Ukrainian for gymnastics purporsesthe power of working-class song

Years later when I was a chemist for the purposes of immigration, I began to understand that your being really is determined by your doing.

Laura, with Jewish and Finnish ancestors, was as Ukrainian as my sister Suki (Scottish, German, Irish, etc.) and I were. She took us to the Ukrainian Hall for gymnastics: long rolls, handsprings, and precise landings. Line up, run to the mat for your move, then line up again. Other gymnast kids had French Canadian or Russian ancestors, and there were almost certainly some Ukrainians. Our joint Ukrainian heritage was the joy of challenging our muscles and learning to do something that we were proud of.

After an hour and a half we had trained enough. For the rest of Saturday morning we had a choice of learning mandolin or working-class songs. I picked the latter, since it seemed easy: I already knew a bunch of working-class songs from home. Sure enough we sang Die Gedanken sind frei and Kevin Barry. Our Ukrainian souls channeled German free thinking:

Foundations will crumble, and structures will tumble

... or the Easter Uprising:

Turn informer and we'll free you, proudly Barry answered: no!

Multiculturalism hadn't been contrived yet, and this version of Ukraine seemed more authentic than the alternative: pogroms and xenophobia. The Cold War was on, so just by singing and doing gymnastics at the Labour Temple at 300 Bathurst, we chose our side. Saturday morning Ukraine was internationalist, as Ukrainian as Africa, Germany, Ireland, or Vietnam. The other Ukraine was visible on the repaired masonry on the south wall, where a nail-studded bomb had exploded years before.

So, as a young teenager, I was enormously impatient when Grigory wouldn't choose a side in Quiet Flows the Don: first Red, then White, then not White anymore... Sure, revolution was frustrating and ugly. In one passage, soldiers chant "Red Army: at the service of the working class!" Given the ebb-and-flow of the novel, given the disappointments, defeats and betrayals of subsequent decades, it would be natural to snicker. But yet...

My dad, and mum, were recently in a desperate conflict with the retirement home that acted as both their landlord and care provider. Members of our extended family, and friends, slept on the floor of my parents' room for 25 days, to prevent them from being informally evicted as unprofitable residents. Each morning staff were surprised to find a new family member sleeping just inside the door. My sister Eleanor explained the situation to a staff member, and was met by the response: "defend your father, he's a working man!" Eleanor wanted to know how the staffer knew dad was a working man, since it had been several decades since he had worked in a factory, and his manner didn't seem particularly blue-collar. "I heard him singing labour songs," the staffer replied.

So, those working-class songs can come in handy. Slogans too. Sure, there have been cutbacks and heartbreaks, disappointments and betrayals, Thatcherism, Reaganism, bank boondoggles and layoffs. The working class sure could use an army at its service, but it doesn't have one just now. Maybe there's just us. Maybe, on my very best days, I can tell myself: "Dannny Heap, at the service of the working class!" My Ukrainian gymnast heart sings.