jeudi 4 août 2011

Mémoires...

Chapitre 7 : Les influences, de 0 à 20 ans

(en guise de parenthèse)
Un homme ne se fait pas seul.  Au cours de mes  20 premières années de vie, voici l’Équipe qui m’a aidé à devenir ce que je suis.
Mon père, même s’il nous a abandonné quand j’avais 10 ans, m’a quand même transmis la fierté de mes origines et de la culture grecque.  Il a éveillé ma curiosité et mon désir de voir plus loin que mon coin de pays.  Il m’a initié à la langue anglaise sans le vouloir vraiment, simplement en parlant anglais avec ma mère.
Ma mère, même très dévalorisante à mon égard, m’a tout de même appris à lire, écrire et un peu à compter (mais je n’étais pas très coopératif dans ce domaine).  Elle m’a transmis sa tête dure et son obstination.
Ma grand-mère m’a transmis le goût d’aimer et d’aider les autres, la clémence et le pardon.  Mon grand-père alcoolique ne lui rendait pas la vie facile, mais après 60 ans de mariage elle l’aimait toujours « son vieux malcommode », comme elle disait avec un petit sourire en coin.
Mon oncle Henri, le frère de maman et un peu beaucoup notre père substitut, m’a donné son humour un peu grinçant et son ironie; une forme, chez-lui, de s’affirmer et de dire : « Vous ne m’aurez pas ».
Mes frères, à leur insu, m’ont donné une certaine patience, une certaine tolérance et un grand besoin de justice, surtout distributive.  Étant l’aîné, je les ai souvent vus obtenir en même temps que moi des privilèges que j’avais attendus des années.  J’en ai conçu une profonde répulsion face à l’injustice et à l’inégalité.
Voilà, pour ma famille immédiate.
Quant aux influences extérieures, elles furent évidemment nombreuses et parfois déterminantes.
Vers 1938 ou 39, deux touristes américaines, des institutrices du Minnesota, après avoir causé avec moi et deux copains, en anglais, sur le quai de Chicoutimi, nous avaient promis de nous envoyer des livres.  Nous avions oublié cela, quand, en octobre ou novembre de cette année-là, nous avons reçu un paquet : les Minnesota Primers de 1ère, 2ième et 3ième  année du primaire.  Je les lus et relus  à les savoir par cœur.  J’avais les bases de la lecture et, un peu, de la grammaire anglaises.
Au collège, j’étais déjà bilingue et j’ai eu le privilège, pendant 6 années consécutives, d’avoir l’abbé Lachance comme prof d’anglais.  Il s’est vite rendu compte que je lisais pendant son cours, au lieu de s’en offusquer, il m’appela à son pupitre, avec Raoul Desjardins dont l’anglais était la langue maternelle, et nous dit que nous pouvions lire pendant son cours…mais qu’il choisirait lui-même nos lectures.  Bien sûr, nous devions faire les travaux et passer les examens comme tous les autres, mais quel merveilleux voyage il nous a fait faire à travers toutes les époques et les styles de la littérature anglaise.  D’où il est maintenant, il sait toute la reconnaissance que je lui voue.  Les larmes me viennent encore aux yeux en écrivant ceci.
M. Langis, dont j’ai parlé au cours du chapitre 6, m’a contraint, pour survivre à ses exigences,  à développer une méthode de travail qui m’a bien servi toute ma vie professionnelle et qui me sert encore.
Enfin, je ne voudrais pas terminer cette parenthèse sans mentionner l’abbé Labrecque, l’aumônier du Cercle des jeunes naturalistes, qui a su nourrir ma curiosité sur les questions de la nature et me donner une façon de chercher et de classer les découvertes.
L’abbé Saint-Georges, pendant 6 ans mon directeur de conscience, a su tempéré ma fougue mais sans l’étouffer et fut un bon contrepoids, avec ma grand-mère, à l’influence dévalorisante de ma mère qui me prédisait toujours l’échec de tout ce que j’entreprenais, me reprochant d’être trop comme mon père.
Ces gens m’ont aidé à me bâtir et je les en remercie, même ma mère qui m’a tout de même, par la lecture et l’écriture, donné la poutre qui m’a permis d’asseoir mes bases et de me développer.

14 commentaires:

  1. What did he choose for you to read, your Prof d'anglais?

    My French teacher, a quirky Latvian whose family fled to Paris while the fleeing was good, chose Rhinocéros and La Cantatrice Chauve for us. It was a new world for me.

    RépondreSupprimer
  2. Ma mère, très dévalorisante à mon égard".

    It seems we had a similar fate. My father was dévalorisante à mon agard aussi, et ma mère, who valued me quite a lot, was though often sick, so I could not profit of her 'positive evaluation' that much.

    Your abbé Lachance m'a toujours frappé (I remember your souvernirs about him at the MoR) because one felt you were deeply touched by him.

    So I second Jenny as for some list of works he told you to read and I would also like more souvenirs about him if you have time.

    Ciao

    PS. And, let me tell you, meeting you face to face - together with all the Costopoulos clan - was really great)

    Giovanni

    RépondreSupprimer
  3. Father Lachance started us with Sir Walter Scott and Conan Doyle then we jumped to Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tennyson and others whose name I forget, after all that was over 60 years ago.
    Father Lachance did leave a deep imprint on me but, strangely, I never met him outside the classroom. In class however his interventions were far ranging and no question, however quirky, went unanswered.
    A sample: we had several profs who were famous in their field and one music composer of some repute. When asked how it felt to share meals three times a day with great men, he answered:"When you eat three times a day in front of a great man, he does not remain great very long".
    And Giovanni the meeting was great for the Costopoulos clan also.

    RépondreSupprimer
  4. I remember being "caught reading in class." Some teachers were not patient with this -- too annoyed at being ignored, I suspect -- but at least one sent me and another culprit off to the library to complete an advanced workbook.

    Hearing about the number of distinctive characters that you encountered growing up is almost like reading a fairy-tale. I have little recollection of family members as anything other than a source of difficulty and apprehension, except for the inheritance of music from my father.

    Father Lachance's aphorism reminds me of the proverb, "No man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist."

    RépondreSupprimer
  5. Both aphorisms are in the same league indeed. As far as reading in class is concerned, Father Lachance was the exception rather than the rule...as I experienced in other courses.
    As for growing up experiences we each have a special story that is never duplicated by anyone, not even by our siblings.

    RépondreSupprimer
  6. As for our stories that are not duplicated, even by our siblings, Paul, I'm often astounded at how unlike me all of my siblings are. Or, it looks that way to me. Seems impossible that we grew up in the same house with the same parents.

    I love the assumption (behind your proverb, Sled) that the wife of every "hero" has a psychiatrist. hahhaahaha.

    RépondreSupprimer
  7. One more thing, Paul: No matter what your live traffic feed says, I do NOT live in Rochelle. And if you had ever been to Rochelle, you would understand why I must make this clear. :)

    RépondreSupprimer
  8. Jenny, I know that Feedjit is rather fickle. I'll look Rochelle up.

    RépondreSupprimer
  9. Jenny, I looked up Rochelle. The stats and descriptions I have read give me the impression that it is a smallish town, rather multi-ethnic, working class and near the poverty line.
    Everything, including crime by 100000 people, is under state or U.S.average.
    Industry and occupations seem to be of the vanishing kind without much of a future.
    Am I wrong?

    RépondreSupprimer
  10. Paul, you are right. And that describes a lot of towns in the midwest. Sadly.

    There was a story on Chicago public radio (WBEZ) about the growing Hispanic population in Illinois, and how the influx (and high birth rate) of the Latino community keeps us afloat economically. Some towns around here are nearly 50% Spanish-speaking at this point. I welcome it.

    RépondreSupprimer
  11. @Jenny: Not every hero's wife has a psychiatrist but no one whose wife DOES have a psychiatrist is a hero.

    Do we really want cultures with high birth rates? I can't enjoy the park down the road from me because it's utterly occupied at all hours with whole extended Latino families grilling an entire pig or some damn thing, and I've lain awake at night wondering if I could be traced were I to firebomb the family on the block behind me next time I hear them cranking up crap Latino music -- something I moved from my last address to get away from (I was literally afraid of the threats I got because of complaining about the noise to police). The thought of people who behave that way multiplying exponentially is about enough to make me slit my wrists.

    RépondreSupprimer
  12. Sledpress, you have a way of saying things that make you look much more violent than, I suspect, you really are. Noisy neighbours can be bothersome but generalizing to a whole ethnic group, and throwing children into the pot also, is a bit extreme.
    Save your wrists, you need them for your work.

    RépondreSupprimer
  13. Well, if I were truly violent, I would have done something a bit more aggressive than merely complaining to police. I was not the one uttering threats to people who merely wanted to be allowed to sleep at midnight, only to be told with scorn, "We will do this because it is OUR CULTURE." I wasn't the one who did the generalizing. However, in my subsequent experience -- 15 years -- the only people who have behaved this way have all been Latino immigrants.

    I am not terribly crazy about our home-grown American Yuppies either (all pushing their twin strollers down the sidewalk accompanied by their purebred Great Danes or bull terriers), but the Salvadorans and Nicaraguans hereabouts are the only ones who have made enough noise with their "culture" (countless times) to destroy the peace inside my own home, or been found sleeping drunk in my bushes. I realize these people are here because of horrendous poverty and abuse in their home countries and are often exploited, but why must this excuse bad behavior -- bad behavior owned with pride, even? I can't see that it does any ethnic group any favor to let them think that their difficulties entitle them to inflict misery on others.

    If I thought I had to live next door to this sort of thing for the rest of my life I really would kill myself. For it to be tolerated in any civil society sends me a message that anything I stand for is no longer wanted or valued.

    As for throwing children into the pot I am a vegetarian, otherwise my name would be Baba Yaga...

    RépondreSupprimer
  14. I can understand your outrage. It is true that some minorities amongst minorities are rather annoying. Whatever your previous circumstances there is no excuse for rowdyism or delinquent behaviour.

    RépondreSupprimer