CAREFUL WHAT YOU PLAN... PART III
- Elaine Lakeman
- Jan 13
- 8 min read
I often wonder how I ended up owning and running a heating and air conditioning business with my husband.
My desire to entertain came to me naturally when I was little, so I was thrilled when a trip to Hawaii with a friend led to contact with some of the world’s top rock stars.
But the wild lifestyle that went along with it sent me back home to Edmonton. There I enrolled in university to follow my dream.
While I was completing the dance and musical theatre program at Grant MacEwan University, I worked nights to support myself in a night club called Grand Central Station. It brought in great bands and stayed open really late, much of the time illegally.
I worked hard carrying large trays of food and drink up and down stairs in high heels till the wee hours of the morning, then got up and danced all day.
I made decent money and loved the shows that I got to watch, like Long John Baldry, Ronnie Hawkins and Montreal rocker Pagliaro, with whose drummer I started a long distance relationship. That eventually resulted in my moving to Montreal, where he was based.
Shortly after my arrival in Montreal, a girlfriend I had met at Grant MacEwan, Margo Kane, offered me a job as a dancer in the Canadian Armed Forces Christmas tour, heading to Germany, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt to entertain our troops. I accepted — against my boyfriend’s wishes, but I knew it was the chance of a lifetime. At the age of 23 I wanted to see some of the world, and all I ever wanted to do with my life was to entertain; so I had to go, even knowing I was jeopardizing my relationship.
The ensemble had six dancers including me, as well as singer Mel Degan from the rock band Privilege and Pentti Glan, the Finnish drummer who played with Alice Cooper. Most of us silly people called him Panty Gland, but his nickname was actually Whitey for his ultra-blond hair.
Our main act was the Canadian singing sensation at the time, Gloria Kay. We also had a couple more musicians, a magician/comedian and two lovely ladies who were that year’s Miss Klondike and Miss Edmonton. We were all young and wildly excited about this experience.
“Wild” being the operative word…
First stop was Lahr, Germany, where we stayed in the barracks on the military base. We went to the cantina first thing and were invited to join the guys, who ordered trays and trays of beer and this white stuff in small bottles that they downed after every beer. Some kind of schnapps, I guess. I never knew how much booze soldiers could drink in one night! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…) We danced all night long and tried to keep up with them. At the morning rehearsal, I can say, it wasn’t pleasant.
We did one show in Lahr and another in Baden Baden. Great audiences, mostly young men who were all very delighted to see us. We drank and ate like pigs in Germany; they took great care of us. It was OK, the weight we put on all came off in Egypt.
Next stop was Cyprus, the island split between Greece and Turkey after the Turkish invasion in 1974. Driving in from the airport, we passed lemon tree orchards and thought we were in paradise — until we arrived in Nicosia, the capital. I had never seen a war zone before. It was alarming and horrible to see such a lovely island so under stress and in decay.
The city of Nicosia was divided in half, with sandbags piled high on both sides of roads where the boundary lines had been drawn. United Nations forces, including Canadian troops, had come to keep the peace. The soldiers drove us girls down the middle of one of these main roads on top of white tanks, marked “UN” in big, black letters. We had Turks pointing machine guns at us on one side and Greeks on the other. The soldiers told us to be sure to smile and wave to both sides!
This war zone had changed the city in just one day, by the looks of it. All shops had been abandoned, left stocked with goods and riddled with bullet holes. We saw car dealerships with brand new cars rotting in pools of water that had formed behind walls of sandbags. It was an eye opener.
We did a couple of shows at the Canadian base, which had been opened to all who could come. We had heavy security, but felt safe. It was really just a peacekeeping mission; the war was clearly over, though the Greeks and Turks still did not appear to like each other.
We had Christmas Day dinner in what must have once been a grand, beautiful, pink hotel, with luxurious swimming pools and palm trees. It, too, was sandbagged, riddled with bullet holes and falling apart from neglect. Inside had become barracks for the young soldiers stationed there.
We had to be very careful.
We were asked to mingle and try to be nice to all of the soldiers, but we are talking about a couple hundred lonely boys needing a lot of attention, with some hoping to lure us into their rooms, if only to have someone to talk to. It was really very sad; they were all so young and homesick for family on Christmas Day, as most of us were, too. To cheer ourselves up later, we found a lively Greek restaurant where we danced the night away and celebrated by breaking plates.
Next stop was Israel. Now, that was a different world, nothing like any place I had seen so far in my life. Very military minded. We drove all over the small country in a big, white bus, again marked with the bold, black letters “UN.” I did not feel safe in Israel, starting with our arrival at the airport. No smiles; everyone was extremely serious. It is an odd feeling to have, this sense of danger, to actually feel like you could be in some kind of jeopardy.
We did a show at the Golan Heights. On the drive up, there were many security stops ordered by young girls and boys (they looked no older than 18) holding submachine guns. They flanked the bus doors each time as we stepped out and gave us all and the bus the once over.
We drove though the nomadic lands between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It was mostly desert, with fruit stands at some small oases, where I had the most amazing-tasting grapefruit I have ever eaten. I remember thinking, why do I want that old, sour thing?
But this kind looking, weather beaten older man with no teeth, who owned one of the stands, gave me one to try. It was full of sugary juice that exploded in my mouth — it was like candy. I bought a big bag of grapefruit, as we all did, and we spent the rest of the day gorging on them and the equally amazing oranges.
The countryside was so much more awesome that any of the cities or towns we saw. There was something I felt connected to out there in the land that I thought I would feel in places like Bethlehem — but sadly, this was 1978, and they had commercialized most of the well known religious sites. I didn’t find the spiritual essence I thought I would feel there, but I did find it in the poor, soft spoken and soulful nomadic people I met in the countryside riding their camels, donkeys and horses.
Truly the salt of the earth.
One day we went to visit ancient sites and approached the Wailing Wall, where I was suddenly surrounded by a group of hostile women speaking a language I could not understand. In my ignorance, I had dressed inappropriately in blue jeans and a halter top, which revealed my bare shoulders.
They desperately tried to cover me up with scarves.
Millions of messages, written on tiny pieces of paper, rolled and stuffed into every crevice in the walls, brought me to tears. Why, I don’t know; but something about all those messages, filled with prayer, hope and wishes, moved me.
Next stop Egypt. We flew over the desert in our Hercules aircraft, sitting in awful net seats with all our equipment piled in the middle. Out the tiny windows, I could see many old tanks and other metal debris strewn over the sands below from all the years of battles.
We landed in Cairo and went to what was supposed to be a four star hotel; but the water was brown and cold, when and if it ran, and there were no toilet seats. Everything looked unclean and old.
We did a couple of shows in Cairo and a couple in Ismailia. I really had never seen poverty until I travelled through this country and truly came to understand how much we have in Canada.
I realized that I had a lot to learn of the world,
and how just small acts of kindness can mean so much to a person.
I also learned how women were perceived in this part of the world, and I did not like it. We spent New Year’s Eve in our hotel banquet room, partying. Not thinking, I went off on my own to my room (and I had been warned not to do that). Since the elevator never worked, I walked up the four or five flights of carpeted stairs. I had a feeling something was not right. When I approached my door, I turned and saw a man had been quietly following me.
All he could say in English was, “white American whore.” Not a smooth talker.
I knew he had something in his mind that wasn’t what I had in mine. I yelled very loudly at him to leave me alone while I fumbled to unlock my door. I managed to get in and slam the door in his face, but he would not leave and stayed there, swearing or cursing at me; I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but it wasn’t romantic! I was frightened and called the front desk, but no one was around who spoke English and no one came.
Of course, we met many nice locals, but we always had to be heavily chaperoned, and we were, at all times. Perhaps things have changed somewhat since that time, but it was clear to me then that, as a woman, I was not safe, nor was I respected, especially if I was not all wrapped and covered from head to toe.
On one early evening outing, the desert people and some of the army captains took us by camel out to Sahara City, which was really just a huge tent set up in the desert. We sat on the floor in front of a big long table with a stage in front of us. We dined on all kinds of exotic foods and watched the show of sword swallowers and belly dancers, all moving to highly exciting, mystical music.
Hashish was passed discreetly to us entertainers by one of the locals. As the evening progressed, we dancers were invited to come up and join the performers on stage. What a night! The only down part of the evening was trying to do a show the next day and realizing that whatever we had eaten at this party must have had unfamiliar bacteria in it. Just as the drum roll cueing us started, one by one, we ran off to the toilet. We postponed for an hour till we got our selves together.
The show must go on!
A few days later, we travelled again into the desert in the late afternoon, this time on horseback to see the pyramids and the Sphinx, which was lit up as the night sky and stars emerged. I remember being still and quiet on my Arabian horse, looking up at the Sphinx while dogs howled in the distance, and making a mental note of where I was at that moment in time. I breathed it all in, thinking this was one of the times of my life that I would talk about in the future…
...end...
By Elaine Lakeman . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2011 . Volume 1 . Issue 4
