As we approach the shank of summer, I’ve been reminiscing about a long-ago summer I spent at a magical place, Montreal’s “Expo 67.” It was my first summer away from home and on my own. I was just out of my teens, in a serious relationship, not sure what to do about it. My boyfriend was hundreds of miles away, working at a summer camp in Pennsylvania. In those pre-internet days, we wrote postal letters back and forth, sometimes emboldened to share by mail what we’d shied away from in person.
The world was in turmoil, perhaps a bit more than usual. I was somewhat bewildered, but hopeful about prospects for a better society. Expo 67 was a perfect vantage point for viewing new possibilities.
Because I’d also fallen in love with the French language, at first I’d considered dropping out of college to spend the entire April-October interval of the fair as a participant-observer. I thought that a prolonged stay in French-speaking Québec province would improve my language skills beyond what I was getting in coursework at my small liberal arts college in Virginia. Our academic dean suggested an alternative—why not apply to work just for the length of my summer break, when visitors to the fair would be at their peak, the need for extra staff most urgent? That way I could get almost the same exposure to French language and culture without interrupting my college education.
Of the hundred or so application letters I sent out, only one produced a definite job offer—preparing and selling Belgian waffles at one of the fair’s many snack bars. I jumped at the chance. Once school let out, I boarded a bus headed north across the border. It took an intervention by my soon-to-be boss to prevent me from becoming an undocumented worker. There were many in Montreal that summer—American young men evading the military draft, or newcomers from elsewhere fleeing disasters, disorder, or worse in their countries of origin.
Over time I became one of Smitty’s Waffles best strawberry cappers. I earned a pittance, but was surrounded by others in the same situation. We shared low-cost housing tips. We traded end-of-shift free food among the half dozen or so snack bars in our cluster. Sometimes this included freshly whipped butter, made in our gigantic electric mixer by whipping the cream that topped our waffles for just a little too long (and substituting a little salt for the sugar).
Montreal had extended its public transportation system for the fair. A monthly pass for the Metro was affordable, even at minimum wage. Best of all, on my days off, I got free entry to the fair. An exhibit I sampled multiple times was sponsored by Canada’s telephone companies. It featured a trans-Canada travel film, the first in immersive Imax, a genre many of us have come to enjoy since. Though I haven’t located an online archive of the film, I can remember snatches of scenery, from the easternmost stretches of the Maritime Provinces along the Atlantic to British Columbia on the Pacific. However, it’s two scenes from Canada’s interior that linger most vividly in my mind.
The first is an aerial panorama of a huge steel mill complex near Sudbury, Ontario, belching smoke. Back in 1967, making steel was seen as a hallmark of industrial might, with smokestack pollution a bothersome but necessary byproduct.
The second snippet is slightly longer—several young people joyriding in an open jeep across a vast plain, with no other traffic in sight. Abruptly, the vehicle brakes to a stop, just as the celebrants reach the edge of a thousand foot drop. Even after several viewings, I still gasped at the sudden halt and the averted plunge to oblivion.
Since 1967, industrialized countries have reduced some of our smokestack pollution, viewing it as a health threat. Since 1967, we’ve also gotten increasingly concerned about a global “cliff” of climate change, caused by humanity’s net emissions of greenhouse gases. We humans have yet to master satisfying our needs and wants without endangering our long-term survival as a species. The 2015 Paris International Climate Agreement may be a small start toward solutions. It’s been signed by over 190 countries that produce 98% of the globe’s greenhouse gases. The U.S. is currently a signatory. We are reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, if not yet quite as fast as climate accords targets. I’m trying to play my part. I’m also rooting for those young joyriders. I want us to apply our collective human brakes fast enough and creatively enough to keep us from plunging over the edge of a climate cliff.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 