“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.
1950s
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.
Summer in the City – Six Decades Ago
Ah, the innocent ’50s!
Windows on the Past – a family on a Sunday outing
Many a Montreal family has virtually the same photo as this one – the same grouping (parents and child(ren), posing at the Lookout located at Mount Royal’s Chalet.
Quintessential Montreal: The Little Bike That Fit
I give up, I said to my friend John. The bike shop bicycles are soooo expensive! I’m gonna go the Craigslist or Kijiji route.
Stuck in Beginners B Forever!
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.
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.
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 