Montreal Memories Evoked

We left Montreal in 1962. I will say for the general audience that we moved to Toronto, but we were well outside of the city then although it has since expanded to where we settled. I turned 15 a day or three after the move but returned to Montreal for visits in the next two summers. However, that its pretty much the only time spent there in the past 62 years, except for two days when I visited with Sue more than 30 years after the move in 1995.

Recently, I have been following a Facebook page called Montreal Golden Oldies. I like looking at their old photos to see what might connect with my memory after such a long absence. This is the first one that caught my attention this morning: a Woolworths lunch counter in the heart of downtown Montreal. We called it uptown back then in the early fifties because we could walk there, and it was kind of up from where we lived. Unfortunately, we did not know enough to do the Uptown Funk back then. (After we moved farther away from the area, we called it downtown.)

I have a memory of mom taking me to this very Woolworth and ordering chocolate cake for us. We were not a family that got out much, so it was quite a treat that stands out in my memory. I am sure that I liked the cake, but, if memory serves, I think that it was the outing itself that was special: to think that a stranger would bring me cake!

My uncle worked in Eatons which was close by, and I expect that we paid him a little visit that day although I can't swear to it. I was very young, you understand, probably only 4 or 5 years old.

Later, on the same Oldies FB stream, I saw a picture of the Orange Julep.

I have never been to the Orange Julep or any Orange Julep if there were more than one, but I remember passing it often when we took the streetcar to and from church. It was near a spot where the tram went up a hill and then down the other side. We weren't going over a physical hill but an overpass of some sort, and it was a fairly steep little rise and fall.

Boyhood me thought that going down the the other side was quite exciting, for the streetcar driver would seem to let it speed up a little on the downslope. I remember that I even had nervous dreams about speeding down the hill, almost like it was a runaway tram.

Speaking of streetcars, I also found a photo of Garland Terminus where we would change streetcars, and later, buses, going to and from church.

A car on the Outremont line. They were a little niftier style on
that line for some reason.

In the early sixties, a year or two before we moved away, I would sometimes bike to Garland Terminus to buy a Gazette newspaper. I was 13 or 14 and crazy about football in those days and wanted all of the news that I could get about the Montreal Alouettes football team. As far as I can tell from G-Maps it was about a 20 minute, 6 km bike ride along urban streets from our flat to the terminus. I would ride all over on my bike back then and thought nothing of being out and about out there on my own. Life was different then.

The memories kept coming, and I soon came across a photo of the Val Royal train station near where we lived. It was a station on a commuter train line that would take us through the tunnel under Mount Royal to downtown Montreal. If memory serves, the ride cost 25¢. When my friend, Peter, moved we could also take the train in the other direction to St. Eustache to visit him. I think that Nelson and I once rode all of the way out there on our bikes because we would do that sort of thing.

One winter day, my friend, Nelson, and I were playing down the embankment on the other side of the train. The snow was deep, and I got stuck and lost my boot in the effort to extricate myself. I hopped home on one foot in the cold. When spring came, I found and retrieved the boot. I soon outgrew that pair, but they fit my mother, and they even came with us on the move to Toronto.

Almost next to the train station, but down the left side this time, was an old tree that we could climb. I would sometimes take a lunch there and sit on a big limb with Nelson and his sister, Doris. I am still in touch with Doris; she is a poet and animal rights activist, and sometimes blogs at Thoughts and Things. If you read her most recent posts, you will see that she has recently had some tv exposure in her bid to get public buildings to mark windows to prevent birds from flying into them.

Since most of these memories have to do with transportation, including cycling, I will post one more photo: this one of Bois Franc Road. It wasn't far from where we lived, but as the photo reveals it was quite rural back then, and it made for another little bicycle expedition.

This 1967 photo of Bois Franc Road from 1963 would be close to
what I would have seen on those excursions.

We found an abandoned farmhouse out that way and loved to explore it. I remember that it had a trapdoor leading to the second storey. The stairs would stop abruptly at the ceiling of the first floor, and we could lift the trapdoor to access the upper floor, which was a proper storey and not an attic. I have no idea why it was constructed like that, but it was a neat place to explore. Actually, I don't think we ever had to lift that trap door. If memory serves, it was left like that.

I enjoyed the memories and feelings that the photos evoked. If you have read along on my sentimental wallow and have made it this far, I congratulate you heartily and hope you weren't too bored.