Viva Italia

This week in Montreal it's Italian week. Canadians of Italian origins, immigrants and second and third generation of Italian descent represent the largest ethnic group in Montreal, some 300 000 people. Probably a population larger than many Italian towns. Many activities are held in around little Italy and even the weather seems compliant.

A tutti gli Italiani, megliori auguri e buon settimana.

One size fits all

Not long ago I wrote about our politicians changing parties and allegiance. We have a fresh new example of this interchangebility. In another life our Qébec Liberal Premier was a progressive Conservative minister in Brian Mulroney's government, at one point he was even a canditate to succeed Brian. He lost the leadership race and reappeared as a saviour for the then embattled Québec Liberals. As such he has won three straight mandates (majority/minority/majority).

Lately we have learned that he will be co-presiding over a celebration of Mulroney's political accomplishments. We all know that Mulroney is now persona non grata for Mr Harper who has forbidden his ministers from having any but private relations with Brian because the Schreiber affair.

Harpoon himself is having his very own problems with the progressive wing of his party and could be in for a rough time should he lose the next election or even stay in minority territory. Could Charest be positioning himself for another "saviour" operation only this time with the Federal conservatives? No Québec Premier, since Maurice Duplessis has ever won a fourth mandate.

As they say on TV: "Watch the next episode.

Here we go again

On November 1st all Québecers will be going to the polls to elect their municipal councils for the next 4 years. Montreal and Longueuil are already the focus of some attention. In Montreal Louise Harel, a former P.Q. municipal affairs minister who rammed through municipal mergers strongly opposed by the grassroots, is running for mayor within the Vision Montréal party. In Longueuil Caroline St-Hilaire former Bloc Québécois representative for Marie-Victorin county in Ottawa and wife of Maka Kotto an African born former B.Q. MP for the same area in Ottawa and currently a parti Québécois MPP for the neighbouring county, is also running for mayor for the Action Longueuil party.

Harel can barely speak english and is seeking support among the anglophone population. She needs federalists to win. Julius Grey, an eminent civil rights lawyer and known federalist has accepted to act as her special advisor. Grey is also the town of Hamstead's legal advisor. The City Council, heavily Jewish as is Hampstead's population, has voted a motion to terminate his mandate. Mayor Steinberg has vetoed the motion. There the matter stands.

In Longueuil, a heavily sovereignist city, St-Hilaire has more leeway but she still seeks anglo support. Two candidates from the Greenfield Park mainly anglo precinct have joined her and were promptly branded as traitors.

After the outrage over the attempted exclusion of anglo groups from "la Fête Nationale" in June, does not this reek of the same racism the francos are accused of?

What is sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose.

Vallium anyone?

Last night the Saint Anne's ceremonies at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica, near Québec city, were stopped, the basilica evacuated and the bomb squad called in. A strange parcel had been left unattended inside the church. As it turned out someone had forgotten a rosary in a pew (probably an American pilgrim, most Québecers nowadays don't even know what is a rosary).

Not so long ago a Montreal Metro station was shut...for a lunch bag left behind on a bench. Two weeks ago a man tied his backpack to his bicycle tied to a parking meter. When he came back the bomb squad had been called and had blown his bag open.

The Université du Québec à Montréal and two or three high schools were closed and evacuated during last spring exam sessions because of bomb alert...bogus everytime. We are in a state of near panic, including our ever more controling governements at all levels.

Seems to me that the so called "terrorists" are winning the war on nerves. Perhaps we all need to breathe through the nose, go take a walk in the country and relax a bit.

Time out

Like many others, I'll be away for the next 10 days. The whole family is leaving for a get togheter up north. Behave yourselves while we are gone.

Jell'O

Can you believe it? The food commentator for the Montreal Gazette has discovered Jell'O! This morning in the Arts and Life section of the paper she has an article titled "breaking the Jell'O mould". She adds: "Not for kids These refreshing jellied desserts made with fruits and wines are turning up on every adult restaurant menus. Did we mention they're fat free?". No kidding?

I had a quick flasback to 1962. A young psychologist from an Eastern bloc country had come to our institution for one month in an educator exchange with that country. I met him at Dorval. He had been allowed to take 10$ out of his country and asked, in much broken english what he could do with it? I motioned him to put it back in his pocket. He went back home with it.

We took turns enternaining him. Being able to understand his "english" I was designated his mentor and "unterpretor". So I took him out the next evening. We went to the Queen Elizabeth's, then a plush Montreal hotel, Panorama Lounge. Long since closed it was a wonderfull place on the 21st floor and had a magnifiscent view over downtown Montreal and our splendid Mont Royal, a 763 feet high elevation around which Montreal has grown.

The place also had, fortunately, a very affordable buffet. On the dessert table were several champagne flutes filled with fruits, multicolored jelly in between the layers of fruit, topped with whipped cream, the real thing. You guessed it: it was Jell'O. Our man ate 7 or 8 flutes and would have eaten more...but he could barely move by then...after all the other things he had eaten.

Finally he pointed at the Jell'O and asked: "Rich man dessert?" When I said no, he did not believe me. Afterward when he was invited to dinner at one or at the other of our colleagues I would phone ahead and tell them to have Jell'O if they really wanted to please the guy. Most recoiled in horror...but complied.

When he left, we gave him a case of 144 packets of Jell'O. Since the thing was ubknown in his country it was impounded upon his arrival. We had to go through diplomatic channels so he could get his present back and enjoy it with his little family. Two years later one of our guys went to complete the exchange. He took 144 packets of Jell'O with him. This time around he had to pay excise tax. He found that Jell'O was now available in specialty shops opened to tourists and party members. They were a luxuty item and sold, for the priviledged, for 5$ a packet.

Who said the Kamarades were not preoccupied with the well being of the small guys?

Maxville

Yesterday the wife and I had lunch with my very first fiancée and her husband. Back then, she was in grade 8 or 9 and I was 7 or 8 years of age. We were vacationing in Maxville, Glengarry county, Ontario where she lived at her uncle and mine. We were cousins several times removed. My childish heart was maddly thumping in her presence. That day we had gone to George's Ice Cream Parlour owned by her best girl friend's father. I had found the most beautifull engagement ring in a Cracker Jack box and I decided that it would be perfect for her and asked her to marry me. Of course nothing came out of it and Thérèse was not a bit jealous when we lunched with Madeleine and Marcel.

In 1939 Maxville was a nice sleepy village where life was regulated my the morning trains from Montreal and Ottawa and the afternoon trains from the same cities. The whole village was at the station each time then proceeded to the post office to get their mail. While the mail was sorted people would sit outside the post office and we kids would listen to old folks telling about the olden times. Two stood out, Mr MacPherson, the former blacksmith whose business had gone the way of the dodo bird and Mr Dupuis a former Montreal horse drawn tramway conductor. How Dupuis got to Maxville we never learned but he was a fantatastic story teller as was MacPherson.

Now above the post office there was the Masonic Lodge. We kids were fascinated by that place...and the legend that should a non mason go into the premises that person would die in the next 24 hours. One fine and awfully hot August day a window was opened above a low shed behind the post office. We managed to hoist ourselves up unto that roof and through the window. What a disappointment. The room was bare save for chairs with small metal plaques reading: in memory of our dear departed brother so and so and a picture of the king. We climbed back out...awaiting our death...and, at least, I am still waiting. Of course I have no idea what has become of the others.

About 4 years ago I rented a minivan and took the whole family, daughter-in-law and grandson included, and drove to Maxville. It was still the sleepy village I had known. Long dead Uncle Fred's house had burned down and the lot stood vacant. the train station had been torn down and replaced by a wooden shelter a bit down the tracks, Maxville had become a whistle stop. The post office had moved to a smaller building and lawyers offices replaced it...and the Masonic Lodge. The school. opposite uncle Fred's place was still there and the playground and the curling rink...but no one was around. I was a bit dejected driving back to Montreal.

Nowadays Maxville seems to wake up once a year at the beginning of August for the Highland Games disputed there over the last 10 years, if I'm not mistaken.

But the village still lives in my memory as it was in Fred's and Dupuis's and MacPherson's time along wit the 4 trains , the post office and that tantalizing Masonic lodge. If you ever drive that way, be very attentive, you may drive right through the village without even noticing it.