How I caught the bug for the international field, by Denis Dextraze
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During his last year in high school, this young boy who had never travelled further than 45 miles from the family farm, located on a dead-end road in the small village of Mont Saint-Grégoire, postulated for a scholarship contest. He never realized that he had just set in motion a life changing process that would eventually take him to visit close to 100 countries and start a Canadian company involved in international marketing of high tech products. This farm boy was me.
Indeed, I won the only Quebec purse granted on merit by C-I-L (Canadian Limited Industries), the Canadian branch of the immense British chemical company I.C.I. (Imperial Chemicals Industries). The scholarship covered my school and living expenses for 4 years while studying chemistry at the Institute of Textiles of the Province of Québec, located in Sainte-Hyacinthe. C-I-L also offered me training and a temporary job during the summer in their laboratories located in Millhaven, a suburb of Kingston, Ontario. During a strike of the operators of polyester spinning machines at the Milhaven plant, I was transferred to production as a strike breaker. I did not mind being labelled a “scab” because I was paid double wages. Also, I worked 12 hours a day for 5 consecutive days and was free during 5 days. This schedule enabled me to return to Montréal for summer R & R. Fantastic schedule!
After spending that summer training and working at the Millhaven production facility, I initiated a plan that would give me the bug of international travel and set the course for my future career. During the winter of ‘64-‘65, in preparation for the next summer season, I proceeded to make application for a summer job in Europe with industrial companies known in my field. Innocently, I did not know that the practice of hiring students in the European industry during the summer was not established as in North America. Consequently, I only received a few answers, all negative except one. Indeed, within two months, I received a letter from Societa Rhodiatoce, the Italian branch of the immense European group Rhodia, inviting me for six weeks of summer training with all room and board expenses paid at their production facility located at Pallanza, Northern Italy. At the time, I thought that luck was on my side but I will find out later that my good fortune was the result of an incredible coincidence that happens only once in a lifetime.
This good news delighted me and worried me at the same time. How will I find the funds necessary to pay for my round trip tickets to Europe and pocket money for incidental expenses? The solution came from various sources. In the springtime, I worked every weekend as a cook and a waiter at a sugar shack in Saint-Grégoire. I sold all my personal effects which represented little but included an “unsinkable” pedal boat called Lunis, an amalgam of the name of my girlfriend, Lucie, and of my own name. I had conceived it using only recycled material found here and there and sixteen large 15 gallons cans sealed individually, assembled in line eight on each side. My unsinkable design like the Titanic did not reassure my mother who was worried every time I visited my millionaire uncle. He owned a waterfront property on the Richelieu River in Iberville where I kept Lunis. That was my first excursion on water with my own boat. I was unknowingly predisposed to later get my USCG captain license for vessels power or sail under 100 tons.
Although my destination was Italy, the most economic flight brought me to London with BOAC. I did not see that as a problem since I was accustomed to hitchhiking. I spent a few days visiting the most known London sites like Piccadilly, Soho, Buckingham and Trafalgar squares. Then, I hitchhiked my way to Dover to catch the ferry to Continental Europe. During the crossing, I met two girls from Iceland who were heading for Paris. The ferry docked in Calais in the middle of the night, too late to get accommodations. Therefore, I slept on the cold beach in a sleeping bag of too small for 2 persons. The following day, we paired-up with a young American and started hitchhiking in couples for the girl’s safety. On our way to the City of Lights, we made only one stop to visit the famous cathedral in Reims. After 2 days of sightseeing together, I was on my way towards Switzerland. After a few short hops, a Good Samaritan gave me a ride all the way to Bern and even offered me lodging for the night.
The next day of travel started on a very good note. Indeed, after a few short run, I was picked up by an Italian driving a beautiful Alpha Romeo sport car. We made it across Switzerland through the Saint Gotthard tunnel and crossed the Italian border in late afternoon. Since Milan was also his final destination, he was kind enough to deposit me directly at the door of the Simpione Hotel. It is when the day, which had started so well, turned to disaster. After having read my letter from Rhodiatoce, the receptionist indicated to me that the Simpione hotel where I had a reservation was not in Milan but in Pallanza, hundred kilometers to the north. Then, I realized that:
At this point, I tried to do in Italy what I did in Canada when bad weather surprised me hitchhiking. I would go to a police station and ask for refuge in one of their jails. If lucky, I might even get free breakfast. It is needless to say that the “carabineris” had a good laugh at my request and promptly sent me on my way. That is when I decided to take refuge at the Garibaldi train station for the night and take an early train back to Pallanza the following morning. I was late by a few days according to the schedule and had wasted enough time. I thus registered my two small bags at the baggage check-in and picked a bench to lay my brand new military style sleeping bag which I had bought on my way down. The bench across from me was occupied by an itinerant who had deposited his old worn out shoes on the floor. He did not seem to sleep deeply. Fearing that the brand-new shoes that my mother had bought me before my departure would disappear, I could not close my eyes until I hid them at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
In the early morning, the waiter of the bar understood my gestures and the word coffee. I was served a vigorous “ristretto” with too much sugar. It had nothing to do with diluted coffee water which I was accustomed to. My state of somnolence evaporated instantaneously and was replaced by a new energy. I then understood why Italians in general were hyperactive since they consume on average ten mini-cups of this drug every day. The expensive version of this stimulant of the 21st century is called Red Bull.
The slow progression of the train heading North was very pleasant because the landscape was becoming increasingly more beautiful and greener. Soon, the palm trees appeared and then the banks of the Lago Maggiore which the train was following. I started hoping that my Hotel would be facing the lake. It was. Then, when I registered, I hoped that my room would have a lake view. It was also. I learned later that a customer of the Hotel had been moved for me.
I had just entered another world. I was going from rags to riches in an instant. Why? I came to realize that this single positive reply to my letters had nothing to do with luck. Indeed, I learned later that by sheer coincidence, my letter had landed on the desk of an executive at Rhodia’s head office who knew personally and professionally my mentor, Loyd Salkeld, the C-I-L executive who had granted me my scholarship. In my application, I had mentioned his name as a reference, the only one which I had anyway. I think that the executives of Rhodiatoce perceived that request as a mean of tightening the relations between the two large European multinational manufacturers, I.C.I and Rhodia, and, in a good will gesture, invited me all expenses paid, not to work at the plant, but to get me involved as a trainee in rotation between every department.
At the Simpione Hotel where I resided with many company executives and customers, the red carpet was rolled out for me. I found out that I enjoyed open bar for my buddies and girlfriend. All the employees of Rhodiatoce who stayed at the Simpione Hotel were much older. They adopted towards me a benevolent not to say paternal attitude. They lent me their toys i.e. boats, water jets, cars. They happily celebrated my 19th birthday just before my departure.
Aldo, a bachelor engineer near thirty and the youngest boarder of the Hotel, took to me under his wing and invited me to accompany on his outings. I must say that he taught me a lot, not about his knowledge as a chemical engineer, but more about the art of Italian cruising. Aldo drove his small FIAT Cincocento as if it was a Formula 1. He had replaced the muffler with a resonator and kept the two small rear windows open to amplify and better hear the noise of the engine from inside the cockpit. During the sixties, the very small size of FIAT 500 had only two doors which opened contrarily, i.e. forwards. When Aldo located a pretty girl on the sidewalk, he would approach the sidewalk slowly and opened his door as if he was going to scoop the beauty. Believe it or not, this very unconventional cruising approach would sometimes bare fruits after some joke exchanges in Italian. His preferred battlefields were the large and numerous camp-sites, equipped with bars and night disco, dispersed around Lago Maggiore on both the Italian and the Swiss sides. His targets were all of the same stereotype: tall Scandinavian blondes with blue eyes. No matter if they were Belgian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish or Finish, he called them all by the same name: Vikings.
It is in one of these camp-sites that I met Maria-Rosa Ceronetti, a very pretty Swiss-Italian who was on vacation and staying with her family residing on Via Patricia, close to the lake, in Ascona. She worked in the watch industry in Bienne on the French side. When she left, I promised to visit her later in August when I would travel north in direction of England. Aldo had family in the Dolomites, the mountain chain located North-West of Italy, limitrophe to Austria. Thanks to him, I paid my first visit to Venice which was in the vicinity. Aldo was a very good buddy and… educator… His lessons proved to be very useful to me during my thirty years lifetime of on and off celibacy between my four marriages.
As all good things have an end, in the middle of the summer, I started the second phase of my tour od Europe which was not as luxurious but more exciting and adventurous. My stints of hitchhiking brought me to the center of Italy (Milan, Florence, Pisa). Then, I followed the Mediterranean coast (Viareggio, Carrara, Specia, Genoa, San Remo, Ventimiglia) to the French Riviera (Menton, Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Fréjus, Saint-Tropez, Saint-Aygulf).
Until that time, I had succeeded in finding lodgings every night mainly in the International Youth Hostels or the University Centers but when I arrived in Saint-Aygulf, not far from Saint-Tropez, all centres were crammed because we were right in the middle of the summer holidays. A resident of the small city directed me towards a campus where students resided. The International Youth Center was a private and exclusive resort for privileged youths from all over Europe. The reservations were made and paid for one year in advance. Obviously, they did not accept late comers and one nighters bums like me. Upon my insistence and noticing my distress, I was asked whether I would be been willing to work at the center for free lodging and meals. My answer was obviously positive because most of my small savings had melted in the Italian sun and I was still several weeks away from my departure flight from England. After learning about my tasks, I once again realized that I had an incredible luck. My only responsibilities consisted of being at the disposal of the chef to serve the meals at the tables three times per day and run the huge dishwasher. With the experience I had acquired in the Canadian sugar shacks, a waiter job had no secret to me and I even turned to become quite popular with the rich youth. Other than my assigned tasks, I shared the same rooms and participate in the same activities, mainly beachfront, as all these sons and daughters of European millionaires.
My new buddies and girlfriends represented the elite. I had great fun and made interesting contacts. One of them was Gundy, a nice dark hair Austrian beauty, who solicited my help to distribute programs for the next bullfight which would take place in the Frejus old Roman arenas transformed into a stadium. This event had been completely erased from my memory until I visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts thirty years later and recognized myself in a large monochrome picture handing out a program to an official in the guest of honor section. Who was this short, bald old man? You guessed it! Picasso himself, a know aficionado of bull fights. This collection of large photographs in black and white and personal objects of Pablo had been gracefully lent to the Museum by the widow of the famous Spanish painter.
Once again, all good things have an end. Thus, it is with a lot of regrets that I left the palm trees of the French Riviera to hitchhike my way north going through Marseille, Avignon and Lyon. I then turned east towards Bienne Switzerland to visit Maria-Rosa as I had promised. I was quickly picked up by a young Canadian couple visiting Europe as campers with their young kids. I shared their tent as we got close to the Swiss border. Since my visit had been announced, Maria-Rosa, who lived with a girlfriend, had found an apartment for me. The owner was also in the fur trade. He hired my service to compensate for the rent and gave me a small salary to sew furs. Therefore, from waiter I had been promoted to furrier. Since my small wages now gave me the luxury of a train ticket for London, my stay in Bienne was extended to visit the area and spend more time with Maria-Rosa.
I arrived in London without even a penny in my pockets just on time to catch my BOAC flight back to Canada. On the flight, a generous hostess lent me a dime to call my parents in case they were not at the arrival gate. Six months later, on April 3, 1966, I was invited as the sole guest to take part in a one hour Radio Canada televised travel documentary called ``Bon Voyage” animated by the then well known Paul Dupuis.
Maria-Rosa came to visit me in Canada later in the spring of 1966. She never went back and would become my first wife in September. My only son, Patrick was born the following year.
This summer visit to Europe not only became a life changing event which opened my mind to the world and directed me towards a career in international business, but it also started my first family.
Acknowledgement: I wish to dedicate this short assay to my departed mother, Laurette Dextraze, who inspired me to strive for excellence in all my endeavours. After reading in the newspaper about one C-I-L scholarship available for a Province of Quebec resident, she had encouraged me to compete. The end results would change my life.
Indeed, I won the only Quebec purse granted on merit by C-I-L (Canadian Limited Industries), the Canadian branch of the immense British chemical company I.C.I. (Imperial Chemicals Industries). The scholarship covered my school and living expenses for 4 years while studying chemistry at the Institute of Textiles of the Province of Québec, located in Sainte-Hyacinthe. C-I-L also offered me training and a temporary job during the summer in their laboratories located in Millhaven, a suburb of Kingston, Ontario. During a strike of the operators of polyester spinning machines at the Milhaven plant, I was transferred to production as a strike breaker. I did not mind being labelled a “scab” because I was paid double wages. Also, I worked 12 hours a day for 5 consecutive days and was free during 5 days. This schedule enabled me to return to Montréal for summer R & R. Fantastic schedule!
After spending that summer training and working at the Millhaven production facility, I initiated a plan that would give me the bug of international travel and set the course for my future career. During the winter of ‘64-‘65, in preparation for the next summer season, I proceeded to make application for a summer job in Europe with industrial companies known in my field. Innocently, I did not know that the practice of hiring students in the European industry during the summer was not established as in North America. Consequently, I only received a few answers, all negative except one. Indeed, within two months, I received a letter from Societa Rhodiatoce, the Italian branch of the immense European group Rhodia, inviting me for six weeks of summer training with all room and board expenses paid at their production facility located at Pallanza, Northern Italy. At the time, I thought that luck was on my side but I will find out later that my good fortune was the result of an incredible coincidence that happens only once in a lifetime.
This good news delighted me and worried me at the same time. How will I find the funds necessary to pay for my round trip tickets to Europe and pocket money for incidental expenses? The solution came from various sources. In the springtime, I worked every weekend as a cook and a waiter at a sugar shack in Saint-Grégoire. I sold all my personal effects which represented little but included an “unsinkable” pedal boat called Lunis, an amalgam of the name of my girlfriend, Lucie, and of my own name. I had conceived it using only recycled material found here and there and sixteen large 15 gallons cans sealed individually, assembled in line eight on each side. My unsinkable design like the Titanic did not reassure my mother who was worried every time I visited my millionaire uncle. He owned a waterfront property on the Richelieu River in Iberville where I kept Lunis. That was my first excursion on water with my own boat. I was unknowingly predisposed to later get my USCG captain license for vessels power or sail under 100 tons.
Although my destination was Italy, the most economic flight brought me to London with BOAC. I did not see that as a problem since I was accustomed to hitchhiking. I spent a few days visiting the most known London sites like Piccadilly, Soho, Buckingham and Trafalgar squares. Then, I hitchhiked my way to Dover to catch the ferry to Continental Europe. During the crossing, I met two girls from Iceland who were heading for Paris. The ferry docked in Calais in the middle of the night, too late to get accommodations. Therefore, I slept on the cold beach in a sleeping bag of too small for 2 persons. The following day, we paired-up with a young American and started hitchhiking in couples for the girl’s safety. On our way to the City of Lights, we made only one stop to visit the famous cathedral in Reims. After 2 days of sightseeing together, I was on my way towards Switzerland. After a few short hops, a Good Samaritan gave me a ride all the way to Bern and even offered me lodging for the night.
The next day of travel started on a very good note. Indeed, after a few short run, I was picked up by an Italian driving a beautiful Alpha Romeo sport car. We made it across Switzerland through the Saint Gotthard tunnel and crossed the Italian border in late afternoon. Since Milan was also his final destination, he was kind enough to deposit me directly at the door of the Simpione Hotel. It is when the day, which had started so well, turned to disaster. After having read my letter from Rhodiatoce, the receptionist indicated to me that the Simpione hotel where I had a reservation was not in Milan but in Pallanza, hundred kilometers to the north. Then, I realized that:
- Simpione is an Italian chain of hotels of 4 stars established in all the major cities of Italy.
- Pallanza is not a suburb of Milan as I had assumed because the letterhead indicated Milan as the addresses of the letter sent from the head office.
- Pallanza is located at the north end of Italy, very close to the Swiss border.
- While leaving Switzerland earlier that day, we had passed just a few kilometres from Pallanza in our southern direction towards Milan.
- There was not enough daylight time left to hitchhike back to Pallanza.
- I did not have the means of paying for this luxury hotel. My limited budget only allowed me to stay in university centers or youth hostels.
At this point, I tried to do in Italy what I did in Canada when bad weather surprised me hitchhiking. I would go to a police station and ask for refuge in one of their jails. If lucky, I might even get free breakfast. It is needless to say that the “carabineris” had a good laugh at my request and promptly sent me on my way. That is when I decided to take refuge at the Garibaldi train station for the night and take an early train back to Pallanza the following morning. I was late by a few days according to the schedule and had wasted enough time. I thus registered my two small bags at the baggage check-in and picked a bench to lay my brand new military style sleeping bag which I had bought on my way down. The bench across from me was occupied by an itinerant who had deposited his old worn out shoes on the floor. He did not seem to sleep deeply. Fearing that the brand-new shoes that my mother had bought me before my departure would disappear, I could not close my eyes until I hid them at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
In the early morning, the waiter of the bar understood my gestures and the word coffee. I was served a vigorous “ristretto” with too much sugar. It had nothing to do with diluted coffee water which I was accustomed to. My state of somnolence evaporated instantaneously and was replaced by a new energy. I then understood why Italians in general were hyperactive since they consume on average ten mini-cups of this drug every day. The expensive version of this stimulant of the 21st century is called Red Bull.
The slow progression of the train heading North was very pleasant because the landscape was becoming increasingly more beautiful and greener. Soon, the palm trees appeared and then the banks of the Lago Maggiore which the train was following. I started hoping that my Hotel would be facing the lake. It was. Then, when I registered, I hoped that my room would have a lake view. It was also. I learned later that a customer of the Hotel had been moved for me.
I had just entered another world. I was going from rags to riches in an instant. Why? I came to realize that this single positive reply to my letters had nothing to do with luck. Indeed, I learned later that by sheer coincidence, my letter had landed on the desk of an executive at Rhodia’s head office who knew personally and professionally my mentor, Loyd Salkeld, the C-I-L executive who had granted me my scholarship. In my application, I had mentioned his name as a reference, the only one which I had anyway. I think that the executives of Rhodiatoce perceived that request as a mean of tightening the relations between the two large European multinational manufacturers, I.C.I and Rhodia, and, in a good will gesture, invited me all expenses paid, not to work at the plant, but to get me involved as a trainee in rotation between every department.
At the Simpione Hotel where I resided with many company executives and customers, the red carpet was rolled out for me. I found out that I enjoyed open bar for my buddies and girlfriend. All the employees of Rhodiatoce who stayed at the Simpione Hotel were much older. They adopted towards me a benevolent not to say paternal attitude. They lent me their toys i.e. boats, water jets, cars. They happily celebrated my 19th birthday just before my departure.
Aldo, a bachelor engineer near thirty and the youngest boarder of the Hotel, took to me under his wing and invited me to accompany on his outings. I must say that he taught me a lot, not about his knowledge as a chemical engineer, but more about the art of Italian cruising. Aldo drove his small FIAT Cincocento as if it was a Formula 1. He had replaced the muffler with a resonator and kept the two small rear windows open to amplify and better hear the noise of the engine from inside the cockpit. During the sixties, the very small size of FIAT 500 had only two doors which opened contrarily, i.e. forwards. When Aldo located a pretty girl on the sidewalk, he would approach the sidewalk slowly and opened his door as if he was going to scoop the beauty. Believe it or not, this very unconventional cruising approach would sometimes bare fruits after some joke exchanges in Italian. His preferred battlefields were the large and numerous camp-sites, equipped with bars and night disco, dispersed around Lago Maggiore on both the Italian and the Swiss sides. His targets were all of the same stereotype: tall Scandinavian blondes with blue eyes. No matter if they were Belgian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish or Finish, he called them all by the same name: Vikings.
It is in one of these camp-sites that I met Maria-Rosa Ceronetti, a very pretty Swiss-Italian who was on vacation and staying with her family residing on Via Patricia, close to the lake, in Ascona. She worked in the watch industry in Bienne on the French side. When she left, I promised to visit her later in August when I would travel north in direction of England. Aldo had family in the Dolomites, the mountain chain located North-West of Italy, limitrophe to Austria. Thanks to him, I paid my first visit to Venice which was in the vicinity. Aldo was a very good buddy and… educator… His lessons proved to be very useful to me during my thirty years lifetime of on and off celibacy between my four marriages.
As all good things have an end, in the middle of the summer, I started the second phase of my tour od Europe which was not as luxurious but more exciting and adventurous. My stints of hitchhiking brought me to the center of Italy (Milan, Florence, Pisa). Then, I followed the Mediterranean coast (Viareggio, Carrara, Specia, Genoa, San Remo, Ventimiglia) to the French Riviera (Menton, Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Fréjus, Saint-Tropez, Saint-Aygulf).
Until that time, I had succeeded in finding lodgings every night mainly in the International Youth Hostels or the University Centers but when I arrived in Saint-Aygulf, not far from Saint-Tropez, all centres were crammed because we were right in the middle of the summer holidays. A resident of the small city directed me towards a campus where students resided. The International Youth Center was a private and exclusive resort for privileged youths from all over Europe. The reservations were made and paid for one year in advance. Obviously, they did not accept late comers and one nighters bums like me. Upon my insistence and noticing my distress, I was asked whether I would be been willing to work at the center for free lodging and meals. My answer was obviously positive because most of my small savings had melted in the Italian sun and I was still several weeks away from my departure flight from England. After learning about my tasks, I once again realized that I had an incredible luck. My only responsibilities consisted of being at the disposal of the chef to serve the meals at the tables three times per day and run the huge dishwasher. With the experience I had acquired in the Canadian sugar shacks, a waiter job had no secret to me and I even turned to become quite popular with the rich youth. Other than my assigned tasks, I shared the same rooms and participate in the same activities, mainly beachfront, as all these sons and daughters of European millionaires.
My new buddies and girlfriends represented the elite. I had great fun and made interesting contacts. One of them was Gundy, a nice dark hair Austrian beauty, who solicited my help to distribute programs for the next bullfight which would take place in the Frejus old Roman arenas transformed into a stadium. This event had been completely erased from my memory until I visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts thirty years later and recognized myself in a large monochrome picture handing out a program to an official in the guest of honor section. Who was this short, bald old man? You guessed it! Picasso himself, a know aficionado of bull fights. This collection of large photographs in black and white and personal objects of Pablo had been gracefully lent to the Museum by the widow of the famous Spanish painter.
Once again, all good things have an end. Thus, it is with a lot of regrets that I left the palm trees of the French Riviera to hitchhike my way north going through Marseille, Avignon and Lyon. I then turned east towards Bienne Switzerland to visit Maria-Rosa as I had promised. I was quickly picked up by a young Canadian couple visiting Europe as campers with their young kids. I shared their tent as we got close to the Swiss border. Since my visit had been announced, Maria-Rosa, who lived with a girlfriend, had found an apartment for me. The owner was also in the fur trade. He hired my service to compensate for the rent and gave me a small salary to sew furs. Therefore, from waiter I had been promoted to furrier. Since my small wages now gave me the luxury of a train ticket for London, my stay in Bienne was extended to visit the area and spend more time with Maria-Rosa.
I arrived in London without even a penny in my pockets just on time to catch my BOAC flight back to Canada. On the flight, a generous hostess lent me a dime to call my parents in case they were not at the arrival gate. Six months later, on April 3, 1966, I was invited as the sole guest to take part in a one hour Radio Canada televised travel documentary called ``Bon Voyage” animated by the then well known Paul Dupuis.
Maria-Rosa came to visit me in Canada later in the spring of 1966. She never went back and would become my first wife in September. My only son, Patrick was born the following year.
This summer visit to Europe not only became a life changing event which opened my mind to the world and directed me towards a career in international business, but it also started my first family.
Acknowledgement: I wish to dedicate this short assay to my departed mother, Laurette Dextraze, who inspired me to strive for excellence in all my endeavours. After reading in the newspaper about one C-I-L scholarship available for a Province of Quebec resident, she had encouraged me to compete. The end results would change my life.
