Chapter 28, Part Two.
In the late 1960's, Linda went to to the University of British Columbia. There, she studied sociology and drank beer in the ten-new Student Union Building. She also started to hang out with politicos and feminists. She graduated from U.B.C. after four years and ended up hosting a local television show that dealt with women's issues. Linda also helped set up an ombudswomen's service that helped women with issues like abortion and discrmination. Years later she came across a description of the ombudswomen's services in a copy of a thesis written by a much younger feminist. The thesis attacked the whole set up of the ombudswomen's service on the grounds that it was a racist organization that condescended to women of colour.
"This is totally untrue," Linda said. "On the contrary. we went out of our way to treat everybody equally especially the women of colour who we worked with." In any case Linda didn't only stick to women's issues. She had an active social life and in the mid-1970's, she married a New Democratic party member who was working for Dave Barrett, the then N.D.P. premier of B.C. Barrett turned up at the wedding. Linda took part in B.C. N.D.P. provincial campaigns yet federally still sometimes favoured the Liberals. This wasn't so strange. For many voters in Metro Vancouver often vote N.D.P. in the provincial elections but then vote Liberal federally.
So everything was going well for Linda Northland in the mid-1970's. She had a good job and a nice husband. Yet then everything started to go bad. She developed anxiety attacks. She went to a prominent psychiatrist who was connected to the N.D.P. "These pills will help you," he told her and he put Linda on some tranquillizers. "They'll get rid of your anxiety attacks." The pills did indeed quell her anxiety but they came with side effects. She started to get fat and the pills numbed her feelings. She ended up shuffling around the streets of Vancouver, a sad looking woman who could barely talk.
"Poor Linda," some of her friends said. "She's gone around the bend." Her marriage fell apart and she stopped doing anything. Yet then in the late 1980's a saviour appeared. Mohammed was a Palestinian engineer who rented an apartment in the Northland building. By now Linda was trying to help her mother run the apartment building. "You must get off those pills," Mohammed told her when she told him her problems. "You must face the world without them. They're killing you." With Mohammed's help, Linda wrenched herself free from her addiction to the pills. Yet it was tough.
She never forgave the psychiatrist who gave her the pills. Yet more troubles lay ahead. A politician may have fallen in love with her and kept sending her flowers. She had to tell him that she just wanted to be left alone. After all he was married and showed no signs of leaving his wife. He then barred Linda from his constituency office. After that, Linda stayed away from most politicians. "I can't believe the way he treated me," She said years later.
Linda's mother was now in her late 70's. Linda ended up running the small apartment building. She had good tenants, bad tenants and some in between. Yet her experience of being a landlord for 12 straight years was at times very hard on her.
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