OISHI o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-03-18 published
Michael GOLDSTEIN, 54, 'Wizard' of Rochdale
Draft dodger helped keep experimental university running
Later founded environmental consulting company
By Emily CHUNG,
Staff
Reporter
"People always think it was so hard for us draft dodgers," Michael
GOLDSTEIN used to say in his broad New York accent. He thought
someone should set them straight and write about what a good
time it was.
Avoiding the draft for the Vietnam War,
GOLDSTEIN arrived in
Toronto in 1968, three days shy of his 18th birthday, and was
impressed by the city's hospitality. He found housing at the
newly opened Rochdale College, a free, experimental, student-directed
university and co-op residence.
At Rochdale he encountered Friends and causes to keep him occupied.
One of those Friends, acclaimed science-fiction writer Judith
MERRIL, who died in 1997, considered him a close friend.
She wrote about him in Better to Have Loved, the autobiography
she co-authored with her granddaughter, Emily
POHL-
WEARY.
GOLDSTEIN died of cancer February 27, at the age of 54.
Another lifelong friend was Barb
CARLSTROM, who remembered
GOLDSTEIN
as a "vital, happy, intense whirlwind. He knew everyone, he was
interested in everything, he was everywhere."
GOLDSTEIN was born in Chicago and raised in New York City, the
second of three children, along with sisters Marianne and Joanne.
His father was a Jew who converted to Quakerism during a rebellious
youth.
As a teenager,
GOLDSTEIN was opposed to the Vietnam War and took
part in anti-war protests. Young men were required to register
for the draft at 18.
GOLDSTEIN thought it would be dishonest to conscientiously object
based on religion because he was opposed to the war for political
reasons.
At 17, he didn't feel he could handle jail, so he decided to
move to Canada.
His pacifist parents helped by driving him to Toronto. For the
next few years, the family visited him at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
GOLDSTEIN became passionately involved in the beginnings of the
still-thriving Theatre Passe Muraille.
(The group's historical piece, The Rochdale Project, was in workshops
at Passe Muraille last week and will play again in February 2006.)
For all his idealism,
GOLDSTEIN was practical and became known
for fixing and building things. He became part of the crew that
literally kept Rochdale running.
"You had a lot of young people who were trying to live this cool
lifestyle, but they weren't taking care of business, like the
electrical system and plumbing," said his older sister, Marianne
ROBBINS.
So GOLDSTEIN took responsibility.
"That was the way he would approach things, as opposed to wanting
to write fancy essays about this great experiment,"
ROBBINS said.
GOLDSTEIN's ability to figure things out and fix them became
legendary, earning him the nickname "The Wizard."
Though it wasn't shut down until 1975, Rochdale's drug-propelled
decline had begun by 1970.
The college, located in an 18-storey highrise at Bloor St. W.
and Huron Sts., on the northern border of the University of Toronto,
had a policy of not turning anyone away, including drug users
and dealers.
The disintegration of Rochdale prompted
GOLDSTEIN to hitchhike
to Vancouver.
When he returned to Toronto after a summer, things at Rochdale
had further deteriorated.
GOLDSTEIN made the difficult decision to go west for good.
In Vancouver, he worked for a draft-dodgers' newsletter and for
the Company of Young Canadians, a community development organization
started by Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government.
As well, he studied at the University of British Columbia and
pursued a variety of other causes.
Later, GOLDSTEIN started an environmental consulting company,
Soilcon.
Among other things, his ideas were used to clean up contaminated
uranium mines on Hudson Bay and to grow trees on the marshy Vancouver
airport grounds.
At the Company of Young Canadians,
GOLDSTEIN met his future wife,
Arline OISHI.
They married in 1975.
The couple journeyed around the world together in 1979 and looked
forward to another world tour when they retired. They never got
the chance.
"Leaving New York for Toronto was easy," he used to say.
"Leaving Toronto for Vancouver was very difficult."
In addition to his wife,
GOLDSTEIN leaves his daughter Devon
and son Rhys. Last week the family held a service in Vancouver.
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