How I survived being spindled, folded and mutilated.

Do not spindle, fold or mutilate.

These were the famous words printed on every utility bill form the 1940s all the way in to the late 80s.

Why were you not supposed to “not spindle, fold or mutilate” your bills?

Because then they were damaged and could not do their job correctly. (To allow an 80 hole card reader to process them automatically.)

This is my story about what happens to a person who is “spindled, folded and mutilated”?

Every layoff from my job came as a total shock, regardless of how many “vibes” I ought to have picked up at work.

I despised my first job as a new immigrant in Canada and wished I was somewhere else every minute on that job. A few months after my arrival, I was called to the personnel office. There I was handled my pay cheque for the next two weeks and a yellow form saying that I was “let go for cause” and was not eligible for any Unemployment Insurance.

I walked all of the 500 metres home to my apartment, not entirely downtrodden. It was a great relief to be “otta there”.

A problem, my wife had just given birth to our first daughter. This was not a good time for a family man to suddenly stand at the front door without money or any prospect of any more, soon.

She was a strong woman. Then as later said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute “Plan B”, finding a job again.

I did and found a job.

A few years later I sensed that our business was about to take a turn for the worse. Our target customers were having really hard times and not about to make any new investments in the foreseeable future.

I was called into the president’s office and told,

“I am really sorry, but we cannot keep you on staff. I will give you three months notice, from today. Good luck in finding another job, soon.”

I was totally stunned, I never expected that. I was a company man, true and true. I even carried a corporate logo on a pin under my lapel, to show how devoted I was to my company and our customers.

I took the customary commuter train home but forgot both my book and my house keys on the train. I guess I was in a total state of shock.

My wife was in the eighth month with baby No.2. She was totally surprised.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

A couple of months later, the entire office gathered at a popular restaurant for a going away celebration for me and Al G. He was in the same field of business and had no better future in the company than I.

I worked for my three months of notice. Al and I left in a state of glory, we were both going to far more responsible and well-paying jobs than we’d ever had.

A few years later our family lived in the not-so-great metropolis (?) of Port Hawkesbuy, Nova Scotia. The smallness of the location and the people who lived there really started to get to us, my wife and I was toying with the idea of finding another job, away from there.

My plant manager, Ted LeMaistre, invited me for another family dinner at his house. We were good friends and he had helped me tremendously, and I him, over some rough patches in the operation of the power plant.

He convinced me, over some whiskey, that leaving the plant, and him, would be a very poor decision.

I agreed to stay on for a while. Then, quite furtuitously, the plant got a new operations manager, one who really knew his engineering-stuff. Here was my opportunity.

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I started my search and had a new position secured in only a few days.

Ted LeMasitre and his wife had us in for one last, somewhat sorrowful, dinner at their home.

Then I left.

No, this was not a sob-story at all. Nobody was angry, but I felt quite guilty for leaving Ted to the “great forces of intra-company politics". He was soon displaced and served out his remaining years to retirement as a rather sad staff-engineer at the head office.

We moved back to Montreal.

A few years went by and I had become the darling of my San Diego, California based company. I could do nothing wrong and felt the “happy vibes” wherever I traveled on Company business.

That was not a good or sustainable feeling.

I became too big for my britches, fully convinced that I truly was

"God’s gift to any business”.

I was not.

One day, my unfounded feeling of self worth made me commit the single largest error of my life. I succumbed to the lures of a head-hunter.

I paid dearly for that.

My reputation preceded me and I got a fabulous job for a Montreal based international company. I was to have two bosses. – Why didn’t I back out at that piece of news? (I should have.)

I was given two completely equipped offices, one in Montreal and one at the Embarcardero in San Francisco, California, with a pad of Air Canada travel vouchers to pay for the five hour long bi-weekly airplane commute.

I had two bosses. That may not have been all bad – but they each hated the ground the other walked on, with a gusto.

I traveled the world, with either of the two bosses, and quite enjoyed my new business focus.

But – there was something I didn’t know, even though the facts had been quite clear from day one.

This was an 18-month experiment.

It failed. - Fire the participants.

One morning, four days before Christmas and two days before I was about to leave on a three-week vacation with my family in Sweden, my Canadian boss walked in. He sat down in front of my desk with a piece of paper in his hands.

He started reading:

“You are not contributing to the operation of our company and you have no future here. Take the next five minutes to collect your personal belongings and proceed to the personnel department on the 12th floor.”

We were on the 16th.

The security guard who had stood quietly a the door led me by my elbow to the elevator.

Once in the personnel department I received the mandatory EI document – “fired for cause and not eligible for Unemployment Insurance” and signed many documents.

Another of the many papers to sign was the ownership certificate for the company car – it became mine. There was also a cheque of substantial value, far more than what could have been expected, considerding my term of employment.

I continued the next 12 floors down in a very sombre mood. But – before I even set foot on the street a thought occurred. This was “bigger than me”.

It was.

I immediately crossed the street with the cheque and deposited it in my bank account.

The entire group, all six of us on that project, were laid of within days, the boss who had read the letter to me remained unemployed for over two years.

I drove home with very mixed feelings. What really happened?

My wife met me at home.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

The tickets for the family vacation in Sweden were all paid for, so it was just to “pack and go”.

We had bought some new wallpaper for the house. This was a good time to hang it. Never have any air bubbles been banged out with greater force. I gave a name to every one of them as they were methodically banged flat and eradicated under the wallpaper. The end result was superb.

There was a little problem with our Sweden-trip. I was a newly unemployed man without any prospects. (?) I lied about my job and kept up a very false façade, all the time silently crying inside.

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I soon had a new job.

It may not have been promised as the ultimate or the final one, but my talents were to be put to good use.

The President and co-owner, who’s stability of mind and capacities were far to the left of ordinary, had embarked on a great project to bring some high quality German made air compressors to Canada. They had never been built to North American standards and he had some great ideas about setting up a factory to make the modifications on the finished product in Canada.

I should have known. After our first meeting in Toronto, when I was hired, we went to a bar in the same building. He ordered a 12 oz bottle of whiskey, a mickey, for himself with only one glass – seated himself on a bench in the far corner and rolled himself up in a ball as tight as a grown man could get his limbs.

He didn’t talk to anyone as he slowly emptied the whiskey bottle.

Then he went across the street to his new Cadillac that had many scrapes on the side, and left, all alone.

I was left in total bewilderment. What had I just witnessed?

Why didn’t I leave then and there?

A few months later, after a couple of trips to Germany for me it was clearly obvious to all, this was a fool’s errand and there was no way to convert any product in Canada. The president of the German supplier politely, as straight forward and with the force of a battering ram, told me: “Get out of here. Your boss is crazy as a coon and there is no way we can do business with him.”

I was still running the industrial distribution franchise in Montreal, but that was soon to end in a fright.

I had repeatedly asked for a financial statement. There were just too many disgruntled suppliers calling and asking me for money. The bosses, both the co-owners came to town. We went for lunch and I said:

“I am sorry, but this operation is not tenable, we are losing too much money.”

“We will take care of that at this moment. - You are fired.”

I was.

I returned to the office for a few minutes to carry my personal belongs out and that was it. No yellow paper for the EI this time.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

The company closed and declared bankruptcy only two months later. I met the boss many years later.

“Are you still alive? I though you would go home and commit suicide the day we fired you.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I soon had a new job.

By this time, computers had come to play. I got hold of a list of Montreal Board of trade members and mailed out about 200 letters, all personalized and computer generated.

This was on a Thursday.

On Monday I got a call and I was hired that afternoon. Again with a higher salary and larger company car than ever before.

A few years later I went on one of my many European trips, this time to Germany. I was specifically asked to go to Frankfurt am Main and to visit the president of the company that now owned 50 percent of our 800-employee company. Fifty percent – not enough to affect the outcome of any board meeting.

I was seated in an office with two interlocking doors with rubber seals, totally sound proof. The German president was very formal.

“Tell the president that he must stop investing so much in new machinery, it is time to pay more profit to us.”

Why through me? I knew that they talked to each other on the telephone almost every day.

I travelled back to Montreal in a bit of a troubled mood. – Why was I the carrier of this message?

I reported to the president. He muttered something along the lines of “What a fool that German guy is? This is my company and I decide where to spend our money.”

Christmas came and went. Then a call to the president’s office.

“We are not making enough profit and cannot afford to keep you. You can leave now.”

“Oh, we have no use for your new company car, you can keep it for a while.” I drove it for several months before they called and wanted it back.

This was after 7.5 years of faithful work.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My new job search wasn’t as easy any more, I was a little longer in the tooth than in earlier years.

It took a few months to confirm my next position but we had enough money from my separation cheque to handle that.

The next job paid even more and saw me negotiating some seriously large multi hundred million dollar deals in USA, Canada and Chile.

Then we got a new president at the US head office. He came to Canada once:

“I love you all. You are doing a great job and there will be no changes.”

A month later, to the same 200 office employees:

“I love you all, but there will have to be some small changes in the operation. Nothing of importance, just some adjustments.”

A month later, in the same meeting room with the same group of listeners:

“I have decided that we don’t need the Canadian operation. We will close this down and move all the job assignments, but not the people, to my home town in Ohio.”

In the end, only four people of almost 600 who were laid off moved to Ohio.

I soon found out that I was No. 82 (of 600) on the layoff list.

My lay off meeting was almost funny.

I had gone on my second visit to Japan, all of eleven days this time, and had just come back with my head full of information and several reports to submit. They were written on my computer in the first-class cabin as we had returned, non-stop, from Tokyo to Toronto.

So, when called to a meeting, I brought a slew of heavy books, a notepad and my lap-top computer.

There was to be no meeting. There was my boss, a personnel officer and, as I found out later, a psychologist from the USA head office.

The subject was to tell me … and to hand me a whoppingly large separation cheque. This time the yellow sheet said that I was laid off “for lack or work” and that I did qualify for Unemployment Insurance. (I was never out of work long enough to apply.)

I met the psychologist later. He told me that his services had been needed as some employees with over 20 years of service “had gone wild at the news…”

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My next job was fortunately not long in coming.

The primary task in my next position was to expand our North American and European customer base for water wheel castings. First I travelled USA. After that I worked diligently on the telephone and fax machine before I had a long list of European customers who had expressed preliminary interest and given me firm appointments – in five countries.

The week before my departure the company was sold to a large American corporation.

My schedule and budget for the Europe trip was cut in half. I went on an abbreviated tour to only three countries and succeeded quite well with my appointments, coming home with a slew of inquiries.

Then the American owners came to town.

“We have our own sales organization and we also cover Europe quite well. Therefore the entire six-person sales team will be laid off, effective immediately.”

The departures were nasty, The new owners had never met any of us before but were dead set on not spending any money. They made up a bunch of reasons why none of the six sales persons should receive any severance pay, contrary to Canadian law. I got none and was forced out the door with quite a bit of commission pay unpaid. Several thousand dollars, enough to seriously harm my already strained household budget, to be more specific.

I felt really rotten. I had given “my all” to get this business expanded, to no avail and little compensation. My much promised commission payments had evaporated. That really hurt, in many ways.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My all too many job changes, coupled with a complete sell house – buy house from Montreal to Kitchener had seriously damaged my financial health.

This was the fall when Bank of Montreal had gotten a new
president, may he burn in hell for all eternity, who decided to be tough on any delinquent borrower or credit card owner.

Awaiting my first commission cheque in the new job and with my cash running low, I had innocently enough called Bank of Montreal to inquire if I could hold off on paying my regular credit card payment for one month.

“Not a problem, we will send you a new payment plan.”

They did, in the form of a legal summons to put a lien on my house or to transfer my house to them… I owed $ 2,000 on a credit card and $ 7,000 on a line of credit, neither which had ever been one day late or near maximum limits, ever.

That took four years out of my life, ruining my sleep and hurting me in many ways. I had never, even once, missed a single payment on anything. Now starting a new job with a greatly reduced initial paycheque, I was to be furter punished by a lowly clerk at a bank.

My accounts were closed, nothing could be deposited. “Talk to your lawyer”. I did, but hat only cost money not leading to any resolution.

I discussed all this with my wife.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

Several years later I read in the newspaper that Bank of Montreal had another new president.

I mailed off a letter, “Personal and confidential” to that new president, a letter with 52 enclosures. It was mailed on a Friday. On Tuesday I got a call: “There has been a misunderstanding, please come to our nearest bank branch.”

I did, the misunderstanding was cleared up and my, by now quite substantial, outstanding amounts were converted to a regular loan. I paid that off in less than a year.

Note, the bank didn’t lose one single penny, but they kept running my credit card and line of credit for several years at full interest rate, 27 % for the credit card. There was no compassion, no adjustment, not even the slightest hint of an apology.

Net result, I soon had no debt but my credit rating showed as if I had gone bankrupt – for seven more years.

Do you wonder why I have to restrain myself from spitting on the Bank of Montreal branch windows every time I walk by one?

Fortunately, the bank that had held my home mortgage was not affected so I could live a rather normal life, after all.

My new sales manager’s job under my friend, the newly minted president, didn’t last long.

Nine months in, it was painfully clear that our 65-person factory didn’t have enough orders to carry on. We had used up our line of credit and the owner showed some serious concern.

“I’d better sell the company, but first we must clean house.”

I was out again – and so was my new president. He went to a car dealership and was selling Volvo cars the last time I saw him.

My firing was swift, no time for any sweet talk or time to mention about EI documents, severance pay or my unpaid sales commsisions. Then, again, I lost thousands of dollars in unpaid earnings. “Just leave – now.”

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

Now I am getting seriously older and can no longer consider myself as God’s gift to any business.

I was uncermoniously fired on a Monday night. Computers were big now. I used my computer programming talents and sent out over 500 single page solicitation letters by fax to all sorts of companies in the area over night. I had no desire to move or travel too far work.

Tuesday morning; the telephone rang. I went for an interview.

“Do you know how to use a spreadsheet?”

“Yes, I do.”

I was hired in the next hour and started work on Wednesday morning. I had been unemployed for all of one calendar day.

A couple of years later I did get a funny feeling that I was no longer in the good graces. My task was finished. I had, thanks to my spreadsheet skills, been able to collect over two million dollars of underpaid bills from our major customer, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world.

I had just come home from a sales trip to Japan. I was really concerned that our customer was about to put some terribly costly demands on us. Our future profitability, or even existence, could be endangered.

My report was tabled and I awaited what to do next.

I was called to the president’s office. In addition to him, there stood the owner, our personnel manager and a security guard.

The president stood up and said, “We will charge you with criminal behaviour. Here is a list of ten items where you are guilty of, each and everyone serious enough to put you in jail.”

I never saw the list nor heard any of the charges repeated.

I was in an absolute and total state of shock.

Every single item was a total fabrication, picked out of thin air.

The security guard guided me out to the parking lot, where my car was – and that was the end of my career in the automotive supply business.

I got no separation pay, even if that was enshrined in Canadian law, not even my last paycheque. The company must have saved themselves a few thousand dollars that way, and took it all from me.

Somebody must have been proud of his business skills?

I never heard anything more from any one in that company, and of course not anything about my purported crimes.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

The truth, as I found out some months later, was that the president who I knew as a real wheeler-dealer from my time in Quebec, had conducted some rather involved affairs with another customer – putting unearned money his personal bank account. I probably knew too much for his likening at the time of me being fired.

He was swiftly walked out the door about six months later and, as far as I knew, never worked for anyone again.

This was on a Monday. Back to the trusty computer and my fax machine modem.

Tuesday was quiet.

Wednesday morning I got three calls, "come see us".

Two of the meetings were quickly dispatched with promises that...

“We’ll get back to you.”

I came to the third caller by lunch time and was hired as a consultant by 2 pm. I was to start my job by going to Edmonton on the next day, Thursday morning.

My task was to clean up the mess left by a previous sales manager. He had purchased four million dollars worth of non-certified and totally unsellable industrial valves.

The only place to offload them was to some less scrupulous industrial supply houses in USA.

I travelled wide and far in the next few months, and even started to see some of the stock go out the door. As a consultant, I was making really good money.

Then, a new Vice President was hired. We spoke briefly before I left for the next trip, by car, to USA.

A few days in, I got a call while in a customer’s office. Oh for the glory of cellphones.

I stepped to the side and was told:

“We have decided not to sell any more of the valves, they will be sent to scrap. You are to stop all sales efforts and will only be paid until the end of this telephone discussion. Come home now.

I was one full day’s worth of driving away from home. They didn’t pay for the mileage driving home.

My job career was really becoming shaky. My periods of employment were shorter and shorter and always seemed to end the same way – with an instant “go away”.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

500 more letters were sent out that same night.

The next day the phone rang. It was a local company that I had sent my fax résumé to some eight months earlier. The president and owner had not seen it then, but my new mailing had sparked his interest, he said.

I was soon hired and installed in yet another job. This was a solid company, I hoped, with some 140 persons in the shop.

I dove in to my new tasks with a gusto and we soon, within months, had so many orders on hand that we had to start planning for a plant extension. We added two plants and many employees in the next couple of years.

Then, a catastrophe struck.

The US based power plant construction boom of the last years came to a sudden halt. Thousands of people were laid off among our customers and suppliers.

“I am not worried, said the owner of the business. We have a good backlog and our customers love us.”

Love didn’t quite hack it when our customer firms were closing or laying of entire departments at one time.

We built out the backlog and started hurting. No more orders.

Finally, a big lay-off for us. I was told to go home and had a yellow slip, proving to EI that I was worthy of their support. I was laid off for “lack of work”.

No severance pay yet, though. There was none to come, the company declared bankruptcy one week after my departure and there was no money to be had.

This time my wife was not a strong woman any more. She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t know it then but she was only eight weeks from her death. I was free from work, applied for Unemployment Insurance and spent the next eight weeks by her side.

This was effectively the end of my working career, at age 63.

Sure, I had a few more stints as temporary employee or consultant, but nothing that led to any future for me.

What had happened to the proud Mechanical Engineer of year 1963?

I had certainly seen the world from above for a few years, travelled and worked in 28 countries and experienced a lot. The downwards slope of my career had been unstoppable. I emptied and put away my briefcase almost on the day 40 years after my graduation.

Had I changed the world? Had I improved the world?

I don’t know, all I know is that I had given my all for many, many years.

The total sum of my earned pension after all the years in business added up to one big zero despite of all the promises and pension plans that I had signed up for. They had a way of not materializing at the end. Fortunately, I had saved on my own.

Put it more succinctly: I had been spindled, folded and mutilated many times, but not lost my spirit.

“And so it goes."

Note: That last sentence is borrowed from the book "Slaughterhouse five”, a far worse story than mine, but with a somewhat similar unchangeable ultimate destiny.

-------------------------
If you want to read my memoirs, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:


https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

Göta Kanal - Sweden

Rose and I had the most fantastic and satisfactory six-day event when we traversed Sweden from east to the west on Göta Kanal, first built in 1803 and fully connected in 1843, only a few years before the trains took over.

We lived in all the splendor of the 19th century with uniformed waiters serving us only Swedish food on white table cloths. 

Rose did not "love" the many varieties of pickled herring nor the crayfish, but everything else was fine.

We all had small cabins with bunk beds. The ship offered four toilets with showers for the 37 passengers, the height of comfort when the ship was commissioned in 1932.

The 74 locks, maximum elevation 92 m above sealevel, took some time to travel through. Some days we walked as much as 12,000 steps, visiting castles and forts.

The Danes had had a bad habit, for a long time, of burning down any fort or castle they came across in Sweden. That didn't stop until King Gustav Vasa put a halt on that in 1532.

We were filled with history and pleasant sights. The country side was so quiet near the canal that you could even hear the mosquitos...(!)

The many cows and sheep were unaffected by us, you could have reached out over the railing and patted their heads, had you been been so inclined. The deer we saw scampered away if you moved on deck.

There were seven nationalities on board. All services were trilingual with, sometimes, a little additional fill-in in French. I practiced the four languages I know reasonably well... Confusing.

Rose became annoyed when I spoke to her in Swedish and in another language to the other person. ... Who was confused?

We had beautiful weather, 22 - 27 C and sun every single day.

Also, not shown in the pictures, we met a plethora of my relatives and old friends who entertained us royally, both before and after our canal trip.

We travelled by train, subway, ferry, streetcar and bus, all swiftly paid for by our Swedish transit cards.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jY9UBQzsUxjn7uvp9

--------------------------
If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

My taxi driver who shot himself

The wrong gun.

Another event took place for me in Florida. It didn’t end well for my taxi driver, he shot himself.

-          What?

Yes, he did. I had left my daughter’s house very early to go to the Tampa airport, some 45-minute drive away. Near the end of the route, the driver, a very heavy man, moved in the seat of this, large and comfortable, Lincoln car. I, being a friendly man, had chosen to sit up-front with the driver so we could talk.

-          A gun went off.

I know what a gun sounds like and I certainly recognize the smell of cordite, the common gunpowder.

“What was that? A gun?”

The driver immediately opened all the windows to vent the gun-smoke.

“Do you have a gun?” I asked.

“Yes, right here.” Said the driver and pulled a huge pistol out from under his unbuttoned shirt.

“That one hasn’t been fired.”

“No, the night driver must have left his gun between the front seats. That gun must have gone off when I moved.”

I never saw that gun but then – the driver started to move around. He drove faster and faster. We entered the airport drop-off area on squealing tires and came to a very sudden stop. I paid. Hew grabbed my money, gave me no change, jumped out of the car, grabbed my suitcase from the trunk and threw it on the pavement.

Now I was suspicious of the series of events and put my hand on the driver’s seat as he stepped out. Sure enough, there was a good size puddle of blood that wetted my hand. The unseen gun had shot upwards from between the seats. I put my finger in the bullet hole. The trajectory was angled at the driver, not me, and he had been shot through the padded seat. The bullet was in his buttock and he was bleeding down his right leg. He said,

“I have to go home to mother to see what she can do, I have no health insurance to pay for this,”

…and jumped back into the car and took off in a cloud of burnt rubber.

It took me several hours before the series of events sunk in. I got cold chills as I sat in my aeroplane seat on the way home. What if the bullet had gone the other way? I certainly don’t have any extra 50 kg of fat to absorb a wayward bullet.

A little side note here: Home again, I summarized this unfortunate event in an email that I sent to many of my friends, including a number of Americans. The replies?

From all, except the Americans. “Lucky you.”

From the Americans: “He had his right to have his gun and you should be lucky he didn’t shoot you.” No compassion from that side…

---------------

If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

Why did I quit my last job?

I was working in a very senior sales position for a company in Canada that exported to at least 15 countries.

I had just come back from a couple of weeks overseas, seeing some of our European customers in several countries.

My boss (not born in Canada) said:

“Bengt, you have to go back to Sweden (!), I have a very important document for Mr. Johansson to sign.”

“Why? - I just had a BBQ with him and his family in his back yard in Sweden?”

“It is personal - you have to bring it yourself.”

“Can we not use DHL, the post office or Purolator?”

“Nope, you have to bring it and have it signed - then bring it back here.”

He left for lunch. I looked over the sheet and saw some more similar documents on my boss’ desk

- and -

I left his office, picked up my stuff, called HR from the parking lot and said:

“I resign, please send me my last paycheque in the mail.”

They did, I got it in a week.

My boss never called, never asked anything.

What did I see?

Agreements to pay kick-back to some of our customers.

The company went bankrupt a year later, leaving 240 employees without a job.

That day, I drove home with a sweaty forehead and clammy hands. What have I done - quit just like that?

I had no hobbies, not many friends and really not much to look forward to at that moment. I had been an all-company man for too long.

The next morning I dressed for work as usual. Then I laid back down on  my bed and continued on my book from last night.

That felt really good. I got a few ideas on what else I'd like to do with my free time.

Before lunch-time I had called my pension fund holders, found out that I had enough to retire - and - I never worked a day again in my life. That was 20 years ago.

I am still a happy retiree…and have traveled to another 27 countries since then.

(True story.)

---------------------

If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

How we danced one summer

I had just started a summer course at college, beginning in April and ending in September.

Half of the course participants were girls of various ages and attitudes.

The winter had been long for me and I was totally charged. I really wanted my own girlfriend by now, 20 years old.

What a cornucopia of girls there were, all around me.

I met some friends that I had known from before and made many new. These guys were far more experienced in the woman-department than I was.

The classes were great, the food was good and I quite enjoyed my single room, some 400 metres from the main building.

Spring led to summer and the sun set for shorter and shorter periods.

Many evenings were free, without any really hard study assignments.

I looked over the girls and went for soda-dates with some, just a short jaunt to the local café. I would talk to them, find out a bit of who they were and ultimately feel quite stupid.

I didn’t know how to approach a girl.

My friends, some who had cars, seemed to make great success and sleep with various girls. Not me. I was stuck as too timid.

I decided to change my technique. 

Focus. 

There was this girl, without a boyfriend at the time, that I really liked. I stayed close. We had tea together and sat in the park with our friends.

One night, it was still early summer and quite cold, we sat outside listening to a friend play the guitar and sing.

My hands started wandering over her body and, eventually, I caressed her netherlands. She liked that, opened her legs wider and I would use my full hand.

The music had long stopped, we were alone a bit from the main building, leaning back on a blanket. I continued massaging her on the outside of her jeans and she let out little yelps for joy. Needless to say, I ejaculated in my pants more than once that evening.

No intercourse.

We went out for a walk the next night and ended up in a sun-warmed greenhouse, all alone. Here, I took her blouse and bra off and kissed her nipples and caressed her breasts.

Gradually, as the evenings wore on, we became more and more adventurous but stayed with petting.

A long weekend was coming up and I invited her to come stay with me for a couple of days. She accepted and we left together on my scooter.

My mother welcomed my new girlfriend with open arms. Had her son finally gotten a girlfriend of substance, one who would come more than once?

For the night, Lill was offered a temporary bed in the living room. That’s where she retired. We had a deal, she would come to my room when things were quiet.

She did.

What a moment, I had a real woman in my bed for the night, not just another 15 minute romp that would end all too soon. We continued with our petting and, finally, had full intercourse. I think we did that at least four times before morning.

We were in the same class and saw quite a bit of each other as the summer course continued.

It seemed as if many new relationships were formed. No doubt, there was much sex between friends.

The funniest experience of mine was when we were on a drive. The owner of the car was in the rear seat with his latest girlfriend. I was driving with a classmate, not my girlfriend, in the passenger seat.

The couple in the rear seat started to make love, very quietly. I noticed and got a new worry, how to conceal for the front seat passenger, a confirmed virgin with zero knowledge, what was going on in the rear seat.

I played the radio, we talked about the nature and what we would do when we got to the dance palace where we were all to meet the rest of our classmates.

She never acknowledged that she registered what was going on, only a few centimetres behind her back.

A good sport or just very unobservant?

I never found out. She never told.

The summer may have started off rather chilly but soon turned warm. I always carried a blanket, wrapped in plastic, on the rear carrier of my scooter. Why?

To stop and enjoy nature, of course.

Lill and I liked to explore the neighbourhood, and often stopped to enjoy some close company. She, obviously, enjoyed impromptu sex-sessions as much as I did.

The blanket was well used by the end of the summer. You’d be surprised to know how many secluded and sunny places there are in the forest, not too far from the road.

I was invited to visit her parents and even to stay the odd night, the distance was too far to drive, in return, in one day on my scooter.

Her father took a dim view of my capabilities, both as a possible future husband to her daughter and how smart I was. Not that the subjects were ever discussed, but..

We were forced to go to bed in different rooms in separate parts of their home, but we usually converged in one bed for a few hours every night.

Oh, for their joys of having a 19-year old daughter with a boyfriend sleeping over. I think they wished really hard for me to go away but I was invited back several times.

Her father, for some reason, didn’t have a regular driver’s license, only one for a motorcycle.

He owned a three-wheel Isetta, a German made two-person car. I was, technically, not allowed to drive it but Lill, who had no license, would drive it far away from the house that we were out of sight. Then I would take over.

A small car with a heater for late night jaunts. Such joy.

The life at the college was, as you can well imagine, very fulfilling. I was part of a select group of friends and we liked being together in the evenings.

Then I got called in for a week of military reserve duty. That was to be carried out about an hour’s drive away.

I did my military daily duties from 08 – 16, then I drove to the college.

Needless to say, I didn’t get my eight hours beauty-sleep every night.

One early morning, I took off from my room at about 07 to be at the camp in time to start. I was sleepy and a little short of time so – I decided to skip a stop sign.

I felt, more than heard the horn and the brakes of the oncoming heavy truck. I was going too fast to stop and steered into the ditch. The truck disappeared in the distance.

The landing was hard, but I was in full protective clothing and all extremities stayed in place. The scooter restarted easily, but now had a new scratch on the side.

It may have taken only a few moments until I was back on the road, a bit shaken up but otherwise fine. Those moments imprinted in my mind, for life.

Yeah who ignores stop signs…

As the fall approached it had become quite clear to me that Lill was not a woman for me, she had far too many hard corners. At times, she did things without any regard for her family or friends. It wasn’t that she was overly selfish, she just had her unbendable preconceived ideas about many things.

We didn’t break up in a nice manner, I didn’t tell her to her face that our summer affair was over. I wrote a letter.

Stupid, I agree.

She became extremely angry and told me off in a brief telephone discussion. We didn’t meet or talk to each other again for the next 50 years. I learned that she had, soon after our breakup, reconnected with the boyfriend from the summer before. They soon got married.

I, on my part, considered myself single again.

Did I start looking or just see? My hormones were rushing, and having had a summer of practically unlimited sex, abstinence was hard on me.

I met a girl who I, in my well practiced manner, I would take the bra off and kiss on her naked breasts. She was, however, unwilling to have sex with me.

“Once you start, you will never stop”, she said.

She was right in that.

My next girl was also pretty, with pointed breasts, the bra-style of the time. It took me a while to get her bra off, but I succeeded.

We would visit the greenhouse after dark, now one of the few places that was warm. She liked to wear very tight and good looking jeans, but they were too tight to get a hand inside. I would rub myself against her tight jeans until I ejaculated in my pants. It felt very good, but rather strange to walk home after that. My pants were all wet on the inside of the legs.

The headmaster’s home was being renovated and was full of construction material. It was well heated and had an unlocked front door. That became our little love nest for petting.

She showed up, time after time in very tightfitting jeans, so tight that I think they were sown on. Eventually I convinced her to put on something a little more loose-fitting with buttons.

She did.

I unbuttoned the buttons and we could finally make love.

My latest girlfriend was right, once you have started, you will never stop.

I found out that she liked it and we never stopped.

Once, we went to a married friend of hers. We slept in the living room. The next morning there were six used condoms in the waste basket.

I never as much as looked at another woman again. We stayed together for the next 43 years "till death did us apart".

Now? I'm remarried...

----------------------------
If you want to read my memoirs, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

Summer sail in Toronto

Toronto - not so exotic, eh?

We live on the 38th floor of a highrise, right in the centre of the 6 million inhabitant city of  Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Our apartment is airconditioned and has about the same inside temperature summer as winter, even as the daytime temperature swings between 34 C (yesterday) and - 25 C, not that long ago.

The sunrises over lake Ontario and the sunsets over the city are spectacular.

We live close to CN tower, 527 m tall. During one thunderstorm, a few weeks ago, I counted 17 lightning strikes in five minutes. We, only 300 m away didn’t feel a thing - but the sound.

Today, we had a light breakfast on our quite large glass enclosed balcony. The view of the lake was fantastic and we spied the sailboats for rent just below our building.

We decided to go sailing with our next door neighbours. We walked 300 m to our local city-operated marina and rented a 23 ft sailboat for a few hours. ($ 172, tax included).

We motored our way through the sound between mainland and the Toronto downtown Airport. (170 commercial flights/day.) We set sails in open water and hid from the sun in the shade of the sails, all the time with the city skyline in the background.

At lunchtime we chose to sail in a direction where the boat leaned mostly to one side.

Later we docked the boat, lowered and secured all sails and rope before our short walk home.

After a quick shower we stepped outside the door to take the streetcar about 1 km north, to Chinatown. We dined at a well known and highly rated Chinese restaurant. They have no loud music there so we enjoyed talking to each other.

After dinner, it was a bit cooler, under 30 C (84 F) and we walked home. The crowds were great and we stopped for a couple of street musicans and an icecream at a “Hole-in-the-wall” icecream store.

The traffic from the nearby highway quietens down at night and we will sleep well. The sound pressure level meter showed 47 dBA in our bedroom at bedtime, very quiet by any standard.

We love living in the centre of the large city. Dozens of theatres, concert halls and even an opera house within 20 min walk. Rogers centre for baseball and football (48,000 seats) is next door and the ice hockey rink (28,000 seats) only ten minutes walk away.

The car is hardly used at all, we ride the streetcars, subways or even a have a bus line that stops right outside our front door. ($ 1.80 per one way ride, unlimited distance, paid with Presto-card that reloads itself.)

Toronto is one of the safest cities on the globe and we often go for long walks at night, especially in the summer. - So many nice people out then.

You should visit sometime, there are lots of American tourists here now. But most of the tourists these days are Chinese, far outnumbering the Amercians. Why do so many Chinese fly half way around the globe to come here when so many Americans cannot even drive 125 km out of their own country?

The Chinese are good spenders … they have money to spare.

Tomorrow we will go for a 25 km bicycle ride along the shore of Lake Ontario - no cars there.

Here are the pictures that I took during our sailing hours:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kYxK9DSB4AT9FtmT8

------------------------

If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", find the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

A Toronto day in the cold of winter

The night was coming to an end.

I felt, more than saw, the beginning of the dawn as the light from outside become just a little more noticeable.

I resisted the urge to get up, rather staying in bed, half asleep, watching the emerging day arrive.

The sky was dark, but the ground was white with the snow from the last days of cold weather with occasional snow falls.

I looked out over the lake. It was frozen. Again, as every winter, it was criss-crossed by an ice breaker making paths for the ferries. Only two of the three were running now.

You have all heard of the man who took one million photographs of Mount Fuji, over a lifetime.

I, occasionally, take pictures of Lake Ontario from my perch high up in the high-rise apartment building. You can hardly believe how many faces of a lake and the surrounding areas you can get over a few years. They are all digital and hidden away, well categorized, in my computer. That is backed up four different ways and in different places. No electrical storm will be allowed to erase any of my, so far, 140,000 photographs.

The world is all too full of people who, somehow, lost their hard-drive and all the information on them. Is that a curse of modern life?

Most of my pictures have been taken on celluloid. They will stay good for viewing for at least 100 years. I still have some of the first photos my father took, dated 1912. They are just as good today as when they were first taken - but the people are all dead. Nobody knows them any more.

Today was a good day for weather. I took three photographs. One, using a long lens, was to pick out the details of how a lone, forgotten, sailboat had frozen into the ice. I looked at the picture, with snow on the deck, and had a quick memory flash on being on a sailboat, like that one, leisurely sailing on the lake below my window.

The most recent photographs were quickly transferred to the great big storage in the cloud. The electronic one, never seen, never quite understood, for future processing.

The day had begun.

My days were many by now. I could feel a certain resistance in my legs when walking far. The friends are many. Life in the city brings new connections, new acquaintances and, occasionally, new friends who enter your inner circle. Their lives, somehow, become part of yours.

Our children are long gone and don’t much care for the opinions of us, the oldies, any more. But, hand over heart, I wasn’t very diligent at listening to my parents either. We still party with our children and greatly enjoy their company, but the most common company is more of our age. We have many, in many walks of life.

The sun rose and broke through the clouds. Another cold and sunny winter day in Canada. Just what some, but not all, like.

The lonely widow, too rich and too intimidated was out shopping again. What could she need? After 15 years, surely there was time for you to open your heart again. “No, he may take my money.” What good is your money? You live alone in a house large enough for two families and drive one of the most expensive cars in the land?

Why?

Oh, what a terror to “have money”. Shared pleasure is double pleasure. You share, you gain. She goes
on the most fantastic first-class trips, mostly alone, to far-away places.

“How was the trip?”

“It was good.”

“Did you take any photographs?”

“Who for? My children take their own trips and don’t care for my pictures.”

At this early hour, my camera was lying with the uncovered lens looking at me from across the room. Was I born with a camera? Probably, there are many pictures of my friends that I remember taking as a little boy. I got the proverbial box-camera at age 9. It served me well. My father had had one of the early models, little newer than the 1888 version. It had a 100 exposure roll. My box camera only took eight pictures on a roll.

Every picture had to be carefully deliberated then. Was it a good moment, object, place, time and would the exposure be correct? All these calculations had to be made before you touched the release button. Pictures cost money. Then, when a little older, I learned to develop my own film.

I had a Russian made copy of a Leica camera with a terrible cassette mechanism, calling for some very careful loading, in total darkness. But, the the lens was superb and the camera took good pictures. It also travelled well.

You can only take a picture if you bring a camera. Yes, I know, everyone carries a better-than-ever camera in their mobile now. It is wonderful to see what is posted on social media today. All the drama, all the excitement, all instantly replayed on media screens everywhere.

Our friends were awake. Some had gone to work. Other, pensioners as we, were enjoying the day to the fullest.

All the things we only do when we feel like doing them. Driving in the city is one “joy” that I don’t regret giving up. My car gets dusty in the garage. I don’t have to show it off. Nobody cares about my material possessions.

We all have some.

What is far more important is to know where we are. What are our interests? What do we enjoy doing alone, or with others? Sure, I read the newspaper with great interest every day. What an old-fashioned way to get news, some say. But, you see the name of the author. That, with time, allows you to see the slant of the view or even to judge how accurate the article itself is.

As a boy I had to get up early, before 04:00, to start my newspaper deliveries in my Swedish home town.

A bonus, much appreciated, was the extra copy that invariably ended up on my mother's breakfast table. It was cold in the winter, to walk the streets long before sunrise.

I have never met my “newspaper boy” here, high up in the Toronto condo. I know it’s a person, but that’s all. Perhaps he/she is also cold in the winter and brings a free copy of The Star or Globe and Mail home to his/her family to read over breakfast.

The retired history professor has been writing into the wee hours. He’s still asleep and won’t stir much before noon. But, his writing is good and he still publishes a new book almost every year. Of course, you don’t have to hunt for a publisher much these days. Amazon will publish anything and print on demand. All that matters is that you are known and well liked. He is.

I am not well known outside my smaller circle. I did publish my memoirs recently, all of 108,000 words within almost 400 pages. The feeling is great, especially since the odd person sends me little comments on my stories now and then.

The day is maturing.

The streetcars appear a little more seldom and are not jam-packed any more.

We decide on a walk. We dress well. No umbrella needed today. It is a seldom used implement in Toronto. It rains so much less often here, compared to other world-class cities.

We live in a world-class city? Yes, life is here is comfortable and predictable. Services run well and people are, in general, easy to get along with.

We chose to retire here, a few years ago, when newly married. Life had been hard on us both for a while. We both been previously married for many years. Both of our late spouses had cancer and ultimately passed away, all too young.

My wife tells that she had met a hundred “frogs” but not “kissed any” on the way. I, being a retired project manager, was far more organized in my approach. I met 17 ladies for coffee, didn’t kiss any, and soon decided that my search was over. I had given up. There was no woman in my future. I’d remain a “grumpy old man” for the rest of my life.

My soon-to-be wife was coffee date number 18. Our searches had ended. I proposed a couple of years
after we met. We had walked up the Eiffel Tower. The wind blew hard and ther rain wetted us.

Did she have strong enough legs?

She did and she said “yes”.

The apartment in the sky was ready for our wedding a few weeks later. Life started anew. The honeymoon trip took us north of the Arctic Circle in Norway.

We hiked on the permafrost and ran a half marathon under the midnight sun.

Another trip brought us to the driest place on earth, the Atacama desert in Chile. It was - 10 C at sunrise and 46 C mid-day.

We have been aging a bit over the years. A major back operation put my wife down for a year, then a
heart attack for me.

Life goes on. We still travel, but don’t plan to climb mountains or hike any permafrost now. So far, we have been married for 11 years and visited 22 countries together. The photographs, the stories…

Don’t fear, Canada is still the greatest. Portaging with a far too heavy canoe in Algonquin park or

sleeping outside in freezing weather in Yukon territory may be behind us, but, why not plan for another trip?

The camera will come along. It can lead you into trouble. On my first, ever, trip to Turkey, I decided to take some pictures of the locals and the city around me.

When in a different place, dress as a local. Clothing is always less costly than at home. I am always painfully aware of how much I stand out as a Westerner. I often start out on my first day, buying a new shirt, pants and shoes.

My camera? It looked too expensive and too intrusive. I did dabble with a Minox camera, years ago. Sure, it was super small. It fit in the palm of the hand but used a very small film format, too small for usable enlargements.

Why a Minox? They were the “camera par choice” of the spies. They would sneak into the locked office, use a copied key to open a desk, bring out secret files and photograph them, page by page.

I never got any copied keys and never got to photograph any letters that would change the path of humanity.

This time, my camera was in a plastic bag, one with a prominent logo from a local store in Istanbul, once called Constantinople and full of spies with Minox cameras. They all lit up Gitanes cigarettes in their days, the favourite smoke of all French spies.

I had no Minox and had never smoked Gitanes. The Minox was not good enough now and the Gitanes were gone. I had tried, but I never learned to smoke.

Oh, did I ever try. My mother found a crushed cigarette in my pocket. Her punishment, now long forgiven, made me lose all interest in tobacco.

I’m a lot older now, a world traveler, as I have always been from the day I put a map of my home province on the wall, adding pins as our school outings took me around. I traveled enough as a young man to wrap a string around the globe before my 20th birthday.

Toronto beckons. Walking out we are, again, pleasantly surprised at how most, but not all, drivers give right-of-way to pedestrians. There aren’t many cities where that is done.

Our most recent trip was to Saigon, Vietnam. The only way to cross the street, with or against the traffic light, is to be part of a hundred-person group charging into the traffic. It doesn’t stop the drivers but the flow divides so pedestrians can get across.

A quiet day calls for low level experiences. The Toronto underground path with its, forever undecipherable, maps and warren of weather-controlled walkways will, with a bit of luck, lead to the Eaton Centre.

Pensioners don’t spend big but the joys of window shopping never go away.

The buzz at the Apple store never seizes to amaze. What brings all the people in? Do they buy all these expensive gadgets there? Yes, they do.

The food court is, as always, impressive with the numerous “regional” offerings. The variety is far less than meets the eye. It is really just a few large food corporations who sell factory made fast food. We stick to coffee.

We take a quick look at Dundas Square. The walls around are lit up and playing their advertising messages incessantly. The square is quiet. The man calling out “Jesus” is still on the corner, though. Doesn’t he get cold or tired, ever? I take a carefully framed and focused picture of him from behind some people.

Nathan Phillips Square is full of skaters. I take another few pictures, trying to position the skaters perfectly in front of the Toronto-letters.

We had done our 10,000 steps for the day. My wife’s back-doctor and my heart-doctor would both be pleased over how well we had followed their instructions on how to get strong again.

It doesn’t matter how well you dress, parts of you are always cold when you come home. It is a wonderful feeling, it tells you that you are alive.

On our walk home, we looked in at a couple of restaurants and checked out their menus. We are always looking for the next nice place to dine with our friends. These restaurants are more and more difficult to find. Most new restaurants have no sound attenuation and the noise level will kill all attempts at any meaningful discussion. But, hope springs eternal, there must be some, somewhere in this large city.

I dutifully took my pictures to the computer, edited a few, and filed them in their correct category. Perhaps, one day, I will publish a photobook of “Toronto” scenes. It will also contain many photos of the oodles of not so bad graffiti that we are blessed with.

For dinner, we dove into the freezer. We buy in bulk at Costco, prepare and freeze a lot of meals.

We had a stuffed pork chop, cooked sous vide, with a glass of boxed red wine.

Another pleasant winter day in Toronto had drawn to an end.

__________________

If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:


https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man