelly’, and I asked her for a coffee –

“....in a cup, if you don’t mind – and a crueler -…”

“We just have these,” she said pointing behind her.

“Fine whatever … and coffee – in a cup - Ok…?”

She brought the donut and set down the coffee – in a paper cup.

“Look, it’s been a long day. I said in a cup – like a real cup.”

She glanced at me sourly, and herveyes, all but rolling to the back of her head in disgust took the sodden paper cup mess, throwing it out and washed out a real cup and saucer someone else ordered a day or two ago - then put the replacement coffee sloppily down in front of me.

I glared at her and picked up the confection and bit into it …….it was ….. ..

.....it was 1970 once again…an absolutely synesthesiactical revelation of colour, sound, taste and essence - an essence – the very essence - one so utterly intense of orange that I could not believe I was reliving it!

I twisted around to see where I was – that this wasn't some cruel joke - but it was all there the tedious existent day and combined – everything else- every thing - in a moment’s flash of recognition: the hope, the promise, everything as clear as the very moment it all transpired and all flashing before eyes – as I stared at the counter - all streaking by in a fraction of a coronary infarction heart beat!!

I was frozen: I'm dead - I’m utterly staggered. 

I stammered.

“Look. These. These are great! Who made these? I want then all…”

“There’s only 2 more.. “

“Give them to me wrap them up... Really, I must have them!”

All my youth burst into focus with that single taste: like Proust’s madeleines. Everything fabulous flooded back with crystalline purity and clarity: all remembered.. all nuisances revealed – so focused - so riveting – so utterly defined - and their agent was this single orange crueler; found by chance in some unpronounceable donut store on Jane Street.  

I was reliving everything – all things wonderful and recalled in a fraction - in a moment of a zeptosecond - all the loves, the found, the lost; the sounds; the weight and tonnage of all the atmospheres of silences and expressions; all the experiences; the places; the friends, past and present in my life had surged - when I heard,

“HEY! Wher’des come from?” he asks. 

“The back.” says the woman. 

“Shelly, I’m gonna kill you! What’s the hell’s the matter wit you? They’re two weeks old! The pig man’s was supposed to pick up this stale crap last Friday for his swill…If you don have the Health Department on my ass - you’ll get me sued! Fer Christ’s sake! 

“Sorry mister…”, said the owner grabbing up the remains of the orange cake, 

“The kid’s new – she don’t know nothing – No hard feelings ok? Here let me get you a new cruller” 

And with one sweep of a Bear Claw, he dumped my past in the garbage.