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132                     AN EXILE OF THE MIND                                                                    MAGGIE, THE FLOWER CHILD                        133


































             A long climb up to the Attic.      Shirley sunbathing, Toronto house.                        John and Shirley in Mexico.      Quenching our thirst with coconuts.


          Pierre. Her dalliances with Senator     When I was  ready  to  embrace                      a prominent figure in saving  China-   attended.  One  week  a seventeenth
          Teddy Kennedy and Jack Nicholson  these worthy values with open arms                        town from becoming mutated into  century  fop  with  wig,  radiating
          not unnoticed,  nor her fondness  and a beard, the  hippie  scene had                       a freeway and was later awarded an  clouds  of talcum  powder  with  a
          for cannabis smuggled in the PM’s  called  it a day and mutated  into                       honorary degree of Doctorate of Laws  shake  of  the  head.  Or a knight  in
          luggage on trips overseas.           yuppies, eager to settle down for a                    for her community work.              armour clanking into the fray with
            The psychedelic world of hippie  career and monogamy.                                        University politics  ignited  and  bottle  of beer  guzzled  through  a
          culture  spread  from San Francisco     There  came  a chance  to  show                     flamed into anarchy, so Shirley and  chink in the helmet.
          faster  than measles  in a country  off my army jacket to the Canadian                      I turned our backs on college mar-      Our flatmate John, to detach his
          school. I would  have been  swept  film-going public when I was given                       tyrdom and hitch-hiked to Toronto,  mind from the grind of PhD study,
          along with it had I taken the coastal  a part in a Daniel Singer movie on                   a distance of 4,400 kilometres. And  suggested  a holiday  far from the
          route from Mexico to Vancouver.      the strength of treading the boards                    into the  hysterical  clamour of  madding crowd of Trudeau delirium.
            Flower power promoted a gentle  in my Cratchit role. I ‘starred’ for 38                   Trudeaumania.                        To the Deep South and a hop over
          ideology that focused on peace, love  seconds and was advised to keep my                       Racks of  theatre  costumes  col-  the border for a Mexican fiesta. Our
          and personal freedom  as well  as  day job and my mouth shut.                               lected  dust in the basement of a  means of  transport was  to  deliver
          planting  flowers  down  gun  barrels   It was at this time I dated student                 Victorian building  we  lived  in. A  a ‘drive-away’ car. An arrangement
          and sucking joints to oblivion.      activist, Shirley Chan. She became                     different  guise  for  every  party  we  where you could drive someone’s
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