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.

4590 Harvard Avenue...upstairs...door in front

French lady, British guy, at back of house

Living Room

Dining room

Bathroom

Breakfast nook

My old bedroom

Kitchen

Linda  and lady with her bird

Showing us old photos

4590

Willingdon School, Montreal 2012

Willingdon School

Girl's entrance on Draper Avenue

Basement

Gym

Banner

Classroom

Little room where the strap was kept

Back of school and playground

Boy's entrance on Royal Avenue

West Hill High, Montreal 2012

 

West Hill High School, Montreal 2012

Hallway

Home Room #108 1961

Gym

Honour Roll...Alan Livingstone became a doctor in Miami, Florida

Playing field

Boy's washroom

Lockers

Back of school

Where Bellman's used to be...an old WHHS hangout

Pine Bluff Lodge Redux

1954. The Second World War had been over for about 9 years. The middle class was expanding. Most families finally had a car. Women wore dresses that came to about a foot over their ankles. Men still wore fedora hats. Louis St. Laurent was the prime minister and Vincent Massey was the governor general. Marilyn Bell swam across Lake Ontario. Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four minute mile. Milton Berle and I Love Lucy were on TV. Cigarette ads had doctors recommending “smooth tasting” smokes. Marlon Brando was leaving an image on young people that most parents weren’t thrilled with. Joseph McCarthy was hunting down supposed Communists in the US. The TV dinner was introduced. Gas in Canada was 22 cents a gallon. Marilyn Munroe married Joe Dimaggio. Bill Haley introduced teenagers to Rock Around The Clock. Other tunes heard on the radio in 1954 were Sh-Boom, Hey There, Earth Angel, and Mr. Sandman. Perry Como, Patti Page, Johnny Ray, and Rosemary Clooney were at the top of the musical charts.

1954. It was 58 years ago that our family spent the summer months of July and August at a resort called Pine Bluff Lodge. Calling the place “a resort” might be a slight exaggeration. The property consisted of a main house and a guest house, two dark red painted cottages, a very small beach area, and a dock with about three boats tied up to it.

4 kids, someone's dog, and the Hudson

Pine Bluff Lodge was located just over the border on the American side of the line between the province of Quebec and the state of Vermont on the eastern shore of Lake Memphremagog. The border crossing of Beebe (pronounced Beebee) was only 3 or 4 miles away.

Our family, at the time, totalled six. My mother was in her late thirties and my father was in his late forties. Both passed away a number of years ago. My older sister, Sandra, was 16, my older brother, David, was 13, I was 7, and my younger sister, Joan, was 3. The summer of 1954 was one of the few summers all four children were in one place on vacation.

We lived in Montreal and my guess is that our stay at Pine Bluff Lodge was the result of one of my parents seeing an ad in the vacation spots section of the Montreal Star or Montreal Gazette newspapers.

My father owned a Hudson car at the time. I am not sure if it was the Wasp or Hornet model. In early July we packed our luggage in the trunk and with 3 of us in the front seat and 3 of us in the back seat we headed south through the eastern Townships towards our destination. There was no Autoroute back then. At the small city of Magog, on the northern tip of Lake Memphremagog, the paved road turned into a dirt road. We passed a number farms. The dirt road winded its way through rolling hills. Occasionally, we would see brief glimpses of the lake off in the distance. From time to time the Hudson would lurch when my father applied the brakes a bit at a curve in the road. A trail of dust could be seen out the back window. All in all, the car ride took about 5 or 6 hours. 
For some strange reason, I also remember a tune that was playing on the radio. Frank Weir`s The Happy Wanderer. ``I love to go awandering….my backpack on my back….fa-la-ree,fa-la-ra, fa-la-ra-ha-ha-ha-ha.``

Mr. Bourbeau, my sister Joan, and my father

Pine Bluff Lodge was owned by a Mr. Bourbeau. He was a balding middle aged man who wore glasses. He was also American. How he came to acquire Pine Bluff Lodge is beyond me. I think he was originally from Massachusetts. Wherever he came from and wherever his family lived in the off-season, he seemed to typify the American entrepreneurial spirit of the post war years. Mrs. Bourbeau assisted him in running the lodge and they had one son, Bob, who was about 17.

The cottage we stayed at

Our home for the summer was one of the two cottages on the property. It had a carport. The foundation was supported by concrete blocks or large boulders. I don’t remember much about the place including how the rooms were laid out. I do remember the screen door that was clogged with shag flies. I also remember finding a Red Ryder air rifle underneath the back of the cottage that was quickly confiscated, never to be seen again. At least by me.

During the week, my mother was in charge of the roost. My father owned a business in Montreal and came down on the weekends. To be as delicate as possible here, he wasn’t missed by the 3 oldest children. On the other hand, he had the car, which meant that he was our link to civilization and perhaps a day trip to Newport, Vermont.

For the most part that summer, we were left to our own devises as far as entertaining ourselves during the day. There was no TV.  My sister, Sandra, got involved with her first boyfriend, Bob Bourbeau, who was the resort owner’s son. My brother, David, liked fishing and was old enough to have access to a row boat. Mr. Bourbeau took him out a few times in his motor boat for some early morning perch fishing. My younger sister, Joan, was just three and one of us, including my mother, always had our eyes on her. Most of my time was spent down by the water often hanging out on the dock. I spent hour after hour there trying to catch minnows or small pickerel with a fishing net.

Sandra, Me, Bob, and Joan

Minnow fishing

There were a few other guests staying at the resort. Older people. I don’t recall there being any other kids. There was a gap of about 6 years between my brother’s age and mine and occasionally we found ourselves spending time together simply because there weren’t any other options.

One day seemed to blend into another. The term “the dog days of summer” supposedly means stagnation. In a way, it seemed like time was standing still. Just the arrival of a car would stir our curiosity. On the upside I guess you could say we were getting a lot of fresh air.

The beach area was very small. No more than 20 feet across. It was right on the edge of the property. Next to the beach was a small cabin with a screened porch. I remember a young couple who were staying in the cabin giving me some candy that looked like pebbles.

Cabin next door

The beach

For several days I sat on the dock and watched Bob Bourbeau dive off a boat and try and retrieve a lost outboard motor that had gone to a watery grave. I don’t think he ever recovered it.

One day my brother took me along with him for a long hike to the border crossing at Beebe. The plan was to get an ice cream, a bottle of pop, or some candy. Well worth the long walk. It was a very hot day and the telephone wires were singing. Kind of like a loud hissing sound. A number of years later when I heard Glenn Campbell’s Wichita Lineman song I knew what he was talking about. On the way back from Beebe my brother thought it would be funny to hide from me so he could enjoy my distress in not knowing where he was. This went on for a few hours as he furtively snuck through the farm fields before revealing himself near the resort gate. It wasn’t very funny to me.

Another time my brother took my younger sister and I out in a rowboat. I think he was told to stick close to shore. We found a creek that fed into the lake and rowed up it for some distance. There were bulrushes everywhere. He kind of lost track of the time and it seemed to take forever to get out of that creek. There was a bit of a panic and I was ordered to share the rowing. We made it back in time for a late dinner.

And then there was the boat ride from hell. My father rented a shiny veneered motorboat. Today it would be considered a classic. I was playing on the beach when I was informed that the whole family was going for a boat ride. Sitting on the shore day after day watching other people out on boats, and now, finally, I was going to enjoy the same thing. Was I ever wrong.

My father was hardly an experienced boater. The lake was very choppy that day and he apparently hadn’t considered that it was going to be very chilly speeding over the waves. All I had on was my bathing suit and I got cold very fast. We hadn’t brought any warm clothes, towels or a blanket. The discomfort might have been manageable if the boat ride was just for 10 minutes but it ended up lasting about 3 hours. I crawled up under the bow to get out of the wind and the spray but I was still freezing. And then I found a second misery, the constant banging of the bow against the waves. Bam!.Bam! Bam! I shuddered each time. The thought occurred to me that we still hadn’t arrived at a point where we were going to turn back and it would be some time before this would all end. I couldn’t get off of that boat fast enough when we finally made it back to the lodge.

A more enjoyable time on the rented boat was the day we took it over to Newport, Vermont to buy groceries. It seemed like a neat kind of thing to do at the time. It kind of felt like we were pioneers stocking up at the general store. It was also kind of nice to see other people other than the denizens of the lodge. We always looked forward to any trip into Newport.

Arriving at Newport, Vermont by boat

Towards the end of the summer I got wind of a county fair coming up and desperately wanted to go. I asked the owner of the lodge if he had any small jobs he wanted done where I could pick up a few quarters to spend at the fair. I was shown how to use a scythe which was used for clearing tall grass. Up until this point I think I was looked upon by anyone older as a bit of a nuisance. I tried my best not to annoy anyone during this time and finally the night of the county fair came. The deal was that my older sister could go with her boyfriend only if they took me along. I think they spent all of about 5 minutes with me at the fair before losing me. I spent my hard earned quarters on a few rides, tossed a few baseballs at some milk bottles and ate some junk. Somehow, they managed to find me when it was time to go home.

I had lunch a few times at the main house and was impressed by the way they had a variety of sandwiches on a big wooden lazy Susan. Many years later I spotted one of these devises at a garage sale and snapped one up for 5 bucks. It finally fell apart and I would like to get another one.

The owner of the lodge had a hobby that I have never seen anywhere else. He drew little pictures of houses and cows on knots of wood, shellacked them, drilled a hole in them and made them into key chains. An untapped industry just waiting for a real entrepreneur?

The summer came to an end and we packed up the Hudson and headed back to Montreal. I don’t think my sister ever saw her first boyfriend ever again. My father and Mr. Bourbeau were on pretty good terms and I think he was looking for an investor in the plastics industry. I also think he thought my father had a bit more cash than he did. Mr. Bourbeau visited our house a few months later and I think he was disappointed in the results of his pitch. The following summer we vacationed at Georgeville further up the lake.

Bob,Sandra,David,Me,Our Mother,Joan,Mrs. Bourbeau goodbyes at Pine Bluff Lodge

Jump ahead to 1982. I’m living in Vancouver, BC. I had gotten married the year before and my wife at the time, Theresa, and I went back east to see my mother (my father had passed away the previous year) and we look up some old haunts from where I grew up. We went down to the Eastern Townships and into Vermont. I wanted to see what Pine Bluff Lodge looked like these many years later. I finally found the place. It was no longer a lodge and the cottage we stayed at was about to be bulldozed. I took a few pictures.

Cabin next door 1982

The cottage 1982

The former guest house 1982

Jump ahead again to 2012. I was on an almost 8000 mile road trip across Canada and the US. About a week after arriving in Ontario, I picked Linda up at the airport in Toronto and a few days later we headed out to the 401 and the province of Quebec. We spent several days in and around Montreal, including The Laurentian Mountains. We then drove down to the Eastern Townships.  After spending some time around Georgeville, Quebec and Stanstead, Quebec, our plan was to spend a few days in upstate Vermont and upstate New York. We crossed over the border at a place called Derby Line. The belligerent border guy on the US side asked us where we were going and I replied that we were planning on seeing Newport, Vermont and that I wanted to see if I could find a place called Pine Bluff Lodge. The border guy told me he had lived in the area since 1958 and had never heard of the place. Ergo It didn’t exist.

Border crossing at Derby Line, Vermont

We checked into a motel in Newport and the following morning and had brunch at a place down by the docks. Apparently a fierce rainstorm had chased the outdoor eaters inside the previous evening. Over brunch I expressed my determination to once again find Pine Bluff Lodge. I knew if I drove north close to the lake that I might have a chance.

We drove down a dirt road and stopped and talked to a local farm family. They had never heard of Pine Bluff Lodge but suggested that the area I might be looking for was a mile or two away. We also had a look at a monstrosity of a mansion that sat on top of a hill overlooking their pleasant farm. We drove down another dirt road and we could see the lake ahead of us. I kind of got a feeling.

I knocked on the front door of one of the houses and the knock was answered by a gal who looked to be about 30. She told me she had never heard of Pine Bluff Lodge. I looked around. This looked like the place. I walked over to the other large house that was perched on the edge of Lake Memphremagog and a woman with garden gloves on asked me if she could help me. I asked her if this place had ever been called Pine Bluff Lodge. She replied that yes indeed it was.

I told her that my family had stayed at Pine Bluff Lodge almost 60 years before. The she went and got her dad who owned the place. He is an 80 year old gentlemen, quite tall in stature, who spent most of his life in sales. It turned out that he had spent some time on the west coast where I live and we talked about an island off of West Vancouver that we were both familiar with, Bowen Island, where I lived for a few years in the early 1980s.

Apparently he bought the place around 1966 or 1967. He didn’t buy it from the owner we knew. Mr. Bourbeau. He also told us that when he bought the place that it was still operating as a kind of resort and that he had to clean the property and the main house up quite a bit.

I think I got a bit confused because there are two houses fairly close to one another. I think the white house in the photos was at one time a guest house at Pine Bluff Lodge and was later sold independently from the rest of the property. I vaguely remember my grandparents staying for a brief period in the guest house.

I had my picture taken with the current owner and he was gracious about telling us to take as many photos as we cared to. I drank it all in.

Me and the owner of the property since 1966

Updated owner's house

Owner's house from water

Newer dock

Owner's boat The Puddleduck

Updated former guest house

In front of owner's house

There used be a circular driveway here

As we drove off of the property a deer bounded out onto the road and back into the bushes. It seemed appropriate. In and out of history in just a few short moments.

Road out of the former Pine Bluff Lodge

I felt very satisfied that I had found what I was looking for. It did exist.

"Life could be a dream."....Sh-boom.....The Crewcuts....1954.

West Hill High School-Montreal, Quebec

West Hill High School

West Hill High School was a massive school located on Somerled Avenue in N.D.G., a district on the west side of Montreal. It had an indoor swimming pool, an auditorium, and a huge grass covered sports playing field behind it. I say the word “was” because it hasn’t been a high school for many years.  I am not sure quite what is today.  I had read some time ago that it was being utilized as some kind of warehouse.

At one time, there were about 1200 students attending West Hill High. By the 1970s, with many English speaking  Montrealers  moving away from the city, enrollment was dipping dramatically. The demographics of N.D.G. had changed. I’m not sure what year the school finally closed its doors.

I first discovered West Hill when I was at Willingdon Elementary School. In the summer, for most of the 1950s, for 15 cents you could spend about an hour in the swimming pool at West Hill. The  field behind the school was a great place to play scrub baseball, touch football, or watch some kid try to get his model airplane airborne. You might even see British ex pats playing rugby on a Saturday morning. Or cadets marching around the paved parking lot.

I did two hitches at West Hill. Altogether I was there for about 2-1/2 years. My memories are not the same as most others.  For some it may have been the time of their lives while others might recall their anomymity.  Some remember favourite teachers while others remember very little.

September 1960. Grade 8 at West Hill.

Back at Willingdon School there had been 4 classrooms for each grade. At West Hill there were at least 15 different classrooms for grade 8. Back at Willingdon after 7 years, anyone the same age was recognizable.  West Hill was a much bigger pond.  Kids came from a number of other elementary schools including  Somerled, Herbert Symonds, Royal Vale and Kensington.

It all looked like a giant mass of humanity to me. And a lot more rules. My first home room was the music room and the home room teacher was a Mr. Archie Etienne who taught music but not to us.  I remember him telling our all boy class about “the order of the royal boot” if anyone got out of line.


8-0 Class Picture

Top Row: L to R. Me, Ian MacIntosh, John McFadden, Paul Dean, Don Armitage, Albert Katz, Alan Besner, Peter Garnham, Bernie Mlynarski, David Bates, Dalton Brown
2nd Row: Jerry Wolfe, Andy Elliot,?,Garth Holsworthy, Morley McKee, Louis Yacknin, Doug Feltmate, Mike Agnew, ?, Jeff Shorrock
Front Row: ?, ?, Steven Keirnander, ?, Bob Madden, Kjel Christiansen, Jack Rosenheck, Jack Bracken, George Thompson

About a month into grade 8, a decision was made by the powers that be that the classes in grade 8 had too many students in them and that another classroom needed to be added. I guess there had been a lot of sexual activity going on around 1947 in NDG.

Each class was identified by the class grade with a letter beside it.  The kids that were deemed to be the brightest and the future of our fair country were in the classes at the beginning of the alphabet. It wasn’t all that subtle. In later grades there was also a “commercial class” where those with limited academic interest could learn typing and composing a letter. This class was sometimes referred to as “Bobo” which must not have helped the typists with their self esteem.

I was one of the boys assigned to the new classroom that had been formed.  8-O. There was no other classroom as far down the alphabet. The classroom was an all boys one. I think the other grade 8 teachers were asked who they wanted to give up. I don’t think it was because there were more boys than girls. I suspect that back in grade school, where all the teachers were women, that little notes had been written for many of the girls suggesting that they be put in the A, B. C classes.

The new class teacher was a Mr. Garth Rolls-Wilson.  He was from England. Probably in his late twenties. He took the bus to school and wore the same clothes every day. A tweed sports jacket and tan coloured  trousers.  Having seen The Bells of St. Trinian’s,  I could see that it was obvious that he had been steeped in the practices of English boarding  schools.  He addressed his students as “Master” so and so.  One of my classmates had the last name of Bates. There was a joke about that for a day or two.

There is no doubt about it. I was an undisciplined 13 year old. I probably had Attention Deficit Disorder. I certainly could be distracting and liked to get attention. These assets did not sit well with Mr. Rolls-Wilson and I found myself being frequently thrown out of class. I could also be used as an example to others who were considering rocking the boat. I remember once being sent out of class for opening and closing a math kit repeatedly.

I certainly wasn’t  the only boy to see this teacher’s wrath.  He used to carry a wooden ruler around with him and if he thought a boy wasn’t paying attention or was whispering to another boy he would either whack them on the knuckles with his ruler are smack it hard on the desk behind them scaring the bejesus out of them. You never knew when the viper would strike.

(I once heard a story about a teacher at West Hill who had been a tail gunner in the Second World War. Apparently some kid dragged a ruler across a bumpy radiator and the teacher hit the floor. Shell shock?)

Garth Rolls-Wilson’s finest hour might have been when he decided to send several boys outside in their gym shorts and running shoes in 6 degree farenheit  temperatures  to run around the huge field behind West Hill that was covered in 2 feet of snow.  I think a few parents got upset about that.

Word spread in the teacher’s lounge that I was incorrigible and I had a target on my back.

Things went from bad to worse for me. The 8-O classroom was very close to the principal’s office.  At first, I would just be sent out of class for a period. Then it became longer. Eventually it came to a point where I would go to school and stand outside the room all day. I can’t say that I enjoyed other students  going from class to class and shaking their heads when they spotted me.

A letter was sent to my parents and my father came to the school for a meeting with Rolls-Wilson. My father had also grown up in the UK. And he was an asshole in his own right.  He informed me, after the meeting, that they had hardly discussed me at all but spent the major part of the time discussing English literature.

During that school year I was expelled for refusing to take the strap from the principal.  I was also suspended a few times. One time, when I was suspended,  I rode my bike around the front entrance to the school and waved at my classmates.  Perhaps the worst thing I did that year was at a play in the auditorium. It was called Thunder Rock. I would start clapping at inappropriate times which would start others clapping.  I’m not sure if they grabbed my ear as they threw me out.

The school year came to an end and I failed badly. It had been the worst year of my life. At home,  in the neighbourhood, and at school. While all the turmoil was going on at school another event occurred that was rather significant.

I knew two brothers who I thought were my friends. They were being raised by a single mother which wasn’t common in NDG back then.  The MLA for NDG at the time was a man named Eddie Asselin.  I think Eddie met the two brothers through his son and realizing that their dad wasn’t around much, invited them up to his country place a few times.

One day, one or both of the brothers  told me where we could get some soft drinks for free. They said that Eddie Asselin had a stack of the stuff in his garage. For a few months we would sneak into the garage and help ourselves. Then Eddie moved about a block away. One of the brothers decided to up the ante this time.  We went into the finished basement and swiped some booze which we later sold to older boys at the YMCA.  I was later grounded at home for some other reason and when I asked another boy  (there were now others involved)  about my cut in the profits I was told that the booze had been stolen from him. When he went inside his house I decided to look under his front steps and found the booze. I had been cut out of the loot.

This was my total involvement in this escapade. But it isn’t the end of the story. One of the brothers and some other guys ventured further into Eddie Asselin’s house. One of the things they stole were Montreal Canadiens hockey tickets. The jig was up when strangers were found occupying those seats.

The mother of the two brothers phoned my father and identified me as the ringleader. I didn’t know Eddie Asselin from a hole in the head, I certainly didn’t know where he lived, and I never stole any hockey tickets. Someone knew all of that stuff.

Back to West Hill High School. The long and the short of it I was not allowed back at West Hill the following year. My father had to make some choices as to what to do with me. He phoned the two brother’s mother and she told my father about The Boys Home of Montreal also known as Weredale House.  It is a complete other story for another time. I ended up staying there for almost two years.

Two years later I was back at home and back at West Hill. I was there for about a week or so when I was summoned to the principal’s office. I was accused of getting back into the school under false premises.  Although this was not true at all I was given the alternative of either admitting it or finding another place to go to school. Some alternative.  I lied that I lied. And I hated having to do that.

I tried out for the senior boy’s football team with a borrowed pair of cleats. My father had little interest in sports and I never was on any organized team growing up.  An assistant coach on the football team who was from the southern US told me I had a great pair of hands but they had some younger guys coming up. I was the manager of the hockey team the same year. I never could skate worth a damn.

Having been at Weredale House for almost two years I was pretty well aware of what BS was and wasn’t as far as fighting goes and got into a number of scraps while at West Hill, all of which I won.  Outside of the Hampstead Hop, a few times by Bellman’s restaurant  around the corner from West Hill and other places.

In grade 10 I was the lone recipient of a suspension for being involved in a spitball fight between classes.  Chuck got off Scott free. How’s it goin Chuck?  It was the end of my days at West Hill.

I can’t say I cared much for most of the teachers.  I never quite understood why one hung around with his students.  A teacher, Mr. MacKenzie, once told the class that there was good money operating a crane. I wasn’t sure if he meant there wasn’t much other hope for some. The one teacher I had wished that I had known better was a Mr. LeFevre who taught English Lit. I ran into him at a dance at West Hill a few months after dropping out and we had a nice conversation.

A few years after leaving West Hill I was in a bar in downtown Montreal and ran into some guys I had gone to school with. One of them asked me if I was still stealing cars. Stealing cars? I couldn’t even drive a car let alone steal one!

I have 23 year old twins. A boy and a girl. Both received scholarships when they graduated from high school. My daughter was valedictorian.  So…..here’s finger for all of those that passed me in the hall those many years ago and shook their heads when they saw me.

Not my car but my finger