Unfortunately I found the festival was quite tame this summer even though Metallica brought in about 300,000 metal
heads etc. from all points on the globe; John Fogerty and Buddy Guy were the only two shows worthy of comment. There
was several interesting newcomers but overall the festival fizzled. However Quebec it turns out was only just waking up, perhaps from
a prolonged winter nap! Presently we have a fireworks competion, an AFRRICAN ARTS FESTIVAL and of course Cirque de Soleil
, les images etc etc.. Just survived a weekend of fun and sun here.The Beauport Blues Festival was great even though security
absconded with my beer. Here dozen of families eat al fresco in the park and they all openly drink wine with their repast
while I am pinged in an alcohol designated area just not with their sponsors beer!
Sandra Dion, porte-parole du Service de
police de Québec, et Daniel Gélinas, directeur général du Festival d'été de Québec, ont participé à un point de presse mercredi
pour annoncer les nouvelles règles de sécurité en vigueur au festival cette année.Le Festival d'été de Québec prend cette
année toutes les dispositions afin de pouvoir accueillir le plus de spectateurs possible sur les plaines d'Abraham. Ainsi,
les jeunes de moins de 12 ans n'auront pas accès au site principal pour le spectacle de Metallica, afin de maximiser sa capacité.
Daniel Gélinas note que malgré les foules de plus en plus grosses, les soirées se passent bien, année après année.
Québec dément abandonner la course aux Jeux de 2022 Le bureau du maire Labeaume assure que la Ville de Québec n'a toujours pas abandonné l'idée de présenter sa candidature
en vue des OlympiquesLa capitale ne sera pas de la prochaine course afin de gagner les JO d'hiver? En 2022, non tranche la
conseillère municipale Julie Lemieux, membre du comité exécutif de la Ville, en entrevue avec Le
Soleil. Ce n'est pas dans les plans, mais on va voir les choses aller pour la suite. Le projet serait donc abandonné
pour 2022, mais Québec pourrait se lancer ultérieurement, une fois son dossier étoffé. «Peut-être, on verra, on va voir comment
les astres se positionnent. L'objectif, c'est peut-être d'avoir plus d'équipements avant de se lancer dans cette course-là.
Les troupes du maire Régis Labeaume redoutent la défaite. On veut gagner, ajoute l'ancienne journaliste. Si on se présente,
on ne veut pas perdre. On ne veut pas manger une volée!Ce n'est pas facile à prendre. On l'a vécu deux fois. J'étais aux premières
loges à ce moment-là et ç'a été dur pour les citoyens de Québec de perdre ça. Il faut s'organiser, le plus possible, pour
avoir une candidature très solide si on se présente. C'est pour ça que pour cette fois-ci, c'était trop rapide.
I first heard of the four hundredth
anniversary celebrations of the founding of Quebec City in
a small article in the Toronto Star in December 2007. I posted the article on my wall and decided immediately without hesitation
that I would go there and share in their historic party. I planned and investigated for six months, and on June 17 at 1040
am I slipped out of Brampton on a Via train. Changed trains in Toronto and Montreal
arrived in Quebec at 930 pm... The station was deserted
and when I stepped outside, so were the streets. I was last in this city that had captured my heart thirty four years earlier
in 1974, but back then I had never been around the train station, so as I stepped out into the fresh night air only experienced
after a hard rain, I felt excited to be there, but also I had that sickening feeling one gets when utterly lost. After about
five minutes in the cool fresh air, I bumped into a lady and with my best French I asked if she knew the way to rue Couillard.
She did not and went her way. As I stood there I panicked slightly, what with my whole world packed into about eighty pounds
of baggage and all alone. After about eight minutes the lady returned and informed me she had asked elsewhere and knew where
I needed to go. She told me she would walk with me there. We started along a level street that abruptly turned into a cliff
face that she assured me was the way we had to go. Sure enough the cliff was paved and had all the markings of a real street
except it rose almost vertically before us! We started to climb and thanks to the luggage cart lent to me by Phillip Loew
I was able to traverse the first leg of our climb. We reached a bend in the ah, ‘road’ where another seemingly
steeper section appeared ahead. I leaned briefly against a massive stone wall corner there, which, unbeknownst to me at the
time was exactly one of the treasures I had come to seek. This spot was where a porte (door in English) had once stood. Porte
cote du palais was its name. More on that later. I was sure I could not go on, but the woman urged me forward. I t was about
that time that I began to question the motives of this stranger I was mountaineering with, as by that time we had climbed
about 800 feet together in the pitch black night. In Toronto
the best you can hope for from a stranger is completely wrong directions, or as usually happens, being completely ignored.
I knew the old woman couldn’t take me on alone, but I started imagining that I might be walking into a trap. By the
time we reached the next corner, I was sure a massive heart attack was building within my heaving chest. I stopped for a few
seconds catching my breath but she pleaded me forward. Now I was certain. I was walking into a trap, for before us lay the
darkest, crookedest, old alley I had ever seen! I refused to enter this alley until she pointed out a small sign indicating
we in fact had reached rue Couillard. She bid me bon chance and beetled off into the night back down that same killer hill
we had just conquered. Suddenly I felt an awful gut wrenching guilt and shame over my stupidly improper imagination. I perception
now was that this was in fact some kind of a saint who had aided a stranger in the night. Her name as I recorded it then was
Elena but it might have been Helene as this had been my first foray into the French language in twenty years. I will not quickly
forget her kindness. I checked in at the auberge de la paix without incident, unpacked my sleeping bag and headed out into
the night. Within ten minutes I found the second goal of the night from the list in my quest. I recognized it almost immediately.
A dark dingy bar up a narrow alley that in 1974 was called La Cav. It was where I had often partied at and held many deep
and moving memories. One must consider that I was only twenty when I had last seen this place. It is also where I hooked up
with a hostel worker Nicole in 1974; took home and lived with for a couple of months. For thirty four years I have thought
of that woman and that bar and now I was back! On this night a really good guitarist/singer entertained us, and though the
bar was not packed to the rafters with the sixty or so freaks I last saw there in 1974, there was about thirty souls partying
pretty hard. I was proud and sure that La Cav had kept its spirit. Incidentally it was called La Cav as it is dug straight
into the side of the mountain with the walls and part of the ceiling bare natural rock. This I believe not only adds to the
charm but properly set up as it was in 1974 the sound is heightened by the natural acoustics of the rock. Enjoyed a couple
of beers and went home. As I entered my room I was shocked to find one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen sitting
on one of the bunks in a frilly little nightie! Apparently the hostel does not separate the men and women’s quarters
which seemed an excellent bonus on that night! She and I chatted about this and that and for some reason she felt compelled
to write in my journal one word ‘Zeitgeist’ which is German for the way of time which apparently is a book on
space she had recently read and had inspired her.
June 18/08 up at eight am. and out
into the city. Went straight to the Plains of Abraham and was deluged by rain. Took pics
of everything with cheap batteries in my camera. None were saved. Terrible. Decided I wanted to go to Ile d’Orleans.
Took3 buses and ended up in Montmorency after two and a half hours. Now here I pause to identify a great weakness in my overall
view of Kbec as I will call my beloved city. This weakness is a glaring problem that should be addressed but in reality will
probably never be solved. This problem is bus drivers. I spent about two and a half hours getting to a place I was not trying
to get to. I blame it on bus driver attitudes. I made it a part of my overall study of Kbec and some drivers are genuinely
nice but some are down right wicked. As I mentioned earlier they have some hills in Kbec. Flatlanders from Ontario
would say mountains but having been in the Rockies and climbed in the Southern Alps of New
Zealand, Kbec just has very big hills of one thousand feet or so. Anyway there are certain bus drivers who get a kind of perverted
thrill in tossing buses up or down these hills, while looking in their mirrors to see the effect on hapless riders as they
crash into each other. Lots of them pretend not to understand my French. While it is in fact easy to pick out an English accent
even when one is speaking perfectly fluent French, often my best French is met with a response in English! I have been often
complimented on my French by non-partisan Quebecois. Bus drivers on the other hand often respond with quoi meaning what in
English. At any rate there is no absolutely no answer for me ending up in Montmorency when seeking Ile d’Orleans. Quebec
Transit one, Mike zero. I was upset except that as it turns out, Montmorency was an excellent place to visit and (as I found
out later) there is apparently no bus that will take you to Ile d’Orleans. There is however a great view of Ile d’Orleans
from Montmorency! Montmorency is famous for a couple of reasons. The first is the spectacular waterfalls. They are amazing.
Though they don’t pump out the volume of Niagara, they do drop much further and also,
still remain in an almost completely natural setting. They don’t drop straight down either. They hit outcrops of rock
on their way down, shooting in different directions. In a film (le Moulin a Images or in English windmill of images) which
I will speak of later, the falls are shown for just a second, but everyone who has ever seen them knew exactly which falls
they were…Chute Montmorency! Here I must stop to note for my readers that certain French words are bound to crop up
even though this is a book in English. You may understand them or look them up yourself or I may be smart and add an appendix
with words like chute and their English equivalent. For now chute means falls. The second feature that Montmorency is famous
for is that General Wolfe camped here as he spied on Kbec with plans of attacking back in1759. He killed a lot of Quebecois
at Pont a l’Essay near Beauport from his rideout position
right at the falls in July of that fateful year. I picked out a few rocks near his camp to add to my collection. Words I wrote
at the time reflect my impressions of the falls: spectacular, magnificent, scary, natural, incredible, beautiful, historic,
and unspoilt. The entire story was written within weeks of returning to Ontario
while the trip was still vividly clear in my mind and with the aid of my trusty journal. At some point I hope to publish a
polished and revised version. So far my ‘book' is only forty pages long. Elements to it such as my observations on the
many obvious differences in Kbec culture are still being written. to
see more of this story write a brief note requesting it to us @ spacermike007@yahoo.ca
Way too much rain here lots of great shows!Jean Baptiste morning was
terrifying 300,000 drunk people set loose on the Grand Alllee at 5am. They are surrounding the new fountain in some metallic
ball and it is turned off! One of my favourite parks(parc de le francophone) is completely overtaken by a stage and sound
system, where are they going to put the people? Not much clarity as to what is going on and when most don`t even know that
the Bluenose will be here. Even the tourist board do not know this.
Dark Side
KBEC 400!
QuébecCity originally was called Kebec by the native nation of huron-wendat. These people welcomed and helped the French immigrants
settle here in 1608. My short form for this magnificent town is Kbec. I managed to survive the almost constant torrential
( biblical) downpours of rain; the lemmingesque rush of 300,000 young people high, drunk and pumped up on 16 hrs of rock music
and the ever present danger of landscape that just drops off into oblivion.
Celebrating it’s400th birthday in 2008:
Quebec is an exceptional city that can justly claim to be the cradle of French civilization
in North America and a major gateway for European immigration. Recognized by UNESCO as a
World Heritage Site, the city celebrated four centuries as a vital and influential presence on American soil! On July 3, 4
and 5, 2008, the “Québec plein la rue” seriesbrought the biggest
international street performance companies here for a North American premiere.
KBEC...400 We have sent a reporter to absorb the flavour of this magnificent event. If you spot our reporter
between June 17 and July 15/08 you will receive an instant prize. If you email us when and where you spotted him, ( a photo
will help) we will add your reponse for the grand prize. Email us @ spreadtheword75@hotmail.com
how has your year been? just checking in with you. are you still at the hostel? In case you forget I am long haired Mike
was there in July 2008? I wrote a small book on my trip titled City of Soul. I could send you an ecopy if you are interested.
It has a nice chapter called Les Cinq Portes de Quebec; only pictures of the 5 arches. Yes there is one more, a painting I
have shows one half way between the train station and the hostel. I took a picture of where it used to be and its in there
too. some of the book is on my website at dunstan-times000.tripod.com. Here is some...Copie d'une ordonnance du roi (Louis
XV) au sujet de la division des terres. Par Hocquart, intendant de la Nouvelle-France. Québec, 20 octobre 1746.
Ne cherchez pas Paul McCartney sur le terrain politique, lui qui ne vit que pour la musique.Do not
try Paul McCartney on the political terrain, who lives only for music.Les quelques voix discordantes qui se font entendre, à cause
de la présence de cet «Anglais» au 400e anniversaire du fait français en Amérique, n’altèrent pas son plaisir de nous
offrir «une bonne soirée», dimanche.The few voices that are heard, because of the presence of this "English"
at the 400th anniversary of french fact in America, do not offer us pleasure "good evening" on Sunday.Une soirée dont on se souviendra
encore aux fêtes du 500e!An evening that will be remembered even the celebrations of the 500th!
«On m’a demandé de venir à Québec pour célébrer ce bel anniversaire, en faisant passer aux gens une bonne soirée.
"They asked me to come to Quebec to celebrate this wonderful birthday, when moving people a good evening.Pour moi, c’est bien plus
un party qu’une occasion de livrer un message politique. For me, this is more a party an opportunity to deliver
a political message.Je ne suis pas assez informé sur les enjeux politiques au Québec pour me prononcer. I am not
informed enough on political issues in Quebec for my opinion.Si j’estime que je suis suffisamment informé sur tel
ou tel sujet, alors je peux m’impliquer. If I feel I am sufficiently informed on any topic, so I can get involved.Mais
je déteste me lancer à l’aveuglette ( half-baked ). But I hate getting started in the dark (half-baked).J’évite
de me lancer dans des déclarations alors que je ne sais pas de quoi je parle», a déclaré avec une belle franchise Paul McCartney,
lors d’une entrevue accordée au Soleil , hier. I avoid getting started in statements while I do not know
what I'm talking about, "said a great franchise with Paul McCartney, in an interview with the Sun yesterday.Sollicité
de nouveau pour souligner l’aspect français de la fête, il ajoutera : «J’aime la langue française. Solicited
again to emphasize the french aspect of the festival, he added: "I love the French language.J’aime toutes les langues,
et je crois qu’il est très important de les préserver!» I like all languages, and I think it is very important
to preserve them! " Paul McCartney vient donc chez nous pour fêter, sans arrière-pensée. Paul McCartney has therefore
to celebrate with us, without ulterior motive.Tout s’efface devant l’impact de la présence de McCartney sur les plaines
d’Abraham. Everything fades to the impact of the presence of McCartney on the Plains of Abraham.Mais il
était déjà avec nous en pensée, hier matin, tout au long de l’entrevue téléphonique depuis Londres, qui a duré beaucoup
plus longtemps que prévu. But it was already with us thought yesterday morning, throughout the telephone interview
from London, which lasted much longer than expected.Paroles d’un homme généreux de son temps, de ses confidences et de ses souvenances.
Lyrics of a man generous with his time, his confidences and its souvenances.Lorsque mes promoteurs m’ont fait part de la demande
de Québec, j’ai demandé s’il y avait une occasion spéciale. "When my promoter told me about the request
of Quebec, I asked if there was a special occasion.Ils m’ont répondu : «C’est pour leur 400e anniversaire.» Et j’ai
dit : «Wo, c’est fascinant! They replied: "It is for their 400th anniversary." And I said: "Wo, that's fascinating!Et
en plus, je ne suis jamais allé dans cette ville...» Ce qui m’a décidé, c’est vraiment le fait que vous fêtez
vos 400 ans, et ce ne sont pas toutes les villes qui peuvent en dire autant. And besides, I never went in this city
... "What I decided, this is really the fact that you are celebrating your 400 years, and not all cities that can say that.C’est
votre anniversaire, et j’aime cette idée de venir vous voir et prendre part à vos célébrations», a révélé McCartney.
It's your birthday, and I like this idea come to you and take part in your celebrations, "said McCartney.
LE SPECTACLE
De quoi sera fait le spectacle de dimanche? What makes the show will be on Sunday?«Je ne dévoile jamais mon programme,
parce que je crois que les gens préfèrent les surprises. "I would never reveal my program because I think people prefer
surprises.Je peux seulement vous dire que nous avons répété quelques pièces intéressantes qui, je crois, plairont aux gens.
I can only tell you that we have repeated some interesting pieces, which I think will please the people.Mais je ne vous en dirai pas davantage,
justement pour ne pas briser l’effet de surprise!» déclare l’ex-Beatle sur un ton détendu et enjoué. But
I do you say no more, precisely in order not to break the element of surprise! "Said the former Beatle in a tone relaxed and
cheerful.Une vraie bête d’entrevue. A real beast interview.
Personne ne sera surpris d’entendre l’ex-Beatle
reprendre plusieurs chansons du Fab Four. Nobody will be surprised to hear the ex-Beatle take several songs Fab Four.«Lorsque
je les reprends, cela me fait vraiment du bien. "When I resume, it makes me really well.Pour moi aussi, c’est une
redécouverte, parce que j’ai écrit ces chansons alors que j’étais très jeune. For me too, is a rediscovery,
because I wrote these songs while I was very young.Je n’avais guère plus de 20 ans quand j’ai composé la plupart d’entre
elles. I had little more than 20 years old when I made up most of them.Bien sûr, j’en ressens un peu de nostalgie lorsque je
les chante, comme c’est arrivé cette semaine, en répétitions. Of course, I feel a little nostalgia when I sing,
as happened this week in rehearsals.Je revoyais clairement les moments où nous les avons écrites et enregistrées.
I revoyais clear moments where we've written and recorded.Et ce sera pareil sur scène, dimanche...» And this will
be the same on stage, Sunday ... "
Les fans québécois des Beatles seront-ils exaucés, eux qui ont fait parvenir à Paul,
la semaine dernière, une demande toute spéciale, soit la chanson Beautiful Night ? The Quebec Beatles fans will
be fulfilled, the ones who have sent to Paul last week, a special request, the song Beautiful Night?Une chanson que McCartney n’a
jamais faite en spectacle. A song that McCartney never made a spectacle.«J’aurais aimé en entendre parler plus tôt. "I
would have liked to hear about it sooner.Malheureusement, nous avons terminé nos répétitions, et nous n’avons pas travaillé
cette chanson. Unfortunately, we completed our rehearsals, and we have not worked this song.Elle ne sera donc pas au programme.
It will therefore not in the program.Mais nous la ferons certainement... But we will certainly ...quand nous
reviendrons!» a ajouté McCartney, sur un ton badin qui ne laisse qu’un mince espoir de revoir Sir Paul dans les parages...
when we come back! "said McCartney, in a tone badin leaving a slim hope to revisit Sir Paul in the vicinity ...
DES
AMIS QUÉBÉCOISFRIENDS OF QUEBEC
Paul McCartney a très hâte de revoir ses amis québécois dans
leur « home town », un lieu qu’il n’a jamais visité. Paul McCartney looks forward to reviewing its
friends in Quebec in their "home town", a place he never visited.Une occasion unique, donc. A unique opportunity, therefore.«Plusieurs
amis québécois vont venir me voir avant le spectacle. "Several friends Quebec will come to see me before the show.Ce
sera super! This is great!Certains sont de vieilles connaissances, alors que d’autres me sont devenus familiers à Las Vegas,
lorsque le Cirque du Soleil a monté le spectacle LOVE. Some are old acquaintances, while others have become familiar
to me in Las Vegas, where Cirque du Soleil has mounted the show LOVE.Gilles Sainte-Croix est un gars cool, et il va venir à mon
show . Gilles Ste-Croix is a cool guy, and he will come to my show.Il est très talentueux, et c’est
un chic type. It is very talented, and this is a chic type.À Vegas, j’ai aussi fait la connaissance du metteur en
scène Dominic Champagne et de nombreux artisans francophones du Cirque. In Vegas, I also made the acquaintance of director
Dominic Champagne and many artisans francophones du Cirque.Ils sont tous devenus de bons amis!» They have all become
good friends!
City of Soul excerpt
Wednesday, June 19th. Lots of heavy
rain went up Grand Allee where I used to live and hang out when I was 20 years old. I remember bits but only as foggy recollections.
Parc de Francophonie was one of our hangouts. As I recall I called it Pink Floyd park as it seemed to always be filled with
the songs of Pink Floyd during the Franco-Fete that went on all over Kbec in 1974. Played some cool tunes on my recorder there
(nice sound qualities of hills, rocks and fountain) in memory of it all. Remembered clearly the Joan of Arc park from the
old days, but had trouble picking the right house where the hostel was that I lived in and Nicole worked at. Walked around
entire wall system of the city except for the eastern most edge of the Citadel where I had to turn back due to the 1000ft
vertical drop the staircase drops down into. In fact they have the most lovely walkway that starts on the Plains of Abraham
and winds inspiringly around the south side of the Citadel with magnificent views of the St Lawrence River and the south shore
of Levi, until it becomes an Evel Knievel stunt course at that point
where it drops away to thin air. I really got spooked. I had to retreat clinging for dear life to the inner hand-rail well
beyond any reasonable point for apprehension. Anecdotally I comment to several people that there should be a disclaimer at
the start of this walkway “Attention, if you cannot walk for 3 miles on the precipice of a 1000ft vertical drop please
do not attempt travel this route.” Later I would return, determined to go the whole way, which I did and funny enough
it did not seem so bad! Dropped back to hostel where some kind of party was going on. Staff informed me it was a special party
for a workers 25th anniversary of working for the hostel. Met several of the old staff who had returned just for
the party, one guy coming all the way from France.
Saw but did not speak with an older lady in glasses, Madeleine Laflamme. Went to Les Yeux Blue which is what they now call
La Cav same guitarist, got his autograph. Left about 1am. A fair bit drunk. As I wove my way home I thought of a good joke.
In Kbec always live downtown and party uptown if you like to drink. That way no matter how drunk you get you can make it home.
The hills are so steep you couldn’t make it up the hills but you could just fall down and roll home if you had to. Anyway
in the midst of thinking how witty I was in coming up with this joke a familiar face rushed up to me in a crowd of hundreds
still on the streets exclaiming You are absolutely100% correct! You are absolutely100% correct! Now anyone who knows would
be astonished to hear such a statement once but to have it repeated in the middle of the street after midnight in a foreign
city. Well this is unbelievable. For me it was just a matter of time before my true talents were acknowledged. Well as it
turns out this fellow was a worker at the auberge de la paix and I had told him of my time in Kbec back in 1974 and my love
affair with Nicole. By some quirk of coincidence he had mentioned my story to Ms. Laflamme who had worked at that same hostel
with Nicole at that time and verified the events as I had remembered them! Now here I must pause to mention coincidence. It
happened a lot to me in Kbec. The possibility that the party could be held while I was there big level of coincidence. That
the fellow should mention my story. Big coincidence. That Ms. Laflamme should remember Nicole, big coincidence. That the fellow
should meet at exactly that time in amongst those hordes of people, big coincidence. That he should even bother to tell me
most excellent! Home late tired. Slept well.
20/06/08 Woke up to a strange sensation, something
weird, oh that is sunshine in Kbec. First I have seen here. My feet are very sore. Shower and dress in shorts and short sleeves
come down to bus stop and it starts raining heavy again. Back home change. Take ecolobus to Bassin Louis chat with gorgeous
Indonesian girl. I still am amazed over last night’s conversation about Nicole. It was about this time that I noticed
myself talking to myself like Chuck Norris did in that movie the Octagon. Nicole are you here. What is going on? Are we being
brought back together here/ Thankfully no-one answers. By the way totally independent of this story, the day after I saw Octagon
Art Hindle who plays side –kick to Norris in the Octagon came up to me and told me he liked my style in winning Junior
super bike races, but that’s another story. Lots of heavy rain continues. Walked Plains again, draw picture of cannon,
trees, river and the south shore.
Visit
our local history page
On a small street just west of Trinity-Bellwoods Park and north of Queen St. was one of Toronto's oldest homes, for years
known to the locals as Pine Grove
The Dunstan Times Winter
2011
This newspaper was founded in 1862 by George Fache, a French
Heughenot after sailing to New Zealand
In 2012, join our Sesquicentennial
Anniversary celebrations @ Clyde (formerly Dunstan), New Zealand Explore the Times' world
Our website is @ dunstan-times000.tripod.com had 61 page views yesterday and 1562 page views so far this month.
.Our goal is to enlighten, educate, inspire, inform and even entertain. We will not titillate nor run 'shock journalism'.
Brampton edition by his great-great grandson Mike MilneEmailUs@spacermike007@yahoo.ca
Love in the City of Soul
Love in the City of Soul
Love in the City of Soul
Before progressing into my writings, if you were hoping for steamy sex tales as could be inferred by the title,
I will mention that the only love story herein contained is my love for the city of
Quebec, herself.
Chapter One The LaunchingPage 3
ChapterTwoPartyTown (Montreal)Page
6
Chapter ThreeMom I’m HomePage 8
Chapter FourLe Festivale d’ÉtéPage 11
Chapter Five Denumonte
Chapter Six Forced repatriation
Chapter SevenThe Hell of Via Rail
I have been writing all kinds of stories for about 50 years.
The last ten were spent mostly writing travel stories. How can a good Canadian writer get a break when you pay American writers
to write badly? For instance Claudia Capos’ flowery tale about Umbria
was published in the Star on 25/8/2011. It is not well written (in my opinion) and rather than delving into the mystique of
the adventure, accentuates glittery adjectives and advertising. For example, I wanted her impression of St. Francis tomb and
crypt, the whole reason why the basilica is there! Not one word wasted on that but goes on to mention "delicate stained glass";
which is improper terminology, or is at least redundant.
Here is a bit of “Love in the City of Soul” which I am still working on. It’s about my month spent
in Quebec City before and after the “festivale d’ete
2011”. Tell me what you think, if you would.
CITY OF SOULChapter One The Launching
By late June 2011 I had repacked for
my trip three times and I was getting more excited each time I packed. I almost always tend to over pack and this time I was
rejecting some of my earlier packed items. Just as well as I had a hell of a lot of unnecessary stuff. This trip was going
to be quite different in that I was also packing up and moving out of my apartment at the same time.This exercise is not something I would recommend anyone to emulate as the logistics and mental gymnastics
involved are incredibly daunting. Without making too much of an issue of it and without making too many blunders during my
exodus, I was able to pull it off.
This was my fifth or sixth time visiting
my beloved Quebec City. Why don’t I know? Well we passed
by Quebec in an ocean liner heading for Montreal when I was
only one, but if Quebec was a port of call then this last
visit was my sixth time there.I love it in Quebec.
Again I remind you dear reader that Kebec was one name used early in its history. If I have to call her anything, then Kbec
it is! Before I start at the beginning let me just say that pulling into gare centrale in bassin Louie in old Quebecwas such a warm feeling of welcome that when finally entering the doors of Auberge
de la Paix I blurted out “hello Mom I’m home!”.I felt it too!
This year I watched all media for a
Via sale nothing for six weeks. Finally I decided to check their website and sure enough they had a sale. Ending today. Its
230pm I am in downtown Brampton cardless and cashless. Cycled
like the wind home, dug out $400 and rushed to the station which is of course 3km back downtown. Previously I have been met
by a 2 hr line-up;not a soul today. My big mistake was not to think it all through
carefully.But it all worked out in the end.
Prior to leaving I heard that Brampton’s
Canada celebrations would be in some far off place and not feature much in the way of “my music”, so had wanted
to be in Montreal to see Prince William and his new wife plus to experience Montreals Canada Day festivities which were quite
extensive. I had a great time in Brampton after all; I spent
some time with a close friend Winsome Hurditt, then a complex voyage to view the celebrations with some awesome motorcycle
jumps, monster truck rides and quite spectacular fireworks.
July 2nd 2011 at 615am you
would have found me outside my ex-apartment with about 200 lbs of gear with the daunting task of carting everything to my
storage site. Pulling my overstuffed suitcase onto the first bus was too much for the handle and it shattered into a shower
of irreparable pieces. I used my suede belt from 1970 which had been to New
Zealand and back with me as a make-shift handle and carried on. Dropped off about 40 lbs
of house stuff at storage site, then downtown to train. Waiting in the shade a cop pulls into station and up to me. Is everything
alright sir? Yes thanks officer, I’m just waiting for my train. Suddenly, sickeningly I realized that all this office
would need to do is escalate the issue and I would not be going anywhere. She left and moments later my train pulled in and
I was off, heading for Quebec City.Well, Montreal technically where I had
arranged for an overnight break in the travel before the push on to ma ville. The police officers words echo in my head is
everything alright. Why? Did I appear as if everything was not alright? I think how fortunate I am to have all my faculties
and capabilities working and that I was able to pull this latest and greatest stunt off without much ado.
There was more trouble to the launching
of my trip than that however. Having booked in haste and without certain facts, I had hoped to change my departure day from
July 2nd to June 30th.. Fine I was told by Via staff but the penalty will be $172.13. No thanks! After mulling
the issue over I called back. How much for the same seat without redeeming my old ticket $133.00 I was told. So to change
my ticket would cost double what any stranger would pay for the same seat. That is just wrong. The operator insisted I not
relinquish the inherent value of my ticket even though it was of a negative value. It seems worthy to note he saw nothing
peculiar about this policy.
There was more trouble to the launching of my trip than that however. Having booked in haste and without certain facts,
I had hoped to change my departure day from July 2nd to June 30th... Fine I was told by Via staff but the penalty
will be $172.13. No thanks! After mulling the issue over I called back. How much for the same seat without redeeming my old
ticket $133.00 I was told. So to change my ticket would cost double what any stranger would pay for the same seat. That is
just wrong. The operator insisted I not relinquish the inherent value of my ticket even though it was of a negative value.
It seems worthy to note he saw nothing peculiar about this policy.
So I left on the 2nd of July as per my original deal.Switched trains in Toronto carting all my baggage
up and into the train. I note that Cobourg looks like a nice town, has some old homesteads just west of here perched on a
bluff overlooking Lake Ontario with such a lovely view. Must be very nice. My female friend of many years calls as we reach
Bellville wishing me bon voyage, quite late and long distance but still appreciated. I notice a very nice horse farm south
of the tracks just east of Maryville. I take notes and take
pictures as we tour along the route mostly to keep busy but I do also find the vistas interesting. I also understand that
in time all these gorgeous open spaces will be cleared and built up with advancing populations. Several interesting farms
east of Kingston; one (about 20 minutes out) has a stone silo
which is the first I have ever seen. Then a lovely stone farmhouse 15 minutes west of Brockville.
Prescott is a lovely looking town even though it has an oil
refinery and has many fine looking views. I am unable to take a picture due to trees close to tracks obscuring all but the
odd glimpse. East of the town are several nice hundred year old barns. Finally we arrive in Montréal.
Chapter TwoMontreal
When all Montreal hostels were fully booked, I tried to check my bags at the station. After a very
rude verbaltirade from an old black woman baggage official I ended up at the
complaints desk. This nitwit tells me to just go back to baggage check. There I am forced to shuffle through all my stuff
several times in an effort to please them which somehow does occur, I pay double for storage and yet I am still carrying about
60 lbs of gear. Finally I stepped into the sunny 26c evening air of Montreal,
feeling finally free. I headed toLe place de spectacle which was hosting the
Montreal Jazz festival…wow these guys like to party! I saw Atomic 5, Magos, Harrera, nova Lima
and Guy Belanger were great, all part of the Montreal jazz
festival. The many shows ended by about 1am but several hundred people lingered in the square much later. I decided to wander
toward the St Lawrence where I had seen many homeless men sleeping on benches last time I visited Montreal. I think I was on Rue Jeanne Marnce. I just decided blindly to turn
left at one point. I thought I may be lost. After only a few feet I found an open courtyard with a huge set of metal stairs
rising up over the granite tiling. I decided this was my home for the night. In the dark shadows at the very back, I felt
anonymous. I fell asleep fairly quickly; it had been a long hard day.
I am told I snore. I awoke about 455am. even though my alarm had been set for 505am. There was a custodian type guy
walking down the stairs, looking over the railing towards me. I guess that my snoring alerted him to my presence. I quickly
got up and was out of there within one minute. As I walked west I discovered the most marvelous Metro station named Victoria station. It had intricate metalwork railings and a sign “Metropolitan”
just like ones I had seen in Paris. They had intentionally
followed the French pattern at great cost I am certain. For me it was worth every penny. This is one example of what I observe
as different between French and English Canadian culture.
One odd observation I have noticed
about the Montreal Metro. Every Montreal subway I have entered
has endless miles of walkways and goes deep underground. I have not discovered why this is, but it’s very frustrating.
Humorously I have decided that there is no actual train you just walk to your destination following an endless maze of signs
stand in a vibrating train shaped box for a minute then another half hour march to get out to your destination.
My goal on this morning (July 3rd.) was the Gilles Villeneuve racetrack on Ile Notre Dame.I had raced here in 1980 I believe it was. I had received a press pass simply by asking for one at the
gates as I had entered. That would not happen now a days. I had returned to race the following year but bad brakes kept me
out of the race. I recall like it was yesterday watching Gilles Villeneuve scream through corners one and two (which is a
tight chicane) and his Ferrari wobbled and lifted off the track slightly. Standing near the boat racing lanes of Bassin d’Averon
I watched and waited to see him come around again.Surely he would slow…
no here he comes clearly visibly faster. My estimate was he had come through at say 140mph (I really don’t know), but
after his near spill he came through (well partially any way) at a good 20mph faster. First the wobble, the lift off and the
flying, up over the hillock separating corner two from the straights after corner three. His ex-Ferrari slamming into the
wall with extreme prejudice and sliding about 200 yards down toward corner four. Wow! How exciting, how insane. How Gilles!
On this day however the track was silent if you don’t include the two huge grey otters which slapped their way across
the track on the back straight right in front of me and disappeared into a large pond attached to Lac des Regates. The fox
I saw was silent as well as the ground hog. What a menagerie! On my last night at the apartment at 81 Tiller I had visited by three raccoons. One got quite
nasty and wanted a fight until I used my raccoon style on him! Confused perhaps that I knew their dark arts he shuffled off in search of an easier battle. The heat on the racetrack was unbelievable, even for it being barely 9am. After my tour around the track I found
the loveliest park on Ile Ste Helene. The map only shows La Poudrire but there are a couple of excellent ponds with curved
bridges and a lovely waterfall falling into a third pond. Climbed the hill to the old tower and lookout which is really neat
and worth the hot climb. A flyer reminds me that I missed Tony Bennett playing here on July 1st, America, Chick Correa and Frampton on June 30th... After the hill I
get back on the Metro and visit Mount Royal. Incredibly hot so settle for a visit to the
big hall and not try the climb to the top. Devour two litres of milk and down to place des spectacles for my last half hour
waiting for the train to Quebec City.I met a man carrying a huge sign and after a short bit helped him by carrying
his sign. His cause like so many thousand other fathers such as myself was perverted
justice from the family courts. Hope he is able to cope.
Chapter ThreeMom I’m Home
Loved
the train to Quebec, we passed through a violent rainstorm
along the way. Arrive with such feeling stirring in my heart like I am finally home. The air is fresh and cool. I am amazed
that despite having about 150 lbs of gear I climb the hill to St Jean
and Coulliard with relative ease. What a superman I am! As I swing open the inner door of L’auberge de la Paix a feeling
of such exuberance floods me that I shout to no-one in particular Hey mom I’m home!
Luckily
I was assigned a bed on the first floor (the auberge has three floors of bunk beds). I packed away my gear, made my bed and
then headed out into the 403rd anniversary night air. Walked down to rue St. Valier
E. hoping to catch Cirque de Soleil but its not on tonight. Not sure but I believe I missed Le Moulin des Images. So while
en basse ville, I shop at the Metro, get a 12 pack of Rickters assorted beers for $14.99 and a 12 pack of coke and a bag of
chips. It was quite a Herculean trick to balance the load especially considering the past two days, but with sheer perseverance
and determination I had made it! Climb the hill, home, beer, bed, filled with pride in myself and contentment on making it
to my destination.
July 4th woke up feeling rough. It’s a grey and cool morning. Meet several French ladies some from
Paris and some from Marseilles. Seems funny that they would
come here for holidays. I mean I do prefer Quebec to Paris
but to go out of my way to leave Marseilles would be pushing
it.Just when I'm dressed for the cool weather out comes the sun I change again
and visit the mayor’s office with my hard copy of City of Soul.
A very large man in black suit noted to be the mayor’s aide takes my binder and assures me with a deep threatening voice
that he would make sure my writing got to where it should go. Not at all convinced that he was not going to throw it in the
trash. Later I discover that Mayor Labeaumme is not the most loved man in the city. Notes include his love of placing a huge
Ferris wheel at Porte St. Jean. One guest of la Paix has a joke in French of a town called Enbeaumme. He could scarcely contain
himself in the telling. Me, if we tell it in jest; then Beaummemanville would do. After city hall I decide to revisit Metro.At the south edge of Parc de l’artillerie I found an open trunk, abandoned.
I decide I like it and carry it up the hill. It fits nicely above our lockers, but how can I manage to keep it there for the
next month? I have run into a problem. I am only just beginning my odyssey and my poor feet are blistering already. I switch
to flip-flops. Enjoy my lunch of old chicken fingers from Brampton,
cheese, apple slices, kiwi fruit and beer. Food seems to taste better here, but how do I explain that? Having the Rickters
dark for the first time wow, my kind of beer. Time for a wee nap. Get up call my one friend in the city, Helene. She’s
not in so leave a voicemail, eat again. Cold chicken with rice, hotdog cheese and noodles. Mmm good. Take a hike up to my
beloved Joan of Arc park. I am amused and annoyed by the continuing wars of the two bars at the end of my street. Portofino has parked their vividly painted delivery vehicle outside their
neighbours bar St Patrick’s. How rude! Across from hotel de ville is a sad comedic juggler. He is good and funny and
sad, reminds me of a mix of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. There is a huge flowerpot with a majestic ship (symbol of the
city) at the parkette across from city hall. Very nice. I note sadly that the chateau Frontenac is getting a facelift its
roofs draped in fabric. Wiping away grime and yes history. I liked it better before the facelift. Home by 10pm get a call
from Hélène, she wants me to see her art... such a lovely lady. Have another beer in auberge back courtyard. So unusually
quiet. Sit silently doing nothing feels very odd, like I am missing out on something but enjoying the stillness.
July 5th.Brilliant sunshine and warm this morning. Hostel is very quiet. I discover with anger mixed with shock
that festival bracelets are all sold out. What a rip!Try to find a folding luggage
trolley at a used goods store called Ozonam. Having a hard time to explain what I want in French. Later I learn the term is
porte valisse. But it’s all in the way you say it! Here I must mention my frustration. I will speak in perfect French
to people, but they all answer me in English. Frustrating! Buy 12 1608-2008 hats, couple of tee-shirts and several paintings
and a plate from Greece. Walk along rue
St. Joseph see guy who sold me Minolta camera (broken) last
year. Decide not to tell him. Haggle over prices he has sharply increased. Buy ma ville book for $2. Invited to jam with young
guys in music store. Do Guahira and hey Joe ….real nice better than with Louie. Visit StRochPark.
Go up to Porte St jean to watch a show slight rain,
bump into auberge director Jean under theatre marquis. He tells me he was also in Quebec
in 1974 and watched the same show I did at FrancophoniePark which is shown in ma ville mon 400. In an odd twist
he slept on the plains while I stayed at his hostel. Hmmm. More on this twist later. What a small world. Up to my fountain
then e bus to les images3d. Mostly just the same film as in 2008 and very little 3d effect. I realize I made two major mistakes
when packing. No decent shorts and not enough of my medication. I will have to be careful with what I have left. Also my camera
is acting up; getting fuzzy lines across screen, shorting noises and not responding to my commands. Very troubling! It’s
a brand new Canon and I have a lot of my trip to go yet.
I have become aware of one glaring issue in my reporting of events. I write out my journal mostly the day after the
events, which can tend to leave out some of the glorious detailsplus is less
fresh and alive. Something like the idea of an artist going to the mountains to paint rather than to sit in his studio with
a photograph. I will try to be more immediate in my writings.
Chapter FourLe Festivale d’Ete
July7th. Suddenly the hostel is teeming
with guests. Beautiful sunny morning , birds singing so sweetly in the courtyard, as if to signal thebeginning of the marvelous mayhem ofthe “festivale
d’ete”. There was lots of rain yesterday. The festival consists of ten days of music at three sites with usually
3 concerts per site. That’s 90 concerts. I plan to at least sample each and every one, except Sir Faggot, er I mean
Elton John. I just can’t stand the gayness, sorry tomy un-naturallysex-orientated readers. So anyway, to sit in on ninety concerts in ten days is quite
an awesome challenge. can I do it though?
Even though the weather is perfect I suspect a weather change is coming as my neck is in horrible pain. I t usually
warns me well in advance of weather changes, I believe its related to barometric pressure. Anyway, while taking in a small
concert at Youville I bump into Jean ( the auberge director). I show him my picture of Nicole Ferraud from back in 1974 and
he knows exactly where itwas taken. I decide to chase the spot down and I do.
Take a lot of pictures, think I have the right house., with the possible exception that the little parkette next to the 3
story house is where our home had stood.
At a small shop on St.
Joseph Iam offered a bracelet for the festival for $100 but I am opposed to this concept of sales, there are just not that
many worthwhile acts plus I am on a very tight budget.Again another man offers
aVIP bracelet for $100. I am assured by security staffI chatted with on the Plaines that it was probably a fake, as a VIP pass is originally $500! I wish someone
would figure out how to avoid meeting gangsters named Guido when trying to patronize the arts! I am now determined to merely
stand outside the venues and listen to shows from there. Its not ideal but I am making the best of the situation. Besides
this is a very unimpressiveline-up of shows and its really only Buddy Guy and
John Fogerty that I really care about. There are two mystery concerts in the line-up with just a question mark in the listings.
To me that sucks. You want to sell us tickets to a show even they don’t know who is performing. Bad business. Maybe
Arcade Fire will return, That would really be something. Last summer when they appeared they were a little known Montreal band. I had heard that Rolling Stone had got wind of them and
come up from New York to catch the show. It was awesome.
The best concert I had ever witnessed. For a full description you will have to read my story in “City of Soul deux” In the late fall of 2010 I was sitting watching Saturday
Night Live when they announced “Saturday Night Live welcomes Arcade Fire”. I was really shocked and pleased at
the same time. Then in the Grammy awards “best album of the year goes to Arcade Fire. Wow!Then in the spring of 2011 I hear” Saturday Night Live welcomes again…. Arcade
Fire”. Awesomely amazing! Well, the question hangs out there, will they reappear. My bet is no. They are too big for
us now. It would be great if they did though.
Quebec City is so spectacularly beautiful everywhere
I go. It moves me over and over and over again. I never tire of it or get complacent about its beauty. Its like when you are
in love and everything seems wonderful. Maybe that’s it. I am in love with a city. What a weird guy I am!
Insert pic with mts and steeples
I am very moved sitting at the seat of Quebec power
(their parliament) overlooking the fountaine de Tourney with the wild forested mountains in the background where you know
bear and deer are foraging. Too much beauty for one city to possess. But there it is in all its glory. I am in heaven. Earlier
when coming up from basse ville I stopped toview the progress at the site where
the old governor’s residence used to be. I believe it was in 2008 that during construction of some new building that
they discovered the basement walls of the palais and had halted the construction. Now the relics sit wrapped in protective
material. Three separate boxtype cocoons one in the shape of a small shed. Having
seen the original insitu, I presume that box contains the furnace/heating/chimney section. Now I wonder what they will do
next. Perhaps so do they as its been three years and still no progress. I would like to see them build whatever it is they
intended around these ruins and then display them as an exhibit in the new building as they were originally. Guess I will
have to wait and see!
I would like to note here some of the
drawbacks of staying in a hostel. Its pretty much a turkey shoot what kind of experience you will get each and every night.
Last night there was only one other guy in my room. There are three bunks, thus six beds. This one fellow is reading lying
in one of the unoccupied bed when I entered the room about midnight. I ask if I can turn out the lights, he says he wants
to read one more page. Fine but in the ten minutes I was preparing for bed he hasn’t turned a page yet. So as I wait
he asks me if I could turn off my cell phone. What a cheek. I ask why and he replies because its ringing wakes him up. No
I said that is an alarm I set to wake me ( it is set for 815am).In the morning I go to the bathroom to find someone has peed
with the toilet seat down and didn’t even flush. Hmmm, I wonder who would do such a terrible thing. I’m certain
it is the weirdo from my room. On this night we have a full room and we will be serenaded throughout the night by at least
three different types of snoring plus some claps and throat clearing from the weirdo in an attempt to silence them. Finally
about three am I state in quite terse and angry English that he is making more noise than anyone and to stop the noises. The
rest of the night I sleep very lightly, imagining that he may decide to chop my head off in my sleep.
This cute little truck is from France but is the actual working delivery truck for a little shop on rue St. Jean
Ouest
There are many things that don’t
add up in my opinion.Iam lumping
together three recent noisy newsmakers and I ask you if you see what I mean.First we have been hearing a lot about a shortage of family doctors and campaigns for more health care funding. Fine
and dandy. Secondly a number of stories of banning head check in hockey and the issue of concussionshighlighted by the now famousSid Crosby injury. Also a legitimate
concern. Thirdly, we have recently allowed full contact martial art slugfests to be staged right here in Ontario.These three items do not compute to
me. Hockey players wear advanced protection headgear designed to limit brain injury. These foolish UFC etc. fighters have
no such defense.Very quickly we will have wards full of ex-fighter vegetables
drooling onto doctors that our system has a lack of prior to allowing these fights. Foolish yet brave young fighters do not
consider that they will end up brain damaged from kicks to the head that they presently are forced to endure. Promoters knowbrain damage is an inevitable fact. Do we really need this titillating but albeit
mindless ‘bloodsport’ to be staged here in Ontario?
If yes, then why clamp down on hockey’s goons; instead allow kicks to the head in that sport as well.I for one am offended by the broadcasting of such hooliganism as the full contact fighting. I also would
like to find a family doctor who can see me without having to wait a month.
Don, It was great to see you and all the other folks from days gone by. It was your idea to do the reunion??? Great idea.
Yeah add me to your list of attendees. I had some problems with some aspects of the event which I can expound upion later...also
look forward to 2012...maybe you should do one every five years...as it is such a great idea! thanks again Mike...ps
i have added a page to my website dunstan-times000.tripod.com on gdhs2007 that I am still working
on.Ross Elliot
Mr. Cotton my 1969 homeroom and science teacher in 2007. Bloody hippies, they're everywhere!
Don's brother Peter and soon to be sister-in-law Leslie McLauchlan
Bruce Don & Peter Fendley
Gary & Donna Creay now in New Zealand
Gary & Donna entertained around this area for years with various groups, Gary was a member of The Neil Cotton
and Hawksnest and he and Donna had the Donna Lee O'Connor band for several years!
another reunion in 2012, as GDHS turns 125. To make that happen, the high school needs to hear from all alumni, showing
support for such an undertaking(http://www.georgetowndistricthighschool.com/newGDHS/index.asp) •Send an email, call the school, mail a letter...
HC pictures posted on Georgetown Online (GTOL). (http://www.georgetown-online.org/)
Ed was in SERIOUS trouble, as he forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was
really angry. So she told him, "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200
in less than 6 seconds and IT BETTER BE THERE!" The next morning Ed got up early and left for work. When his
wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift wrapped in the middle of the driveway.
Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She
opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.
I was talking about your email with my mother on Sunday and we worked
out who you are. I have the family tree here and found you on it as Annette's son. I remember as a young child about 1968
staying in Wellington with your grandparents ( Arch and Phyll) We had been on a holiday in the North Island and had been
to 'Fiddler on the Roof' free because Arch got us tickets. I remember lots of steps at their house.
Mum said she knew Annette had gone to Canada to open a camp or something but
had lost touch about then.My grandmother Gertrude Murray was really good at keeping us informed about all this family stuff
but she died in 1998.
Mum isn't sure about the Paddy in Nelson but doesn't think so. The McBrides
in Akaroa have all died now but I know that one of the sons Geoff is a very successful Real Estate Agent in Christchurch.
Richard (Dick McBride)was well-known about 1993-4 as the sailor who built a concrete hulled yacht and sailed it around the
world solo until he ran aground in the Falkland Is. I don't know what happened after that.
so excited to finally find a family member no time to write more just yet I am tingling all over I have a website fachefiles.tripod.com
also section in my dunstan-times000.tripod.com tell me everythingyou can ...peparing to visit NZ@
Jan2007...maybe we could meet then?there is a Howard and McBride connection was in Akaroa with Paddy at the Glen in 1961there
is a Paddy listed in Nelson is she a relative Will e more next week
God Bess Mike
Remember that Jesus said "Blessed are you if you give a cup of water in My name." P.S. The world is dying of thirst.
From: " Judith Stephens" <jude.stephens@xtra.co.nz> To: <spreadtheword75@hotmail.com> Subject:
george cox fache Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:34:18 +1200
Hi
I have just found this history forum website and read with interest your queries
about George Cox Fache. My great grandmother was Eva Fache the ninth child of George and Lizzie Fache and the sister of George
Cox Fache. I have a little information about the family as well as some newspaper cuttings about G C Fache. If you are interested
I can email you some of this.
Judith Stephens
Christchurch
New Zealand
Note: forwarded
message attached.
No I am a 21 peaker Outward Bound old boy of a rare fish in those days 19712????
ate smoked eels during the kayak trip...came 6th in the final 6mile??? cross-country marathon.
Please include me in any news. Again can I come and visit when I visit New Zealand.
Mike Milne
From: "My Watchmates" <mywatchmates@outwardbound.co.nz> To: "Mike Milne" <spreadtheword75@hotmail.com> Subject:
RE: OB oldboy Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 17:49:29 +1200
Hi Mike,
Presume you meant to send this to someone else.
From: Mike Milne [mailto:spreadtheword75@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, 12 May 2006
5:43 a.m. To: My Watchmates Subject: OB oldboy
thanks for the e will visit from Canada Dec-Jan any chance to pop in for a visit Mike Milne
ROSENEATH SCHOOL I attended briefly as
a visiting foreigner (from England
and Canada). While attending I was living with my grandma
at 10 Oriental Terrace. I remember vividly a helicopter landing in the Roseneath playground; I am eager to hear from anyone
about that. I left on another cruise ship back to Canada,(unsure
of exact dates around 1960, I would appreciate any assistance on that). Oddly, I returned in 1970; became friends with a Christopher
Walker, who at that time also remembered the helicopter incident; turns out we figured...we were in the same primary class!
Now I am looking for him too. Classes facing the playground were probably the only ones to witness the helicopter incident,
as I remember it (as if only yesterday), everyone rushed to the window to view this very odd spectacle.
Akaroa Area School I
lived at "the Glen" with Paddy Mcbride, bicycled to school,remember fish and chips in newspaper from the shop, crabs under
the rocks at low tide,loved the enchanted life there...
W. H. MORDEN PUBLIC
SCHOOL Having just arrived from New Zealand,I remember Miss Pretty my grade2?teacher in 1961,I delivered the Hamilton Spectator;
my best customer was Appleby College, the cooks gave me cake, cookies, pie... my best friend was Tommy Bath and a very special
girlfriend (at 7?) Heather Cook. I had to meet the principal though as to get Heather's attention I had thrown a dead mouse
at her. I also took guitar lessons to impress her. Amazingly after 44 years we got in touch again...her first words were "
are you the boy who threw the dead mouse at me".
STEWARTTOWN PUBLIC SCHOOL
After grade 3 I moved to a farm in Georgetown.
mrs. mckelvey was my
grade 4 teacher who told us the beatles were just a passing fad, that toronto would eventually reach all the way to us,and
taught us one thing i have always remembered and implemented in my life it's a wee poem "whether the weather is hot or
whether the weather is cold, we'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not"...i stood in the
hall a lot( a form of punishment)my best friend was bill reid, whose dad had the milk farm and allis chalmers tractor dealership
next to the school. doug campbell and henry lefrink were friends of mine too. we took a bus with classmates to expo 67 which
was awesome! i had to ride my pony jady to school one day(apparently that was okay back then) i got the strap a lot, mostly
for doodling artwork during class, daydreaming or falling off my chair backwards. in grade 6 we had a yearbook "nuts
in a shell" as i recall with some girls artwork depicting me balancing on two legs of my chair. connie bomhalt of sivercreek
was my girlfriend in 6th grade.
GEORGETOWN DISTRICT
HIGH SCHOOL I was on the wrestling team(the coach nicknamed me tiger mike milne) with joe fobert, clive llewelyn (gold
olmypian)i had to beat him to represent gdhs! i was in the school orchestra (trombone and violin). my best friend was bruce
gregg, (i would like to hear from him) wildest guy i knew was gig hillock.other names were peter noble (the dairy at maple
st.) rick haines, geoff pantling, nino martinez, cathy and Nancy orpwood (i was secretly in love with her). i left for new
zealand suddenly in nov.1970
Wellington YMCA JUDO
CLUB Remember all the faces, but only remember Lonny and Bob by name..the N. I. championships in Hamilton...turns out learning
judo was a very useful, even life saving experience, as I was forced to successfully subdue several attackers over the
years. I later went on to kung-fu which melded with judo very well!
WELLINGTON COLLEGE Loved
my time at W.C., though it was very alien to me; as I had come from a Canadian high school with no studying, etc. At W.C.I
was made captain of the 1971 3rd X1 field hockey(with probably the worst record ever), and class captain of our 6th form class
which I took as quite an honour...I still do! I am looking for my best friend from those days,Chris Walker,
4shA (1967) Uploaded by Ernie BarringtonChris Walker is on far left front row
also
anyone from my class or hockey team...sorry boys, I believe we had the worst record of all times.. I believe we only ever
won one game. By coincidence, I ran an old-timer ice hockey tournament team here in Canada in the late 1980's, and we won
3 years in a row! Saw the 1973 old boys photo, Nigel Taylor another old buddy, remember you all,guys like Grant Easby, George
Bertos, Bill Armour, Dave Ramsden, ? Beatty
I attended Outward Bound
in Jan.?1972, I can't remember our watch, but our 7 did the 21 peaks on the four day!Sailed into the Cook Strait during
an anti-cyclone, as I remember, there was about a 60ft. swell which scared me witless. I ran about 8 miles extra during the
canoe trip just to get smokes for the guys...shh, don't tell the leader. canuck mike
J.S. LANDS I was their
warehouseman briefly, I also did weekends as salesman at their Lambton Quay store (Lands for Bags)... oddly very few old ladys
came in (haha), mostly it was fat, loud and ignorant Americans(and me a Canadian). They always said the same thing with their
drawl "ah how much for this", and "ah how much for that", and they all seemed to wear the same floral Hawaiian type shirts.
At the warehouse there were only about 5 employees, I would love to hear of Mary et al.. best wishes to all
PEEL GAS Didn't
know anything at first, was an installers helper for native Canadian Lonny ? for 1 and 1/2 years, took fitter 2 then fitter
1 courses at George Brown College in T.O..I took Consumers Gas serviceman test, and became residential seviceman but eventually
I could not take beeper going off all the time. I went into furnace maintenance, then went into my own business.
Won first place overall
in Canada wide Brimaco Junior Superbike Series of 1980. All I got was a trophy and a blue bike jacket. The win however led
to sponsoship from Barr Hodges (Superbike Centre). We raced mostly at Shannonville and Mt. Tremblant(Ste. Jovite)
CANADIAN MOTORCYCLE
ASSOCIATION Junior Production 2nd place overall in the Canadian Championship of 1980. Pro Superbike and Formula One
5th place overall in the Canadian Championships of both 1982 & 1983.
AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE
ASSOCIATION Raced in Ohio, Daytona and Indianapolis, where I got a first place in intermediate class superbike. Totalled a
new 1000 Kawi at Daytona in ?1982?... did a massive endo on the horseshoe over some clutz's bike he dropped as I was
passing on the outside. Was at my best up to that day, passing everyone at will...Daytona has a nice hospital.
MIKE'S POWER HEATING
(OUR POWER IS GOD'S LOVE) Had envisioned starting my own business since early in 1975. Business grew well as I focused on
it, and customers liked and trusted me and easily remebered me for annual maintenance which was my main breadwinner. Started
my air-conditioning side (Dynamic Air in 1987) which really exploded my business growth. By 2000 business slowed as customers
started dying off and car accident neck whiplash pain gradually negated my abilities.
ENERGY LAKE KUNG FU,
trained under master (from shaolin temple, china) leichman graded by mr richer (he was the greatest teacher) also mr costa
and mr raja. my best friend kurumjit sing disappeared around 1996 with my fighting gear,bags and swords. he is easily identified,
he tatooed a tiger and dragon on his forearms like the main character in the tv show kung fu. please apprehend this guy and
force him to e me. warning, he may have become quite good at his craft! as for me i still love to practice but mostly focus
on soft style.
BRAMPTON TENANT ASSOCIATION
I started and ran as a non profit help for tenants after a run-in with the landlord from hell, had to read and learneverything
for myself so decided others needed help: won lots of cases, even against big shot lawyers. Basically I won cases by repeatedly
questioning issues, taking photos and always carrying a pocket tape-recorder.
.visit our history at......http://fachefiles.tripod.com/
On
Endeavour's maiden voyage in August 1768, Cook sailed to the South Pacific (to observe and record the infrequent event of
the planet Venus passing between the Earth and the sun). Determining the transit of Venus enabled early astronomers to find the distance of
the sun from the Earth, which then could be used as a unit of measurement in calculating the parameters of the universe. The
ENDEAVOUR departed England in 1768 and after visiting Tahiti the following year he discovered New Zealand and
claimed it for Great Britain. In 1769, Cook was the first person to fully chart New Zealand (which was previously visited in 1642 by the Dutchman Abel Tasman from the Dutch province of Zeeland). Cook also surveyed the eastern coast of Australia , navigated the Great Barrier Reef and traveled to Hawaii.
John Haycock, 18/05/2006: Wow - when the going got tough, the tough got going eh. It was so aweome I sent my son - and he loved it too.
I'm about to send my daughter
John Haycock, 18/05/2006: I remember the '21st mountain' - after doing the rounds of 20 peaks in 4 days they got us to bust our ass with
a workout back at base. It was cruelty in the form of adventure. I remember Steve Derig was the guy with the strength and
staminar to the end (amazing that I remember him in that context from long ago) - well done Steve - you did good mate. I remember
some guys (won't mention any names) who couldn't go the distance on the hills. It was tough
Newsletter
The inspiring ‘MyWatchmates’ newsletter is designed to keep the Outward Bound flame alive in your life. Plus it
helps you keep in touch with Outward Bound events and happenings.
correspondence preferences.Family is doing great. Our 2nd eldest just got his Masters at McGill in Montreal. He
is now living with his older brother in Oakville about 4 miles from us. They both have jobs in Toronto. Robert
is going into grade 10 in September. He did well this year getting honors. He's busy this summer swimming, playing
squash and working out at the gym at the rec centre. They sure do grow up fast. We will have one week of holidays
at a time share unit near Barrie but that's about it for now. May a bit of camping or a cottage if we find one.
Next year is our 20th anniversary so we plan to take Robert and go to St. Lucia. That will be nice. We went there
about 20 years ago and then 2 years later with the 2 older boys. What are you planning to do in N. Zealand. How
long are you staying. Have you gone back to work at all or did the disability kick in. Bob isn't pleased with
his job so he's starting to look. My boss got promoted to the CAO for the Town of Oakville so I'm boss-less right now
till they rehire. He took me to lunch yesterday and reminded me that I'll do well at the Town. I really like it...and
it's great being so close to home. Are you still in touch with your one daughter. Is she about 13 now. What
about your other child. I think you said you were moving, what's your new address. Are you enjoying your
guitar. Bob played the guitar at one time but there's never enough time. Hope all is well with you and hope
you're enjoying the summer..
yes,yes,no maybe and yes...just joking, well I must be brief, but I miss the mountains ocean etc of NZ should
be a brief 2week visit with a view to RETIRING there eventually. Mirielle my 13 yr old goes into Grd 9 this year... wish she
was more like your Robert in school; she is gifted but not enthused..got a few As though(we have a $20 per 'A' deal and $100
bonus for 3'A's which seems to have upped her grades),
cmon geoff stop with the overly long letters...too much information...haha sooooo wazzup with you?great to hear from you... me
I'm on disability now with a bad neck (whiplash from a mental driver smashing into my car) have 2 daughters both moms not
giving proper access, run a website or 2 #1
dunstan-times000.tripod.com ......>
This newspaper was started in 1862 by George Fache.(my great
great grandpa, sailed to NZ from England in 1850?)
Edited for 2006 by his great-great grandson Mike Milne. This paper is sponsored by
#2
http://quanta-m.tripod.com and #3 http://fachefiles.tripod.com ran
my own heating/cooling business for 25 years, thinking of going back to New Zealand, live in Brampton Ont, play my bass, shoot pool,
study cosmology and am working on our family history, Mirielle my 13 yr old wants me to include my life...send me
a pic of you and fam if possible...what led you exactly to my email address? write back soon mike
cont'd from A.I.L.
After 6th form I worked for J.S. Lands as a warehouseman. It was a great job which I did for about a year. I believe
I made $34.00 weekly. I also worked after-hours in one of their stores Lands for Bags. Lots of tourists shopped here (Lambton
Key) and my opinion of American tourists was lowered greatly there. Overweight and ignorant, usually in bright floral prints,
their favourite expression was drawling out “ah how much is this” and “ah how much is that”. It was
around this time I moved out of grandmas and moved briefly into a rooming house where I met Chris Fry, a recently emigrated
Hackney Londoner. From there we both moved into a flat with a few other guys, including another Londoner émigré John.
this painting is near where we lived
It was while
living at this flat that I met a young lady at a bar, invited her home and I had my first experience with sex. First time
was in our bathtub!
One night Chris, John and I were walking homefrom a bar, slightly drunk
and play-fighting along the way, when a group of about 25 bikers met up with us and wanted to brawl. Chris and John managed
to take off. I was left behind, forced to deal with these hoodlums. As we talked, one guy pushed me down, and I got up and
pushed him back. Another guy punched me once and I punched him back. After that it was just talk and their leader let me go.
This was my first but not last interaction with a bike gang.
At this same time I also worked at night, office cleaning. One night cleaning a bank I discovered a huge bag with about
70-80 lbs of 50c pieces in it. I used the bank phone to call my friend John who was working across the street cleaning another
bank to ask his opinion. He suggested I put the whole bag inside my vacuum, but I was too nervous so I just took a handful
which I later counted out as $17.50. Thus ended my career as a bank robber. At some point (late 1971 or early 1972) I hitch-hiked
to Auckland
(some800miles) just to see the Guess Who in concert. They were not even the main feature but back-up act before 3 dog night.
It was the height of their career with Albert Flasher etc., really rocking at least my socks off. Yes it was absolutely worth
the trip even if it was only for the music, but I traveled back that night on the train met a nice girl and got lucky with
her when we got to Wellington.
In I think December 1972 I traveled north to Nharawahia (sp) for a 3 day music festival that was NZ’s answer
to Woodstock. It was pretty cool. I learnt to hate Black Sabbath
then as during their performance they burnt a large cross on the hill. I could only think of a similarity to the KKK.
After the 3 day festival I headed north, visited Kathy Teale-Jones in Auckland
and hitch hiked on into the unknown north. Just outside Auckland
I got the ride of my life. Crazy Phil of Wellington already had 2 other hikers; Eric Skidmore and another American guy whose
name I have forgotten. Well, we had the greatest time together. Phil was looking for Ford model T parts so we visited a lot
of small towns and isolated farms. One night we pulled down to a remote stretch of beach and slept there. When we awoke the
next morning we found ourselves in a postcard. Unspoilt beauty. Some islands a mile or so off shore were called “Hen
and Chicks’, one large roundish island and a line of some smaller islands to the right, kind of like their namesake.
The entire area was untouched by man. When we stopped in Whangerai I met a girl, Maren
Johanson who I fell in love with. She was on holiday from her job as a school teacher in Nelson NZ; before we parted she gave
me her ph #. After Phil went his way, Eric and I traveled on together. We had a really great time visiting hippy communes,
walking long distances admiring the rural beauty. We continued north, right to the northern tip of NZ. where the sea crashes
into itself out past the point of land that divides the ocean. Quite a spectacle to observe!We got two of the weirdest rides ever on the way up. Two young girls gave us rides on their bicycles and later two
girls gave us rides on their horses! Heading south and back to Whangerai, we stopped for a few days there and Eric decided
to stay there. I ended up traveling on. In Auckland staying
at Kathy’s lovely home, I got a call from a extremely beautiful model I had met in Whangerai. She was leaving for Australia in the morning and had nothing to do. We
met, ate chatted for hours and then she snuck me into the women only hotel where we had incredible sex all night long. In
the morning I had to leave via the window. That was the last I saw or heard of her. After, I traveled on through the full
length of NZ., all the way to Stewart Island.
Since leaving Auckland I had decided not to wear shoes
at all. As a now full fledged hippy I felt I wanted the extra sense of feeling the road beneath my feet. Traveling with Eric
was a real blast, we met lots of great people, saw great country vistas and discussed the reason for being deeply. He was
reading Aldus Huxley me I had a book by a Dr. Richard Alpert ( I believe that’s the name) “Be Here Now”
which was very influential on my understanding of life and concepts of it still permeate my way of life. When recounting the reading of this influential book to a group in 2009 another fellow quipped that he had
read the same book around the same time. Perhaps it was one of those ‘must reads’ of the times. After all, 1972
was as I tell it the “post Hippy era” but now the age of “Freakdom”. As I traveled south of Rotorua,
I was quietly sitting in a field, enjoying the sunshine and being one with all things, when I noticed the sun getting incredibly
bright. It gradually became unbearably bright and quite unnatural. It seemed at the same time that I was hearing a voice from above me saying “no matter what you do Michael I still love you”.
This experience put me in a kind of daze or something. I recall that it was like I was watching someone else and not myself
as I climbed the fence and walked toward the road. I could see a car was coming but was unable to stop walking. I would have
intersected paths with that car if I did not stop, but I was unable to. For the first time since I was a kid, I prayed “God
please don’t let me die and I will give my life to you”. Suddenly the trance or whatever it was was over and I
stopped walking, right on the edge of the road as the car whizzed by north-bound. It left me with the idea that there was
perhaps a God after all and that He had communicated directly with me.
I traveled on and this event didn’t really invoke any change at all in me just another weird event in a life
filled with weird events. It was around that time I got a ride from my first speed freak. Speed freaks are not people who
like to go fast (though they usually do), speed freaks are people who like to take uppers like a drug known on the street
as speed. Thus speed freaks. This ride in a souped up Holden will always be one of my top ten most dangerous rides. Perhaps
I should do a chapter just on scary rides. Maybe later. This guy roared around the two-laned hardtop of highway one like a
banshee from hell. Ninety miles an hour easy. I saw at that time that death was close at hand, I just swallowed and committed
myself to accepting that reality. After that, nothing much scared me in like. When rides would end wherever it was, I would
start walking. People who just stand at some intersection are missing out on much of the beauty of the hitch-hikers experience
of travel. For instance on this same journey I was walking along hiway one, the land in the natural state of the North Islands
flora and fauna when on the side of the road I found some large red mushrooms with white dots just growing wild. These mushrooms
were just like the one pictured in the story of Alice in Wonderland.
I knew they were hallucinogenic so I picked one which was as big around as a dinner plate. I can feel readers thinking “oh
that’s why he thought he heard God”. No this was much later and I didn’t ingest any. What I did was I wrapped
it in plastic, brought it down to Wellington and gave it to my Model T loving friend Phil, who was back home after his long
trek through the north island. He seemed very excited to receive it.
Next I was on the ferry again across the Cook Strait. The Cook
Strait can have some of the roughest seas in the world. Somewhere I have read it to be in the top five widest
seas in the world, but it isn’t always so. One crossing and the sea is almost glass-like. Other times it can be like
a wild bronco ride; the ship heaving violently, its frame groaning loudly as the ship is tossed up and down, side to side.
The thing I found odd was while most people were becoming violently sea-sick, it never bothered me at all! On my first crossing
in January 1971 with Chris Walker I drank beer mixed with ginger ale (a popular NZ beverage referred to as a shandy), and
the rough seas with the wretched stench of puke everywhere from the landlubbers did make me feel slightly green about the
gills, but that was it. Even years later crossing the English Channel in as rough a sea as
I had ever seen, I felt perfectly fine. That was the storm that had that Duran Duran guy plucked from a capsized sail boat
and DNFed from some race.
As I traveled down the east coast of the south island I stayed one night in a hippy commune outside Timaru which was
beautiful, hung with a wild bunch in Christchurch who drove
me all over miles ofbeautiful coastline while drinking mass quantities of alcohol.
Unfortunately my young mind was too immature to realize how close we were to my childhood Eden of Akaroa. It never even entered
my mind, so for all I know I went right by it without me being aware of it. Such a pity. This to me is one of the greatest
omissions I have had in my life. Being close to a thing I cherish and not being aware of it. For instance when in Paris, I was aware that my mom and visited the city in like 1953. I was
also acutely aware that the city had a great ‘air of history’. I had even years earlier read a book by George
Orwell “ Down and Out in Paris and London” and was intensely intrigued
by the idea I was now living what I had read! However in 1984I had been oblivious
to the notion that our family roots had a history there. Anyway as I traveled south I came to Dunedin. I had been invited to look up a fellow there by the name Carl Gillies nick-named
Boggles. I visited him and he graciously invited me to sleep over which I did. I stayed about a month with Carl Gillies etal
in a beautiful hundred year old house heated with several fireplaces which were lined with very ornate, hand-painted tiles.
They were a wild bunch even by my standards. Karl was a hospitable man and invited me to stay at the house he shared with
about five other young men and women. Had a great time there, aside from the fact that most of them were “needle freaks”.
What’s a needle freak? That a person who will put almost anything into a syringe and shoot it into his veins. Mostly
this was Progesic which the pharmacist doled out; mostly to pep up little old ladies. One fellow at our house who worked at
a nearby swank hotel, brought home several large bags of lettuce hearts, boiled it down to a black goo known as lettuce opium,
according to a big book full of vital hippy info (the name escapes me). The ambulance came by fairly often to aid unconscious
users until proper dosage was worked out. Very crazy times. This same waiter guy bought a Norton750 Commando and when he brought
it home, he proceeded to drive it straight up the twenty or so front steps and
right into the house. The ambulance had to be summoned on many more occasions as injecting weird things into their arms was
a regular and usual practice. They even persuaded me one day to go down to the main street pharmacy (chemist) and purchase
progesic. They even instructed me to say it was “for my grandma” I watched their routines often, they were not
shy at all. Once they opened the packet, they laid out the white pills on the table which they crushed, siphoned through a
cigarette filter into a syringe and then injected. On one occasion I was unaware a friend had injected himself with “the
goo”. We were sitting with a tea as we chatted in front of the kitchen fire. He asked me about some facet of Canadian
life and while I was responding he collapsed, banging his head on the tile fireplace floor. He didn’t even budge at
all. Well, I knew that I was sometimes boring but I had hardly begun to answer, so this collapse was surely not merely as
a result of my boring conversation. I called for out throughout the house for help. The prime directive in such cases is to
try and keep the user conscious. We called the hospital again and they whisked him away in an ambulance. He was back next
day but no-one ever touched the black goo again. The house was near OtagoUniversity below the main drag. Looking at a street map of Dunedin it
could have been on Clyde St. which would be an odd coincidence as that is the name of the town where I great grandfather grew
up in. I hope to revisit Dunedin and identify the house which was either near Clyde and Dundas or Clyde and Frederick. There
was an extremely beautiful single girl lived there. I was definitely deeply attracted to her. She was a Goth before there
were Goths. She almost always wore black. Long black hair and black eye make-up, I think her name was Michelle. I remember
often being in her bedroom listening to the haunting melodies from a band called Curved Air. What a great band. Later I bought
an album of theirs, perhaps it was their second. On the cover it had a small rainbow floating over some shadowy house and
yard, if I’m not mistaken. After about ten days and a sweatshirt from OtagoU. I felt the call of the road and off I headed again. South from Dunedin was incredibly beautiful. I recall vividly a specific conversation
I had with a local in a small mountain town which was perched a thousand or so feet above the wild Pacific. I mentioned that
he was very lucky to live in such a beautiful place. He looked bewildered and said I guess so, but without much conviction.
Here I had stumbled on a key aspect of human nature. People get used to their surroundings and thus miss out on its virtues.
What a sad comment on the human condition. On one of my next rides which took me all the way to the bottom of the south island,
I was invited to stay with some very proper nurses in Invercargill. Around that area are some spectacular towns in the mountains
overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Anyway I next took a sea voyage of some fair distance to Stewart Island. Looking back now I do not know what possessed me to do so much traveling, but I do recall
vividly that I loved it! Stewart Island is remote,and mostly uninhabited bird sanctuary. I tramped off into the wilds as merry as could be. I tramped in about twenty
miles or so lounging on pristine beaches never seeing another soul. It was another paradise. A paradise in a paradise you
might say! While I was back-packing through the wilds of Stewart Island I accidentally slipped
in a rain softened mud patch in my bare feet and went flying over and off a good hundred feet of cliff. I was very, very lucky,
for as I went over the edge head over heels, I clutched at anything I could grab onto. Luckily for me this happened to be
a patch of a well rooted bush which was hanging over the precipice. I pulled myself back up, backpack and all! I was no worse
for wear except for an eight inch L shaped gash on my knee which was spewing out lots of my blood all over the place. I was
worried that I would not be able to make it back to civilization as I was some twenty or so miles out from civilization in
the midst of a bird sanctuary where I had not seen another living soul for two days. I wrapped my bandana around the flapping
fold of flesh and began to limp out as quickly as I could. When I finally made it to Oban, a tiny village nestled in the coastline
harbour, I had to go from door to door finally arriving at the home of Oban’s only nurse, who was called away from cooking
dinner to give me 4 stitches to my knee.
As I traveled around NZ I slept sometimes in youth hostels, hippy communes, or what also happened often was, when just
coming into an unknown town, young people would offer their place to stay.
I traveled up the east coast of the south island and then veered off
to see Maren in Nelson. What a beautiful town. Maren had me give a speech to her grade 3 class and I spoke for at least an
hour and answered many good questions from the kids. I got a job at a sawmill and worked the chain gang. While in Nelson I
met a Dane(Richart
Mueller?) who was working on a ship in port “The Italian Reefer” which I went on board as a guest. We had a lot
of fun over the next few days before he and his crew left Nelson and we continued to write letters to each other for several
years.Eventually he married and settled down and had kids in his homeland of
Denmark. There was a coffee house in the
middle of a park in Nelson called Middle Earth, so called after the setting in the book Lord of the Rings. The book was so
popular in Nelson that people even dressed in elfin wear and local shops carried
hobbit related items. Elvin rune writing was very popular. Maren and I were only very close friends in Nelson; I was something
like her guru as I delved deeply into mysticism. She often gave me her car keys to drive around and this is where I learnt
to drive a standard shift car. I was really stuck a few times on some steep hills and all alone, but eventually I got the
hang of it.
While in Nelson I was attracted by a poster to attend a meeting held by
an American evangelist who shared his experience of heaven while he had been clinically dead for some 45 minutes. After the
speech he said he felt someone in the audience was wanting prayer. There were about 200 people there but I knew he meant me.
As he eliminated those asking for things like one old poor dear who needed cat food for her cat, he said no it’s from
a young person on the left side of the room. Then he narrowed the field to someone from the middle of the room. I hunkered
down hoping I wouldn’t be picked, though feeling somehow I would. Sure enough he came down off the stage, stopped at
my row and looking directly at me. He held out his hand and asked me what I wanted. without even thinking or knowing I wanted
anything, I said exactly what I really wanted. I want to know the truth I heard myself say. I don’t know how he did
it, but this is exactly what I have always sought. Anyway there was a loud buzz from the crowd with hallelujahs and praise
Gods which I did not understand until years later when I read in John’s gospel, Jesus said “I am the way, the
truth and the life; so to the Christian ears listening to this young mans request, I believe they understood that I wanted
to know Jesus. Anyway the evangelist laid hands on me and asked God to show me the truth. That was it I went home told Maren
all, and told her that one day I would become a Christian even though I didn’t know what a Christian was and oddly she
said she thought that she might one day too.
During my roughly four months stay in Nelson and working at the local sawmill on the chain table, I was pulling off,
sorting and stacking the freshly sawed boards. When another young man started there, he started making rude remarks and challenged
me to cross the table where we had a pretty good fight. He knocked one front tooth of mine loose which went completely black
after a few days. Gradually it went back to normal, but we were both fired. It was time for a change for me again so I packed
my bags and headed out of town. Hitchhiking out of Nelson I was out in the mountains and I will never forget the full moon
that rose that evening, bigger than any I had ever seen. It was so big it was scary. Later i discovered it is an illusion
of light bending, anyway I was picked up by a bunch of nuns who insisted on praying for me. On the ship across the Cook Strait the whole ship was overflowing with “Jesus freaks” on their way to some festival.
They discussed and argued and tried to convert me until the one fellow left me with the scripture that he felt more or less
referred to my state which was possibly as accurate as any could be” they are like thieves coming through some other
way” as opposed to his suggestion that” Jesus said I am the door if anyone wishes to enter let him knock and I
shall open…”This concept stuck with me for several years until finally
on March 4th 1975 I in fact became a” born again Christian” I never
thought that all this religious contact all at once was even a coincidence but now it sure seems kind of spooky.
I don’t recall if I stopped in to see my Grandma in Wellington where the ship landed, I sure hope I did. I just don’t recall doing it.
Next I headed north again and after seeing Eric Skidmore in Whangerai, I floated down to Auckland
to visit someone who gave me an address to drop by and possibly ‘crash’ at. The term ‘crash’ was a
term used for sleeping over. To be back in Auckland, visiting
someone who had given me their address on the road was all I neededto know this
place was probably ‘Party Central’. Sure enough upon reaching the house, I could hear very loud music coming from
inside. The music was so loud that I continuously knocked for about 45 minutes before someone actually heard me and let me
in. This was my initiation into the music of “Ziggy Stardust” by David Bowie. The album’s cover clearly
states “to be played at maximum volume” which these kids at this house were doing, over and over and over.
One morning while there, we were visited by police around six am. who apparently came in through the bedroom windows.
I was awoken with “what is your name” and a flashlight shining in my eyes. Depends
who’s asking I said. “The police” said the cop. As I opened my eyes the cop was holding my expensive Ronson
lighter engraved with my initials MGM so I told him Mike George Milne. After an hour or so we were all herded into a paddy
wagon and taken downtown. After questioning I was released and was promised a ride back. While waiting for this alleged ride
an undercover narc took me into a room. ” Ever smoked pot? “he asked. Sure I said. “where did you get it”.
Found it on the side of the road says I. look if you tell me where you got it I’ll
let you go.You can’t hold me I said and just to prove me wrong he grabbed
me and steered me into the cells saying “book him on drug use” which in deed they did. This without any evidence,
other than the cop saying that I had said I had.
Life sometimes needs a good lawyer, I unfortunately did not get one that day. My
choices at court were to leave the country willingly or go up for sentencing for up to 2 years on a prison farm.
They gave me
2 weeks to ponder, prepare and leave. I decided to leave so I went on one more trip down to Dunedin,
across to Nelson, and then back up to Wellington. When leaving
for Auckland, my step grandpa, Arch said “good-bye, we will never meet again”, which when he died of heart failure
only one year later I took to mean his fore knowledge of his imminent passing, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps he meant
he was so ashamed of me that he would refuse to speak to me ever again. That is more how I took it then. After all he was
a high- class kind of person and maybe for him this “drug trial” was the last straw of his ability to tolerate
my behaviour. Apparently his journals are housed in the Turnbull library in Wellington. When I go back in 2011 I will ask to see his journals. Perchance
through reading his memoirs I can get a deeper insight into many things about the family and our history and what it all meant
to him and more importantly to Grandma.
For myself, I believe I was framed by an over eager cop, so the incident did not carry for me any stigma at all. Arch
and I however did not see eye to eye on a lot of things. As an example, after my first viewing of the stage play Hair I knew
I wanted to join the show. I heard they were looking for actors so I applied. Somehow my grandparents found out and they did
not agree that I should not apply and in fact could not meet the needs of a stage call. Two days later I was informed that
they didn’t need anybody. I believe my grandparents squashed my chance for an audition. I had played the album over
and over and knew it off by heart. I even danced on stage with them at the climax of the show, which is when audience are
encouraged to come on stage. To me it would have been great to join the show. I do have a bit of the ‘Ham’ in
me, though nervous I enjoyed the small bits of acting I have done from Christmas plays to high school dramas. Sadly though
it seems I have been destined to mostly just missing the mark, another occasion of being one step away from greatness. In
my family tree search I noted with glee an article in March 7, 1906 of my great grand aunt’s sizzling performance in
a professional acting performance. My destiny, on the other hand however, was drawing me in another direction and a whole
bunch of new adventures.
Back in Auckland I stayed with Kathy Teale Jones and
her beautiful daughter Christine. I had not slept in the last three days of my travels so I took a nap before dinner. When
I awoke dinner was ready. It wasn’t until I was sitting at the table that they informed me I had slept for 24 hours!
The morning I left, Christine drove me to the airport. What a sweet and beautiful girl she was! I asked her to first drop
me off at a friends house as I needed to visit someone who gave me their address on the road but had not been home when I
had tried to visit previously. They were indeed home, happy to see me and they insisted that I should be sent off appropriately
as they displayed their chillum full of smoldering black with gold seal hashish chunks.
We finally made it to the airport and as I finally entered the gangplank for the plane, two police officers were there,
standing on either side of the entranceway, both of them smiling. One of them asked “good day Mr. Milne, are you off
on a trip?” What a nasty comment as it dawned on me they were there to ensure my departure. Thus, I left NZ..
I have always loved take-offs. I immediately turned on my headphones to one of Beethoven’s symphonies and turned
it up loud.... dada dada boomboomboomboom….the jets engine screaming, the power of the forward thrust. Oh I love take-offs
and the beauty of the landscape as you rise into the air. For some reason, I was seated in first class, so there was lots
of extra features like free smokes, drinks and upgraded meals. I still have the stylish and ornate napkin given to each first
class passenger. Anyway, I had already zoomed from end to end of the world four times, non-stop, I wasn’t about to let
it happen again. I got off in Fiji
where I spent two days. I should have stayed longer but I didn’t. I really regret that. Somehow I think I felt pressure
to return to Canada but I can’t
say for sure if that was motivating me at this point. Unfortunately first class was not extended to me for the greater part
of the some 12 hour flight yet to go. So I saw so little of Fiji
and also lost my first class as well.
Ch. 3Canada Calling
When I got to Vancouver I checked my bags at the airport and headed downtown, staying in hostels for about
two weeks. Visited WreckBeach, Gastown
and StanleyPark
on a regular basis. Had a great time. I had a pal from New York City
who I chummed around with. ‘Diamond’ had a desire to travel up to Alaska.
We were going to hop a cargo train. We hung around the rail yards for a few hours trying to figure out what train to hop.
At one point we separated and I never saw him again. I can only hoe he got to where he wanted to be, By August 1973 I was
back in Ontario at Wildwood. I stayed for about one week
which was more than enough. What a horrible existence by a family of really messed up people. Went
to an old friend’s (Alec Ovendon) bachelor party. I met a few old friends like Tom Smarda but I felt I needed to get
out of Georgetown One day I got on my bicycle and peddled east to Brampton and after checking newspaper ads rented a room
in the home of Martin Brodie on Sanford Cres.. People sometimes ask me why I live in Brampton.
The answer is easy and simple. Brampton is a bicycle trip away from Georgetown. When I left Georgetown,
I left by bike.
Though this is a serious biography this paragraph is here just to poke fun at a type of person that I have always had
trouble with. People ask me the differences between the two towns Georgetown and Brampton. Well, trying to be humourous I say “Brampton
to me is kind of like (excuse the expression) the asshole of Ontario.
Georgetown is ten miles up from there! Georgetown even today is for me ‘Red-Neck Central’. For people who do not understand
the term ‘red-neck’, this refers to a certain group of people who are generally intolerant of anyone other than
themselves. Generally as well when asked what kinds of music they like, the response is both kinds. What does that mean? Well,
they love both country and western music. Often illiterate, the cliché red-neck lives in a trailer and marries his cousin.
The cliché sits all day on the front porch criticizing people passing by. Thus they get sun-burn on the back of their necks
as they do not understand the concept of sun protection, or are too lazy to move to the shade. They love to say things like
“you all ain’t from around these parts”. You do not want to hear this, as a small herd of them then gathers
and either beats you up and then tells you to get out of town, or just hangs you in the nearest tree. Most believe the red-neck
was originated in Alabama and Georgia
but ignorant and intolerant people have been around as long as time itself.
Anyway the Georgetown high school sport teams are called
Rebels and prominently and proudly display the Confederate flag. I have a dream wherein I am successful in persuading the
school to lose the name, the flag and the attitude.
Once I was settled in Brampton, I informed my mom that
I would be taking my sword. She refused to give it to me saying it wasn’t mine. I had to have my grandma write me a
letter indicating that the sword was in fact mine. I showed the letter to my brothers and took custody of it.
I guess around April1974 I got a job as shepherd on a small farm north-east of Bolton with the Blackburn’s.
Actually it was an awesome job. I lived in a large stone cottage set out in the field without electricity or water, but I
loved it. Milking goats, shearing sheep, refurbishing antique spinning wheels to creating natural dyes for the internationally
famous school they also ran for spinning and weaving were some of the jobs I did there. One night we visited Mr. Blackburn’s
son in KingCity,
a lovely modern home built with old square beams from a barn or dissembled log house. This is the same Blackburn’s who
later became part of a true crimes show when the son had been kidnapped at the farm, taken to his King City home where he
and his wife were murdered by that cottage hermit who went to Vancouver and kidnapped women there. That happened only a couple
of years after I was there. Anyway as winter approached work slowed and I got laid off, so I then bicycled back to Brampton and got a room. While there I worked at Oseco Seeds. After one
year I quit and in about June? 1974? I set out hitch-hiking west, heading for Vancouver, this plan which ended in Sault Ste
Marie was due to a woman, as well as I could not get a ride west at all. For three days I sat hitched and waited. Not one
ride. Luckily blueberries were ripe and in vast quantities where I waited. On the third day, I met Carol, a girl who was headed
east.As we shared a bus to the highway, I asked her if I could tag along with
her heading for Ottawa, and she agreed. We made it all the
way out to the Gaspe but we got separated one day in Perce
and we never reconnected. I stayed in a large tee-pee for about 2 weeks on the Atlantic coastline near Perce a beautiful little
town with a glorious seascape view. Somewhere I have a picture of me outside my tent. I love the French. They have a definitely
greater taste for life than English folk. I write more about this elsewhere, but here is an example of a rural Frenchman meeting
a monolingual American in his hometown. I witnessed this in Perce personally. A young American hitchhiker asked this very
old man “what is the way to”… such and such a place, the Quebecois says “ pardon a moi, mais je n’parle
en anglais monsieur” and the American fellow toddled off. I asked the old man “de quoi il cherche” and hearing
my accent and bad French he answered me in perfect English, “He was asking if that was the right way to another town”.
This exemplifies what I have repeatedly found in other cultures, try a little and people most often will reciprocate.
My next destination was Quebec City where the International
Francophone Festival was taking place. What a glorious event. Every corner and park in
the old city had something going on from avante guarde films to live music. Rock bands were blasting the nights away on the
Plains of Abraham.
cont'd
So many things were going on everywhere, it was fantastic. I met a girl, Nicole Feraud, who worked at the youth hostel
(auberge de juenesse) where I was staying. It was the Auberge de la Paix. Anyway she asked me to baby-sit one night as she
was going out. One of the smartest things I ever did was to turn down that babysitting job. It just so happens that later
that night she and I met at a bar called “le cav” or “the Cave” I think, which is this dark place
cut out of the solid rock of the Quebec City mount. It was a really rocking place, packed every night; great rock bands and
due to the stone walls, great sound. Anyway I ended up taking Nicole home that night, paying the babysitter (a guy I knew)
and co-habituating with her for several weeks until about Sept.19th 1974.
Porte St. Louis, Quebec
One day while with her at the apartment a fellow came and was being a real nutcase with everybody. I asked one of the
girls what his problem was, her advise was to ignore him as he was Nicole’s ex-boyfriend just released from jail for
his violent past. Next thing I hear is Nicole scream and rounding the corner I found her at the bottom of the stairs holding
her mouth. Halfway down the stairs I grabbed a hold of the guy” what are you doing?” “Now you’ve done
it” he said and his incredible strength overcame me like I was wrestling a bull. Luckily my judo training took over
and before I knew what I was doing I had flipped him and most of his denim jacket down the stairs. He had cracked a lens in
his glasses on the way down and vowed “to take the cost of the damages out on me in plastic surgery”! I believed
his threats but oddly he said this as be backed away down the street Never saw him again. I have met copies of his type often,
they are a dime a dozen. Having stood up to that one all the rest seemed less intimidating. When I returned to Quebec in June 2008 I wanted to find our apartment and spent many hours
in a fruitless search. I am sure we were above but close to rue Ste. Jean. The only picture I have of Nicole and her daughter
Marie Christine only resurfaced after my second trip while writing City of Soul.
Still only twenty years old I was about to turn twenty one so I decided
to return to share the big day with family in Ontario. I
felt responsible to share my 21st birthday with my family so I set off with haste sadly waving to Nicole and her little daughter.
Picture available. After arriving back at Wildwood in Georgetown
I received a package in the mail. It was the wooden flute I had played everywhere I went in Quebec. It was Nicole’s gift to me for my twenty-first birthday. Her letter informed
me she was heading out to the Yukon. Goodbye my love.
Quebec
was a beautiful city in a beautiful province. In 2005 I wrote here that I must revisit it, without really believing I had
the time, energy, purpose or money to complete this goal. In 2008 the four hundredth anniversary and the newly erected fountain
changed that. Deleting that passage was incredibly unexpected and pleasant! The return was so awesome I wrote a rather large
journal titled City of Soul
about that. Perhaps I will include the transcript in this book! The title while catchy is more than that ,Quebec really is a city of soul! Every day you can witness what may amount to a million
acts of heartfelt enthusiasm. These people don’t just live life, they celebrate it! While in Quebec in 1974, I learnt of Arch Elliot’s (my step-grandfather) demise. I was deeply
saddened as well for my own loss as for my poor grandma. He had been manager of New
Zealand’s opera house J.C. Williamsons. He hobnobbed with many famous people. People
like Dame Margot Fontaine, Burl Ives and Marcel Marceau just to mention a few who were close associates of his. Whenever we
went to the movies together he would insist on sitting through the credits. He knew many of the people listed in the credits.
I still chuckle recalling when he would see names of his acquaintance and turn with surprise, ohI didn’t know so and so worked on this film! He also
had a wonderful little trick that he played or folks at the dinner table. It didn’t matter young or old famous or not,
he would ask if he could serve you a little more wine, coffee or food. The trick looked equally good on any of these normal
events. Well he would could you one drop of wine, one crumb of pie crust and then chuckle to himself. That was pretty much
his one trick. He had one joke too which he chortled over when telling. We lived close to the monastry( I don’t know
if this the cause or reason for the joke) but here it goes. What is the definition of a monastry? A home for unwed fathers.
He would chuckle away oblivious to whether others find it amusing. You laugh because he laughs, a generally serious man being
silly. On his serious side he had a vendetta against littering. One day he saw an eight or nine year old kid throw a icecream
wrapper on the ground. Well Arch went and grabbed that poor and dragged him back and forced him to pick up the wrapper. Arch
was not a small man. Six foot two and probably 230 lbs..
I forced myself to return to Ontario for the sake
of my family as I was turning twenty-one. Unfortunately I returned to little fan fare at Wildwood. Stan asked me to meet him
at a steakhouse in Brampton. I cycled once more to Brampton fro my 21st birthday and had steak with him. I got
a room at the same place I had lived before and went back to work at the same seed house. Next I worked at a construction
job building apartments at Folkstonel and Clark Drive
in Bramalea. It was while working here that I was able to buy my first car, a
sky blue 1962 Corvair for $60.00. A fake safety certificate cost $25.00 and another $25.00 for declining insurance. I loved
that car so much I bought another, a black1965 dual carb three speed, then a 1969 green one.
In January 1975 I decided I wanted to visit the deserts of New Mexico, so I loaded
up my Corvair that had no heat and drove down to Windsor.
On the way a stone ruptured my gas tank and a pencil sized hole gushed out gas faster than I could burn it. At the border
American authorities decided they wanted to see proof of a job in Canada
and I was not about to drive back 450 miles again just to provide a pay stub. Foolishly I tried the U.S. entry tunnel as well after failing to enter at the bridge. I’m sure
they share their information which at that time did not occur to me. They turned me away there too. They decided todo a t5horough search of my car first, but what is really funny is the small lake of gas I left behind
just outside their offices. While driving back to Brampton
and freezing cold without heat, I kept warm by stomping my feet on the ground, which was effective to at least avoid frostbite.
Anyway, I was banging my hands on the steering wheel as well to keep warm. I would alternate the foot I kept on the gas pedal;
left foot 10 beats right foot 10 beats. At one point I looked down to see where to place my left foot to throttle the gas.
I guess I must have nudged the steering a bit as I did for as I looked up I was just in time to see one of those small road
side markers disappear under my front grill. I panicked and jerked the steering right and suddenly everything slowed down
dramatically. This was my first intuition that there was a place where things move so slowly. You seem to be able to ponder
things in great depth. A place I would learn to seek often. Adrenaline? Fear response? Perhaps but I not only experience it
in danger but in mediation, tai chi or related mostly eastern procedures. The car spun around several times at about 85 miles
per hour and I don’t know why but I called out to God saying “please God save me” which seems a normal human
response whether religious or not.I was not, yet. Well I seemed to get a favourable
response as the car ended up pointing the right way sitting pretty as if parked there on the soft shoulder. I had been driving
85mph and had moments earlier passed a Corvette which now pulled up along side my miraculously perfectly parked car. However
he was now blocking the slow lane! As he was asking if I was okay, another car came screaming up behind the Corvette and at
the last second saw the car parked in his path and veered into the fast lane. Just at the last moment we saw the on coming
car and I dove into the ditch as I was sure they would crash. Ah, the fun that has been my life.
Back in Brampton while searching the papers I found
cheaper rent at a big house on Steeles Ave. where
the living room was shared. There were lots of wild parties; in fact there was a group of 5 different farm houses where we
were all friends. Lots of kick ass parties switched back and forth from each other every weekend. At one farmhouse on Dixie just southwest of Steeles was an old 6th grade Stewarttown classmate of mine Martin
Woolett, what a character he was.
There were many other awesome people I knew back then. I still see guys
like Cliff who is now little more than a vegetable, who lived in a hippy house on Johnson
Ave. until they tore it down around 1976. Boris an awesome guitar player in the music machine of
the 170s lived in a big farm house on Kennedy which I remember as a dirt road at the time. Their farmhouse was big and beautiful
brick semi mansion with tons of land. As of 2007 I still occasionally see his burnt out person around town. Such a shame and
waste of a great talent.
I had met another fellow Joe Murchitz at another farmhouse on the second line west so it was not strange to see him
show up at our place one week day evening, but it was strange that he carried in a big box filled with all his albums that
he was trying to sell. Even that was not as strange as why he was selling them. He said he had become a Christian and did
not want Satan’s music; funny though it was okay to him for us to buy them. Anyway I just happened to be reading the
bible with Celia soon to be Barkley at the kitchen table. Joe asked if he could leave us a gospel tract and that night of
March4/1975 in my room I read the what I must do list of becoming born again. Believe Jesus died for your sins. Well I had
never heard that before nor had I heard invite him into your life so I did and went to sleep.
The upper window is where I looked out in prayer
the night I became a born again Christian March 4th, 1975
When I awoke the next day it was extra specially sunny. Otherworldly
sunny. I drove my beloved first car (a sky blue Corvair) to this gathering on Elizabeth
St that Joe had told me about. I saw people I had seen around and more importantly I saw a spirit
that I had long searched for. As they sang hippy gospel songs I cried like I had never cried before. I was home.
This is what my years of searching had been for. After that I did not
smoke drink or go out with wild women for 5 years. Hardships got me eventually doing everything again little by little. I
think it was the women first then the drinking and then the smoking. I felt I had a purpose in Christianity and for some 32
years I fulfilled that purpose, but I digress.
It's no Canada for F-1 ownerMAPLE LEAF ABSENT AT UNVEILING
IN MOSCOW
IF CANADIAN Formula One race fans were hoping that Alex Shnaider was going to plaster his Jordan team with the red and
white Maple Leaf, they're going to be bitterly disappointed. The Canadian tycoon, who bought the team from Eddie Jordon in
January, unveiled his 2005 race car in Moscow yesterday and the only red to be seen was in the Russian flags that ringed Red
Square. And the only Canadian element in the ceremony was the -10 C weather that greeted the team's two drivers Tiago Monteiro
and Narain Karthikeyan. Shnaider, who was born in Russia, raised in Israel and educated in Canada, let it be known through
his team principles yesterday that this team would be thoroughly Russian in every aspect.
![Copie d'une ordonnance du roi (Louis XV) au sujet de la division des terres. Par Hocquart, intendant de la Nouvelle-France. Québec, 20 octobre 1746. (copie d'une ordonnance)](javascript:newWindow("http://media.rcip-chin.gc.ca/ac/stewart/NF-13.jpg","Mus%C3%A9e Stewart au Fort de l'%C3%AEle Sainte-H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne","English"))
Dark Side
![Profil de la ville de Quebec et ses environs attaqués par les Anglois en l'année 1691](javascript:newWindow("http://media.rcip-chin.gc.ca/ac/stewart/1978-205.jpg","Mus%C3%A9e Stewart au Fort de l'%C3%AEle Sainte-H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne","English"))
Ross Elliot
WierdScience?
Bruce Don & Peter Fendley
.
1973 grads
1973
God Bess Mike 
RESOLUTION and ADVENTURE, June 1772
thats me(Mike) front row, 3rd from right
The inspiring ‘MyWatchmates’ newsletter is designed to keep the Outward Bound flame alive in your life. Plus it
helps you keep in touch with Outward Bound events and happenings. 
