The Last Tango in Toronto

 

This is a travel adventure, I suppose, in early October 1973.  How do I know this?  While on the road back home I remember hearing on the news that the 39^th President, Spiro Agnew, was resigning because of a scandal.  He resigned October 10. 1973.  Hooray for Spiro for being a time-mark for me.

We were friends with a married couple who were as hipped as they could get.  They kept up with all the folk music, all the protesters, and so on.  I am not critical of this.  I am liberal like they were (are if they are still alive).

They decided to move to Canada to be among and mingle with “their kind” – the people who avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War.  The only problem with this is the husband, like me, had already served in the Navy. 

They moved to Toronto.  The husband was a computer whiz and had no trouble getting a job.  The wife, it took a little longer.

They left us a check book to pay their bills as they came via mail, which I checked their mail daily and mailed it to to them fairly frequently, but not every day.

After they got settled they and got a nice apartment in high risr they invited us for a visit.  We took them up on their offer.

We took a couple of weeks leave and drove up.  We stopped at Niagara Falls and spent a day checking out the Maid of the Midst boat that Marilyn Monroe was in and we checked it out on  the New York, U.S side, which is on top of the falls, and on the side where you can see the falls fall in all its glory, the Canada side.

Then we drove north, if I remember correctly Toronto was about 70 or 80 miles north with very little activity between.

They were both working, but they us a key hidden somewhere, I forgot where.  Their apartment was high up and they had a great view of the city.

When they came home we went to their China Town and saw an interesting local parade with Chinese dragons.

I think our Columbus Day was the same day as Canadian Thanksgivings is.  They both took off and we went to the city center which was full of activity.  There is a science museum with some interesting hands one experiments going on.  I could control a laser beam to melt a hole through metal, which I told the husband to hold his car keys above his head and see if I can shoot them off his head  (laughing)….no no no.  They also had a theater with special effects.  If I remember correctly, the seat you were in would tilt, turn, to make it feel you were actually there.  It also appeared to take us on a very fast ride around mountain ledges, cliffs, jumping gaps, and whatever.  There was a young lady next to me, which I did not know, got really bananas in the movie’s fast tracks movies, so transfixed she grabbed my leg close to the crotch and held on for dear life.  How can you politely tell a lady younger than you to please remove her hand.  You don’t.  You just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Here us men climbed a huge tree.  Look hard and you can see us.  I told him "all we need were some water balloons."

They had to go to work the next day.  We went to a walk in movie to see a movie that was banned in the states, I forgot what it was, it might have been THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS.  Starring Marlon Brando., or it may have had the word YELLOW in the title, who knows?

That’s about all I remember worth sharing.