Angst Identprone

Torontonians have learned to expect the unexpected from their irrepressible Scot. Hardly an eyebrow raised when, at 73, Sin­clair posed for a magazine cover wearing only shoes, socks, and a modesty-saving sporran.

This puckish, award-winning newscaster remembers the city before minorities became the majority—and likes it better now. Hoist­ing his feet to his desktop, he tilted his chair and told it as it was.

“Believe me, those good old days were a bore. There wasn’t a decent restaurant in town and almost no public entertainment. Anglo-Saxonism prevailed: We lived by the Puritan ethic that assumed anything fun must be sinful.

“Everyday life was dreary enough, but Sundays were murder. Everything but the churches shut down tight. Eaton’s even drew its curtains to prevent the small enjoyment of window-shopping on the Sabbath.”

Staunch Methodist Timothy Eaton, who in 1869 launched Canada’s largest department store dynasty from the corner of Yonge and Queen Streets, would shudder at the change. For a lot more than show windows are now undraped along Yonge, Toronto’s liveliest thoroughfare.

A few blocks north of its gilt-edged finan­cial district, loudspeakers hawk strip joints,

X-rated movies, and massage parlors. Any­time is carnival time on this midway of nov­elty shops, kinky boutiques, pubs, sidewalk hucksters—and Sam the Record Man.

His three-floor fiefdom just north of Dun­das Street offers cut-rate prices, boasts the continent’s largest stock of titles, and pro­claims: Sam has everything-all he has to do it find it. With more than 100,000 different records and tapes, what owner Sam Sniderman has the most of is personality.

One war has ended but another lies ahead for Philadelphian Charles Campbell, who fled to Toronto six years ago to avoid Vietnam. His new foe: limited job opportunities, caused by growing unemployment in Can­ada. Qualified to teach, Campbell had to take a job as a shipping clerk. Maryanne Campbell, here with their Canadian-born son, works for Antex-Canada, a magazine for Americans in exile. Canada’s expatriate community, once estimated at 70,000, has dwindled to perhaps 30,000. “There’s still quite a clan in Toronto,” says Ms. Campbell.

I found “Canada’s king of canned music” midstage in his marketplace, thriving on personal contact and the steady ring of cash registers. “Hey, Tony, fill up the racks; we’re not selling empty wall space.”

Toronto and Sam have been good to each other. His store has spawned nationwide franchises that gross millions, which obliged him to give annual credit report. By way of thanks, he and his attractive wife, Eleanor­ who operates a recording company for Ca­nadian talent—launched and then helped build the University of Toronto’s present classical-record library into one of North America’s finest. Sam receives many requests to serve his beloved city—and turns down few.

One customer, unable to recall a title, hummed a snatch of song in Sam’s ear. “Sure, sure, sweetheart! I’ve Got A Crush on You.” The lady looked startled. “Try Gertrude Law­rence upstairs or Sinatra two aisles down.”

As I left, he pointed to a yards-long banner overhead: when you came to Sam’s don’t forget to see the rest of Toronto. I promised him I’d do my best to oblige.

“And I could be on a train and have a con­versation. The other passenger may dis­agree, and may say so, but it is inconceivable that he would leave the train at the next stop and request the police to come. It is just im­possible to imagine that. So there is a feeling of freedom.

“And, in relation to this, the leading strata of the society somehow have adjusted to the taste of the inhabitants of this country. They have a rather modest attitude and a modest way of life. For instance, Janos Kadar lives in a house nearby. The garden does not be­long to him, and the house itself has three rooms only.”

“The small people always de­pend on the big powers.”

IT WAS a bright, sunny day. The noises of the traffic in the city below arrived on Rose Hill only as a murmur: You could hear the songs of birds, the voices of an old man and his grandson carried by the breeze. I decided to walk down to the city.

What do the Hungarians think in their heart of hearts? Would they prefer, as one Western diplomat suggested, to be like Aus­tria, neutral, free of bonds to East or West? I don’t know. Perhaps in a small country in the middle of Europe with powerful neigh­bors, one deals with realities, while wishes atrophy. I do know that most Hungarians believe their life to be “not bad”; much better than before, better than that of their socialist neighbors. But I know also that two ques­tions hang like specters over those with memories: “Will there be war? What will happen after Kadar?”

The first question is universal, the second Hungarian. While Communism wears a humanistic face in Hungary today, the clas­sic party apparatus of control remains in place, to be taken in hand and wielded by another Rakosi, should one arise. And, as one former Communist told me, “the next chapter will be written in Moscow.” We quickened our steps, the ghosts and I, down Rose Hill.