A rchive Date
[ 13-09-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
|
[Once again, Trudeau gets the last laugh
By VAL SEARS - Ottawa Sun
September 13, 2000
He's apparently decided it's not yet time to go gently or otherwise into that good night and I bet there's a mocking smile on Pierre Trudeau's lips.
The media orgy that surrounded his illness is going to make it tough to round up enough new stuff for a real obituary and he'll get a kick out of that.
I spent a lot of years moving around Trudeau's professional orbit, never very close but not very far either. And I think what I will remember - just after his reason and passion and pride - is his mocking, sometimes cruel humour.
Even when he hurt most, he had a quip. Crossing the campus at Berkeley in California in the week when his wife had most cruelly used him, he spotted a poster saying "Ban prefrontal lobotomies" and murmured: "Oh, I hope not. I was planning to have one."
It didn't bother him that his bizarre sense of humor could frequently humiliate.
Once, in the Canadian embassy in Washington, he was guest of honour at a dinner. He moved from table to table, sitting down for a few minutes at each. He arrived at my table where, among the other guests was a young woman, newly appointed to the U.S. protocol office in Washington.
"Good evening, sir", she said, brightly, apparently not having the slightest idea who he was. "I suppose you are a Canadian and what do you do?" she asked.
Without a moment's hesitation, Trudeau said: "I'm an animal psychiatrist."
"Really," she said, frantically trying to think what to say to such a person.
"Yes," said Trudeau, "you have no idea the stress and mental difficulty some animals, especially pets, suffer. I try to help them."
The woman babbled something incoherent. I couldn't stand it any longer and leaned over to her and whispered: "That's Pierre Trudeau. He's prime minister of Canada."
She blushed, hung her head and left the table. Trudeau grinned maliciously.
Sometimes you could hit back.
At a law conference in Cambridge, long after he had quit as prime minister, we were both guests. He recognized me and said politely: "Ah ... how are you?"
For some smartass reason I replied: "I'm fine, sir, but then I have a clear conscience." He glared and spun away.
Once in a while, when someone else was in a fix, Trudeau would enjoy a really hearty laugh.
In San Francisco, he and his amiable Mountie bodyguard, accompanied by a half-dozen U.S. Secret Service agents, slipped away from me and Pat Nagle of Southam, the only press accompanying him, for a night on the town.
When he returned to the hotel, Pat and I spotted him turning into a night-club lounge where a pair of comics were beginning their act. The plainclothesmen, all young, handsome chaps, scattered around the room while Trudeau sat at a front table.
As part of the act, the female funny girl, managed, after much pulling and tugging, to get a young man from the audience on to the stage. He was a Secret Service man.
As they spun about, his sports coat opened and a huge gun stuck out of a holster. The lady must have thought she had collared a Mafia hit man, panicked, screamed and ran off the stage.
The shamefaced agent ambled back to his seat. Trudeau laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.
He'll be sitting at the window of his Mount Royal house now, glancing at the discomfited media hordes dwindling away outside and smiling that old vulpine smile.
Sears can be reached by e-mail at valsears@magi.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|