The Unemployed Taxi Driver

By Jack MacDougall

Angels in the Architecture
Angels on the Street


A community reclaims a hidden heritage.

“When it comes to community, the province of New Brunswick is at the head of the parade, and the city of Saint John has a story that proves the point. This book is a lively, even hilarious, account of how a band of intrepid friends, who loved their city, rallied the support required to save a hidden gem of its heritage. You will be charmed and amazed that an unemployed taxi driver, and the people who joined this endeavor, could have pulled off this coup of cultural preservation. The city of Saint John and the province of New Brunswick should take pride in this community accomplishment. Thanks to Jack MacDougall, we now know the full story” (Keith Helmuth, author of Tappan Adney and the Heritage of the St. John River Valley).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984551733

Jack MacDougall

Jack MacDougall, formerly a resident of Saint John, New Brunswick, now lives at Yoho Lake southwest of Fredericton.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Jack MacDougall.

ISBN:       Softcover        978-1-9845-5174-0

                 eBook              978-1-9845-5173-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/05/2018

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter 1   Susan’s Den

Chapter 2   Getting to the Start

Chapter 3   Our Leader

Chapter 4   Big Ideas

Chapter 5   Bi-Capitol Day

Chapter 6   The Secret Soldier

Chapter 7   Halifax

Chapter 8   In the Shadows

Chapter 9   Our Community

Chapter 10   The Mother of All Campaigns

Chapter 11   The Reward

Chapter 12   Frank and Elsie

Chapter 13   From Dark to Light

Chapter 14   Going Home

Chapter 15   Explanations

Chapter 16   Before I End

Chapter 17   The Wedding Scene

About the Author

Susan’s Den

My friends think I embellish from time to time but this story needs no false enhancement. Every word, as I remember, is true. As much as this is about something I inadvertently started, this really is a story about other individuals, groups and ultimately a community. I think of myself as a witness to a hundred other stories which collectively made a dream come true, the rebirth of a performing arts center, the magnificent Imperial Theater in Saint John, New Brunswick.

I hope you will indulge me if I also tell you along the way of how it has impacted my life. I know, again, you may think I will be stretching the truth so I promise I am going to try and keep it straight. As well, it will not be possible to include every story let alone name all individuals yet I must name some. They made fascinating contributions and were typical representatives of the entire community. I really don’t think I could possibly tell you this without mentioning them because this is a story of people and yet for every one named there were hundreds behind.

This story also has no ending. Don’t panic, there is no sequel, I am just saying the theater is alive and well and it is a jewel in our community crown, now forever destined to create memories. No mystery, no suspense. Yet a never-ending story must end somewhere and so in order to tell this one, I will suggest it is one from then until a short while ago.

It was early August 1982 when a very small ad appeared on the second page of our local Saint John newspaper, The Evening Times Globe. It was a simple ad where a church, The Full Gospel Assembly, was selling a used Wurlitzer organ and other artifacts that Friday morning. I looked at that ad for a millisecond because I knew I didn’t want a used Wurlitzer organ nor did I even know what one was although I may have heard about them. I was single, in my twenties and lived in an apartment. I did not play the organ or any musical instrument. I continued to read the newspaper and went to bed, probably obsessing about the future while completely oblivious of how my life had just changed.

On Thursday, I was going on a date with a girl that I was very interested in. We had been friends all summer and she was inviting me for a home cooked meal. That afternoon, I stopped into another friend’s apartment, Susan Bate, on my way to my date.

Susan was a lifelong friend although we didn’t always hang out, but these days we were doing plays and we loved talking theater. She was a school teacher, a writer and a drama teacher. She was already a recognized playwright for her award winning co-authorship with Costas Halaverezos of the play, From These Ashes It was an inspiring story about how people responded to the rebuilding of Saint John after the Great Fire of 1877. We reconnected after university years in Saint John when she performed the role of Linus, and me, Charlie Brown, in the musical You’re a good man, Charlie Brown. That summer in 1982 we did the play The New Black Crook, hung out, went to parties but really always as friends.

Susan was a forceful personality and I loved it when she expressed her vitriol about someone else to me, slurping up every last delicious detail, but of course always loathing being the subject, of which I had my experiences. She could verbally fight. She was a good teacher, director, a little bossy but most often heard laughing. She had big sparkling eyes and a million-dollar smile. She was beautiful, smart, really funny, loyal, caring and passionate and everyone loved being around her. Simply, she was fun. She had it all.

So, we were talking about the play we did or the one we’ll do next when I just happened to mention the ad about the sale of the Wurlitzer organ. Just this tiny and insignificant comment and yet Susan had an immediate visceral overreaction, I thought, practically screaming back at me, they want to sell what, a Wurlitzer? We have to stop this sale, she said, rather forcefully.

The reason for me wasn’t instantly clear but because Susan was a passionate Saint John historian, particularly in theater, I feigned understanding. As I feared, she was now focused like a pointer and I her cowering prey, You have to get me that paper, she said sternly, and most uncomfortably for me stared, as though I was one of her pupils.

I’ll get it tomorrow, I weakly replied, crunching my body and silently scolding myself as I simultaneously realized the stupidity of my own retort.

Tomorrow is too late, the sale is tomorrow. I need the ad now. Run home and get me that ad now Jack MacDougall, she demanded. And so, obediently, I scurried home and found the newspaper, searched for the ad and was immensely relieved to find it and return it to Susan, eager to go on my date.

She clutched my hand and drew me into her den. Reluctantly and slowly I submitted. She had already called friends like Rod Stears, a local photographer, teacher and good friend, Clarence, a friend of Susan’s, Glenda Thornton, a director I worked with on several plays, Bob Boyce, a local architect and Arnie Hachey, another mutually close friend, a salesman and who also was in The New Black Crook, to a meeting. There may have been others. She, oh so self-amusingly and over dramatically, teasingly and verbally abused me to at least meet some of the committee members to stop the sale of the Wurlitzer organ. While I was away, she had gone into overdrive to learn and do more. She was really determined to stop this sale.

She could lie, too. For example, she told the ones there that I started the committee, offering up inflated and false praise for reading the ad first and bringing it to everyone’s attention, as they nodded their primed appreciation, when I didn’t even realize there was a committee or that I was at all interested in saving a Wurlitzer. I suspect they all knew she was lying too but played along. She had a plan. She wanted me, no needed me, to be Chairman as I had nothing better to do, like she was saving me. With the phone in her hand, staring at me, I slowly surrendered and made the toughest and, at the time thought, the stupidest phone call I have ever made, I cancelled my date, late.

For the rest of the night there were phone calls to Marty Fineberg, a lawyer and a very close friend, and Elsie Wayne, a city councilor and Walter Ball, a well-known and beloved music teacher and arts activist. Ultimately, we talked into the night and we probably talked about the history of the Capitol, an old movie house as I imagined it to be, like the old Kent movie theater on Coburg Street or the Strand on Charlotte. After a long evening, we made a motion to meet in the morning at Reggie’s restaurant on Germain St, only hours before the sale. But my mind was truly elsewhere. I thought about my cancelled date. I felt like a fool, actually more like a jerk.

The next morning most of the same people met at Reggie’s. Susan’s agenda was clear at both meetings, that we had to try and stop the sale. It could well be an important historical artifact, this Wurlitzer organ. At nine o’clock everyone agreed they had to get to work or had other things to do and I should go and see what the sale was about. After all, I was the chairman. I went alone. I thought to myself, what a maroon.

At this point I was actually very annoyed with myself and was starting to resent the whole idea of obstructing a church from selling its organ. I was certain that hundreds, probably thousands and thousands of churches had sold their organs, especially when they wanted to upgrade to a newer model. Really, what could I do and why should I want to do it.

In a gloomy haze that foggy morning I listlessly walked to the Full Gospel Assembly on King Square. I wasn’t unemployed as much as not working at the time. I had only months previously sold my taxi business, Courtesy Cab, and I planned to take some time off before going in a new direction. But that was May and it was now August and my compass was askew. I was free with time for the first time ever and it was fun at first but now boring and worrisome and blowing off my date was embarrassing and I felt stupid going into a church to look at an organ that I didn’t want and truthfully, couldn’t accept even if they gave it to me. You see what I mean, good ingredients for a mild depression.

I don’t remember, but I think we had imagined this sale would have hundreds of people and