Nostalgia- Remembering Winnipeg

Most of us have memories and feelings about the places of our birth if we have spent enough time during our lives after having reached an age of reason. I have thought about it and written some about it. After a long life spent mainly far away from the place of my birth, I am amazed at how much it marked me. I left Winnipeg permanently in my early “twenties” to pursue my education. I returned there only episodically, and surprisingly, considering that my parents continued to reside there and it was the home of “love of my life”. Indeed, I returned there more than once just to catch sight of my “future Bride” even if I did not appreciate it at the time.

Winnipeg, more specifically, the Jewish community within which I was raised, always remained for me a presence. I carried a consciousness of it in my mind, as I wended my way through my life, sometimes in very distant places. I always bore in my mind my hatching place, where I spent my early years learning the rules of life of which all of us have to acquire some knowledge.

In retrospect, in spite of my early days during the Depression spent in a bad neighborhood, when life was a struggle, and long after having left Winnipeg, I carried with me a sense that I had been raised, womb-like, in the Jewish community that was caring. Apparently spending my years in a non-sectarian Winnipeg, city and schools, country and government, far removed from my Jewish roots, I was yet immersed in an ethnic reality, immersion in Jewish practices in the home, synagogue and after-school Jewish studies. I had the traditional Bar Mitzvah experience. I was always conscious of an entity which was a ‘community” filled with support services that were peculiarly dedicated to our well-being in a hostile environment.

There were Jewish doctors, dentists and lawyers, Jewish city councilors, Jewish businesses where we often sought service. I attended St. Johns Tech for High School, which practically closed down during Jewish High Holy days. The same was true for my future Bride at Machray Elementary School. Her father  was the Mayor of West Kildonan, an adjoining city. He was a celebrated criminal lawyer, and advisor to provincial Premiers. We celebrated our Jewish heroes wherever they could be found.

Many of us flourished in this fertile soil. Those who ventured outside, well-prepared by this heritage, gave a good account of themselves Many succeeded in business and government, in Canada and in the United States. We all knew their stories and celebrated their success. I remember returning to Winnipeg during the period of my notoriety, present on television and in the newspapers, my former classmates encircling me as if I was a semi-god descended from heaven. We shared in the glory. We knew we lived in a hostile environment, the success of one was the sublimated success of all of us. We knew there was a territory where we were among friends.

When I left Winnipeg I knew I was launching myself into enemy territory. Others of my ilk had done the same and emerged victorious. Those who failed were never heard from again. I had dreams of proving myself the hero I believed I was. Though I felt there was nothing for me in Winnipeg, as I set sail,  I believed there was a whole community rooting for me to be the success I believed I could be.

Everywhere I went I met refugees from Winnipeg. Some had already made their mark on the wall of fortune. When I called home, no-one spoke to me of what was happening in Winnipeg. They were anxious to hear of our exploits in faraway places. When I met those refugees, the paragons who had succeeded, all they ever wanted to do was talk about Winnipeg. These heroes, these examples of Spartacus in the Coliseum, battling for survival and victory, were only hungry for news of their hometown. James Joyce once said that he had to move away from Dublin before he could celebrate it, hear its message. We all had to move away before we could savor the taste of it.

Many of us discovered that the city we thought had nothing for us, ended up realizing how much of ourselves we owed to the beginnings we found in that place. Many of the things we ridiculed, even reviled, became aspects of our background we treasure in our memories. Those of us who abandoned our birthplace, for all the many reasons that impelled us to venture from that warm embrace, may be better placed than those who remained, to truly appreciate the gifts we were given by being planted there at our start. Those who stayed may not appreciate how precious are the things they may have taken for granted.

I am remembering my unspoken knowledge that Winnipeg was a place where we felt we belonged. We knew we were a part of something that was always there as a backstop, come what may. There was always someone there we could turn to in extremis. We may have fought with each other and argued, but our differences went only so far. We believed, if push came to shove, that there would be someone there we could turn to. That doesn’t even have to be true, as long as we believed it.

Underlying it all is a sense of collective caring. Jews have the belief that they have a common destiny. If one is in trouble, it is a trouble that everyone of us is potentially heir to. So we all stand ready help if we can. Because this thesis is generally accepted by members of the community, each one of us feels that we have a back-up, one we hope we may never have to use. In my mind that sentiment is inevitably associated with my growing-up in Winnipeg, and is by extension associated with that city. Things that are considered ordinary, with the embellishment of our nostalgia, have given us the glorious perception of the extraordinary. This was the place from which we launched our crusade for hero-hood. Knowing we were entering hostile territory was something with which we were well acquainted.. We were armed for the battle we faced. But in our consciousness we retained the knowledge that there was some place we could always turn to if we were in distress.

In spite of so much in the world that may speak to the contrary, most of us believe we all have an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. We know inchoate forces are there to bring us down, but we seek always to fight for that breath of freedom, for happiness, however fleeting. Good beginnings like we lucky few had in Winnipeg can make all the difference.