My Story

By Jack Cooper

y mother was one of five sisters and three brothers and I had almost seventy first cousins from my mothers side most are now gone. My parents had ten children. Two died in infancy and now I am the last surviving, living member of the Cooper family. I was raised on McCaul Street and attended Orde Model School next to The Penny Savings Bank. We had to have a perfect weekly banking record, so if some of the children did not have pennies to bank, the teacher loaned them to you. My neighbours on McCaul Street were Silverberg, Singer and Stein no they were not lawyers, they were bootleggers. My boyfriend Henry Stein lived across the street from our home. Many an evening when I went there to visit Henry, I had to stumble over some drunk sprawled in the vestibule. At the schoolyard, we played handball for pennies a game. You had to hit the ball over a six foot ledge so it was a slugfest, not clever shooting as indoor handball. We also played volleyball, two games of 16 points for a nickel and since I was the tallest, I was usually up front to do the spiking. There were a lot of nicknames when I was young. Phillip who became a doctor was called Pinkie. In the Stein family, Inspector Croll would raid their home occasionally and when they found illegal liquor, he would take one of the brothers to jail. It was always Harry and he always had a suitcase packed, ready for the occasion so everyone called him suitcase. Harry had a brother Sammy who was a boxer. When Sammy went to the bathroom it was a very slow process and he was referred to as a slow leaker. Later the name became just Slow and the name Sammy was forgotten. Then there was Sergeant. Louie a developmentally disabled person with what we called cockeyed eyes. Someone gave him a police badge and he would stand on the corner of Spadina and Dundas, one eye looking around one corner and the other eye the opposite corner. At that time, I had a dear friend Alec Biderman who was in the army at Camp Borden. During the war years, the enlisted men got liquor rations enabling them to go to the LCBO and Alec went into the store to purchase two bottles. As he left the store, Sergeant. Louie put a finger in his back and said, Put them up I got you covered. Alec dropped the two bottles to the cement. So much happened on McCaul Street: bootleggers, professional arsonists, hungry kids, tired boring and I once told Sybil, If you werent born on McCaul Street you havent lived. It was the depression years, everyone suffered, but to me I went on and inadequacies didnt mean anything. As a youngster I was accident prone. At the early age of two I fell while climbing a fence and had a hernia. At 12, I had an appendectomy. I was about three when my sister Ida was boiling the laundry on our stove on McCaul Street and I was playing on the floor she tipped the tub and the hot water scalded my left ankle. Today I still have tissue scar. My brother Bob, was chopping wood in the back yard and the blade separated from the handle and hit me in

the head stitches again. Throwing up sticks for chestnuts one stick with a spike in it hit my head stitches again. I was jumping over a low fence and tripped and fell and broke my elbow. I was 13 at the time and was destined to be the cadet captain but not with a cast. At 20 I had a duodenal-ulcer which bothered me a lot and changed my eating habits, but when I was drafted into the army, my ulcer helped me out of the army and during the war years, I made a good living in the textile trade. I was about 11 years old when I started selling papers on McCaul and College Streets. I saved enough money to buy a Planet Bicycle and adopted the corner of McCaul and Dundas to sell papers. To be the first one around to have the final paper, I took my bicycle to The Star, gathered a bundle of papers and put them on the handlebars and bicycled to McCaul Street. I had a few mishaps on University Avenue when it was icy. There was no salting the roads then. That Christmas, I delivered papers on my route and collected $14 in tips I was rich rich! My friend Henry Steins sister married Ben Abramowitz and finally they all moved into Henrys house with four of Bens brothers. The Stein and Abramowitz families played four-handed casino and the Abramowitzs were partners and had signals arranged to tell their partner important cards in hand one smoked a cigar and two taps on the cigar meant he had the good ten of diamonds. A pull of an ear meant he had an ace. After a while, both families used signals usually known to the other side. Ben was out walking with friends and he saw a sign YMCA Yumka he said and his whole family became Ben Yumka Dave Yumka, Joe Yumka and Pineapple Yumka I cannot remember why Pineapple. I was around 13 and anti-Semitism was high in Toronto. Henry Steins brother Ruby was pitching softball for a team of Jewish boys against a gentile group in the east-end and they raised Hitler flags and said Heil Hitler. some fighting occurred. The following week, there was a return match of the same two teams to be played at Christie Pitts. The day of the game, I was with Henry when a flatbed truck pulled up in front of Henrys house and all the Jewish tough guys: Spike Tenenbaum, Dave and Baby Yak, The Yulmakas, the Starr brothers and many more. They had brass knuckles, pipes, baseball bats, sticks, chains and it looked very threatening. Henry and I got on the truck as they drove to Christie Pitts. We all sat at the South side on the hill and Bloor and Christie. The Nazis sat on the hill on the East side. After the game, they raised the Nazi banners, singing and saluting Heil Hitler. Like a bunch of rats pursuing food, the Jewish group stormed the hill and started clubbing, kicking and smashing in the Nazis and calling them dirty bastards. Many tried to escape and I followed our gang and they caught one trying to climb over a backyard fence. Our boys clamped his finger to the fence and started pounding him. It was a beautiful thing to watch. That night between Bathurst Street and Spadina Ave, on the north side, man after man (goyim) and on the south side all the Jewish boys and in between holding the peace, were Toronto Policemen.

At Orde Street School, I was in the graduation class and we had a substitute teacher one day and she had planned a debate and she chose me to lead one side. After class she asked me into the cloakroom and said, You expressed yourself very well in the debate with a look of confidence. I think you should plan on studying law. When the time came, I knew that was impossible because of financing. My brother Bob was at U of T and we could not afford more fees, so I enlisted into Central Commerce as I was very good in mathematics. I took the fouryear course as the five-year course was if you wanted to be C.A. Max Soberman took the five-year course and went on to work for $15 a month and then opened his own accountancy practice. Today the firm has 150 employees. After I graduated from Central Commerce, I went to Bnai Brith Camp to be the camp secretary. It was hard work, a lot of typing and filing and letters to be sent out and my salary was $50 for the season. At least I ate in the dining hall at a table reserved for the camp director, the doctor and myself. I met some interesting counsellors. Johnny Weingarten who became Johnny Wayne of Wayne & Shuster. Then there was Lou Applebaum who was a musician and composer and he spent many years with CBC. I needed a job when I returned to Toronto and the only thing I found was to be the bookkeeper at Standard Fur Co. for the godly sum of $11 a week. Then, in the very slow fur season in January, they laid me off. I was then recommended (as a bookkeeper) to Monarch Woolens Co. and I was interested in every part of the business and when the war broke out, I became their salesman. The funny part was they sent me out with samples to sell the customers; but I was not to sell anything. By that time, I was earning $35 weekly. With so much time on-hand, I defected into a poolroom, took up the game and was pretty good at it. Our Rabbi said in a sermon, To play pool is OK but to excel is a sign of a misspent youth. I made many connections with the clothing manufacturers, picked up enough stock to sell to my tailors; I knew that I could quit Monarch and make more money on my own and that was the start of Jack Cooper Woolens. I found two brothers in the tobacco business with an office above the Bank of Nova Scotia and College and Bathurst Street. I told everyone my assets are over a million. The brothers had been drafted and agreed to rent me the place until the war was over, or they were discharged. The government had put them out to sell bonds after the brother bought a lot of bonds themselves, they go an early discharge and I had to move. I rented a cubby-sized office across from Abe Witkins office at 581 Bloor Street West. I took out all the kitchen fixtures and installed shelves. I had a living room that was 10 x 8 with an opening to an area 10 x 7 in which I put a cot to sleep on and I had two wooden horses and a narrow cutting board placed over my bed on the horses. I knew someone from a large manufacturer that wanted to dispose of some stock in a black market way. I would get samples of goods available and take them around to the tailors I knew and get their orders filled using the same rope and paper as I had received the merchandise. Ed Mirvish had bought all the property West of Bathurst to Markham Street and asked me to move so he could open Honest Eds. I allowed Ed to expand enabling him to become the great success he enjoyed. I moved into a small apartment over a barbershop on College and Grace Street. I kept my little office on Bloor and made a valuable connection in Montreal of

a man known to all the jobbers and clothing manufacturers. I went to Montreal four to six times a year and paid cash and he sent me $2,000 to $3,000 of merchandise and the profits started to add up, much of it saved as I had very little expenses. While on Bloor Street I bought a used car for $600. The next few years I spent three times as much fixing it. At that time I was 6 tall and weighed 135-lbs. I would go out Friday night to St. Andrews Club on College Street and drink a number of pints of beer trying to put on the weight. My late friend Barney at that time called me, Jake the Rake. During the war years, there were plenty of single girls around and evenings I was busy dating. At no time was I serious as I would wait until I could afford it. Then my friend Jerry and I went to Sunnyside Pool and sat in the sand and noticed a tall slim beautiful girl on the next blanket. I turned to Jerry and said, This is for me. I went over and talked to her for quite a while and found out her name was Irene Binstock and we dated. I found her so appealing that I asked her to marry me and she accepted. We planned a September wedding at the McCaul Street Synagogue. Then her father who was a presser found out he had TB. He was to be sent to Hamilton Sanitorium on the mountain. We moved up our wedding date to June 20th and luckily, my sister Belle offered her beautiful home and garden for the event. It was a great affair and a huge success. My brother Alec had returned from Okinawa in the Pacific, as he had been drafted into the army while living in New York. I offered him a partnership in my business and found a small manufacturer with a second story factory on Queen Street just east of Spadina. They had a showroom which they allowed me to use and they trained Alec in measuring and fitting custom-made clothes. We registered the name Cooper Clothes and Alec looked after this and I concentrated on the woolens. We put out circulars to the U of T and I had a friend who wrote some witty small ads we published in the Toronto papers. We soon had a good following with some success. We had a few of the Argos football team as customers. In their program in the shape of a football, our ad said Argo cant kick about the suits they have made at Cooper Clothes. It was a full page ad next to the lineup program. After a while we gave up the clothing business as one customer complained we were stealing their business. I then thought it was time to start buying directly from the mills in England. I had built up a good reputation with all my suppliers. I paid my bills promptly, my word was always honoured so that when I told the local agents I was going to the mills around Bradford, I was received with a dignified reception. When I first went on my own, I had no money or financing. I went to my dad who took me to his bank at Dundas and McCaul where he signed a loan to me for $1,000 payable in a few weeks. I promptly repaid the loan and borrowed another thousand and now had $1,300 to work with. In London, I stayed at the Savoy Hotel with my brother in-law Joseph Poslums. We visited some of our relatives there and the rest of the week, we could not drive to the mills as the worst pea-soup fog in many years settled in and you could not see ahead of you. I then hired a car and driver to visit Leeds and Bradford area where the mills I wanted to see were located. I was warmly welcomed by the mill owners, so I quickly established good connections there. I visited one mill on the side of a hill with a number of chicken coops and just after the war

years an egg was a luxury. I asked the owner and he had a bag of eggs put in my car and then every morning the maitred at the Queens hotel in Leeds welcomed me for breakfast and asked How do you want your eggs done today? We crossed the Atlantic first class on the Queen Elizabeth, which then was the largest ship in the world. Probably the size of 3 football fields. Dinner every night was formal and I had made a tuxedo for the trip. It was a stormy crossing and after dinner there was dancing and suddenly you would see all the couples on one side of the boat and minutes later they were on the other side. I had ordered a special steak dinner and all the time the boat was rocking from 20 to 30 foot waves (even with stabilizers) and suddenly at the dance, I knew I was going to throw-up. I started for my cabin and made it to the elevator but knew I couldnt make it to my cabin... Luckily nobody was around, so I started to fertilize the large palm plant ahead of me. I then went to my cabin, washed and rinsed up and returned to the Ballroom and Joe Poslums was in the same seat, unperturbed. The trip didnt bother him. London was fogged in so we landed in Hern at the RAF station in Southern England. We then went to London by train which had stopped near a hotel and when we stepped off the train, we were told to hold hands and proceed to the hotel for the night. There was no visibility. Actually, I landed in England on my 1st wedding anniversary. Returning to the Savoy Hotel, since we did not pay for our suite in advance, our rooms had been rented out and they finally found us a small room and Joe and I slept in a single bed. We left England by ship to New York and then to Toronto. Alec and his wife Margaret picked me up and I noticed he was not driving the correct way to our home on College Street. I then heard Margaret whisper to Alec, Drive faster so he wont know how far it is. We pulled up to a small bungalow on Shelbourne, just South of Lawrence Avenue, and he said, I bought this bungalow and the one next door and it is your if you want it. It was very small. The street had open culverts but I agreed to live there. My brother Bob had returned from the Air Force during World War II and although he was a skilled optometrist, he took advantage of the government offer of a four-year course in the field of medicine at McGill University in Montreal. At his graduation, I drove to Montreal with my sisters Kate and Belle. I took my samples with me and spent a day visiting a few tailors I knew or had been recommended to me and found I could do good business with the Montreal tailors. In those days, everyone had a made-to-measure suit as few stores stocked ready made and they had no variety in fabrics. I then hired a salesman for Quebec but the big sales came when I went to Montreal and then later to the Eastern Townships of Drummondville, Sherbrooke, and St. Hyacinth. 40% of my business came from Quebec. I also made trips in the spring and fall to Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and I travelled to Hamilton and locally all over Toronto and was responsible for the growth of Jack Cooper Woollens. I had a good, honest reputation and the banks would support me, regularly. Janey and David were born on Shelbourne. I was 34 in 1953 with two small children and Michael on the way and we decided our two-room bungalow was too small for us. Alec and I found a builder who owned some empty lots on Briar Hill which was the last northern

street of Forest Hill Village. We wanted that location for the education of our kids and the owner of the plots said he could build each of us a 4-bedroom house; and because they were next to each other, he could save us money and built them for $31,000 each. At the time the maximum mortgage available was $15,000 and with the proceeds from the sale of Shelbourne and some reserves, $30,000 was the maximum we could spend. The builder said he could only meet this price by making the house 6 smaller in length and width and he explained 2 would come off the dining room, 2 off the hall and 2 off the living room... and we did just that. Today, everyone is anxious to add on more storage space, more bedrooms, extend the kitchen add a swimming pool times have sure changed and so have we. An interesting thing was our builder, Charlie Demiles would not give us a contract for the house he said he would build it to our specifications, but nothing in writing. He took a year to build both houses, made many daily changes to our needs and by the time the homes were finished, building costs were up. The land had doubled in value. But he was a man of honour and only asked for the original price, when Alec and I expected him to ask for much more and we were prepared to pay it. So we had our homes on a street developing to very nice homes. On Briar Hill I learned my gardening skills which has always been a source of relaxation and pleasure for me. We did not want a fence between our houses, so we had a huge back yard. We had a Japanese gardener, Mr. Matsuri and I would drive around to various gardens and parks and take a few flowers and plan with Mr. Matsuri, after he bought them, where he should plant these flowers. I planted shrubs, trees, flower beds and it really turned out nice. I had one trouble with a cherry tree I had planted. When the cherries were about to ripen, one night a flock of birds descended on my cherry tree and left only the pits. The following year I got a huge net put over the tree but it turned out on a windy day there was a huge opening at the top. Again, the birds stripped my tree. I was then told to tie open tin cans with small pebbles and tin foil inside; this caused a rattling and kept the flock of birds away. We enjoyed some cherries that year. My children were attending West Prep, just a few blocks away and then Forest Hill Collegiate and we were a happy family when at 38, I took up golf. To get on a public course was very difficult and on week-ends we played St. Andrews Golf Course. My good friend and cousin Norman Cowan had a friend Leon Pape who was president of an investment group who had bought St. Andrews for development. I called Leon and he told me to call the starter and visit him and give him $10.00, use his name and we were promised a starting time week-ends of 8am. I had just purchased a set of golf clubs 5,7, 9 irons, driver, 3-wood and putter. The only other association with golf; I was in public school when a firm called Tiny Tim Miniature Golf on College and Huron Street went broke. On passing the place I noticed all the equipment, gimmicks that were left there unguarded. I called my friend Jerry Solnek who had a wagon and we made a good number of trips and loaded spikes with hole numbers, a few putters, old golf balls and we even took the synthetic grass cover for the balls to roll on. I then dug up the whole back yard and began planning and arranging a 9-hole miniature golf course with different hazards. I got an old tire and cut it and nailed it to the ground so a ball would enter, spin around and come out somewhere near the holes. I cut out a small opening in a wood

slat, and you had to hit the ball through these openings. When this was finished, with layers of green grass on each hole and the stakes with the hole numbers I had build my course. I charged a penny or two to play but mostly I played it myself and putted for hours and became a good putter. When I started to play St. Andrews I was very good with my irons and putting. I did not have good control of my driver. Max Soberman and I went to DeHaviland Driving Range on Dufferin Street and we took lessons. Max got the good teaching pro I was hoping to get and I got his assistant, Moe Norman ,who later won the Canadian Championship and many small tournaments. He always carried a set of clubs in his old car and drove around until he found a tournament he could register in and usually win for a prize of $200. Fred Couples, a great PGA member, after seeing him hit balls on a range said, Moe is the best striker of a ball I have ever seen. He stood with his feet too wide apart, bent at the knees, his rear end jutting out and with a driver hit the ball consistently 280 yards and if you stood out there with a bucket you could catch every ball without moving too far. Anyway, as a teacher he was not very good. He talked like Mortimer Snerd, very nasal and said to me, youre bunting the ball, let me show you how its done. He then hit the whole pail of balls, lesson finished and I was not told or learned anything. One summer, I took Irene to the Catskills in NY and we had an afternoon with the golf pro. He drew a large circle and from about 130-140 yards away asked us to try and hit in the circle. I did this a number of times and some shots landed in the circle. He then approached me and said if I became serious I could be a golf pro. He then asked me to hit a driver and each ball went on a different direction and he come over to me and said, youll need lessons. Another time, we went to Seabring, Florida and stayed at a golf course built between rows of oranges, grapefruits and lemon trees. If you drove off the fairway, you were behind a tree or in the sand around the trees. Taking a penalty, you threw your ball into the fairway... I did plenty of that. But they had a putting contest which I entered and there were 18-holes. I made some putts but always left the next putt beside the hole. Another man and I had an 18-hole play-off and I won the championship. He then told me he was a 1-handicap and would I like to play with him and I quickly excused myself. That night at the dance after dinner, they presented me with a large tin trophy. When I returned to Toronto, I joined the George Clifton School of Golf which was in a building on Wellington and York Street where thy had put up a driving range, chipping area and putting service. George was an excellent teacher and was truly wonderful in the short game. We practiced at a wooden pillar and had to hit the ball stiff armed with a low follow through and make chip marks on the pillar. Now when I played the regular course, I could not get onto the green on long par fours so I was always chipping and putting to score. I played in a Beth Tzedec golf tournament at Glen Shields; never played there before but I shot 81 to win the tournament. The following year I defended the same tournament and won it again. The temperature that day was 95 degrees and my partner, Dutchie Ginsberg was soaking wet and since my home was air conditioned, I offered him a shower at my place. I won the Bnai Brith tournaments the following year at Richmond Hill, where I was paired

with the best player there. I was up 3 strokes after 9 holes but we were tied going into the 18th hole; a 585 par five with a very elevated green and a pond about 60 yards in front. I drove down the centre and my opponent hooked his shot and laid up with an iron and was still about 240 yards from the green. He took out his 3-wood and to my amazement hit the green on the fly and rolled to the back of the green. I laid up with a good three wood and my wedge also went to the back of the green which was downhill and sloping right to left. I was away and had about 30 feet putter and I made it, my opponent 3-putted and I won the tournament. A few years later at the Board of Trade, this former opponent won the tournament and I finished second. I must admit, the caliber of the Bnai Brith player was not too good. However, even though I was a relatively short hitter, I could play alongside some smashers and do well. In the fall and during the winter I bowled in a Bnai Brith league, first 5-pin and then 10pin. I was an average bowler but I became president of Toronto Bnai Brith bowling and attended tournaments in Ottawa, Montreal and Windsor and national BB tournaments in Buffalo, Syracuse and Detroit. I excelled in tournament bowling and we all had handicaps; but I managed to win a few trophies. Two of my three children were now in High School after their bar and bat mitzvahs. Janies was at Beth Tzedec and took place a day after a fire in the building. 100 workers were brought in to wash the seats, floors, walls etc. but there remained a distinct smoldering smell. Despite this, I can proudly say that Janies reading of the Torah was the best I had ever heard. We then had trouble with my son Davids Bar Mitzvah. Richard, his cousin, lived next door. We hoped to have both boys at Beth Tzedec. The board ruled against that and Alecs synagogue Beth Shalom agreed to the double bar mitzvahs. I did not want guests coming in one week and then again weeks later for another Bar Mitzvah; so the final arrangements worked out well. Our business was running at a steady pace and Alec and I decided it was time to invest, mainly in real estate. We started a firm called Aljac Investments and bought small industrial buildings with 10-year leases and 10-year mortgages, with a return of 8 to 10%., but at the end of 10-years, you had a paid up building. Our lawyer Jack Friedman asked Alec and I to join him, his brother in-law Eric Exton, my cousin Norman Cowan and one other partner and we became Champion Investments. At first we were in the mortgage financing but later we started to buy properties. Every summer we had a special meeting in New York, San Francisco, Big Sur, The Briars at Lake Simcoe, the Deerhurst and Huntsville and the Montibello near Ottawa which was a retreat for the Ottawa parliament people. On all these trips ,which I arranged, I was the snack, goodies and liquor provider and the evening parties were set up in my suite. When my brother was 70, he was eight years my senior and wanted to retire, sell our business and investments which were good. We finally sold the building and woollens business and Champion was wound down. Then at 62, I had an early retirement just when we were making better money buying woollens from China. I was not ready to retire so I approached my son Michael to take over the business.

I would stay on and finance him, help him with the buying and selling and he wold make a good living but he refused saying he wanted to be a photographer like his brother David. When I was 49 years old in 1968, my dear wife Irene had experienced a year of depression which led to her suicide. I was now alone had to take care of three teenagers and spend more time at home. I went to services at Beth Tzedec twice a day for 11 months. I was a very unhappy person but I did learn to daven and lead services many times. I began dating a year later and fortunately I found Sybil Kalles, who had lost her husband due to an unfortunate accident at Oakdale Golf Course. We hit it off very well and soon Sybil became number one and I dropped all my other lady friends and we were married in 1970. Sybil had a nice home on Whitmore which she sold and I sold my Briar hill home and together we bought a large home with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms on Ridelle Avenue. Now we had 8 adults living together, children not adjusted to another family and there were hardships. But our marriage worked out well and Sybil was strong and capable enough to look after cooking, shopping and integration of the two families. Today we have ten fine grandchildren. We spent our vacation in Florida where Sybils parent went each winter. Sybil had a girlfriend Ruth with a sick husband who had to leave Torontos cold winters and drive to Arizona. They were very lonesome there and Ruth called and invited us to come to Phoenix and stay with them in their home on an executive golf course. We agreed to visit them and she said to me, bring your sticks I have someone you can play with. Sybil and I enjoyed two weeks of continuous blue skies, perfect 80 to 85-degree weather and said, Ruthie, find me a place for next year because this place is heaven. We spent 21 winters in Phoenix in different apartments at the Cloisters and we loved the place. When Sybils brother, Elliott a cardiologist from Philadelphia, and his wife Sylvia visited, us we travelled all over the South West. Elliott driving and I planning trips to Sedona, a beautiful rock country, The Grand Canyon, The Painted Desert, Lake Powell, Monument Valley, Canyon De Chelly, The Petrified Forest, Santa Fe New Mexico and in Utah Zion National Park where you are at the bottom of mountains looking up. Bryce Canyon where you are on the top of the mountains looking down on the most amazing rock formations with fascinating colours. All these places provided breath-taking views and we visited canyons in New Mexico and Colorado. These were beautiful sites I will always remember. I can state we enjoyed 22 years of wonderful life, except twice for health problems; and nearly always perfect weather with lots of golf and swimming. Golf in Phoenix was cheap at the public course if you were a registered citizen of Arizona and costly otherwise. One of my friends knew all the angles and he told me to go to a police station and register my address and I got a card. I took the card to the library and registered as a Phoenix resident and using their card, I could play all the public courses at a very cheap rate. The only problem was that I had to be at the course by 7:30am in order to get a game as after 8am, all times were booked by people who lined up 4 - 5am to register to play that day, went home and came back for their starting time. Weekends were impossible to play, so I went regularly Monday, Wednesday and Friday. One day I played at 7:30 with three other Phoenix residents. They asked if I would like to play with them again as they could get 7:30 starting times. I quickly agreed and LeRoy, a retired auto worker from Detroit hired to fix all

the golf carts, put our names down for the days I would play and I had it made! At our swimming pool I became friends with Tommy Fricarra, a retired engineer, divorced living alone and later he became my golf partner. He got us a game at the Phoenix country club was a retired member but friendly with the golf pro. It did not cost us anything to play but I took the pro a nice gift. Tommy and I attended the Phoenix Open and a number of other tournaments and I had a new buddy. Tommy later became involved with a local woman, started to really dress up and got married on Valentines Day, February 14th. Unfortunately, 3 months later on mothers day, his wife divorced him. My friend Max Soberman had spent a winter in Palm Springs and he liked it and booked his winter vacation there for many years. We visited him and after dinner, he rushed us into the den and taught us the new card game he had learned. It was called, Kalooky. From then on, we played Kalooky for years with different partners. Back in Toronto, we decided to take Bridge lessons which still today we play every Monday in our building. Sybil and I had been living for 22 years on Sylvan Avenue off Avenue Road, vacationing in Arizona each winter. In the year 2000, I needed a by-pass and had surgery at the Arizona heart Institute. I had just turned 80. When I returned to Toronto, we realized the constant use of steps wasnt good for either of us, so we sold the townhouse and we bought an apartment on Yonge Street Governors Hill and we enjoyed the comfort and incentives of apartment living the gym, the pool, the library and an elevator made life easy. Sybil was always an avid reader and I began to read regularly and often. We enjoyed CNN news and a few other TV programs and we kept busy. Sybil and I did a lot of travelling. Trips to England, France, Holland, Israel, Spain the Far-East, Hong Kong, Japan, Taipei, Thailand, Honolulu, all of Western Canada and many places in the U.S. They were all pleasurable trips and left good memories. In 2007, two days before I was to go to Florida with my friend Morley Klayman, I slipped in the shower reaching out for a towel, fractured my back and our Florida trip was cancelled. For three weeks I could not get out of bed and then Michael brought me a walker and for four months I had physiotherapy 3 times a week. I had to miss the full 2008 golf season. Later Jane said I should try acupuncture, which I did for three months and now I am back to physiotherapy. My back still bothered me and I hope to be able to play golf in Florida in 2009. Sybil is now 80, I turn 90 in May 2009 and my children promised me a big celebration. The past two years have been very sad for me I lost my brother Dr. Bob, Dave and my sister Kate just after she celebrated her 101st birthday. Most of my dear friends are gone. I have had a lifetime of very good friends: Alec Biderman, Max Soberman, Jerry Solnek, Connie Dominica, Barney Berenbaum, Joe Strashin, George Shear but unfortunately they have all passed away, except Jerry who lives in Florida and I do miss them. I may not be as active as I used to be. Jane told me I was hyper, my grandchildren called me Speedy Gonzales, but thank G-d I still get around very well. My mind is sound, my memory very good, but I have slowed down in many ways and Sybil and I can only pray we have some good happy and healthy years ahead of us and nachas from our children.

I must tell you about my three children. Janie, the eldest was born 2 months early. She weighed just 4.5 Ibs, but her early arrival made her birth on May 31st a true Cooper I was born May 2nd, Bob May 2, David May 3 and Alec May 20th. Janie was very artistic so I sent her to Sienna, Italy to study art. She returned to Toronto and studied to be a teacher. She then became a vice-principal and later principal. She then went to Etobicoke to be supervising principal for 18 different schools. I paid for her to be a member of the Board of Trade and now she is an avid golfer, retired from teaching but filling in as a sub for a teacher or principal. Jane has two sons: Mark who graduated from the University at the Lakehead and is now at Aish ha-Torah in Israel and Andrew who wants to be a top chef. David enrolled at University of Toronto to be an architect. After two years, he was floundering in the course and his teacher suggested he take a year off. He went to Vancouver and got a job in the camera department at a London drugstore. He later saw an ad: Vancouver theatre needs a photographer, paying $150/week. On one of my later visits to Vancouver, I encouraged him to work part time for the Vancouver Theatre, but pick up other commissions which worked out very well for him. He married Wendy Garling who had studied Mime in France and is now teaching it at school. She later became an actress, a drama teacher and they have a beautiful daughter, Emily who studied photography at Sheridan College in Ontario where she won scholarships all the time. Today she assists her dad and has showings of her own work. David is a leading ballet photographer he travels a lot, working in Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and for many years has been the photographer for the Shaw Festival. His work is greatly admired. Michael went to Northern Vocational school and studied photography. Today he has his own studio, shoots the Canadian Opera Company, does theatre and business photography. Michael is 64 has a daughter Jessica 6 tall who continues to study herbology. His younger daughter Nicole is very interested and talented in art and presently she is attending Nova Scotia School of Art & Design. From my three children, Jane, David and Michael I have five grandchildren and I would like them included in my memoirs. Mark, my first grandchild was a very loving and devoted child. He always was very handsome, super intelligent and grew into a tall, handsome youngster. He had a great singing voice and was in the Temple choir and then at camp was the star in all the musical plays they produced. Mark had a good education at Forest Hill Collegiate and then at the Lakehead in Thunder Bay. He later tried different positions but his heart and mind did not respond to any of them. Last year he took a trip to Israel and studied at Aish ha-Torah and soon found his ambition to be a teacher and rabbi. Mark has a brilliant mind that will help in his future studies to absorb and acknowledge his studies in Hebrew ethics, Torah and teaching. Andrew, Marks younger brother is the happy carefree one in the family, always smiling and joking and accepts everything in life as a gift. In high school he stated he wanted to be a chef, study in Europe and then go into business in Toronto. He studied at George Brown College in Toronto and presently works for the restaurant Scaramouche in Toronto. Emily, Davids only child was born and raised in Vancouver, where her father is a very successful theatrical photographer. Emily was a super student, always very active and played soccer with top teams, studied and practiced piano and later gave piano lessons. After assisting her father in his work, she became interested in photography. She won a scholarship to Sheridan College and was the top student each year. She now works and travels with her dad as he works

across the continent. Emily went to Santa Fe for a special photography lecture and now has had some very special showing of her work at exhibits in Toronto and Vancouver. Jessica, Michaels first daughter grew to be a tall, young lady which came naturally from a 64 father and 6 mother. She is a very loving and caring person and has done a lot of travelling in Canada. She has lived with friends in Montreal, and Vancouver and now settled in Vancouver Island and is studying herbology. Nicole, Jessicas younger sister has grown to a tall, beautiful and artistically talented artist. She is now attending an art school on the East coast and when she graduates she wants to become an art teacher. Jessica and Nicole were wonderful grandchildren and we had many good times together.