I have such fond memories of the Hampton Street YMCA! Also known as the NDG Y, due to its location in the leafy Montreal borough of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, it was my second home during the summers when I was eight, nine and ten years old.
1950s
Food, Glorious Food!
I can safely say, having grown up in a Jewish family, that Jews are into food in a big way. As the old joke says, every Jewish holiday can be summed up thusly: “They attacked us, we won, let’s eat!”
How I miss the 5 and dime!
Woolworth’s! Kresge’s! Probably others, but lost in the mists of time… or maybe more accurately, in the memory maze of my brain.
From one… to hundreds
Here in Montreal, in 1952, we got all of one (1!) TV channel. If memory serves, it was channel 2 on the dial, and it was bilingual, English and French. (In those days there was more linguistic cooperation in this province!) The channel was run by the CBC: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Shows were, of course, in black and white.
Play
Play. Girls’ play. What does that word even mean, to a kid of the 21st century? As a child of the ’50s, I can tell you what it doesn’t mean.
So You Think You Can Dance?
Well, I for one sure couldn’t! Mind you, I was only 13, it was 1958, so whaddya want, right? Well. At the community group ‘youth’ dances which I started attending, hoping to meet a [Good grief! What was my rush?!] boyfriend, dancing was a necessity… unless you wanted to spend a couple of hours holding up the wall.
Goodbye to an Embarrassment of Riches
English newspapers! A whole big bunch! If only we had fully appreciated them at the time.
Apartment 34
1952. It’s the second day at my new school. We just moved, and I am no longer at Royal Vale School in the Snowdon area of Montreal; I am now going to Willingdon, in leafy Notre-Dame-de Grace.
The Day I Beat the Machine
Remember the smell of wet wool mittens?
I had forgotten it – until I looked out the window a minute ago. What did I see?
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 