This work is copyrighted by my business name, The
Harfolk Press.  Conseqently, I must insist that you do not make any copies,
except one for your own private use.  If for any reason you want more than
one copy, send me an E-mail with the details and I will give your  request
prompt and serious consideration.

Bill

MY SECOND LIFE

Chapter FOUR

    C
 A NON-PRACTISING INTELLECTUAL

My next three and a half years working at the Bank were spent in relative
peace and obscurity in the gold department, developing new products, while
my Parkinson's got worse. Since I now had gone public, I no longer had the
stress of trying to hide my condition. Nonetheless, I was an enigma to the
people at the Bank. They did not know what I was or was not capable of
doing. And I did not always know what I could do, and I could not tell how
people reacted to me. One of the features of Parkinson's, as well as many
other chronic medical conditions, is the inability of the sufferer to
distinguish the rate at which his condition is "progressing." Partly this is
because, as a patient, you usually don't have a set of objective standards
against which to regularly measure or test yourself. But also it is because
you really don't want to know. Denial is subtle and pervasive. You say to
yourself, "Parkinson's won't progress in me. I'm different." Of course we
are all different, but there are immutable laws to which we are all subject.
Denial is a reaction to fatalism or determinism.
 One of my early assignments was to work out, or collect, on a loan to a
gold producer which we were afraid was soon going to become uncollectible.
Some years before, the bank had been overeager to increase its loans to
junior mining companies, particularly those in Quebec. This was one that had
not been successful.
 With the assistance of the bank's mining engineer, we analyzed the reserve
report, which detailed the size of the ore body, the grade of the ore and
the mining plan, showing how and in what order the ore would be mined. On
these bases alone, and even with optimistic gold price forecasts, the mine
would have had trouble repaying its loan. We travelled to Quebec with the
mining engineer, went over the reserve report and mining plan in detail and
inspected the mine.
 Scrambling about in a gold mine several thousand feet below the surface was
not something that I had looked forward to. But, for the first time I
encountered a Parkinsonian truth: Parkinsonians have less difficulty walking
on uneven ground or walking up stairs or up a ladder, as compared to level
ground. The Bank had been concerned about the problems Parkinson's might
cause me on this business trip, but none arose.
 I had to bring myself up to speed on the whole business of gold loans,
exchange for physical, forwards, and a peculiar transaction known in the
department as "slow spot". It was a challenge, but after I realized that all
these concepts involved the time value of money, it was straightforward.
 It was pretty obvious that my managers at the bank were not giving me much
to do. The reason, not obvious to me at the time was, of course,
Parkinson's. In a chronic condition like Parkinson's the patient is often
the last person to recognise and acknowledge the symptoms. I really didn't
know or perceive what was happening to me. I was, to a large degree, unaware
of my tremor, limping, facial contortions and other Parkinson's symptoms.
But my bosses were concerned about how the bank's customers would react to
someone with this disconcerting appearance. So I was given desk jobs. The
principal one was an apparently simple yet complex assignment task: to see
if I could come up with some new products for the Bank to market. I did
develop one product which I thought had considerable appeal. It was a "zero
interest gold loan".
 In spite of the product development completed assignment, I was still left
with little to do. Instead of just sitting on my thumb, I began to read
voraciously. The number of periodicals that the Bank subscribed to was
almost without number, ranging from The Wall Street Journal and The
Economist to arcane newsletters dealing with politics and economics around
the world. At home I read books on history, politics and intellectual
history. I did not recognize it at the time, but I was beginning to adapt my
life to Parkinson's. As I was constrained in my job by my physical
limitations, I was discovering that intellectual activity had no
constraints.
 How could I put my newly acquired knowledge to good use? One way was to
write. I started by writing speeches for Esther to give at the Board of
Education. She only used one of them because she said they were too
redneck - I considered myself a Burkean Conservative. And, to be honest, I
think she resented my interference in her job.
 I also began trying to write gold market letters for the bank. Reading them
over now, over ten years later, I think they stand up pretty well, but the
bank eventually decided against using them because I was unwilling to remove
my political bias from the commentary and the bank thought, probably
rightly, that right-wing commentary would be poorly received by some of
their clients.
 I am often wrong, but rarely in doubt. This characteristic, which could be
described variously as strong-willed, individualistic or pig-headed, often
has got me into trouble but it can also be a great source of strength. It
gives me the conviction to be a strong advocate for the argument I am making
at the time. But in retrospect, I can see that at this time, at the bank,
the stress of having Parkinson's, combined with the psychological effects of
the medications I was on, clouded my judgement and allowed me to ignore the
merit in the bank's position and perhaps, worse, permitted me to overstate
my case. Also, I hadn't yet developed the team player attitude that is so
important in any endeavour, although I had been working for large companies
for two decades. I am reminded of Barbra Streisand's response to Mike
Wallace on 60 Minutes, the television programme when he asked her why she
had been a patient in analysis for twenty-five years. She replied, "I guess
I'm a slow learner.    Over the course of that winter, 1987-88, I had been
fascinated by the Lac Minerals-International Corona lawsuit. It concerned
rights over a mineral deposit and was the largest civil litigation in
Canada's history. The Bank was interested in the outcome because Lac was a
large client. I proposed following the trial for the Bank, writing
analytical essays for the gold department and other interested parties but
could get no support. I then wrote a 7,000 word article on the subject,
which I tried selling to various magazines to no avail. Looking back, I can
see that I was trying to develop a new range of interests, and I can also
see that the bank was giving me a tremendous amount of freedom.
 My intellectual growth at this time was undisciplined, without critical
judgement being applied. I was so keen on my newly acquire knowledge and
intellectual activity, that I was blind and deaf to even to the most
constructive criticism. I was the loner, the outsider, in the world, but not
of it.
 I later discovered that the Bank was at its wits end about what to do with
me. Now, I can understand their problem. My Parkinsonian symptoms were
increasingly obvious: the expressionless mask, limping, tremor, involuntary
micro-naps and indistinct speech. David Turner, my manager, had taken the
unusual step of consulting Esther, asking her what I was capable of and what
I was not. He told her his frustration at asking me to revise material, only
to have me resubmit to him virtually unchanged.
 I had been unaware that my symptoms had apparently increased dramatically
over that winter. It was some time before I discovered that this was a
result of Deprenyl, a new medication which for me had the effect of
magnifying the adverse effects of other drugs and as well as causing some
personality changes. Consequently, at the same time that I was undergoing a
good deal of intellectual growth, I was losing my critical judgement.
 I had begun taking involuntary micro-naps during the work day, the result,
as I later discovered, of medications. One of those quick snoozes was
responsible for what could have been a serious car accident in the summer of
1986. Emily and I, together with Sir, the Airedale terrier which had
replaced Madame, and had left for Toronto Blue Sea Lake about 4:30 in the
morning on the last Friday in June. Near the town of Hastings I dozed off as
we were coming to a stop sign. I ran into, and partly under, a large
Beatrice Milk truck. Luckily, no one was hurt. There was a longish delay as
we waited for the police, had the car towed to a bodyshop and arranged for
repairs.
 The police chief of Hastings took us to Norwood, about ten kilometres away
so we could rent a car and resume our journey. Although there was no rush,
he turned the flashing light on as well as the siren and was going at least
140 km/hr. Just as he was telling us that, in 30 years as a policeman, he
had "never fired a shot in anger, son", he asked me to put his handcuffs in
the glove compartment. As I did so, I could not help noticing that it was
full of ammunition. When I pointed out the seeming discrepancy, his laconic
reply was a gruff "never hurts to be prepared, son"
 The incident had frightened Emily so much that she would never drive on the
highway with me again. And frightened she might well have been. Had the
micro-nap occurred on a major highway, the accident could have been fatal.
 This was an important stage in the progress of Parkinson's in my life.
Something happened as a result of the medication I was taking for
Parkinson's, and I had no one to turn to. Still, I did not want the police
to notice that I had Parkinson's. My driving licence might be taken away.
The policeman certainly didn't even hint at that, thank heavens!
 At about this time a new weekly newsmagazine had started up called Seven
Days. A Conservative party friend of mine, Warren Armstrong, had some
connection with the promoters of the magazine and knew that they were
looking for a columnist on political affairs. He suggested me and the
editors took me on sight unseen. The magazine lasted thirteen weeks and I
had thirteen articles published. I used the nom de plume Josephine Churchill
because the Bank, as noted earlier, was not keen on employees publishing
articles with a political viewpoint. The topics were as diverse as the
Iran-Iraq war, arms control, foreign policy, Canadian politics and the
school system.
 I soon settled into a routine for writing the articles. The deadline was
noon Thursday. As I was now sleeping no more than five hours a night, I
would get up at five am and work on the column until seven. After the first
few weeks, the column would be finished by my self-imposed deadline.
 This was a positive consequence of my adapting to Parkinson's. My habit of
writing in the morning is now firmly entrenched in my daily routine.
 One project which captured my imagination was totally unrelated to work of
any kind. Starting in 1974, I developed a growing interest in drinking fine
wines and cooking wonderful meals. In the winter of 1986-87 after some
encouragement by friends, I put together a cookbook, The Great Menu Book,
and had hopes of getting it published. Anne Lindsay had been very successful
with her books for The Heart and Stroke Foundation. Why, I wondered,
couldn't I do the same for either the Movement Disorders Clinic or the
Parkinson's Foundation?
 The first instalment had four menus: a meal we'd had after the trip to
Buffalo, a small lunch party, coping with New Year's Day, and Gourmet
Cooking on a Canoe Trip. Toronto Life magazine bought the most unlikely
menu, the canoe trip one. It was a satirical menu, aimed at the
environmental 'deep thinkers' who always had a solution to every problem. It
began, "We are Rolls Royce campers and proud of it".
 I couldn't get any interest in the project as a fund raiser from the
Parkinson Foundation or the Movement Disorder clinic, but I ran off about
fifty copies for friends. It was a hit with them and I printed a second
instalment a few years later.
 It's ironic that I would try to put out a cookbook at just the time that I
was losing my sense of smell and taste. That happens to most Parkinsonians,
but I did not know that. Its one of the cruel things in life - and dangerous
too - if you lose the use of those two vital senses. Imagine not being able
to tell if bacon is rancid, eggs rotten or if you have put too much or too
little spice in a dish you are cooking.
 It was one thing to write about current affairs or even cooking. It was
quite another to write on theology. We had been going to Christ Church, Deer
Park for almost twenty years. I had been active as a warden, as chair of a
committee that recommended a new pipe organ, and as a delegate to Synod, the
governing council of the diocese. Now my faith, such as it was, was
evolving. It had been an unquestioning one, accepting the traditions and
rituals of the Anglican Church in which Esther and I had both grown up, and
based on my admiration of individuals who happened to be Christian, a sort
of personalized ad hominem argument. The change, and it was a profound one,
involved a shift from asking bitterly and selfishly, "Why me, God?" to
asking "Why not me, God?"
 I was asked to preach a sermon on Reformation Sunday, October 25, 1987 at
Christ Church Deer Park, our parish church. The topic was the need for
absolute moral standards and the folly of ethical relativism. My peroration
...

 We can conclude, or at least I can, that whenever men or regimes start to
impose ideas on people, the insidious process of human engineering begins,
shovelling flesh and blood around like soil or concrete. Pushing people
around seems to be peculiar to socialism, whether of the Russian variety,
the German National Socialist kind or the perverse and sinister ethnic
socialism in South Africa known as Apartheid. It was set up by the social
psychology department of Stellenbosch University. Other types of state
socialism in black Africa have usually been legitimized by university
intellectuals. So, beware of the intellectual. Far from being
non-conformists, they are ultra conformist within the circle whose approval
they seek. En masse, this makes them dangerous as it lets them create
intellectual climates which can generate irrational and sometimes violent
courses of action. Remember that people should come before ideas, not the
other way round.

I thought the sermon was successful. However, afterwards when I listened to
a tape recording of the sermon, I realized that my voice was becoming a
monotone and I was starting to rush words together. So this was why people
would ask me to repeat what I was saying!
 My physical appearance was beginning to be disconcerting to others. This
was principally dyskinesia, a side-effect of my medications, but akinesia -
poverty of movement - and bradykinesia - slowness of movement were also
occurring in perverse combination. I did not realise it at the time because
I rarely looked in a full-length mirror, and people did not want to hurt my
feelings. This all gave rise to an unusual combination: I was going though
spiritual and intellectual growth at the same time that I was deteriorating
physically. The odd thing was that I was not conscious of this peculiar
juxtaposition. This too was a form of denial.

My intellectual transformation was not the only positive thing that happened
to me in these years. My friend Stephen Booth had married Gillian
Rowan-Legge whose family owns a share of a salmon fishing camp on the
Upsalquitch River, the first New Brunswick tributary of the famous
Restigouche River. Stephen invited me to join him on his in-law's fishing
party. That first year we drove down in two cars. The party comprised
Stephen, Ted and Michael Rowan-Legge, Philip Arthur, David Thornton, and me.
 On the first day we drove as far as Rivière du Loup on the south shore of
the St. Lawrence. We stayed at the Auberge de la Pointe, with rooms that had
a superb view of the St. Lawrence River and the spectacular sunset. In the
morning we saw Beluga whales surfacing midway across the river. As it was a
Sunday morning, Stephen celebrated Holy Communion before breakfast at 7:15,
which gave the day a good start.
 Tension mounted as we entered the Matapaedia Valley, through which flows
one of Quebec's great salmon rivers to its junction with the fabulous
Restigouche. Over lunch at the Restigouche Hotel, the locals were full of
optimism. That wasn't very surprising considering that the regional economy
is dependant on the sport fishery.
 We arrived at the camp at about 3:30 pm, with the temperature in the mid
90s Fahrenheit. We unpacked, assembled our tackle, had pre-dinner drinks and
then dinner.
 The experience of three-and-a-half days fishing produced some interesting
juxtapositions: fishing tackle that was a combination of hi-tech graphite
rods and flies that hadn't changed much since the turn of the century;
guides who lived apparently contented lives of rural poverty and "sports"
who lived sophisticated lives of conspicuous consumption. My juxtaposition
was Parkinsonian and physical. I experienced for the first time the
excruciating pain of having my toes turn under themselves for periods of
time, usually no more than twenty minutes. This was the first dyskinesia,
literally "bad movement", I had known. It happened while I was out for a run
with the Rowan-Legge brothers. The cure was simple, but I had to wait to get
back to civilization for it. Two capsules of lithium carbonate daily, a
medication usually associated with bipolar depression, did the trick.
 I also experienced a sense of community. Everyone on our party knew I had
Parkinson's, but they made no special efforts to accommodate me, except for
helping me get in and out of canoes. I was accepted without reservation. For
the first time in years, I felt good about life, and the trips I made to
Waquita over the next few years were great occasions to develop enjoy
wonderful friendships and to develop a serious interest in the art of fly
fishing.
 I killed no salmon that first year. But one rainy evening I had one on for
ten minutes, before I lost it. A few years later, I wrote a short story
called "My Ghillie" in which I used Stephen as the model for an ideal
fishing guide.
 On that same first evening, after a camp meal that will never be forgotten,
in the pouring rain, we went downriver to the Boyne Pool.

 "I would use a number ten Silver Rat, high water version, sir."

 Hours passed, casting through rain to no avail. Utterly unlike a New
Brunswick guide, he watched every cast, advising and untangling wind knots
with just the right mixture of deference, sarcasm and respect, surrounding
each comment like a caul.

 After three hours, even my patience was being stretched. Suddenly my reel
started screaming as the salmon that had set the hook in his mouth took of
upriver. Dunne poled the canoe to shore, always with an eye on the fish,
issuing quick, terse commands:

 "... Rod down ... take up the slack ... let him run ... don't let him tie
your line around that deadhead .... bring him in, sir ... congratulations
sir, you have a twelve pound salmon."


In the spring of 1988, everyone recommended that I start seeing a
psychiatrist. Everyone was Esther, Dr. Polak and David Turner, my manager.
Three people may not be "everyone", but to me it seemed as if they were all
ganging up on me. The reason was twofold: the depression that I had been
experiencing in the couple of years just would not go away, and I was
spending money as if there was going to be no tomorrow. If I kept on
spending at the rate I was, my family would soon be impoverished.
Over-spending was nothing new to me in 1988. I had little financial
self-discipline in my life up to then, but the problem had never been too
serious. Now Esther took charge of our finances with a singleness of purpose
and dedication that is characteristic. She thought she had me on the
straight and narrow in no time.
 The idea of going to a shrink was anathama to me but there was enough
pressure on me that I had to go ahead. My first psychiatrist agreed to see
me on the basis of a behaviour contract. My side of the bargain was that I
would not spend money; his side of the contract was that he would cure my
spending and lift my depression. It was an overly simplistic contract, it
was oral, and I did not fully understand the implications. Moreover, my
psychiatrist, an East Indian, and I profoundly misunderstood each other. He
habitually smiled and nodded at virtually everything I said, which I assumed
indicated approval. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In any
event, I had a huge spending spurt, and my psychiatrist fired me. I
protested that you don't give someone an umbrella, and then take it away as
soon as it starts to rain.
 The solution to my spending problem was to get rid of my depression. That
took two and a half years to accomplish with the next psychiatrist, Dr.
Kohl. My sessions with him were much more productive. They focused on
looking for the underlying causes of the depression, which were twofold:
Parkinson's and my relationship with my now-dead father.
 But before that there was a real crisis in the fall of 1988. Esther, having
discovered the extent of the recent spending spree phoned Dr. Lang and said
"Get Bill into hospital fast!"
 "How soon?" Lang said.
 "Yesterday", she said.
 My Parkinson's medications had disoriented my mind to the extent that I
could not count backward from 10, and I was totally confused. First they got
me off Deprenyl. I was in the hospital for two weeks while Dr. Lang and his
colleagues, including shrinks from the Western, figured out that Deprenyl
was the principal reason for the deepening of my depression and my
personality change. That was the simple, and it turned out, correct
solution. That provided some short-term relief.
 It is now clear to me that the mixture of Deprenyl with the other
medications I was taking had produced the chemical imbalance in my brain
which had caused the undesirable effects on my behaviour and personality.
Another side effect was the magnification of my dyskinesia. It turned out
that not enough was yet known about the effects of Deprenyl, indeed about
many of the other available psychotropic drugs, on the functioning areas of
the brain. This singularity was the first of many I would experience over
the next decade. Fortunately, it was the by far the most unpleasant one.
 The fundamental problem remained: my Parkinson's symptoms were going
through a growth phase - they were getting worse quickly and the basic
depression was more deeply embedded in me than I had imagined.  Involuntary
micro-naps now occurred several times a day without warning and my speech
was rushed nd monotone.  My gait was distinctly irregular and there was the
tremor in both hands. Work now was an utter sham. That is, the thought that
I was accomplishing anything worthwhile while at work was a sham.
 Sham notwithstanding, in November I had my annual Performance Appraisal. I
was graded "Fully Satisfactory" and given a salary increase. Who were they
kidding? It turned out that they were not even kidding themselves. Peter
Godsoe, in a file memo, had said that until further notice I was to be
graded at that level and to receive salary increases in line with that
rating.
 While Godsoe's generous gesture insured that I would not suffer financially
as a result of Parkinson's as long as I worked, I sensed that the end was
near. I was right. On a bitter January day in 1989, I was told that I would
go on short-term disability pending long-term disability in six months time.
Knowing it was coming did not soften the blow. The brutal way the telling of
the news was given to me was shattering. Just leave. There will be no
farewell party for you. Don't linger saying goodbyes. Just leave.
 In retrospect, it is easy, even obvious to see the reason: they did not
know how I would react and they wanted to minimize the possibility of an
embarrassing scene. Wisely, I went gentle into that good night.