Left Coast Mumblings by Colin T. Paterson: 4590 Harvard Avenue

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

4590 Harvard Avenue

In late June of this year, Linda and I were taking some pictures of the house I grew up in the N.D.G. area of Montreal. An elderly British gentleman in his eighties turned up with a bag of groceries and asked us what we were looking at. After hearing my short tale, he suggested that it was quite likely that the woman who owned half of the fourplex would be open to showing us around the house I once lived in. She was sweeping out the garage when we introduced ourselves.

It turned out that she was originally from France. We ended up spending almost two hours with her. Between the three of us we managed to communicate in 2 languages. I think she was in her late seventies. A rush of memories came back to me as she showed us around. My old bedroom had become a part of an expanded kitchen. It was very interesting to see the changes she had made to the place.

She insisted that we have a beer with her and we sat at the kitchen table right where my bed used to be. She told us about a son she has who lives in the same province as us. (BC). Then she brought out some old photo albums with pictures of her and her kids in France. She pointed out her handsome husband who had died years ago.

I got a bit of a laugh out of her by wrongly trying to indentify cars in the pictures. Citroen? Renault? Throughout our visit her little yellow bird flew about.

Not that we ever owned the flat, it was nice to know it was in good hands. I should also say that was a honour to meet such a kind and gracious lady.