It’s a good thing there are people with vision. Otherwise, Montreal would still have a giant pit as part of its central train hub, smack-dab in the middle of downtown. Instead, by 1962 we were given this:
Place Ville Marie: Icon of the 60s
Nostalgia
She shoots! She scores!
The thing I remember most about our living-room on Decarie Boulevard when I was about five years old – well, aside from the time a fruit drop got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t swallow until it melted enough to slide down – was playing hockey with my big brother in it.
The Shuttle Shuffle
Whatever happened to the Trump Shuttle and other similar short-haul airlines?
Greece: Episode Three – How to steal a stroller
I’ve written about our Greek sojourn before, in Meanwhile, Back in Greece and Greece: Episode Two – I knocked harder. Now I must tell you about the Great Stroller Steal of the Century.
Goodbye my love: Notes to an absent automobile
How did I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Different
Montreal, 1955, a couple of weeks before Christmas: It was the first time I was aware of how different I was from my friends.
Band Practice
“ETIENNE, James Archie. Born May 23, 1917. Archie passed away peacefully on Thursday, April 27, 2006 at the age of eighty-eight…” So begins a simple, loving obituary for a good man.
Goodbye, Mom. I love you.
Exactly 11 years ago I saw her for the last time. My friend, daughter and I went together to the Jewish General Hospital to see my mom. She’d been suffering from congestive heart failure for many months, sliding inexorably downhill.
Montreal – land of my birth…
Okay, this isn’t really going to be about the entire land of my birth. That would actually be Canada! No, I’m just going to share a few memories of our apartment at 5998 Park Avenue where I was brought home from the hospital at one week of age, and lived until the age of four, when we moved further west.
Montreal → Montréal
Montreal used to be a bilingual city. It now has a unilingual-French “face” which is better for its majority-French-speaking citizens, I suppose, but not so wonderful for all the speakers of English, Italian, Greek, Chinese, and so on, who still live here.
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 