Bill King

“We packed up and hitchhiked to Canada”

I came to Canada for the first time in 1963 to study jazz piano with Oscar Peterson. I came the second time – and it’s why I’m still here – because of the Vietnam War. I was drafted into the army, dodged it, then was brought to court by the FBI and given a choice: military or jail. I took the military bargain, hoping I’d never be shipped to Vietnam, but 10 months later, I received my orders. My young bride and I ignored them. We packed up and hitchhiked to Canada.

In 1976, I returned to the U.S. and worked high-profile music gigs with the Pointer Sisters and others, managed a recording studio in Atlanta and thought about how much we missed our friends and neighbourhood here. My landlord in the suburbs of Atlanta once told me: “There’s a Black man on your lawn. What are you going to do about it?” I told her he was Jamaican and we played in a band together. We re-emigrated and started all over, this time with none of that “What if I lived in L.A. or New York?” stuff. My son got the education we so wanted for him.

My friends back in the U.S. are mortified about what’s going on there. After eight years of Obama, high culture, music and calm, being tossed to the wolves has been shocking. People expected Trump to be maybe a rodeo clown or game show host, not a despot. A matinee grifter. Trump sucks the good life out of us.