I believe that luck is the most important variable in life!

I was born in 1943 in Winnipeg, the son of Polish immigrants, Mary Kabuzatski and Louis London. Mom was  37 and Dad 43. They already had two children, my teenage sisters, Lill, 17 and Judy, 12. I suspect I was an unplanned, incredibly lucky, (for me), accident.

My mother was brilliant, an arithmetic genius, adored by everyone and loving beyond measure. I learned how to be loved and how to love by observing her. She was a wise, energetic, multi-talented, adorable, generous woman whom everyone in her orbit, which was the whole world, loved and respected.  I also learned about love from observing my father and feeling the consistent energy of his love for my mother whom he adored, as he did his children. He felt like he had won the lottery. In fact, as her husband, indeed he had.. He was an accomplished man but willingly played second fiddle.

In 1942 my parents built Playland at Winnipeg Beach. Later, assisted by my foster brother, Danny Butler,  they expanded into Walko Bingo, Bluebird Ice Cream and the “Prize Every Time” Panda House, in all of which businesses I worked summers from a young age. Playland was a fantasy: music, noise from pinball machines, children’s rides, bingo, ski-ball, electronic poker and a wall of “Diggers”, (put in a nickel and a claw would plunge in, grab and deliver a marble, flashlight, toy or a highly desired silver dollar.)  I learned an important lesson for life and success watching customers play the Diggers. Many believed that my parents had arranged the prizes so that the more expensive ones were impossible to retrieve. Wrong! My parents knew that by allowing people to be, and seen to be, successful, they and onlookers would play and pay much more. I never forgot that lesson. It became my personal and business negotiation strategy forever.  

I wasn’t raised by my parents. There were no rules. They imposed no boundaries. I was simply set free. Glorious!

Dad died at age 62. An uncle arranged the sale of the then struggling business so my mother would continue to have income. But no longer a “carny”, and needing more income, my mother worked the counter at Phil’s Deli on Grant Avenue. She grew its profits exponentially.. If you came to buy a single loaf of bread, you walked out with two and pounds of corned beef, chopped liver, coleslaw and a few chocolate bars. And you wanted to exit slowly, maybe make another purchase, because Mom was a magnet of personality.

Mom and my older sister, Lillian (Dubow), both died at age 83 of Alzheimer’s disease which each had endured for many years before the blessing of death relieved their suffering. My sister, Judy (Bager), aged 95 and very lively as I write, has limited short-term memory. Genes win. Genes lose. It’s a coin toss.

I was not steadfast in my studies at school: Talmud Torah Academy, Luxton School, Rosh Pina Evening Hebrew, St Johns Tech High School and U Manitoba. But I was Captain of the Tech football team and later, President of Beta Theta Chapter of Zeta Beta Tau.  My undergraduate university academics were ridiculously poor.  But, later, as an Articling Student and in classes at The Manitoba Law School, (1962-66, I was an Isbister Scholar and Silver Medalist. That was followed by a Harvard LLM and, later, Professor, (1972-1987) and Dean of Law, (1978 to 1983), at U Manitoba Robson Hall.

I received many honorific awards and titles. I was widely published, I lectured around the world, wrote a weekly opinion column on tax in the Winnipeg Tribune, was a frequent radio and television commentator and a nominee for an ACTRA Award for my 1985 CBC television series, The Right Thing To Do.

I ended my academic career in 1987. Fortunately, years earlier I had been groomed in lawyering by fabulous mentors: Monty Israels and Harvey Pollock with both of whom I articled, Izzy Asper in commercial law practice and George Ainsley, of Justice Canada, in Tax law.  In 1988 I became Counsel to Pitblado LLP. My specialties were income tax litigation and planning, alternative dispute resolution and, most of all, public-sector negotiations and appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada supporting the search by Indigenous Peoples for recognition of their historical human, financial and political rights.

In 1982 I was appointed Queen’s Counsel (QC). In 2004, I was inducted into The Order of Canada (C.M).

Nothing fully defines my unusual and spectacular life and good fortune more than Belva Patricia Weisz, who married, supported and trained me when I was 21 and she 20. She is my love, soul mate and lucky charm. We married in 1964 and ever since have enjoyed the ultimate in serendipity: a marriage that works and has produced two fabulous daughters, Larissa, first married to Les Rykiss but later to Hart Poskar and Rebecca, married to Michael Guralnick. We have four wonderful grandchildren, Michaela and Jaron Rykiss and Miles and Gabriel Guralnick. As wonderful as life with Belva was when we were young, it is even more poignant and rewarding in our dotage. Good fortune has worked its magic yet again.

I was always lucky!  At age 16, I was a front seat passenger in a car travelling to Minneapolis. Our driver lost control of the car, crossed the median and had a head-on crash at very high speed with a car coming in the other direction. That driver was crushed and died. Ejected from our car, I slid down the wet highway about 150 feet, rolled over into the ditch and stood up with only a scratch on my hand. It would be the first of three skirmishes with certain death and lucky saves. Years later, I was lucky to survive an airplane crash when the landing gear of the small plane in which I was a passenger flying to a First Nation’s Reserve in Northern Manitoba, literally fell off as we began our descent and crash landed. Luckily, I was not hurt, not even a scratch.

Belva and I have been fortunate to travel on all seven continents. In 1977 and 78, during my Sabbatical year, with our daughters then 8 and 6 years old, we camped through Europe for many months in a Volkswagen Vanagon with a pop-up top, before settling in Aix en Provence, in the south of France. The kids went to elementary school.  We studied at the University of Aix Marseille Trois. Belva graduated as the Gold Medalist. I spent wonderful days studying, investigating trials in the French Courts and gossiping with the locals in the bars across the street. Later in life, for each of our grandchildren’s Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, we explored Europe’s greatest cities. We took some forty ocean cruises, fifteen of which we shared with our children and grandchildren on board. Absolute Bliss! We are lucky that we could afford the expense but, more so, that our grandchildren enjoy our company. We sure love theirs. Priceless good luck!

Luck happily protected us once again while Belva and I were touring Africa in 1993. In Rwanda, we climbed its volcanoes where we were privileged to sit, each on one side of a mother mountain gorilla suckling her baby, while the great Silverback stood guard, allowing us, momentarily, to be a part of his family of sixteen apes. Unforgettable!

After our descent from the apes, on the night of my fiftieth birthday, Belva and I encountered a sure death experience. A civil war broke out in front of our lodgings. The so-called rebels, the Tutsis, machine gunned our little hut to pieces and Katusha missiles exploded at our front door. We lay on the floor, our bodies in an “S” curve, squeezed between an ancient bathtub and a flimsy wall for thirty-six hours until we risked exposing ourselves and ran to safe passage. We escaped!  Coincidence? Can’t be! Luck It must have been!

Later, In Cape Town, South Africa, I was invited to be part of a small group of economists and governance experts working on resolving several legal and economic issues in transitioning to the forthcoming of Mandella as Prime Minister and majority rule. It was an unexpected privilege. Right place, right time. Luck!

Most of all, I pay ultimate tribute to my extended family and friends and the people and offerings of the  Jewish Community of Winnipeg:  Talmud Torah day schooling till grade three, then Luxton School, Rosh Pina evening Hebrew classes,Tech, the YMHA, (the “Knights:), AZA (The “Eskimos”), Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity (Zeebs) and USY activities in Canada and the USA  and the plethora of so many other Jewish cradles and friendships into which I was  born, raised, encouraged, taught and imbued with care, respect, and acceptance.

It’s been one Hell of a ride so far! Hopefully, there’s lots more yet to come. Lucky me!

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