Richard Deaton:
CLASS OF 1964
Curtis High SchoolClass of 1964
Staten island, NY
University of Ottawa - LawClass of 1999
Ottawa, ON
University of WisconsinClass of 1968
Madison, WI
Richard's Story
AS PAX AMERICA IMPLODES AND DECLINES, LIKE THE ROMAN AND BRITISH EMPIRES BEFORE IT, AND AFTER CLOSELLY FOLLOWING THE 2016 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, WITH ALL ITS VITRIOL, THREATS OF COUPS, AND RIGHT-WING, RACIST , FASCIST POLITICS, I KNOW THAT MY ORIGINAL DECISION TO LEAVE THE STATES FOR CANADA IN JUNE 1968 WAS THE RIGHT ONE. SEIG HEIL!
FLASH : Canada rules Olympic hockey !
A NOTE TO CURTIS HIGH SCHOOL' S CLASS OF ' 64: WHERE ARE THEY NOW ? -
ELVIS, JFK, AND CHE
For the November 2009 and 2014 Class Reunion
by
Richard (Dick) Deaton
It is hard to believe that nearly 40 years have passed since the Class of '64 graduated and we scattered to the wind. People really have gone their separate ways. But I am genuinely surprised by the extent of our geographic dispersion. Not many people it seems live, or have stayed on Staten Island, although I understand with the bridge it has changed considerably.
Over the years as a social scientist I have had a considerable interest in social mobility and social stratification. Within that context I have often wondered what has happened to the Class of '64 and my friends over the past forty years? How have we lived our lives ? How have the years treated us? What has influenced us? Have we achieved anything ? And have we made a contribution, whatever that might mean ? In that regard, over the years, I have been fortunate to have been able to trace about forty of our former classmates.
Within this context I thought that I would take this opportunity to share with you, for those interested, what has happened to me since we all graduated. While in many ways I am a closet romantic, I have learned, sadly, as the novelist Thomas Wolfe put it, that You Can't Go Home Again. So I hope that you will allow me the liberty of relating some personal thoughts and observations.
In reality, there wasn't any so-called innocent Golden Age during our adolescence at Curtis High School. There were no care free Happy Days. We all were too traumatized, indeed terrorized, and anxiety-ridden trying to get into a good university, and dealing with our hormones. And in many ways that is sad. The reality is that none of us wants to be remembered as having zits, or in the case of girls, wearing training bras. But would we be in contact with one another now, and at this reunion, if we hadn't had this common Curtis HS bonding experience? Who knows.
But Thomas Wolfe was right, 'You can't go home again ". Too much has changed. We have changed . The times have changed, and the world has certainly changed. And we have now lived the better part of our lives as we ride off into the retirement sunset and beyond. And some of us did what we had to do - politically and personally - to change the world or to take unpopular political stances regarding the issues of the day.
It is obvious now that our brief hiatus at Curtis was the lull before the storm, and the last gasp and end of American innocence - the Civil Rights movement and its struggles, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X and MLK, Vietnam, covert intervention in Central America, and later 9/11, the non-existent WMD and the Iraq War, and now Afghanistan. The Class of '64 at Curtis High School on SI was more than part of the
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baby boom demographic wave, it was the leading edge in terms of the many new cultural, social and political trends and events experienced by American (and Canadian) society. .
Within this context I have written a sociological research monograph about the Curtis High School class of '64. This is intended as a broader analysis of our experiences at Curtis HS. Wallenechinsky's What Really Happened to the Class of '65 and Gottlieb's Do You Believe in Magic? are romantic and anecdotal generational histories, whereas mine, hopefully, will be more hard-edged, historical, and analytic.
But where do we, as individuals, fit into this historical and demographic panorama? When everything is said and done I have had a good life and have been very lucky in many ways. I can' t complain; I've had a good run, as they say. First, Canada has been very good to me. I have lived here for over 40 years. It is a very beautiful and civilized country, and while it obviously has its own very real social problems, it is light years ahead of the US; we've had universal healthcare for nearly 40 years and strongly approve of it, thank you very much. Now when people ask me why I came to Canada I just laugh and say it's because I like snow, hockey and watched too many TV episodes of Sgt Preston of the Yukon ! And while I'm a strong Canadian nationalist when it comes to politics, given our vast oil and water resources, I'm still an avid NY Giants and Yankees fan.
In reality though, I came to Canada in June 1968 because of my unrelenting - and to this day absolutely unrepentant - opposition to the US war in Vietnam. It is a decision that I have never regretted. And I make no apologies to anyone for this. It was a senseless and reactionary, imperialist war. But it is unlikely that this would make me very popular with some people at our class reunion. My experiences are related in a book titled North to Canada, by James Dickerson (ed.), available online.
To pretend that the Vietnam war wasn't the most important, defining and divisive issue of our generation, like the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War for our parents, is to ignore the elephant in the room. Historical amnesia is a dangerous thing. And for the record, I personally know of at least 8 !!! other Curtis classmates who avoided the Vietnam draft by "psyching out", buying a shrink's certificate, or using an occupational exemption. One can only wonder how many of our illustrious classmates, some with very high profile and prominent careers, wrapped themselves in the flag and supported the Vietnam war, while they bought their way out. Now that's principled politics ! As well, I know of at least three women who have come to the green and open spaces of Canada. The Class of '64 is now destined to watch the decline of the American Empire, both economic and political.
Second, I have known love. My late wife, Marie-Claire, and I had 31 years together. Generally, they were good years. But as I am sure many of you know, any long term relationship has its ups and downs, and its stressful moments. Marie-Claire was born in Vietnam and she spent 2 years in a Japanese internment camp because her father was a senior French colonial administrator who later resigned his position in 1947 over the French shelling of Hai Phong harbour. And I am a draft dodger. Life d...Expand for more
oes, indeed, have its ironies, eh? (Stay tuned for the TV mini-series.) She left France in 1962 and came to
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Canada where she became a lawyer, sociologist , and trade union organizer in Quebec.
After Mare-Claire's death in 2005 - she fought lung cancer for four years - our adult twin daughters, who were very close to their mom, and I had to rework our relationship into a more mature, emotive and meaningful relationship. I'm a very proud Dad since one of my daughters is a family physician, while her twin sister teaches high school History, French and Philosophy. Being Canadians they have been bi-lingual from birth. Both daughters are now married and hopefully settled. Penelope Leah, my first grandchild - was born in early November 2010 and my second granddaughter Beatrice Claire was born in late September 2012; these girls are 4th and 5th generation Hungarian redheads. My other twin daughter gave birth last summer (2014) to Caradoc, of Arthurian legend fame. .We all lived in Ottawa, but are now dispersed across Canada, and despite our busy professional and personal lives, we see each other quite often.
After Marie-Claire's death, I subsequently recoupled with a woman who is a Newfie with a rapier-like wit and a wicked sense of repartee. She is a retired psychologist and former elementary school VP. While we come from very different backgrounds, this seems to hold us together with a real sense of affection. We have been fortunate to have travelled the world together in recent years. Retirement has provided us with new challenges.
Third, I've had an interesting and eclectic career. With a doctorate in Business Studies (U/Warwick, UK) and a law degree (U/Ottawa), both earned as a mature student, I've worked as a professional social scientist, Ass't Director of Research for a large public sector trade union , a senior govt policy analyst, chef, university professor, lawyer, author (a book on pensions policy) and an op-ed columnist on middle-east political affairs. Blessedly, I am now semi-retired.
When Marie-Claire was dying over that 4 year period I morphed myself, again, this time as an art historian with a BA Concentration (Major) specializing in social and political art. Art broadened me and provided me with a badly needed emotional outlet at that time. I now collect Canadian, Cuban and Vietnamese art.. And I have just purchased my first two original Old Masters paintings, a Rembrandt and a Picasso, and later a Chagall and Degas. My other passion is classical music, symphonic and chamber, esp Bach and Beethoven, although Elvis, the Stones, Bob Dylan, and Phil Ochs have been known to provide me with inspiration on occasion.
In the early 1990s I taught at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC , talk of ironies), Canada's West Point , before I went on to law school as a mature student. At the RMC I taught courses in Military History, Military Sociology , and the ultimate 20-21st century oxymoron, a course in Military Ethics and Law (aka "How to kill and still sleep well") .
At the RMC I had to prep and deliver 4 lectures on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and its ethical implications. This forced me, for the first time in 20 some odd years, to squarely confront what had happened to my life, and for the first time I realized how much I had psychologically repressed - literally - over those two decades. In June 1968 when I got on that Air Canada flight from Chicago to Montreal (I had just finished at the U/Wisconsin-Madison), where my entire family had relocated, I hermetically sealed off that part of my life. Having to prep those My Lai lectures forced
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me to open those emotional doors that had been sealed off. The explosion was seismic.
For about 10 yrs I had an active warrant out against me until I was pardoned by Carter; on one occasion Interpol bluntly told me to stay in international transit zones at airports or I would be arrested. Since my pardon I've only been back to the states six times, a number of times to see friends, and again in 1985 to see a very aging and dear uncle at the Jewish home for the aged in NYC. I've never been back since 1985, nor do I have any desire or intention of returning. .
Fourth, I have also been fortunate to have been travelled to 31 countries throughout the world, including most of Western Europe, lived in the UK for over a year, the former SU, China, and Vietnam (visiting My Lai and where Marie-Claire was born; 30 yrs earlier the US govt would have happily paid for my ticket). I've been to Cuba 16 times now since 1977, and it is my home away from home; I have brought in over $12K of meds to Cuba over the years. In the fall of 2008 we went on safari in four countries in southern African; we have spent a month in Japan, Italy and Greece, the UK, and went down the Danube river in the summer of 2012 for 5 weeks. Recently, we spent a month on the beaches in Estoril, Portugal, and are now going back to Britain.
I have absolutely no time or patience for American chauvinism, ethnocentricism, or consumerism; nor does the rest of the world ! Read your newspaper headlines! As a professional epistler , my many letters to the editor of various newspapers and magazines reflect my interest in politics, foreign affairs, and the the world around me.
More recently I have written a Forward to a book by Prof. James Chriss, titled Confronting Gouldner (Amsterdam, 2015), about my birth father, the controversial radical sociologist, Alvin Ward Gouldner.
Like many other complicated or sensitive people I have tried to make sense of things, and life more generally. But yet there is that nagging feeling deep down in my gut about going home - and the nurturing and innocence that it represents - that goes a long way towards explaining why I am still, at times, overcome by a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Yet, there is some comfort and security in knowing that my former Curtis classmates are still out there, somewhere. But life, I am told, moves on , and so must we all....
However, I do want people to know how I feel about certain things, especially those people whose memory has mattered to me over the years. But there is some truth about that old Socratic maxim about the unexamined life.... I'm told eternity is forever. It is a daunting thought to consider that Elvis, JFK, and Che would all be in their mid-80s now. I wish all my former Curtis classmates the best and hope that they, as that Vulcan saying goes, "live long and prosper".
The best to all,
Richard (Dick) Deaton
Curtis High School, Class ' 64
Ottawa, Canada
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